A multiplicity of scholarly evidence emerges continually to generate, confirm or refute certain theories and beliefs. While some of them are presented as impartial and unbiased, many are produced or interpreted to prove a point subjectively, and with a degree of exaggeration for greater impact. This is both unfortunate and unhelpful, for embellishing the truth is counter-productive.

February’s full moon on Tuesday is the second and largest supermoon of 2019, and it is known as the Snow Moon, not just because of the time of year but also because these is an element of purity associated particularly with this full moon. You may care to look out for white messengers on this day.

Much has been written about the abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church, but it is only very recently that there has been major public reference to the many instances of rape and sexual assault of nuns and religious lay women by priests and bishops.

Politics is about achieving and then using power wisely and to best effect to help society and the people. Distortion of this principle brings instability and even civil unrest particularly if it follows a long tradition of relative political integrity.

Seasons are cycles, and like cycles they apply constantly in all situations.

Friday’s Solstice brings to an end a long cycle of intense learning in which you were asked to remember and execute a pledge made before time began.

You have your world and I have mine. I see your world, but do I see it through my eyes or yours? You look at my world, but how much of what you observe is based on truth?

In Christian churches all over the world, the ancient celebrations known as Advent are beginning, in preparation for and in memory of the coming of Jesus into the world at Christmas.

Saturday’s full moon is the last one before the December Solstice and the penultimate full moon of this extraordinary year of 2018. Through the sun it is influenced by Sagittarius, the Archer, and it is special.

Mass death is a tragedy and always significant: mass death or any death as a result of war can never be excused, whatever justification is made usually by those who directly or indirectly gave the orders. Yesterday’s global remembering of the “Great” War at its significant anniversary was a sombre reflection of the waste of war, its cruelty and its folly, and of the duty of care of leaders.

On a sad, rainy day, Remembrance Day and Armistice Day merged together to enable those who choose to reflect upon and remember the lives lost in war: to think about the nature of war and why it occurs, and to think about the nature and reason for death itself. The dignity shown and prominence given to the commemorative events for the one hundredth anniversary planned for years before proves there were many who honour and remember still those who died in the first World War, and all wars, and those they loved and knew who have left too.

How or why we die does not matter, it is the fact of its occurrence that does. Young men destined to die on a battlefield have died in wildfires or earthquakes, just as some of those who died on the Somme would have ended their lives early anyway. A wave of mass deaths whether in the Twin Towers, a 1916 battlefield or in a tsunami is significant as a human tragedy, certainly, and as a lesson, too, to those who remain, teaching perhaps about the folly of conflict, the importance of honouring life while it is there, and of the pre-eminence of nature. For the individual, the death is the gift of freedom and the certainty of new life – it is the start of a new journey. Every death teaches us something, if we choose to look.

Meanwhile, it is right to mourn and remember those who are gone, perhaps whom we loved, and those who died so long ago in war, to remember those who have left quietly, father, husband, child, wife or pet, but who are much missed: for each of them, the act of love will be balm to the soul, as it is to those who live on, for now.