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The Inner Quest of the Grail
OM Times is a leading voice of the Conscious Community with articles covering the full spectrum of Conscious Living. Click here to see all we share.
The Inner Quest of the Grail
by Mara Freeman, M.A.
Why are we still fascinated by stories of the Holy Grail told long ago in the courts of medieval Europe? It’s my belief that the Grail myth persists throughout the centuries like a recurring dream that must be brought fully to consciousness, understood, and resolved. This is the theme of my latest book, Grail Alchemy. As mythologist Joseph Campbell said, the quest for the Grail is “the founding myth of Western civilization.”
The Grail is a sacred vessel as old as creation. A rounded container, it belongs to the family of symbols – bowl, cauldron, vat, well, cup or crucible – which are all images of the divine feminine, the Mother Goddess whose womb holds the waters of life, found as far back as the Neolithic era and in cultures from ancient India to classical Greece. In Celtic myth and legend, this hallowed icon of Western spirituality has its origins in the magical cups which have life-giving and protective properties and more often than not, these cups belong to goddesses or female spirits.
In the tales of King Arthur, the first part of his kingship deals with the triumph of the Sword as he and his knights successfully subdue the warring factions and achieve law and order throughout the realm. But when the Sword has fulfilled its function in the outer world, it must be balanced by the Grail. This sacred vessel lies hidden in a castle surrounded by a Wasteland: a barren and blighted country which can only be restored to life when a worthy knight discovers the castle of the Grail, asks a ritual question, and heals the wounded king of this land.
But the struggle to find a balance between Cup and Sword plays out constantly without resolution. In the end, not one of the knights is able to bring back the Grail to Camelot, which represents the everyday world we live in. And because this conflict remains unresolved within the psyche of both individuals and culture as a whole, the perennial fascination with this myth has continued unabated down the centuries.
OM Times is a leading voice of the Conscious Community with articles covering the full spectrum of Conscious Living. Click here to see all we share.
Source: http://omtimes.com/2014/11/inner-quest-grail/
