A Shrine, a Basket, & a Glimpse of What Could Be
The coincidence of spending Barbault’s Basket at a witch retreat
Places hold energy. Some locations, such as abandoned asylums and prisons, feel heavy. Charged. Emotionally negative. Others feel light, welcome, and full of joy.
The most special places feel like home.
This is how the Ura Shrine in Bristol, TN felt from the first moment I stepped foot into the mystical bamboo forest that shields the sacred grounds.
Members of the Spooky Sisterhood board meeting up for a group photo in front of the Ura Shrine. Photo courtesy of Rachel Ravensveil from the Spooky Sisterhood.
Prior to meeting Ura, I had never visited any sort of shrine before - let alone one that is home of a ritual circle nor an impressive collection of haunted artifacts - but "you are home" soothingly whispered in my psyche as this warm, tingling, glowing feeling spread throughout my body.
This is the welcome I receive every time I visit the Ura Shrine, and every visit proves to be just as special as the greeting.
But this visit was for something extra special: a retreat for those whom society has always made feel like outsiders.
Have you ever experienced a moment where everything falls perfectly into place? Where everything flows easily, people connect in ways not often seen in daily life, where everything feels magical? Almost like the very stars and planets feel perfectly aligned? That was this weekend.
Not just metaphorically, either.
That's because this weekend also just happened to line up with an event pretty hot in the astrology world: Barbault's Basket.
Barbault's Basket
Admittedly, Barbault's Basket and even French astrologist, André Barbault, are considered sensitive issues due to a variety of factors: such as whether to believe him or how to interpret his predictions.
But I am and always will be pro-whimsy, and breaking that down is not what this blog is about.
André Barbault was a French astrologist who spent most of his life dedicated to his craft. He developed his own method of making global predictions, and even accurately predicted several events. The more famous predictions attributed to him include: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the COVID 19 pandemic.
All of that aside, Barbault made another prediction, concerning what is now known as, "Barbault's Basket."
To sum up this prediction:
Personally, reading that makes my gut scream, "this is something to signify some form of large -scale "good" is coming. And this weekend I spent at The Shrine was the perfect symbolism of that very thing.
What I saw were many people meeting each other, happily, as strangers; coming together, making instantaneous connections, teaching each other, and having fun.
The retreat played host to classes on various forms of divination, had working mediums exercising their craft, investigations, rituals, and more - concluding with a ball. Photo courtesy of Rachel Ravensveil from the Spooky Sisterhood.
The retreat and attendees were dedicated towards inner healing, exploration, embracing the "weird and unexplained," and togetherness.
Did Barbault predict the upwards trajectory of a newer, kinder era of human history?
I choose to believe he did because I saw a glimpse of what it could mean for humanity in the future, and it was beautiful to experience.
But let's close this blog out with another upcoming prediction from astrologist Louise Edington, using Barbault's method.
Written by: Bri Barger
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Sources:
Astrology.com. "Barbault's Basket Astrology July 2026." Astrology.com, https://www.astrology.com/article/barbaults-basket-astrology-july-2026/.
Sebouhian, Damian. "The Astrology Who Predicted the Pandemic – and What He Sees Coming this Year in 2026." Damian Sebouhian's Substack, https://damiansebouhian.substack.com/p/the-astrologer-who-predicted-the.
