Edge of Transition
what does the edge ask of us?
Feeling the edges of our experience can leave us unmoored in many ways. But what these times often ask of us is not how to get to the other side, but how to hold steady where we are.
The edge
A friend shared a quote with me recently from the oracle deck Rooted Woman by Dr. Sharon Blackie.
“All edges are transitional places, and the greatest edges of all are the places where land meets sea…edges may seem to define an island on a map, but from the island’s perspective, its edges aren't always strictly defined.”
It got me thinking about transition and what it means to feel the ‘in-between’. Birth is one of those obvious places we talk about transition, but there are so many other times in life that ask us to feel the edge.
Really, if you’re awake to your life at all, you know you are always moving through some kind of change. But at some times more than others, we just sense those edges a little more potently.
What is the edge of transition?
Perhaps the metaphor that Sharon is speaking of is that life could be thought of as an island. The edges of that island are the transitional spaces. But growth or change doesn’t just happen at the edges. Walking along a beach on an island, it may feel like you are moving forward. But if you keep going, you eventually come back to where you started. In that way, change is not always about moving ahead in a straight line. Sometimes it is also a returning, a re-circling into oneself.
In essence, we expand out from our centres. Healing and growth work often knocks us off kilter. It pushes us to our edge because we are trying to expand beyond our current reality. It’s often in the process of expanding that we feel the edges of ourselves more viscerally. And that can feel destabilizing.
So how does one find stability in the waves of transition?
I think it’s about learning to hold.
The space in the middle of where we’ve been and where we’re going, is where potential lies. It’s where change takes shape. And what’s required first is a kind of holding, a steadiness. We need to anchor in the here and now of potential, not only in the “what could be” waiting at the edge. Which can often be an uncomfortable place.
Do something with me for a moment...
Close your eyes and think of a time where you really felt tapped into a place of potential within you - a time in your life when you felt you were no longer who you had been, but not yet who you were becoming.
What do you feel in your body? What comes to mind for you?
It’s a unique feeling, isn’t it? And if you have a hard time tapping into that, that’s ok! On some level conceptually, I think we can all relate. Just keep going with me for a bit here...
In some ways, nothing is ever truly standing still. We are always meeting the edges of our own transition. And to me, that means there are times when we expand beyond our current centre, and the work is to come back in - to gather some of that energy from the edge and bring it toward the centre again.
In a culture so obsessed with progress, we are often not well equipped to deal with the in-between spaces in life. And this is where uncertainty breeds. But another way to look at it, is it’s also where a deep appreciation and reflection can take root. We can appreciate that we’ve maybe been here before, but this time we have the lessons and the strength of that experience to hold us through the next big leap.
It’s in the depth of that in-between space, where change is happening. And maybe that’s why pregnancy feels like such a powerful teacher of this.
The Wisdom of Gestation
Pregnancy is one of those potent areas in life for feeling into potential, and into the holding of a space in time. It’s a unique kind of in-between that forces us to just be in the gestation of change. Whether you’ve been pregnant or not, there is wisdom in this metaphor. And the body already knows something about this kind of potential. It may show up in the deep desires you carry, in the slow gestation of ideas, or in that inward pull we feel when we are able to truly listen to our bodies.
There are times in life when we need to move, times when we need to be still, and times when we simply don’t know yet what is happening. And that’s where gestation and healing happen. All we need to do is allow that process to be. Allow those questions to arise. Allow that uncertainty to be there. And allow whatever feelings come with that to come up.
In that process of allowing, a trust is cultivated — a trust that we have been here before, and that something in us knows how to keep going. Maybe that is the strength that lives at the centre of the island. Linear thinking is helpful to us in planning and execution, and functioning in the current way of society, but it’s not helpful in healing (or birthwork). These are cyclical processes.
Coming Back to Centre
In moving forward, we’re often met with the past. Like that idea of walking the edge of an island. But we are not who we were when we first lived that past. We are changed by the process of change itself. But we often forget that. We are forged by the wisdom along the way. And if we only remain ‘at the edges’ trying to move forward, we risk only seeing the seas crashing along the shore. And we might forget that in the centre is a deeply nourishing pool where we can come home to and feel the beauty of what has grown within us. If we don’t touch back to the centre of our own inner islands, we may only feel the external pressure of the world against us. But there is another force at play too - the quiet work of what is growing under the surface.
As a birth worker and guide, this reflection shapes how I see my work in walking with people through difficult things. I hold the space. I don’t force change. And what I see, time and time again, is that when people are able to feel held, they can come back to their centres more easily and it’s there that something within them begins to shift. So I don’t heal, I hold. The inner alchemy of healing is something that is ignited within you.
What Gets us Through
When we’re moving through change - on the edge of transition - it’s easy to want to just jump to the other side. There’s an impatience to change, isn’t there? We push, we strive, or we resist. We want to leap ahead, or else stay anchored to where we were just a moment ago. But the thing that gets us through a transition may not be living at the edge, trying to get to the other side. It may be learning how to come back to the centre.
It is only in our centres that we find steadiness, that we find what feels true, in the holding space of change, while the rest of life unfolds around us.
That, to me, is the edge of transition.