a new word.

my sister and mom were talking about it on the way home from NJ today,

"Liminality" it is this inbetween state of letting go of the past, but being uncertain of the future.


So I googled around and found some really cool articles, though there aren't a whole lot of them, and I'd like to read more, and maybe jump into some literature this summer that expresses these things.


so liminality comes with graduating (among many other things)... letting go of highschool, moving on to college. it's both positive and negative. I found this quote interesting:

"...what people usually have in mind is really resistance to transition, not to change ... Change occurs when something new starts or something old stops, and it takes place at a particular point in time. But transition cannot be localized in time that way, since it is the gradual psychological process through which individuals and groups reorient themselves so that they can function and find meaning in a changed situation. Change often starts with a new beginning, but transition must start with an ending -- with people letting go of old attitudes and behaviors ... At bottom, it is a person's identity that he or she has trouble letting go of, and it is that identity that stands in the way of the change producing its desired result" (Surviving Corporate Transition, pp. 16-19).


Another article I found was saying how lots of poets and artists learn to live in a state of liminality. Tim Kinsella said:

"The writer offers herself or himself to everything and everyone, turning to the inconsequential and almost invisible weeds for meaning as much as to the glorious blossoms, valuing the dark parts of the story as much as its light. . . For the writer to write at all, he or she must cultivate a heart that opens to all things. . . It is up to the writer to love everything that happens to him or her and each thing that comes under the eye's contemplation, inner or outer."


So this begins to explain the ambiguities about us humans, us bloggers, us artists... going through transitions in a culture that has no real "rites of passage" to affirm the journey and our process of becoming all the time. There's lots of us though, transitioning, opening up, so it's not so alienating. I'll be reading more... just thought I'd share that word with anyone unfamiliar, as i was earlier this afternoon, wikipedia doesn't even have a page on it yet (the word is too ambiguous i suppose), it is called "liminality." If you have more resources on that topic let me know

Jo