Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Story of Procrustes
Procrustes was the son of Poseidon whose house was located by the sacred road between Athens and Eleusis. He would invite passersby to spend the night in a special bed that fit everyone perfectly. Once inside he would place them on a rack and stretch them to fit the bed or amputate their limbs if they were too long. Our Medicare Hospice benefit can be experienced as this Procrustian bed in which a patient must fit certain criteria to qualify for the service, including a six month prognosis, and once on the program must give up certain treatments seemingly at the whim of the hospice thereby performing a similar feat in which the patient is either stretched or cut down to fit the program.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Drowning Man
David inspires me to write. Abandon if you will the ramblings of your reasoning mind asking why this tragedy should occur, did occur and what can be done to prevent it in the future. Just take the image as is. A man who is under the influence (unconscious) decides to take his canoe over a waterfall against the protests of the other memebrs of his party. He falls into the water and is immediately in the grips of a force created by the falling water and it is pulling hime under. He instictively tries to struggle against this natural force to reach the surface. But he cannot and eventually becomes passes out. As his body beocmes limp he is immediately pulled under and resurfaces a few seconds later down stream, the escape strategy revealed too late. If he had simply let go he would have survived. If he had thought counter to his intuition he would have survived.
This image has stayed with me from the first time I read it in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline many years ago. It taught me how natural systems can over take us if we do not understand them and are overtaken by them. It's the letting go that we must learn. Many years ago HBO produced a film called Letting Go about the hospice industry. It has been used in hospice to teach about how hospice can support the terminally ill and their loved ones through a diffuclt journey.
What exactly are we letting go of and what are we so resistant to. Where do these two approaches come from? What is the heroic stance we take against dying, something that is not only in our thinking but seems to be hardwired in our bioneurology. WE have been living and dying for millions of years yet we act as though it's never going to happen to us.
Ernest Becker investigated the source of war and violence and religious hatred and studied the origins of psychoanalysis settling on Otto Rank who offered him the most toward his eventual theories. He came to believe that we all walk around with an unconscious, deeply unconscious fear of death, and have evolved elaborate cultural mechanisms to convince us we are invulnerable. At the heart of this is our medical culture that has done much to convince us that we can live forever. As the longevity curve continues to move further out beyond 80 years it is not surprising we are allowed to wake up every day without the belief that at any moment we could be annhilated. It remains deeply rooted in our unconscious until something reminds us that we are vulbnerable. That could be a death of someone we know, an accident on the road, the world news any given day, bombs and terrorists and war oversees. It could be a new medical diagnsosis that makes us think about our own mortality.
This image has stayed with me from the first time I read it in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline many years ago. It taught me how natural systems can over take us if we do not understand them and are overtaken by them. It's the letting go that we must learn. Many years ago HBO produced a film called Letting Go about the hospice industry. It has been used in hospice to teach about how hospice can support the terminally ill and their loved ones through a diffuclt journey.
What exactly are we letting go of and what are we so resistant to. Where do these two approaches come from? What is the heroic stance we take against dying, something that is not only in our thinking but seems to be hardwired in our bioneurology. WE have been living and dying for millions of years yet we act as though it's never going to happen to us.
Ernest Becker investigated the source of war and violence and religious hatred and studied the origins of psychoanalysis settling on Otto Rank who offered him the most toward his eventual theories. He came to believe that we all walk around with an unconscious, deeply unconscious fear of death, and have evolved elaborate cultural mechanisms to convince us we are invulnerable. At the heart of this is our medical culture that has done much to convince us that we can live forever. As the longevity curve continues to move further out beyond 80 years it is not surprising we are allowed to wake up every day without the belief that at any moment we could be annhilated. It remains deeply rooted in our unconscious until something reminds us that we are vulbnerable. That could be a death of someone we know, an accident on the road, the world news any given day, bombs and terrorists and war oversees. It could be a new medical diagnsosis that makes us think about our own mortality.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Fall -Memories of Rose
As the Fall approaches I think of Rose and the chnages she experienced toward the end of her life. One of her final dreams she shared with me involved her with someone (Mercurius) instructing her to catch the large rats and place them in a burlap bag. Then he instructed her to eat them. I was not surprised to look up Roses birthyear in the Chinese Zodiac to discover she was born in the year of the Rat, 1924. She was quite turned off by the dream but i explained its meaning to her. She was incorporating her archetypal self into her consciousness and eating the rats demonstrated this. This is similar to the ancient symbol of the Uroborus, the snake that eats itself. Rose's bringing out her lost parts of herslef for review and confrontation is like the King carrying the corpses over the graveyard. Each corpse reveals a different story and ultimate paradox or riddle that must be resolved. Now we often offer up an easy answer to the corpse spirit to resolve the riddle but that is not what he is looking for. the ego can come up with many reasonable answers to riddles.
Remember my poem
I can swim a thousand miles
on one unswered question
and drown the moment
a meterologist explains the wind
It is not until the King is unable to resolve a riddle that the King is free to move on and the spirit is released from his corpse. As Rose worked through these riddles such as why did Sam betray me and what meaning did that have in my life? Why was that fruit presented to me and what gem lies inside?
Rose struggled with this part of herself that refused to forgive the perpetrator of betrayal and I think it crossed her mind that perhaps the way she lived her life-lockinh this aspect herslef away and holding the other person her girldfriend, Sam her husband all responsible for her her shame she realized there was another alternative life she could have lived. This part of her lied in shadow and it was the forgiving side of her, This was a hard pill to swallow that perhaps she wasted many years in resentment of these people and perhaps there was an aletrnative approach that may have changed her life.
I remember the day she told me she did not want to discuss these past issues anymore, they depressed her and caused her to dwell on them and she did not want to have me stop coming but it crossed her mind. So in the same way she blamed her betrayers for her shame, she blamed me for bringing it up. I told her I would not bring up anything that she did not want to talk about. I think the other meaning of the Rat dream which came around the same time as her not wanting to talk about past shame, was the rat represented her shame as well, something horrible to her, the part of her she felt was so reprehensible she required its banishment from conscious life. Her reaction to eating the rats was similar to the reaction to eating her grief in confonting her lost self, the self that never was born, the self that would have forgiven those who betrayed her. The lost opportunity many of us experience and must confront at the end of life.
Remember my poem
I can swim a thousand miles
on one unswered question
and drown the moment
a meterologist explains the wind
It is not until the King is unable to resolve a riddle that the King is free to move on and the spirit is released from his corpse. As Rose worked through these riddles such as why did Sam betray me and what meaning did that have in my life? Why was that fruit presented to me and what gem lies inside?
Rose struggled with this part of herself that refused to forgive the perpetrator of betrayal and I think it crossed her mind that perhaps the way she lived her life-lockinh this aspect herslef away and holding the other person her girldfriend, Sam her husband all responsible for her her shame she realized there was another alternative life she could have lived. This part of her lied in shadow and it was the forgiving side of her, This was a hard pill to swallow that perhaps she wasted many years in resentment of these people and perhaps there was an aletrnative approach that may have changed her life.
I remember the day she told me she did not want to discuss these past issues anymore, they depressed her and caused her to dwell on them and she did not want to have me stop coming but it crossed her mind. So in the same way she blamed her betrayers for her shame, she blamed me for bringing it up. I told her I would not bring up anything that she did not want to talk about. I think the other meaning of the Rat dream which came around the same time as her not wanting to talk about past shame, was the rat represented her shame as well, something horrible to her, the part of her she felt was so reprehensible she required its banishment from conscious life. Her reaction to eating the rats was similar to the reaction to eating her grief in confonting her lost self, the self that never was born, the self that would have forgiven those who betrayed her. The lost opportunity many of us experience and must confront at the end of life.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Self-Betrayal and The Corpse
Perhaps it is inevitable we confront betrayal of our self at the end of life. How do we batray ourself? The parts of our self we cut off because they are shamed into hiding, parts that we must place into shadow thinking it necessary in order to survive and move on. These parts of our self seem to require recognition and reintegration before we die. If we do not do this we can be overtaken by unconscious forces at the end of life that manifest as depression, various hallucination and dysphoria and exacerbated physicial symptoms such as pain and dyspnea. Our task is to carry the corpse of our dead selves to the magic circle, the arena of transformation, the alchemical vessel. But along the way we must extract from the corpse a lesson, a riddle that seems to be important more for the struggle it requires we go through than for the answer we give because just as we think we have the answer we must start all over.
What was the lesson of Rose's story of Sam, the interloper, who seduced her and betrayed her? We worked through this story as she carried the corpse of his memory for a few sessions. She was a young woman in her 20's still living at home in order to care for her parents but also because it was not accpetable for an Italian girl top leave home unless one was married. So Rose was courted by Sam, a man devoted to Rose, often jealous of how confident and gregarious she was. Rose hobnobbed with some of Chicago's politicians. She was a secretary but very in contact with many improtnat people and she had the confifence to negotiate these high society waters, but Sam did not like that and he courted her with a serious look toward marriage. He would often visit Rose with her family. But when she asked him about his family he wouild always say his mother was ill and he was caring for her and there was never a good time for her to meet his parents. She went out with him for 5 years and eventually could no longer tolerate his jeolousy and stalking. He would follow her home from work and park in front of her house. Then she recieves a call from a woman identfying herslef as Sam's wife and that she demanded she stop seeing her husband. Rose never knew he was married.
There was a part of Rose deeply ashamed of this experience and she was left with the feeling she had done something wrong and the part of her that was naive was cut off from her and the part of her that was more skeptical, less trusting, more critical, the Critic in her came out and became a predominate way of dealing with the world. This explained why Rose was perceived as such a witch, overcontrolling, hyprecritical of everyone and why she threw a podiatrist out of her room.
So how did Rose intergrate this part of her again or did she? Over the course of the 2 and 1/2 years I saw Rose she chnaged from being seen as a witch to the archetypal old crone, wise woman and all caring. The young workers in the facility would go to her for advice on matters of love and sex and motherhood. I believe the part of her that was cut off also contained that softer, more loving side of Rose that emerged again toward the end of her life. But we must carry that corpse many times before we can assimilate its lessons and finally bring it to the center of the circle.
What was the lesson of Rose's story of Sam, the interloper, who seduced her and betrayed her? We worked through this story as she carried the corpse of his memory for a few sessions. She was a young woman in her 20's still living at home in order to care for her parents but also because it was not accpetable for an Italian girl top leave home unless one was married. So Rose was courted by Sam, a man devoted to Rose, often jealous of how confident and gregarious she was. Rose hobnobbed with some of Chicago's politicians. She was a secretary but very in contact with many improtnat people and she had the confifence to negotiate these high society waters, but Sam did not like that and he courted her with a serious look toward marriage. He would often visit Rose with her family. But when she asked him about his family he wouild always say his mother was ill and he was caring for her and there was never a good time for her to meet his parents. She went out with him for 5 years and eventually could no longer tolerate his jeolousy and stalking. He would follow her home from work and park in front of her house. Then she recieves a call from a woman identfying herslef as Sam's wife and that she demanded she stop seeing her husband. Rose never knew he was married.
There was a part of Rose deeply ashamed of this experience and she was left with the feeling she had done something wrong and the part of her that was naive was cut off from her and the part of her that was more skeptical, less trusting, more critical, the Critic in her came out and became a predominate way of dealing with the world. This explained why Rose was perceived as such a witch, overcontrolling, hyprecritical of everyone and why she threw a podiatrist out of her room.
So how did Rose intergrate this part of her again or did she? Over the course of the 2 and 1/2 years I saw Rose she chnaged from being seen as a witch to the archetypal old crone, wise woman and all caring. The young workers in the facility would go to her for advice on matters of love and sex and motherhood. I believe the part of her that was cut off also contained that softer, more loving side of Rose that emerged again toward the end of her life. But we must carry that corpse many times before we can assimilate its lessons and finally bring it to the center of the circle.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Necromancer
The necromancer is the shadow side of the ascetic and represents the death instinct or thanatos principle of Freud. It is also the mother complex that we must confront and moving into the realm of the dead, the graveyard we come very close to the mother complex and constellate very strong feelings that try to overwhem us. The symbol of deference that is staged by the necromancer when he kneels down and bows his head is very interesting. A Christian version of this story might require a sacrificial act so this image would not make it into a more western story. We are reminded that the east does not believe in self-sacrifice so the ritual of kneeling and bowing is to be avoided. Yet the celebration comes from cutting off the head of the destroyer, defeating the mother complex and transforming the mother complex into the creative and ever-expanding mother archetype. It is the difference between drinking alcohol until unconscious and drinking herbal tea referring back to the fishing trip. It is using the fermentation of yeast in making bread vs making and drinking alcohol. It is transmuting mother nature into nurture rather than being destroyed by mother nature's byproducts. In fact a Christian version of the story is the story of Faust and requires a pact with the Devil. There is no good and evil in our Indian story just the visible and invisible worlds.
The necromancer is also the archetypal trickster setting us up for failure by telling us a lie. The king's response is to become the trickster himself and turn the tables on him. There is an internalization of the components of the story into the king. The king takes in the fruit that hides the gems for years. He takes in the corpse and his stories and teaching and finally he takes in the trickster and the trickster becomes part of him. He is now a complete person.
The necromancer is also the archetypal trickster setting us up for failure by telling us a lie. The king's response is to become the trickster himself and turn the tables on him. There is an internalization of the components of the story into the king. The king takes in the fruit that hides the gems for years. He takes in the corpse and his stories and teaching and finally he takes in the trickster and the trickster becomes part of him. He is now a complete person.
The Monkey
The King represents that ego we know, the one that makes up our conscious attitude towards the world. This ego is in on autopilot mode that eventually becomes bored or unsettled. It takes the king ten years in the story to come to the realization that all the gifts he has been given by life he has thrown away not understanding their true value. Sometimes this can take a lot longer, maybe even 50 years. It is important to take note that it was the monkey that revealed to him the value in the fruit and the monkey resides in the female quarters. This is the unconscious parts of us, the lunar side, the realm of the feminine, the feeling function which most men repress most of their lives. Now the king's realization there is value here he had previously ignored seems an easy transition, perhaps because this is an Indian tale and Indians are much more in touch with their feeling function. In the west this would manifest as a complaint, depression, anxiety because the ego would resist such new knowledge. Or the person would act out in an affair or something that would force his stance with the world to change (once caught). The king feels indebted to the peasant who brought the fruit once he realized their value. This indebtedness we all experience when we come to the same realization often late in life that we have taken advantage of life all our lives and that it's real meaning was right in front of us. The peasant turns out to be something more than a peasant just as the fruit turned out to be something more than fruit. The peasant is actually a holy man, an ascetic, and the king offers the holy man a favor. The holy man requests the king as hero assist him in an enterpise of magic. The holy man's name is "Rich in Patience" which is quite befitting him. This is that part of us that intiates us into the realm of the imagination, the magical realm and he can wait many years before he is listened to.
The Corpse
The King represents that ego we know, the one that makes up our conscious attitude towards the world. This ego is in on autopilot mode that eventually becomes bored or unsettled. It takes the king ten years in the story to come to the realization that all the gifts he has been given by life he has thrown away not understanding their true value. Sometimes this can take a lot longer, maybe even 50 years. It is important to take note that it was the monkey that revealed to him the value in the fruit and the monkey resides in the female quarters. This is the unconscious parts of us, the lunar side, the realm of the feminine, the feeling function which most men repress most of their lives. Now the king's realization there is value here he had previously ignored seems an easy transition, perhaps because this is an Indian tale and Indians are much more in touch with their feeling function. In the west this would manifest as a complaint, depression, anxiety because the ego would resist such new knowledge. Or the person would act out in an affair or something that would force his stance with the world to change (once caught). The king feels indebted to the peasant who brought the fruit once he realized their value. This indebtedness we all experience when we come to the same realization often late in life that we have taken advantage of life all our lives and that it's real meaning was right in front of us. The peasant turns out to be something more than a peasant just as the fruit turned out to be something more than fruit. The peasant is actually a holy man, an ascetic, and the king offers the holy man a favor. The holy man requests the king as hero assist him in an enterpise of magic. The holy man's name is "Rich in Patience" which is quite befitting him. This is that part of us that intiates us into the realm of the imagination, the magical realm and he can wait many years before he is listened to.
The King and The Corpse
This very old story from India has not had the shake and bake handling of a jungian analyst as I can find and except for Heinrich Zimmer, an Indologist not an analyst, I can find no other attempt to interpret. It is a rather long story so I will leave out much in a synopsis. A king was quite content in his office and would meet daily with the people of the kingdom to give them access to him for a short time each day. A peasant shows up and begins offering him fruit everyday which the king politely accepts and then gives to his treasurer who tosses them through a window into a treasure room. This went on for ten years until one day the peasant gives the fruit to a monkey that escaped from the women's quarters in the castle. The monkey takes a bite and throws it down revealing a large gem in the center of the fruit. Now the king is interested and has the treasurer check on all the other fruit in the room only to find many gems with fruit in some state of decomposition, The king is intrigued with the peasant and the next day asks the peasant what he, the king, could do for him. The peasant tells him he could be a hero and directs him to a sorcerer. The necromancer tells the king he must go to the graveyard and cut a corpse down from the large tree on which the criminal was hanged. The king finds the corpse and cuts him down and carries him on his back to the sorcerer but on the way a voice from the corpse begins to tell the king a riddle and if the king knew the answer he must tell it or his head would explode in many pieces. The king asnwers the first riddle and the corpse flies back to the tree. The king trudges back to cut him down again and begins the trek back to the sorcerer but along the way the corpse tells him another riddle that the king, if he knows, must answer or else his head will explode in many pieces. The king answers the next riddle and the corpse flies back to the tree. This goes on all night with the king answering 24 riddles. Then the 25th riddle the king could not find an answer and with that the corpse is impressed and reveals to the king a secret. That when he brings the corpse back to the necromancer he will try to kill the king by instructing him to kneel down and lower his head so that the king can be given power over the world of souls and spirits but the necromancer will cut off the king's head instead and he will become the ruler over all the world visible and invisible so the corpse spirit told the king when the necromancer tells him to do this to ask the sorcerer to show the king how it is done and when the sorcerer bows his head the king would cut it off with the same sword and that is what is done. The corpse spirit in gratitude offers the king power over all the visible world and when he dies over the spirit world as well. The corpse spirit, in gratitude for the king completing the journey offers the king whatever his heart desires and the king simlpy asks that the 24 tales and his own story be handed down through the ages for all mankind and this is done.
Work this story around for a while and we will discuss next posting.
Work this story around for a while and we will discuss next posting.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Story of Stone Soup
"According to the story, some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. The travelers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager doesn't mind parting with just a little bit of flour to help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which hasn't reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all."
(Wikipedia at...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup
There is other internet chatter that Stone Soup is a Grimm's Story though I have not yet found that nor able to verify Grimm's Brothers as a source. However it has been called a folk tale and for its revelation of the unconscious it is valuable. Another version casts the travelers as soldiers which adds a different dimension to the story, one relevant for our times. When three soldiers are returning from the Napoleonic wars they stop off in a town and ask the townspeople for some food and shelter. The townpeople all close their doors and windows. So the soldiers set up a large pot in the center of town and the story continues pretty much as above.
In the story in the context of my relationship with Rose I am taken by the added detail of the soldiers. What do soldiers bring back with them from war? They bring back death, the experience of premature death and its aftermath, it lingers about them and the townspeople sense its presence and they close the doors and windows. The soldiers realize the townspeople cannot bear dealing with death at such close proximity so they use the ritual of preparing soup for the purpose of sharing the positive aspects of their death experience with the townspeople without scaring them. They did this by using the stone to sybolize death and creating a wonderful nourishing soup around the experience, a soup the townspeople helped create. It is this nourishment that paradoxically is created around death, the stone, the one immutable force of nature that we cannot excape and its pedogogy if we choose to listen. It can be undrestood that what the townspeople bring are their unconscious material to the death experience thereby enriching the broth for all.
I remember Rose struggling with the staff in the facility, everyone afraid of her and tiptoeing around her, getting angry at her when she scolded them, then avaoiding her. Then after months of therapy she began to soften and she became their mentor. Many of the aides were young girls who were pregnant or with children who were being manipualted by men because they lacked the self-confidence to make it the world on their own. She would tell them you can make it on your own. You don't need a man to give you self-respect. They would all flock around her for advice.
The last time I saw Rose awake she was sitting up in bed and was being fed by one of those aides who cared for her like a mother carefully feeding her very slowly. I remember that image of her being nurtured by those who a year or so before would go out of their way to avoid her. This was the stone soup she created while we were together and we all were nurished by it.
(Wikipedia at...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup
There is other internet chatter that Stone Soup is a Grimm's Story though I have not yet found that nor able to verify Grimm's Brothers as a source. However it has been called a folk tale and for its revelation of the unconscious it is valuable. Another version casts the travelers as soldiers which adds a different dimension to the story, one relevant for our times. When three soldiers are returning from the Napoleonic wars they stop off in a town and ask the townspeople for some food and shelter. The townpeople all close their doors and windows. So the soldiers set up a large pot in the center of town and the story continues pretty much as above.
In the story in the context of my relationship with Rose I am taken by the added detail of the soldiers. What do soldiers bring back with them from war? They bring back death, the experience of premature death and its aftermath, it lingers about them and the townspeople sense its presence and they close the doors and windows. The soldiers realize the townspeople cannot bear dealing with death at such close proximity so they use the ritual of preparing soup for the purpose of sharing the positive aspects of their death experience with the townspeople without scaring them. They did this by using the stone to sybolize death and creating a wonderful nourishing soup around the experience, a soup the townspeople helped create. It is this nourishment that paradoxically is created around death, the stone, the one immutable force of nature that we cannot excape and its pedogogy if we choose to listen. It can be undrestood that what the townspeople bring are their unconscious material to the death experience thereby enriching the broth for all.
I remember Rose struggling with the staff in the facility, everyone afraid of her and tiptoeing around her, getting angry at her when she scolded them, then avaoiding her. Then after months of therapy she began to soften and she became their mentor. Many of the aides were young girls who were pregnant or with children who were being manipualted by men because they lacked the self-confidence to make it the world on their own. She would tell them you can make it on your own. You don't need a man to give you self-respect. They would all flock around her for advice.
The last time I saw Rose awake she was sitting up in bed and was being fed by one of those aides who cared for her like a mother carefully feeding her very slowly. I remember that image of her being nurtured by those who a year or so before would go out of their way to avoid her. This was the stone soup she created while we were together and we all were nurished by it.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Parsifal and the Grail King
The story of Parsifal is the story of the differentiation of the real father for the archetypal father. On Father's Day it is appropriate to return to it. When a young man Parsifal, who is living with his widowed mther, sees five knights ride past him he is smitten with the desire to join them in their journey. So he leaves his mother whose name is Heart Sorrow and goes off to find the 5 knights. He has many adventures but never finds the knights. He does find a great knight living in the castle of Gournamond. The mentor teaches him to become a knight and instructs him if he were to ever find the Grail Castle he muct ask, "Who does the Grail serve?". After a time Parsifal meets a fisherman who invites him to stay the night in his home down the road. When Parsifal gets there he realizes he is in the Grail Castle. The Fisher King in in charge of the castle but the castle and its kingdom are poor and without food and in is in illrepair. The Fisher King got his name as a child when wandering the woods he came upon a spit upon which salmon was cooking and he touched the fish and ate of it. He never tasted anything so good but he suufered a wound in the tasting and the wound was in his thigh. He suffered greatly all his life but the wound would neither heal nor kill him. The King oversees the Grail which is kept in the castle but the power of the grail does him no good. He cannot touch it. The king and kingdom cannot be healed until an innocent fool (origin of Parsifal's name) eneters the castle and asks the right question, "Whom does the Grail serve?" Parsifal is bathed and brought to a banquet room wherein lies the Grail and a sword dripping blood but he forgets to ask the question and the next morning all, the castle, the king and Grail have disappeared. It is many years before Parsifal again finds the castle and is brought through the same experience to the Grail and this time he asks the question, "Whom does the Grail serve?" and he is given the answer,"The Grail serves the Grail King." The Grail King is the archetypal king or father and the Fisher King only the lord of the castle. When Parsifal understands the difference the Fisher King is healed and the kingdom becomes productive and nourished once again.
To discern the archetypal father and to access him within heals the wounding of the literal father, the lord of the castle. Until we can do that the king and the kingdom remain blighted in our eyes. Happy Father's Day
To discern the archetypal father and to access him within heals the wounding of the literal father, the lord of the castle. Until we can do that the king and the kingdom remain blighted in our eyes. Happy Father's Day
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