If there is one thing I am learning through this project, it’s that it pays to linger with thoughts, teachings, and synchronicities that repeatedly reveal themselves to me in various ways. Perhaps it’s just the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon at work, but this idea of right-sizing our efforts toward our goals continues to crop up everywhere I look. Let’s keep digging.

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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 using The Artist’s Way as a guiding tool, and sending shorter weekly recaps only via my newsletter. Visit Day 1/100 to learn more and sign up to get the weekly recaps delivered to your inbox.

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Henry David Thoreau on Being Who You Are

I’ve been reading The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling by Stephen Cope. The author weaves in stories of different people from history and from his own experiences to demonstrate common challenges we all face and to show what is possible when someone truly lives out their dharma. One of the historical figures I’m enjoying learning about through this lens is Henry David Thoreau, a 19th century American essayist, poet, philosopher, and naturalist.

The book shares a snippet of the narrative of Thoreau’s life, telling how at age 26, he set off for New York City to immerse himself in the literary scene. He was already finding his footing as a writer and believed he was ready to mingle with some of the country’s most renown writers. This seemed like the logical next step for him. But as the story goes, Thoreau was a big failure in the city, and after just 13 months, returned home to Concord, MA and a special natural, quiet place there called Walden Pond.

The story is a classic one of someone trying to fit in with the conventional path of career growth, but quickly discovering that this approach would not lead to success because it was not his authentic way. Because he tried to follow the styles of others, what he produced was only mediocre, and widely disregarded. It was the pain of rejection that drove him back home, where he began a deep search for his own voice and message.

His message in part was born from this rejection and failure. The lesson for Thoreau was that we must be who we are, do what we love, and carve our own path. He went so far as to emphasize this with the words:

A man’s own calling ought not to be forsaken! ~ Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau wrote deeply about being who we are and nothing more or less. This is ultimately about finding that spot between the extremes – not too big and not too small. The author of the Tao te Ching said it differently but with the same meaning:

Think of the small as large. ~ Lao Tzu

What I found most profound regarding Thoreau’s life is what the biographer Robert Richardson Jr. wrote about him:

[Thoreau] produced more writing of higher quality over a greater range of subjects while he was living at Walden than at any other period of his life. In twenty-six months, he wrote two complete drafts of A Week, a complete draft of Walden, a lecture on his life at Walden, a lecture essay on Thomas Carlyle, and the first third of The Maine Woods.

New York City was the glamorous, clear trajectory for a Harvard graduate, writer, and thinker during his time. But it was not the right size or right path for Thoreau. It wasn’t until he returned to himself, turned inward and discovered himself, that he harnessed the power of his dharma.

My Axis Mundi is Qigong

Another part of The Great Work of Your Life mentions a term that I had never heard before until earlier this year, but here it was again last night as I read. It was the word Cope used to describe where Thoreau settled into his right place in the world.

The word is axis mundi. It’s a mythological concept of the center of the world representing a connection between Heaven and Earth – it is a word to describe a place, a mountain, a tree, or a temple that serves as a conduit between the divine and earthly worlds. Another way it is translated is “the immoveable spot.” (As an aside, a frequent image to portray the axis mundi is a tree with the roots showing. I find it very interesting that two of my past businesses have included this image in my business logos!)

This word first came into my vocabulary when I began peeling back the meaning of my cliff portal dream from April 2025 that I interpreted as showing me how I can be a conduit between the spiritual and earthly world. In the dream, a “part of me” represented by this indigenous chief holding a qigong pose called Embracing the Tree, brought me a message. This standing meditation pose could also be described as the axis mundi. And one day about a month ago, I wrote in my journal:

My axis mundi is qigong.

And the entry continues with a detailed description of a business centered around qigong in the Austin community. This surprises me still as I read it. But I think I am seeing the truth in it. The more I practice qigong and tell people I am training to become a teacher and bring qigong to Austin, the more I see that this is truly my axis mundi. Qigong is the center, the immoveable spot for me. And to operate from this center will be how I fulfill my dharma.

Truthfully, reading what I have just written startles me a little bit. Is this really my path? I won’t question it any longer though. As I have resolved, pursuing a temporary path is better than not taking action. With that mentality, I can’t go wrong if I follow the qigong path. But right now, it doesn’t feel like a temporary path for me. It feels like I’m taking steps toward my life’s greatest work.

If I settle into my axis mundi – the immoveable spot where I belong – perhaps like Thoreau, I will create something that lives longer than me.

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