Tag: liminal space

No comments

Reflections on Pandemic Liminal Space, Between Past and Future

  By , ,

Between What Was & What Will Be...

It’s been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit us. We’ve all experienced things we couldn’t have imagined. For those who have lost family members or friends or suffered from the virus themselves, it has been devastating. For all of us, life-changing.

As we are moving out of the pandemic – I sincerely hope slowly and carefully – the insights of the past months are important to capture and use. There is value now as we formulate post-pandemic life, and in the future as we look back. Imagine 10 or 20 years from now, reading what you write now. And those who come after us will have a treasure we left behind.

I have a journal entry for each of the weeks since the end of March 2020 and using that as a base, I have written a short ebook. Besides looking back, I recorded questions and things to consider as I move forward. An important element of my particular story is that I also made a cross-country move, from Tennessee to California, during the year. Within the book you can also access a free journal that I designed just for this period of time as we progress.

I invite you to check out my Kindle book here: http://carolbrusegar.com/between-what-was-what-will-be  It will take you directly to Amazon.com. The book is just $0.99. If you are not a Kindle user, a PDF version for download is available on Gumroad for the same price: BWWAWWB on Gumroad

Here’s a more complete description:

Between What WAS and What WILL BE reflects on my experiences during the initial year of the COVID-19 pandemic which included a cross-country move. I share the insights and struggles of the months leading up to and following the actual physical transplant of my life from Tennessee to California. And I reflect on the decade I spent in Tennessee: experiences, insights, and connections to the past.

During the process I experienced:

+ Letting go of possessions

+ Transitioning relationships

+ Leaving and settling with great restrictions

+ Putting my experiences into a larger context

+ Considering what I want to be different in the future

I hope it will inspire you to embrace big endeavors regardless of the situation. May you take the opportunity of this unique time in our common history to reflect and create a post-pandemic life based on what you have experienced and learned.

 

 

3 Comments

Personal Liminal Space – A Cross-County Move In the Space Between  

  By ,

movingI’ve reflected on the liminal space we are all experiencing during this pandemic here: https://carolbrusegar.com/liminal-spaces-in-between-time/  It is a time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, a season of waiting, and not knowing. Now I am in a specific personal liminal space. Within a few weeks, I will be moving from Nashville, TN to Cypress, CA to be near my family. They moved from Nashville to California four years ago and I am delighted to be joining them.

Preparing to Move in Liminal Space

The liminal space begins with the preparation stage – not what it used to be and hopefully not what it will be in the future. The differences from previous moves begin with paring down belongs as we typically do. All the precautions must be followed; so trips to donate boxes of books to a library’s used book sale mean masks on both sides, a cart that I must load and leave at the door. When I make deliveries of donated items to Good Will, I must unload the boxes and bags filling my car into bins. Their employees aren’t allowed to gather items or help in any way. Some things that I might have sought out places to donate to – magazines, for example – don’t seem worth the additional hassle and go into recycle bins. I won’t ask or accept offers of help in the packing process from friends to eliminate risks. When I must have people in for a moving estimate or to remove furniture that is donated or purchased, it will be with utmost precautions.

As departure time comes closer, there won’t be any in-person gatherings to say good-bye to groups of friends or others. Even if they were done carefully, following all the recommended precautions, we couldn’t hug each other. So we will have a Zoom gathering instead. This makes it a rather strange departure. Hopefully the future holds something better.

All of the details of safe reunion with my family after I have traveled across country also need to be worked out. It will be a challenge to reunite after nearly eight months with no visits in a responsible, safe way. (Normally I see them every 3 months.)

The Challenge of Downsizing Memorabilia

Another aspect of this process, which would have happened regardless of the external circumstances, is the significant downsizing of the memorabilia of my life. Perhaps because of the context of 2020, I am thinking of this process in a liminal space framework also.

I have carried many boxes with me through two moves – a collection of things that only certified pack rats (or treasure keepers in gentler terms) would continue moving. I have eliminated things in each of my past two moves and what I still have are some of the most precious. These include items from my mother who died 18 years ago: costume jewelry, her crochet and latch hook projects, table linens, aprons.

Then there are letters she wrote me over many years and over 60 years-worth of her diaries. The letters and diaries will be used for writing I plan to do and thus will make this move too. I am taking photos of many of the other things as remembrances and letting go of the physical objects. I am paring down remembrances from other family members and friends as well as 40 years of print photos. I feel as though I am in a space of letting go at a deeper level than before. The connection to the physical things that connected me to the people is in some way changing.

Hanging on to so many physical items has been my past mode of operation. The process of letting go of these keepsakes is a physical manifestation of the letting go of some of the other things I have had to release for the past several months. Some of them will never return in any form. Some will be recreated. All will stay in my memories.

Preserving the Meaning Without All the Objects

As I move through this, I am motivated and inspired to capture and preserve some of the memories and reflections for the future. I kept things in boxes and brought them along because they were valuable to me. How can the meaning of such things be captured in ways that will sustain me and touch or inform members of my family or others? How can I honor and share the meaning and lessons? That is my challenge and another opportunity from the liminal space of 2020!

Perhaps you, too, are exploring how to capture your experiences, your story, your memoir in writing. There are many books available to assist us in this process.  https://amzn.to/3gSo6bo

Here’s one that has a unique approach that I have found to be helpful:  https://amzn.to/32OyHiH  The Stories We Leave Behind: A Legacy-Based Approach to Dealing with Stuff by Laura H Gilbert

One Comment

Liminal Spaces in Our Lives – the ‘In Between’ That Continues

  By ,

Unknown, liminal, doorI certainly didn’t imagine a few months ago that the pandemic and its myriad impacts would still be affecting us on a daily basis as we move into September! I hadn’t thought much about such occurrences, and I must admit in retrospect that I wasn’t really affected mentally or in any other way by the most recent H1-N1 or Ebola epidemics. It was on my radar, but it didn’t impact my day-to-day reality.

And here we are entering the fall months, still in this space between – this liminal space. This description from https://inaliminalspace.org/ is helpful: “The word liminal comes from the Latin word ‘limen’, meaning threshold – any point or place of entering or beginning. A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, a season of waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.”   I wrote about this concept earlier here: https://carolbrusegar.com/using-liminal-space-next-phase/

As the months have passed, more and more things have been revealed, not only directly related to the pandemic, but to all the other crises we have faced. I hear people pondering what it will look like when we have come to the other side of this – whenever that may be.

Eileen Button wrote an interesting post, “Welcome to Liminal Space” https://flushingview.mihomepaper.com/articles/welcome-to-liminal-space/  in which she invites us to use this space to be open to examination of our lives and reality on a broad level and as it applies to us personally:

“This season asks us to notice and evaluate what we’re doing to the Earth and all its inhabitants. It begs us to examine how we collect and distribute our wealth. It demands that we not only notice the vulnerabilities of our neighbors, but to work to change the systems that keep them oppressed. And it pleads with us not only to thank those whom we have labeled “essential,” but to ensure that equitable adjustments will be made so that our resources are placed where our gratitude is.

“In short, this liminal space is illuminating. It’s shining a light on us, which is sometimes unflattering as it shows us harder truths about ourselves and the society in which we live.”

Everyone Has a Role to Play 

How can this reflection and examination happen? Surely businesses and organizations are looking at some of these questions. Hopefully citizen groups and networks are or will be as we move into another season. Our elected officials on all levels are faced with the issues in stronger ways and must respond.

And we individually can reflect, write/journal and discuss it with others. Perhaps a virtual gathering on Zoom, Google Meet, etc. with specific related topics can be stimulating and generate some creative ideas and directions. Invite friends and acquaintances and try it out. It’s a process in which we all have a role to play.

If you are interested in learning how to use Zoom, there are lots of resources at Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3aZg3sb  or available through a Google search.

Journaling is an incredible and flexible tool and has so much to offer during times like these. If you would like to explore ways to use journaling, check out my free online course that introduces several uses: https://carolbrusegar.com/journaling-explore-the-possibilities-with-my-free-ecourse/

 

 

One Comment

Using Liminal Space to Create the Next Reality in America

  By ,

unknown, liminal, tunnel“It would be difficult to exist in this time of global crisis and not feel caught between at least two worlds—the one we knew and the one to come. Our consciousness and that of future generations has been changed. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle.”

Those words by Richard Rohr, author and theologian, articulate something many of us are feeling. It has been several months (for lots of us) of being under “stay at home” orders  or other restrictions so that the infection rates can be reduced and our health care systems can be likely to handle what comes in the long haul. The more that we hear about what is to come, the more caught between we can feel.

There is a word that describes this position.  Not a common word, but one that grasps the essence of what lots of people are feeling.  We are in liminal space. The word liminal comes from the Latin word ‘limen’, meaning threshold – any point or place of entering or beginning. A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, a season of waiting, and not knowing.

Richard Rohr addresses this directly: “This global pandemic we now face is an example of an immense, collective liminal space. The very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows room for something genuinely new to happen. We are empty and receptive—erased tablets waiting for new words. Liminal space is where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled. Liminality keeps us in an ongoing state of …calling so-called normalcy into creative question.”

I see this perspective as helpful in providing a framework for the days ahead. The most significant things we can do are to use this time to examine what opportunities this massive disruption of our “normal” can offer.

What about our personal normal of the past do we consider important and life-giving to ourselves and others in our immediate circle? What things would we like to modify, change significantly or eliminate?

Then there are the larger questions within our communities and country. This crisis has revealed (to some) and amplified (to others) some of the ways in which our country is not life-giving and nurturing to everyone. The obvious examples are these:

1) the disproportionately high infection and death rates among our African American, Latino, and indigenous groups

2) the high infection and death rates in long term care facilities – nursing homes, assist living facilities, etc.

3) the dire effects of lack of health care services, facilities and insurance among people in rural America as well as among the communities of color mentioned above.

As we view these things – among others – in this liminal space, what do we want to do about them? There is so much pressure to “get us back to normal” which is not going to happen quickly. In fact, it will never be the normal we had several months ago. There are ways in which that is good. To simply return to what was is not in the interest of many, many Americans.

We are having an extended time to look at how we will live, work, educate our children and ourselves, take care of the vulnerable, and make our country a more just and lifegiving place for all of our fellow citizens.

Liminal space is where all transformation takes place. We are on a threshold and we will be here for a while. How will we use this time and space to ponder the next phase for ourselves, the organizations of which we are a part, our communities, and our country?

Journaling is an incredible and flexible tool and has so much to offer during times like these. If you would like to explore ways to use journaling, check out my free online course that introduces several uses: https://carolbrusegar.com/journaling-explore-the-possibilities-with-my-free-ecourse/