Living in the Threshold

Hold on there, not so quickly...

An unexpected foggy morning greeted me today, unusual for this late in Spring. I stood at the threshold between seasons - that sacred liminal space where one reality is dissolving while another has yet to fully materialize. The fog itself is threshold embodied: neither clear nor completely obscured, a breathing space between what was and what will be.

The fog wrapped the lakes in such density that boundaries disappeared. Trees stood as mere suggestions of themselves, their edges blurred into mystery. What struck me most was the invisible chorus - geese, frogs, ducks, and countless birds creating a soundtrack for what eyes could not witness. In threshold spaces, we often navigate by senses beyond sight, learning to trust what we feel rather than what we can prove.

As the dogs and I circumnavigated the lake, I thought of all the thresholds being crossed this season. Children becoming graduates, couples becoming families, students becoming professionals. How many of us are standing in fog right now, hearing the calls of what's ahead but unable to see the shore we're approaching?

There lingered an electric anticipation in the air, as if Mother Nature was backstage, preparing for her performance. Dark, ominous clouds encircled Raleigh like ancient protective walls. "I don't know who is going to get these storms today," I texted a friend, "but whoever does, they are going to be good!"

The "whoever" turned out to be us. Early afternoon brought a symphony of elements - a glorious storm punctuated by hail that drummed against the roof in rhythms both frightening and exhilarating. The dogs and I found sanctuary together on the bed, witnessing this dramatic threshold moment - the precise instant when potential energy transforms into kinetic expression. Isn't that what all thresholds ultimately are? The moment when what might be becomes what is?

Mother Nature spoke volumes today.

She seems caught in her own threshold dance - eager to birth summer's abundance while simultaneously pulled backward by spring's lingering coolness. "not yet," something whispers, "let's keep things cool a little bit longer, okay?" In this tension between forward movement and restraint, I recognize the universal human struggle with transition. We reach for the new while our fingers still grasp the familiar.

So we trust. And we listen. We examine our gardens for damage and give thanks when none is found. We receive the weather gifted to us this week with gratitude, knowing that memories of this cool respite will sustain us when summer's heat inevitably arrives. Maybe the wisest way to navigate any threshold is neither to rush through nor resist it, but to fully inhabit its uncertainty.

The graduates donning caps and gowns, the couples speaking vows, the parents welcoming new life - all stand in similar fog today, feeling their way forward. Perhaps our collective spiritual practice this season is to honor these in-between spaces, to recognize that transformation requires this foggy threshold time, this hail-filled disruption that clears the air for what comes next.

As May unfolds, I'm learning to cherish these threshold moments, trusting that clarity will come not by rushing the fog to lift, but by being fully present as it slowly, in its own time, reveals what waits on the other side.

xx, Victoria