Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Liminality

The South Eld Inlet bestowed me with a victorious send off in the form of a glorious final sunrise. Making the choice to leave something good is always an interesting experience- be it home, job, relationship. Sometimes we feel in our bones that something else, something grander or more precious, awaits us. When the siren song of the other beckons, you simply must listen.

"The heart has reasons that reason does not understand." 

-Blaise Pascal

I was held so tenderly by my life on Steamboat the past ~4 years. Somehow I stumbled into a niche community that immediately wrapped its arms around me. Landlords who became family, friends made effortlessly, neighborhood baristas who cried with me when my pup passed and saved boxes for my move. My little bungalow by the water was the antithesis of my former life in the city and saying Goodbye to it all was much harder than expected when the time came.

Moving is an emotional experience whether we go willingly or not. I'm trying to welcome the sheer discomfort that comes with inhabiting a new city and home. Honoring the curiosity that led me out of my bubble and the desire for change that propelled me here. It's been a week of both thrill and sadness, certainly some tears.

My friend reminded me that I am in the liminal space that accompanies life transitions. The word liminality is derived from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. Perhaps author and Friar Richard Rohr defined it best: "where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown." Suspended on the cusp of something new that you can sense but not quite see. Every great journey requires these in-betweens as rites of passage. Nothing to do now but bow at the alter of ambiguity.

Inertia is the tendency to do nothing or remain unchanged. Seeking external forces that shift us into motion is essential to a life well lived. Life often feels better when you're in motion. Stillness is promoted a lot these days as the foundation of peace, but for some of us stillness straddles a fine line with inertia. Too much of it can engender overthinking and disembodiment.

Liminality, though uncomfortable to the point of painful, is charged with intensity. Pushing our way out of a rut or leaping from a safety net invites opportunities for future synchronicity and unknown blessings. We stand on the threshold of the next great adventure, the next great discovery. Perhaps the next loss or failure, but certainly not stagnation. 

As Einstein informed, energy and matter are essentially equivalent; two sides of the same coin. But if you could choose one, which would you be? I for one would be energy. Energy doesn't sit still, though matter may.

“I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.” 

-Donald Miller

 

And a past entry on liminal space, which also happened to be penned around New Years. Is it coincidence? Hmmm...is it ever?

3 comments:

  1. I love Donald Miller ("You must leave! You must leave your home...").
    Box Canyon Mark, snowshoeing for now.

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  2. Mark, you're the one who introduced me to him years ago! ;)

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    Replies
    1. I will end up quoting about half of everything he writes. You, too, are also quite quotable! :)
      Merry Christmas "Jewlz." Hope to see you soon!

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