Maybe you’ve noticed that the world is on fire – literally and figuratively. Does this make it difficult to stay positive or find meaning for your life? I’ve been thinking about these themes and the idea of a collective liminal space for several weeks, and am making some interesting connections and noticing some related synchronicities. In today’s post, I’m riffing on the state of our culture and calling on others to take heart and make art.

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100 Liminal Days is an experimental project of embracing my current transitional season after exiting my business by sharing an honest, real-time account of my self-initiation experience in daily posts. I’m sending shorter weekly recaps only via my newsletter. Visit Day 1/100 to learn more and sign up in the footer of this page to get the weekly recaps delivered to your inbox.

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About three weeks ago just before leaving for my Beaches of Normandy WWII Band of Brothers Tour, I woke up from a nightmare. I don’t have fear-filled dreams very often, so this one stuck with me for a while that morning. When I used a journal prompt about the state of my heart and emotions, here’s what came out.

September 15, 2025 Journal Entry

If I’m being really honest, I am surprised at the condition of my emotions today. I woke up feeling somewhat anxious and I don’t know if that is because of the dream/nightmare or if something else is brewing under the surface. My journaling and meditation and prayer time seemed to gravitate towards sadness – particularly around the state of the world today. The evil that snowballs with every new headline related to our political climate. That never has been a thing I get caught up in or even let myself think about – I don’t even feel tempted to pay attention to it. But today, I remembered how that wasn’t always the case for me.

I had that season when I first moved back to Austin about 16 years ago that I was very much attentive to politics and even traveled to DC to pray for our country. I attended hours long conference calls to pray. I read books about intercessory prayer, end times, and the spiritual battles in the heavenly realms. I protested abortion clinics and supported conservative companies in their support of heterosexual marriage only. It saddens me to see the extreme of what I’ve aligned myself with in the past.

In my prayer time today, I prayed for strength and wisdom to learn how to sit in the middle of the extremes. To have a voice that speaks from a vantage point that is not too caught up in the awareness of evil or too naive to pay attention to what is going on outside of my illusion of safety and security within my home.

Perhaps this liminal space is not just about my personal transition. What if I am part of a cultural transition? What if this liminal space is not just my own? What if we are all being shaken to sift out the ones that are willing to reside in this liminal in an effort to birth the new renaissance? What if we need to stay in this middle space indefinitely? Until meaningful change is set into motion?

Today, I decided to interpret that nightmare. I won’t share the details of the dream, but here is the interpretation.

In my effort to stay safe from destructive forces and to protect my vulnerability, my creative muse has been bruised. My calling to minister to others is real, but translating my experience of evil and how I’m overcoming it into language others can hold is difficult. The dream is inviting me to consciously tend to my muse – or my animus – so he heals, even as I continue to protect the vulnerable parts of me. (In Jungian psychology, the animus is the masculine part of a woman’s psyche that is active, intellectual, and exploring.)

Perhaps I am being shown that I don’t have to live only in the high places of the safety of my spiritual inner sanctuary; I can begin to descend into the real world with care, integrate, and not just avoid looking at evil in the world.

Now, placing this new interpretation of the dream next to the journal entry from the same day of the dream, I can see a connection emerging. I’ve protected my own vulnerability and mental health by doing my best to avoid looking at the evil in the world – and now, as I am healing, it is time to look evil in the eye and step into my role in service to others.

The Emergence of a Call to Create

And what is this role in service to others, exactly? That has been the question of my heart for a few years now. In order to answer this question, I had to let old roles and identities dissolve. This is the crux of why I am in these liminal days. I’m in the dissolution phase that is so necessary before I can form the actual shape of what I am becoming.

And as first notably felt in my being on September 15th when I pondered the possibility of a collective liminal season, this dissolution phase is not only an individual process. It’s happening in you, too. Do you notice it? It’s happening throughout our culture – a breaking down of what was and a chaotic rearrangement of our cultural imaginal cells is freaking us the f*** out.

How to Navigate in This Collective Liminal Space

A couple of weeks ago, my dear friend Meg sent me this link to a blog post that spoke of anomie, a collective liminal space. As soon as I saw the topic, I perked up – it was only a week after I wrote that journal entry which was my first inkling of the idea that this liminal season could be exponentially greater than I first believed. And yesterday, Meg shared on her blog her own insights and several more thought leaders who are reflecting this same idea.

For what it’s worth, what I am learning about liminal spaces and how to navigate them is that letting go of the old identity is the first step in order to be transformed, and it cannot be skipped. It’s hard to admit that we can’t go back to the way things were, but as soon as we do that, honor our history, and surrender our egos, the transformation can begin.

When we fight that process versus give way to it, we delay the necessary changes. And as frightening as it may sound, this window for change does not stay open indefinitely. A caterpillar’s timing in the cocoon could not be more crucial. Break out too early, and its destiny might be to become a pile of goo on the ground. Should its process of metamorphosis be interrupted or delayed, it dies inside the cocoon. We’ve been collectively fighting our own metamorphosis for a few years now, and now times are urgent.

I didn’t want to watch the world burn, but now that I understand it as part of a transformational, irreversible, life-changing metamorphosis for all of humanity, I know that it must happen and I must not look away. And more importantly, I must heal my creative muse and make my art to do my part in becoming the proverbial butterfly. Because I believe this is the way we save ourselves.

Why the World Needs Your Art

Two weeks ago, a new TED Talk from Amie McNee, an author, speaker, and creative coach went live on YouTube and already has more than 91K views. It’s titled, The Case for Making Art When the World Is on Fire. Listening to this felt like God placing a warm and comforting hand on my back while telling me, “See, this call to create is not self-indulgent. The world needs what only you can bring.”

The video is only 13 minutes long. If anything you’ve read in this post struck a nerve at all, I implore you to watch this.

Look Evil in the Eye

I mentioned looking evil in the eye and stepping into my role. For me, that is not looking to my government and the democratic system to save me. It’s not choosing a political set of beliefs and values, or trying to sway others to align with mine. And it also means we can’t run from it. Leaving the country isn’t the answer.

It’s remembering that I have something unique to bring to the collective transformation experience – that I myself am art and I must make my art. This is how I participate in the change and do my part to seed the next cultural renaissance.

Have you ever read a poem or seen a piece of art that moved you? Maybe you heard a song that made you cry? Or maybe a photograph or documentary enlivened or enraged you?

Honest art has the ability to wake us up and inspire us. Art has the power to move us.

Go make yours.

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