Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about LIMINAL SPACES and how we traverse from the known into the unknown.
Some spaces evoke transition: the very threshold at your front door, boundary crossings, airports, and even for the more mystically inclined, standing stones in all their mysterious majesty.
In some mythic stories, the liminal boundary between the ordinary and known world and the Otherworld, the supernatural world, is an imperceptible transition. One minute here, in another, bam! You’re in another realm.
One of the reasons this has been at the forefront of my mind is the ingress of Pluto, shortly after the Sun’s ingress and its conjunction with our luminary, both moving from Capricorn to Aquarius. This is Pluto’s second visit, and longer than 2023’s quick one to the land of Aquarius before it returns to Capricorn in the Fall to pick up its last luggage and fully move into the Waterbearer sign for the next two decades. Planetary ingresses are harbingers of new thematic subjects that move from living on the fringes or lying unconscious until now to taking a lot of airwaves in the zeitgeist. And nothing speaks to the unconscious better than Pluto, a word that is the very core of its brand.
Planetary ingresses are also akin to boundary crossings, where the geographical marker in the chart takes on a weighty meaning and can be activated time and time again. It’s similar to how a place can hold an energetic imprint due to how often it’s been spoken to in stories or events. When we visit these spaces, we sense something alive in its mists, even of the events that happened so long ago. In our case, the very threshold of Aquarius has already been activated by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 0º of Aquarius at the Solstice of 2020, initiating not only a 20-year cycle of these planets but also the arrival of the AGE OF AIR*. Jupiter and Saturn conjunctions reverberate on themes of rulers, shifts in the collective mindset, and at an individual level on issues of career/vocation (i.e., the moniker of Kingmaker because it would signal the ending of some rulers and the rise of new ones.)
(*Age of Air because for the next two centuries, the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn will take place in Air signs: Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra. The last time we were in the Age of Air was in the 13th and 14th centuries.)
Depending on the nature of the planet and how long it takes to arrive at a new sign, the more potent its thematic shift in the zeitgeist. As Pluto spends so long in a sign, its change into another sign brings to the center themes that may have been bubbling under the surface for a while, building its foundation on the back of the story unfolding while it transits the previous sign. None of this is an isolated event; the stories build on each other – over centuries even. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius was in the late 1700s, the time of the American and French Revolutions, upending the absolute monarchies of Europe that led to a significant reshift of the political chessboard, but also the conversation about power between those ‘in power’ and the power of the ‘people.’
Uncanny events during liminal transitions
In mythic stories, we know that change is afoot by the uncanny apparition of either events or characters. We sense that we’re no longer in an ordinary world. It may be imperceptible, but something catches our eye at the edges. For our times now, we are sensing it through the unfolding of news that shows that the ‘center’ is struggling to hold, that what was fringe is taking center stage, and uncanny trickster-like characters are coming out to either lead or confuse – or both.
But not all characters that show up are to be maligned or sanctified; some come to call our attention to the right question we need to ask in these liminal times. One such character is KUNDRY from the Arthurian myths.
What is the right question?
Stories often start with LACK. Something is missing: a person, an unfulfilled desire, a need, or knowledge. It’s this lack that kickstarts the whole journey of change and transformation. LIMINALITY is the landscape between the before (i.e., how things were) and what is yet to be (i.e., the desired outcome.) This LACK is accompanied by the need to ask pertinent questions to help us find the path forward. In our culture, we tend to move into action much too quickly before reflecting on the question at the foundation of our issues. We may find ourselves deep into the tangle, but we won’t pause to sit with the question that must be asked if we want to find our way.
This brings me back to the Arthurian character of Kundry, at times also known as the Loathly Lady, the Black Maiden, or le Demoiselle Sauvage. Often depicted as dressed in the finest clothes but being the physical incarnation of utter ugliness, Kundry is the one that admonishes when the heroes fail to do what is needed: ask the right question.
Kundry represents the Goddess of Sovereignty of the Land, and she speaks its sorrow, fear, and joy. It’s her public shaming of the Grail Knight Parzival for not asking the question when he sees the Grail that spurs him to return to the quest and seek harder. She’s an activating truthteller who doesn’t allow us to no longer hide under shallow excuses.
I bring her in because I think of her as a facet of Pluto and its surfacing of issues that have been long buried and seemingly forgotten. Pluto’s journey through Capricorn has revealed much about what is not right in our relationship to power and sovereignty. Its arrival in Aquarius demands of us different questions.
Kundry, as a Grail messenger, keeps the knights faithful to the quest, but she’s also the one who announces with great joy the arrival of the Grail. If we think of the Grail as a symbol of the healing for what ails us and our culture and times, then Pluto can be seen as this loathly chthonic figure who isn’t fooled by excuses. When what is in the unconscious is ready to surface, nothing will stop it.
What do we need to ask?
In the Grail quest in its many retellings, one thing theme that runs through it is the need for the hero, who, upon seeing the Grail and its other sacred objects paraded in front of him, to ask a question to the Fisher King, who is wounded in the groin (i.e., in his generative self), that would unlock the healing for both the king and the kingdom; thus bringing life back to the Wasteland.
“Whom does the Grail serve?” or “What hurts you?”
I see this question related to Aquarius. In the realm of the Waterbearer, we’re no longer in the world of an individual but of an individual within the collective. Let’s think of how Leo and Aquarius are opposite and complementary signs. We can see how the Self as Sovereign (Leo) now moves from doing things for the self towards bringing their solar light (Leo) into the group, the collective (Aquarius.)
In this case, the question can also be: What and whom does my light* serve?
(*Creativity, joy, gift, medicine, life, etc. – use the word that best aligns with you.)
Or – what is the wound, the sickness, at the heart of our issues? And how can I help heal an aspect of this wound so that we may collectively heal?
So, with Pluto’s ingress in Aquarius, we may encounter Kundry, spurring us to ask the necessary questions about how our perceived personal wounds are part and parcel of the collective wound that needs us to show up with the courageous willingness to transform our challenges into healing. The collective challenges of our Wasteland are healed by each one of us transforming pain into medicine, our sorrow into joy, and our fear into creativity.
Photo Credits:
Main image: Susan Wilkinson – via Unsplash
Subsequent images: Susan Wilkinson via Unsplash
