May Day Kasama Newsletter
Contributions from Jen Johnson and Julia May
Liminal Spaces by Jen Johnson
At 5.15am on the 1st May, I followed a little group of women I barely knew as they strode down the beach and straight into the North Sea. As we walked, our ringleader sang a song she’d written about May Day – all about leaving the dark behind and embracing the arrival of summer. We shivered and squealed and laughed our way into the water, to bob up and down in the waves and gasp in appreciation as the little red disc of the May Day sun peeped over the horizon. It was wildly beautiful and still. It was exhilarating. It was absolutely blooding freezing. I texted a friend some pictures. ‘Why was the first word in my head “holy”?’ they asked. ‘This looks super holy to me.’
‘Holy’ is not a straightforward word for me. It’s a word whose presence in my life originated in a different time. It still carries connations of legalistic purity. And yet it was the word that was in my head, too, as I had caught my first glimpse of the sea and pre-dawn sky that morning, driving round the corner just as Bon Iver sang, ‘Allllll my gooooooodnessssss!’ out the speakers. The sort of moment that just felt somehow ‘holy’ in my bones. A moment that sort of felt like it hung somewhere not quite normal in time. Betwixt and between.
Between light and dark.
Between winter and summer.
Between strangeness and profound connection.
Between breath-snatching cold and deep soul warmth.
Between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
A moment that just felt… liminal. There always feels to me to be a particular sort of terrifying magic of sensing yourself caught between the now and the not-quite-yet; conscious of being in the process of growth, or evolution, or change – hovering around the threshhold, but not yet fully arrived. What a powerful thing to find myself engaged in such an embodied way in this sort of moment on May Day of all days, with all its associated symbolism of spring and renewal and growth. Over the last few months, I’ve been trying to integrate the dawning (and repeatedly uncomfortable) realisation that I’ll never be free of finding myself back in that liminal growth space; never quite arrived, never quite yet there. I’ve found myself returning (again) to Bon Iver’s words:
Time heals, and then it repeats
You will never be complete
And the strain and thirst are sweet
You have not yet gone too deep
which speak to me so clearly of the inevitable cyclical nature of growth, which I clearly need to make my peace with. But May Day is not just about fertility and newness and growth, is it? It’s also the day on which we celebrate workers, and solidarity, and some of the gritty, mundane struggle of life together. And this particular May Day was a day where a political shift that felt like it had been bubbling under the sufaces reared its head clearly, provoking polarised responses amongst the people in my community, and making yet more explicit some of the divides felt between us in terms of how we seek the best way forward for our collective societal being.
The warm, nourished, connected hopefulness I’d felt in the sea that morning felt threatened. But what happens if, rather than feeling despair at what often feels like a tide of increased hostility, we think about this wider societal moment as a liminal space of communal growth?
What might be born amongst it, between and betwixt our differences? What do we need to sustain and nourish ourselves in such a time, to brave the wilderness and resist division?
As I thought about this piece I couldn’t shake the phrase ‘the growing edge’ from my mind - a concept that keeps me both rooted and afloat in the liminal space between hope and despair, in how it attends to the reality of the world and still manages to remain defiantly commited to the imagination of new possibilities:
‘All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of a child — life’s most dramatic answer to death — this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!’
—Howard Thurman
Perhaps noticing whenever I find myself back in the lingering beauty and uncertainty of a liminal moment is the prompt I need simply to return my attention to the growing edges around me. Perhaps that is somehow holy work.
Jen Johnson and her family live in Newbiggin-On-Sea, immersed in their local community and fully committed to a messy, beautiful life of spirituality and faith.
Third Moon Women at Hastings Jack in the Green
So much work has gone into this event, with costume and headdress design and creation as well as drumming and learning chants. You can see many more photos on our Facebook page so do take a look! When asked for reflections I received this from Julia May who was there for the first time.
Hi Jenni, First time for me in the procession at JITG... Along with my daughter Charlotte, her best friend Jess, and her Mum Emma... It was truly, the most incredible experience and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.... It was so empowering being part of a wonderful group of like-minded women... I was especially so proud to see my friend Emma enjoying herself... Despite the cold... She has been so outside her comfort zone, in the first workshop making our head dresses, she felt so awkward and didn't really know what she wanted to do, but then I saw her creativity emerge, and she has a vision, and boy was she away!!! She thoroughly enjoyed the second workshop, and she created a most amazing eye catching costume!! I think she looked incredible and even taking part in the procession, she usually wouldn't do anything like that, but she did, and really enjoyed it!! This is her....
She looks amazing!! It was also so wonderful to see my daughter Charlotte, and her bestie Jess enjoy themselves so much... They both did all their outfits on their own, they are only 11, and I think they looked incredible!! Sowing seeds of the future right there!! Xx
Julia is a member of Third Moon Women who lives locally. Many thanks to her for these photos and reflection on the day.
Dates for your Diary
Please check the Facebook pages for Third Moon Women and Wild Spirit for upcoming events