betwixt and between: Liminal time and space

                                                                   Betwixt and Between
                                                                      Where life is lived
                                                                      This liminal space
                                                                where things are no more
                                                                         and yet to be

                                                                 How might my moments 
                                                                     of in-betweenness
                                                                         yield the gifts
                                                                      of a life well lived?

                                                              Capturing precious realities
                                                          residing in this place and this time
                                                            I walk out the door to a new day...

For several weeks, I have been drawn again and again to the idea of liminal space, liminal time,  in-betweenness…  It seems much of life is lived unaware of the limens or thresholds contained in every moment.  Most of life we gradually, slowly move from one time or place to the next.  Granted there are life events that are immediate, acute, horrific or wonderful.  Yet most often, where we have been and where we are going evolve over hours, days, weeks, months, years.  We tend to focus on the future or dwell in the past, much to the detriment of where we are,  blatantly unaware of the "in-between" time,  the liminal space in which we reside between two moments, between two places in life.  We see ourselves either "here" or "there"...

What if we lived our years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes with a deep awareness of the this liminal state of in-betweenness?  What if we accepted the fleeting nature of this life, the reality that our birth is our first step toward our death, that all of life is, in some sense, liminal?

Each breath is one breath closer to our last breath:  each day brings us closer to our last day...  This need not be a depressing or morbid thought, for contained in that reality is the gift of being alive.  If we might engage more with living "in-between", we might find a greater depth and meaning in our days.  

In a world that focuses on the future and dwells on the past, how might we value the thresholds of our lives where, for a fleeting moment, we are neither here nor there?  

Recently I had the enriching opportunity to dialogue about liminal space and the image of thresholds with some twenty-something year olds in the midst of a major transition.  One of them reflected that thresholds seem more like either/or space than both/and space.  We explored how our thresholds  gradually widen over time merging what was, what is, and what will be.  Contained in that space is a potential sense of unity.  Often we are focused on "I am here and next week I will (or want to be) there,"  and we miss the slowly merging interconnection, the gradual change from one identity, one reality to another-- the moment of ultimate unity where past, present, and future are one.

Pregnancy and birth provide a powerful point of reflection.  For an initial time, a woman has no indication of new life forming within her.  Then signs emerge and may or may not be noted.  Nine months after conception, a woman becomes a mother, yet for nine months she has, in fact, been a mother in ever-changing form.  Through much of life, one does not become something overnight.  Life evolves and, at a mystical  magical moment, we are both what we were as well as what we will be.  In a blink of an eye, the shift happens, yet the change has been occurring all along...

                                                                     What if we lived each moment 
                                                                              with an awareness 
                                                                              of the liminal space 
                                                                              in which we reside?
                                                                       Our birth leads us each day 
                                                                             closer to the last day
                                                                                 in which we die
                                                                        Every breath is one breath 
                                                                               closer to our last
                                                                            This need not cast 
                                                                      a dark veil over our souls
                                                                     For the gift of this awareness
                                                                          is an acute sense of the
                                                                      gift contained in each breath
                                                                  We live in a liminal space and time
                                                                                Soul embodied 
                                                                          Both divine and earthly
                                                                        Both eternal and temporal
                                                                         Both limitless and limited
                                                                           Both living and dying
                                                                           Both here and there