On the "Liminal"
Every so often a buzz word appears that you start to hear more and more and pretty soon everyone is saying it. They can appear in any field but many times come out of the technology space and rise to main stream consciousness. Recent examples from the tech/business space were terms like “Big data”, “IOT” or “Internet of Everything”, and “AI”.
These buzz words usually just require a circle of people who use it and then somehow they becomes common in regular conversations due to either an influencer’s use, a popular book/article/song, or usage in the media. Even subversive circles can create these words which become normalized, recent examples are terms like “red pill”, “based”, “woke”, and “cringe” which have taken on a life of their own and bubbled up to everyday communications.
The key to a buzz word is when you start to see it applied to many different fields and used as a model to explain or describe something. In philosophy, Gille Delueze would have called this a “concept”. He thought one of the modern philosophers main role was to create solid concepts that could be used to explore the contemporary world in new ways.
One term that I’ve started to see more and more in diverse fields is the “liminal”. While not necessarily main stream, I’ve seen it more and more in spiritual, artistic, philosophic and now mental health fields.
Before explaining, I confess that I have a personal affinity to the word liminal. I think I first discovered it around 2012 when I was writing The Nomads’ Labyrinth and studying different aspects of space. At the time, “liminal spaces” were discussed in some academic works influenced by Foucault’s 1967 essay “Of Other Spaces” where he used the term “heterotopias” to describe unique spaces that are in between normal spaces. I think this could be the origins of the term as we know it today.
The word comes from the Latin word “limin-” and means “threshhold”. According to the Webster’s Dictionary it means,
of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold : barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response
of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : IN-BETWEEN, TRANSITIONAL
My first reaction to the word as a space that was “in-between” or a “threshold” was that it could be used to express that mysterious space between our “inner” experience of the “outer” world without sounding mystical.
Liminal, which is also used in the word “subliminal”, inherently carries some mysterious quality in it but it is also situated within academic writings giving it some legitimacy. The way its being used now gives it its own liminal existence.
Where I would continue to explore this liminal space between inner and outer experience was through my landscape paintings that I started in 2020. I substituted “land” with “liminal” to express that I was trying to show an area of nature through my own inner filter. However, it was not purely psychological or subjective because my experience was focused on trying to listen and see nature (physis) as it expresses itself. You can see those paintings here under the series titled Liminal Scapes
I’ve since noticed the word liminal appearing in many different contexts although still carrying this quality of a threshhold. One example is the name of a journal from the author Daniel Pinchbeck called “Liminal Journal”. Another appeared recently in a substack interview with the cognitive scientist John Vervaeke who used it when referring to Socrates.
But perhaps the most eye opening discovery of liminal was a conversation I had earlier this month. I was at a friend’s house and his son was home from college for winter break. We were talking about music when the son started to talk about a party he went to where they played the music from Macy’s Department store playlists from the 50’s and 60’s. He said it was a new type of music called “Liminal Music”.
He described “Liminal Music” as a type of nostalgic music, something you feel you know when you hear it but don’t actually listen to, almost like background music. To elaborate, he mentioned “Liminal Spaces” like hallways in a hotel or empty conference rooms. Spaces that are familiar and yet nowhere at the same time. One example of this music can be found here.
It turns out his description was right on the money and described a growing appearance of the term in our culture today. Both “Liminal Music” and “Liminal Space” are catching the attention of many in college campuses right now.
A quick search for “Liminal Space” on the internet shows a few articles from 2022. This article from Forbes Health gives a nice overview of Liminal Space and interprets it as a feeling of being in limbo. It states:
These places are transitory, meaning you’re supposed to pass through them on your way to something else. If you rest in a liminal space too long, transitions can become a destination instead.
The Forbes article gives both Physical and Psychological examples. Physical examples would include:
Stairways
Hallways
Doorways
Bridges
Psychological example include:
Graduation
Moving
Engagement/marriage
Break-up/divorce
Pregnancy/birth
Diagnosis of a serious or terminal illness
Career change/retirement
Death of a parent
What is interesting is that the Forbes article treats liminal as a mental health concept, a transition period where you end up getting stuck.
As a college student, I could see the appeal of this concept. College itself is a transition from school to adult life. It’s usually (hopefully!) a lot more fun than a hallway but if the college experience becomes disinteresting, I could see this experience of being stuck catching on.
Unfortunately, I think the “mental health experts” are using the wrong word to express this state. A threshold is something like a doorway. It’s hard to get stuck in a doorway but being in limbo is a feeling of being stuck that can seem like an eternity. In fact, limbo is another latin term, “limbus”, which means the “edge or boundary”, specifically the edge of Hell. It is very possible to get stuck at a boundary especially if the door/gate is closed to you.
For me personally, I’ve always seen liminal in a rather positive light, as something that is open to pass through. A liminal space for me is similar to Dawn or Twilight, a time between day and night where a certain glow makes things appear brighter and fresh before the night and day sets in. Instead of being a place where you get stuck, it is something so transitory and fragile that is easy to overlook and miss even when you pass through it.
Perhaps limbo and liminal are just two sides to the same coin. One is a feeling that you can’t escape from, the other so ephemeral that you hardly notice its there.