🎧 What Ails Thee? The Question Every Writer Must Ask

From Arthurian legend to your next breakthrough: How one ancient story can transform your writing

An Exclusive Writing Lab on living in the questions and the mysteries of life, plus with a prompt that taps into the “last myth”

Welcome into Flight School:

When I was a younger woman, I worked with Joanna Macy at the Land of Medicine Buddha Retreat Center. Among many profound teachings, she shared what she called "the last myth" - The Fisher King. Today, I'll share my version, one that speaks directly to writers.

The Seed Story

Once upon a time, a knight in training named Percival was nearly ready to take his place at the round table of King Arthur but still needed to perform an important act of bravery (slay a dragon, save a princess, that kind of thing).

Percival decided it was time to get this job done, tugged on his chainmail, mounted his equally armored horse and left his cozy kingdom.

Searching for his heroic opportunity, Percival rode and rode and kept on riding until he arrived at a kingdom amid profound devastation. Fields fallow. Air fetid with death and disease. Houses boarded and closed tight.

Percival was chilled to the core. Maybe I should move on? he thought. But the castle lifted and all manner of folk rushed out to greet him with joy and applause.

“Finally,” they called. “Finally, you have come,” because it had long been prophesied that a man of this description would save them.

Percival was touched. These cooks and maids and stable boys were so welcoming and earnest. Okay, he thought, it’s late. I’ll stay a while.

His horse was led away to the stables and fed precious reserves of oats, grain, and sweet hay, and Percival was given the best room in the place and fed a grand meal made from more of the precious reserves of meat, cheese, bread, and wine.

Finally, Percival was taken to meet the king who lay in his bed near death from a festering wound in his thigh. Ought to get a doctor to look at that, Percival thought, scratching his temple, but he kept such thoughts to himself. Instead, he tsk-tsked and shook his head. And that was that.

Filled up and ready for a good night of sleep in his cozy room, Percival turned in, thinking how it sucked to be these people in this terrible place. Soon enough, he fell asleep. 

The next day, Percival enjoyed another terrific meal prepared with great care, though the servants now looked a little askance at him. Feeling awkward, Percival clapped for his horse, mounted up, and rode off.

Percival had vowed not to return before performing some great and worthy feat. All the people of his kingdom knew this and so, when he trotted into town, he was given a Knight-of-the-Round-Table welcome, followed by a blowout party, and a knighting ceremony before his adoring fans. Just as the blade was being lowered to this shoulder, a voice cried out, “Wait one damn minute!”

Out from the crowd stepped an old hag with her pendulous breasts a-swinging and her wild crazed hair sticking out this way and that. The woman pointed a gnarled finger at Percival and told his entire story from start to finish.

“This man is no hero,” she said to the stunned onlookers. “He did nothing.”

(Poor Percival, I always feel sorry for him at this moment. I mean, come on, the guy hadn’t meant to be such an insensitive cad, he was merely out of his depth, and now he’d been busted in front of his fellow knights, his king, and the lovely maidens he might one day woo. This was bad…what would Percival do? But the answer is right there in the fact he is a knight-in-training.)

Percival, the good man, stepped up to the challenge as he had been taught. “All right. All right,” he said to the old woman. “What was I supposed to do?”

What a look she gave him then. It was a long, weary, pitying look as old as dust. “You needed to ask the key question,” she said, in a low and solemn voice.

“Which is?” Percival asked.

The crowd collectively inhaled and leaned that much closer to the pair.

“What ails thee, you fool,” the wise woman said. “You needed to ask ‘What ails thee?’”

There is much more but for our purposes, let’s stop. We now have plenty to get started.

Why This Matters for Writers

Writing can be profoundly lonely because we venture into dark places within. As Carl Jung wrote, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious."

Here's what the Fisher King teaches us about writing:

• We are each a kingdom, rich with talents and wounds

• The hero we seek isn't outside - it's our own brave, questioning self

• The wise hag represents our truth-telling voice, beyond society's expectations

• The key question - "What ails thee?" - opens doors to deeper storytelling

Your Writing Journey Begins Here

When you're ready to write memoir, the question becomes deeply personal: "What ails me?" This is true in fiction, too, because in the end, you are also writing about yourself just in a different way.

Bottom-line, this isn't about quick fixes or easy answers. It's about allowing your writing to emerge from a place of genuine questioning and humility.

✍️ Your Turn:

Take a moment with the question "What ails me?" Let it simmer. What bubbles up? Share what emerges in the comments - I'd love to hear your first thoughts.

As for me, and attending Macy’s retreat, the day it ended a group of us gathered inside the hollow trunk of a redwood burned hollow by a lightning strike. A woman laid her phone on the ground and set a timer on the camera. A moment later, the photo taken, we all hummed a mantra we had learned. It was silly, but we did it and a second photo was taken (likely on a longer timer).

What struck us, after looking at the photographs, wasn’t that we were mostly chins and nostrils in shadows, but that the air in the first one seemed to be floating with random bits of dust. In the second photo that air had shifted to become a series of blue orbs.

Blue orbs?

What?

It was magical and strange and couldn’t be explained. Through our mantra, had we managed to manifest blue Medicine Buddha orbs? Or maybe it was a symbol of our beautiful planet refracted back to us? Or maybe it was just a trick of the light? Who knows? Who knows? I live the questions though. I live the mystery. And I’m fine with that.

~ Jennifer 🐦‍⬛