Virtual Union Rite of Passage - Why Gateway?

Why the gateway? It is the alternative to a church wedding. It is private, inner, timeless, and not rooted in social conventions or traditions. It aims to be a Wholeo wedding. See consciousness of the church wedding as the dot within the circumference of the circle. See consciousness of the wholeo wedding as what is outside the circle brought in as a gateway. This is to make your own consciousness and your wedded consciousness in union complete. As the wedding, it is meant to be a resource and jumping off point. In the church wedding vows are social bonds that help you in the society and time where you live. Also they are personal vows between two separate beings.

In the wholeo wedding, put aside that sense of separate self and weave together in the hearts. This is not a replacement for the church wedding. As an alternative, it is what the church wedding isn't. It is completely free. It invites colored light spirits. It is about the whole transformation of the process. It has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone but the two.

Isn't the gate a good symbol of a wedding? Two people walk down the path of life together. The wedding event is a major gateway on the path. Once through that gate, there are all kinds of ties. You can undo some of the ties but you can never go back through that gate. That is why we call it a rite of passage. I visualize it as passage mostly at the gateway itself. The church wedding rite is a public ceremony and celebration party. Later you keep a book of memories and photos of the event to remind you of the rite. The gateway valentine is also a reminder and a place to return and renew the zest of that passage.

Why the particular "Gateway of Dreams" sculpture? I've visited it at solstice and equinox times for over ten years. It is a wonderful artwork in itself. But why was it my choice for a place to hold the virtual rite of passage? What was I looking for in a gate? Two titles, that's good. It's title is also in Spanish, "El Paso de los Suenos". That fits the theme of two into one. The space is good -- just big enough for one or two. I did not want a gate that is a gap in a larger setting such as a gate in a fence or wall. There should be no pressure to move from the gate, no traffic.

So a public sculpture works well. A monument to a particular event would be distracting, such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. This gate being devoted to marking the passage of seasons that recur each year is good.

An arch is not right, it should be open above. The shape of this gate is significant. That is, the two chunks that form the gate between them. It is a broken tetrahedron (three-faced pyramid). Following Buckminster Fuller, consider that a tetrahedron is the basic building block of any local universe. In a sense then, two people filling the gate rejoin the two halves of the tetrahedron. They become the gate, their union completes a basic building block. That's good.

The valentine has six parts. Five parts show getting to the gate. In the last part, color spirits confer a blessing that melts the people and the two peaks of the gate into a heart.

OK, that's a bunch of fancy words that may or may not make much sense. I confess I used the gate because I love it, it is near me, and I have good pictures of it. I had no other choice. Here's a view of the gateway zapped by a rainbow, that might add to your appreciation.

Why move the Gateway of Dreams from its city setting to a fantastic group of five sacred mountaintops? See the answer to the last question at "What does it mean?". These are all fine settings. Putting them together makes it timeless. Or it might hark back to ancient times, when land on earth was one continent, if Pangaea theories are correct. That's a good time to restart.

The story continues in Union Rite of Passage.

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© Caroling 1999 All rights reserved. Last Modified: Aug 2 1999