“At the heart of every being lies creation’s dream of a principle that will one day give organic form to its fragmented treasures. God is unity” (Teilhard de Chardin).

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, and doorways. Representing the middle ground between both concrete and abstract dualities, such as life/death, past future, beginning/end, or eternity/time, Janus is depicted with two faces, one facing the past and one facing the future. The month of January is named after him, the month that looks both ways, ushering the old year into the new, and past into the future.

Author Joseph Campbell, who studied ancient mythologies and comparative religion, understood mythology as a function of biology, and the energies that inform the body. According to Campbell, they are the same energies that inform life, and are usually in conflict with each other. Acccoring to Campbell, myths represent the many aspects of this conflict – meeting in conflict, resolving of conflict, and harmonizing conflict. So that the gods are personifications of the energies that inform life – the very energies that are building the trees, moving the animals, and waves on the ocean – and that inform and unfold all human growth and development. Thus, the various energies that are in our bodies are personified by the gods and are alive and well in everybody’s life. So that deities are personifications not facts, metaphors not concrete realities, windows transparent to transcendent (timeless) realities that lie beyond themselves – to the attuned and informed, accessible in consciousness via liminal space.

In the ancient Greek and Roman world, and modern western culture, discursive thought or dualistic thinking (separation consciousness) make most things appear conflictual or divided, as the artificial separation between good/evil, light/darkness, matter/spirit and science/religions and other unreconciled polarities. Such unreconciled polarities/opposites can only be seen as they exist in seamless unity dwelling in liminal space (the kingdom of heaven on earth) via unitive consciousness. Such is activated by a spiritual awakening that reconciles their apparent duality.

Spirituality is all about seeing, inclusivity, and reconciling apparent opposites via the “narrow way.” The strait gate/kingdom that the spiritual Janus (Jesus) holds the keys to.

Contemplatives by nature are folk who inhabit liminal space. As many of you know, the word liminal is derived from the Latin limen, meaning “threshold.” Characteristic of the Christ mind, or Christ consciousness, liminal space refers to that transitional space/place that occupies a position, Janus/Jesus-like, at both sides of a boundary, as between the visible and invisible worlds. It’s found by discovering the still-point, or middle path that reconciles their tensions. The one only the faithful can enter.

A “tweener” suspended between two worlds, the soul (often hyphenated as spirit-soul) is to the spirit and body what the seashore is to land and water, a distinctive interface unto itself, or hybrid. As a living expression of both water and land, the shore is a place that celebrates their joyful union. Having its own ecology, it’s that renewing locale where swimmers playfully immerse, children build sandcastles, feet frolic barefoot in the sand, and amusement parks are built. Likewise, the spiritually awakened soul becomes aware of itself as a sanctuary (or temple) fashioned by the ongoing marriage of body and spirit. Such is why Scripture employs nuptial terms in reference to those who experience this mystical union, calling them the “bride of Christ.” There’s an intimacy implied by the metaphor, groom seeking (leaning into) bride, each becoming seamlessly co-present to the other in mystical union/communion.

In terms of physics, we now know that everything and everyone consists of slowed-down light and sound waves that can be transformed into one another via the constant of light. Genesis 1 implies as much (“Let there be Light”) backed-up by Big Bang notions of creation, and modern science. In the communications world, this is what fiber optics are about. Their parallel in the created order reveals that everything is connected (entangled) with everything else via a field of universal sound and light waves.

In neurobiological terms, there’s a network of ganglia spread across the top of the neocortex (gray matter), ironically like a crown of thorns. Along with claustrum neurons, these ganglia act much like antennae, allowing the brain to upload and download information directly to and from subcortical and cortical structures and cosmic electromagnetic fields of light, acting much like the Internet. Christ is that cosmic light, or “Light of the World,” organically encompassing (incarnating) everything at every scale of creation, and in every conceivable way – animal, mineral, vegetable, and human, and on planes intellectual, physical, and/or spiritual. Such a cosmic awareness led Teilhard de Chardin to conclude that the entire population of the earth, past, present, and future, consists essentially of only ONE person, Christ, another name for everything who appears in countless forms and guises. Teilhard might have added .  .  . and occupy one tense, the “eternal now” that is everywhere co-present in the field of space-time. At the last, all masks will be off, revealing only Christ Omega as divine producer, director, and actor on a tragi-comic global stage. 

“I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things” (Isa. 45:6,7).

Next came Shakespeare who also got it right, and seconded the motion.

There is no future tense in liminal space (the kingdom), and no such thing as time, only the “eternal now.” Hence, divinity/evolution only appear to come from the future, manifesting in space-time as evolved (enlightened) innovations, inventions, perspectives, and forms. To illustrate, the harvest already exists in the seed, as a motion picture already exists on a reel, ready to unfold and reveal its contents. The end and beginning, Alpha and Omega, already exist in the seed, and the movie’s “DNA.” So all information, invention, innovation, creativity, and evolutionary fulfillments once realized, or to be realized in human consciousness and/or form, already reside in the Universal Mind of God. More accurately, they exist suspended in liminal space as packets of stored information, ripe for picking, at the ready to reveal their contents. Liminality only awaits like-minded humans attuned and receptive to the higher resonant frequencies available for downloading. The same light that fires up the equations of physicists, kindles the inspirational flame in all great artists, leaders, poets, innovators, scientists, mystics, inventors, and lovers of mankind — past, present, and future. For there is no time (tense) in the liminal world, just as there is no aging, infirmity, death, or limitations of any kind.

For those rightly-attuned, the future is now. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard all that liminality has to offer – in real time, right now!

Thus, divinity leans into us from the future, inviting perspectives today from what lies ahead (rather, what already exists unrealized). So inspired, and with a foot in both worlds, believers are light beings (avatars) and light workers given cosmic gifts and tasks to further evolve the species and world, mainly via tuning-in and listening. Good (God) things come to those who first listen, then speak, write, or act. Those so disposed, declared Jesus, would do even greater things that he in the power of his Spirit.

The eco-spirituality of Teilhard (synthesis) and Thomas Berry (the New Universe Story) envision a new science of humanity based on the physics of Spirit, one reconciling empirical and religious views of the cosmos, enlarging Christ to cosmic (organic) proportions. Teilhard often spoke of a “greater Christ” and “a better Christianity,” having once asked a colleague, “Can you tell me who at last can give us the meta-Christianity we are all waiting for?” Being rhetorical, the question went unanswered. And some seven decades after his passing, remains unanswered still. Enough already, it’s time for a comprehensive cosmotheology.

This mythical cosmotheology and its corollaries already lie in liminal space, low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking, ingestion, and metabolizing. And the single most important ability required to do so is – avail-ability.

Of note, like Jesus, the mythical god of transitions, Janus, is also portrayed as holding a key in his right hand that creates openings between boundaries into safe harbors between confusing and conflicting opposites, the gateway to unitive consciousness where all things are One.

“Very truly, I tell you. I am the gate for the sheep” (John 10:7).

Come join me in discovering the vast storehouse of liminal treasures and unitive perspectives in ways ancient Greek, Roman, and western cultures and their false “gods,” with their personified splits and divisions, could only dream of. Are you ready?

Plug in your inner modem and router (ganglia and claustrum), tune in, and come, follow me at… joemasterleo.com

Joe Masterleo, LCSW, DCSW is a clinical social worker in private practice in Syracuse, NY. His nearly half-century of service as a therapist in the mental health care field includes faith-based counseling, with a specialty in integrating psychology and spirituality. His vast clinical experience and rich knowledge base are augmented and informed by Integral Theology and Creation Spirituality. His articles, columns and commentaries on various subjects, including sports, have been published in local newspapers and magazines. Currently, his practice is listed on the Psychology Today website in Syracuse, NY. More detailed information as to the nature and scope of his practice, areas of expertise and types of service provided by contacting Joe at jmasterleo@hotmail.com.