Last night, as I drifted in the space between sleep and wakefulness, I had a vision of a coyote crossing my path in the woods. She moved slowly and with ease, noticing me with a placid, unbothered gaze. The light through the birch trees and over the snow told me it was dusk. I felt a kindred connection—both of us aware of the other from a place of quiet presence. The stillness was striking, as if the coyote, the woods, and I were suspended together in time.
A microcosm in a vacuum. A liminal space.
Liminal spaces have become familiar to me. For much of my life, they were confined to the minutes before sleep—a stray image, a sudden body twitch before slipping into unconsciousness. I unknowingly dipped a toe into broader liminal realms when I began meditating. What started as five quiet minutes each day stretched into longer sessions. Somewhere around the ten or twelve-minute mark, I noticed myself slipping beyond the threshold.
In that space, I felt suspended—not wholly present, but not absent either. Detached from my body but tethered by breath. My mind opened. I saw visions, heard voices, and felt energy moving gently through me. The best part was the weightlessness. Not physical, but soul-level.
Eyes closed, breath slow, body tingling—and yet fully present in a space that is not of this world.
A space I can’t name.
I want so badly to articulate that feeling for you. To find the perfect words to describe what it’s like to expand while being held, to become so present that you slip away. But I cannot. What I can tell you is that when I emerge, I am rewoven.
Slipping into liminal spaces has become easier, and more frequent. When I paint or sketch, I escape. On long walks, I drift. I’ve grown intimate with the degrees and dimensions of the in-between, and I’ve found that my everyday existence has quietly transformed.
Perhaps that is the most beautiful part of the liminal—it changes you. There’s a stillness in me now that I never knew before. An inner peace so profound I hesitate to mention it, fearing the cliché. But it’s true. I exist now in a kind of gentle suspension. Neutral. Awake. A quiet power blooming where there was once only noise.
So I wonder—
Was that coyote acknowledging my crossing?
Bearing witness to my presence—not just my energetic presence, but my presence within myself?
Was she a messenger from spirit? A mirror of me, walking between realms with ease?
Maybe she came to say:
This is who you are now.
Not lost in the world between worlds—
but at home there.
Author’s Note:
I share this not to instruct, but to witness. Liminal spaces—those fleeting moments between—have quietly changed my life. If you’ve felt them too, or wondered if the stillness you sense has meaning, trust that it does. The coyote reminded me that not all guidance is loud. Sometimes, it simply crosses your path and looks you in the eye.
If this resonates, I’d love to hear your own moments of in-between.
I have lived in this space for a long time, but not until your words have I realized it. Im now thinking back and realizing all the little connections with the universe and mother nature that I've had over just the last 10 years walking on my property or just driving down the road from my house and had the same birds that had just landed on my porch ten minutes ago cross my path multiple times as I drive away from my house. I have a lot to say in this space, it just takes me a long time to say it. Thank you for having this space Kelley 😊