Liminality

I have been thinking a lot lately about where I have been, and where I am going next. It feels a little unsettling, this sensation of knowing I am done with a certain phase of my work life but not yet identifying a clear direction for the next phase.

It reminds me of a concept that was introduced to me nearly half my life ago (22 years, as I am nearly 44) during my college graduation, the notion of liminal space, the place where all transformation takes place. Author and Theologian Richard Rohr describes this space as:

where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible…This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed.

I am very much there now.

Some people arrive at this threshold state due to a change in their external world, and I suppose there are circumstantial factors that pushed me here. But my own transformation feels very internally driven, these nudges from my soul making themselves known in a fuller way.

As an anthropological phenomenon, liminality is typically marked in some way with ritual because there is a certain rite of passage the individual must traverse. Teenagers are “liminal beings” for example, as neither children nor adults.

I also find it fascinating that liminality can apply to spatial or temporal dimensions, can be applied to a variety of subjects: individuals, larger groups (cohorts or villages), whole societies, and possibly even entire civilizations. Wikipedia cites examples of groups of people who live betwixt and between, such as immigrant groups, or racial or sexual minorities, often living at the periphery of dominant culture.

As a multi-ethnic person myself, I experience the world in a sort of liminal way. I often see certain intersections in a way that possibly would not occur to someone living within the dominant culture. I now see this capacity as a gift, rather than another way I do not “fit in” to most groups.

The ambiguity of such liminal periods in our lives is best met with creativity and openness. Being in community with others facing big transitions seems to help. I believe getting in tune with what our souls are calling forth is how we must ground ourselves during this time. Maybe these liminal periods are what clear away the “junk” of domesticated normalcy and wake us to the potential we had not seen before.

In some ways, I see the culture around me undergoing a transition as well. Absurd things are happening in our world. We cannot see these in the same way we always have, and yet, we struggle to know what this new thing will become. But rather than fear this ambiguity, I believe we must embrace it. We must find ways to exist with our contradictions, and realize this is a part of a transformation of consciousness that requires us to evolve as humans.

The sooner we understand that we are all in this together, that separation is the illusion, the better we can move forward and embrace new ways of being. In the meantime, we are in a process of becoming conscious, neither asleep nor fully awake. We are on the threshold of change, and it is time to mindfully awaken to a new reality.