Mi'sen

You have spent your life getting knocked down, and then getting back up, dusting yourself off, and trying again. This is resilience. Bounciness. Joyfully navigating even the most painful aspects of life with verve.

And so here we are, in a situation that puts our lives and our communities on hold — we find ourselves in liminal space. For most, the undifferentiated nature of liminal space is cause of fear and anxiety. Recognize this, and help them as you are able.

The pregnant potentiality of undifferentiated liminal space, as much as it disrupts the rhythms of habitual life patterns, also is the basis for equanimity, freedom, and joy.

Liminal space, or chaos, or the lack of solid psychological supports, can help us recognize what is harder to see when life is bubblegum and fancy-free.

Facing the bubbling cauldron of a total unknown — personally and collectively — it is possible to open to the wisdom of not-knowing.

In the age of the wrathful goddess COVID, arrogant notions of certainty and security are swept away. So what is the wisdom? It's the recognition that certainty and security were never there in the first place.

How then to manage in a world without certainty and security? My suggestion: by recognizing that you don't need them, and by bravely going forth into the world without seeking them.

Be good to yourself, and expand that aspiration outward. The aspiration will not, by itself, actually improve the world, but it can improve your relationship to the world.