So as I sit and rewrite the section of my concepts chapter that uses van Gennep’s term ‘liminality’ to explore how music might allow us to cross a threshold out of the self towards the transcendent, I am struck by potential areas of liminality in every walk of life. Is life just one continuous journey of crossing thresholds? As I sit and wait to start a new job (more about which later), I consider that most people transition frequently through thresholds in work (indeed, teachers “go through the threshold” to move to the next level of experience and thus pay).

I was even more interested to discover that Turner coined the term ‘liminoid’ to explain non-ritualistic (read: religious) crossings of thresholds – for example in literature, film, theatre – thus perhaps reinforcing the separation between culture and religion. Perhaps there is not such a big difference between crossing thresholds, wherever they appear in life.

Marcel Cobussen’s Thresholds: Rethinking Spirituality Through Music is an interesting perspective on how music crosses thresholds.

I have now crossed the threshold of blog updates, and intend to keep it up!