I spend a lot of time living in the illusion that I am creating life, and so I would love to create something now. This idea again reminds me of the story of Jonah, whose obstacles arose in the wake of his great destructive ambition. Then there is Ganesha, who is said to be the remover of obstacles and one who ensures success or the placer of obstacles when oneвЂ™s ambition has become destructive. Agni places us in the liminal space of the ashesвЂ“between death and life. There is Agni, god of fire, who resides in the liminal space between heaven and earth, igniting old ways, stagnation, that which is dying off in order to awaken the inner eyes that the feet may proceed forward in right direction. Speaking of obstacles then, I think of two deities of transformational, liminal spaces in the Hindu pantheon.

The heroes journey is one in which obstacles arise again and again, thrusting one into a space where breakdown may eventually offer breakthroughвЂ“though not if itвЂ™s forced. The story of Jonah that she references is one that can remind us that the heroes journey doesnвЂ™t often look pretty or perfect. We can enter into the liminal paradox: a disturbing time and space that not only breaks us down, but also offers us the choice to live in it with fierce aliveness, freedom, sacredness, companionship, and awareness of Presence.вЂќ And, if we attendвЂ¦ we can learn to let reality-even in its darkness-be our teacher, rather than living in the illusion that we are creating it on our own. In the unknown space between here and there, younger and older, past and future, life happens. Dwelling in unsettling liminal space, whether we are pushed or we jump, we are led to draw on resources and possibilities we may not have tapped before. a place and state of creativity, of construction and deconstruction, choice and transformation вЂ¦ Like Jonah in the belly of the sea monster, we are led where we do not want to go-not once, but many times in our lives. I include this from author Sheryl Fullerton, вЂњ what if we can choose to experience this liminal space and time, this uncomfortable now, as. I think, though, this is likely the equivalent of ripping a tiny bud of plant, just before it reaches the surface, up into the light just so I can see what it looks like, anxious to behold the plant in my time.

I like to get to the meaning of it all, figure it all out and attach a nice little bow around the lesson. Would I rush past if if I could? Probably. And now, here I am with all of you, weighted again in place by the pandemic. I couldnвЂ™t rush past anything because I was weighted by the heaviness of it all. Grief pushed me into a liminal space and grief held me still there. I experienced this deeply last summer when it felt like I had only come up for a gasp of air from being submerged under by one astonishing death to have my head thrust under the surface again by the next monumental death. While it may seem like nothing is happening above the surface, if we refuse the desire to be too hasty in our moving through it to what lies in the space beyond, the seeds that are under the surface will have their appropriate resurrection time, when the casing of the seed can break open and the life that lies within can root and rise.ДЄ great illness, death, a global pandemicвЂ“certainly these are happenings that propel us into liminal space, into the threshold of uncertainty. Either way, it is the point in the вЂњheroвЂ™s journeyвЂќ when the hero, left without the devices that have served her or him in the past, is forced to pause and enter a kind of void in timeвЂ“вЂњbetwixt and between,вЂќ as anthropologist Victor Turner wrote. It could be a time and space that we are thrust into unwillingly, or one that we choose to undertake. This middle point time can feel like a deeply disorienting time of ambiguity. The time in which we embody liminal space is called liminality, which is a time at the middle point in a passage from one stage to the next. Liminal space is that literal or figurative space we reside within that is transitionalвЂ“the space between one point and another. The word вЂњliminalвЂќ has Latin roots from the word вЂњlimen,вЂќ meaning threshold. Even if I REALLY resist the change at the time! ~Jen Rolston I truly believe that with each challenge comes opportunity to make things better. I always like to visualize the liminal space as one of a вЂњfertile voidвЂќ вЂ“ like a seed underground вЂ“ it may seem like nothing is happening but in the darkness a great and powerful transformation is taking place.

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