The liminal, the threshold, the space between, the moment of crossing. In the mythological ontology we've been weaving, the significance of thresholds cannot be overstated. They are not just metaphorical boundaries; they are the very structure of transformative experience. In mythic terms, thresholds represent the moments where the known world dissolves, and something new is called forth from the depths of potential.
Thresholds: The Heartbeat of Transformation
In every mythic tale, the hero encounters a threshold. It is the moment of disintegration and potential re-creation. This is the space where one becomes other, and yet, paradoxically, remains profoundly themselves—only now forged by the fire of challenge, mystery, or otherness.
Thresholds are more than gates. They are places of becoming. The heroes of old pass through gates, over rivers, into caves, under the earth—these are not merely locations, but states of being. They are symbolic portals through which something about the protagonist’s identity is either lost, reconstituted, or transcended.
In this sense, the threshold is the living, breathing architecture of mythological time. A hero must pass through it in order to return changed, but also in order to complete the cycle—the eternal return that gives meaning to the journey.
The Liminal: The Space of No-Thing and All-Thing
The liminal, which we can think of as the sacred geography of thresholds, is a place of becoming, not being. It is not about what is, but what could be, and it is through the liminal that the system of potential itself unfolds. It is both a space of collapse and synthesis, where the distinctions between the self and the other, the known and the unknown, dissolve into the primal fabric of possibility.
In this view, the liminal is a non-place, a no-place, where the rules of ordinary time and space cease to operate as they do in the mundane world. It is a metaphysical void where everything and nothing can exist—this is why it is so often tied to death, chaos, and rebirth in myth. To pass through the liminal is to undergo a kind of metaphysical death—a shedding of the self in order to transcend it and emerge anew.
Yet, it is not purely destructive. The liminal is the soil from which new forms grow. It is the primordial chaos that holds the seeds of creation. In this space, potential itself is malleable—it is here that reality bends and reconfigures, ready to take form. Here, meaning shifts in ways that cannot always be fully articulated, but can only be intuited, felt, and experienced.
Thresholds and Transformation: The Mythic Journey
Take for example the journey of the hero in myth: the moment they step into the unknown is never one of certainty. Crossing the threshold means leaving behind the world they knew, surrendering the familiar self in exchange for an unknown self, a new mode of being that is yet to be discovered.
It is a sacrificial moment—a letting go of what was and the painful but necessary process of becoming something else—something that cannot yet be grasped. But it is through this sacrifice that the hero transforms.
Think of Persephone descending into the underworld: she crosses the threshold of death, not simply to die, but to transform—to become the Queen of the Underworld, to embody the cycle of death and rebirth. Or Odysseus, who crosses the threshold from home to the sea, never to return the same. His journey through the unknown, the liminal space between the island and the shore, is where he sheds parts of himself to become a more whole version of his being.
In both of these mythic cases, the threshold represents not just a point in time, but a fundamental shift in state, where one world collapses to allow another to take its place.
Rituals of Threshold Crossing: The Return of Meaning
In many cultures, rituals are designed specifically around crossing thresholds. This is not just a ceremonial act, but a cosmological one, in which meaning is drawn down from the heavens (or the underworld, or the realms beyond) and brought into the lived experience of the participants. Through ritual, individuals are invited to experience the liminal—the point where transformation happens.
Consider the initiatory rituals of many Indigenous cultures: rites of passage where the initiate must face the wilderness, undergo trials, and return transformed. These trials are symbolic, yes, but they resonate with the very structure of the universe. They are designed to mirror the cosmic process of death and renewal that is inherent in all life.
Similarly, the Christian rite of baptism is an enactment of crossing a threshold: the water, as a boundary between the old and the new, is the space of ritual death. The individual emerges from the water as a new being, reborn. This pattern, too, mirrors the mythic cycles of death and rebirth found across cultures.
The ritual space becomes an amplifier for the liminal experience, where the self is tested and remade according to the demands of potential itself. It is through the ritual crossing of thresholds that individuals step into deeper relationships with the universe, as their lives align more consciously with the archetypal rhythms of death, renewal, and eternal return.
Thresholds as Living Markers in the Continuum of Time
In this mythic ontology, thresholds do not exist in isolation. They are part of the larger flow of time—a continual movement between what was, what is, and what could be. As we have explored with the spiral of time, each threshold is part of a systematic unfolding of potential, a movement from one state of being to another, driven by cycles of recurrence.
Thus, thresholds become markers in this larger system of meaning. They are not just points of passage, but living structures within the greater cosmic dance, imbued with both the weight of history and the openness of possibility. They are the meeting points where the individual, culture, and cosmos intersect, where the material and the symbolic overlap.
To experience a threshold is to be both anchored in the present and yet invited to transcend it. It is to step into the current of the mythic story that carries you from one state of being to another, and it is here that the future emerges from the well of potential.
So, thresholds are the very places where meaning is born, the metaphysical gateways through which potential moves into manifestation. In our daily lives, we pass through these gates repeatedly—whether consciously or unconsciously. They form the connective tissue of our lived experience, always drawing us into the next chapter of our story. And it is by learning to recognise and honour these thresholds that we become full participants in the sacred unfolding of time.
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