Liminality

Unsuspecting Alice falls down a rabbit hole and ends up in a liminal place. But o boy, she is a giant and does not fit through any doorway. She is stuck! What to do? A yummy cookie might do the trick – if she is brave enough to take the plunge. Only then, once she has changed, can she enter into the mysterious Wonderland. This was the first of many changes. Sometimes too big, sometimes too small. Goldilocks and her ‘just right’ did not have a place in Lewis Carol’s genius. Liminality certainly had.

This has been my favourite word for the past year. Limen means a threshold in Latin. Liminality, a place where you are not what you have been, but you are not who you should be. An uncomfortable place for one who likes predictability and results. A sitting with yourself and your circumstances- as is. An acceptance of what is now. A mindfulness of sorts.

I can honestly say my discomfort with the word has dissipated and I hold it as close as a dear friend. I have found that the in-between states where the mystery, the magic, the possibilities lie, are so much more exciting and exhilarating than either side of the threshold. I love the becoming, so much more than the being.

Not knowing all the answers brings so much peace, being as curious as a child brings adventure. To wonder, to believe is so much more organic than our drive for knowledge and accomplishment. Who knows what transformation takes place in the chrysalis, who can track the movement of cells in the womb? A liminal space is a sacred place, a secret place, a place of change.

I do hope this word will linger for a few more years, maybe until the end of my earthly life. I never want to be a ‘know-it-all’ rather a ‘still-learning-it all’, not a ‘seen-it all’, rather an ‘exploring it all’. We take things at face value and then miss the underlying possibilities. I never want to reject ideas on the basis of cultural and religious preconceptions, but I want the space in my heart to first question, investigate and understand.

I am not a reductionist at heart; I love to draw links. A polymath of sorts. What I learn I bring to my life, to my work, to my family. Polymaths need to live in the liminal because things are always shifting and integrating. A child, however, is a polymath of being, as they are continually learning and integrating, changing and growing. It is ironic though that this is encouraged in childhood and at some stage we want everyone to ‘have it all figured out’. To have ‘arrived’. This drives me to tears. When I see a child, I do not see the ‘what has not arrived yet’, I look to see ‘what is still becoming.’ This is the sacred part of my vocation.

We just want results, but the change happens in the subtle moments, those that eventually lead up to mastery. The ones that should actually be celebrated, but because they happen quietly they are so often overlooked. If we start to appreciate development as a process, and not an outcome, I truly think a lot less damage will be done. We cannot advance one area to the detriment of another, some things take time, but to be changeable means you need to be moldable and for that you need safety.

Poor Alice in Wonderland had to change form continually to fit through the doorways to other worlds. She needed to shrink, to enlarge. CS Lewis understood the liminal. The happiest people on earth are not those that know it all, it is those that have peace in the not-knowing. And the not-knowing has so much more to offer. Less of the ego’s self-constructed reality, more of the numinous, the truth. To be comfortable with the liminal means to let go of the ego, to surrender your dreams, and to embrace your truth. You need to shrink in some things but grow in others.

When you do, you will see that liminality is not a closed door, but rather a door opened just a crack, so that you can see the most wondrous light filtering through. An invitation to sacred change, to becoming. O happiness it is to be an Alice in Wonderland.