The Grail land is essentially the British Isles, the land or dowry of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Vessel or Holy Grail. However, the legends of the Holy Grail extend beyond Britain and into Western Europe, especially France. They are connected with Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur.

In the first instance Joseph, who in Christian legend is the first guardian of the Holy Grail, when in Britain passes the Holy Grail onto Bron (or Bran), a Celtic king who becomes the first Grail king. He later takes the Holy Grail into France. This Holy Grail is associated both with the cup used at the Last Supper and also with Joseph’s daughter who married Bron. In the second instance King Arthur (whose legendary person is comprised of several historical persons merged as one) extends his kingdom into France and Western Europe, taking on the role of emperor of the Western Roman Empire for a brief few years.

In both these ways the original Grail land became associated with a large part of Western Europe and can be known under the designation of the Grail Land of Europe. Underlying the Grail Land of Europe is a landscape temple of unique significance in the world, whose geomantic spine (the Grail Line) stretches from the Golfe du Lion in the south to the Assynt/Cape Wrath area of northern Scotland.

The Grail Line forms the main axis of the central pentagonal geometry of the Taurean face of a Planetary Dodecahedron, the geometric matrix of the Planetary Light Body. The greater part of the pentagram of this central area more or less defines that part of Europe most involved with the Arthurian and Grail legends.

The root chakra of the Grail Line and Grail Land lies in the Golfe du Lion. Its nearest land focus is at Les-Saintes-Maries de-la-Mer, which clearly marks and acknowledges the chakric function. Le Puy de Dome near Clermont Ferrand marks the sacral, Chartres the solar plexus, London the heart, Great Whernside the throat, Edinburgh the brow and Ben More Assynt the crown chakra.

The hara of the Grail Land is Bourges, the heart of France and centre of the Taurean face of the Planetary Dodecahedron. The English Channel lies in the position of the etheric veil between the solar plexus and heart chakras (manifested in the human physical body as the diaphragm between abdomen and chest), such that the ‘abdomen’ of the Grail Land of Europe is clearly defined by the inner pentagon of the pentagram, and the 'chest' and ‘head’ by the northernmost triangle of the pentagram. This archetypal geometry works so strongly in the landscape that the very shape of France is more or less defined by the inner pentagon and that of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) by the northern triangle of the pentagram.

The original source of the Grail legends is in Britain, as part of British (Celtic) mythology. The Grail Land is the Grail Kingdom of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. Essentially Arthur and Guinevere are names for divine intelligencies— the sun-god and goddess—but have their manifest outworking in the lives of certain extraordinary people at extraordinary times. The Grail Land and its extension, the Grail Land of Europe, therefore have a historical, physical and geomantic reality as well as a metaphorical and spiritual one.

© Peter Dawkins