Liminal Space – Creativity Spark

It is when we are betwixt and between, have left one room but not yet entered the next room, any hiatus between stages of life, faith, jobs, loves, or relationships. – Richard Rohr

An In-Between Space

Has your muse been hiding under a rock lately? Tap into liminal space for an amazing creativity spark. This spring I learned a liminal space can teach us about creative powers. It happened when I was leaving a friend’s 5th floor hospital room at midnight finding my way to the parking lot. The elevator doors opened to a dim light with shadowy figures. Triangular patches of brain-grey carpet, a partial ceiling fixture and large looming rectangles like a line of diminishing dominoes stood jagged in front of me. A pause and then an overwhelming sense of confusion arose and the emergence of what was being experienced became clear: No staff, no patients, all the doors shut. The bones of an empty hospital floor.

Initially there was not cognition. Only later after reflecting I realized it as a liminal space, an in-between space that signals a change and a feeling of being transported. A liminal space is often described as a portal that momentarily ushers a person from a place to another world. Yes, it can be unnerving, but also magical. According to Rakel’ Elizabeth Sampson, those who bring awareness to the transitional space “find value and re-enchantment.”

For All Creatives
Writers and artists use this spark of creativity to awaken, be lifted and create. Such places transport by creating a pause for one to reconsider time and place. Meaningful perspectives and new mindsets are its offspring. Following the hospital experience a poem called “Abandonment” was forged. My friend Sarah sanctified the value of liminal space when her father was in an in-between place in hospice. She noticed that fresh flowers were delivered daily to the care facility and often wilted before they were used. Sarah said she recognized the liminal space as the spark for creativity. Sarah and her father got to work arranging flowers in vases and delivered weekly bouquets to the hospice roommates.

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