The Gloam

Aries Full Moon Deep Dive

“The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?” —Macbeth, Shakespeare

Liminality is the most crucial ingredient required for spiritual work.

The word “liminal” refers to occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. It also relates to transitional or initial stages of a process.

In other words, the liminal is the in-between. And, in shamanism and many other spiritual practices, the in-between is literally where all of the magic happens.

Liminal spaces can be literal and physical, as is the case with hedges and borders between cities and the wild of nature. Liminal spaces can also be abandoned buildings that, not so long ago, served as bustling train stations or factories, still vibrating from the echo of so much energy.

Liminal spaces can also be temporal in nature, such as the space in between the changing of seasons from summer to winter (i.e. fall), or transitional times of the day (such as just before sunrise or just after dusk).

We can also access liminal spaces through ecstatic and meditative practices, or by using psychedelic plant medicines, both of which put us into contact with the world beyond the world, which is also referred to as the Demimonde.

And there are people that are inherently liminal: those that live transient lives or those that exist at the borderlands of society. The mainstream, as it were, is not a great place to hang out in if you’re intending to access the in-between.

As a shaman, I’m one of these inherently liminal people. While I’m not a transient or traveler in the strictest sense, I do operate largely in the borderlands, frequently moving in contrarian ways to that of the majority of society.

For instance, when lived in Chicago, I had a weekly habit of walking to the Art Institute every Friday afternoon, always moving against the large crowds of pedestrians pushing to get out of their office buildings and to the train— or a happy hour appointment— as soon as humanly possible.

At this day and time, I knew the museum would be relatively empty and quiet and, when it was in the “in-between” of human rhythms, I could feel a real shift in the energy there. It felt more magical. I would encounter more synchronicities. And I knew I was having a unique experience unavailable to those that came at peak hours or in large crowds.

Shamans do this stuff all of the time. And, whether we’re conscious of it or not, we do it for a reason.

It’s in the liminality that we encounter other beings and energies often too reticent to emerge into the thrum of our modern society. It’s in the in-between that we encounter the old, forgotten gods and nature spirits and Genus Loci, unlocking a rich and mysterious world that exists just beyond our standard default settings. And it is in the in-between that we receive the most important messages from beyond the veil, often serving as crucial and life-changing sparks of necessary change.

And there’s good news for those of us that love the in-between.

October is, effectively, an entire month filled full with liminality. The veil between the worlds gets thinner with each day approaching Halloween, and dusk and twilight take back their real estate from the shining summer months.

And, to add to the “oomph” of this interstitial magic, it would seem that we’re all on the precipice of major transitional phase here on planet earth. There are serious indications that another place— or world or dimension— is closer to us now than it has been for millennia. In some cases, it would appear that this other place is even merging with our world and, if we’re getting honest about it, us as individuals.

In this Aries Full Moon Deep Dive, I invite you to join me on a journey into the liminal.

Or, as the old gods call it, The Gloam.