​​Not all great love stories involve humans.

Liminal is latin for threshold. In architectural terms it is spaces between; doorways, hallways –places of transit or holding.  Liminal space refers to a place or person enduring a transitional phase or period.  It refers also to rites of passage –anthropologically and psychologically.   Marriage, divorce, childless to a child born, death--passages from one place to another—moving, uprooting, unemployment, graduating......
they are times with associated rituals and markers...
New Year’s eve and Birthdays among them. 

It’s a gap.  In physical form like a doorway, or a hallway that explores transition, or emotional/psychological like a divorce or a death, or metaphysical like a decision.   

It’s also a gap, such as the ethereal space between your inhalation and exhalation.  A profound part of the breath cycle, when you tap in deeply.  Make peace with this space.  Breathe more fully into this space.

This is also where metamorphosis happens.   

Everything has a beginning, middle and end.  Where are you most comfortable? Familiar? It can be unsettling when we are at a place during a time that's not routine.  Unknown.    Uncertain.  The in-between.   Out of the comfort zone.

This ‘betwixt and between’ can be unsettling.   

The in-between a completion cycle and a new beginning, can often feel like you are suspended.  Ungrounded.  Even stalled, or stagnant.  Expectant...perhaps even a forlorn atmosphere filled with nostalgic notes, full of the energy of both longing and letting go.    The liminal space between ‘what was’ and ‘what’s next’. 

Liminality: In essence, the experience of early pandemic was a global suspension in liminal space. Society was disorganized and overwhelmed, rife with uncertainty. 

There is a psychological need to accord space, time and place for liminal feeling. (Although we often don’t).

As such, there are two main risks associated with liminal space – we either provide no ritual space at all in our lives to digest and integrate’-- or....we stay in it too long.  Stuck.
 
Our cultural tendency is to bypass it altogether, speeding along as we do to the next thing.  Ignoring our gnawing feelings and compartmentalizing to a fault. 

Take an extra long exhale here.
Check in with yourself.
Do you tend to just, ‘push on’?

Twilight is a perfect example of liminal time –between day and night, emblematic of the middle ground between light and shadow.    The polarity of light and shadow ties well to the tension between nostalgia, longing and letting go--
any liminal space requires transitional processing of the individual or group. 

If liminal space then, is the space between one destination and the next—(an airport is the architectural holding tank of this concept)—how can you bring more acknowledgement and awareness to whatever passage you yourself are traversing?   Completion of a cycle, likely comes with some grief and joy, the old compliment of mixed emotions.  Even an ordinary heartfelt goodbye at an airport is usually layered. 

Take an extra long exhale here.  Check-in with yourself. 

Allow.      Allow.      Allow.  

Allow the breath to unleash feelings otherwise being swept away or hidden.   These thresholds are significant in our lives, yet also mysterious.  Unnerving.   Allow the noticing; The honouring of this passage. 

Why do we have so much trouble taking deep breaths?
Speed. Tension. Distraction. Overwhelm. 
Are you good at taking time for digestion, acknowledgement and processing of cycles?

This space is a tenuous passage in which transformation is allowed to take place. 

Allow.  Allow.   Allow.  

       At times it can be rough as in the play, “Waiting for Godot,”  the characters vacillate between hope and hopelessness.  It is a waiting period but different, as only through a condition of liminality can we often finally see the way forward. 

If you’re feeling betwixt and between, simply embrace it and allow.

Appreciation = gratitude.

These energies when really FELT not just thought, deeply shift us. It’s allowing yourself to be moved by gratitude for your own life. Your loved ones. Your morning latte. The night sky. The evening chorus of frogs.

Travel is a circuit breaker in our stale thinking and dulled routine. We simultaneously unplug waning energy and plug back in fully charged.

The next best thing is our imagination. Open your channels of creativity or find someone that stimulates you into new possibilities.

Go to a gallery. A science exhibit. An archeological dig. Do a science experiment. Research a secret passion you never have time for. Take yourself on a trip to your own inner secret world.

Have a conversation with someone you have nothing in common with and stay open and curious about them.

So much is happening all the time, we often don’t get enough space and quiet for integration and exploration of our inner truth.

Yet, space and quiet are essential for self-care.

How do you make space for it? How do you broaden your self-regard, trust and compassion? Set boundaries? Allow some silence into your day?
Don’t agonize, simply organize yourself.

How gentle are you with your mistakes and disappointments? Could you be kinder to yourself?

What’s the belief that prevents this?

Ambitious drive does not have to equal relentless and unforgiving. Self-care and compassion will lead you to greater success however you define that. And make sure to Define it through your own lens.

Divine living is in the design.

Get intentional with your life, how you live your days is how your life unfolds. It matters. How we do one thing is how we do everything.

So master daily self-care and watch your inner garden blossom. Water the seeds and dreams you want to cultivate.

Take inspired action on your wellness. This means not just external goals, it must include:

- learning to unplug, especially when you are stuck or sluggish or stressed out.
(And, getting good at it will avoid those undesirable states.)

Learn to do nothing well at least 15 mins a day guilt-free. Reboot the mission.

(When Your computer forces its shutdowns to reboot and update, instead of the ?#@*&%! diatribe, —try to take notice and do the same reboot!)

Breathe deeply and quell your stress with slow exhalations and a few closed eye body scans,

Drink water; take each sip mindfully and remember you are nourishing and cleansing the inner ecosystem and mirroring in your body what you want to do with the mind.

What about a Creative reboot?
Simply try something new.

Look, we all need reminders, we can all fall off the track of great self-care.
Focus on the long game. Remember it’s progress over perfection.

Please be kind to yourself. This is the greatest gain you will ever make in your quality of life and relationships allowing greater peace and wellness In your body. Your Compassion will always be incomplete if it doesn’t include yourself.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....”
(-Charles Dickens)   ​

This timeless truth was written in 1859 and could be just as true today.
​Or, any period in human history. (Outrunning sabre tooth tigers anyone?....)
​
Life is rarely a cakewalk. 

But it can be so much more than the self-defeating limits in which we unwittingly cage ourselves.  How do you negotiate Self-doubt vs self-trust? Instead of, ‘I can’t' or 'it won’t work’....  How often do you ask yourself,  ‘WHAT IS POSSIBLE?’

What about,​

Magic.     Joy.     Light.

What do these words bring to mind for you? What feelings arise?
How do they dance on your tongue?   Does your ear welcome them?  
Breathe them in.  

What images come to your imagination?
​We need these aspects to settle our frayed nervous systems.

​Light and Dark will always be hand in hand.
What you allow to be stronger within you will depend on a whole lot of forces,
including your context, the toxicity vs the safety of your environment, 
your choices or lack thereof, even what you had for breakfast!

You choose whether to entrain with bitterness from being hurt or whether you commit to healing.

And learning. 

And growing.

It’s a choice whether your heart opens or closes.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” 
― Charles Dickens, (1859) A Tale of Two Cities

These days, if you think that to be happy and content and have a good life, it should be easy and sunny,  then you are going to be challenged, especially moving into fall, more darkness and the 4th wave of the pandemic.   This is one of the things I’m feeling really heavily in my bones right now.   I don’t know about you but, I need to change my mindset.   When I catch these negative thought loops and heavy discouraged feelings, they need attention and self-care.

Since the nights are getting longer, what if the light we need now is a starlight twinkle, rather than a bright sun?

When I was out kayaking this summer, I was enthralled with bioluminescent phytoplankton on a midnight paddle. Have you ever experienced it?
The magical neon blue light flashes against the night ocean as your kayak paddle dips into the inky darkness,  carving your glowing signature in its wake.  
Your own magical presence dancing with the sea’s hidden mysteries.  

This is joy.    This is magic.    This is light.

A tea break for the psyche.

The act of Emptying our crowded selves. 

Tension simply draining away after the discordant party blaring in our heads, stumbles home like errant rowdy neighbors, finally quiet.

But – even though silence can be sublime, I would eventually miss the resonance of a teacup gently clicking it's contact point with the saucer—the reassuring sound of hot tea pouring into the cup.   These are comforting sounds.   Like your lover saying your name.   The sound of anticipation itself.    The fullness of this life to your own personal soundtrack.

Watching Evelyn Glennie  perform on stage, is a humbling marvel.   She is a World class solo percussionist—simply astonishing the audience with her virtuosity, in large part  'listening'   through her bare feet to vibrations.   You see, not only is she a major talent,   but she is also deaf.    AND,   she wins 'the listening as an art form' badge.    What an inspiration to behold.    Hers is a brilliant lesson in listening.

We too can listen if only we can allow ourselves to get out of the way of our inner noise.  Past our ego, our  latent wounds hiding in ambush.  If we can avoid following the shiny magnetic distractions of the noisy world.  

Listening instead to our hearts. Our longing. Our dreams. Our harebrained creative urgings.

Our priorities.

Listening to the vibrations of our own being,  It then also becomes infinitely easier to listen to our loved ones and  to  hear their song.   Listening heart to heart is the most important thing we will ever do here.

           Resonance with our truest vibration is a deeply beautiful thing.

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