The Second Half of Life

Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom

By: Angeles Arrien PhD

Narrated by: Angeles Arrien PhD

We are all born with a great dream for our lives, explains cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien, a dream which may have been derailed along the way by family and career responsibilities, or submerged by our own choices. In the second half of life, after your roots have gone deeply into the world, it is time to resurrect this dream.
On The Second Half of Life, Dr. Arrien introduces you to the Eight Gates of Initiation. Through images, poetry, and timeless metaphors from diverse world cultures, you will learn to understand their lessons and gifts, harvest the meaning and purpose of your life, and come into spiritual maturity.
Follow this gifted storyteller as she takes you step-by-step through each gate to deepen your most valuable relationships, reclaim your untended creative talents, and shift your focus from ambition to meaning to grow into the magnificent elder you were meant to become.
Note: Excerpted from the full-length audio courseThe Second Half of Life.

Exploration of meaning of your life

Dr. Arrien uses her wisdom, stories, myth, and warm style to guide you through the process of finding meaning and purpose in your life. The Second Half of Life is a great guidebook for people in their mid-thirties and beyond. Dr. Arrien is a gifted story-teller, and she takes the time to explain the meaning of the stories she tells.

monotone voice

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I like what is said

What did you like best about this story?

everything

How did the narrator detract from the book?

her voice is SO monotone it is really difficut for me to listen to more than 15 minutes at a time, I really want to listen to this because I like what she is talking about but this book should have been read by a proffessional, someone entertaining.

Any additional comments?

her voice is SO monotone it is really difficut for me to listen to more than 15 minutes at a time, I really want to listen to this because I like what she is talking about but this book should have been read by a proffessional, someone entertaining.

Wanted to love this... Painful to listen to

I wanted to love this and I love the theme of the book how we enter the second half of life and exploring that through myths and stories. I think this would have been better read as a book rather than listened to. The narration was painful with unnatural stops and starts and not engaging at all. It took me almost six months to finish the book and I cannot say that the author helped me retain information with her reading style. I bless her for gathering together the information and her legacy but this was just a painful audio listen even though I stuck with it because I hoped to absorb kernels of wisdom.. Now that I am done, I think a better use of my time would have been to ditch the audio and buy the hardcopy. Clarissa Pinkola Estés covers much of the same ground in her works about the crone and is much more engaging.