December Newsletter

Happy December!

Thanks for opening this email. I know my newsletter arrives in the midst of a flood of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday promotions—my inbox is overflowing too—so I’ll do my best to keep this brief.

The important news from Christina Sell Yoga is that we will be filming on the CSY App again as before. (Sudor assures me they’ve worked out the kinks, and you can unmute yourselves now.) I will also be teaching the Wednesday 10:00 a.m. class as an all-levels flow throughout December. Expect a slow pace with progressive sequencing and plenty of time for savasana. Onward we go!

As the calendar year winds down and the days here in the Pacific Northwest grow shorter, I find myself contemplating liminal space.

Liminal space refers to a place of transition—either a physical location or a psychological state—where one is “in between” two other states. The word liminal comes from limen, the Latin word for “threshold.” Psychologically, liminal space describes the ambiguous, uncertain time between a past identity or phase and a new one.

I’m reminded that in the Episcopalian calendar, we have left “ordinary time” and entered the season of Advent, the season of expectant waiting. As a child, I loved Advent. Our family had an advent wreath and a weekly ritual of lighting candles and reading contemplations based on various themes leading up to Christmas. As an adult, the psychological implications of Advent—how the expectancy of something new and salvatory depends on releasing what is familiar and known—feel more meaningful than ever.

This phenomenon brings to mind the principles of initiation and rites of passage, where the initiate leaves behind ordinary life in order to enter ritual space. There, a series of challenges unfold, leading to a reconfigured sense of self. In the anthropological sense, liminal space is the period in the ritual process when the initiate’s old identity has been stripped away and the new identity has not yet been claimed, let alone integrated into a new way of being.

Wherever you find yourself in your own process of becoming, I hope you are finding ways to engage in the active, participatory surrender that characterizes the liminal space inherent in growth and transformation. A teacher recently told me that “the litmus test of initiation is that you don’t know where you are going.” While I believe that to be true, I also know that even when my next destination is unknown, I am traveling in very good company.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me. I hope to see you online or in person some time in the next cycle of offerings. As always, I invite you to reach out and send me a note about what’s going on with you and yours.

With love,

Christina