Throughout each of our lives, we cross many thresholds, leaving behind what has been and going forward into what will be. You cross a threshold when going through the doorway into your home, of course, leaving behind the “out there” and entering your “in here.” But thresholds can also mark periods of significant change in our lives. When faced with questions of what choices to make, which roads to travel, what projects to tackle and the like, we find ourselves standing in that between place, unable to go back but unsure about going forward. Thresholds are places of transition, and transitions rarely happen without some sense of chaos, even pain.
Melanie C. Reuter, Threshold, 2022, mixed media on Venetian plaster, 8”x10”
Years ago, I was in a small office with two colleagues five floors above a busy city street. We’d been working together on a project for more than two hours, and the room was starting to get stuffy. One of my co-workers went over to the tall, narrow window and turned the lever to try and open it. The window came loose and began to open at the bottom but was stuck up top. Without giving it a second thought, she quickly slipped off her shoes, and in her stockinged feet climbed up on a table and then stepped over to stand on the marble windowsill. In the blink of an eye, she popped the top of the window with her fist and it immediately flew wide open, causing her to lose her balance as her nyloned feet began to slip on the marble. Fortunately, the two of us down on the floor had instinctively moved closer to her and were able to grab her and keep her from falling out of the window.
When I find myself standing on the threshold between what has been and what is going to be, I sometimes flash on the picture of that split-second in time when my colleague almost followed the opening window out into the vast unknown. It’s certain that thresholds may hold the start of something new and wonderful, but we’ve all experienced times when we’ve crossed into the unknown only to grope blindly, trying to find our balance. The most poignant example of that sort of threshold is the one in which we leave a loved one behind. No matter how long their death may have been foreseen, we are never prepared to move forward without them, needing months, even years, to step from the threshold into the future.
Brigid’s Cross
Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland, is said to have been born on a threshold. Her feast day is February 1 (known on the Christian calendar as Candlemas and on the Celtic calendar as Imbolc) which marks the threshold leading into springtime. She is believed to bring the first sign of light and life after the long, dark winter, and is often depicted holding a candle. I think of Brigid when I see the first Winter Roses (Helleborus, also known as Lenten Roses) peeking out from under the layer of wet, decayed leaves around the same time of year. Brigid gives me hope that as I cross thresholds into the unknown, there will be a light, no matter how small, leading me into the vast unknown.
