Enter the Rustic Gate by Ann Moir-Bussy

We arrive on this earth through the Silver Gate and depart through the Gold Gate. Along the way we pass through six more gates…each one with its challenges and wisdom. Today, we will go through the Rustic Gate.

When we go through the Rustic Gate, we discover what gives our life meaning, service and creativity.  As you enter, in the words of Angeles Arrien:

And then you come upon the Rustic Gate, etched with distinctive design, opening to a vast green meadow flanked by high mountains. In the middle of the meadow burns the fire that takes no wood. On a boulder near the fire sits a gnome who wags his fingers and says, “You’ll never find your way out of here unless you reconnect to the creative fire”. The Rustic Gate requires that you leave behind the work of your life dream as an offering to others.

We arrive here some time after 50 or 60, and we often wonder what has led us to through this old gate and what on earth is the gnome telling us. What is the challenge?  The gnome is tending the creative fire that will sustain our health and wellbeing.

However, we may arrive here feeling disheartened, dispirited or depressed, for we have worked so hard developing our careers or work in the first half of life, and as we have seen in the two previous columns, we have forgotten to stay connected to our own fire of creativity as we strived to fit in to others’ expectations and demands of who we should be and how we should act.

The poet David Whyte claims that without some kind of fire at the center of our conversation, a sense of meaning on our journey, life becomes just another strategic game plan, a way of pulling wool over the eyes of reality while we get in our own way.

“We must ask ourselves, if it takes so much energy and so much constant drive, and it takes tremendous amounts of ‘poison’ to stop parts of me rising up and taking back my life again, what kind of work am I involved in? Why do I think it necessary to hide from myself most of the day” (Whyte, 1994:292).

How to fan the flames of the creative fire

First, creativity requires reflection and courage. We have arrived and we feel vulnerable, but this vulnerability is the birthplace for innovation, creativity and change. We must find ways to create and not care what other people think. Brene Brown says that unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes and turns into grief, rage, judgment. It stagnates – the opposite of creativity.

We need to spend time here and fan the flames with the gnome and ask ourselves:

Are we doing a work that serves others?

What aspect of your life is asking you to reconnect to the creative fire?

What do we want to contribute to the world?

What gives you purpose and meaning?

So, what inspires you or who has inspired you? Inspiration is the first movement of creativity. We are on this journey because we have been called. As Rumi says, “Set your life on fire, seek those who fan your flames… as you start to walk on the way, the way appears”.

Connect to the Four Rivers of Life – the challenges of the Rustic Gate

Many ancient cultures believed that the Four Rivers of Life – Inspiration, Challenge, Surprise and Love – sustained and supported them and enabled them to connect with great gifts. Those who failed to stay connected were like the “walking dead” and experienced, stagnations, loss, depression.

The River of Inspiration shows us how to stay in touch with our creative fire and our life dream. Look for what inspires you, for then we feel expansion and hope, uplifted – and able to be creative. Be inspired and refuse to join the lines of the living dead.

The River of Challenge – where we are called to grow beyond what we already know or what is familiar. Embrace uncertainty and the unfamiliar and move past the fixed idea of what we can do. This river asks us to become explorers again.

 The River of Surprise – Where have we become rigid or controlling and lost our curiosity, flexibility and openness to trust what is emerging?  This River challenges us to leave behind our attachments and to not repress the natural flow of our creativity.

The River of Love – What in life’s experience touches us and moves us?  Or have we closed our heart to hope and love and laughter – medicine for the heart. Love and service can give us joy, and if it doesn’t, we have closed our heart to life.

This Rustic Gate gives us the gift of generativity – the ability and capacity to guide the next generation in a meaningful way. It gives us new meaning and purpose in this second half of life and liberates us from fixed ideas.   

Remember: Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you. The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself, everything that you want, you already are (Rumi).                        

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