In The Chrysalis, Not Yet Emerged. On Liminal Times…

“…The word “liminal” refers to being over the threshold but not through to the other side. It comes from the Latin word “limen” meaning that place in between. When you’re in a transition zone, you’re neither who you used to be before you got into this transition, nor have you crossed over that threshold to where you will be settled next. Sometimes those transitions are very long, as when people talk about being in dark tunnels and taking a long time to even see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is always an ending of one phase of your life in order to develop and grow into another phase.

I’ve been interested to pick up along the way what people are saying about transitions. The cocoon is a place where the caterpillar totally dissolves; it is insolutio in the alchemical model of dissolving into the water, or the emotional side of life. Then it moves on, and from that beginning a butterfly forms in the chrysalis — that in between place that is neither caterpillar nor butterfly. I’d like to examine that whole notion of the middle phase. You don’t know whether it is the ending or the beginning. You don’t know whether it is a womb or a tomb. This is the whole image of the return to the earth. In the beginning is the end and the whole cycle.

Every time there is a major transition in your life, and you are in that in between place, you are in the chrysalis and you haven’t yet emerged into the next place. What is interesting to me is how you gather those pieces together when you are insolutio. What you chose to keep and what you chose to leave has a lot to do with what pieces form and move into the next stage with you…”

From a lecture delivered by
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.
at the Mythic Journeys Conference
June 2004, Atlanta, Georgia

I am in that in between stage. I believe that I know where I am headed, but a lot of change is taking place in my life, both inside and out, so that I can cross the threshold into the new life to come.

I have almost finished the next big Maisie drawing and will soon begin painting it, probably by tomorrow, but I will not be sharing it publicly. Since I believe my Maisie work is heading toward being a book I can’t share everything before the book is out, but also Maisie and I are growing along together very slowly. I believe, even though more illustrations will need to be created for the book to help the story flow the piece that I am working on right now, as I see it, will be the last piece in the book, the final message Maisie wants to leave with people in this first book. And this is very deep for me.

In order to do this work I am in what Bolen is talking about when she says ” What is interesting to me is how you gather those pieces together when you are insolutio. What you chose to keep and what you chose to leave has a lot to do with what pieces form and move into the next stage with you…” The next phase for me will be the final phase of my life, the culmination of my work, what everything has been leading to. I have no idea how long I will live, it could be a few years or I could live to 100 or more, but I know that I am moving into doing the work that I was born to do, and that cannot happen quickly.

It is not about doing the drawings, creating Maisie’s world, it is about the person I am becoming to do the work, what I am keeping, what I am letting go of, how I am living my life. I called this, a few weeks ago, “The Year of the Snail,” and it is surely that. I must move very very slowly. The art can only be born as I birth myself. My diet has changed radically, all to the good, but this major life change is taking a lot of time, energy, study, tracking, revelations, and it is changing me. I have, I am, coming home to myself, to who I believe I was meant to be. And other things are happening, somewhat amazing revelations.

I have been agoraphobic for a very long time and to some degree still am, but I have been spending a tremendous long time since the beginning of the year in prayer and meditation, deep, deep meditations, in which much is being revealed to me. I am not sure, in the moment, how much of who I am is agoraphobic, and how much hermetic. There is a line there. It is true I do not feel safe in the world at large, I do not travel, I am very afraid, and there have been days I couldn’t cross the road to get the mail. Since my back yard has been fixed enough, the privacy fence and structures that allow Molly and I to be out there safely, even though there is still much to be done, it is as though I have retreated into my secret, private world. I have retreated even further than ever, but more by choice. Yes, mental illness is part of my journey in this world, but so is doing work that is so deep to me, spiritually, and more, that the distractions of the outside world are painful and take me away from the work I believe I am here to do. And I will be 66 at the end of April. I believe I still have a comfortable amount of time left, but not enough, if it was another 40 years, to waste a moment of it. I prefer days of solitude and silence when the work can rise up from the quiet spaces around me. I need less of other people and more of communion with God.

For the first time since the fire, 6 years ago, my spiritual life is opening and blossoming, and deepening in a way it once was but has not been since the trauma of the fire. My crystals survived the fire, I had quite a lot of crystals, they were part of my daily life. I wear them, I surround myself with them, I feel the magic in them. I begin my day, after taking care of my animals, in prayer, and in communing with my spirit guides, angels, and God. I am asking questions, I am receiving answers. Tangible answers. I am coming home in so many ways.

To do Maisie’s work would not be possible were I not a whole and grounded person. I am becoming one. The diet is making this possible in part. It is very hard to explain and I won’t try. I am not here to advocate for anyone else doing anything I am doing, we all must find our way, but the simplicity of my meals allows much more time for living in a state of continual prayer, an awareness of all that is, an awakening. I am probably, yes, still agoraphobic. I am very afraid of interactions with the outside world, and I am very cautious about who and how I interract with other people. it’s not that I don’t love people. I love people deeply. But I am deeply sensitive in a way that makes outings in the world a series of collisions. My therapist has told me — we have talked about this a lot lately, though it is something I have always known — that I am deeply empathic. Being an empath means that I too easily take on the feelings and actions of the outside world in a way that can be damaging, paralyzing, frightening to me. Here with my animal companions in the quiet of my days I am able to give all that I have to give, through Maisie, unencumbered by the tremendous fear I have felt all my life. I must guard this way of living and being if I am to do this work that I love so dearly. I am doing just that.

When I called this The Year Of The Snail I did so not just because I knew I had to slow down, and just inch my way through the days, but because I knew that this year is somehow a liminal time, the time when I am in the process of crossing over from who I was to who I am becoming and will be. I feel a greater sense of peace and calm than I ever have. I am at heart, as I always have been, an anchorite. I might have been a cloistered nun in another life. It is hard to explain or describe how I move through my days in silent and often audible prayer, I don’t need to be in a church, I have always preferred what I call “Direct Communion” with God and I feel it deeply. And because my family is not spiritually oriented, nor are many people I know, I have kept my own council through my life. Now while it will not be the focus of my writing or public life it is the heart and center of my life, and in this place space is being made for Maisie to be fully born as she was meant to be.

And Maisie is not all deep and serious as I am describing my own life although deep down surely that is part of her, she is light-hearted, funny, and joyful, despite her limitations, as I, myself am. She is universal and she is all love, that’s what my life and my work are about now. That is who I am and who I want to be. And this year I am fully becoming all that I have held back, for fear others would not understand, or judge, but life is too short and it is too late for me to worry about that anymore. I am quiet about who I am and may not mention it again even in a blog post. But here it is, the truth of who I am.

I so appreciate those who have been here with me for so long. And I will be sharing my art, Maisie and other art from my sketchbook, as I do it, just not the bigger paintings that will be part of the book. There have to be some surprises, right?

I hope you are having peaceful days dear ones. I hope you are fully embracing who you are, loving who you are, not apologizing for who you are, or ashamed or afraid if you feel that you don’t fit in with the rest of the world. I never have, and it has, in the end, been a blessing.

I have stepped out of the shadows today to write this blog post and I will retreat once more, but I am sending you love from my quiet place here at Dragonfly Cottage. You are loved more than you could possibly know. And I am praying for each of you that you, too, find your way. Celebrate all of who you are. Embrace it all. Live your life.