The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom

I wish I could get the wisdom of growing old and dying well. Jung said you only get faith to doubt. I don't simply believe the author is great and believable because she's a well read anthropologist and that I am wiser for reading her; that would be too easy and comfortable. I ask myself am I getting wiser and notice whether or not. I got a new perspective on faith (in old age) respecting my mother's incomprehensible so called resolution process stage toward death even though I didn't understand it and suspected she had lost her mind and was a vegetable. Dying properly will be important to me though I don't think I'll understand my own sense at the time any more than I do at the beginning of a physics problem. When a bunch of old people get together to talk about wisdom I worry they won't respect the wisdom process of youth and project their insecurities of losing their minds on youth. Meade had old men empower youth to think for themselves with open ended stories. I try to to read this book as an open ended story that makes me think and doesn't substitute inspiration for me thinking and doubting. I am very interested in discovering sexuality and romance untied to family in old age. I've missed having children and fear it would be unkind to have a child at my age. But, I have my own needs to have my inscrutable resolution process validated whether it be in dying or early confusions in research. It is a relief to read this book rather than risk finding or not finding my meaning of life in my research. It is a break from my very personal deep questions. Perhaps everyone's lives have extremely personal meanings that can't be turned into a science with such a book, but I must honor the fluff of a process and validate the author for trying so she'll get to a safer more productive place as I did my mother. Perhaps old folks need to validate each other as having grown peculiar and see where that peculiarity goes with reverent curiosity rather than control it away. Fear of abandonment in old age had my mother try to make me fear myself inadequate so I would need her. She could not let me go enough. I have unfounded insecurities I am overcoming. This sort of negativity can be projected as a so called electrode through generations. One gets infantile life scripts because one needs the protection of the critical parent ego state. This wound prevents us from writing our own story. One day I must read Arthur Franks in "The Wounded Storyteller"! The old must struggle for faith that we can actually attain wisdom and kindly impart it to help whole communities find freedom to find who they truly are rather than fear to be able to contrive other's approval and perhaps negative fear manipulation to merely achieve its appearance. I haven't finished this book yet. Perhaps ,when I get more read, the author will feel safe with me and share the vital wisdom of her process. Perhaps my mother also trusted me when she consciously said "I don't know what is wrong with my mind" and I kindly said "You are just very old and not making neural nets." in a sense, she was affirming my wisdom and that I still had my mind as I affirmed I loved her though she had lost hers. So this book can be good and true if approached by a person trying to be good and true. My church is using this in a wisdom circle powwow group. I wonder what this group will become with this book. We meet once a month a chapter and I'm already into the chapter on old sexuality.

This is a powerful book that our senior book study is discussing.

This is a beautiful hard bound copy of a book I've read twice and gifted many times over. I had the privilege of being in a workshop w/ the author who was a cultural anthropologist. This is a MUST READ for anyone in their 50's and on. It is a spiritual book and not one filled w/ facts and stats. It's about our soul and what we feel and experience as we age. Each time I read it, I'm at a different place in life and glean so much insight and beauty. f I highly recommend it.

The Second Half of Life addresses passages that adults can grow through after passing 50. In her creative way, Angeles Arrien has woven together multiple disciplines and traditions to produce a tapestry that challenges readers with its complexity and awes them with its beauty. Her "reflections" and "Practice" sections, offer the opportunity to explore the passages from a personal perspective and in more depth. As a psychotherapist, I have used various suggestions from the book for clients transitioning one of her eight gates.

"The Second Half of Life" can be used for those of us in the iffy third, or even quarter tiny bit of life. I don't know if I have 10 or 20 years left of activity, or time to change my external options. But Angeles also encourages the reader to consider inward change, picking up old ideas and running with them. Or, perhaps, to drop the mask and go through new gates, embracing aging as a time for calming down. Too often we think of goal setting as a call to wild and crazy. I'm reconsidering, and believe it might be to embrace contemplative but just as crazy options. I give this as a gift for 2nd marriages, 50/60+ birthday gifts, and people facing the changes brought by grief, loss, and retirement. As a therapist and author, I encourage the belief that we can draw wisdom from wise sources. Embracing True Prosperity: Guided Visualizations & Practical Tools To Realize Your Deepest Dreams The Courage to Trust: A Guide to Building Deep and Lasting Relationships

Well written, documented.

This is an amazing book. It touched me to my spiritual core. Mid-life seems to be a time of change and contemplation. One needs to take time for a review of the past and to ponder where you want to go/be for the next phase of life. I read this book with a small group of women. We took a chapter a month, worked on the questions at the end of each chapter, and had very interesting, introspective and supportive discussion. Angeles Arrien is an amazing scholar and interpreter. This book caused many "a-ha" moments. Beautiful words, beautiful images, beautiful wisdom.

Okay, though a little bit "new age".

I loved this book - it came to me at just the right time to help me think through some life changes - and it was clear to me that I would benefit even more if I got to share the book with other women...so we started a women's group and have been exploring a different 'gate' each month (reaching the Gold Gate later this month and then letting go of the group!). When a male friend expressed interest in joining the group but was told we were looking for an all female space to allow a certain kind of conversation to happen, he decided to start a men's group to work through the book together too - they have had very different conversations but I understand that it has proved as vital an experience for them too .

Excellent guide book to life.

She is one of the most profound educators of our times. She will be missed, but her books, videos, and teachings will live on. This book is a testament to living a meaningful life and provides a road map of harnessing the innate goodness of being human and growing us up to elderhood- to do so- we will need to commit to explore the gates inside ourselves; it transcends our view of the world from a deeper lens of illumination . Bonny Thorne

This is a beautiful book of inspiration, beauty and is thought provoking. Beautiful photos and poetic quotations. I am very pleased I bought it, although my copy is in extremely large print which had not been mentioned.

good book, reflexions and suggested pratices arrived in two days like it was written in the order thanks