Searching for the Grail
I love it when my reading bounces me from one interesting thought to another and I wind up going deeper and finding a hook that snags even more interesting ideas. Long story short I wound up hunting for the Grail. What did I know... King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, "Camelot," an odd assertion in "The daVinci Code," the movie "Fisher King." In other words, a mishmash.
I dug out my books. Joseph Campbell's "Creative Mythology." Manley P. Hall's "The Secret Teachings of All Ages." They pointed to a new one: Jesse Weston's "From Ritual to Romance." Ah yes, I love taking on the entire history of Western Civilization.
It's one of those strange universal rules that we find what we are looking for. I've never paid much attention to fertility rites and symbols (having foregone my own fertile potentialities in regard to having babies). But suddenly the Grail seemed like the inexhaustible source -- or Source -- of creative productivity. Finding and nurturing this Source has been something of intense interest to me.
The chart above is my attempt to synthesize some of what I read. So much of our civilization derives from Christianity... I enjoy exploring the offbeat alternatives.
