After the Grail:
Asking the Right Question at the Right Time
by Karen Speerstra

Whatever name we attach to the Grail Hero: Gawain, Percival, Lancelot or Galahad, legend tells us he once went out to find the Grail. In most of the multitude of European Grail poems and stories, the chalice, cauldron or dish is kept safe by women. Or, as in the case of the Glastonbury story, is held by the Goddess of the Holy Well. So, it seems the feminine spirit holds the grail while the male spirit unrelentingly seeks it. When they unite, we find healing and spiritual renewal. Balance and spiritual integrity is restored.

The hero poses a grail question. According to Jessie L. Weston, Arthurian expert who died in 1928, the question was asked, not to actually heal the Fisher King and the land, that had already been laid waste, but before the destruction occurred. Asking the question precludes the destruction, rather than heals it after the fact.

The sickness, destruction and disaster comes if the question is not asked. Everything rides on the question.

What, then, was the Grail question? And is the question more important than the inquiry itself?

In some versions of this ancient archetypal story, the hero asks “What is the Grail?” In the prose version called Perceval, however, he asks, “Whom does it serve?”

The French compiler of the Perlesvaus puts it this way:

“A great sorrow has recently been brought on the land by a young knight who was welcomed as a guest by the rich Fisher King. To him appeared the Holy Grail and the lance with angry blood welling from its point. He did not ask whom it served or whence it came, and because he did not ask this, all the lands are stirred up to war and no knight meets another in the forest without striking him down and killing him if he can.” (Potvin, Vol. 1 p. 15)

We stand today watching 21st century knights meeting one another in forests and deserts and cities. We watch them striking each other down and killing each other if they can. We see innocent bystanders to this drama being swept along in angry blood.

What, then, is our grail question? And dare we be moved to ask it before the kingdom of Earth is wounded beyond repair?

Karen Speerstra is a World Café Pioneer who lives and writes in Vermont.