Our Knight, who had lived as though entombed in an eternal gloom…

 

 

…long had he wandered in the winter of his wasteland…

 

 

…trudging through the desolation, his erring steps inexorably betraying him more and more, he was at last brought to his knees by overwhelming grief.  As the winds of anguish howled through his chest, they blew upon the embers of his withering soul, kindling them within their blanket of ash.

 

 

In the dark before dawn, his wakened soul urged him from his slumbers, to venture into the chill darkness.  Clad against the cold, his guided footsteps led him to the hallowed lake, and there the rising sun revealed that still, after his long neglect, there was yet a path out of his frozen waste.

 

Henceforth the knight resolved to rise each day to greet the sun and secure what succor might be found in the promise of each new dawn, and to demonstrate to what gods there may be his commitment to his re-found path.

A faltering spring struggled against the grip of the relentless winter, as though the claws of cold might once more ensnare the world.  But the sun prevailed and the knight, rewarded for his faithfulness to his pledge,  was  charged with a quest –  to slay the shadows that lurked within his soul.

Thus the erring knight became the Knight-Errant.  Upon his quest he wandered the environs around the hallowed lake, undergoing adventures fantastic and extraordinary …until one day, sufficiently purged, the scales fell from his eyes and he saw in the rising sun  a vision of the Holy Grail…

 

 

And recalled his sullen poetry from his days of desolation..

“The sun shines upon the Moon,
The Moon shines upon the Water,
The Water shines upon Me.

A reflection of a reflection,
of a reflection of a reflection,
of That which shines within the Sun.

But I see only the reflection in the stream,
not the Moon that shines upon the Water
nor the Sun, that shines upon the Moon.
nor That which shines within the Sun.

A lost soul, a mere reflection,
bereft of my fount,
untethered from my Source.

So many layers of beauty to ponder,
Such sublime distances to travel,
to reach the Source of all that is.

Yet, in a moment,
in an instant,
we are there.”

 

Though he had yet to grasp the Grail and drink from its lips, this bear glimpse of its glory ignited the flame within his chest,  and once again he felt the Source that burns within the sun burn within his Soul.  And the light of the sun shone upon the face of the knight.

 

 

 

“And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”
― Joseph Campbell

 

“If you are falling…dive!”
― Joseph Campbell