We're at a Threshold

Navigating the liminal space between our current chaos and a brighter future

The energy out there is strange these days and, in some cases, despairing and frightening. Clearly, these are liminal times and we’re at the threshold of some sort of major change. The term “liminal” comes to us from the Latin word “limen,” which refers to a threshold or boundary.

As Kristen Roderick, who calls herself a “rites of passage guide,” has explained: “At liminal stages in life we are between roles, identities, relationships or ways of being. It’s a space of limbo and a time marked by waiting, patience, gestation and incubation. There is no real timeline for how long the liminal stage can last – it’s different for everyone and every circumstance.”

However long it takes and however urgent it feels, we have the ability to guide our rites of passage, both personal and societal. And the biggest one for us right now may be where we're headed as a society – indeed, the planet. The coming changes could be sublimely positive or apocalyptic (as they've already been for many around the world). Where we go from here is our collective choice.

Because of that, I believe in the importance of not becoming mired in despair. Nor should we have expectations – positive or negative – about what the future will look like. I’ll be writing more about expectations in the next little while. For now, suffice to say that I have found that expectations can make us more fearful than we already are. They can limit what is possible and what we can do to steer things in a positive direction, as well as limiting our reactions to what is clearly a tumultuous process.

This weaving, which has recently come off my loom, depicts the threshold of a brighter future. I believe that navigating our way through this liminal space must be a collective effort.

But steer we must. I think we need to do more than merely expect, hope for, wish for, or try to manifest a positive solution, although those are all important too. We must accept where we’ve taken ourselves, as well as our responsibility for getting us here, and then use this current liminal space to define our goals and actively work together to incubate a process to reach them. Otherwise, we may be taken somewhere worse than we are now, rather than into a better world.

This work is also applicable on the personal level, as I’ve discovered navigating through a few liminal spaces over the past several years. And we’re all bringing our individual emotional states to this current collective threshold. As I was just finishing up the tapestry shown here, I came across these relevant words from the late Irish poet, author, priest, and philosopher John O’Donohue. In his book To Bless the Space Between Us, he wrote:

“At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.”

A brighter world is, I believe, still possible if we accept the challenge of mindfully crossing this threshold rather than settling for the status quo. That will involve many of us working through the emotions that O’Donohue refers to, taking a deep breath or ten, and carefully but fearlessly walking together towards the light, one intentional – even if small – step at a time.