Living Graced Time: Welcoming No Longer and Not Yet

by Victoria McMahon

Do you pay deeper attention when life events come in three’s? Especially when life is challenging, do you think that the third event somehow signals the end of the chaos. Or if it feels magical or timely, do you say three’s a charm! Three months ago in fact, a friend shared this quote with me.

“Liminality is an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where people can begin to think and act in genuinely new ways. 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, jobs, loves, or relationships. It is that graced time when we are not certain or in control, when something genuinely new can happen.” – Richard Rohr

I began to inquire if this was true for me. Am I beginning to think and act in genuinely new ways? Do I register liminality as an inner state that moves me to respond genuinely…authentically? What is my evidence? I started tracking my experience. Initially, I noticed evidence by simply leaving one room with a thought of doing something and then not yet entering another space and unable to remember what it was I sought. Memory echoed of the countless times Tantra has said this is the “norm” of shifting from separation thinking into unity minding. The everyday example of betwixt and between arising without the usual meme, “I am losing my mind.” A genuinely new response.

Then a month later, a long-time pattern re-emerged in my relationship with my life partner. I felt, heard, and observed words of authentic allowance unfolding from me in the conversation. In the fear and uncertainty, I heard the words of an observing template arising. This was the pause and the moment of “graced time” for an authentic response. I still hold this energetic resonance in my field. It is like I am on hiatus from the old pattern while a new field presence is forming? Does this feel familiar? Can you connect to your own recognition of being in liminal state?

So, I continued to track evidence of liminality awakening. I was pinged during the August Unity of Care Community call. Melissa M. offered the idea that we are experiencing “stabilization during expansion”. This feels like another way of describing Rohr’s “graced time”, when I am not certain or in control. I shared last month in the Mining the Mind blog about the reality of not believing most anything I am thinking. Wow, is this the evidence for “graced time”? Can you relate to this, too? Are we now living in the field resonance of “graced time”? Maybe, this is what Maru and Tantra were weaving into the field last month through the Mayan perspective of the day of no time?

If in fact, we share the field of “graced time” or “the time of no time”, then how do we capture this essence at any moment? This brings me to the notion of three’s a charm.  Many years ago, I attended a talk given by Joan Borysenko. In listening to her experiences being shared, I heard four words that reverberated through my being. Today, I know it was an experience that ignited the reconnection of my flesh and spirit. She said she was living in the place of “no longer…not yet”! And still now, I feel the expansive radiance in my solar plexus! The space of “no longer…not yet” has been my entry point.

I capture this essence through the breath. I can feel myself taking in a deep breath at this moment and connecting these words to the energy of the breath itself. Join me…taking in a deep breath. Breathe in and feel the pause at the end of “no longer” breathing in and “not yet” breathing out. Then, breath out and sense the pause of “no longer” breathing out before welcoming the space of “not yet” breathing in. This is “graced time”!

Once you taste the pause into “graced time”, go for it and write a craving or observing while listening within the pause of “no longer…not yet”. What is arising for you? Add a bit of movement like yoga or taiji to the experience. Enjoy!