Liminal Space: The Sacred Thresholds Of The In-Between
There are places where the world feels thinner, where the air itself hums with a strange tension. A hallway at midnight. A forgotten playground swallowed in fog. The pause between your inhale and your exhale. These are liminal spaces—thresholds between what was and what will be. They are the in-between places, not fully belonging to one side or the other, and yet carrying their own kind of enchantment.
The Language Of Liminality
The word liminal comes from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. It is the doorway you stand in before crossing over. It is twilight, that shimmer of both night and day. It is the hush of an empty airport at 3 a.m., where travelers are caught between departure and arrival, suspended in time. Thresholds are not just passages. They are invitations.
Close your eyes for a moment: picture a long, dim hallway. The carpet stretches endlessly. The hum of fluorescent light fills the silence. You don’t know what waits at the end—only the echo of your footsteps. This is liminality embodied.
Why The In-Between Feels Strange
An abandoned mall. A foggy road with no cars. A hotel hallway at midnight. These spaces are familiar, yet strangely emptied of context. They feel both known and alien. When the in-between lingers, it unsettles us—because we are confronted with the unknown. Imagine walking through a foggy street where the lamps glow but no voices rise. The familiar has slipped into dream. You are held in the tension of the threshold.
Perhaps this is why liminal spaces feel holy—they pull us out of the ordinary, urging us to notice, to linger, to wait without rushing toward resolution.
Folklore And The Thin Places
The Celts spoke of “thin places”—landscapes where the boundary between mortal and spirit collapsed. Standing stones, shorelines, crossroads. Here, one might encounter the Otherworld if only for a breath. Picture yourself at the edge of the sea at dawn. The horizon blurred in mist, the water merging with the sky. You stand not just at the edge of the ocean, but at the edge of worlds.
Crossroads, in particular, were places of choice and chance. To meet a stranger there might mean meeting spirit or trickster. To leave offerings was to honor unseen forces.
Spiritual Liminality
Beyond geography, liminality speaks to the soul. Grief, adolescence, twilight, dream—all liminal states where transformation stirs. Envision yourself lying in bed, drifting between wake and dream. The edges blur. You are both here and elsewhere, floating in the in-between.
It is in the chrysalis, neither caterpillar nor butterfly, that metamorphosis happens. Mystics, shamans, and monks retreat into thresholds of silence, shadow, and solitude to meet the divine. And sometimes, liminality finds us uninvited: a move, a loss, an ending. We are asked to trust the in-between, even when we cannot see what’s next.
How To Honor Liminal Spaces
Living with liminality means lingering in the mystery, without rushing past it.
- Twilight Rituals – Light a candle at dusk or dawn. Notice how shadows lengthen, how the air shifts.
- Crossroads Walks – Stand where paths intersect. The stillness here feels as if the world itself is waiting.
- Threshold Awareness – Pause in a doorway. Exhale what no longer serves you. Inhale new possibility.
- Dream Journaling – Record the whispers from the threshold world. Half-shadow, half-light, they are messages from the in-between.
- Sacred Pauses – Brew tea. Watch the steam curl like mist. Let questions linger instead of demanding answers.
The Gift Of The In-Between
To embrace liminal space is to honor life’s unfolding. Endings are never only endings, but doorways. Beginnings require silence before arrival. Transformation happens in the pause, in the hush, in the strange and tender moments when nothing feels certain.
So next time you find yourself in the in-between—in a dreamlike hallway, a fog-wrapped morning, or the hush of twilight—pause. Listen. Feel the hum beneath the surface. You are standing at a threshold. And beyond it, new worlds await.
The Liminal Glow of Autumn
My soul always feels the shift—our hemisphere leaning gently toward change, the veil of one season collapsing into the next. One of my favorite thresholds is when summer exhales into autumn. The days may still hum with warmth, but the nights slip into cooler whispers. The sky itself seems to transform—its blue deepens to a richer, truer shade, and the sun burns more golden, as though gilded with ancient fire.
In the South, I watch this transformation unfold. I ready our home with autumnal comforts, adorning corners with Samhain’s touch. The air becomes a spell of its own—fragrant with the sweetness of baked treats and the smoky embrace of autumn candles. On evenings when shadows grow longer, I turn to cozy, witchy films or hauntingly beautiful stories that suit the season’s magic. Autumn, to me, has always been the most enchanting of all seasons.
And then comes November—another liminal space, often overlooked. To me, it is a doorway into quiet magic, when my dark academia soul stretches out and settles in. November asks us to linger in autumn’s embrace rather than rush headlong into the holidays. The days shorten, the nights grow colder, and the trees release their final blaze of color until the earth is carpeted in flame. Rain visits often, softening the world, and I love nothing more than stepping outside with a steaming cup of herbal tea, breathing in the mist as fog curls through the branches.
In those moments, the crows speak, their voices carrying an ancient wisdom across the air. I listen. I linger. Sometimes I retreat to my room, cradled in candlelight, reading, journaling, crafting, or drawing oracle cards. On my altar, a single flame glows, guiding me toward my ancestors. The veil is thin; their whispers closer.
The darker months are not something to fear—they are an invitation. A gentle beckoning to slow down, to descend inward, and to sit in the mystery of our own souls. Autumn into winter is the season of returning home—to ourselves, to the unseen, to the ancient rhythm that turns again and again. Autumn is the liminal space my soul calls home.
By Candlelight,
HN Staples
