Liminal Smarts - Don't leave home without it.*
When in times of change and transformation, it's important to find the right type of guidance. The guide you want is one that has liminal smarts.
When on a threshold between two worlds, one needs guidance and direction. The guide needs unique skills to navigate this special and unfamiliar terrain. Â
The first time I went backpacking in Europe, in the days before easy internet (anyone remember having to find an internet cafe?) and Google with all the world in my pocket, I had to be discriminating when choosing which guidebook to take with me. I read Rick Steves’ Europe through the Back Door cover to cover to help me prepare.
Upon arriving at each town, I’d make my way to the tourist office to get maps and any information needed. By the end of the trip, I returned home with a pile of maps and brochures, all proof and mementos of my journey. It was during my first trips to Europe in my 20s that I grew to appreciate the preparation stage before crossing a threshold. To this day, I have a soft spot for paper maps because they’re my physical reminder of the journey I took. It’s no wonder I work with birth charts - a map of one’s psychic landscape.
Plus, it was also during these trips around Europe that I met and embraced my inner Mercury - the guiding archetypal god that meets us at twilight, on the edge of darkness and light.
The quintessential threshold guide
Mercury is the guardian that opens the gates and leads us into unknown territories, the guide of all journeys we undertake, near and far, inner and outer. He meets us at twilight, which I’ve taken to be a great time to honor him.
This fragile time of transition, half-light and half-dark, is both mysterious and ambiguous, a time of uncertainty, and Mercury is its perfect guide. At twilight, the greater light of the Sun, our conscious mind is taken by the lesser light of the Moon, representing the world of dreams and the unconscious.
During liminal times of change and transformation, what has been clear and illuminated by the Sun darkens by the shadows of unknowing represented by the phasic light of the Moon. As we cross the threshold between the known and the unknown, things previously known and taken as certain dissolve, and an aspect of our sense of self and identity disintegrates, as it no longer will serve us.
Equating this transition to a trip to foreign lands, I remember vividly the awakening of all my senses, sharpened by the fact that I was no longer in known territory. My mind had to be sharp to notice and make sense of what was around me, especially if I was in a country where I didn’t speak the language. The foreignness of it all is a great metaphor for how it feels when we cross a threshold of change in our lives.
It’s all in the name.
Mercury had many names, skills, and qualities. These give us a sense of what we want to look for in a guide for our journeys if we have the privilege to prepare ourselves by searching out a guide, much like one looks for a therapist, astrologer, or healer when they sense that the time is now.
However, more often than not, a guide will show up much like in that saying: the teacher will show up when the student is ready. Because a lot of times, we cross a threshold in our lives, oblivious that we’ve just left our known ordinary world and are well into our descent into the liminal.
Pompos
This oft-used moniker for Mercury refers to his ability to be a guide during critical times. Think about how many times you’ve met someone, or perhaps it was a book or piece of information that served to get you out of difficult transitions and get you to where you need to get to at that stage of your journey.
I’ve always felt that Mercury was active in places of transition like airports, train stations, and busy marketplaces, where it’s easy to get lost amid all the information firing from all sides.
Psychopomp
This isn’t about a ‘pompous psycho.’ Psyche means Soul, and Pempo (pomp) means to send off/to guide. Mercury is considered the guide of souls to and from the Underworld. A psychopomp has become better known in healing and therapeutic fields to describe those who do this type of work. Think of the therapists who work with trauma patients, plant medicine facilitators, and astrologers, to name a few.
I also like the idea of this word meaning ‘sending off,’ because, at times, one isn’t only guided but sent off to do this journey, thrown into the deep end of the pool. Mercury is not called a trickster god for nothing. Guidance isn’t always safe or cozy. It might just be a process of being dragged out by one's own hair.
Psychagogos
At times, Mercury served as the one who called up the souls from the dead/Underworld. He was the fetcher of those who needed to return from the Underworld, as he did for Persephone, bringing her back to the upper world and to her mother Demeter.
At times, we need someone who will be able to rescue us from a lost and stuck place. There are many movies where the hero/heroine is someone who will go to a dangerous place to save and bring back someone who has been abducted or gotten lost. A shamanic soul retrieval is akin to bringing back that which was thought lost.
Polytropos
Another moniker for Mercury was as the god of many turns. This makes me think how many times the guidance we receive isn’t linear or in a straight shot. The journey through transitions and transformation takes many switchbacks and sharp turns. As if the discombobulating nature of the many turns serves to release any vestige of our Ego’s need to control the narrative.
I’ve noticed in my own life that when I’m stuck in thinking things need to be a certain way, I’m met with dizzying zigzags. The more stubborn I get and dig in my heels, the more turns I’m made to take.
Polymetis
A quality praised as a guide through liminal times is cunning and intelligence. For the ancient Greeks, intelligence was the only effective defense against the oblivion of death and, thus, an essential ingredient to navigate liminality. Intelligence was seen as a combination of right/left brain thinking, wit, dexterity, memory, and the quickness of cunning.
This quality makes me think of the Jedis in the Star Wars universe and their ability to do the ‘Jedi mind trick’ when they ran into a bind.
Alexikakos
When I found that Mercury was also considered as the ‘evil averter,’ I chuckled. It wasn’t just him that had this epithet. Alexikakos was also used for several deities, including Zeus and Apollo. Liminal times are vulnerable times, as we shed the old identities and stand naked for a while until the new forms within and around us.
In this stage of in-between, we need protection in whatever form it comes. It may be a mindset, a sense of faith and also others who may show up for us.
Many guides - many journeys.Â
As you can see, you won’t be without guidance, but what it needs is that you look around and pay attention. Your guide could be standing right by you, just waiting for you to acknowledge what it has to offer you.
In astrology and in Greek/Roman mythology Mercury is the quintessential guide at the threshold. But as a trickster, you know that a guide of this caliber will show up in varied ways, often mischievously and unexpectedly.
Liminal times, much like being in a foreign country, require that we have our wits about ourselves. Don’t let yourself fall into slumber.
Now on to you.
How is your liminal guide showing up for you now?
Is it a person, thing, or idea?
Let me know in the comments.
Sharing your experience of liminal times helps us see that we’re not alone and that we’re all walking each other home.
So don’t be shy! We’re in this together!
Drop me a line in the comments.
*This was a slogan for American Express Card.
Help me out by casting your vote!
In my last post, I shared my poll with three options for an online workshop.
Now, we’re down to two options. What I need from you now is to exercise your creative citizenry and cast your vote on which one sounds more interesting to you.
I’d launch the online workshop series that wins more votes in late Summer - early Fall. So here are my ideas on these two topics.
* The Astrology of the Liminal - Honoring the Planetary Gatekeepers:
We're living in very liminal times, where our old ways of being and doing no longer serve, while the new is yet to root down. Liminal times beckon us to descend into what the ancients called the Underworld, the realm of death and rebirth.
For the ancients, it would be unwise to descend without preparation or guidance. In this class, we'll explore this landscape, the stages of initiation, and how we can honor the planetary archetypes that serve as our guides.Â
* On Liminality & Purpose
Our relationship to work and our livelihood is in a liminal space in a post-pandemic world. More and more folks are questioning their assumptions of livelihood and the place of purpose, meaning, and even love in their working lives.
In this class, we'll explore how astrology can help us at this liminal intersection of purpose, livelihood, and love. Because in times of great change, we're all called to serve in some meaningful way.
Do me a solid and cast your vote!
Creative democracy for the win!
Thank you! My Muses and I appreciate you sharing your opinion.