CHAPTER 35
The Great Choreographer of Life
We’re well
into September and the leaves are beginning to turn color, but we’re back from
our little getaway where we visited family and old friends, and my muse beckons;
so, I’m going to jump right back into my story with a divinely choreographed
experience that I had in Thunder Bay, because it bears direct relevance to One Rule to Live By: Be Good that will help
bring the imperative of Jordan Peterson’s 12
Rules for Life, which can only take one so far on their journey to wholeness
and completeness, to resolution.
I did an
enormous amount of reading this summer. Not as much as I had hoped, but I managed
to read professor Peterson’s ponderous Maps
of Meaning, and enough Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Solzhenitsyn to
get into their psyche; and this gave me a much greater appreciation for Jordan Peterson’s
obsession with these authors.
I had to
read the Preface to Maps of Meaning
twice before I caught the gist of Peterson’s evolving theses (“Personal interest—subjective meaning—reveals
itself at the juncture of explored and unexplored territory, and is indicative
of participation in the process that ensures continued healthy individual and
societal adaptation,” he wrote in
his Preface, a thematic overview of his “maps of meaning” that he rendered into
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos), and it wasn’t until I plodded through
the first and was well into the second chapter that I finally caught the logic
of his thinking, a creative dialectic that espouses the wisdom of evolutionary biology,
neuroscience, mythology, psychology, religion, philosophy, literature, and his
own life experience; and from then on it was like reading a mystery thriller,
because with every chapter professor Peterson “mapped” out the polyphonic meaning
of the human condition with the brilliance of a Sherlock Holmes, connecting
disparate clues to create a picture large enough and clear enough to justify
the presumptuous title of his book, and when he brought Maps of Meaning to resolution (as far as he could take it, that is)
with a quotation from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which contains some of the
most secret sayings of Jesus, I knew
precisely why I had been called to write One
Rule to Live By: Be Good, because the secret sayings of Jesus were the
“key” to solving the final mystery of the human condition. “Whoever finds the
interpretations of these sayings will not taste death,” said Jesus in
the Gospel of Thomas, which is what the good professor leaves us with—the sacred mystery of realizing our
essential, divine nature!
Not only
did Maps of Meaning explain the wisdom of his second book 12 Rules for Life, it answered my nagging question: why was I compelled to send him four of my books
to read—The Lion that Swallowed Hemingway
and The Pearl of Great Price before
he came into public prominence, and just as he was coming into public
prominence three years later, My Writing
Life and The Merciful Law of Divine
Synchronicity? And as presumptuous as it may seem, I really had no choice,
because I was no less beholding to the same divine imperative that compelled the
mystic poet Rumi to do his own oracle’s bidding—“Tell it unveiled, the naked truth! The declaration’s better than the
secret.”
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos is professor Peterson’s naked truth, forged in
the smithy of his own purpose-driven life (working three hours a day for
fifteen years to write Maps of Meaning,
plus years of lecturing on his research material and practical wisdom garnered
from his clinical practice), and as incredible as some of his “connections”
were (like his lobster thesis) that helped him resolve the puzzle of the human
condition, his wisdom rang so true to me that it wrenched my heart to see that
he had gone as far as his brilliant mind could take him to wholeness and
completeness, but not through the eye of the needle, which was why my oracle compelled me to send him The Pearl of Great Price to read.
“Again,
the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls. Who,
when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and
bought it,” said
Jesus (Matthew 13: 45-46); but not until one has broken the code of Christ’s
sayings will one apprehend the wisdom that will see them through the eye of the
needle; this is why I wrote my novel Jesus
Wears Dockers to share my understanding of Christ’s sayings.
But
that’s neither here nor there, because there is only self-initiation into the
mysteries of life, and life is fundamentally an individual journey of
self-discovery; so, it doesn’t really matter what Jordan Peterson says, or what
I say, or what C. G. Jung or anyone says, we all have to negotiate our own way
to wholeness and completeness, and if what we say resonates with the world, so
be it. Which brings me back to the Jordan Peterson phenomenon and the intellectual
storm that he has stirred up with his 12
Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
He’s not
yet completed his 100 city global tour; but he’s caused such a stir with his refreshing,
albeit shocking point of view that he’s initiated a whole new conversation on
moral responsibility and God and religion and the soul and the meaning and
purpose of our existence, and the world is actually listening. A phenomenon, indeed!
So, it’s
obvious that he’s resonating with the world; or, to be fair, with a very large
sector of society that is fumbling in the dark. Like his hero Carl Gustav Jung,
who wrote, “the sole purpose of human
existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being,” so too is professor
Peterson kindling a light in the darkness of mere being by providing an answer
to the angry question of my poem, “What the Hell is Going on Out There?”
Which
brings me to the spiritual musing that I was called to write when we got back
from our little getaway this summer, a spiritual musing that will help to open the
secret door that 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos prepares one for:
When the Student
is Ready…
There’s an old joke. If you want to make God laugh,
tell him your plans. This implies that we never know how our life is going to
turn out, despite everything we do to make it go our way; but that’s because we
have free will as well as a destined purpose, and if we stray too far from our
destined purpose, Providence will always intercede to bring us back to our
destined purpose.
Despite science’s contention that free will is an
illusion, we all know that choices have consequences, and eventually (unless we
are unreasonably stubborn) we will become more discerning in the choices we make
to prevent unpleasant consequences. This is free will and not animal instinct.
Which brings me to today’s spiritual musing: how can we know that the choices
we make will not bear unpleasant consequences?
We cannot, of course; but as we grow in our discernment,
we take calculated risks and hope that the choices we make will not bear
unpleasant consequences. Like the gifted young poet Micah Pawluk, whom the
great choreographer of life introduced me to when Penny and I went on our
little getaway this summer, said in the opening poem “Advice” in his second
book of poetry Above the Old Birch Trees:
“Take a chance, /dig deeper, /take more risks.”
This is sage advice from a young poet who’s just
beginning to play the game of life (and life is a game really, with all of its rules
and consequences; literally, and otherwise); but as we get older, fear has a way
of dampening our spirit for risk-taking, and many of us settle into what Thoreau
called a life of “quiet desperation,” waiting for the day when we are called to
our reckoning like Everyman was in the eponymous medieval morality play that
was the inspiration for my poem “Noman” that I wrote in high school and which became
the central theme of my memoir The
Summoning of Noman that I wrote fifty years later.
Thank God for youth then when the seeds of our life
are planted, giving us the potential to realize wholeness and completeness;
but, life being what it is, not all seeds take root (“Ten thousand acorns fell
from the oak, /five took root, /and one became a tree,” from my book Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys), and not
everyone is fortunate enough to realize their destined purpose. This is why I
was so excited when the great choreographer of life introduced the young poet
into my life with Penny’s gift of Above
the Old Birch Trees; and it was this delightful coincidence that inspired
today’s spiritual musing…
The great choreographer of life is not a figment of my
imagination; it is the Logos, the Word, the Voice of God, Providence, which in
my own journey of self-discovery I came to recognize as the omniscient guiding principle of life that keeps us connected
with our destined purpose, whether we are aware of it or not, and which has
also been referred to throughout history simply as the way.
The way is
everywhere to be found (Jesus called the way
by many names, essentially all meaning a transformative process as well as
a destination), but not everyone finds the
way until they are ready to find it; this is the mystery of the human
condition that the young poet is struggling to resolve. That’s why he was meant
to come into my life, and I into his; he, to find inspiration in my writing
that will help him find the way and connect
with his destined purpose, and me to offer encouragement in his journey of
self-discovery, because he is the acorn that has just taken root and I am the
acorn that has become a tree.
And how do I know this?
Aside from his book of poetry Above the Old Birch Trees, which to me bared an anguished soul crying
out to the Universe for direction and purpose, but because of what he also revealed
about himself in our short online conversation that we had the day I sent him a
friend request when I saw his post on Facebook with a photo of him and Penny’s
sister proudly holding his new calendar at market of the CLE grounds in Thunder
Bay where he was promoting his books and 2019 calendar adorned with photos he had
taken of the area, the young poet confirmed why the great choreographer of life
wanted us to connect:
O: Penny’s sister gifted
me your new calendar, and Penny gifted me your book of poetry. Love the
calendar, but your poetry book engaged me from the first three lines (“Take a
chance, /dig deeper, /take more risks.”), and I read the whole book over the
weekend. You have a gift. Will be ordering your other books from Amazon. Good
luck on your lifelong journey.
M: Thank you for
your kind words, I hope you enjoy the other books as well.
O: Your inner
journey fascinates me. Have been friends with your aunt Fiona and uncle Clifford
for years. Looking forward to how your life unfolds, which I’m sure you’ll be
working into your poetry. Don’t mind telling you, that one of your lines in
your book Above the Old Birch Tree
has to be one of the most powerful lines I’ve ever read: “Life fears art.” But
do you know why?
M: I think one
reason could be that it shows us the truth of ourselves we wish didn’t exist,
or at least that it shows us difficult truths that most people would rather not
face.
O: That’s the
poet’s gift, to see what other people don’t want, or refuse to see; but then,
as the gifted New Zealand short story writer Katherine Mansfield said,
“Literature is not enough,” implying that the wisdom of literature is not
enough to satisfy the longing in one’s soul for wholeness and completeness, and
so one may well ask: where does one go from here? That was my quest, which I
have resolved to my satisfaction and have been writing about for years. Check
out My Writing Life, if you have time.
Keep writing, Micah. Your poetry is a birthing of your inner self.
M: I will, thank
you!
O: You’re welcome.
Have to get back to my work in progress. Don’t hesitate to initiate a dialogue
whenever you’re in the mood for a good discourse. Ciao for now.
This young man is not only a gifted poet, but a gifted
pianist who played at Carnegie Hall and who also won a competition in Italy and
is currently studying for a degree in music, not to mention his passion for
photography and mountain climbing; and it was obvious to me from the first poem
I read in Above the Old Birch Trees that
he is suffering from what professor Harold Bloom called an “immortal wound”
that will never heal until he finds his own way
and realizes his destined purpose (it’s not a coincidence that he called his
youthful memoir Without a Trail), and
I simply knew that we were meant to
connect; because, as the old saying goes,
when the student is ready…
———
That’s why so many young people, especially wayward
young men that have been immortally wounded
by the wonder of professor Jordan Peterson’s message—reading his shadow-dismantling
book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to
Chaos, which has now hit two million in global sales, and viewing his online
lectures that have over a hundred million views and counting—are flocking to
his book tour talks that have been averaging 2500 people in every city, because
there’s a hole in the soul of the world that neither religion, science, nor politics
can fill, and Jordan Peterson’s divine imperative to help the world find its
way again that it lost when science eroded religion’s credibility, which brilliant
little Nietzsche pathologized in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra with his “God is dead” philosophy, reminds me of the heart-warming
starfish story and the good professor’s newfound purpose.
The starfish story, which
has been adapted from “The Star Thrower” by Loren Eiseley, has been used by motivational speakers throughout the world to inspire
dreams and noble intentions, however foolish, like the good professor imperative
to right the world with his 12 Rules for
Life: An Antidote to Chaos, podcasts, book tour talks, and interviews:
On day, goes one
version of the story, an old man was walking along a beach littered with
thousands of starfish that had washed upon the shore by the high tide; and as
he walked, lost in thought, he came upon a young boy throwing starfish back
into the ocean, one starfish at a time. Puzzled, the old man frowned and asked
the boy what he was doing.
Looking up from his task, the boy replied, “I’m
saving these starfish, Sir.”
The old man snorted
a chuckle. “Young man, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you.
What difference can you possibly make?”
The boy picked up
another starfish and tossed it into the ocean; and turning to the old man, he replied,
“I made a difference to that one, Sir.”
No one knows how many souls the tides of life have washed
upon the shoals of the world only to wither and die broken because they could
not make their way back to the ocean, but along came an impassioned U of T professor
of psychology and clinical therapist who hailed from a small prairie town in northern
Alberta, emboldened by the myth-shattering writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and pioneering
depth psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and other great souls like Victor Frankl
and Jean Piaget, who risked his career and clinical practice when he was called
to help all those broken souls make their way back to the ocean so they could continue
on their destined journey to wholeness and completeness, a tireless endeavor
that has given the good professor a renewed sense of purpose and meaning; and all
the broken and weary souls that have taken his message to heart thank and
praise Jordan Peterson for giving them the hope they so desperately needed to
reclaim their lives—“His example gave me permission
to begin thinking about what I might become in a world that has lost its bearings,
even as I had lost mine,” said one of his followers in Esquire
magazine; and she is only one of the thousands of starfish that the young
boy threw back into the ocean…
