Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in.Leonard Cohen (from Anthem)
A doorway, a gate, a passage, a window or a turnstile, an obscure twitten between two city walls or a hedgerow, a niche, a cranny, or an interstice with the sun shining through it, an opening in space or time which beckons irresistably and tugs away at one's curiosity and spirit of adventure. . . .
Such entities are liminal spaces and realms of infinite possibility: places between here and there, up and down, inside and outside, darkness and light. There are always questions to be asked when one stands in such a place. Who is the guardian of this doorway and realm? Who is the keeper of the keys and into what unknown worlds does the postern lead? Is there a secret password? Should one carry a token for the ferryman or gifts for those in the fields beyond?
Nothing is clear, and one stands at the threshold wondering before treading through and into the unknown. Do peace, wisdom and stillness await me somewhere on the other side of this door or gate? Am I on the outside looking inside, or am I on the inside looking outside? What am I doing in this place at this moment? Do I belong here?
Do outside and inside even exist as discrete entities?
5 comments:
I think about these kinds of "insider" "outsider" distinctions all the time... thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I love your pictures! they are perfect! Thank you
Dawn
I love thresholds. They can be so numinous and luminous. Thanks for the reminder.
Whew! And all of this mindbending before I have even had my morning coffee. Why does the light coming through the interstice hurt my eyes so much? Truth hurts?
I have opened many doors and passed through many gates. Some of the doors and gates I didn't even notice at all. Are we now inside or outside? The question is, perhaps, meaningless since these two depend on our subjective point of view. Do we belong here? Perhaps, not. That's why we keep opening doors and passing under gates. And this "from inside to outside" or "from outside to inside" will continue endlessly as long as we are "here", not "there". You have peace and widom in you. I may have them, too. But, at times, we let doubts and desires darken our path.
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