11
A Cricket in My
Window
Another Message from the Language of
Life
That Our Own Life Is the Way
When
it happens, it’s for a reason that goes to the core of one’s being; and as much
as I tried to not see it, my unconscious brought it to light by way of a
synchronistic experience that I could not help but acknowledge. Synchronicity
connects one’s outer life with one’s inner life in a meaningful way; sometimes
so meaningfully that it shocks one into awareness, as it did me when I read an
article in The New Yorker on the
writer James Salter.
Profiled
by Nick Paumgarten in the April 15, 2013 issue, the article is titled “The Last
Book, Why James Salter is not famous,”
and upon reading the profile of Salter’s career as a writer I felt some relief
from the anguish of my own literary insecurity; because if the “writer’s
writer” could be so accomplished and still feel unacknowledged, then there was
some hope for me, and I knew I was being prodded for a new spiritual musing on
the fundamental dilemma of the human condition—the dread of ontological doubt.
“As a writer, you aren’t anybody until
you become somebody,” said James Salter, but it wasn’t so
much the article on Salter’s career that shocked me into awareness of my
dilemma; it was the synchronistic timing of Penny’s impressions of a book that
I had read about an artist’s journey of transformation: The Inspired Heart, by Jerry Wennstrom. I devoured this book with
the same enthusiasm that I read all books of this ilk (the last one I read was The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for
Growth Through Music, by Victor L. Wooten), because it spoke to my own
journey of transformation; but Penny hated it as much as she hated Hemingway’s
novel Across the River and Into the
Trees, by my literary mentor Earnest Hemingway. “It’s the worst book I’ve
ever read,” she said; and her feelings for Wennstrom’s book came very close to
her feelings for Hemingway’s novel—and, now that I think of it, she didn’t much
care for Wooten’s book either and never finished reading it.
I
couldn’t believe my ears, and I had to find out why she felt that way; because
although I understood why she felt that way about Hemingway’s novel (I hated it
also, and so did the critics who thought it was the worst thing he ever wrote),
I had to know why she felt that way about The
Inspired Heart, because this book spoke to the artist’s journey of
self-discovery that every person in the world will one day embark upon.
“He
comes across like he’s a saint,” she said, which puzzled me until she explained
what she meant. “His struggle is no different than someone in the third world
struggling to survive. What makes his struggle so special?”
Jerry
Wennstrom’s art had brought him to a dead end in his journey of self-discovery,
and after serious deliberation he burned all of his art and gave away his personal
possessions and surrendered his life to the Universe; and for fifteen years he
lived totally dependent upon the grace of God and the daily gifts of
synchronicity for his survival, which reconnected him with his path of art on a
whole new level, and now he’s living in the happy realization that his life and
his art are one and the same path.
I
trusted Penny’s intuition, which can be as deadly as a Samurai’s sword (I’ve
experienced enough times to know how deadly it can be), so I had to take what
she felt about The Inspired Heart
seriously; and I probed her until she told me why she felt so uneasy about Wennstrom’s
journey of self-discovery. And then the light went on and I connected my outer
experience with my inner feelings of insecurity—a synchronistic miracle of
understanding that put the artist’s journey of self-discovery (Wennstrom’s,
Wooten’s, and every artist’s journey in the world, including mine) into proper
perspective, because for Penny there was no distinction between the artist and
the rest of the world, which instantly brought to mind St. Padre Pio’s words:
“Life is a journey of the self; a journey of discovery; and a journey of peace,”
in that order. In one deadly swath of her Samurai sword, Penny had just cut
through all the spiritual conceit of the artist’s journey; and I felt crushed
by the devastating humility of the ordinariness of my life. “So I’m a writer? Big deal!”
I
tried at first to justify the artist’s journey of self-discovery by the natural
and/or cultivated talent of the artist, and the tireless effort and endless
sacrifice that they have to make for their art; but Penny wouldn’t have it,
because in her eyes everyone’s life was a journey of self-discovery, which
rendered us all equal—and, as humbling as it was, I had to agree with her because
all the teachings that I studied in my own journey of self-discovery brought me
to the same conclusion that life is the
way, and which to my heart’s delight was confirmed by one of my favorite
people, Carl Gustav Jung, who wrote in The
Red Book: “This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the
unfathomable, which we call divine. There is no other way, all other ways are
false paths.”
I’ve
had some miraculous experiences in my journey of self-discovery, some that would
tax the credulity of even the most devout seekers, and because I brought my
journey of self-discovery to a happy resolution, I’ve always believed myself to
be special; but that was my conceit, which I could not see. That’s why it was
so devastating to be brought to the awareness by the synchronicity of reading
the article on James Salter in The New
Yorker and Penny’s impressions of Wennstrom’s book The Inspired Heart that my life was no more special than any
other’s; and gradually, though not quite fast enough for me, I began to feel a
little more secure in the writer that I have worked so hard to become. So I’m a writer? Big deal! Maybe now I
can begin my journey of peace…
And
so my journey begins with a timely coincidence: a cricket flew into my window to confirm the message of my musing that
our own life is the way.
I
have my window cracked open about eight inches to let fresh air into my writing
den, and no sooner did I complete the thought of my spiritual musing and I
heard something fluttering in my window, and I got up to see what the noise
was.
I’ve
had wasps, bees, deer flies, and lady bugs fly into my window, but never a
cricket; and I knew this anomaly was symbolic, because whenever something out
of the ordinary happens it means that life is trying to tell us something.
So
after I opened my window wide so the cricket could fly to freedom, I Googled to
find the symbolic meaning of cricket; and I came upon the site “Insect Animal
Totems,” and this is what it said for cricket: “Cricket totem symbolizes good fortune. Crickets will assist you in
finding new vibrational energies, enhanced intuition and psychic abilities. He
may appear when grounding is needed when you use your psychic abilities.
Cricket’s chirp is usually a happy one and can indicate a resurgence of your
inner voice. He is similar to the grasshopper in that he is a jumping creature.
He teaches you to leap over and leave behind difficult or troublesome
situations. He will get you where you need to go.”
The symbol of the cricket flying into
my window the moment I finished typing the last sentence of my musing on my
literary insecurity confirmed the insight that our own life is the way—be
one an artist, carpenter, nurse or whatever; and I am always left in a state of
awe whenever the language of life speaks to me this way, because it’s always
unexpected.
This timely
coincidence was especially meaningful for me however, because it gave me the
ontological security that I needed to confirm my life as a writer; and whenever
the feeling of literary insecurity possesses me again, I’ll think of the
cricket in my window that will get me where I need to go because the language
of life told me so!
