Liminal Lands
Are you a collector? I collect words. Hear me out. When I was little, I collected stickers and interesting rocks. When I got older I started collecting glass bottles. I’ve always collected journals and pens, but as any collector knows, collections need space. There comes a point when you must tell yourself the collection is finished. Not so with words!
Words evoke and illustrate. In the right hands (or mouth) they can create whole words or destroy them. There’s power in words and potency in the right words. The same is true of a story, itself an intricate working of words.
So, when I found myself at a loss for the right words to complete this post, I decided to incorporate my love of stories and interesting words. Part of the joy of collections is occasionally trotting them out and remembering why you like them. Here's one of my favorites:
LIMINAL: adj. of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold
I can’t think of a more appropriate word to revisit for a blog based on fairy tales. It is said that fairies occupy the space between ours and the hereafter—the Liminal Lands. How else can fairies attain immortality?
The best example I have of the liminal is Rip Van Winkle who, in some versions of the story, falls asleep after drinking with mysterious men thought to be fairies and wakes 20 years later with a longer beard but otherwise unchanged. He slept in the liminal space and somehow went unnoticed.
Do you have any favorite liminal spaces?
