The Grail King Serves the Holy Grail
A Little Encyclical for my Goddess Daughters – October, 2008
My Dearest Darling God(dess) Daughter –
Have you come across the work of Byron Katie, simply called “The Work”? What fascinating, mind-blowing, rock-your-socks off thinking! What a radical approach to getting our lives back into a happy and healthy place, no matter what is going on! (Thank you, Maha Najeeb , for loaning me a CD set of Byron’s talks. Fabulous!)
Byron elicits breakthroughs in people by asking a series of simple questions, such as, “Do you really believet that? ” and “How can you know this is really so?” My favorite question is the “turn-around”, where she encourages someone to flip a belief on its end. So for example, someone might realize that instead of asserting “He should accept me the way that I am,” she might say “I should accept him the way that he is,” and even, “I should accept me the way that I am.”
Now let’s apply this very same wonderful process to one of the greatest tenets of our esoteric tradition. This is important. Even though our “esoteric tradition” holds the greatest “wisdom” available in our culture, this “wisdom” has been systematically eroded by about four thousand years of devaluing the Sacred Feminine, and exalting the Masculine. (Think “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” — where is the feminine in this concept of God?)
One of the most common elements in our esoteric tradition is told in the Knights of King Arthur legends — knights who pledged themselves to a sacred quest, to finding the Holy Grail. The idea was that when a knight came upon the resolution to his quest, he was to ask “Whom does the Grail serve?”. The answer, as we all know, was supposed to be “The Grail serves the Grail King.”. This answer would have freed the wounded Fisher King (wounded because he allowed himself to be led astray be a woman), and would allow the nation to be healed.
The tip-offs here are two-fold. First, blame for the “wasteland” of the kingdom is intrinsically placed on the archetypal woman, who seduced the Fisher King away from his duties. This is right in the center of the four-thousand year old tradition of blaming women. Second, the answer points to placingf the chalice, the Holy Grail, to service of a masculine ego — that of the “Grail King.”
Hasn’t this always felt to you as though something was missing, or incomplete?
Think about this. We know that men live through their ego. Their opportunity to evolve, to become more than themselves, is when they can submit their egos to a higher virtue. So if the Holy Grail, the greatest spiritual treasure of our planet, is to serve the Grail King, how does that really help him?
Let’s do the Byron Katie thing. Let’s turn this around. Let’s say:
The Grail King serves the Holy Grail.
Be with this for a moment. How does it feel? Doesn’t it, in some odd sense, feel more right to you?
Doesn’t this feel that there might be something here that has been lost, but that we’ve been longing for, and missing? Something that really makes sense at a very deep level?
If it does, read on. Because this is where we make this insight practical.
We women personify and embody the “Holy Grail.”
That’s right.
The “Holy Grail” is not just about the blood of Christ, or even the blood-line of Jesus. The “Holy Grail” is a chalice that contains divine energy — life-force energy — and that is what we women have in our bodies.
Let’s go beyond (basic) Western esoteric tradition to the broader range of traditions; the ones that know about cultivating and using personal energy; the energy that is called “chi” in kung fu and Taoist studies, and “prana” in yoga.
In Taoist energy-practice, women cultivate a special, “condensed” form of this energy, called “ching”. We store it in our “inner cauldron,” set right in our pelvic girdle. The essence of much Taoist energy tradition — and the deepest levels of both Tantra and Western esoteric tradition — is that we can learn to cultivate and use this energy. We use it for health, for energy, and to shape our reality. This really, really IS “life-force energy.”
Men need women as the source, or holders, of this energy. They have their own, yes, but the deepest level comes through accessing the energy that only women can hold. (We ARE the “Holy Grail.”)
Please keep in mind — this is VERY important — that when we choose to share our energy with a man, or use it in any way — this is not and should not be our own, “personal” energy reserve. Instead, we ourselves access a “universal” life-force energy, and simply channel it up and hold it and circulate it through our bodies. And we release it however and in whatever direction we choose. And when we do so, we are by no means depleting our “personal reserve”. (If we’re doing this right.)
So our job — for those of us participating in a women’s esoteric body/energy practice — is to learn how to access, store, and circulate this energy. If we choose to share this energy with another person, then we are acting as “Shakti,” or as an embodiment of the feminine aspect of divinity.
This all may sound massively esoteric (it is), and maybe a bit difficult. But this practice is not so out-of-reach.
Nor should it be that unfamiliar.
There are now many translations of formerly obscure esoteric works. We are able to learn how many different cultures have studied and dealt with this very same practice. (As two obvious examples, Mantak and Manaween Chia’s book, “Cultivatiing Female Sexual Energy,” is an extremely precise and detailed technical how-to book for doing exactly this process. And from another tradition, we can study kundalini yoga at the McLean Community Center, just a couple of miles away from this dance studio. In short, the information and teachings are all around us.
What we are doing in our Studio is something new; it makes us unique and different. In fact, we are (to my knowledge) the only place in the world where this is being done. (I’m sure that there are others; as they become known to us; we’ll link to them.)
We combine two ancient traditions. On the one hand, we learn how to dance. We learn the most ancient, beautiful, sensual, and expressive dance form in the world. One that is absolutely and intrinsically a feminine art form. On the other hand, we learn how to cultivate, bring up, access, and use our intrinsic “life-force” energy, or “ching.”
We then combine these two practices, yielding a (for this time-era) new art form. We have taken the (rather boring) mechanics of basic energy work, and encapsulated them within a dance form that allows us extraordinary emotional expressive range.
The end result is the most powerful, energy-rich, exciting art form in the world — one that is intrinsically suited to feminine energy, feminine sensibilities, and feminine strengths. This not only helps us look and feel sensual, gorgeous, and absolutely fantastic, but it allows us a very real and practical means to channel energy, and use it to shape reality according to our intentions. (Sharing this energy with someone else is optional.)
In short, we are re-capturing, re-claiming, and (since there are no text-books or traditions at hand) re-inventing the most powerful esoteric feminine body-art in the world. Truly, we are creating “Jedi for Women.” We are learning how to access and use “The Force.” (It’s just that we’re using it in a feminine context, rather than a masculine / warrior one. Just as powerful, but for us, much more pleasant!)
Join me. We’re learning and practicing this every week, right here in McLean, Virginia. And having a whole lot of fun in the process!
Yours in joyous, ecstatic, energy-rich and wonderful dance – Alay’nya