In my various travels around the country and at different points in my life I have experienced this sense of liminality. Who are you when you are at an airport? Who is anyone? No one calls this place home. Everyone is on equal ground in that they all walk with apprehension through those corridors.
These brief spells of liminality are liberating. You can be anyone you choose here. You can go anywhere from here. This is the land between lands, a no man's land. Everyone is welcome, yet no one can stay for too long. Part of liminality is its inherent impermanence. Anyone who enters this liminal zone, must at some point move out of it. Rejoin society, solidify identity, move forward with purpose.
Liminality also refers to life transitions. Most notably is that transformation between childhood and adulthood. The child takes part in a ceremony - many times a vision quest - and it is during this time that the child is no longer a child but has not yet returned to become an adult. While the child is away he lives in a state of liminality. Neither here nor there. Neither this nor that. It is a state of virtual non-existence, but at the same time it is one of the most highly charged states a person can be in.
For the Tricksters of myth, the liminal space is not a temporary zone, nor a transition between childhood and adulthood, but it is their permanent state. They flow, passing through borders, walking through walls, no land is forbidden. The Trickster shakes up the sense of security, the sense of home, the sense that there's a place for everything and everything is in its place. The Trickster likes to come out and wag its finger at us anytime we get too comfortable in our lives, anytime we start to take anything for granted. The Trickster seems to love this liminality - it provides ultimate freedom. Here there are no rules. Gender can change, names can change, even bodies and faces can change. The Trickster shifts and morphs, becoming a part of any social group.
I am about to embark on a three month long quest. A sojourn within the land of liminality. I relinquish my identity, give up my place in society, and move fluidly in this world. I will be crossing numerous physical borders and countless other symbolic borders -hoping to shake up not only my sense of reality, but the reality of those around me.
And as I follow in the footsteps of the Trickster, I do so with a playful smile - making people wonder what it is I'm up to...
