Betwixt and between

Relevant words of advice received today from Esther our daughter ...

In anthropology, there is a term called liminality. Victor Turner, a famous anthropologist came up with it in relation to rights of passages. The word comes from the latin Lemin- which means threshold. His theory is, as with rights of passages, there are three stages. 1. the preparation and separation 2. betwixt and between 3. reentry into society (this is not exact but approx). so you can imagine for some rituals (eg young boys) are separated from their social group, are caught in a liminal stage between boyhood and manhood and then once they have completed that, may then return into society.

This can be the same for your pilgrimage. Before it, you had to prepare- get all your stuff together and organise your journey. Now, in your separation from society, you are not following your normal day to day routine. Your position is not defined. Your world is turned upside down. Here is a liminal place, a threshold on the doorstep of something new. Here is a place you aim to learn something and change.

Once you have finished your pilgrimage, you are expected to reenter society different. You don't go through this and come back as the same person. So perhaps as you are walking, in this liminal, betwixt and between, stage of your life, maybe think about what you will learn and discover and be like when you finish. This isnt just a walk, it's a pilgrimage. A religious experience. So don't go through looking at the scenery and taking it at face value. Members of society who get stuck in the liminal period don't quite fit back into their society. They do not graduate into the next life stage (as with boys who aim to reach manhood) so part of the challenge is to take what you have learnt and apply it to your regular life in New Zealand.


This is the question to us - How will we be different?