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Pathways to the Self:
Threshold Places
by Constance S. Rodriguez PhD, LCSW
Excerpt from her book "Sacred Portals; Pathways to the Self," due to be published this spring

There are places in this world that are neither here nor there, neither up nor down, neither real nor imaginary. These are the in-between places, difficult to find and even more challenging to sustain. Yet they are the most fruitful places of all. For in these liminal narrows a kind of life takes place that is out of the ordinary, creative, and once in a whole genuinely magical. (Parabola, 2000, Vol. 25:1, p. 34)


I have always had a fascination with doors and doorways. They represent portals that can open the way to richness and meaning in one's life. Thresholds hold a mystery; a mystery that lives in a neither/nor place. Thresholds are not only sacred places, but are also places of great fear, incubation and gestation. When we move into a threshold place, we leave Chronos, or linear time, and enter Kairos, or timelessness. We enter into liminal time. Liminal comes from the Latin root word limen, which means threshold.


A threshold marks a boundary or a place of transition that signals the intersection from one place to another. These places can be in the material world, as moving outside to inside a church for example. Once while visiting Tobago, a tiny island in the Caribbean, I had the opportunity to attend a church service in a nearby village. This particular church had no doors, but rather had two openings that each had been marked with an "X" on the floor. I noticed that as people stepped through the opening, they made the sign of the cross, touched each side of the opening, and then touched the "X" on the floor. Later, I inquired about the meaning of this ritual and was told that this served to keep the evil spirits out of the house of God. Many cultures are superstitious when it comes to entering doorways as they are seen as cracks between the worlds, wherein the Otherworld threatens to enter when the threshold is crossed. We find similar warnings to evil sprits in the form of ancient Gargoyles that sit over the entrances of many churches in Europe.


Threshold places are rites of passages that are often sought through ritual, plant medicines, and ceremony. Places of power can be found at sacred sites on the planet and serve as thresholds moving us from the profane into the profound. Places where the veil between worlds is thin become places where the unknown becomes known. The ancients recognized these as places where earth mother as Goddess and provider could be contacted directly. A threshold place is an in-between place, a place between worlds. It is neither here nor there. It is not the outside world, nor the inside. We are most familiar with crossing a threshold everyday when we enter or exit our home or other buildings.


In Ireland great care was taken before entering the home. Mara Freeman, author of Kindling the Celtic Spirit, states, "The earthen floor just inside the threshold of old Irish cottages in the south and west was known as the 'welcome of the door.' Upon entering, a visitor would stand here and say blessing for the household. This was holy ground, and dirt scraped from it was good for curing a number of ills." An in-between place, it was sacred because it marked the boundary between the life of the human family within and the wide world without. Freeman writes, "It was neither 'here' nor 'there,' and so it allowed a crack to open between the worlds where power could seep in." In Ireland today, brightly painted doors still honor the doors' threshold.


Our culture holds superstitions and traditions regarding thresholds as well. The bridegroom traditionally carries the bride over the threshold of the door just after the wedding. This marks the beginning of a new life, a transition from virgin to wife, from single to wed, and symbolizes the sacred union and vows of the couple's new life together. In some traditions, it also serves to protect the bride from evil spirits hovering in this in-between place.


Although doors are the most obvious kind of division from one place to another, they are not the only kind of threshold. Many sacred sites all over the earth mark threshold places where liminal states abound. Some of these time-honored sites mark the threshold between seasons, often seen as times when the veil between worlds is thin. At Stonehenge and Avebury in England, stone circles are thought to correspond with the summer equinox. Newgrange, Ireland, the location of oldest mound in history, also known as a Goddess mound, is recognized for its uncanny line-up with the sun on the morning of the winter solstice on December 21st. On this morning the sun comes up in such a way that it enters through a lintel stone above the entry and impregnates the entire womb-like cave inside the mound with an intense ray of light. It is such a wondrous sight, that there is a seven-year waiting list to see this spectacular five-minute event. These grassy man-made mounds are probably 30 feet high and 100 feet around. All around the base of the mounds are huge curbstones weighing in the tons that host circular carvings and symbols. There are several speculations as to why these mounds were built, but the most likely have to do with honoring the Sacred Mother, Gaia.


Outside the portal of this mother mound is a curbstone weighing more than 12 tons. Scientists are baffled as to how this and other curbstones were brought to this site 5500 years ago. The curbstone in front of the entry of the Goddess mound is ornately carved with spiral designs carved by the ancients. There are many speculations as to the meanings of these spirals, but the one that is most relevant is the symbolic meaning signifying the entrance into another realm of consciousness. Spirals have long been associated with energy patterns found by geomancers around the earth. Some have dowsed around the stones at Avebury and Stonehenge and have found spiraling energy at each stone marker. Other sacred places such as at Sedona, Arizona, have been sought after because of the vortexes or spiraling energy that is said to take the pilgrim or visitor into altered states of consciousness. In the 1977, Paul Devereux and John Steel, authors of Earthmind, founded the Dragon Project to better understand the earth and her emanations. Using Geiger counters, ultra sound and other instruments to measure the magnetic frequencies at different places on the earth, specifically sacred sites, they found that the instruments registered higher in frequencies at the sacred sites than at other locations at nearby sites. They have speculated that the granite around the areas is able to "hold" the frequencies, which have been enhanced through ritual and prayer. They also found that granite has the capacity to attract and emit radioactive fields. Perhaps this is why Stonehenge and Avebury circle is thought to hold frequencies that can be felt in the stones by those who have developed inner sensory perceptions.


Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., author of many books including, The Presence of the Past, and biologist best known for his discovery of "morphic resonance," believes that fields are embedded around every living thing, including the "stone people." These fields carry information that informs each cell, plant or rock. Fields of information can be imprinted in a place as well, especially those being used ritually over many years. Sheldrake further describes the nature of morphic fields by stating that a field brings about material effects while the system is tune in to it. This re-enactment sets up a "stable attractor site" that has viable energy and can be tapped into through its reconstruction, creating a powerful energetic site. This would explain why, when one enters sacred places where ritual has been part of the sacred space, such as in churches and monasteries, there is an overwhelming sense of a field at that site. The ancients were able to tune into these energetic fields that naturally emanated from particular places on the earth that eventually became places of worship. According to ancient wisdom found throughout many traditions, energy lines, sometimes called ley lines or dragon lines, weave throughout the earth. These energy lines have been likened to the acupuncture meridians found on the human body. Geomancers have found that these ley lines emit a particularly strong impulse when dowsing. Many of the sacred sites sit directly along a line of ley lines, conspicuously pointing out that the ancient peoples of our earth were sensitive to Her energetic qualities.



Much later these sites became the sites that many of today's cathedrals are built upon. One of the most well known churches built upon an ancient pagan site of worship-and ley line- is the Cathedral at Chartre. Under the cathedral a well still flows today. Wells, in fact, can be found at many of the sacred sites and were worshipped as places where the goddess herself nourished and healed her people.


One of these sacred wells can be experienced in Glastonbury, England where hundreds of people pilgrimage to the Chalice Well every year for its healing properties. This site is said to be directly located on two famous ley lines that intersect directly under the chalice well. The well has pumped a steady and continuous supply of water since at least the time of Christ, even during times of drought across the land. A gate made of iron in the shape of two intersecting circles greets pilgrims, who then enter a beautiful and peaceful flower garden. This symbol is called a Vesica Piscis and can found throughout the garden. Even the lid of the well itself is made in the shape of this sacred symbol. The Vesica Piscis translates to "the vessel of the fish" in Latin. The middle section of the Vesica Piscis is called a mandorla, an almond shape that was seen to be the place of birth, the sacred yoni or vulva. This vulva shape is an ancient motif pointing to the Mother Goddess. Not only is the mandorla symbolic of all life, but it is also a symbol where the inner meets the outer, where the upper world meets the lower, where the profane meets the profound. It is the symbol of the threshold, a liminal place where transformation occurs.


Other symbolic forms have been found at the entry to caves and mounds. Some anthropologists are now examining these ancient symbols that are found through out the world marking these portals to sacred sites. Some of these markings are seen in the form of the labyrinth, another ancient symbol over 4000 years old. Many people are finding that walking the spiraling path of the labyrinth is a transformative experience that literally changes their lives as a result of literally walking the spiraling path of the labyrinth. One of the most well known of these ancient and powerful spiritual paths can be found at Chartres, France. The labyrinth is experiencing a revival throughout the world, calling hundreds of people to experience its transformative mysteries. Finding these labyrinth symbols decorating cave walls or the entrance to sacred sites is surely a clue to the mysteries held within these sites.


Anthropologists who have studied indigenous cultures are finding that the various markings painted on cave walls in the form of spirals, mazes, and squiggly lines have a cross-culture commonality in their appearance. They are discovering through modern study of altered states that often the journeyer sees similar symbols, along with the bodily movements seen in the paintings, when entering or returning from altered states. These discoveries are leading anthropologists to speculate that the spirals, labyrinths and other squiggly lines may in fact be signifying that not only have the sacred sites been sacred because they were places of ceremony, dance, ritual and worship, but that they were also places wherein the Otherworld realms were contacted, and where the experiences brought inner truth and wisdom to those who journeyed there. Entering cave-like places was a way to maintain the connection with the Great Mother, or Goddess of the earth, and who brought fertility and life to all. The ancient peoples of the earth had not lost their contact with the earth as a sentient being who had provided for them. They celebrated her fecundity, and their connection with her at various times when the portals between worlds were thin. Celtic cultures still celebrate these portals in time-honored events during the seasonal transitions known as cross-quarter days. These seasonal thresholds are best known as Beltaine, meaning "lucky fire" and is celebrated on May 1, and Samhain, meaning "summer's end." Samhain, or All Saint's Day, is also known as "Hallowmas" and is celebrated on October 31. Our May day festivals are reminiscent of the Celtic celebration that marks the ending of one order and the beginning of another.


Sacred sites and times mark the entry point for inner transformation. A portal opens one to the deeper realities within which one finds oneself. This transformation usually is seen to metaphorically encompass a death and rebirth of some sort, indicating it to be an initiation into a new psychological state of being. Initiation mysteries, such as the Eleusynian mysteries, were a major part of Greek culture for over three thousand years. These secret initiation rites were a dramatization of a death and rebirth where one entered a cave-like structure and after a period of several days returned, no longer the neophyte, instead the initiate. Initiates took an oath of secrecy as to what exactly took place in the initiation. The Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii is another one of these ancient sites that has survived the trials of time. It continues to host murals of yesteryear depicting the obscure initiation rites of women, giving scholars a speculative peek at the lost, sacred rites performed by millions of women in Greek and Roman history.


Many Native Americans have initiation rites-or vision quests-that are similar and are still a significant a part of their culture today. These ceremonies, like those of ancient Rome and Greece, are enhanced by the use of a sacred medicine plant, allowing the initiate to enter the Otherworld realms to face his or her darkest fears experienced in the form of monsters and demons. Most of us have had encounters with our inner demons during transitional times in our lives. It is in these transitional times-in "neither here, nor there" times-when it seems that our worst fears emerge. These kinds of demons may correspond with what C.G. Jung, an eminent psychiatrist, known for fathering a large branch of psychology, calls the shadow, or parts of ourselves that have been rejected and then projected onto the other. These parts must be faced and integrated in a deep psychological process. Until this happens they continue to haunt us in our dreams, where they have free rein over our terrified ego. These are the figures often encountered in myth and fairytales.


Myth and fairytales often depict creatures, monsters, and demons that play the part of guardians at the gates of threshold places. Often the hero must find entrance to the Otherworld by outwitting or killing the gatekeepers. Greek heroes faced Cerberus, the famous three-headed dog who guards the gate to the underworld. These guards tell us that the journey to the underworld is treacherous, and to enter we must overcome our fears. Fairytales often begin a "rite of passage" to another realm with something that is out of the ordinary, which then takes the protagonist on his or her transformational journey. For example, in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy leaves the mundane world by way of the tornado. In Hansel and Gretel the evil stepmother ensures the children's rite of passage. The hero's journey, in the Odyssey, for example, is always about the initiation process and the return home-home being a symbol for the Self. One cannot go through a rite of passage without moving through a threshold from a mundane state of being to the profane and back again to the everyday world. This symbolizes a birth, death and rebirth transformational process.


Indigenous healers known as Shamans have understood the importance of these transformational rituals for centuries. Like the shaman, once we have entered this liminal place either sought out or accidentally stumbled upon, we are in a place in-between worlds. Shamans warn that there is danger in the threshold between worlds, both in the call and in the return. The danger is real. Sometimes initiates in the world of the shaman have not returned to their bodies while traveling in altered states. In psychological processes this corresponds to the alchemical stages known as the nigredo and the solutio. The nigredo, or place of darkness, is seen in fairytales and myths as the wilderness, the deep forest, or wastelands. Anyone who has contemplated suicide or lived with depression knows this place. The solutio refers to the breaking down process of substances into liquids in alchemy. In psychological terms it is the breaking down of outworn structures in the psyche, or of defenses no longer needed. It is the dismemberment phase that shamans speak of. Jung studied alchemy and its correspondence to psychological processes for more than 50 years. His volumes of work focus on these parallels of psychological processes with alchemical stages, as well as the stages of transformation and individuation seen in myths and fairytales of all cultures.


David Abram, in his book, The Spell of the Sensuous, asks, "How does one differentiate between the subjective/objective world? How does our subjective experience enable us to recognize the reality of other selves, other experiencing beings?" Abram is essentially an eco-psychologist who sees the world as animated-an ensouled world-and wishes to awaken the Western psyche to this knowing. Perhaps it is this that we have forgotten and it is this memory that lives in the threshold of consciousness that pulls us to the sacred sites throughout the world- to re-awaken us to the unseen worlds found in threshold places.


Threshold places have been sought throughout history as places of transition, transformation, and knowledge. The human longing for encounters with the profound, numinous and ecstatic states will probably continue to attract journeyers who seek threshold places in the outer world, hoping for symbolic, sacred experience belonging to inner world of humankind.

Constance S. Rodriguez PhD, LCSW
Dr. Rodriguez has a background in Jungian Theory and a doctorate in Depth Psychology. She has led workshops both nationally and internationally and has authored Sacred Portals: Pathways to the Self, soon to be released, a book about the many transformative portals in the universal energy field.


You can find out more about her work at:

www.soulmatters.com


See her class offerings in Soulmatters, Intuition and Pathways to the Self.
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