Liminal Space and the Unfolding of Human Consciousness
Endings and beginnings, endings and beginnings.
Isn’t it the way that sometimes they flow seamlessly into one another like a two-way zipper, fastening and unfastening in unison.
And sometimes there’s the gap – the liminal space, the time when a trapeze artist has let go of one set of hands, is free flying ready to be caught by an awaiting firm grip.
The word excruciating came to mind, then, more playfully, images of Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, falling with style!
Then I recognise that my discomfort is about the need to relinquish control – well, the illusion of control that I still grasp at sometimes.
I’m contemplating Control as a shadow state these days, noticing when it appears in my life. And applying the Gene Keys teachings, this shadow can be transcended by following the path of Authority, towards Valour.
I’d rather be remembered as someone who stood in their authority and had valour than a controlling person – so I need to keep working at this!
In my outer life, the processes of transferring my residence from one country to another have been set in motion. And now I wait! As a friend said to me, I’m moving from A to C, and B requires others to complete their tasks. I have no control over B.
I’m wanting flow and I have staccato. Yet staccato is all a part of the symphony!
“Let Life live through you”.
And today’s full moon reminds me that this lunar cycle has come to completion.
I’ve been sorting through my belongings, preparing to move, I’ve delved into folders and drawers that have remained closed for months.
Graciously, the rushing river of my life has slowed for a while, so that I can meander and reflect as I sort and sift. The sediment that I’ve been carrying with me can be released here – enriching the soil as the water of my life moves on.
In the way of these things, each document, each item carries with it memories. And each memory drags with it a raft of emotions.
As I revisit each item, I’m allowing the emotions evoked to rise and fall. Which ones do I want to hold onto? Which can be released, and where does the story need to be reframed?
Rather than repeating the same old stories – which for me tend to highlight the more difficult aspects of an experience, I’m looking for the pearls, the things I learned. I’m looking for the beauty in each situation or memory and releasing the rest.
What is the full moon revealing to you?
Ask yourself
What has come to completion in my life?
In what ways would it be helpful to rewrite the stories that have brought me to this completion?
What beauty is hidden within?
One of the beautiful things I found was a poem, Joy and Sorrow by Kahlil Gibran. What follows is the flow of memories and thoughts that were set into motion on rereading these powerful, wise words.
I hope that both my words, and those of the poet offer illumination to you too.
Finding solace in poetry is a relatively new thing for me.
As a child, I had a terror of reading aloud.
English literature classes were torture, knowing that, sooner or later, I would be called upon to read a page, or worse, two aloud to the sniggering class. Rather than listening to the unfolding stories, I spent my time calculating whether I’d be saved by the bell, or whether I’d have to endure the agony of trying to pin down, decipher and speak out words that danced around the page with a mind of their own. Had I been able to relax, who knows where I might have been led . . . my anxiety didn’t allow for that!
And occasionally, there’d be a poem to recite.
I remember choosing one about watching father shave. I thought it inane and ridiculous and chose it specifically for its brevity. Instantly seeing though my tactic, a longer poem was selected for me – apparently simply because the teacher enjoyed watching me squirm! It wasn’t a helpful introduction into the beauty of well-crafted words!
So, it came as a surprise to me when, now an adult, I was unexpectedly overwhelmed by tears, when a friend recited a poem during a regular Sunday church service. It caught me off guard, touched my soul and opened me to a profound truth and shared experience.
A similar thing happened a few days into my first Camino.
Up to that point, as had been invited, I meticulously maintained a level of anonymity and told my companions very little about myself or my life away from the Camino.
Just two months previously, I had left my position as a humanitarian worker in Northeast Syria and moments before the opening retreat session I received news that the US military peace keeping force was to withdraw from the region, potentially leaving my friends there in grave danger.
A forceful whirlwind of emotions erupted through me. Spinning, I was pure agitation in motion.
Somehow, I called my Camino mentor.
“Where are you?” he said. “I’m on my way”.
That surprised me.
No one had willingly walked into one of my emotional storms before. And honestly, in this mess, I’d rather not be seen!
Having been raised in the stiff-upper-lip British culture, I’d successfully learned to suppress and contain my powerful emotional responses, those deemed such an embarrassment by the rest of the family.
I now understand that this “primal repression” is part of the usual psychological developmental process. It’s part of the process of becoming a separate self, a little person in our own right, and something that, up until now at least, we have all done. In “The Grace in Dying”, Kathleen Dowling-Singh puts it something like this – Whilst cutting us off from our Essential Nature, our Soul Self, primal repression serves to delineate our emerging technical egos.
Back on the Camino, I realised that the emotions I was feeling were greater than my capacity to self-regulate. In this moment, I didn’t want or feel able to pull myself together. I had planned to excuse myself from our imminent gathering.
But my mentor had a different approach. He stood, he listened, he empathised. He felt my pain with me. He did not say anything to pacify or rescue me.
Being compassionately witnessed, emotionally held and let be in my messy pain and distress was a new, and somewhat disarming experience!
After much pacing, many tears and expressions of disbelief, both at the situation and the fact that I could offer no practical assistance or protection to my friends and ex colleagues, the storm gradually passed.
And, having been reassured that the retreat gathering would be conducted in an atmosphere similar to the one of non-interference described in “Do to others as I would have them do to me” I agreed to participate and share a little of what had brought me to this red-eyed, tear-stained place.
Articulating the incredulity I felt toward the governments who could leave a war-traumatised people open to the potential of more violence was not so difficult. It was harder to admit the sense of utter failure that still swirled through me. This ending was yet another in a long line of similar endings, making up a pattern, that I perceived as personal failure in my life. One that I sought to change.
So, my sharing in this first circle was raw, vulnerable, honest, perhaps a little shocking to hear.
As I concluded, my Camino mentor offered beautiful words, the poem Sweet Darkness by David Whyte.
. . .Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong. . .
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
The words pierced my heart.
A fresh stream of tears flowed; gentle, soothing this time – not like the burning eruptive force from a few hours earlier.
As Simone Weil famously says “There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.”
The affliction that I had been feeling had tenderised me. Now beautiful words pierced my heart and allowed new understandings to germinate.
Since that moment, I have lived into both poems and myths – or they have lived into me! The exchange seems mutual somehow. A knowing develops, a palpable, expanding field of pulsating resonance between poetic words and lived experience.
My receptive Self willingly sinks into the beauty, the ecstasy almost, of such a merged experience. And from here, I’m now able to read aloud with a fluidity and expressiveness that removes all self-conscious stammering.
At the same time, my analytical mind wants to understand! As science catches up with spiritually, I’m sure that many will be able to describe the energetics of such an experience with far greater insight and precision than me! But for now, my understanding is nudging me towards the Levels of Reality diagram I posted in “Changes, Changes” – another post inspired by poetic wisdom!
It seems to me that living into the poetic engages the transcendent, mythical, emotional and physical aspects of my being. It offers a level of integration that our functional egos rail against. It feels very whole-some!
It feels like the early steps in a return towards a less fragmented sense of Self.
And not only is the integration personal, it’s transpersonal – my lived experience resonates with that of the poet or author, as well as the Source of inspiration from which their words flowed.
Earlier, I mentioned The Grace in Dying by Kathleen Dowling-Singh.
Being a fan of the life-death-rebirth cycle, and preparing for the inevitable, yet hopefully still distant death of my mother, I’m re-reading it, discovering layers that I was previously unable to fathom.
Early in the book, a “chart”, a diagram caught my eye.
Whilst realising the limitations of this chart, the author explains that it is intended to be helpful in “depicting the sequence of consciousness’s evolution”, based upon the premise that
“A human being emerges from the Ground of Being. Each of us has come together in a unique manifestation point of energy, as a particular being at a particular moment in chronological time, in the world of emergent form, presumably for the purpose of self-aware experience and contribution of our gifts to other sentient beings, culminating in transcendence and perhaps co-creation. “
How wonderful!
The diagram shows an arc, sweeping up from, over and back to a horizontal representation of chronological time.
The arc itself lays out and represents the different levels of consciousness through which a human goes during the unfolding of their life. Beginning with undifferentiated pre-personal realms at birth, a state only minimally differentiated from the Ground of Being, through the personal, then transpersonal realms to Unity Consciousness – the re-merging with Source, or The Ground of Being at the point of physical death. Rather than being purely sequential, the author suggests that “each level unfolds out of, includes and goes beyond the level before it”.
As our consciousness develops, nothing is lost – all is integrated, included and transcended.
How wonderful!
Whilst I felt a profound resonance with the description, it was the middle section of the diagram that evoked a “Yes, of-course” response and caused me to pause!
I hope that you are able to see what I see!
Marked with V shaped dotted lines, reaching up from the mid-point of the chronological time axis, The Mental Ego, the last phase of the Personal Realms is included in and enfolded by The Witness, the first phase of the Transpersonal Realms.
Back in those painful moments of my first Camino, my self-conscious, separate mental ego was included in and enfolded by The Witness, offered by one more mature than me, offered by a circle of fellow travellers, keen to practice new ways of holding space for their companion.
And it explains why, over the past 5 or more years, I’ve been soaking up the teachings of those who encourage us to notice, observe, and witness both inner and outer worlds.
This is why I’ve been writing about my inner immature emotional child aspect, Delores, and my mature parent aspect Sophia, as she notices my reactions, and holds space for Delores, so that ultimately my whole being can choose how to respond in each moment.
This is why I’ve been encouraging you to notice, to be witness to both your inner and outer worlds too.
We each need to be witnessed, seen, held in compassionate, empathic space. Not to fix us, or rescue us from our pain, but to honour us in being capable of navigating our way through it, in the way that is right for us. Honouring us as we find our authentic response to the situation. Honouring our personal authority.
Thank you, thank you to each one of you.
By reading these posts, you are participating, holding space, witnessing me and supporting the development of my consciousness.
And as we practice being The Witness, we are gently moving ourselves and our collective along the unfolding arc of human consciousness. So, by being here, you are supporting the development, not only of your individual, but also of our collective consciousness too!
How wonderful!
There’s more!
You may remember that in Seeking Renewal, I wrote about the Precession of the Ages and humanity’s move into the Age of Aquarius, where equity, collaboration, community, compassion and humanitarian action will take precedence.
I also mentioned the Hindu perspective of the Yuga Cycle, a cyclical view of time, that describes the moral, physical and spiritual state of human development as it evolves through a repeating cycle of four phases.
From this perspective, we are just emerging from the Kali Yuga, the age of forgetting that I wrote about in this way:
“During the age of forgetting or deterioration, it is said that our prior emphasis on spiritual practices and dharma or righteousness give way to a focus on material possessions and worldly pleasure. Legalistic religion replaces Vedic or natural law. The way in which we were attuned with and honoured the earth and sky and our ability to recognise our interconnectedness is forgotten. And rather than taking personal responsibility and acting from our own inner authority, we submit to the rules and doctrines of external hierarchies.”
The Kali Yuga represents the time where we are disconnected from our true Selves.
By superimposing Dowling-Singh’s diagram over this cycle, it seems to me as if the end of the Kali Yuga corresponds with the phase where the Mental Ego – king of the Personal Realms reigns. This point also marks the greatest separation from the Ground of Being, expressed through dualistic thinking and the desire for power and control.
But this is not the end! This only represents half the story!
We are emerging from the Kali Yuga, beginning to remember. As we allow our witness selves to enfold and include the king of the personal realms, our minds can surrender their illusion of being in control. Then our inner authority can shine through, as we unfold into the transpersonal realms and the realisation that we are indeed individuals, whilst also interconnected, as One.
In writing this, the pennies are falling into place!
Let’s weave in another couple of metaphors to enrichen our understanding!
Here’s one we are probably all familiar with – the classic journey of psychospiritual (trans)formation. We’ve followed our heroic egos on their quest to individuate. We’ve heeded the call, endured trials and suffering, developed our skills, and at that point of near despair, realised that we are, and have always been at One with Source, the Ground of Being, God, YH-WH, Allah, Tao, Brahman, Sunyata, the Universe, the Void . . . and with all of Life.
And another, this one from the story of the Lost Son or Daughter.*
The grown child of a wealthy family asks for their inheritance and leaves their father’s house to explore and experience the world. After some time, when experiences have been relished and the inheritance spent, famine hits the land. Starving, the lost one remembers their heritage and how well the hired hands are treated at their father’s house. As if waking from a dream, in remembering, the lost one come to themselves, and humbled, determines to return, ready to take the role of one who serves.
In the beautiful rich ending, the lost one is met with compassion from the elder and resentment from the peer. Compassion wins the day, and the lost one is reinstated to resume their birthright and place in the wider family.
With all the changes and utterly painful situations occurring in the world, how can we not be moved as we witness our individual experiences of affliction or those of others and of our earth?
Just as in those early days of my first Camino – can we allow affliction to tenderise us?
Much as my ego wanted to take action, take control; by being compassionately and empathically witnessed myself, I unfolded to beauty and a greater understanding. From here, I could witness from afar and pray for a peaceful outcome to the war-torn land I’d recently left.
We’ve come a long way from my early experiences with inane poetry!
Perhaps allow these words from Kahlil Gibran to speak to your experience of our changing times. Perhaps allow them to pierce your heart.
Notice, what comes up for you, and invite your mature adult, witness self to hold it with empathy and compassion.
What new, deeper understanding wants to emerge?
On Joy and Sorrow
Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Kahlil Gibran – 1883-1931
Be joyful, be safe, be well
Annie
* Listen to a recitation of an expanded version of the Lost Daughter – here
Imagine the last time you truly listened
Are you listening now? My toes wiggle in the soft, dew-soaked grass, sending a brief shiver up my spine. To my right, songbirds chatter and
Closing the Circle
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