Sacred Thresholds

This time of year I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a pressure cooker. The energy and tension seem to build until it shifts quite dramatically on January 1st. I am so curious about it. I study/observe/sit with it year after year. Certainly it is a transition and humans often struggle with transitions of all sizes in big and small ways. But at this time of year we are urged to move through the transition without a hint of honoring the trepidation we might be feeling and so I think for many it becomes an unconscious pressure that miraculously feels lighter when New Year’s Day comes around. But this has left me wondering “How often in our world are we invited to simply linger in the in-between?” 

In my tradition, the in-between, the thresholds are something to be sanctified. We place a ritual object called a mezuzah within our doorframes. This relic for me is a deep reminder that beauty and the divine can inhabit the smallest of spaces and that the in-between is just as valuable as where I am headed. A mezuzah also reminds me no matter how small or large a space is, it can be a place for contemplation, connection, and devotion. 

At this gate of the new year, my first invitation is for you to literally sit in a doorway. I like to sit (or stand) with my back leaning against one side of the doorframe (with the mezuzah above my head) facing the other side of the door frame. Here I sit  and envision the mezuzah dropping a sacred divine blessing into the top of my head. If do not have a mezuzah and you would like to have your own sacred image in your doorframe that would be lovely (or any image that feels like a blessing to you - a dove, heart, spiral, sun, star, moon, etc). You can visualize the symbol or tack one up above you and then sit against the doorframe and breathe. Feel the threshold supporting you, not pushing you into the present or the past, but to linger in this in-between space and notice if even a drop of your being says “thank you.”

My second invitation is into reflection with me. Not to change anything (you can if you want), but to take account of your life lived. To create space for what dwells inside you: your hopes, dreams, frustrations, disappointments, resentments, insecurities, talents, grief, gifts, and everything else which resides in your being-ness. Where are the thresholds inside you - the places where two emotions, two feelings, two thoughts touch? What is the smallest drop of reverence and devotion you can invite into this internal threshold? What oh-so-very-ordinary, mundane space inside you can you adorn with a sacred, beautiful energy to show how miraculous the ordinary truly is? 

I hope as you move into this next year, the threshold is a space where you can return to again and again as a source of blessing, wisdom, compassion, and gentleness for the journey of being human. 

Blessings, 

Valerie