Image description: A hand holds The Fool Tarot card by Pamela Colman Smith from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in front of a jade plant and a window where dead orange leaves can be seen in and around the window. The card depicts a character in front of a yellow background standing on the edge of a cliff with a travel bag slung over their shoulder, a white rose in their hand and a little white dog on hind legs at their feet. There are snow capped mountains in the distance.
For many reasons which may someday change, I don’t write much publicly about my childhood or family of origin. What I will say is I have an intimate relationship with wounds that don’t heal and unsolvable problems. I don’t necessarily mean problems for which solutions don’t exist, as much as I mean that what solutions do exist are not accessible.
And while it’s likely true that we all have wounds that don’t heal and problems that will never be solved, I call my relationship to these things intimate for the fact of my continual asking. My permanent quest for understanding, incessant meaning-making, and curiosity, which is at times the killing kind.
Meaning-making is a spiritual practice for me in that it’s a small “I” linking up with something greater. I’ve been reflecting on what it means that I’ve spent two years reading, writing about, and telling the grail legend. The grail legend is a story about healing. And it’s a story about healing that happens in a very specific way: A person arrives and asks the perfect question to someone who is unwell.