Liminal

We get e-mails from the woman who runs the arts-community center in the next little town. They're part program guides, part reflections, part virtual community-building, part eclectic. Here's what she led with today:

Liminal is an adjective that relates to a transitional or initial stage of a process; occupying a position at, or on both sides of a boundary or threshold.

She goes on to say that “these are liminal times.” I'm not sure I agree.

We are certainly on our way to a new world – thus this blog – and so we agree on both the journey and the destination. But if “liminal” means anything like “cusp,” I think we've got a way to go before we get there.

I started this blog with the image of the third mate on the “Pinta.” halfway between the settled world of Europe and the unknown. To beat that analogy to death, I think we are now enduring the long, monotonous Atlantic crossing, trying to be hopeful as well as fearful about what lies ahead. We are all, or most of us, spending most of our waking hours thinking of that future.

So we certainly are between A and B, but I don't believe we are in the boundarylands. We are sailing and sailing. Things are generally getting worse, but in a predictable way: food and water in short supply, no certain hope of resupply, economy in shambles, death tolls rolling over us, no certainty anywhere.

The liminal moment in 1492 was the moment, at dawn, just before the lookout cried “Tierra! Tierra!” They knew that everything that was to happen from then on was founded on that sight of that island, the new world which rose slowly out of the sea as the sun brought everything into focus. They had context. They had somewhere to land. They would figure everything out from there.

We're still sailing. We could be approaching any one of many unexplored lands. We have no context, nothing to stand on. Anything can happen, but it will not happen tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week.

The new world is a long way off.