“The straight path must sometimes be crooked.”

Carole Wilkinson

The bibliomancy word for this week is “across.”

This innocuous looking word is in reality not easy to put into context. What I mean by this is on it’s own I’m struggling to relate it to this moment, where it fits. I’ve been scratching my head for a good few hours and all that’s firmly fixed in my mind is “across the divide.” To me, like that statement it’s a word which needs other words to create it’s context. So given that those three words are firmly lodged in my head at the moment, I’ll run with it.

Across is a word most of us don’t need an introduction to, it’s fairly common. We look across to things, see things stretched across and we move across thresholds, boundaries and place. Keeping that last thought in mind about threshholds, this is where “across the divide” comes in.

I could view “across the divide” as how we relate to each other. How different cultures interact and through what means. What tools are used, be it through a love of a subject or similar connection. But would that be to easy? These words speak more of liminal spaces and crossing points. Of boundaries or thresholds, seeking an understanding or experience of something Other.

“The Universe must be full of voices calling from star to star in a myriad tongues. One day we shall join that cosmic conversation.

Arthur C Clarke

Most of you will be able to recoginse these places. An entrance, edge-land or something that feels like a transition. Sometimes they’ll be more subtle than others. The times I like the most are those hours or moments of change between day and night. At this time of year darkness never becomes complete. The sun never fully sets as deeply and lengthy as it does during the winter months around Yule. At this time of year then it might be appropriate to use this very obvious visual sign of betwixt and between to explore the Other, as it lingers for longer. That would be alright if I could stay awake long into the night. At the moment I seem to be more able to get up early than stay up late. Which is the opposite of how I used to be. Getting up very early for this liminal time would involve rising in the wee, small hours of transition. Something which I would still struggle to do even though I don’t sleep what might be called well.

My natural tendancy is towards the darker half of the year. Even though the hours of darkness are greater, those transition times are more accessible. Occuring at a time when I’m more able to interact with them. Theres nothing worse than trying to do things when your tired. Something I’ve mentioned previously.

“Honour the space between no longer and not yet.”

Nancy Levin

Finally consider this thought. Whilst we go about seeking those liminal spaces and the Other. Could it be that the space and time in which we’re living is actually liminal? Our feet are firmly planted in the present sandwiched between what we think of as being the past and the future. We’re neither here nor there, not able to go back not able to travel forward, albeit with the passing of days. We’re very linear beings with a begining, middle and end. The liminal could be here, part of us and this realm, interconnected. Not seperate. It may be that seeking it isn’t necessary. Because if energy never dies and is transmuted as quantum physics suggests. The liminal has no concept of past, present and future, time is a human construct. Energy and energies just exist and do not die. Therefore the liminal or Other is all around us, it doesn’t dwell in some other linear place. It isn’t linear. All we need to do is develop those skills which better able us to connect to energy and energies across what we’re perceiving as the divide.