The In Between Spaces

The turning of the seasons each year brings me many opportunities to explore

when the season is neither all one or all another thing. For me this is the season of possibility, liminality, standing on the threshold, neither in one place or another.

Who knows what each day will bring?

This morning I saw a glaze of ice covering most of the pond behind our house. Earlier this week I noticed that the ice of winter had finally melted — water to ice, ice to water, water to ice again. That is the way of this liminal season.

Several years ago I stayed for three months near Ely, MN, from March through May. One warm April day when I was sure spring had finally arrived I went out canoeing in the beautiful Burntside River with a friend. The next day a snowstorm covered everything with snow again. This pattern repeated again and again.

A local who rejoiced in living in this beautiful rugged wild place, told me, “This back and forth will go on until fishing opener. We never expect spring to last up here until mid-May or later.” That spring was truly an exploration of liminal space for me, in so many ways. And though I would not choose to live there, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to experience what living there was like.

Muted Beauty

The colors of this season are often unsaturated, muted, and soft. Still I find beauty in this more limited palette of nature knowing that soon everything will be bursting into vivid color and blossom.

Liminality

So much of what we know
Lives just below the surface.
Half of a tree
Spreads out beneath our feet.
Living simultaneously in two worlds,
Each half informing and nurturing
The whole.
A tree is either and neither
But mostly both.

I am drawn to liminal spaces,
The half-tamed and unruly patch
Where the forest gives way
And my little garden begins.
Where water, air and light overlap
Becoming mist on the morning pond.

…

I am learning to live where losses hold fast
And grief lets loose and unravels.
Where a new kind of knowing can pick up the thread.

Where I can slide palms with a paradox
And nod at the dawn,
As the shadows pull back
And spirit meets bone.

— Carrie Newcomer, https:elephantjournal.com/2021/10/liminality-a-stunning-poem-on-learning-to-live-with-what-is-carrie-newcomer/

Good Practice

Living in this in between space feels like good practice, a kind of presencing myself in not knowing and acceptance.

One never knows what surprises will unfold in our lives day to day. To live well without knowing how things will unfold teaches me to live courageously in beautiful and in difficult times. I like pondering the luminosity of daily life in this challenging and often messy world.

Do you also love living in the between places, in liminal space?

May you walk in beauty.

Note: Photos made at West Medicine Lake Park near where I live, many using intentional camera movement, also some multiple exposures created in Photoshop.

Note 2: I just discovered singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer today and I learned that she has a Substack presence with lots of posts, music, etc. available without a paid subscription. You may also enjoy her words here: https://carrienewcomer.substack.com/