Originally published in the Herald-Zeitung on July 31, 2024.
We cannot always plan or orchestrate when a liminal space might arise. From the Latin word “limen,” it means threshold. It also connotes “transition.” It can refer to something personally, locally or nationally. But transformation seems to be its trajectory.
Liminality is a universal construction; it has been with us since the beginning of time. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, has called liminality “the space of imaginal activism.” It is a vibrant space where something new may arise.
Not only is liminality spatial; it can be a moment or an instant in time that is often seen more clearly when we look back at its occurrence. Then we grasp more readily its mythic overtones, even mythic renewal.
In liminality, something is crossed over—perhaps a new beginning of some impulse, some movement, some yearning that finds its time and space to emerge. It marks the space between what has been, like a habitual way of thinking, speaking and behaving, and into a new, fresh, reinvigorated and expansive arrangement that ushers in renewed energy. Its enthusiasm highlights what has been needed but not heretofore recognized. In liminal moments, the psychic energy moves from a former stasis into new kinetic power.
What had grown stale with overuse and abuse is sidestepped. Now accompanied by a feeling of renewal and reinvigoration, a sacred element may enter to secure a greater liberation for its members. Of course, not everyone will agree with what the threshold crossing expresses. It seldom is.
Rohr points out what the ancient Celtic people called “thin times,” was often celebrated with a ritual. The thinness of these moments collapsed to allow separate worlds to join hands: this current world we share, and the next world that is in embryo. Time also congealed in liminal moments; past, present and future dissolve into a communion where all time became unified.
The above might be recognized in expressions like: “It’s about time!” or “Why did it take so long to happen?” or “I thought this day would never come.” And yet here it is, nurtured by the energies of liminality.
Liminal thresholds can also emerge from a collective yearning, perhaps for a new narrative to replace one grown crusty, brittle and exhausted. Or a story that no longer serves the common good. As such, liminal moments spring more from imagining than reasoning. A yearning that brings us closer to the theme of this essay is the yearning in a nation to refashion itself through more humane and equitable values, even more tolerant attitudes towards one another. Integrity, generosity, compassion, coherence are the energy pockets of a liminal experience.
Something or someone appears in liminal space; it is creative space, where all may benefit from its largesse.
Liminal space is both an “opening” and “open” to wisdom, to value revision, to hunger for depth both in understanding and in quality of life. Its space hosts new ideas. A reinvigorated future we could not have imagined before suddenly becomes possible.
When Joe Biden yielded his position as presidential candidate for another term, he created a liminal space overnight.
Into that liminality a woman of color stepped into this opening as a candidate for the presidency. The outpouring of support in both morale and money has been unprecedented. That is what liminal moments often convey—the unprecedented.
What is also part of this liminal moment is the likelihood of a new plot to build up and out. An old established boundary has yielded to new plot options in the service of a more equitable freedom for diverse voices to enjoy.