THRESHOLD: UNRELENTING MYSTERY

Intention can be an important part of crossing the threshold during a wilderness rite-of-passage, life change, or any liminal transition, including our current collective initiation.

My way of holding intention and threshold has shapeshifted over the years.

Intention is not a goal. It’s good to have goals—they can be core parts of the journey. For example, “I am going to be with sunrise for 4 days; this month I am going to finish X amount of Y; or I am going to look at the relationship with my parents.”

Intention is performing something different. It is not a proclamation of future action, but a recognition and honoring of what is, and what is emerging. It is a species of presence that authentically names what is already here—in us, in life.

It can be hatched as an “I am” statement: “I am a compassionate person who brings gifts of X to the community.” Or “I am a woman who honors her body, rhythms, & boundaries in order love herself & the world deeply.”

Affirming. Evocative. Honoring.

Yet that way of carrying intention can retain flavors of exclusively human design, if it is unhitched from a deeper truth.

Namely—Threshold of Unrelenting Mystery.

If there’s one thing confirmed over and over upon crossing the threshold: things unfold beyond our prediction and control. The other-than-human world hums along & we are one syllable of a bigger conversation. A fierce wind blows things out of us; a shooting star elicits awe; a fire devastates; a fox touches you; lies we’ve been performing die.

Mystery will have its way.

These encounters transform us, beyond anything we plan or intend. They continue to work us long after.

Practicing a beautiful devastation of not-knowing can subsidize the journey. A sweet surrender is an attitude worth cultivating. Before the next footstep, utter, “I don’t know” & “I am open to listening.” As a whisper perhaps; as a roar if we find the brutal truth of it in our belly.

Only then might we inhabit our proper place in the symphony of beings. Instead of crossing the threshold clutching a bouquet of wants, what if we stepped in with this:

What’s the largest conversation we can have with the world?

---

🦋THRESHOLD: Earth Intimacies & the Art of Transformation (Begins Sept. 29)