I’m there now. I’m here in this picture but I’m also in liminal space. Waiting, unsettled, having a difficult time, not able to focus on any one of the twenty different things I could be doing right now, except for blogging.
Loki is a god of liminal space–and so I invoke him now. He’s the pent up fire, and I’ve got the pent up energy, and I’m having to sit with that, rather than dashing off on some mad adventure (which in these here parts generally means a trip down the road for Chinese food. Really.)
I chose this picture of my immediate landscape because it has several discordant elements, as well as examples of different kinds of “between space.” There’s the visible “power” represented by the PG&E and Mediacom wires. These wires enable me to harness the power of light when it’s dark outside, and reach out into the internet world from the little house where I live. I can only see the natural landscape–the real dark and light, the real outside world–by looking between and beyond these human artifacts. And there’s also the invisible powers communicating all around me, through smells and mycelium and sounds I cannot hear. I can also see palm trees (tropical icons) in front of a mountain capped by snow. And there’s the lake and looming rain clouds (water) to contrast with the element of fire represented by Mt. Konocti, a slumbering volcano. The problem is, I am not sure what to do with all this information that’s packed into the landscape in front of me. It’s like that Clash song and I’m not used to being indecisive. I’d rather shatter what holds me back than wait and see.
Maybe I am just supposed to wait. Wait for things to make sense. Maybe this is not a day for reaching out, but rather a day for reaching in. Maybe I should just take a nap and dream of my gods?
Still, I’m restlessly obsessed: what waits for me in the between spaces during these liminal times, and why can’t I see or feel it yet?
One thing that can be done, when I feel so impatient, is divination. I have a very Scorpio urge to “know all”–perhaps so I can brace myself, plan an entrance or an exit if I need one, strategize… Perhaps I’ll cast the runes later.
On the other hand, filling the house with music is another way to warm what feels empty or incomplete. And so on this grey day, I offer up some music of ancient bohemian provenance–Richard and Mimi Fariña’s Celebrations for a Gray Day. Here they are, sitting with Pete Seeger, a saint if ever one existed.
As Mimi and Richard play, my inner child imagines the lake as one big mud puddle (a place to splash) and my ancestors are humming along to the parts that sound like “Old Joe Clark.” And at the end Pete Seeger says, “It would take a dead man not to move to that!”
Just so! Dead or alive, we have no choice but to dance in the liminal space. Loki leads the way. Even when it feels like a mosh pit.
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Lady Of The Lake 