Chapter 3 Goddess of Intuitive and Psychic Wisdom Hecate at the Fork in the Road

From the book "Goddesses in Older Women."  Copyright © 2001 by Jean Shinoda Bolen.  Published by HarperCollins e-books.  Mobipocket Reader February 2008.

Part 1  Her Name Is Wisdom

What does it mean to be an elder in this culture?  What are my new responsibilities?  What has to be let go to make room for the transformations of energy that are ready to pour through the body-soul?
---Marion Woodman

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Chapter 3  Goddess of Intuitive and Psychic Wisdom  Hecate at the Fork in the Road

In Greek mythology, Hecate was the goddess of the crossroads who could see three ways at once.  When you arrive at a fork in the road, she is there.  She can see where you are coming from, and where each of the two paths at the crossroad might take you.  If you are someone who pays attention to dreams and synchronicities, draws upon a store of past experiences and uses intuition to decide which direction to take, you know this archetype.

Hecate is a goddess of intuition.  Her three-way perspective allows her to see the connection between past, present, and future.  This ability to see patterns that link past situations or relationships and present circumstances is an intuitive way of perception.  Seeing how a situation evolved---or where someone is coming from---is not uncanny or mysterious to an intuitive person.  At significant junctures, Hecate is silently present as an inner witness.  Hers is wisdom learned from experience; she is what makes us grow wiser as we grow older.  At significant forks in the road, she recalls the shape of the past, honestly sees the present, and has a sense of what lies ahead at a soul level.  She does not make your choices, nor judge you.  To know her wisdom, you must come to a stop and consult her.  You must listen to what she says in the voice of your own intuition.

Sometimes in life something happens and you know that nothing in your life will be the same again.  You know it is no longer an option to go on as before, but you are not sure what to do.  A younger you might have responded impulsively by letting your emotions carry you away without much thought or consideration.  Those same emotions may arise, but a maturity (often having to do with being responsible for others) stops you from acting on them.  You know that whatever you decide to do here matters.  It is time to call on Hecate to help you see the larger picture, to stay at the crossroad until it is clear to you which path to take. 

You may find yourself at a significant fork in the road not because of some external event, but because your psyche is urging you to make changes.  It's not uncommon for the focus---or archetypal direction---that a woman has had for decades to shift as a woman enters the third phase of her life.  If you feel that you have reached a point where whatever you are doing no longer holds much interest, you are at a crossroad with Hecate.

Hecate is the goddess at the threshold of major transitions.  She is embodied by the midwife who assists at births, and by women who help ease the passage of the soul as it leaves the body at death.  Metaphorically, Hecate is an inner midwife, whose perspective aids us when we birth new aspects of ourselves.  She helps us let go of what is ready to die: outmoded attitudes, outgrown roles, whatever elements in our lives are no longer life-affirming.

Hecate can be found at the threshold between old and new millennia.  We anticipate the possibility of a new age for humanity, but until we arrive there, we are betwixt and between---in a 'liminal' time (from the Latin word for "threshold") where a shimmering potential has not yet become solid.  At the beginning of the twenty-first century, humanity is at a critical juncture where change is needed to avert turning where we live---from neighborhoods to the planet---into a wasteland.  Many women enter the crone phase with some sense of wanting to make a difference, or have an urge to "give back" in appreciation of opportunities that feminism provided them and first-hand experience that it is possible to bring about change.  Women born just before, during, and in the first decade after World War II were in a movement that was peaceful and yet revolutionary in its influence.

Hecate is at the crux of the situation when a woman enters the third phase of her life and heeds a pull inward.  She appears indecisive or as if her energy is lying fallow, when she is in this liminal (from Latin limen, limin- ‘threshold’) phase.  If she stays at the crossroad until she intuitively knows what direction to take, she emerges renewed and replenished.

Hecate the Goddess

Even if you took a course in Greek mythology or have a current interest in the gods and goddesses as archetypes, at best Hecate is a vague figure.  She is mentioned as accompanying Demeter in the story of the abduction of Persephone, depicted as the third and least important goddess.  Hecate is invariably the crone (an old woman) goddess when classical mythology describes goddesses in threesomes; a pattern derived from the unacknowledged triple goddess of pre-Olympian times.  Besides Persephone the maiden, Demeter the mother, and Hecate the crone, there were three goddesses who personified the phases of the moon: Artemis, goddess of the waxing moon; Selene, goddess of the full moon; and Hecate, goddess of the waning and dark moon.  A third triad was Hebe the maiden, a cupbearer of the gods; Hera, the goddess of marriage; and Hecate, the goddess of the crossroads.  Women who saw themselves in the archetypes of Persephone, Demeter, Artemis, or Hera in the book, Goddesses in Everywoman, may realize that by the third phase of their lives, the paths converge in the wise woman archetype of Hecate.

Metaphorically and mythologically, she is dimly seen.  She is associated with the underworld but did not reside there.  Her time was twilight.  Offerings---"Hecate suppers"---were left for her at crossroads, usually when the moon was dark, sometimes when it was full.  In later times, when women were feared as witches, Hecate was called a queen of the witches or queen of the ghostworld, and seen as a diabolical figure.  The poet Sappho called her queen of the night.

Her mythological origins are unclear, with discrepancies in the few accounts of her genealogical tree.  Usually she is described as a Titan, who remained a goddess after these earlier divinities were defeated by Zeus and the Olympians.  Hesiod, in "Theogony" (about 700 B.C.E.), said that her name means "she who has power far off" and that she was honored more highly than other divinities and given power over land, sea, and sky by Zeus.  These were realms clearly divided among and ruled over by male divinities, thus for Hecate to be accorded "power over" them must not have been the same as ruling over a domain.  This may have had to do with a psychic ability or clairvoyance.  It also may have acknowledged another once valued aspect attributed to her, that of goddess of magic and divination.

Hecate is described as a moon goddess who wears a gleaming headdress or a headband of stars, and holds flaming torches in each hand.  She was thought to walk the roads of ancient Greece accompanied by her black hounds.  She was an invisible presence at the three-way crossroad, or materialized in the form of a pillar or Hecterion, a statue with three faces that looked in the three directions.  Over time, as she was denigrated, Hecate became transformed into the goddess of trivia (from the Latin word 'trivia'---three ways---which meant "crossroads").

Demetra George in 'Mysteries of the Dark Moon' describes an ancient image of Hecate, depicting her with three heads and three pairs of arms.  She carries three torches and a key, a rope, and a dagger.  Her torches allow her to see in the dark, the key unlocks the secrets of the occult or hidden mysteries and knowledge of the afterlife; the rope is a symbol of the umbilical cord of rebirth, the knife, which became a symbol of ritual power, the power to cut through delusions.

Greek divinities were linked with animals who were sacred to them or had their characteristics and became symbols of them.  The dog was Hecate's primary symbolic animal. 

pick up again on p. 49:

Descents Into the Underworld and the Acquisition of Wisdom

The story of the rape or abduction of Persephone is told in the Homeric "Hymn to Demeter."  The maiden Persephone was gathering flowers in the meadow.  Attracted to a particularly beautiful, large bloom, she left her companions in order to pick it.  As she reached for it, the earth opened up before her.  Out of a deep, dark vent in the earth, Hades the Lord of the Underworld emerged in his black chariot drawn by his black horses, abducted her as she screamed in terror, and took her with him back into the underworld.  When Persephone disappeared from the meadow, her mother, Demeter, searched the entire world for her, to no avail.

Finally, after nine days and nights, Demeter returned, defeated and in grief, to the meadow.  There Hecate came to her, saying that though she could not see what had happened, she had heard Persephone's screams.  Hecate suggested that they seek information from the god of the sun, who was overhead when Persephone disappeared.  He could tell them what had happened.  Accompanied by Hecate, Demeter now hears the truth: Persephone was abducted by Hades, with Zeus's permission.

Hecate is not mentioned again in the myth, until Persephone returns from the underworld and is reunited with Demeter.  Hecate greets Persephone with much affection, followed by a cryptic line that reads, "And from that day on that lady precedes and follows Persephone."

For Hecate to precede and follow Persephone would be impossible physically.  It suggests that Persephone would now be accompanied by a spirit or consciousness that she acquired upon her return from the underworld.  The story of the rape of Persephone and her abduction into the underworld applies to everyone.  We've all had periods when we were Persephone gathering flowers in the meadow, when all was well.  Then the unexpected happened, and we were terrified as our secure world was violated by a sudden loss.  It could be a betrayal and the end of a relationship, a death, the onset of an illness, financial loss, or an end of innocence.  If we are plunged into the dark world of hopelessness, depression, or despair, or into cynicism, bitterness, or revenge, we are for a time held captive in the underworld, wondering if we will ever return.

If you return from your own descents into the underworld, you have learned that love and suffering are parts of life.  By making it through the hard times, you grow in depth and wisdom.  A wise Hecate then becomes an inner companion.  Women friends or women in support groups gain this perspective by listening, and witnessing, and caring about each other as well.

Hecate consoled Demeter in her grief and loss but she was more than a comforter and a witness.  She suggested that they seek information from the god of the sun who saw what happened to Persephone.  Hecate's counsel was to 'seek the truth.'  She accompanied Demeter and was with her when Demeter learned that Persephone was abducted by Hades.  The god of the sun urged her to accommodate and accept Hades as, after all, he was an Olympian like herself, and thus would not make a bad son-in-law.  When Demeter heard this, and that it was done with Zeus's permission, her grief turned to anger.  She decided to leave Olympus and, in disguise, wander among people, and her determination eventually led to Persephone's return.

People may think that they cannot face what is true, and so they adapt, often by keeping the truth at a distance through rationalization, denial, or addictions that serve to numb us to the truth.  Only when a woman has learned from experience that reality can be faced, is she a wise-woman like Hecate.

A Hecate Meditation/Active Imagination

Ask yourself: "What have I learned about life from my own experience?" and "What truth do I need to face?"  Answers are likely to come when you really want to know and are receptive.  They may come into your mind if you are quiet and wait.

Or you might visualize Hecate and ask her these questions.

Hecate the Witness

Hecate is a witness within us at every juncture, even if the ego denies, represses, distorts, and cannot acknowledge what is happening.  This observer makes connections and speaks to us in the symbolic language of dreams.  Dreams come to you in the half-light, they are liminal messages that come from the dreaming unconscious and require conscious effort to grasp and remember, just as the insights that could illuminate a painful emotional situation also come and will recede and be forgotten unless you pay attention and learn.

As an archetypal figure, Hecate, too, can be ignored.  She can also become an observing part of your psyche that you draw upon daily.  Psychotherapists come to depend upon Hecate, and to some extent serve as embodiments of Hecate for their clients.  People are at a crossroad when they seek psychotherapy.  A therapist observes, hears, and bears witness to what is revealed.  Like Hecate was for Demeter, the therapist encourages the client to seek the truth of the situation, which includes her genuine feelings and perceptions that denial covers.  Hecate the witness is there when you pay attention to your dreams, heed your intuitive perceptions, or listen to an inner voice.  It's as if she accompanies us, holding up her torches so we can see in the dark.

People with multiple personalities reach Hecate's juncture each time a new personality emerges.  This disorder arises out of terrible abuse in childhood when the child learns to dissociate from pain and memories too awful to bear.  Multiples are usually unaware of the existence of other personalities in them, experience unaccountable lapses of time, and puzzling and distressing occurrences.  In the absence of a consistent "I" there is a hidden observer who functions like Hecate and bears witness to the "birth" of each personality.  Ralph Allison, M.D., a psychiatrist who worked with integrating multiples, called this part of the psyche the "inner self-helper."  Allison characterized the inner self-helper as androgynous, as feeling only love and goodwill, and knowing all of the personalities and the circumstances in the patient's life.  Allison and other clinicians have found that with the help of this inner witness, the many fragmentary personalities can become aware of each other, and eventually integrate into one personality.  The inner self-helper is another name for Hecate.

Unlike people with multiple personalities, we may not have amnesia and have chunks of time we cannot account for, and yet we, too, are "multiple selves."  Observing this in others is easy and begins in childhood, when we see how adults put on a "different face."  Seeing the "multiples" in ourselves is harder.  The compassionate gaze of Hecate the witness does not blame or shame anyone, and so does not foster defensiveness or denial.  Instead, she enables us to see ourselves, especially those parts that might otherwise be kept hidden.  While Hecate may develop early in a person's life or come into the foreground of the psyche when traumatic circumstances call her forth, Hecate usually grows in significance as we grow older and can see patterns and reflect upon events that have taken us unaware into dark places of depression, jealousy, vengefulness, or hopelessness.  The older we become, the more likely it is for us to know Hecate as a wise counselor who reminds us of lessons learned from experience.  In these ways, Hecate facilitates the integration of our multiple selves into becoming a consistent and authentic person.

* * * *

Chapter 2 Parsifal from the book "He : Understanding Masculine Psychology" by Robert A. Johnson

From "He : Understanding Masculine Psychology."  Copyright © 1989 by Robert A. Johnson.  Revised Edition.  Published by HarperCollins e-books.

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Chapter 2  Parsifal

The story now turns from the Fisher King and his wound to the story of a boy who is of so little consequence that he has no name.  He is born in Wales, during that time a country geographically on the fringe of the known world and a cultural backwater, the least likely place for a hero to appear and it reminds one of another Hero who was born in an unlikely place.  What good could come out of Nazareth?  Who would ever think of Wales as possibly producing an answer to our suffering?  Myth informs us that our redemption will come from the least likely place.  This reminds us again that it will be a humbling experience to find our redemption from the highly sophisticated wound of the Fisher King.  The origin of the word 'humble' traces back to 'humus'---it means of the earth, feminine, unsophisticated.  This reminds us of the biblical injunction, "Except ye become as a little child, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

In his typology of the personality Dr. Jung observes that every educated person has one superior function of the four functions of feeling, thinking, sensing, and intuiting, which make up the human temperament.  Also as a part of our psychology there is an opposing inferior function.  While our superior function produces most of the high value of our life, the more developed personality strengths, it also leads us into  our Fisher King wound.  Our inferior function, that part of us which is least differentiated, will heal us from that wound.  So it is the innocent fool from Wales who will heal the Fisher King.

The boy is of such lowly origin that he has no name when we first meet him; later we will learn that his name is Parsifal---innocent fool.  The name also has a deeper meaning---he who draws the opposites together---and foretells his healing role, something like the meaning of the Chinese word, 'tao.'

Dr. Jung describes an occasion when he was forced to rely on just this faculty in himself.  The falling out between Jung and Freud occurred over the nature of the unconscious.  Freud said that the unconscious is the repository of all the inferior elements of the personality, the unvalued things of one's life.  Jung insisted that the unconscious is also the matrix, the artesian well from which all creativity springs.  Freud would have none of this, so the two parted.  That was a frightening experience for Dr. Jung since he was young and untried, with no reputation of his own.  It looked as if he were finishing an abortive career before it began.

Dr. Jung knew where to look for the cure of his desperate wound and looked to his inner world.  He locked himself in his room and waited on the unconscious.  Soon he was down on the floor playing childish games.  This led to the recall of his childhood fantasies which soon filled his attention.  For months he labored daily in the privacy of his fantasy and in his backyard he built stone villages, towns and forts.  He had fantasied all of this as a boy.  He trusted his childlike experience and that was the beginning of an outpouring from the collective unconscious from which we have the legacy of Jungian psychology.  A great man was humble (earthy) enough to trust his Parsifal for his cure.

Parsifal (we will call him that though he does not have a name until much later in the story) is raised by his mother, whose name is Heart's Sorrow.  His father is dead and he knows nothing of him.  He has no brothers or sisters.  The redeeming hero in mythology often has no father and is raised in humble and lonely circumstances.

Parsifal grows up in primitive, peasant way, wears homespun clothes, has no schooling, asks no questions, and is completely untutored.

Early in his adolescence he is out playing one day when five knights came riding by wearing all their impressive equipment: the scarlet and gold trappings, the armor, the shields, the lances, all the accouterments of the knighthood.  They dazzled poor Parsifal so completely that he dashed home to tell his mother he had seen five gods.  He was on fire with this marvelous sight and decided to leave immediately to join the five wonderful men.

His mother burst into tears after seeing there was no way to stop her son from following in the footsteps of his father, who had been a knight and who was killed in some foolishness.  His mother had tried to shield Parsifal from knowing anything of his lineage, but no mother has ever succeeded in keeping her son from danger when his father's blood begins to stir in him.

Heart's Sorrow (for this is the character of the moment as viewed by any mother) then tells Parsifal that his father had been a knight and been killed rescuing a fair maiden.  His two brothers were knights and had also been killed.  Heart's Sorrow had taken Parsifal to a remote place to raise him in hope he could be shielded from a similar fate.

Heart's Sorrow gives Parsifal her blessing and releases him from her protection.  She can not resist giving him advice as he leaves: to respect fair damsels and instruction not to ask too many questions.  Also he receives the gift of a single homespun garment she has woven for him.  These are the legacies she bestows upon him.  These two gifts will reverberate throughout the whole story and be instrumental in many of the complexities of what follows.

Parsifal's Journey

Parsifal goes off happily to find his five knights and begin his career as a man.

Parsifal asks everyone he meets, "Where are the five knights?"  The look in an adolescent's eyes when he searches for his five knights is the question, "Where is it?"---the "it" always being only vaguely defined.  A youth has had his first glimpse of meaning and value in the form of the five-ness of life and he searches throughout most of his adult life for experiences that will embody this quality.  The number five implies the completion of life and is the root from which we form our word, quintessence, the fifth essence.  Five implies completion.  The five is everywhere, but elusively, also nowhere.  It seems cruel to flash a vision of completion to a sixteen-year-old boy and set him on the road to find embodiment of that quality.  But such is the motivation of any true spiritual life.

In his searching Parsifal comes to a tent.  He never had seen a tent before, for he had grown up in a simple hut.  The tent is the most magnificent place he has ever seen, so he presumes he has come to the divine cathedral of his mother's stories.  He bursts into the tent to worship and finds a fair damsel.  This is the first of a glittering, dazzling, incomprehensible array of fair damsels whom Parsifal will meet.

Parsifal remembers his mother's instructions to treat women fairly.  He also remembers not to ask too many questions.  He proceeds to cherish the fair maiden by embracing her and taking the ring from her finger as a talisman from her.  This will be his inspiration for the rest of his life.

Have you ever seen a boy on his first date?  He is always Parsifal blundering into the fair damsel's tent for the first time.

Parsifal had been told by his mother that he would have all the nourishment, all the food that he would need for his life in God's church, and it is all there before him in the form of a table set for a banquet.  The damsel is waiting for her beloved knight, who is courting her, and she has spread out her best for him.  But to Parsifal this is prophesy working out perfectly; here is God's temple, here is the fair damsel, here is everything he could wish to eat.  Everything is just as his mother said it would be.  Parsifal sits down to eat at the table and find that life is good.

The damsel by this time is becoming aware that she is in the presence of an extraordinary person.  She is not angry for she sees that before her is a truly holy, simple, guileless person.  She implores Parsifal to leave immediately because if her knight comes and finds him in the tent Parsifal will be killed.

Parsifal obeys the maiden and leaves her tent.  He finds that life is good just as his mother had taught him.

The Red Knight

Parsifal asks everyone he finds how he may become a knight.  He is informed that he should go to Arthur's Court where he will be knighted by the King if he is strong and brave enough.

He finds his way to Arthur's Court where he is laughed out of the great hall for his naiveté, the look of his homespun garment, and his rashness at asking to be knighted.  He is told that knighthood is an arduous life and that to be made a knight is an honor won only after much valor and noble work.  Parsifal asks again and again until finally he is brought before King Arthur himself.  Arthur, a kindly man, doesn't scorn Parsifal but tells him he must learn a great deal and be versed in all the knightly arts of battle and courtliness before he can be knighted.

Now there is in Arthur's Court a damsel who has not smiled nor laughed for six years.  The legend in the Court is that when the best knight in the world appears, the damsel who has not smiled for six years will burst into laughter.  The instant this damsel sees Parsifal, she bursts into laughter and joy.  The Court is mightily impressed with this; apparently the best knight in the world has appeared!  Here is this naive youth, this boy in a homespun garment, completely untutored, and the maiden is laughing.  Extraordinary!

Until the Parsifal part of a man's nature appears, there is a feminine part of him that has never smiled, that is incapable of happiness, and she bursts into laughter and joy at the sight of Parsifal.  If one can awaken the Parsifal in a man, another quality in him immediately becomes happy.  When the court sees the doleful maiden laughing they treat Parsifal more seriously and King Arthur knights him then and there!

I had an experience of this recently.  A man came to my office in tears, caught in the darkness of life.  It was difficult to talk with him as he could see nothing but the dread of life.  So I told him old tales and drew him into taking part in the stories.  I drew out the Parsifal in him and found his childlike quality.  Soon he was laughing and the maiden in him who hadn't known joy for six years burst forth.  Then he had energy and courage to bring to his cheerless life.  The awakening of Parsifal in a man constellates energy in him and he can function again.

Parsifal returns to Arthur and says, "I have a request.  I want the horse and the armor of the Red Knight."  Everyone laughs uproariously because there has not been a knight in King Arthur's Court strong enough to stand up to the Red Knight.  Arthur too laughs and says, "You have my permission.  You may have the horse and armor of the Red Knight---if you can get it."

As Parsifal leaves Arthur's court he is met at the door by the Red Knight.  This wonderful being is strong enough to do as he wishes without fear, for no one in the court can oppose him.  He had taken the silver cup, the Chalice, and no one was strong enough to stop him.  As the last insult, he had thrown a flagon of wine in Queen Guenevere's face.

Parsifal is dazzled by the Red Knight with his red armor, his scarlet tunic, his horse's trappings, and all the stuff of knighthood.  Parsifal stops the Red Knight and asks for his armor.  The Red Knight is amused by the young fool before him and with a guffaw replies, "Fine, if you can get it."

The two square off, as knights are wont to do, and have a brief battle in which Parsifal is knocked ignominiously to the ground.  But as he lies there he throws his dagger at the Red Knight and kills him by a wound in the eye.  This is the only killing Parsifal commits and represents a very important part in the development of a young man.  Esther Harding, in her book 'Psychic Energy,' discusses at length the evolution of psychic energy from the stage of instinct to the stage of ego-controlled energy.  In the moment that Parsifal kills the Red Knight, he relocates a very large sum of energy from the Red Knight, that is, instinct, to himself, as ego.  One can say this is the moment when he leaves adolescence and becomes a man.  A further development is required of him when he again relocates this sum of energy from the ego to the self or to that center of gravity which is greater than any personal life.  But that story is for later in the myth.

Parsifal subdues many knights in his career but none are killed.  He extracts a promise from each knight he conquers that he will go to the Court of King Arthur and put himself in the service of that noble King.  This is the cultural process operating in a man in the middle section of his life where he conquers one center of energy after another and puts them under the control of the Noble King.  This is truly the process of nobility in a man's life and is the highest good for that middle section of his career.

No explanation is given for the killing of the Red Knight.  It gives pause for thought if one examines what might have happened in our Western Culture if the Red Knight had been sent to serve at Arthur's Court rather than being killed.  A study of the teachings of India give an alternative way of coping with the Red Knight energy in us.  These teachings prescribe that one reduce the duality between Good and Evil in one's life---and thus reduce the power of the Red Knight---rather than kill that energetic quality and attach it to the ego.  But our western way is to go the heroic path and to vanquish---by killing or conquering---and find victory in this way.

The victory over the Red Knight may happen outwardly or inwardly in a young man's life.  The two ways are equally effective.  If he is to follow an outer path, as most do, he must overcome some great obstacle.  Many a Red Knight victory takes place on the playing field in competition or in some feat of endurance or in winning a victory of some other sort.

One of the bitter dimensions of life is that winning is generally at the cost of another's loss.  Perhaps this is the Red Knight killing.  Victory seems sweetest in the presence of another who has lost.  This may be inherent in masculinity or it may be a phase of evolution which will one day be surmounted.  At present, subduing the Red Knight is fierce and bloody.

There is an inner dimension possible for Red Knighting; a boy may conquer a rough or rude sum of energy inside himself, overcome a bully or a clever cheat within.  This is equally effective in making the transition from boy to man.  This is native language to the introverts of our society.

If the Red Knight battle goes badly, either inwardly or outwardly, that sum of energy will go rampant in the personality and emerge as a bully, a vandal, or an angry young man.  It can also take the form of the beaten and defeated shy man.

The Red Knight is the shadow side of masculinity, the negative, potentially destructive power.  To truly become a man the shadow personality must be struggled with, but it cannot be repressed.  The boy must not repress his aggressiveness since he needs the masculine power of his Red Knight shadow to make his way through the mature world.

Parsifal now owns the Red Knight's armor and his horse, for in those days to conquer was to own.  This is to say that the Red Knight energy is now under Parsifal's control and is his to use.

He tries to put on the Red Knight's wonderful armor but he has never before seen anything so complicated as a buckle and he can not manage the armor.  A page who came out of Arthur's Court to see what the battle was about assists Parsifal in the mysteries of buckles and such complicated things of chivalry.  The page urges Parsifal to take off his awful one-piece homespun garment, which is unbefitting a knight.  But Parsifal refuses and clings to the one-piece garment given to him by his mother.  This is to have serious repercussions later and it will take all our powers of comprehension to see what is implied in this clinging to the mother's garment.  Parsifal puts the armor on over his homespun garment and rides away.  What boy does not impose his newfound knighthood over his mother complex?  The stern stuff of chivalry works very badly when it only covers a mother-complexed man.  One more mystery remains; though he can get his horse started, no one has ever taught him how to stop it.  He rides all day until both horse and rider stop in sheer exhaustion.  Have you some memory of a project you began in your early youth which started easily enough but stopping it eluded you?

Gournamond

Parsifal then discovers Gournamond, a godfather.  A godfather is such a boon to a boy at the time he is turning into a man!  One's own father has probably worn out or the communication has grown thin about the time a boy reaches adolescence.  He is far from independent but he is also too proud to go to his father with intimate matters.  It is a rare house-hold today where intimacy still happens between father and adolescent son.  At this moment the boy needs a godfather, the man who will continue to train him after his father has lost contact with him.  Gournamond is the archetypal godfather and spends a year training Parsifal in the ways of knighthood.

Gournamond teaches Parsifal information vital to attaining manhood; he must never seduce or be seduced by a fair maiden and he must search for the Grail castle with all his might.  Specifically, he is to ask a certain question, "Whom does the Grail serve?" when he reaches the Grail castle.  What would knighthood be worth if it were not for this noble end?  Both of these instructions from Gournamond are worthy of discussion and will soon find their place in our narrative.

After these instructions Parsifal suddenly remembers his mother and goes in search of her again.  Perhaps we can stand only so much of masculinity before we need to be in contact with feminine mother energy again.

So off he goes to hunt for his mother.  He finds that soon after he left her, she died of a broken heart.  You remember her name was Heart's Sorrow, which is part of motherhood.  Naturally, Parsifal feels dreadfully guilty about his mother's death, but it is also part of his masculine development.  No son ever develops into manhood without, in some way, being disloyal to his mother.  If he remains with her, to comfort her and console her, then he never gets out of his mother complex.  Often a mother will do all she can to keep her son with her.  One of the most subtle ways is to encourage in him the idea of being loyal to her; but if he gives in to her completely then she often finds herself with a son severely injured in his masculinity.  The son must ride off and leave his mother, even if it appears to mean disloyalty, and the mother must bear this pain.  Later, like Parsifal, the son may come back to the mother and they may find a new relationship, on a new level; but this can only be done after the son has first achieved his independence and transferred his affection to a woman, either in an 'interior' way with his own inner feminine side or in an 'exterior' way with a real female companion of his own age.  In our myth, Parsifal's mother died when he left.  Perhaps she represents the kind of woman who can only exist as mother, who dies when this role is taken from her because she does not understand how to be an individual woman, but only a "mother."

Blanche Fleur

Many people set forth on their journeys through life in good faith but with very little psychological understanding of why they are going on that particular journey or of where it might take them.  Sometimes they do have an intended goal but fail to achieve that goal.  Often fate will serve them unexpectedly and a far deeper purpose may be accomplished.  So it is with Parsifal's search for his mother.  He finds, instead, Blanche Fleur---which means "White Flower"---and comes into awareness of the highest motivation of his life before the grail encounter.  Blanche Fleur is in distress and her castle is under siege.  She implores Parsifal to rescue her kingdom.  Obeying that profound law, "A man knows not his strength until it is needed," he frees her domain of the intruders.  He does this by searching out the second in command of the besieging army, dueling heroically with him, sparing his life at the last moment, and sending him in fealty to the court of King Arthur.  He repeats this with the first in command.  We are seeing the first of a long series of encounters that will add to the fellowship of the round table.

This is a poetic way of describing the process Dr. Jung speaks of as "relocating the center of gravity of the personality," a careful and highly conscious process of drawing from the untamed pool of masculine energy and adding to the conscious center of the personality, which is here represented by King Arthur and his round table.  No endeavor is more noble or heroic than this ideal in the first half of one's life.

It is in the service of Blanche Fleur that Parsifal performs his heroic task; she is his lady fair and the carrier of inspiration, the very core of heroic action, for everything Parsifal accomplishes.  It is not by accident that it was the mother-search which led the blundering Parsifal to she-who-will-inspire, truly the animating principle of life.  It is a moment of poetic beauty to find what Dr. Jung called this inspirer in a man's bosom, the Anima, she who animates and is the fountain of life in the heart of man.  Blanche Fleur, indeed, deserves her name.

Her conduct in the rest of the story would be bitterly disappointing if one were to consider her a flesh-and-blood woman; for all she does is remain in her castle as a symbol of inspiration or perhaps a talisman of affection---when Parsifal occasionally comes dashing back for a moment of her beauty and trust.  But taken as that interior feminine, deep in the heart of a man, she is the very core of inspiration and meaning.  A rose from her hand or a glance of approval is sufficient to provide motive and strength for the most heroic of deeds.  Though this is couched in medieval terms and is encased in the stuff of chivalry, it is no less present in the most modern of men.

After raising the siege from her castle, Parsifal returns to spend one night with Blanche Fleur.  We are given a detailed account of how they slept together in the most intimate embrace---head to head, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, knee to knee, toe to toe.  But the embrace was chaste and worthy of the knight's vow that he never seduce or be seduced by a fair maiden; a vow he must keep if he is to win a vision of the Grail.

Many inner truths are shorn of their true power by being transposed to a level inconsistent with their power and depth.  Viewing the virgin birth of Christ as only a historical event will blur the sight of a vital law which is needed when you are called upon to make that interior mating of the human soul with the Divine Spirit which is the true genesis of one's individuality.

Much of our religious heritage is a map or set of instructions for the deepest meaning of our interior life, not a set of laws for outer conduct.  To relate to our religious teaching only in its literal dimension is to lose its spiritual meaning.  This dimension of materialism is far more harmful than much of what is usually condemned under that dark name.