This is a reflective post which I’d like to start by noting that the fisher king I am referring to is that of the Film and not of legend. Although it encroaches on the legend too as we shall see. Here is what wiki says about the film…
Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges), who is a cynical, arrogant shock jock talk radio host, becomes suicidally despondent after his insensitive on-air comments inadvertently prompt a depressed caller to commit multiple murders at a popular Manhattan bar. Three years later, while heavily intoxicated and depressed, he attempts suicide. Before he can do so, he is mistaken for a homeless person and is attacked and nearly set on fire by ruffians. He is rescued by Parry (Robin Williams), a deluded homeless man who is on a mission to find the Holy Grail, and tries to convince Jack to help him. Jack is initially reluctant, but comes to feel responsible for Parry when he learns that the man’s condition is a result of witnessing his wife’s horrific murder at the hands of Jack’s psychotic caller. Parry is also continually haunted by a hallucinatory Red Knight, who terrifies him whenever he shows any confidence.
My point of connection with this film is the line “… a deluded homeless man who is on a mission to find the Holy Grail…” and here is where it gets tricky. Question…”Am I deluded man who is on a knights quest?” An answer might be that, if so at least I know that I am delusional, right?
Rather than looking for evidence to support my delusional state, let me go about looking for evidence to the contrary. The story so far…
- Imbolc of 2011 and I am given a quest to seek 9 blue keys that will lead me along the quest to becoming a knight.
- The first blue key is to be found in New York. A place I have never been too and although I would like to go had no intention at that time to visit.
- The second blue key was to gain “strength of arm” and my lack of pursuing this was rewarded by two lessons.
- The third was to create a knights crest
- The fourth, to find a place to fly this flag from.
- The fifth key is to create a Knights Code and live by it.
- Then I find that the book I am writing is representative of the “holy grail”.
All these episodes and a few in between are related in the posts on this blog. Throughout this quest an ever present force has been Cailleach, a goddess entity/force from the old religion.
Okay…one has to ask, is this all a delusion or is there something in it? First of all, let me say that every, and I mean every avenue that I have pursued on this quest has led to dividends. One might have expected that one or two might have been dead ends but no. Every one. Example please you say, ok.
I was Tintagel Castle one weekend and doing a meditation at the top of the cliff. I was visited by Cailleach and given a gift. She said I would find it at the bottom of the waterfall.So I clambered down the steps to the base of the waterfall and in the midst of many children and adults, sparkling in the afternoon sun was a double hand sized lump of glittering quartz in the wake of the waterfall.
It so caught my eye and I knew it had to be the “gift” but what really got me was, why hadn’t anybody taken it already? I carried that crystal around with me all that day and on the couple of occasions when I stepped away from it people wanted to pick it up and walk off with it.
That is just a sample of the kind of thing I am talking about. On a note about the New York visit. Not being a one to stand aside from such quests I took it upon myself to visit that city and wow! Talk about a synchronistic event filled 2 weeks. Not only that but as you may know, the film, The Fisher King was filmed in Manhattan and the “castle” wherein the Holy Grail was housed was across the other side of Central Park from my location. Did I go and explore it? Of course.
So much has happened to me with regards to this quest that I am going to lay the ghost of the Fisher King to rest here. Frankly I don’t care anymore whether it is reality or fantasy. As Gwas and I learned, what seems now so many moons ago. There is only one truth, a personal one. And this quest is one of the truest things in my life at the moment.
Kal Malik Knight Errant
