Posted for Cuardaitheoir:
There
are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
In this, my first ever blog post, I would like to examine the idea
of liminal places. I have been deeply
exploring this concept as a means to understand my own various experiences of liminal
places. I include the Otherworld and the
In Between as manifestations of liminal places.
So, I admit my bias in accepting such “places” or experiences exist. How does one, however, describe the concept
and personal experiences of liminal places?
Language, be it mathematics or words, is a very constraining tool to
symbolically describe or relate deeply personal experiences of the Liminal to
others. Poetic words and mathematical
equations, however beautiful and elegant, are simply human constructs of
various precisions and hierarchies of meaning.
They are a way of understanding our perception
of the universe; they are not proof that we actually know the universe. The 17th
century philosophical inclination to ascribe metaphysical understanding of the
concept of knowing God and hence God’s creation is a false heuristic. Sacred geomancy and numerology subscribe to
such a notion. Regardless of neither the beauty of words nor the precision of
an equation, these tools are human constructs.
If we believe they provide us with the keys to unlocking the nature and
meaning of the universe, we are deluding ourselves however much comfort such a
delusion provides. Recognizing the
limitations of words, I will do my best to explore aspects of my understanding
of Liminal.
What is a Liminal Place? I
have used this phrase, and I have heard others use the words Liminal Place to describe
a concept which is, more often than not, considered metaphysical or certainly
not of the physical world. Loosely
described, it seems to be understood as a “place” which is in-between our
physical world and an “other world”. But
what is this Other World? Is it a
magical place? A spiritual place? Is it a physical place at all or merely an
idea to bridge the physical world to a metaphysical world? In these last 2 sentences, the words I used
to try and describe a liminal place are loaded with many overt and subtle
meanings. Whole books can be written on
the meaning of these words, but for the purpose of this blog, please accept the
definition of the Other World as the other side of a liminal place. So is a Liminal Place a gateway, a door or
some kind of passage point between our physical world and the Other World? And if so, what are its characteristics? How and why do we think such places exist?
I have referred to the liminal concept as a place. Examples of liminal places I have heard or
read about include the line between sea and sky, water and land, and tree
branches between land and sky. Other descriptions are not of physical
places. An example of a nonphysical
place would be the mist. Frank MacEowen from his book entitled, the Mist-Filled
Path” wrote that, “Where the moist chill meets warmth the luminescence of mist
is born. The mist is the threshold, the guardian of the in-between where vision
is received. Within the mist of liminal
time and space we are able to plant the seeds of a new life”. Regardless of the descriptors used, it is
clear that liminal represents an edge between 2 entities; however these
entities are described.
Characterizing the concept of liminal as existing as an edge in time
and space is quite interesting as it seems, for some persons, to denote a
dualistic construct. In the large body of Christian theology, there exist the
ideas of a heaven and a hell. In between
heaven and hell was purgatory. It was a
place where one could neither rest in the light of god, but neither were you in
hell. It was a place where redemption
was probable if one could learn and redeem themselves to the grace of God. Like purgatory, liminal places are considered
sources of knowledge and inspiration, but are not necessarily the entrance to
the Otherworld. I wonder if in some
modern Pagan thinking, theological Christian dualism remains present but under
the guise of a neo-Pagan construct?
Animism and polytheism are not bound to mind and matter dualism. Animism makes no distinctions between a here and a there and, therefore, requires no concept of dualism within the liminal.
It does not subscribe to Cartesian
dualism. I agree with Brendan Myers when
he wrote the following within his book, The Earth, the Gods and the Soul,
“Animism… reject the dualism that declares a fundamental distinction between
mind, soul, spirit, and matter, body, physicality. Instead, such an animism
finds mindedness in every part of nature, including the wholeness of
everything”. Is the concept of liminal
truly a Pagan concept? Yes, but not when
it is perceived as a place in-between 2 places, but as an edge amongst many
edges.
When expressed as an edge, the concept of liminal can be accepted as
a deeply rooted in Paganism. What,
however, is an edge? Within animistic
constructs, an edge is a boundary of consciousness amongst many boundaries of
consciousness. An animistic universe is
a Minded universe. When Minded is
self-reflective, it is conscious. In her
book, “Living with Honour”, Emma Restall-Orr states, “Nature exists as many
layers of integrated consciousness, providing a web through which we can
experience that intrinsic connection.” Furthermore, she writes, “While
consciousness does not need a physical reflection or manifestation, nothing in
nature can exit without a song of consciousness, without the life energy of
intention.” Edges are the intersection points of consciousness, whatever their
forms. If one were to pause and reflect
on this subject, one might think such a concept was rather “flakey” at best or
insane at worst. On the contrary,
quantum science agrees and has concluded with the ancient Pagan understanding
of a conscious universe!
Consciousness is the logic of nature. Although the language of Quantum Theory
differs greatly from the language of animism, remarkably their paths arrive at
the same centre of the forest. In his book, “The Non-Local Universe”, physicist
Menas Kofatos and philosopher and historian of science, Robert Nadeau, write,
“…however, it seems clear that our real or actual self I not imprisoned in our
minds. It is implicitly part of the larger whole of biological life. Derives
its existences from embedded relations to this whole, ad constructs its reality
based on evolved mechanisms that exist in all human brains. This suggests that any sense of the
“otherness” of selves and world is an illusion that disguises the actual
relation that is between the part that is our self and the whole that is
biological reality. In our view a proper
definition of this whole must not only include the evolution of the larger
undissectible whole of the cosmos and the unbroken evolution of all life forms
from the first self-replication molecule that was the ancestor of DNA”.
Moving away from quantum theory and philosophy, how does this help
us understand our Druid Path and personal experiences? We can trust that
knowledge and wisdom can be gleaned from liminal places. Liminal places are intersections of
interconnected consciousness. They are
nature. We are liminal edges amongst
other liminal spaces. The interpretation and understanding of our
own experiences carry as much meaning as other forms of learning. We need to open and allow ourselves to
explore these Edges of Consciousness and trust that they are a legitimate a
source of inspiration and knowing.
Mist
Enfold between sea and sky
Water well and dragon fire
Brighid’s 3
And Maidens 9
Ceridwen knows reality lies
Somewhere between Mephisto’s glare
And the Cheshire cat’s fading smile.
Cuardaitheoir /|\
