Hi! I'm Anne Marie, the creator of KaleidoSoul.com, and a SoulCollage® Facilitator in New England and worldwide online.

The Beautiful In-Between

The word “liminal” comes from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold.” Liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of some kind of transition, when you are metaphorically standing at the threshold between your previous way of life and a new way of life. 

I remember vividly the first time I experienced liminality in a big way. September 1974. My parents had helped me move into my college dorm, hugged me good-bye, and driven away. I was standing in the parking lot, looking up at the imposing six-story brick dormitory as their car disappeared onto the main road. I had an intense feeling of being In-Between. Part of me desperately wanted to go back to the safe rituals of high school, yet I knew that this was impossible. Another part of me was longing to fit in at the school, to find “my pack,” to belong. Yet I also knew that this would take some time. I was left in this space of uncertainty and waiting, but I was also aware of a beautiful sense of possibility. 

At the tender age of eighteen, I was not familiar with the word “liminality,” but I keenly felt everything that comes with it. I wrote in my journal that night about feeling like I was in an “in between place,” where I couldn’t go back to my life before, but I wasn’t “in” the place where I was headed yet. And it occurs to me now (at the tender age of sixty-eight!) that my awareness of the fact that I was in a particular place called In-Between made a difference in how I moved forward from that place. 

Because I was cognizant of the fact that I was kinda-sorta stuck on a metaphorical threshold, I was able to find some semblance of peace there. And that peace was filled with a sense of surrender to the possibility of what was to come. Instead of spending all my energy on wishing I could go back to my high school self, or trying to force the future relationships, I was able to accept the mystery of being on that threshold. I was able to activate my faith and trust that I would find my way across it safely to the next part of my life. 

I have found myself in many other In Between places in my life, and I’m sure you have as well. I moved to Virginia in 1978 to teach second grade in a little country town. I left that town (which had become home to me) in 1984 and moved to Boston to become an educational consultant for an educational software company. I ended a long-time destructive relationship in 1988. I married and became a wife and stepmother in 1995. Then my father died. The years marched on. I took a job. I left a job. I became a woman living with cancer. The treatments ended. Each of these transitions left me standing on the threshold for a time—not able to go back to how my life was “before,” and yet not quite knowing how to move forward. 

At the time of each of these threshold experiences, it didn’t feel beautiful. If you think back to a time when you were “in between,” you might know what I mean. All kinds of Neters get activated during these times: Vulnerability, Fear, Anxiety, Impatience, to name of few of my own. But looking back, I can see that when I’m standing on the liminal threshold of a transition place in my life, there exists a rare kind of beauty. This is the beauty that comes from being able to activate gratitude for what I’m leaving behind, while at the same time being able to hold a certain wonder about the possibility for what lies ahead. 

These liminal spaces are times of great inner growth for us, times when we can meet up with our growing edge. Catherine Anderson, Facilitator in Virginia, suggests that a good question to pose during these threshold times is “What does this period of my life ask of me?” 

My husband and I recently made a huge transition from our home of thirty years in Massachusetts to a brand new (decidedly smaller!) home in coastal Maine. It took several months to make the transition complete. When we finally “landed” in Maine, I noticed I was feeling a profound sense of disorientation. Aha! Liminal space. I hadn’t quite let go of our old place in the world yet, nor had I fully acclimated to the new place. 

When I journeyed inward with the question “What does this time ask of me?” I received the answer: Patience. Acceptance. And an inner commitment to allow all of what I have been feeling to move through me with compassion instead of holding it back. 

I then felt much more grounded and better able to let the feelings move through me, because I was able to experience gratitude for the home we had created, to accept the mystery of the beautiful In-Between, and to trust that what lay ahead would also be as full of blessings and love and new adventures. 

Time for Reflection 

SoulCollage® is a wonderful, gentle process for exploring our In-Between places because it meets each of us exactly where we are. It enables us to be in touch with our inner voices as well as voices from the larger mystical realm that are available to offer guidance and encouragement on every threshold that we cross. 

Look back on your journey and name those Beautiful In-Between places where you stood on the threshold, unable to go back to what was, and not yet ready to move forward. Journal about them. What did those times ask of you? What about your life right now? What are you In Between? How does it feel to be on this threshold? 

What Committee Neters are “up” for you right now within this transition? Make cards for a few of them, or just carry on a conversation with them and practice radical acceptance for any difficult feelings or thoughts that are occurring in this liminal space. Make a card to honor the part of you who waits—patiently or not—in the unknown space of In Between. 

Try doing a SoulCollage® reading where you draw three cards to help you answer one of these questions: “Who can help to support me in accepting the mystery of being In Between?” OR “Who has wisdom to give me about how I can trust with a full heart?” 

If your reading doesn’t feel complete, go back to your deck and choose a few cards intentionally to hold you in the beautiful in-between.

Anne Marie Bennett is a SoulCollage® Facilitator / Trainer, published author, website goddess, and two-time cancer survivor who was mentored directly by Seena Frost. Anne Marie is a recent transplant to southern coastal Maine where she lives, laughs, and creates with her silver-haired husband and one adolescent feline. She loves exploring all the wildlands including forest and ocean near her new home. Her books about SoulCollage® are available here.

Invoking the Trickster:

Leaning into Good Trouble

90-minute SoulCollage® Zoom

with SoulCollage® Facilitator 

Sushmita Mukherjee from New York

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Time: 12 noon Eastern

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KaleidoSoul Kindred Spirit members.

Only $10 for non-members.

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Recording available if you can’t attend "live."

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I am Cat Caracelo, M.A. a SoulCollage® facilitator, artist, depth coach and guidess living in Austin, Texas. As the founder of JourneyPath® Institute I am dedicated to journey work and transformative arts as a catalyst for change. I offer my work to individuals and groups, in-person and in global teaching forums. This column is for all of you who are exploring your creative voice and are ready to discover more depth your SoulCollage® journey.

Traveling Through Transition Times

These are indeed changing times, and what is coined in some places as “the great unraveling” is now being extended to encompass change that is happening so fast that it’s hard for many people to keep up. To me this feels like the “tower” symbolism, when something that was solid is crumbling under the force of change – wild times, strong winds and storms - something familiar that is falling down.

Transition can feel this way—ripped away from what was, in a state of flux, reaching toward the next without a good grip on getting there. We may experience transitioning out of a marriage, out of a job, out of lifestyle, out of a role, or perhaps transitioning into a new commitment, into a new age, or into a new journey, season or a year.

The trauma of change is often shocking: the new has not taken shape, and being in a state of not-knowing is a strong reason for anxiety. 

But what can be built from what is crumbling down around you?

There is a way to explore the potential of transition times that might invite a welcoming way to explore the story that is ready to be unbound. Through our art we can ask what is wanting to unravel; we can ask where life is offering us a space to explore suspended potential as one thing becomes another.

Nobody can go back to the beginning and start again, but any one of us can gather the stuff of today and ask to be carried away, past the edge and into a new age. 

Start a story on a SoulCollage® card today, a card that allows you to travel past or build anew. Find the remnants of what was, in words, images, tattered edges, threads, scraps or stones. Tell the truth into the creative space. Speak the story in its fragmented state, as it falls. Invite it to travel and find new form. 

As you create, notice that you are a traveler, asking for a wave that is strong and true, one that will move you off the rocks. Dive deeper into your art and wonder where you will land and create with the remnants of what is life. How will you weave together a new beginning out of what has been lost or left behind? Make something that will shine a light in the dark and guide your boat across the sea of change. 

Embrace the place of now. It is here you can begin to find or forge a new path that will bring you to the new year.

As you make art, ask yourself these questions. Or choose one of the questions, go to your SoulCollage® deck and allow three cards to help you discover some answers.

• How am I traveling in the midst of transition?

• What is unraveling or coming undone?

• What does it mean to be a lighthouse?

• What is the space between stories?

• How will I see far beyond what is visible yet?

• What is the shape of my new story?

Cat Caracelo, M.A. is a SoulCollage® Facilitator since 2007 and founder of JourneyPath Institute with an emphasis on Jungian approach to art and journey work. Cat is an artist who guides individual and group process internationally, she is excited to launch Wisdom Rising 2025 that brings alchemy, expressive arts, archetypes, and creative expansion for mature women who are dedicated to depth. Please visit Cat’s website for more info.