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

Lac Virginis

Virgin's milk. One of the liquids flowing into the Mercurial Fountain is the remedy for darkmotherscream. I didn't know. There it is hiding in the alchemical image all this time. The virgin's milk softens the dark mother complex. Perhaps that is the walk in darkness. But why virgin's milk. Perhaps the purity of image. The lack of toil with the real world, the profane, the lack of tainting by the personal realm. It is the archetypal realm, the soft white milk from the archetypal realm that softens the dark mother. When the father confronts the enchantress in Rapunzel he tells her of his wife's plight and need for the rapion from the garden. The witch softens and doesn't swallow him whole but gives as much of the greens as he wants for the price of his daughter. The softening of Sedna, the princess of the sea, by combing the lice out of her hair. When Hera finds Hercules in the field in a basket "exposed" she takes pity on him and saves his life, not knowing he was her mortal enemy. Hercules' mother, Alcmene, knew Hera would kill him unless she softened her dark side by appealing to her maternal side. The virgin's milk comes from our maternal side, when caring for ourselves we soften the darkmotherscream.

Separatio, Horatio.

So I'm breaking up with my personal trainer.

Granted, six weeks in, you can hardly even call it a relationship. But working out in the park under her direction has dredged up some interesting and unexpected unconscious material.

On the surface, things are good. I've made excellent progress. She has gotten me to endure things I would never have thought possible. Squats. Lunges. The dreaded jump-rope.

A few days ago, she and I had a sort of an emotional "check-in." Our six week package of sessions was coming to an end. She asked me how I thought I was progressing. And I said, "Physically, very well. But psychologically, I'm regressing." She was confused, and I told her that instead of developing my own will and determination, I was substituting hers. Looking for her approval.

She understood. She said I had come so far. That I was working so hard. That I made her proud and she was discovering that I was really such a good guy.

I was touched by her words. They brought a tear to my eye. Before I left that session, we verbally agreed to negotiate a new package of sessions.

But that night, I had a telling dream.

I dreamt I was on a couch, curled like a fetus. My trainer sat over me. Like a baby, I broke wind without thinking. She immediately disapproved, and I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

Through this dream, and I came to realize that by granting her authority over my body for an hour twice a week, I was in a sense abdicating my own responsibility for myself. I was making her into a mommy. She was in charge and I was along for the ride.

I thought about this dream, and then today I get an email from her.

She is doubling her hourly rate.

I had an instantaneous and deep emotional reaction. I felt angry. Hurt. Betrayed. I realized it was all projection on my part. By making her into a mommy, I was opening myself to the destructive side of the mother archetype, Kali, vagina dentata, darkmotherscream.

I thought of Hamlet's anger with Gertrude. She betrayed him more than anyone. So Hamlet had to break that umbilical cord. He did it roughly to give Gertrude a taste of the pain she delivered unto him.

But separation can also be smooth. My projection withdrawn, I sent a polite email saying I could not continue to work with her at the suggested rate, and that I had learned so much and would certainly recommend her to others, best, etc.

In truth, the money is largely the determining factor. But by ending the business relationship, I am also able to withdraw the projection and reclaim something of myself.

To lunge or not to lunge: that is the new question….

The Urge to Dissolution

The alchemical goal is to bring a reaction to a state of blackenss and from there the real healing begins. This blackness or darkness involves a tearing apart of the ego realm and a temporary psychosis in which we deal with real people and things from the perspective of a crazy person. It is here the archetypal realm spills into the conscious realm and there is "going to be trouble". But this splitting apart is required as in Rapunzel when she and the prince are banished and separated, one blind and the other destitute (but pregnant). Nathan Schwartz-Salant calls this the carzy parts of ourselves that break us apart so we can be rebuilt into a new perspective. Hamlet too goes through this blackness, in fact the whole of the play is his playing the role of alchemist adding ingredients to the story that is intended to drive it to blackness. We are often overtaken by this madness even in the light of day but the urge to dissolution is complemented by an urge to unite and the coniunctio is that alchemical phase which pulls it all together again sometimes over a cup of coffee.

Walking In Darkness

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost"
– Dante's Inferno

Last night, I was angry and did not know why. It wasn't hunger or fatigue. I suspect it had to do with my new exercise regiment. (I find that I am euphoric after a workout, but then if I am inactive for 48 hours, I get agitated and punchy.)

After barking at my wife over something ludicrously trivial, I decided enough was enough. I put on my shoes and went for on a long walk. At night. In Los Angeles. I walked north until my boil calmed to a simmer. Then I walked west until my simmer cooled to something near room temperature. At at that point I started home.

Los Angeles is a city with bipolar disorder. During the manic daytime, everyone seems fit and golden and healthy; by night, they are the living goddamned dead. Tattoooed, pierced, pale, skeletal, desperate, filthy. It is as though all the pretty Eloi are asleep, and the night is ruled by the dreaded Morloch.

I imagined getting mugged or worse as I passed every dark alley. I had $5 and an ID on me. Slim pickings for an urban criminal. How would I react? Was it foolish to take the walk at all, or was it foolish to walk in fear? Thankfully, the mugging never came.

I also thought of Dante's Inferno, of walking through a never ending landscape of suffering and horror. The imagination, in such a situation, becomes perversely intrigued to see how bad it can get. And I realized that the Inferno is a mental landscape, not a literal landscape. When we are angry or depressed, we see the world through filters that convert it into hell. And when we are happy, our perspective shifts and we find heaven in everything, like citizens of Oz strolling around with emerald green glasses.

When I got home, I measured my walk on GoogleMaps. It was 5.5 miles. I felt tired, but good. Alive and strong. Something had changed about my perspective. It was as though I had walked through the Valley of Darkness and, as a result, everything seemed brighter.

Hamlet's world is dark a the start of the play. His father is dead. His mother has betrayed him. And his death is in the cards. Claudius has usurped his birthright and will scheme to disinherit and kill him. That is his world. And he must change his perspective on his own existence to summon the father within and master his world.

When he returns from England, it genuinely feels like this transformation has taken place. He harbors no ill will, and can take up a sword with grace and gallantry. And when death comes, as all knew it would, he faces it boldly and beautifully. By the end, I like him. I forgive him all his dithering.

Maybe that's just how I see it now, in the bright light of a beautiful Sunday morning as I sit in a restaurant. And my porcelain coffee cup feels like heaven on my lips. And a three year old Korean boy looks over from the next booth to play peek-a-boo, a glimmer of Buddha in his shining eyes.

Ask me again after sundown.

Source of the Hamlet Story...

I found this at Shakespeare-Online.com...

Sources for Hamlet

Hamlet is based on a Norse legend composed by Saxo Grammaticus in Latin around 1200 AD. The sixteen books that comprise Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, or History of the Danes, tell of the rise and fall of the great rulers of Denmark, and the tale of Amleth, Saxo's Hamlet, is recounted in books three and four. In Saxo's version, King Rorik of the Danes places his trust in two brothers, Orvendil and Fengi. The brothers are appointed to rule over Jutland, and Orvendil weds the king's beautiful daughter, Geruth. They have a son, Amleth. But Fengi, lusting after Orvendil's new bride and longing to become the sole ruler of Jutland, kills his brother, marries Geruth, and declares himself king over the land. Amleth is desperately afraid, and feigns madness to keep from getting murdered. He plans revenge against his uncle and becomes the new and rightful king of Jutland. Saxo's story was first printed in Paris in 1514, and Francois de Belleforest translated it into French in 1570, as part of his collection of tragic legends, Histoires Tragiques. Saxo's text did not appear in English until 1608, so either Shakespeare was fluent in French or he used another English source based on the French translation. Generally, it is accepted that Shakespeare used the earlier play based on this Norse legend by Thomas Kyd, called the Ur-Hamlet. There is no surviving copy of the Ur-Hamlet and the only information known about the play is that it was performed on the London stage; that it was a tragedy; that there was a character in the play named Hamlet; and a ghost who cried "Hamlet, revenge!"

In this version of the story, Hamlet's madness is a conscious charade executed to survive the situation. I wonder if the original staging played on this angle. Perhaps in our era, theater artists treat the story with more gravity than was originally intended.

Oedipus or Hamlet

Yes. Not only embracing the father but slipping a knife between his ribs I susupect is the archetypal demand. I am thinking that Hamlet is the modern version of Oedipus. Our delicate egos cannot accomodate incest and patricide so we invent an uncle to do the dirty dead. Yet the same requirement is there from a psychological perspective. We must kill the father and marry the mother. We cannot avoid that fate, Oedipus already tried. So Hamlet steps back from the drama and thinks he has a choice and that his choice is between the archetypal realm or the civilized realm of the ego. Its hard to choose so his hesitation caused many people to perish. You have to accept the burden of the murder.

In the attached alchemical plates the king has been killed by the son and the son takes his fathers blood to put on his own shirt symbolizing the need to take responsibility for his father's death. Then the son falls into the tomb with his father sacrificing his own life for the process. Hamlet fails to understand the need to own his father's death so himself must die. So he would rather die than grow up?