In The Quest of the Holy Grail the story is told of how King Arthur and his knights were seated at the Round Table when, to their amazement, the Holy Grail appeared, covered by a cloth and carried by angels.
When the vision of the Chalice withdrew King Arthur’s nephew, Sir Gawain, stood up and said, ‘I propose that we should all vow to go in pursuit of the Grail to behold it unveiled.’
We then read how the knights felt it would be cowardly to go as a group, so ‘each entered the forest that he had chosen where there was no path and where it was darkest’.
And so it is for us. Though often in life there appears to be no path and the way seems very dark, that is the way one must go. Each of us has to set out on his or her journey alone – comforted perhaps by the knowledge that on the way we may encounter others travelling in the same direction.
I have been reflecting much on this because of a recent visit to Salisbury where I directed a production of 84 Charing Cross Road and stayed in a cottage owned by the former stage designer of the Salisbury Theatre. He told me how he had been a designer for some years when one day, seated on a hill, he thought, ‘Do I want to go on churning out a new set every three weeks for the rest of my life?’ and then into his head came the word ‘Soil’. At that moment he resigned from his post at the theatre and became a jobbing gardener, cycling to work and tending some twenty or more gardens, earning a modest amount each week. He is one of the most contented and happy people I have ever met, simply because, to use the famous phrase of Joseph Campbell, he has been able to ‘follow his bliss’.
At the end of one’s life it is not a question of how successful or wealthy I may have become, but did I become the person I was meant to be? So many young people are pressured by parents to play safe, to become a lawyer, an accountant, a dentist, when all that they really want to be, and know they should be, is, perhaps, a jobbing gardener!
