Recently I read an article by my friend Patricia Albere (pictured above), a co-founder of Evolutionary Collective, in which she writes quite eloquently about the word “liminal,” including its history and current application for the paradigm transition we are going through today. I highly suggest reading her piece before going on here: click here for article.
The only time I had previously heard the word was in the story of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to the butterfly, originally told by Norie Huddle and popularized by evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris.
In the transition stage, when the cocoon contains just “goopy soup,” a few cells have an idea of what they will become. Huddle calls these “liminal cells” and equates them with the present day visionaries who are dreaming of a better world.
However, Albere’s article makes the liminal consciousness accessible to everyone – not just reserved for those we call visionaries – but accessible to anyone who lives in a space that lies between the known and the unknown, which is almost everybody who is awake today. For me, her article makes liminal a common experience of living in “the between,” not an exceptional one.
If we are to really grow up and become mature adults – the kind of growing up I talk about in The Great Growing Up – then being part of the “we-space” or unity consciousness will be awaiting us. Instead of being freaked out about being in this “goopy soup” or this space “between the known and the unknown” it may help to know this between space is merely a transition phase on the way to a new and higher consciousness.
So my fellow liminals, let us find one another so we can “have the joy of discovering what its potentials are together,” to quote Albere.
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[NOTE: Since I originally drafted this blog, I listened to a March 23rd podcast on liminality by Albere and highly recommend it. Click here.]
