Spooky Season as The Liminal Healing Space

Spooky season is and has been upon us! My little ghoulies, goblins and witches-how are you celebrating? With whatever magic fits for you, I hope.

I’ve always had a special connection with Halloween; even as a kid, I felt it was more than just a chance to eat a lot of candy (though, naturally, that was a wonderful benefit!). As a child and early tween, I would spend October diving into books about the supernatural, watching horror movies, and sharing the tales I’d learn with friends. Would it scare me? Oh, absolutely. I’ve never been immune from experiencing fear, terror and horror. Though I couldn’t articulate this then, I do understand now: I’ve always believed that fear puts a mirror to us and introduces us to who we really are. There is no masking from horror. There is no smiling through terror. Spooky season gives us the privilege of erasing the masks we carry in the world.

I don’t know if I believe in ghosts as actual entities. I want to believe-but I just don’t know. What I absolutely do believe in is the physiological and emotional metaphors that are ghosts. The people, events, ideas and actions that haunt us. So when I think about the veil between realms thinning during this season-more specifically, the veil between the world of the dead and the world of the living-I think about that. The darkness we are entering is about confronting our own darkness. Like it or not, the hauntings we experience every day-grief, trauma, anxiety, guilt, shame, etc., are just as part of us as the joy. And if we don’t look at the darkness and build a relationship with it, we take away our choice when it inevitably shows up. As a therapist I understand that all too well-the horror I am capable of as a human is worse when I try to deny, repress and ignore the darkness within me.

I’ve been thinking about the healing power of the liminal space. Part of it because of the group I am starting with my colleague, Joanna, on the somatic processing of dreams and imagination (for more information on that, check out this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScllTmMi9z2zk1d6ErG_GEokhb1jI10HjOYSs6UV3ji_GW5vQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=111614941684380267156). Liminal space, in this context, is that transitional understanding of what was and what will be. That space between dreams and reality. Certainty and uncertainty. This space allows us access to our unconscious, which is pivotal in understanding our whole self (check out Carl Jung’s work around this). Spooky session, in my understanding, is this liminal space. It is the cultural version of the state between sleeping and waking. And I believe that the further we lean into that, the more we can develop a relationship with the darkness that is part of us-always, but also more specifically in this period of profound darkness (that has been bubbling up for generations).

So for this spooky season-I invite this question. What darkness is showing up in/for/around me? What does it have to say about my life? You may even feel inclined toward bringing that question into your own therapy. 

Happy haunting!