HEARTSTONE

Surrender, the Price of Love and Enlightenment

- Lancelot, and the Knight of the Cart -

Lancelot's conception of love in the tale, "The Knight of the Cart," is centered in the analogy of a heart rushing in "where angels fear to tread."  Nothing is too large a disgrace to endure or a tribulation to much to bear for his loves sake.  At the onset of his quest to retrieve Guinevere from harm, Lancelot agrees to ride within a cart, which to the community signified that this Knight had been dishonored and had committed an egregious deed.  Gawain states he will not be dishonored so and declines, but Lancelot knows that the cart driver knows where Guinevere is, so submits to undertake taunting from the community in hopes of finding his lady who has been taken away by a foreign prince.  Further without a thought of himself, Lancelot acquiesces to travel the almost impossible path but yet a faster path, on the Bridge of Swords, to rescue his lady love though it leaves his body bloody and injured.  But no thought does he pay to this, and though extremely injured, he does not dally with her rescue to recover from his injury, but instead speeds ahead to his hearts longing.  Thus like those who travel the path of true love and illumination, nothing shall be too great an effort to realize the truth. True and total surrender is required.

When Lancelot finds the Queen' s comb, he places the hair from it within his clothes to keep him steadfast, nearly swooning and bowing when he even hears a mention of her name.  Later Lancelot cares so little for honor that he is willing at Guinevere's will to win or loose at her command any Knightly contest he enters.  Lancelot does not behave according to "reasonable" conventions but to the conventions of a man completely given over and overcome with a love so strong that he does not succumb to esteem, inconvenience or personal agenda.  The implications of a love like this are that nothing but love and truth are sacred, and all worldly concerns must be surrendered for it. This in turn requires us to submit to a metaphorical death, a death of who or what we thought we were, a death ultimately to our story. For how can we be who we truly are if we do not surrender to the real beyond our foregone conclusions, and how can we not find the true blessing of the mystery without abandoning ourselves to it. Love and Enlightenment will extract their due. Love and Enlightenment will give us then the greatest of gifts, the real and the actual, and allow us to see the mystery of the Absolute behind the veil of God Man and God Woman.                                                      by Mari MacEwen