Liminal Spaces

I have been very conscious of wanting to walk along the tide line and pick my way along the space where the sea meets the land. There have been very high tides foaming and scratching away the sand leaving scalps of brown weed in their wake. These spaces seem to possess a timeless quality and a sense of peace. Liminal space is in-between space; in his inspirational book 'Last Child in the Woods' Richard Louv says that :

'Life is always at the edges.'

He speaks of the importance of edges and boundary places as spaces for the imagination to roam freely.I think of the paths off main roads which lead to forgotten woodlands and copses, to blackberry hedgerows and old mine scapes. Liminal space is poetic space often rich in paradoxes and contrasts. These are the places I played as a child; places like the old quarry in the middle of the playing field which became a tribal hunting ground and a jungle (albeit of Japanese knotweed) where we built camps and fought our rivals from along the terrace with sticks, stones and the odd wellie boot flung at speed; and ....there was the top of the back hedge with fields beyond and a view, if you stood tiptoe on the top of the wobbly granite, down to the ocean sparkling over St Ives on a summer's day. There was the old reservoir where the rows of miners houses ended: a murky slime, dense in brambles and pond weed, where we would happily while away whole afternoons fishing for tadpoles to bear proudly back in jamjars to live the rest of their lives kicking little black legs around dolly's pink. plastic bath, later to make an escape bid on to the lawn and then under stones in the flower beds.There were rock pools which fascinated us as we stared into their swirling depths as the tide left behind its miracles; if you were still and crouched long enough you got to experience a whole world in minature motion; sea anenomes fanning deep red fronds with the odd flash of blue, crabs edging their way sideways under emerald green swathes of weed and the flurry of sand as a guppy emerged in the blink of an eye...liminal spaces full of magic..the cliff path winding its way to the edge of the land and into a brittle dance of sunlight and plumes of spray as the waves crash against granite and a host of gulls wheel on invisible spirals in the blue eyed sky.....yes, I have been very aware of these edges recently...very open to that balance and contrast that this season heralds.The weather itself revealing that we are on the edge: Tuesday was hot and sunny, now on Thursday it is cloudy and there is a real nip in the cooling air. It feels as if this week we have passed from summer into Autumn..the leaves are half curled and growing brittle; the colours turning from greens to russets, bronze and gold; the mornings are misty and the dews are growing heavier; the blackberries are over plucked by 'the devil's claw' as my father said.We are in the days before dark evenings loom and cold bites. Today felt like we had passed over..I watched a child play in a playground of falling leaves with grass sprouting small mushrooms and the smell of smoke on the air; there was no sun only grey; the hush was palpable as Gaia turned.