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
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Beautiful story. A lot to chew on.
ReplyDeleteSo the puer needs to find the archetypal father through but not within the literal father. And the literal father also needs the puer to make this discovery in order to be healed himself.
It seems as if this story makes fathers and sons symbiotically connected in the search for the archetypal father, though neither is the ultimate answer for the other. It is only by dissociation we make the discovery.
Yes. Dissociation and then union. Literal father and son share the same fate apparently. Takes us back to Oedipus. Oedipus and his father and his son (if he would have had one) for that matter all share the same fate. A release for one is a release for the other.
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