Honouring the In-Between
Wisdom from a South Indian Ritual Art
Kolams
Every day, Hindu women in South India sweep and wash the thresholds of their homes and temples to decorate them with Kolams — sacred geometric designs made of kola-podi (rice flour). Locals believe Kolams invite prosperity and beauty to the household by welcoming the Goddess Lakshmi and feeding ants and other creatures to feast on the flour. Since the decorations tend to fade away by passersby's footprints, this ancient and generational ritual art is a beautiful symbol of the ephemeral nature of the universe. It also marks a liminal place, the doorway, neither here nor there, the in-between.
As a child, I watched my mother draw Kolams on the edges of the TV guide or scrap bits of paper like she would've done on the ground as a girl in India. She'd lay a grid of dots and swoop her pen into spirals around them until they formed snowflake-like shapes. It felt like she was speaking some secret language that told a story greater than I had words for. In my early twenties, I asked my aunt in Chennai to teach me to draw a few different Kolams, and I would practise them on the pages of my diary. I never really got the hang of it, so instead, I collected photos of Kolams decorating the thresholds of homes during my travels in Tamil Nadu.
Each time I land in Chennai to meet my relatives, my Keerthi Uncle walks me from the temple on the corner of Alikhan Road that leads down the narrow lane to their front door, where the women wait, washed, powdered, hair neatly combed with a freshly drawn Kolam at our feet. My uncle smashes a fresh coconut on the ground so hard that any part of me, still sailing 30,000 ft in the air, lands in my body with a thud. One of my aunts lights a square of camphor on a brass plate and circles it three times around my head, while I hold my hands in prayer, finally anointing my forehead with red ash before inviting me to cross the threshold of the home. No other ritual I have ever participated in makes me feel more welcome, blessed, and at home.
On the other side of the door, I have officially entered the inner sanctum of the closest place to my mother’s ancestral home. There are pen drawings scribbled across walls in need of a fresh coat of paint. A dim bulb lights the bedroom where my two cousins sleep a few feet away from their parents on rice mats on the floor. When my grandparents were alive, they somehow fit in there too. The most delicious food comes out of the smallest kitchen. There is nothing like sitting on the floor, eating with your hand from a banana leaf, while your aunties heap more food than you can possibly eat.
I know something here on this land lives deep inside of me and I feel that I have crossed over the moment I am welcomed in ritual and consecrated with love and food. I have entered. The Kolam marks where I transform from being 'other' to family. It is a symbol of welcome and belonging.
Thresholds
The ancient word threshold once referred to the place where grain was threshed, separating what was essential from what was no longer needed. Even in its origin, we hear the language of transformation.
I have always been fascinated with literal and metaphorical thresholds and their archetypal power. Many cultures decorate or place protective talismans in their doorways to bless people and cleanse them of harmful spirits before entering a dwelling. In Ethiopia, I had my feet washed as part of a custom to welcome guests. In other places, we take our shoes off, bow, step with our right foot first, and even carry brides over the threshold.
In a metaphorical sense, a threshold is a gateway, a crossing, or a place where two realms meet. The spiritual world sees it as the dividing line between the dominion of the living and the dead, while the Shamanic worldview regards it as the intersection between ordinary and non-ordinary reality. In rites of passage—from childhood to adulthood, apprentice to master, one identity to another—ceremonial thresholds create containers for transformation. In mythology and literature, the hero must always pass through some liminal space: a forest, a cave, a storm, or a test. These thresholds are not merely obstacles; they are invitations. Thresholds are alchemical. They hold the tension of the in-between—the no longer and the not yet. They are places of possibility. They mark the spaces between physical and psychological worlds, mundane and sacred. Such crossings require intention and protection.
The Holy Pause
A few days ago, I had a moving conversation with a dear friend whose husband recently passed away from cancer. After 30 years of marriage, the life she thought she was living and the person she'd live with it suddenly changed. She finds herself in a kind of in-between place in life where she is no longer who or what she was but not yet on the other side of the grief. She is in the becoming of whatever it is that life is guiding her toward. What inspired me as much as her experience of midwifing her husband's passing at their home was the sense of acceptance she exuded. She had let herself go so deep into the process--the love, devastation, and humbling--while allowing herself to stay in the curiosity of not knowing.
There are moments in life when the ground beneath us shifts, subtly or suddenly, and we find ourselves standing at a threshold. Something is ending, something else is beginning, and we are in the space between. Birth and death, the fundamental pillars of our human experience, are reminders of the cyclical and transitory nature of existence.
Threshold experiences rarely come wrapped in clarity. More often, they arrive as confusion, rupture, stillness, or ache. The job ends. The relationship breaks. The body changes. A loved one dies. The map we had no longer makes sense. We are asked to release what is known before the new form has arrived. It is like a holy pause—not a place of answers but of deep presence.
Standing in the doorway takes courage and curiosity. The moment before entering is a powerful portal rich with possibility and the quiet labour of becoming.
Honour the Crossing
In my own life, I've come to recognize thresholds not only as external changes, but as interior shifts—those moments when something subtle within me says, This no longer fits. When I can no longer pretend I'm fine. When the old coping no longer comforts. When the soul whispers, There is more. These moments often come without a roadmap, but they are not without guidance from our higher selves.
And so, the practice becomes learning how to be with the threshold. To stand on its edge with reverence. To mark it with a ritual, a prayer, or an object. To not rush the crossing. Because on the other side, something in us will be different.
Truer.
Softer, maybe.
Or more wild.
But always more whole.
So, if you find yourself in that in-between place right now, unsure of what's next—pause. Honour the space you're in. Listen for what wants to fall away. Bless what is being born, even if you cannot yet name it. Mark the liminal with something that has meaning. Honour the crossing.
Every life passage holds the potential to shape us more fully into who we are meant to become.
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