2YoungCrones

☾ concepts ☽

The Concept of the Liminal

E Chapman

The word descends from the Latin limen meaning threshold. Liminal spaces are those that occupy a position at or on both side of a boundary at the same time. They are the betwixt and between places where the world of the magickal and the world of the mundane meet and mingle continuously.

For most people, they are barely perceptible unless they stumble across one by accident. Witches, however, tend to seek out these places to practice ritual, work magick, and commune with the energies of the Universe. For us, they are the often forgotten places of power that pop up unexpectedly around us. Old stories of heroes talk about them stepping across a threshold into another world and meeting with strangers who gave them messages from the Gods.

Historically, Witches were said to meet down at the crossroads. However, we also associate changes in time with the betwixt and between as well. Dusk or twilight and the coming of dawn are moments when time seems to pause and take a breath before plunging into the night or the start of another day. Sitting with those energies, you can almost feel the possibilities of the beginnings of change they can provide for your spiritual growth and development.

Within a ritual, we strive to create those liminal spaces, however you define them, because it is here that the mundane and magickal can come together and create opportunities for us to step out into something new, become different in the way we perceive our lives and our behaviors, and take action to improves ourselves and the world around us.

Being in the liminal can be both joyous because of the feelings that being surrounded by magick creates or extremely uncomfortable because of the natural human resistance to change.