Ever notice that we don’t step right on the doorway into a room or a building? We step from this space to that space without actually touching the door frame. Sometimes we lean on the door frame to talk with someone or wait to get someone’s attention (*cough* teenagers *cough*) but even then if you look, the feet are usually either in one room or another. It’s only the shoulder that’s in between.
In between is a difficult place to be. Neither here nor there, neither this nor that. It’s one of the reasons we didn’t like our teenage years, besides hormones, pimples, and high school. The same can be said of those last weeks of pregnancy, the dragging out days of the legal divorce proceedings, the time between the last day of school and the awarding of the degree, on and on and on…you get the picture.
But in between is also a place of amazing transformation. It’s why all the myths and faery tales are of characters going to far away places and meeting teachers and challenges and dangers along the way. You know, in between where they were and where they’re headed? In my culture the most powerful medicine teachings are given in the between places, in the space between the realm of Spirit and the world all around us. The Uktena lives in the in between places like the edge of a lake or the canyon between two mountains. Bear and wolf and snake speak to us, not in the house or in the field with the livestock, but on the hill when we release the everyday and open ourselves to listen to guidance, when we are most in between.
In between moments happen all the time, but we feel uncomfortable with them because they don’t follow the rules. We don’t have comfortable habits that get us through them, we don’t have etiquette to follow, there are no procedure for the in between bits. In those times, be they a moment or a day or a week or a year, we have to be fully present. We have to use everything we are to figure it out, feel our way through, be our best guess of what is right in each moment. It’s awkward and we are rarely perfect at it, but that’s where the growth lies.
Hi Teri!
What about labyrinths? Can they be seen as a terrifying version of an in-between where one’s sense of direction is purposely being screwed with? I’ve seen plenty that look delightful (beautiful hedges and flowers along them); others were playful; most of them were family-friendly. I know labyrinths often appear in myths, with some obvious transformation or heroic action going on (Theseus). But the ones I dream about are convoluted, endless, the exit always being out of reach. An in-between I guess, but the yucky version of it?
Yes but what you’re describing isn’t actually the uncomfortableness of In Between, but the torment of a task which never ends, the fear of the mind which can’t understand what’s happening and therefore has no control over it, and the fear of the unknown which converts into a hostile environment. So the maze you’re describing isn’t about being between one thing or another, it’s being stuck in something you can’t get out of. What you’re looking for in these dreams IS the In Between, the door that lets you escape, that lets you win. Does that help?
Yes! makes complete sense. Thanks, Teri!
I’m so “in between” This struck home. Thanks Teri
Welcome.