THE MIDKNIGHT GARDEN: KNIGHTS OF THE RED ORDER

THE GRAIL QUEST

” Even in our modern times, the Grail still represents hope to people, yet still remains something unattainable, something still very much an enigma. Many of the tales trace it, as a vessel, back to Joseph of Arimathea, whom it was said collected Jesus’s blood from the cross and whom was said to have bought it to England. Yet as already stated, the lineage of the grail goes back to much earlier times,  and as we already know, we can discount the tales of a challice collecting blood from the cross, for we know the crucifixion tales to be untrue. Yet if Joseph was of the ‘pure bloodline’, which Templar knowledge indicates he was, the tales take on another meaning, Over time many and various churches and religions have claimed different successions and connections to the Grail and there are claimed to be many ‘resting places’ for the Grail, some believable, some not, but of course that does depend on what the Grail actually is. It could be resting/hiding within Time itself (within a ‘cloak of time’), maybe hidden in secret underground chambers of sacred buildings, kept watch over by guardians. Some say it found its way to Scotland and has a connection to the enigmatic Neville family whom may have guarded over it themselves.  Mary too, is said to be connected to it, in her own right and through her relationship with Jesus, and she too found her own way to Scotland. Lots of accounts refer to the blood of Christ or the flesh/DNA of Christ as being of pure blood, of being the Grail, and Christ certainly knew and kept the secrets to his grave.  So, did Christ possess the Grail or was it the ‘knowledge’ of the Grail he possessed? If Lucifer’s secret is the Holy Grail, that would certainly mean that Christ/Jesus/Lucifer knew the secret; that unattainable secret of the Holy Grail.”

QUEST 28: FRANCE, DUNKIRK & BELGUIM

12TH  NOVEMBER 2019

After three great days in La Boussac, our amazing trip was almost over and we left France to begin our journey towards Belguim via Dunkirk. Luckily yet again the sun was shining and it was a gorgeous Autumn day when we set forth. We journeyed all the way from the south of France up to Dunkirk and i managed to take some quite good shots on the way.  The drive was interesting and very scenic and the weather was good.  It was a long journey, of gorgeous autumn colours, dramatic skies and an amazingly huge suspension bridge that crossed a wide, wide estuary somewhere along the route. It was very windy and high up so not all lanes were open. The nearer we got to England though, the more horrid the weather became, settling down later.

Our last big road trip of the quest taking us out of France, towards Belguim, Dunkirk and back to good old Blighty! That bridge was so high and scary in the windy conditions – much higher than it looks! <click to enlarge>

Catholique Collegiale Notre-Dame-de-la-Crypte a Cassel: Cassel France: Quite late in the day we arrived here at Cassel, France. It had become quite chilly now and was getting dark, but there were shops still open and folks around, so we had a nice stroll and bought in supplies for when we reached our digs.

Cassel, from the Dutch meaning Kassel is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. Built on a prominent hill overlooking French Flanders, the town has existed since Roman times. It was developed by the Romans into an important urban centre and was the focus of a network of roads, which are still in use today, that converge on the hill. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Cassel became an important fortified stronghold for the rulers of Flanders which was repeatedly fought over before finally being annexed to France in the 17th century. It was the headquarters of Marshal Ferdinand Foch during part of the First World War. In 1940, during the German invasion of France, Cassel was the scene of a fierce three-day battle between British forces and German forces which resulted in much of the town being destroyed. Today the town, which was rebuilt following the war, is a popular destination for visitors to French Flanders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassel,_Nord

As the hour was late and the skies darkening, we half expected the church to be closed and spent dilligent time wandering around the seemingly closed building until at last we found a way in via the big stiff old wooden doors! Our efforts were well worth it as the church is beautiful inside and like a lot of these seemingly plain on the outside churches, what greets one inside is often amazing!

Sadly i could not find much on the internet in English about the churches history apart from a few lines from the above link, so most of my comments are from pure observation. The Collégiale Notre-Dame de la Crypte is Cassel’s main church, built in brick. Parts date from the 11th century but the main part is a 16th-century  Gothic structure of a design known as a hallekerk or hall-church, peculiar to Flanders and Artois. It comprises a huge rectangular space with three gables, three aisles, three apses and a square tower over the transept.

Many interesting symbols inside the church & the  ‘All Seeing Eye’ is prominent, together with relevant heraldry & shields. Some beautiful windows are here too & ornate artworks. A nice feel to the church connecting to the Desposyni bloodline.

Grail Bloodline Connections:

• Galains Desposyni (48th GGF) 480-551, born in Sommant, with Grail connections.
• Nascien Desposyni(49th GGF) 450-494, born in Sommant, with Grail connections.

The hour was late, dark and very wet when we arrived in Dunkirk and visability in respect of driving was very confusing. We were staying right in the middle of Dunkirk, near the river, in a very built up area with  lots of traffic lights, bus lanes and one way systems. It took us several tries to find a way out of the one-way system in order to reach our apartment – which we could see but not actually get too! Well done to my dear driver though for his persistence and patience! Tomorrow we are venturing into Belgium.

St Peter’s Church, De Panne, Belgium: So the day had arrived – Friday 8th November and the last day of this amazing quest and fabulous road trip. We found the church fairly easily and it looked quite inviting and very well maintained from the outside with planted flowers and a nod to it’s fishing history by way of the historic fishing vessel outside. However once we gained access and got inside through the main doorway, it was dissapointing to find a vast and very locked glass screen acoss the entrance barring any access into the rest of the church. So sadly the only photos i have are of the outside and taken through the glass screen. A shame as there were very relevant artefacts and info to be seen there. Based on a design by the Veurne-based architect Joseph Vinck, this aisled neo-Gothic hall church in yellow brick was built in 1891, at a time when De Panne was still a fishing hamlet of Adinkerke and a chapel built circa 1878 stood on this site. The tower was added in 1936, by which time the church was no longer located in the centre of town due to the construction of the Dumont Quarter.

St Peter’s Church, De Panne showing the historic fishing vessel <click to enlarge>

De Panne is the westernmost Belgian coastal town, sharing a border with France. It has a population of almost 10.800 people. Its history is closely linked with Adinkerke, nowadays a small village, situated about 3 kilometres from the sea.  The situation used to be reversed, for during the late 18th century, De Panne was part of the larger parish and municipality of Adinkerke. Because of the growing importance of coastal tourism from the late 19th century on, De Panne eventually transformed into a larger town than Adinkerke, beoming independent in 1911.  Originally De Panne was primarily a fishing place, founded in 1783. The fisheries, especially the small herring fisheries close to the coast, in De Panne flourished from the middle of the 19th century, and the fishing community steadily grew. Around the turn of the century, a number of shipyards were active in De Panne, while several small fish smoke houses were also present in the village. By courtesy of the local history and heritage club ‘De Panneboot P1′, the town possesses one of the last traditional inshore fishing vessel of the Flemish coast, also named the ‘Panneboot P1’. The vessel is an example of a ‘pannekotter’, the smaller successor of the famous ‘pannepot’, now on display in front of the Saint Peter’s Church of De Panne. On occasion, the ‘Panneboot P1’ still sails and from time to time, the ship is used for educational purposes

http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/Fisheries_in_De_Panne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Panne

Very selective views through the huge secured glass panel

Grail Bloodline Connection:

• Associated with King Marcomer (51st GGF) 387-458 Cologne, Germany.

Sadly, our very last day of this wonderful experience has come upon us all too soon. Lots of pieces of a very large puzzle to ponder over and put together but it will all be revealed in time, as they say. We have visited amazing places and met many folks – some friendly, some not, sadly often ‘church’ folks were not welcoming, but that’s for another day.

Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium: When we arrived in Ghent it was certainly a lovely day and the city was full of life with lots of hustle, bustle and energy; trams and buses busily swung around the narrow city streets. Ghent is a city and a  municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in size by Brussels and Antwerp. The city originally started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Leie and in the Late Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of northern Europe, with some 50,000 people in 1300. It is a port and university city. Around 650, Sain Amand founded two abbeya in Ghent: St Peter’s and St Bavo’s. Around 800,  Louis the Pious, of   Charleymagne, appointed Finhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, as abbot of both.  The city grew from several nuclei, the abbeys and a commercial centre. However, both in 851 and 879, the city was plundered by the Vikings. Within the protection of the County of Flanders, the city recovered and flourished from the 11th century, growing to become a small city-state By the 13th century, Ghent was the biggest city in Europe north of the Alps after Paris, bigger than Cologne or Moscow. Within the city walls lived up to 65,000 people.  Lots about Ghent in the link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent

 The main city square of Ghent; full of life with lots of shops and resturants nearby!

The Saint Bavo Cathedral, also known as Sint-Baafs Cathedral, an 89-meter-tall Catholic Gothic Cathedral is the seat of the dioces of Ghent, is named for Saint bavo of Ghent and contains the well-known Ghent Altarpiece. It is built on the site of the former Chapel of St. John the Baptist, a primarily wooden construction that was consecrated in 942 by Transmarus,  Bishop of Tournai and Noyon. Traces of a later Romanesque structure can be found in the cathedral’s crypt. Construction of the Gothic church began around 1274. Continuous expansion, in he Gothic style were carried out from the 14th through 16th centuries. In 1539, as a result of the rebellion against Charles V, who was baptized in the church, the old Abbey of St. Bavo was dissolved. Its abbot and monks went on to become canons in a Chapter that was attached to what then became the Church of Saint Bavo. When the Diocese of Ghent was founded in 1559, the church became its Cathedral and construction was considered complete June 7, 1569. Sadly in the summer of 1566, bands of Calvinist iconoclasts visited Catholic churches in the Netherlands, shattering stained-glass windows, smashing statues, and destroying paintings and other artworks they perceived as idolatrous. However, the altarpiece by the Van Eycks was saved. It was a beautiful looking cathedral but sadly yet again had lost much of its ‘energy’, not helped by the negative attitude of one of its human ‘religous’ helpers, trying to bar me from taking a photo of a sheild relevant to our quest. A beautiful building with many stunning works of art, but sadly with no actual spirituality…

There were some stunning marble memorial carvings that made good use of the skull imagery. There were some beautiful oil paintings, along with relevant Craft/Quest related heraldry and sheilds <click to expand>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bavo%27s_Cathedral,_Ghent

Grail Bloodline Connection:

• Bloodline connection associated with King Marcomer (51st GGF) 387-458 Cologne, Germany.

All that remained now was just one more view from our apartment window aside the river in Dunkirk before setting out on the road again in the morning and back home to the UK via the channel tunnel!

“On this epic journey we experienced the different energies of many lands as we followed in the footsteps of King Arthur around Europe and found out that churches are not what they seem;  I also found an amazing light inside me that I never want to dim. Putting aside the spiritual aspect of our quest and all the knowledge gained for a moment, this was the most amazing road trip ever. We journeyed through 6 countries including the uk; the experience of a road trip is mind-expanding in itself; an experience that I fully embraced. So that was it; an amazing quest fullfilled and I for one cannot wait until our next adventure.

Many of you have followed our quests since the very beginning and have read my in-depth write-ups on these pages, so have a good idea of what the quests are all about and why. It is always from a physical, spiritual and more importantly a metaphysical purpose that we partake of these quests and now we have bought ‘the grail’ into the mix.

The buildings we visit are built on very sacred sites, yet it is not the buildings as such, as to why we are there. The sites are of sacred, pyramid energy; the buildings atop have come and gone over the centuries, leaving no clues in the buildings since, as to their purpose and real reason within the rhyme of time; except of course to those whom can decode the symbols. The churches could be describes as ‘markers’ in time and space.

The quest, the King Arthur quest, traces his journey to these sites, it was his quest then, just as it is our important quest now; a journey of learning sacred knowledge, that has often been hidden within very time and the landscape itself. But yet most importantly never told of in history, yet the links are now appearing, like the colours of a magic painting book when the water is added, for when knowledge and understanding is added to our life, magically the truth appears.

We have visited many pyramid sites, some where the earth magnetis were so strong, that the so-called ‘sat-nav’ (which works via earth-based communications anyway), was caused to spin around in circles; going crazy due to the pyramid energy. The energy can often be overwhelming causing one to lose balance and feel a bit ‘woozy’ at times until one tunes into it and finds one’s balance. There is always so much more to space and time than meets the eye.”

“The Keeper of Scrolls” March 2020

‘moon.willow@ntlworld.com’

The Knights of the Red Order