The Grail legend is a wonderful guide for both personal and collective development. It shows us three unhealing wounds: the Wasteland (nature), the Wounded individual (soul/spirit), and Women (also the feminine aspect in men). Water as medium of the unconscious may well be one of the best agents for bringing to the surface the hidden depths of these wounds and potentially facilitating healing.
'Bad things come in threes' is a well-attested folk superstition, although when I was looking up this saying I came across its counterpart 'Third time lucky'. 'The luck of the third adventure' is proverbial wrote Robert Browning. This seems a perfect way to begin these personal thoughts on the Grail Legend and its watery references.
One of the films I've watched a few times now is the Fisher King, a 1991 comedy-drama with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges, based on part of the Grail Legend. Through a mixture of human drama and humor it addresses the question of wounding in love and loss. We might all find a bit of our own history in this legend. How our quest for healing the three wounds (see above) goes, depends on our willingness to persist in hope.
Back in 2001, I attended a seminar offered by The Center for Story and Symbol (it's still offered) entitled 'The Search for Meaning' which used quest stories as guides to finding a direct experience of belonging, drawing insights from the Legends of the Holy Grail and the archetypal theories of C. J. Jung. I had not long before 'fallen in love' (the soulful chaos that often begins a quest) - water (specifically aquatic therapy) was the matchmaker.
The Grail Legend is a living legend capable of touching both imagination and spirit. It's a complex and rich story full of archetypal dream images of the ultimate quest for all and everything. Le Conte del Graal, written by Cretien de Troyes around the thirteenth century, described the realm of Logres, a paradise on earth. The original Celtic Logres was seen as the inner soul of the earthly Britain. The story takes place in an enchanted and otherworld, and simultaneously at real locations in historical time around the end of the fifth century after the Romans had abandoned Britannia.
Throughout the mythic and poetical land of Logres, maidens lived by sacred grottoes, wells and springs. To the Celtic mind the everyday world and the otherworld were twin universes running parallel to each other. It was at such sacred places as wells and springs that the two worlds were believed to come so near to one another that you could perhaps bridge the gap and cross over to the other side. I I love this idea and have come close to experiencing it in two places I've lived - one near Glastonbury in England and the other here in the Missouri Ozarks, especially at my first home on Spring Creek near a beautiful spring.
I'm English but I've found it hard to stay in England, except perhaps if I lived again near Glastonbury. Whenever I am there, I visit that town and climb the Tor alone to look out over the strange flat expanse that surrounds it - like a vast ocean of cloud. The novel Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (also made into a film) captures much of the magic that this kind of landscape has aroused in me. But it wasn't until I came to the Ozarks that I really discovered what belonging might mean (see the poem 'Belonging'). Here, I have not so much stood up on high places and surveyed the land, as gone down into it, into vast caverns holding ancient waters. It's a geographical bioregion characterized by Karst - limestone full of holes. [See also the poem 'Down a deep well fallen'.].
Back to the legend ... The Maidens of the Sacred Wells would feed wanderers and travelers from golden bowls and cups. Britain had hundreds of sacred wells and the Romans reverently maintained the ancient traditions of the occupied land, often building shrines around such waters (such as the extensive building over the healing springs at Bath where the twinned goddess Sulis-Minerva presided). These two goddesses are important archetypes for me. In some ways they too bridge the gap between the everyday (Minerva) and other world (Sulis) universes. In 2007, I spent a few months working in Sulis's own pools doing my aquatic therapy - a magical experience.
The maidens served all wayfarers and the realm was at peace and fertile until one day an evil King Amangons ravished one of the maidens, held her in captivity and stole her sacred bowl. Amangons' male retainers enthusiastically followed their king's example with disastrous consequences and soon there were no maidens serving at the wells. From that time onwards the Realm of Logres changed into a barren wasteland - the wells and the waters dried up, animals became infertile, trees no longer bore fruit or leaf, flowers withered and the people left. The land of Logres, like much of modern culture, had 'lost the Voices of the Wells'. For me this underlines also what a precious thing water is.
The barren wasteland in this story is supposed to signify a loss of contact with the otherworld. In Holy Grail, Malcolm Godwin suggests that 'the Grail hero[ine], the one who is eventually to "free the waters" has to discover the meeting place between worlds where he or she can re-establish the precious links between the female sovereignty and the kingship of the realm'. The Grail legend is a wonderful guide for both personal and collective development. It shows us three unhealing wounds: the Wasteland (nature), the Wounded individual (soul/spirit), and Women (also the feminine aspect in men).
On a personal level, all three wounds opened up for me when I had to give up three strong attachments all at once three years ago now - land, work and person - and with them my sense of belonging. This is the kind of blind-siding that happens when soul and ego don't agree. These wounds lie deep in our unconscious, and the process of healing them is extremely challenging, hence the heroic journey. In the film Fisher King, violent loss leads to the outward destruction of the lives of the two main characters - they fall into the abyss, the underworld, the karst caverns, and must find their way back again by seeking the holy grail. It's not a simple thing, not just a matter of paying your dues or soldiering on.
That film is set in New York City where wild nature is hard to find but the closing scene finds the two protagonists lying naked on their backs in Central Park watching clouds moving in a night sky. They are looking up (in all ways). And they have surrendered themselves to what is, to their wounds. I'd like to write my own film script for this story - probably from a more feminine point of view. Actually I began this back in 2001 on my way to the Ozarks, a fictionalized memoir called 'An African Avalon'. Water as medium of the unconscious may well be one of the best agents for bringing the the surface the hidden depths of these wounds and potentially facilitating healing. My writing is always soaking in this element.
However, the caution is that such healing processes can appear destructive, you go mad or at least forget who you are for a while. Certainly, many who were part of your old life won't recognize you. You can't cling onto the banks (places or people or ideas) when the river is flowing fast. Watery realms are emotional ones - they require a great deal of self-honesty if you are to avoid drowning. I can attest to all this. Bad things can come in threes but I am choosing to trust in the luck of the third adventure.
I'd love to hear of your associations with this legend ...
See also:
The Well of the Strong - women and the spa world (on Vision Spa Retreat)
Throughout the mythic and poetical land of Logres, maidens lived by sacred grottoes, wells and springs. To the Celtic mind the everyday world and the otherworld were twin universes running parallel to each other. It was at such sacred places as wells and springs that the two worlds were believed to come so near to one another that you could perhaps bridge the gap and cross over to the other side. I I love this idea and have come close to experiencing it in two places I've lived - one near Glastonbury in England and the other here in the Missouri Ozarks, especially at my first home on Spring Creek near a beautiful spring.
I'm English but I've found it hard to stay in England, except perhaps if I lived again near Glastonbury. Whenever I am there, I visit that town and climb the Tor alone to look out over the strange flat expanse that surrounds it - like a vast ocean of cloud. The novel Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (also made into a film) captures much of the magic that this kind of landscape has aroused in me. But it wasn't until I came to the Ozarks that I really discovered what belonging might mean (see the poem 'Belonging'). Here, I have not so much stood up on high places and surveyed the land, as gone down into it, into vast caverns holding ancient waters. It's a geographical bioregion characterized by Karst - limestone full of holes. [See also the poem 'Down a deep well fallen'.].
Back to the legend ... The Maidens of the Sacred Wells would feed wanderers and travelers from golden bowls and cups. Britain had hundreds of sacred wells and the Romans reverently maintained the ancient traditions of the occupied land, often building shrines around such waters (such as the extensive building over the healing springs at Bath where the twinned goddess Sulis-Minerva presided). These two goddesses are important archetypes for me. In some ways they too bridge the gap between the everyday (Minerva) and other world (Sulis) universes. In 2007, I spent a few months working in Sulis's own pools doing my aquatic therapy - a magical experience.
The maidens served all wayfarers and the realm was at peace and fertile until one day an evil King Amangons ravished one of the maidens, held her in captivity and stole her sacred bowl. Amangons' male retainers enthusiastically followed their king's example with disastrous consequences and soon there were no maidens serving at the wells. From that time onwards the Realm of Logres changed into a barren wasteland - the wells and the waters dried up, animals became infertile, trees no longer bore fruit or leaf, flowers withered and the people left. The land of Logres, like much of modern culture, had 'lost the Voices of the Wells'. For me this underlines also what a precious thing water is.
The barren wasteland in this story is supposed to signify a loss of contact with the otherworld. In Holy Grail, Malcolm Godwin suggests that 'the Grail hero[ine], the one who is eventually to "free the waters" has to discover the meeting place between worlds where he or she can re-establish the precious links between the female sovereignty and the kingship of the realm'. The Grail legend is a wonderful guide for both personal and collective development. It shows us three unhealing wounds: the Wasteland (nature), the Wounded individual (soul/spirit), and Women (also the feminine aspect in men).
On a personal level, all three wounds opened up for me when I had to give up three strong attachments all at once three years ago now - land, work and person - and with them my sense of belonging. This is the kind of blind-siding that happens when soul and ego don't agree. These wounds lie deep in our unconscious, and the process of healing them is extremely challenging, hence the heroic journey. In the film Fisher King, violent loss leads to the outward destruction of the lives of the two main characters - they fall into the abyss, the underworld, the karst caverns, and must find their way back again by seeking the holy grail. It's not a simple thing, not just a matter of paying your dues or soldiering on.
That film is set in New York City where wild nature is hard to find but the closing scene finds the two protagonists lying naked on their backs in Central Park watching clouds moving in a night sky. They are looking up (in all ways). And they have surrendered themselves to what is, to their wounds. I'd like to write my own film script for this story - probably from a more feminine point of view. Actually I began this back in 2001 on my way to the Ozarks, a fictionalized memoir called 'An African Avalon'. Water as medium of the unconscious may well be one of the best agents for bringing the the surface the hidden depths of these wounds and potentially facilitating healing. My writing is always soaking in this element.
However, the caution is that such healing processes can appear destructive, you go mad or at least forget who you are for a while. Certainly, many who were part of your old life won't recognize you. You can't cling onto the banks (places or people or ideas) when the river is flowing fast. Watery realms are emotional ones - they require a great deal of self-honesty if you are to avoid drowning. I can attest to all this. Bad things can come in threes but I am choosing to trust in the luck of the third adventure.
I'd love to hear of your associations with this legend ...
See also:
The Well of the Strong - women and the spa world (on Vision Spa Retreat)
Extract: More people are realizing how much they miss the wilderness, and are wanting to retreat to it, to restore it and themselves. Water, I suggest, is an essential element of this healing. And women may be leading the way judging by the numbers who are pursuing soul-seeking arts now.
Extract: Water is often linked in mythology to the unconscious, to the feminine or yin nature, and to gentle but persistent power. This has inspired me to combine aquatic bodywork, dreamwork and storytelling to explore the myths we all live by. In this way maybe we can begin to heal the rift between body and soul, between humans and nature, between men and women.
Like water, a labyrinth (on Diving Deeper)
Extract: Like water, the labyrinth absorbs all that is painful, washes away all that contaminates, and makes possible all manner of renewal. The labyrinth-waters were my personal ritual and reminder of this. Read more on the prayer I made up to offer as I gathered the waters and as I walked my own labyrinth.
The shadow side of aquatic bodywork (on Aquapoetics)
Extract: This realization of Paradise Lost can be related in the Grail legend to the pain inflicted by the King's men upon the Maidens who attended at the Sacred Wells - it is a deep and old wound. I saw this pain played out in some of the early trainings for aquatic bodywork. The Fisher King in the legend is wounded in the thigh (groundedness) and genitals (sexuality).
