As I sit on my farm, with spring so nascent, I’m present not only to life longing for itself—green shoots pushing through the hardened earth—but also to the transformational opportunity that comes from both endings and beginnings. 

Our lives are a series of cycles, not just in the events of a year, but the large cycles of moving from childhood to adolescence to adulthood; we change jobs, some of us have children who hopefully become adults. We start and end jobs, careers, and relationships. People die, babies are born.  

Cycles have an ending, a transition period, and a new beginning. Many things can be thought of as cycles, including Mondays, birthdays, and the turn of a new year. I think about each of these moments as the end of a cycle, which means that a new beginning awaits us, such as today.

What Is Liminal Space?

And in between the ending of a cycle and a new beginning is a threshold—a liminal space, the unknown—a doorway in which we stand waiting for whatever is new. We can stand in the unknown for a minute, an hour, or for years.

Liminal space is the transitional space between what was and what is becoming. 

My mom waited 23 years to fall in love and be married again after her divorce from my dad. I waited four years between one dog dying, and welcoming the next. We are often uncomfortable with this unknown. We want to know what’s next, how to prepare, what to expect. In some circles, including the Jungian world, these are also thought of as initiations.  

What are some of your endings and beginnings right now, beyond the rising up from the earth only to return to it in the fall? And if you think of them as initiations, what does that open up for you? If you can reframe the unknown as the threshold, or liminal space, how does that shift your experience?

If we can think about this liminal time as initiatory, as part of our profound growth and development, as the opportunity for an unknown archetype or self-knowledge to come forth, we can relax into this period knowing that it will change and transform, as everything does. When we can invite stillness and being into this space instead of anxiously pushing and doing, we lose the opportunity for another aspect of our being or personality to come forth, something to serve us in our next cycle. 

Why We Resist the Unknown

In 2023, I lost both my parents within 19 days of each other, and my beloved dog among other shattering changes. When I stopped to look at the why, what was happening in my life, why were there so many changes at once, I was led to recognize that this year was deeply initiatory for me.  

I’ve been standing (still) in the threshold now. The beginning isn’t clear yet, but I know it’s around the corner. When I forget that, and an unhealthy part of my ego takes over, I approach the threshold with trepidation. Then I remember all of the remarkable humans, especially women, who have been by my side and have helped illuminate my path during these times of change.

Standing in the Threshold Together

May you know in your heart of hearts, that as you stand in the doorway, at the threshold of whatever cycle you’re in, that you are loved and supported, seen and known for the greatest expression of who you are. If and when you falter, see yourself through the eyes of your tribe, your people, and remember the essence of who you are: sovereign, connected, loved, and all of the things that make you uniquely you.