The Legend of King Arthur
The Holy Grail is the cup from which Christ drank at the Last
Supper and which was used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ's blood as he
hung on the cross. The Holy Grail was introduced into the King Arthur legends
by Robert de Boron in his romance Joseph d'Arimathie which was probably written
at the very end of the twelfth century or the first decade of the thirteenth.
King Arthur, who was he? Depending on the source he might be a
late Roman, a Celt; a king, a general, or a guerilla warrior fighting the
Saxons, the Romans...
King Arthur may have fought a number of battles from Badon to
his death perhaps at Camlann.
The King Arthur of legend probably would have lived in
post-Roman Britain. At a time when there was a power vacuum in Britain in the
5th and 6th centuries, the British had to defend themselves against several
invasions. The most worrying of these invaders were the Angles and Saxons from
northern Europe. It is during this fight for the control of Britain that the
historical figure is thought to have lived.
In earlier sources the word "grail" comes from the
Latin gradale, which meant a dish brought to the table during various stages
(Latin "gradus") or courses of a meal.
In medieval romance, the Holy Grail was said to have been
brought to Glastonbury in Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, though one would
assume that to be an unlikely thing for him to have done. In the time of King
Arthur the quest for the Holy Grail was the highest spiritual pursuit for a
knight.
Perceval is the knight who must achieve the quest for the Grail.
http://arcadiasystems.org/academia/arthur.html
(a visual of this Great Story)
***
“Don't
tell me you've no ideas. (tew, tew, tew/spitting noises.) Make art from your
own true verifiable life, whether by conscious project hurled into the world,
whether by bodily dance, in the paint, with the scribing, through the music,
carving, building, helping, healing. Make art straight out of your own mythic
life. That's what it is there for, you know. A mountain of resource.” Dr.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Yours on this journey //
Christina Neumeyer 760.522.5659