It’s from the Latin “limen”: a threshold, a door, a passage and in our time refers to psychological or metaphysical state of being; to discuss psychological states; rituals of passage.
Increasingly the word usage can be found in psychological & theological literature recognizing a sense of the holy, the sacred, and the transcendent; often the threshold between consciousness & unconsciousness (“subliminal”).
Some examples from life:
- The feeling of always being in between and never “there”
- Equinox & Solstice: Noon & Midnight: Dusk & Dawn
- Graduation
- Out of a job/work
- The Twilight Zone
- Lost Islands & places (Bermuda Triangle, Jurassic Park, etc.)
- Purgatory & Limbo
- Mistletoe
- New Year’s Day
- In between beings (typical of this time of year)
- Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, Androids, Tricksters
- Monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, Grendel, etc.
Experiencing liminality:
- Alienation, Marginality, Drift, Homelessness, Sense of Loss
- Unusual degree of Vulnerability, Feelings of Intimacy and Ultimacy
- Sudden emotional “drafts” from either “within” or “without”
- Highly charged images and thoughts
- Sense of an amputated past and a vague future: growing sense of life’s limits
- The appearance of a messenger or guide (dreams, images, experiences)
- Nostalgic periods of grieving for a vaguely felt absence
- Lassitude, depression, disillusionment, disappointment
For the time being, let’s not try to solve this contemporary feeling, issue, problem to solve; let’s simply reflect and perhaps share the experience of it.
Reflections welcome.
