Twixtmas - betwixt and between - a reflection on Jung's idea of liminality and what this liminal time can offer
How will you use this in-between time?
In these monthly reflective blogs I take a look at life through a Jungian lens. Carl Jung studied many cultures through their stories and myths to see if any archetypes (characters) transcended through them; he found that across them all we share very similar archetypes, their traits and their journeys. We have a collective ancient wisdom that has guided us for generations - this is our shared inheritance. I explore how we can use these to help us navigate our contemporary world.
Carl Jung wrote about the transcendent function: the union of conscious and unconscious contents. This dialogue, between conscious and unconscious thought, takes place through 3 separate but interacting systems: the ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. For people to give-up ego-centric hopes and fears, liminal spaces can create the vessel (or container) to for the transcendent function to materialise. This then allows the exploration of imagination and dreams, without the desire to integrate the symbol (e.g allow the ego to dismiss or diminish it).
‘Rites of passage’ in life are traditional spaces for this. As leadership studies develop, it is increasingly recognised that leadership transition is needed; what skills to let go of and what new habits are needed. Barrett (2023) (amongst others) identifies in this transition the link between leadership capability and the formation of identity. This may mean a period of loss and unlearning; discussion in a liminal space can offer the renewal in exploration of imagination and dreams.
As someone who is studying Jungian psychology (aka analytical psychology), and has a partner learning ancient Greek, you can have some real ‘Ah ha!’ moments. My partner showed me an ancient Greek word: Limen – which means harbour. It caught my attention because of its resonance with liminality, which in English has come to mean those in-between spaces. Literal ones like waiting rooms and doorways, but also the thresholds of the mind, the transitions and transformations forged in ambiguity and uncertainty. The space where Jung suggests we can give up attachment to the ego and enter creative potential.
The dictionary places the etymology of liminal squarely with the Latin, for threshold. That is consistent with my sense of liminality as faintly uneasy, a space to transform in, perhaps a restless, unsettling state. It’s not always deep psychological transitions that create these spaces. That moment you walk into an unknown café and transition from inside to out. Airports have this feeling for me in spades, as does waiting for an arrival that grows later and later.
And of course, there is the newest of portmanteaus (that word also shown to me by my partner!) – Twixtmas. That handful of disorientating days after the riot of Christmas and before the rites of Hogmanay. A listless left-over-picking, channel-flicking in-between time. Definitely liminal.
But what if we reached further back from the Latin for limen and to the Greek word instead. A harbour. An in-between place, yes. Something of land, something of sea. But also, a resting place, a refuge, a relief. I am going to draw on this for my Twixtmas this year… exploring how to turn those handful of days (or perhaps a handful of hours in each day) into my own harbour, my resting place between the end of one year and the beginning of the next one. You don’t need to be in the consulting room or a meditative state to experience that creativity Jung talks of. I might let a little of that uneasy Latin in of course, being rocked by a few waves of apprehension about the future, but I am going to explore the metaphor of a harbour as I do so.
Is there any space in your Twixtmas for a harbour? For a little safe-havening before you set your sails again for 2024? Can you create some in-between space that shelters you? I’d love to hear how you do it.
Hello! I’m Katie, the author of the blogs and an executive and leadership coach. I specialise in psychodynamic coaching using a Jungian approach, as well as person-centred coaching. You can find out more at https://yellowrattle-coaching.com/