Grail lore is a Mystery so great that even beginning to think or write about it sends the psyche diving into fathomless waters. The many versions conflict, adding characters, adventures and symbols to suit the storyteller’s point of view. In Celtic legend, the goddess of Sovereignty gives three drinks from her chalice: the white drink of mothering, the red drink of love, and the dark drink of forgetfulness. (1) There have been versions of the Grail story that overlay a Christian interpretation on this great Mystery, that call the Grail the cup Christ used at the last supper and/or the cup that caught his blood at the crucifixion. This is perhaps a later interpretation blended with older myths, where only the purest of souls may approach the Grail and be blessed with its virtues, as is the idea that Mary Magdalene herself was the Grail, the vessel that contained the blood of spiritual rebirth. In the Christian grail-seeking stories, it is typically only saints who have access to the Grail, "leaving nature, man, history, and all womankind except baptized nuns, to the Devil." (2)
The stories of the Grail offer us many characters from whom we can derive archetypal imagery for our own inner quest. My explorations began with familiar Arthurian symbols and myth, myths that branch off into realms of diverse wonder. In wandering these realms, I found my own interpretation, my own watery view of the Mystery. I offer it to you now, as a mere dipping of the fingers into the great ocean that is the Grail.
Our telling of the tale begins with Percival, the first of the characters with whom we will identify on our quest for the Grail mystery. Unlike most other characters of Arthurian or Celtic lore who have definite male or female traits, Percival is androgynous, merely symbolic of anyone who undertakes a life-changing quest. This seems almost intentional on the part of the various tellers of these tales, as if we are meant to picture ourselves as this character, whether male or female. Percival is like the Fool in the Tarot deck – the one who instigates the journey to spiritual wholeness.
A simple soul, seeking life’s lessons, he rides with the reins slack on his horse’s neck, letting nature’s spirit guide him. When the knights of Arthur’s court ride forth to seek the Grail, which has appeared to them in a vision, Percival goes as well. Each knight enters the forest at a different place, a place where there is no path. One day, Percival comes to a castle in the midst of a desolate wasteland, "ruin and chaos. The ground is spent and sere, the crops no longer grow, nor do the waters flow, and a darkness has descended on the hearts of the people." (3)
Percival enters the castle, and is brought to a room where a king lies bleeding from an enchanted wound. In British/Celtic mythology, a ruler is connected through his or her very body to the body of the land. This is the quality of mystical Sovereignty, the connection of our physical being with all life on earth. Because the king is one with the land, as he lies wasting away in sickness, so the land and all in it sicken as well. All that is needed for the healing is for one person to say, "What ails thee?" Through this act of spontaneous compassion, the wound – and thereby, the land – would be healed. Symbolic of the wounded parts of society or the individual psyche, the Wounded King’s main characteristic is passivity, waiting to be healed by love, in this case represented by Percival.
As often in the case with magic, the one who is to break the enchantment does not know it is his task, but must come upon it through the spontaneous act of a loving heart. Percival, who lets the forces of nature be his guide, is such a natural healer and magician. But because of his training in the rules of society, which tell him it is not "knightly" to ask personal questions, he stifles the impulse that fills him with pity and love. The question that comes to his heart cannot come to his lips. And so his quest fails. It is five years of searching and challenge before Percival has gained enough wisdom to judge for himself what is knightly – to ask the question, to heal the wound, to restore the Wasteland to bloom. It is then that he discovers that the Wounded King is also the Guardian of the Grail. Percival becomes the new Guardian, able to offer its blessings to other seekers.
So what does it all mean? What is the Grail, and why would we seek it?
I see the seeking of the Grail and the achievement of the
Grail as two separate symbols. The Arthurian quest to find the Grail
begins with a vision of a veiled chalice floating above a company of friends.
It comes at a time when those gathered have expressed desire for an "adventure"
– in other words, asked for personal growth experiences. Each sees the
chalice differently, each is given food and drink that he or she loves best,
and the hall is filled with music and flowery perfume. Their hearts
overflow with a feeling of unity and love for each other and all creation.
The Grail in this vision is the symbol of the Divine Feminine, who nourishes
each of us in the way we love best, "an inexhaustible vessel of the
tides of life," (4) blessing us with visions of beauty and love.
Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) in The Mists of Avalon, perceived it thus:
Through the sweet scents and joy, the angel was before her and the
cup at her lips. Shaking, she drank, lowering her eyes, but then she felt a
touch on her head and looked up, and she saw that it was not an angel
but a woman veiled in blue, with great sad eyes. There was no sound, but the
woman said to her, "Before Christ ever was, I am, and it was I who made you
as you are. Therefore, my beloved daughter, forget all shame and be joyful,
because you too are of the same nature as myself."
When given a taste of joy, it is natural to seek more of the same. The
knights, who symbolize that part of us that seeks out spiritual experience,
set forth to find the Grail, unveil it, and look within for the source of
their joy. They are, in a very literal sense, following their bliss.
The seekers leave in a group but soon go their individual ways, as each
person’s path to bliss is unique. Indeed, those knights who took a path
that others had followed were soon lost or overthrown. As each received different
nourishment from the Grail vision, so the quest for the ultimate
spiritual fulfillment must be unique. "Better is one’s own dharma, imperfectly
performed, than the dharma of another, performed to perfection."
Each knight had his own set of trials along the way, as each was brought face to face with the particular challenges that would make him whole. For Lancelot, the greatest of Arthur’s knights, the challenges lay in forgiving himself his own failings, as time and time again he was cast away from attaining the Grail, time and again he was humbled and abandoned. In accepting the blessing of these defeats, he attained an inner peace that served him far more than the achievement of the Grail itself would have done. He tells Arthur and Guinevere of his failure, saying, "I knelt down ... and I thanked God for the adventure." (7)
Each of us, in our search for the wellspring of joy that brought us first to spiritual awakening, is following this knightly quest. The challenges are what take us to the next level, and may be looked on as tests of our valor and our commitment to the path. So, in this light, the seeking of the Grail is the important thing, rather than the achievement of it. By acknowledging that and giving thanks even for our defeats – as Lancelot did – we live with our blissful vision before us. "A thousand obstacles intervene to halt us on the Way, or to lead us into by-paths, often to blind us to the seeing of the Castle of the Grail before our eyes. We are ourselves enchanted, lost in the thicket of our own bewilderment. But the Grail is ever there." (8)
The quest for the Grail is the quest for the awakened and aware
spiritual consciousness. If the myth of seeking the Grail is the story of
facing challenges as you follow your bliss, the myth of the attainment of the
Grail has a different significance. We have successfully undertaken the
first few steps of our perilous journey, learned enough about ourselves
to go deeper within. Now we enter the Wasteland. Now we come to the source of
our life challenges. We are now face to face with the Wounded King – the
Wounded Self. Now is the time to take on Percival’s task, with its mysterious
question, "What ails thee?" Like Percival, we may find it hard to look at
our Wounded Self honestly enough to ask this question. From my own journal:
What would keep Percival silent? The natural urge to open the heart and
care about another – why does he suppress it? What were the trials he had
to endure before he could have another chance? What are my own trials?
Have I closed down my natural impulse to love? If I can’t see what the wound
is in my own heart, I can never win the Grail, can never offer it to
others. What ails me?
The first step is to have the courage to look at the Wounded King/Self.
This is also the Grail Guardian, the one who holds the waters of compassion and
healing, which the seeker must release if the Wasteland is to be restored.
For most of us, there comes a time when we are in the Wasteland of the spirit.
Whether because of an ancient wound or a new one, our land no longer blooms,
and sorrow abounds. There are many myths that deal with the causing of a wound.
With the Grail, we have a myth that deals with the courage to look at the
wound and not be concerned with its cause, only with what is happening
in the present moment.
Remember, the question is not, "What happened to you?" or "Who did this
to you?" The question – "What ails thee?" – is more profound, more frightening.
To look at what is ailing us right now, without shame and with compassion,
is a courageous task indeed. For it is then that we begin to look forward
with self-responsibility, rather than backward with blame, and are thus able
to help others come to that place of compassion toward their own wounds.
We are, in fact, learning to become Grail Guardians.
The Percival version of the Grail myth is primarily a story of a failed
opportunity to bless. If we lack the courage to look at our wounds
and see the desolation around us, our quest for spiritual fulfillment will fail.
When we can look at the Wounded Self and ask the questions that begin to heal us,
we are blessed with the vision of the unveiled Grail, the deep love of the
sacred that nourishes the soul. It is the lessons of our wounds that make us
strong. "No one whose beauty is from birth ever equaled that of the
Grail Guardian coming out of his sickness."
We generally have the compassion to look at the ills of others and to help
them if we can. It is asking the question of ourselves that is hard, and that,
I think, is the meaning of this myth. There is a fear that comes over us,
like the deeply ingrained "thou shalt not" that kept Percival from asking
his instinctive question at first. We instinctively know that we have to look
at our pain – indeed, we must touch it, embrace it – in order to heal it,
but it is far easier to look away, to refuse the adventure.
Why would we not look within? Again, we look to the myths for guidance.
Different versions give us different reasons for Percival’s failure. The
seeker simply fell asleep before he could ask – mundane exhaustion may keep
us from taking on the kind of honest inner searching that could heal us.
The seeker fell into a trance – perhaps we are numbing ourselves with drugs or
distractions rather than facing our wounds. The seeker was placed in a trance
by the Wounded King himself – perhaps we are not in a good place to
confront the causes of our inner Wasteland; perhaps we need to gain more
wisdom through other trials first. "It is death to touch the holy
things unprepared..."
In most versions, when the seeker fails in the quest, there is no blame laid on him. Indeed, the seeker usually does not even know there was a test happening at all, or that the Grail was within reach. So we come unknowing to places in our lives where we have a chance for breakthrough. Perhaps entering the soul’s Wasteland can be seen as a sign that we are near the Grail. Perhaps our grief and pain can only carry us so far, back to pain’s home, and then we must surrender to the path of bliss. When Percival has achieved his task, he is told, "In youth you courted Sorrow... Joy will now take you from her." (11)
The theme of sorrow runs all through the Grail myths, "the persistent
recurrence in these stories of a weeping maiden or maidens, the cause of
whose grief is never made clear." (12) This is not a rollicking
adventure of knights and their valiant deeds. Each obstacle is a blow
to the ego, the heart or the soul. Each task undertaken in the search for
spiritual wholeness will challenge to the very depth of our beings.
At the beginning of their bliss-quest, the knights entered the forest
at its most mysterious point, because what was known well to them was
obviously not the source of spiritual breakthrough. On our own quest for
healing, we must also look where we haven’t explored before. We are each
the Wounded King. We must have the courage to expose our wounds that
they may be cleansed and healed. And we are each Percival. We must follow
through on the instinctive generosity of a loving heart that cares
for others, and care for ourselves with the same gentle compassion. We
must dwell in the castle of the Wounded Self, the place where compassion
joins courage, and the waters of the Grail are bestowed.
The quest for the Grail is not a quest to win love, but a quest to
give love. This is the message of all cups – to give. A cup may have water
poured into it, but only holds it until it may again be bestowed. Each of
us guards the Grail; as we heal our Wounded Selves with the waters of
compassion, we add to the healing of the Wasteland that threatens all creation.
Seek the Grail within you, and carry its waters to those in need of
its blessing. The Wasteland will be transformed by your courage and your love.
1 Caitlin & John Matthews, Hallowquest
Other sources: Jean Markale, Women of the Celts
2 Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology
3 Jean Houston, The Hero and the Goddess
4 Campbell
5 Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
6 The Bhagavad Gita
7 T.H. White, The Once and Future King
8 Matthews
9 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival
10 Bradley
11 von Eschenbach
12 Weston
Baring and Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess
John Matthews, Gawain: Knight of the Goddess
Funk & Wagnall’s Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
