Soul Chronicles: On Thresholds, Rabbit Holes, Wardrobes and Transitional Space
Segment 7 in our series Soul Chronicles for the Chronically Ill
By Shaler McClure Wright
Audio Story Transcript
Introduction
You’re listening to episode seven of Soul Chronicles, offering a soulful perspective on how to navigate the unique challenges of living with ongoing health conditions. Special thanks to Health Story Collaborative for hosting this monthly audio column. My name is Shaler McClure Wright and I’m a writer/creative living with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.
Story - On Thresholds, Rabbit Holes, Wardrobes and Transitional Space
Can you remember the most significant days in your life? I bet you can, because the events on those days were most likely threshold experiences, and as such, they’ve received a special place in your memory, preserved with almost cinematic detail.
Most commonly, the word threshold refers to a place where you make a physical crossing—like walking over the sill of a doorway or through the entrance of a building. But it also refers to various points of ‘beginning’ that can be cultural, psychological or emotional—as in rites of passage or life’s milestones. Similar to a crossroad, a threshold requires a choice to be made, a leaving behind to gain something new. But a threshold also contains an additional component—the transitional space of in-between.
Līmen is the Latin word for threshold; Līmen refers to the border between one thing and another. And within this borderland is something called liminal space—which can be thought of as the transitional space between two locations or phases. An example of this, in the literal sense, could be the walls of a tunnel through which one must pass. An example in the metaphorical or symbolic sense might be the period of engagement between a marriage proposal and the wedding. In both instances the transitional space holds an aura of other-worldliness–a heightened sense of reality where unusual things can happen.
Jungian analyst Katherine Olivetti suggests that navigating thresholds and transitional space requires new attitudes. She says, “The experience can be felt as frustrating, painful, exhilarating, challenging, frightening or liberating … This is a place where the opposites are not clearly defined, where rules are suspended, collisions abound, and new possibilities emerge.”
Sounds frightening to me, but it also sounds thrilling.
When friends and family undergo a threshold experience, I’m especially drawn to their stories of time spent in the transitional space of in-between, because that time can have a mystical, almost magical quality, fostering breakthroughs to new ways of thinking and being. A dramatic example of this could be the story of a near-death experience.
Thresholds are places of potent energy. The emotional energy involved with facing a threshold is complex and often contradictory. It can swamp you with a sense of overwhelm, or elevate you to a new perspective with more clarity. So when life accelerates and change is imminent, it’s wise to become well-practiced in moderating your response.
As Irish poet John O’Donohue has described, “A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres.” Indeed. Each time we find ourselves standing at a threshold, we also receive an implicit invitation to reconsider our priorities and attachments. And that takes courage and practice.
Thresholds often accompany the milestones in life, and if I think about it honestly, my emotional response to those occasions has rarely been one-dimensional. Maybe that’s true for you, too. In fact it’s quite likely a threshold experience will stir up all kinds of conflicting emotions, even if the threshold is one to celebrate. And those emotions can wreak havoc on our ability to think, feel or see clearly.
O’Donohue believes the emotional intensity of a threshold experience is connected to fear of change. “To change is one of the great dreams of every heart – to change the limitations, the sameness, the banality, or the pain… But change is difficult.” Along with courage, we also need trust. “To acknowledge and cross a new threshold demands a sense of trust in whatever is emerging.”
But courage and trust take time to develop. Perhaps transitional space exists because it is needed. When we’re in the midst of a threshold experience, we need the transitional space to give us time to develop courage and trust. Here’s an example of what I mean:
I remember how I felt on the day I first received my diagnosis. Time stood still and my mind went gray. I felt a physical sense of standing in between ‘life before’ and ‘life from now on.’ I remember feeling shaky and uncertain. It was scary, but now I recognize it’s common to feel that way while standing in transitional space. That space is where I mustered my courage. That space between two points of being. Between what was familiar and what is unknown.
Because of our medical challenges, thresholds are likely to be familiar to those of us who have faced the reality of chronic illness. And I believe our experience can give us a leg up when it comes to helping others who are facing thresholds of their own. Should the opportunity arise, we are primed through our experience to be valuable threshold guides. I hope to talk more about how we might serve as valuable threshold guides in the next Soul Chronicle.
I also believe those of us with ongoing health conditions can develop special strengths. For instance, in order to balance truth with hope, we might find ways to pair child-like curiosity with adult-like courage. Or we might learn to find beauty in loss, or learn to take strength from facing disappointment or the unknown.
The ability to engage with change is most effectively fostered in childhood. When I think of well-known threshold experiences, I find myself remembering images from childhood literature. Most of the storybook characters I continue to admire have navigated a significant threshold with child-like curiosity, and through their experience, have grown wiser to tell the tale.
Let’s take a closer look at two of these characters; Alice, from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” and Lucy from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis. Alice begins her series of threshold experiences in a mad rush, while Lucy begins with careful consideration of her transitional space.
First, here’s Alice in the passage when the rabbit first captures her attention:
“It flashed across [Alice’s] mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. [And] in another moment, down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”
The rabbit-hole is a threshold. But Alice didn’t pay any attention to the transitional space in-between the entrance and the exit. She also never took time to consider the risks of going down the rabbit-hole; instead she was completely driven by impulsive, child-like curiosity. And that’s a good place for a child to start, but it deprives her of the wisdom she might’ve gained during the transition. As the story continues, Alice is faced with more threshold experiences, and with each one she opens herself up a bit more to the mysteries of transitional space. And her growing discernment and worldliness is representative of how we too, might grow in our own experience.
Now let’s consider a passage in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” where young Lucy decides to push her way through a secret entrance to a magical world hidden in the back of a wardrobe full of old fur coats.
“She went further and found a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one. It was quite dark and she kept her arms stretched out in front. She took two or three steps further in. [...] Then instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. [...] The next moment what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. ‘Why, it is just like branches of trees!’ exclaimed Lucy. And then she saw a light a long way ahead of her. Something cold and soft was falling on her.[...] She was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air. Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well.”
Unlike Alice, Lucy took the time to experience every sensory element during her transition, and because she was grounded in the physical reality of her surroundings, I believe she was able to move past her fear and face the magical, snowy woodland with the same excitement as an explorer in the age of discovery.
Lucy’s flexibility and open mind serve as examples of the kind of strength to be gained from a threshold experience. And both of these qualities are available to those of us who pass through medical thresholds as well. Although a threshold can feel like a curse at the time of occurence, in retrospect, I believe it is a gift. Especially since part of the challenge of being chronically ill is to feel and face every dimension of the experience, rather than dissociating.
If we can stay present, then with every threshold experience of transitional space comes an opportunity to become both wiser and deeper. And every time we become wiser and deeper, we are also becoming more soulful.
Go here for more episodes of our Soul Chronicles series.
Shaler McClure Wright is fascinated with the mysteries of creative process, the healing power of creativity, and the creative synthesis of method acting, intuitive learning and depth psychology. A graduate of Wesleyan University and The Actors Studio, Shaler has worked as an actor, writer and educator for more than 40 years, and lives in southeastern Connecticut with her husband and son.
Website: www.shalermcclurewright.com
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