Standing in the Threshold: A Practice for the In-Between Phases

Coming Into Your Own

Read time: 6 min

Jump to Section:

• ➣ What We've Always Known About Thresholds
• ➣ It's Liminal
• ➣ The Practice
• ➣ Why This Is a Spiritual Stamina Practice
• ➣ Lean on Petrified Wood and Mullein

You've been avoiding making a decision because you're not sure it's the right time, or you're sitting with a job offer that's exciting and terrifying at the same time, or you keep almost writing the email that would change something and then closing the tab. You know the feeling when something is on its way out but the status quo is still functioning and nothing's really changed yet… not externally, anyway. Whatever is coming to replace it hasn't shown up yet, but it's making its way down the path and it's taking its sweet time. You're standing in the space between what was and what will be, and there's no timeline for how long you'll be there.

That space has a name.

What We've Always Known About Thresholds

Almost every ancient culture left records of the spiritual significance of thresholds.

The Romans worshipped Janus, the two-faced god of doorways, whose gaze went in both directions at once. They also worshipped Cardea, goddess of door hinges, whose job was to protect the threshold itself. Slavic folk belief held that the household spirit, the Domovoy, lived at the threshold of the home and had to be greeted properly when you crossed it. Irish and Scottish tradition held that fairies waited at doorways, which is one reason horseshoes went above the door as protection. Hindu tradition treats tirthas — sacred crossings, especially river fords — as places where the earthly and divine meet. Celtic tradition speaks of "thin places" where the veil between worlds grows fine, and doorways were one of them.

Even the folk custom of carrying a bride across the threshold, which most people now treat as a wedding photograph moment, was originally a ritual crossing. The bride wasn't walking from one life into another, but was carried, transformed, set down on the other side.

The pattern to pay attention to: thresholds are not neutral. They belong to neither side. Standing in a threshold is standing in an in-between space charged with the power of the past, present, and future.

It's Liminal

In 1909, French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep gave this cross-cultural pattern a name: liminality, from the Latin limen, meaning threshold. He identified the three-phase structure of any real transition: separation from the old, the liminal in-between, and reincorporation into the new. Real transitions have a middle. Cultures across time and geography have known this and developed rituals around it.

The middle phase is where you are right now. Honor it.

The Practice

When you're in a real threshold-moment of life, standing in a physical threshold is a way of anchoring the concept into your energetic body, both metaphorically and practically.

Pick an interior doorway in your home. Not the front door. You want privacy and quiet, not a doorway that opens to the outside world. Same doorway each time if you can, so the space becomes familiar.

Stand on the threshold. One foot on each side of the line where the floor changes. Feel that you are in two places at once and neither place fully.

Hold Petrified Wood in one hand and Mullein in the other. Which hand you hold each in is your choice, but make note of which you choose or which feels right in the "before" hand and in the "after" hand.

Stand there for three minutes for the first time.

You're not waiting for a message, you're not trying to decide when to move forward and when to make a decision. You are standing in the in-between space, on purpose, and allowing your energetic body to learn what that feels like, to learn to be comfortable.

When the three minutes are up, choose a side and step through. Take 30 seconds to integrate the experience; the feeling of being inside the threshold, in the midst of the middle, present with it not avoiding it. You are practicing the entering, the standing strong, the stepping through. Now go back to your day.

That last part is important. You are practicing both being comfortable in a threshold and practicing ending the threshold when you choose to. Your body is learning that thresholds are not permanent, even the long ones.

Why This Is a Spiritual Stamina Practice

Most spiritual practices are designed to move you toward something. Move you into insight, stillness, a shift, or a new version of yourself. Spiritual practices can sometimes overemphasize transformation.

With this ritual you are prompting perseverance, the capacity to stay in the in-between without collapsing it into a false answer, to feel unresolved and not need to escape it, and to stand inside a long threshold for months or even years without treating every day of it as a problem to solve.

Dedicate yourself to this ritual practice two or three times a week for a month. Every time you stand in the door, you're building energetic endurance. After a few weeks, you'll notice something. When the actual in-between of your life phase flares up (the "I don't know what I'm doing" feeling, the "how long is this going to last" feeling, the "am I still waiting" feeling) your body has a reference point for a purposeful threshold experience. You know what it feels like. You can stand in this one, too.

Lean on Petrified Wood and Mullein

Petrified Wood is wood that took millions of years to become stone. The change happened slowly, under pressure, and what came out the other side of a long wait is heavier and more durable than what went in. Holding it in your hand while you stand in a threshold gives you a piece of history to anchor to.

Mullein has been used for centuries as an herb of the spine and the lungs. It's the plant of physical and energetic endurance.

The two together are anchor and backbone. Read the full pairing writeup for more on how they work with each other and how to use them in other ways →

What to Do Next

Save the printable practice guide somewhere you'll see it, maybe near the doorway you chose.

Get Petrified Wood and Mullein from the shop if you don't already have them, or check out the article on tiredness and waiting if you're not sure why any of this matters right now.