Liminal Spaces

casting the net of light:joyce huntington.jpg

In the now seemingly never-ending wake of insanity, violence and tragedies we currently witness and experience, I find my body moving spontaneously out of the pounding glare of description, fact, comment and opinion and into a repose of stillness, listening and merging with the heartbeat of the Earth. Having no true elders in my culture, where else can I go other than to the ancient Ancestors of the land and the wisdom that has been nurtured there in relational reciprocity by the original tenders of this continent?

After relentless petition signing, phone calls, protests, and protections, sending aid, tending hurts and forming alliances, there comes a subtle, oceanic movement guided by my body intelligence to turn from the polarized, traumatized world of event histories---for awhile---and enter the nourishing timeless mystery of the Dreamtime.

This realm, this Dreamtime which underlies and gives birth to all that is, is a sensuous fluidity of poetry, not the insistent declaration of prose. It suggests and beckons rather than demands or coerces. It rhythmically breathes its grace rather than grasps anxiously. It is songs of praise rather than the chitter of fault-finding and continually radiates divinity rather than demonizing through shame.

It is the last honeyed gold of sunlight carried on the brilliant flame colored leaves falling all around my feet; the exhilarating taste of silver rain on my thirsty skin, the urgent breezes now laced with chill. Here is the steady, endless warm pulse of love, not the argumentative caprice of legislation. Here are the sacred vows of covenant undulating chi through space/time, rather than dried ink of contractual obligation fading into oblivion. And though all feelings are safe and welcomed here, the lineaments of this liminal space are shaped and tended by the great Beings of Wonder, Joy, Humility, Respect, and Awareness. It is the beloved cricket singing its life outside my window for its last few moments, saying 'now' before the North Wind blows it to sleep. It is me gratefully leaving my desk to go outside to join it now and now and now.

So I merge with these liminal spaces, lose my hard, defining edges and blend; become less myself, more other, and thus more true to myself. These are places to which my spirit goes, and must go, simply to be and be nourished in these times of dismemberment and possibility. Here I tend my peace and power, where it's true source lies, and am tended, loved and shaped as well, to then again offer my heart to this beautiful and bleeding world.