“Simply Cross the Bridge…”
I’m going to brutalize this one, I’m afraid. It’s been years since I’ve read the stories…
The Fisher King figures in the Arthurian legend as the latest in line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Stories vary, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin, and incapable of moving on his own. Injured, his kingdom suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to barren waste. There is little left for him to do but fish in the river near his castle. Knights travel from distant lands to heal the Fisher King, but only the chosen can accomplish the feat.
Percival, the young fool, was unwittingly the only one able to heal the Fisher King, if he would ‘simply cross the bridge and go to the right.’ Young, invincible and seduced by a world unexplored, he rejects the sage advice and abandons the chance to bring wholeness to the King once more, healing the land in the selfsame act.
A great deal of life happens, and many years later, Percival encounters once again the Sage who invited him in his youth to ‘simply cross the bridge and go to the right.’ This time, at the midsummer of his life, he chooses the correct path, healing not only the Fisher King, but himself as well. His story has come full circle.
Why this story:
The first time around, I took the wrong fork in the road. Like most men do. In some sense, like every man must do. It’s the archetypal fork in the road at critical points in the life of every man, intersecting the story of each in two places: at the threshold of young manhood or, failing that, again later in life…offering once again the chance to do the very simple and yet very profound.
If the correct path is taken at the first opportunity, the die is cast and the young man matures into Who He Was Born To Be. If not, a lifetime of learning begins and the heart goes into a dormancy until Life, demanding its Way, orchestrates the offer once more, most often at life’s midsummer. If the man has gained wisdom and humility enough to choose wisely, he ‘simply crosses the bridge and goes to the right,’ (symbolizing how easy and close it had been all along). If at this point the man refuses, the bridge disappears and the young fool comes full forward, fully exposed. In our vernacular, this is mid-life crisis.
In the last two weeks, I and a friend, engineered an arena in which to test the mettle of six young men, my eldest son among them. More than just physical training, we mean to afford them something far more compelling: a chance to cross the bridge and go to the right. A chance to begin to align their heads and their hearts with their budding physiques—and see if we can’t begin intentionally threading together a very strong fabric.
My attention is arrested because I’m certain I’ve seen Alpha Male, interiorly, where it most matters, choose the correct fork in the road.
So. If there’s anything more gratifying, more healing, than seeing your child avoid some (some) of the mistakes you made, I’m rather at a loss as to what it is. And, at the moment, I’m sort of intoxicated with the notion that child-rearing really can turn into child-raising…which really can transform into kingcraft. So, once again (my apologies), we’re not about making ordinary men.
Here’s to the young men in the arena and the man taking them to the edge.
One of the most touching, self-revealing post you’ve ever written…I can pipcture myself in that bridge, I can feel the thrill, watch the many mistakes, the fear and the time that has passed and taht is going through…And it is extraordinare.
You’re proud of your boy because you’re watching right now what he could turn out to be. That secret ability of yours… I hope, just hope…,and I’ll be glad.
And I’m touched. Thank for the posts but, above all, thank you for this one.