Many legends mention mysterious place where the world of the spirits meets the world of the living. It is said that someday everyone will pass through this portal.

This place is often connected with the water limit, which separates the two existences. Wether it is water surface of the Styx lake or the Torii leading to the unknown ... Who knows wether it is the gates or it is only reflection of it? And what is real?

The two skeletons in this painting belong to the very point of intersection of the worlds that has become the basis of so many beautiful legends.
As a matter of curiosity, nowadays scientists are still disputing on the nature that dominates in us: animal origin or cultural heritage. 
The Christian world has once divided people into righteous and sinners. May they all cross the threshold of the same door?

I’m asking myself wether nature or culture is the right way? There are a stone gate and serpent’s way in the artwork. The stone gate symbolise the result of human knowledge, growth, aspiration and labor. At the contrary the way of a serpent is a life of passion, which was so delightfully embodied in Dante's circles.
If my heart is under the ribs of a beast, isn't it a cage? Is my mind in a stone prison? Our beliefs often contradicts our nature.
The end of the path is its beginning.