Sublime

Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, “threshold”) is the ambiguity that emerges in the middle of a fundamental transition. Liminality is the “in-between”, where the space and the participants no longer hold their past status, but have not yet fully transformed to their post-transition self.

a liminal period is a time when you’re on the threshold between identities, neither inside nor out, neither one thing nor the other. During their initiation into adulthood, the Xhosa youths are not boys anymore, but they aren’t yet men. An engaged couple are in a liminal period; they aren’t exactly single, but they aren’t exactly married, either. A

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So we are on the topic of horizons and thresholds, limits and walls, and their appropriately hidden transversals (vertere, from the root *wer-, “to turn, bend”). From this place, we understand liminality to be that initiatory threshold where the limits of our knowing meets the horizon of our being.

Liminal creativity can help carve a path from disorientation to discovery, from uncertainty to curiosity, from fear to innovation. It can turn scary situations into transformational experiences of self-discovery and self-authorship. In fact, life itself is a liminal space between birth and death.

What happens in liminal spaces? Doubt, discomfort, unfamiliarity, anxiety. But also growth, change, and discovery. Liminal spaces offer all of the ingredients for creativity.

Whether it refers to people, places, or societies, liminality provides a playground for transformation, a game with no rules we’re all invited to join, a sandbox for liminal creativity.