Monday, September 22, 2014

we live in Grail Quest times

My favorite book about the Grail is Speech of the Grail by Dr. Linda Sussmann, who uses Wolfram von Eschenbach's version of the Parsifal story. There are several versions. First the story was told far and wide by traveling storytellers and then paper and books emerged.  Anthroposophists, and I am an anthroposophist, consider von Eschenbach's version the definitive one.  Parsifal is guidance for the millenium we live in now. Here is a snippet from Dr. Sussman's introduction:

In Speech of the Grail, storyteller and ceremonialist Linda Sussman explores a new way to speak, one that heals and transforms. She takes for her guide Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic tale of the Grail, showing how it depicts a path of initiation toward healing speech—to “doing the truth” in word and action.
“The Grail! The word stirs a deep response in the Western imagination. Joseph Campbell called the medieval stories where it is first mentioned ‘the founding myth of Western civilization,’ because ‘according to this mythology, there is no fixed law, no established knowledge of god, set up by prophets or priests, that can stand against the revelation of a life lived with integrity in the spirit of its own brave truth.’ Campbell and many other scholars, artists, and seekers have seen the Western wisdom path disclosed in the image of each knight entering the forest where no one else has made a path. The quest is to recover the elusive Grail, thereby returning its sustenance to the world. The presence of the Grail nurtures an invisible web of relationships that connect individual destiny to service of others and to the earth, thereby granting meaning.”
Linda Sussman (from her introduction)

The Grail is Love. The speech is loving, empathic, compassionate speech always.  Of course humans are imperfect and do not always speak in love, empathy, compassion, etc but we hold ourselves aloft in our aspiration to do so. And when we stumble, others love us anyway. That's the Grail. Love no matter what.

No comments: