Chalice
/ Holy Grail
In Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the
cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. It was said
to have the power to heal all wounds. The Grail (Graal) was
a magic vessel that could heal and renew youth, and has mythological
roots that connect it to earlier Pagan fertility myths and
their related talismans along with the concept of a symbiotic
union between the king and the land. From this perspective,
like the Cauldron of Cerredwen, the Celtic Goddess, it is a
womb/chalice symbol related to the death/birth powers of the
great Goddess and Her blood.
The legend was that the Grail was brought to
Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Christ, when
he traveled to the
British Isles. In the Arthurian tales, a number of knights
undertook the quest to find the lost Grail. Some tell of knights
who succeeded, like Percivale or the virginal Galahad; others
tell of knights who failed to find the mystic Grail because
of flaws or impurities within them, like Lancelot. The fate
of the Holy Grail is unknown was ultimately unknown, perhaps
being withdrawn from the world because of it‘s increasing
corruption (and myth logically speaking, with the continuing
diminishment of the Goddess). Ownership of the Grail has been
attributed to the Knights Templar, among other secret societies;
other stories claim that the Grail is to be found deep in the
spring at Glastonbury Tor, which ironically was once a spring
sacred to the Celtic Goddess Bridgit, after whom the British
Isles were named.
Chalice
Well
The
design on the wrought iron lid of the Chalice Well at Glastonbury
is called "Vesica Piscis". The Chalice Well is
the site of a very ancient, prehistoric sacred well; in later
times it was believed to be the hiding place of the Holy
Grail. According to legend this was also the Sacred Well
of Avalon, home of the Priestesses of the Great Goddess of
earlier, pre-Christian times; sacred to Bridgit, in whose
honor Great Britain was named.
The
design is comprised of two overlapping circles which intersect
to form the outline of a fish - an early Christian symbol
- or, when side by side, the vulva shape associated with
the Goddess. The Vesica Piscis is a fitting symbol in that
land, and time, where worlds intersect, where an experience
of the grace of the transcendent God and the Sacred mysteries
of the embodied Goddess come together.
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