On the Threshold

What is it that needs expression in any moment?

Recently we have been considering the nature of the Dwelling Place and the One Who Dwells. As we hold ourselves and our human nature sacred, the Spirit that we are has a place to activate our substance. There is a divine partnership in this—the Spirit and the Body. You could even call it friendship. Without one, the presence of the other has little value. The word friendship comes from the Old English, meaning “friend, lover, relative.” With all this in mind, what is it that the One Who Dwells needs access to, needs an avenue for, now?

As my consciousness, the partnership between my mind and heart, becomes aware of the current of spirit moving through me, I endeavor to give it expression. In this moment of awareness is a threshold, a hard-to-define point at which the next step of evolution may be taken.

The threshold of consciousness might then mean “the point at which a stimulus”—activation, the Spirit of God moving—“the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to begin to produce an effect.” (from

I came across an article this week that was talking about liminality, so I did some further thinking about the word liminal. It means “on or at a sensory threshold, barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response.” It can also mean an “intermediate state, in-between, transitional.”

This article suggested that the word liminal also refers to no longer being in the old pattern but not yet being in the new one either. That is what being a “new” human is about: being in the process of transition to a more evolved state of consciousness.

This has been my direct experience since coming here in March. My husband, Phil, and I have left South Africa and we are intending to go and live in the UK starting in December. But up until then we are in a liminal state—we know the new cycle in the UK is coming but it is also obvious that we are not there yet. There is a strange sense of treading water, a sense that includes both loss for the known, all that we have left behind, and indeed the bridges that have been burned, as well as the expectation of a fresh new slate waiting for our lives to form on it. As much as we would like to, we cannot begin the new cycle until we actually arrive in December.

We have not yet let go of or dropped all of what we think we know, of how we are made up; and we have not yet fully moved into or embodied what is yet to come into form. But Spirit is on the move all the time.

I was interested to read this definition: “In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word limen, meaning ‘a threshold’) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual’s liminal stage, participants ‘stand at the threshold’ between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.” (from Wikipedia,

An obvious example of this is the ritual of marriage, where apparently nothing much seems to change from before the ceremony to after the ceremony. At least, that’s what I thought before I went through the ceremony. I was in a long-term relationship; I wasn’t going anywhere.

But something did change for me. Perhaps it was the act of commitment, perhaps the fact of being witnessed. The ritual changed the way I now saw the world and the way the world saw me. I couldn’t have experienced that before the ceremony.

I believe our evolution as a species will depend on the willingness to stand on this threshold, trusting, not knowing how things will change but understanding that they will, they must. The old heaven and the old earth must pass away for the new to take shape. And all of this can only happen as I let go of the old. Easy to talk about, not so easy to do! It is sometimes hard to stride bravely into the unknown, but that is our calling.

As we surrender fully to the activation of the One Who Dwells, as we provide the right circumstances in the Dwelling Place, it all reaches sufficient intensity and we find ourselves at this threshold. We can feel it! The edginess of it, the unknown, all the risks, and alongside or overarching that, the sure sense of the rightness of the impulse of Spirit on the move! What will take shape in our world because of this?

All of what we are working with, all of what we are seeking to express through words and through deeds, comes through this ongoing impulse of Spirit on the move. You feel it beating in your heart or surging in your thoughts and experience… That is the indication of being on a threshold, being available, being present in your circumstances right now. Tomorrow, or last week, is not the point. Right now, right here, in a state of surrender called friendship, on the threshold of “I am available and present for Thy will,” is what we are called to be about.

 

 

Ruth Buckingham
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Peter Spade
Peter Spade
January 17, 2019 2:34 pm

I once fell asleep while praying on my knees, I awoke some time later got into bed, suddenly I was standing at the foot of my bed, it was cold and I could see my breath in the air, my right hand was touching the cold wall to my right, I could see the door in front of me, sensing that some thing was not right I looked to my left and there on the bed was my body, pushing on the wall I fell into my body and awoke.

I was asleep in a church where I was put up for few nights, suddenly I was grabbed by this black figure, it pulled me out of my body and threw me across the room and jumped on top of me screaming at me “I am going to kill you!” over and over, looking to my left I could see laying still wrapped in the sleeping bag my body, I said the name Jesus and it let me go, instantly I was back in my body and awoke.

Fiona Gawronsky
Fiona Gawronsky
December 2, 2017 12:38 am

For those in the entertainment or acting fraternity, there is the “Green Room”; though it is generally but not always green in color, it is the transition point between the dressing room and the stage where the performer awaits the cue and moment of entry.

There is a collective in the Green Room; the container of the liminal, transition period. And, rather than a rehearsed performance, we have to trust, for this is the grand “improv”. We will have to be brave enough to arrive on stage unscripted and unrehearsed. What we have to go on is our individual and collective trust in Spirit.

Some of us have put ourselves up for this! And, the show must go on! Even those in the audience, they will not be able, merely, to sit in their seats!

Andrew Horwood
Andrew Horwood
November 30, 2017 10:27 pm

Thanks, Ruth, for your words in this weeks POS. We are indeed on a threshold right now, and as you point out, our lives are actually a series of thresholds! We choose how we approach this fact – do we habitually make the same choices because that’s what we’ve always done, or do we open to a new possibility in this moment? Our choices can be guided by our deep surrender to the Will of Spirit, or they can be determined by our familiar neural pathway habits. Life offers no judgement about our choices, just consequences.

I’ve been reflecting that the “new” human of which Barbara Marx-Hubbard speaks is one who deeply knows and embodies Divine identity. The threshold on which humanity stands is that of identity change from personality identity to spiritual identity. This is like an underground movement, or a different type of Matrix, that’s occurring somewhat out of sight of the mainstream. Recent global history tells us that remarkable things can happen in a short time when critical vibrational mass has been reached – like the Berlin wall coming down or Sth Africa with Nelson Mandela’s release. Yes, we are on a threshold and vibrational mass is being built such that a consciousness change, identity change, can occur. Like you, I am living both in a world that is passing away and an emerging future where Spirit reigns. I’m so thankful for this EDL ministry, which has trained me to be able to tolerate the creative tension that accompanies such moments, such periods, of one’s life and to have a heart that is attuned to what is emerging. There’s assurance & confidence that comes from that stance.

I gladly stand there with you.

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