If there was ever a time that could be called "liminal", this is it. I suppose in a way, I've been in it my whole life, in a space or time between worlds, on a threshold, in transition to a new reality. When you are mystically inclined, you hold the spiritual and physical realms in an uneasy balance all the time anyway, slipping easily from one side of the "line" to the other. And, of course, in a post-duality world, there is no line...
Anyway, over Christmas weekend, I think I moved farther from old realities than ever. I was alone, and with the COVID surge, not feeling really inclined to see people in person, tests or no tests...winter, the pandemic, the solstice -- all were calling me inward, and that is mostly where I stayed. Yet it was unnerving. "Lessons and Carols from King's" didn't elicit the usual responses from me (joy, appreciation of the beauty, homesickness). Even the dreaded first lesson (about women being to blame for everything) didn't send me into a fury. In the context of this pandemic and its ripple effects, the carol service lost its former meaning and attraction. And even music on the classical station seemed jarring. Except for food, I hadn't spent much money over the holiday, so TV ads were even more unpalatable than ever.
I'm not sure what I feel like reading or doing any more. Jobs, paid or volunteer, are all part of the dying paradigm, and I simply do not want to put my focus there. Sometimes I fall back on watching good and bad "crime" television, not because crime attracts me per se, of course, but because in the past it has engaged my problem-solving muscles. Yet over the last week, all these entertainments and activities fell flat as well. I sent Christmas cards to people who I may never see again if travel doesn't open up. I still have some belongings out East, and need to arrange to ship the boxes here, only everything in them is "history" -- family portraits, childhood scrapbooks and boxes of pictures, notes for my master's thesis, my mom's sewing box, little bits of family silver (picture frames, dining sets, etc.) All the WASP accoutrements for this low income senior citizen in Minnesota. Even if I get them sent out here, what do I do with them? I don't have a permanent home, and even if I did, somehow, I have moved on. The items don't reflect who I am now.
If the lives we have created are morphing into something new, what did it all mean? Where are we headed? This is hard stuff.
What keeps me going is the fact that I was already predicting a "Transition" decades ago, and now that it's finally here, it's not surprising me in the least. I am oddly relieved. Deep in my heart, I rejoice that many unsavory truths about how we have been operating in the world are finally being revealed. The conflict-based paradigm is more visible than ever but it is paradoxically less effective. We don't need to "fight" it, just notice when it no longer serves and shrug it off. The liminal space is awkward, uncomfortable, and unsettling because future ways of being are still far off on the horizon. We've taken off the old coat, and the new one hasn't been sewn together yet. It is tempting to keep holding on to the old just to have something, but this stream is going to keep moving. That's one thing we can be sure of.
