Contemplations on January
It’s a snow day here in Georgia. The governor has declared a state of emergency ahead of an approaching winter storm. Schools and businesses are closed. I sit here watching birds at our bird feeders as snow blankets the ground and a pleasant quiet descends. It’s the kind of silence that reminds me of those first COVID lock down days – can you believe that was almost five years ago?
Transitions and legacies
This quiet snowscape is perfect for contemplation. Themes of humility in leadership are on my mind. It was on a January day just like this three years ago when Thich Nhat Hanh’s passing was announced and I wrote my reflections on his life and legacy. Today, the air of hushed reverence is fitting as the world mourns another beloved figure, former President Jimmy Carter, who was laid to rest yesterday at his home in Plains, Georgia. And on MLK Day on January 20, we will honor the legacy of one more Georgia treasure, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. on what would have been his 96th birthday.
There’s a billboard that’s been catching my eye lately as I drive home. Several of them have been put up around Georgia in the past week or so. This one is a striking side portrait of former President Jimmy Carter looking contemplative. A single word is written next to the image: “Character”. The letters “C-ar-ter” in the word are highlighted – an invitation to reflect on the legacy of this down-to-earth visionary leader who loved humanity and the planet. From building partnerships to help eradicate guinea worm in Africa and foster democracy and peace across the world, to building homes with Habitat for Humanity and standing firm on his principles, his legacy will endure. There is a hollow sadness and loss as we acknowledge that this character in leadership is desperately needed today.
Liminality
The month of January is named after Janus, who in ancient Roman mythology was the god of transitions, passages, beginnings and endings. He is depicted as having two heads, each looking in opposite directions – one in the past, the other into the future.
This gives Janus a unique vantage point as a liminal deity presiding over boundaries and dualities: Perched at the threshold between old and new, known and unknown, past and future, he oversees the movement of time into new territories and phases.
As we exit the festive season and tighten our belts in the new year, as the US transitions into a new government administration, as a sobering winter envelopes many parts of the US and fires rage out of control in southern California, it seems as if Janus is warning us to step over this threshold with caution and reverence.
Our hearts go out to all those suffering unimaginable devastation and loss in those deadly fires.
Interesting things happen in liminal spaces. At every threshold lies the promise of adventure, newness, discovery, risk, even danger. Remember that movie Event Horizon? The crew of a spaceship finds itself at the gateway of a new dimension outside the known universe. The astronauts encounter sinister forces and enter terrifying realms both in their minds and in their outer surroundings. This is one aspect of a liminal space: It can be a frightening altered state, much like one might experience in a hypnopompic hallucination, that weird liminal state of consciousness between waking and dreaming.
Other kinds of liminal spaces are more benign. Scientists tell us that ecotones, which mark a transition between two biological communities, like a grassland and a forest, are rich hot spots of biodiversity, adaptation and the vibrant intertwining and evolution of species.
Transformation at the threshold
In the Nyaya sutras in Vedic literature as described by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who brought Transcendental Meditation to the West, the analogy of “the lamp at the door” is used to symbolize liminality. The lamp at the door sits at the threshold and illuminates both the inside and the outside, making visible the junction point where silence and dynamism, unity and diversity, outer and inner, manifest and unmanifest realities meet. Maharishi describes this meeting point as “the field of total knowledge”, “the field of all possibilities” and “pure consciousness” that can be accessed through meditation.
I’ll give the final word for January to Carl Jung, whose psychology articulates liminality and transformation like no other, especially in concepts like “the transcendent function” and in his personality theory. In his 1933 book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jung states: “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
May this new year meet us smiling at the threshold, where life, adventure and transformation happens.
Photo of three birds in the backyard by Earl Alvin Daniels