Pineridge Blog

The Golden Gate

Part of the hope of Easter is that we can, “die before we die.” (Part 1)
In The Second Half of Life, Anthropologist Angeles Arrien (1940–2014) described approaching what she called the Gold Gate:
“At last we arrive at the Gold Gate, which is glowing and bathed in a numi-nous light. This is where we awaken to the deepest core of who we are, and are asked to let go and trust. It is the gate of surrender, faith, and acceptance, where we learn to re-lease It requires us to befriend the death of our physical form.

At the Gold Gate, late in life we learn to befriend death and prepare for its arrival. We acknowledge that we have been born, lived, learned, and loved. We accept our losses, the roads unexplored, the people we miss, and the dreams unful-filled; we begin to make peace with all that is in and around us. We reject nothing and cling to nothing. We simply ob-serve the ebb and flow of our life.

We practice the art of dying while we live, experiencing end-ings when we say good-bye to people who will be separated from us for a time, or when we complete something that has significance. Every night we practice letting go when we re-lease ourselves to sleep and the mysterious place of dreams, trusting that we will return.

The Gold Gate offers the wisdom gifts of freedom and libera-tion. Nonattachment, surrender, and acceptance foster our deliverance, while courage and faith strengthen our capacity to face our own suffering, pain, or sadness. To hold onto nothing is the root of happiness and peace. If we allow our-selves to rest here, we find that it is a tender, open-ended place. This is where the path of fearlessness leads, and where we rest in expanded, unlimited peace.

[We] make the conscious choice of living not in the past or future, but in each present moment. This takes great courage and the ability to make peace with your life: to live without hope or fear, to let go without regret, to know that you have lived fully.”