27. Thin Places – Jordan Kisner
Often, "thin places" are literal places, geographical locations that feel holy or otherworldly, but you could also imagine these kinds of thresholds popping up anywhere: in a hospital room, in a bar, in your apartment, in your relationship, in you.
The title of my book, Thin Places, comes from a notion in Celtic mythology that the distance between our world and the next is never more than three feet (i.e. just a little more than an arm's reach away). There are "thin places" where that distance shrinks and then vanishes, where you can glimpse some other world or way of being for a brief moment. Often, "thin places" are literal places, geographical locations that feel holy or otherworldly, but you could also imagine these kinds of thresholds popping up anywhere: in a hospital room, in a bar, in your apartment, in your relationship, in you. A thin place may also be a moment, a time when you were briefly suspended between a world/life that you knew and something totally new, different, awesome, frightening. – Jordan Kisner
Prompt:
Describe a “thin place” or threshold you’ve encountered. It could be a location, an experience, a relationship, a period of time. Describe it in as much concrete detail as you can: what did you see, smell, feel with your hands? How did it make you feel? Who else was there? What led you there? What did you do? What happened afterward? Did anything change? It may feel hard to describe-- that's ok! Ineffable experiences are the hardest to describe. Get weird!
Anne Francey
Location: Saratoga Springs, NY
About: I am a visual artist. Painters, like poets I think, often look for the thin places. This is today's gouache, a thin place.
Age: 64
Let me take you gently by the hand and lead you to this little bench, where you can sit listening to the sounds of Spring. You can rest a little bit, while you see the others go back and forth, back and forth, gathering the extremes that they have embroidered in their lives. But you look puzzled, you want me to explain. To be specific. Your neck hurts a little bit, you too would like to escape this incessant pull. You just want to hear of another world. You want the bench to be a beach, you want the beach to become a whale, a wagon, a wisteria with tender tendrils that will lift you into the light. You realize that you don’t know how to live without the pull, without the light and the dark and the contradictions that propel you. I just can’t think of any story to tell that would help you reconcile it all, small acts and big causes, the world, you, past and now, the fears and the hopes. But if you sit here for a little while longer, maybe you will see it.
There is a beautiful moss growing on my 2nd neighbor’s garage roof. It used to be completely covered, as astounding as a painting. One day, I saw my neighbor removing it, and was a little sad about it. But now it’s growing back. Variations of tender greens, browns and greys.
Anonymous
I remember hiking on Mt. Lemmon in August, all five of us. The seasonal monsoon rains had once again magically transformed both Tucson and the Catalina Mountain range, from dusty brown and sage to vibrant hues of green. It was a relief to escape the summer heat, a relief to be on the “sky island” at almost 8000 feet, far above the desert floor. The fires of 2003 had destroyed the Aspen trees, once abundant on this aptly named trail, the Aspen Trail, but with the healing balm of time, the trees were making a comeback. The saplings were now thick and lush, and all about 10 feet tall. As we walked along the narrow path, single file, we were flanked by the young, dense trees on both sides. Sofia, about 5 years old, was suddenly overcome with the beauty of the place. She stopped walking mid-stride, and without a word, fell to her knees. She bowed her head, closed her eyes, and folded her hands in prayer. We silently watched and waited, even my rambunctious boys. In the stillness, a gentle wind began to blow. And with the wind thousands of Aspen leaves shook and danced in unison. They quaked and quivered, as if responding to her reverence. They shimmered, their bright green leaves making sacred music. And that’s when the thin veil opened between earth and a hallowed dimension, a “thin place”. I could feel it. Barely there. Barely observable, but a feeling of holding your breathe. Like seeing a beautiful wild thing that you don’t want to frighten away. All around us. Breath. Color. Energy. As if the Great Infinite Spirit was present in the wind and the trees, just beyond perception but awakening an inner sense in me, beckoning me to see. God and Goddess. Sublime. Ethereal. Sofia rose, her prayer released, and the winds ceased. The leaves quieted their movement, the hymn was complete. The veil closed, but I’ll never forget how in her innocence and joy, Sofia briefly welcomed a door to open. She lifted the thin veil between heaven and earth. We walked on.
Anonymous
Lunacy
I don’t know much about God or gods. And I don’t know anyone who has a direct portal to another dimension. But there are times, when I think I have my feet planted firmly on familiar soil and, suddenly, the ground shifts: I am transported to another place, another plane, another world, I don’t know what. It never happened to me in church (so I stopped going long ago), and it doesn’t happen when I read reportedly sacred text. It occasionally happens when I am pulled up and away by music, a jazz riff that goes way out into another dimension before it returns to the melody.
For me, it mostly occurs when I am appreciating natural beauty in the great outdoors, where I frequently search for a “wilderness experience” away from the cares of daily life. As Wordsworth wrote, “my heart leaps up” by the presence of natural beauty. That alone can provide a transcendent moment.
But the last time I was truly shaken, and transported, was when I least expected it. I wasn’t climbing a mountain in the wilderness. I was just finishing a walk in the lovely meadow preserve down the street from our home in Ojai. I was hoping to catch the famous “Pink Moment” that happens here throughout the year just before dusk, as the intense light of the setting sun in the west, casts a pink glow over the mountain range that frames our village to the north. That’s often a kind of cosmic experience, but not necessarily one that carries me off
This time, however, I was stunned by an unexpected guest appearance. Just as the sun was setting, and the familiar coral glow was casting its spell over the meadow and our entire town, a full moon was slowly cresting the mountain ridge. I looked around to see if anyone else was gobsmacked by this. My neighbors must have been preoccupied by their dinner plans because they seemed to be hurrying home before it got dark.
I fumbled with my camera then froze in reverie. The colors were unlike anything I had seen in this setting right in my neighborhood. Though I was just moments from our kitchen, I felt transported to another landscape – the desert, or was it the moon, or another planet?
This luminous vision lasted just a few moments. Then evening descended, I landed back on earth, and went home to cook dinner.
Anonymous
Being back in Buffalo, I feel like I’m surrounded by past lives. Every walk, drive, and place we visit beckons memories of my former self. Sometimes I feel like I’m walking in between two worlds.
And lately, I’ve been communing with my younger self. The self that was in high school, fell in love for the first time, and first experienced depression in this house.
The young girl who was scared to go to college, scared to leave home, and thriving wildly in High School. She was on student council, was the lead in the play, had a high school sweetheart, and a best friend to go to Pizza Hut with during her free lunch period. But she carried a heavy heart, grieving the life she was going to leave behind. Her emotions, which weren’t allowed to be fully expressed or seen, spilled out of her like a hot cup of tea. She cried almost every day of senior year- during, in between, and after classes. Through hiding this secret and carrying this pain alone, this is where the dark door of her depressed thoughts first appeared.
Sitting in this house now, I’m still grieving. Grieving the life and the people I left behind. And I noticed recently that the narrative my parents use when I’m upset now is the same one they used when I was in high school. They tell me to be grateful, that it could be so much worse. And although their intention comes from a loving place, you can’t wish away your pain. Years of therapy have taught me that you can’t go around feelings, we have to go through them. So this idea of throwing gratitude on grief isn’t helpful. For me, it creates a narrative of shame around my feelings. But, I know now it’s okay to be where you’re at. To grieve, to be angry, to be sad.
I cling to this idea of pain before gratitude. I allow it to be my mantra, to be healing. I counsel myself, and as a result I’m counselling that young woman. Whispering to her in quiet moments, in between closed door rooms and long walks, “It’s okay to not be okay. Your pain is welcome here.”
I’m making room for her and we walk together, keeping each other close. She doesn't have to carry this alone anymore.
Helena Starrs
Location: Maryland, USA
About: When I read the prompt for day 27, many places in New York City came to mind. Ultimately, I chose to write about one of the last places I’d passed through before quarantine, before leaving for a new place with a lot less gray space.
Age: 23
Janna Schledorn
Location: Melbourne, Florida
About: Prompt #27 introduced me to the idea of liminal space, which I have only just begun to ponder (and prompted me to buy and read Jordan Kisner's book).
Age: 58
Missing Greta—
her voice a thin place
a rich song, remnant of first breath
a little pearl, threshold to joy,
memory, all arms and legs
two dimensional, three feet wide
long enough to reach between
strong enough to lift us
into the holy
Kelly Marie Sheerins
Location: New York City
About: Thank you for this prompt, it helped me articulate a very intense experience I had last fall. I was spending a weekend outside of the city in the woods of upstate New York, practicing yoga and meditation when I met Jim. He was a conservative seventy-five year old war veteran and I was a thirty four year old liberal artist. Jim was the last person I thought I would bond with over the course of that weekend, but we ended up sharing an experience that I will never forget.
Age: 35
Kelly Matula
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
About: I am a healthcare researcher and writer living with multiple disabilities and chronic illnesses. This entry was inspired by a very severe illness.
Age: 33
I've written around, or even right up to, my thin place lots of times before (including in a couple of earlier prompts this month), but I haven't really faced right up to it in a long time. It's hard, frightening, disorienting, intimate. And for all that it's so thin, there are layers, like onion skin. I can't separate the medical facts, and the effect they had on--gaps they left in--my ability to perceive and understand; from my feelings; from what I've been told by my parents (mostly mom) who were conscious for, and of, the whole ordeal, unlike me (and are doctors, so they were extra aware of things); from my religious beliefs; from my knowledge of what happened later: from what I've learned since about the physiology and psychology of traumatic and near-death experiences (my heart never stopped, but there was something in the chart later about "threat of imminent cardiovascular collapse"). So many layers packed into so little space. Hard to articulate. But I can try. Deep breath. Here goes.
I was 16. I was having a GI bleed. My first thought in that bathroom, seeing that mix of blood and clots in the water, was "People die from this." Not even a "maybe" or an "I think." Just the fact.
I kept my head long enough to get the college kids supervising us--us being a camp t help prepare visually impaired and blind high school students for college, on a small college campus--to get me to the hospital, and to get my parents there too. Then my hold began to slip. When the doctor asked me to stand up (to check for orthostatic hypotension) and asked how I felt, I couldn't remember the words to tell him I felt like I was about to pass out, so I said I felt like I was going to throw up instead. I was let back down immediately, either way. He could tell it was bad, even if I couldn't say so. Especially after there was more blood, once he was seeing it rather than just hearing about it from me. Then there was a very urgent phone call to a bigger, specialized, hospital. A helicopter. They put a helmet on the patient too, in those, it turns out. They're heavy. The monitors hung right over me. I was staring right at them. When I was awake, anyway. Sometimes that night I fell asleep, sometimes I passed out. When you're bleeding out, they feel the same, apparently, That barrier thins, too. So I still don't even know what passing out "really" feels like. But the medical folks, Mom and Dad among them, could tell the difference.
A lot of the rest of the night is a blur. I don't remember how many bedpans I filled with blood. They hooked me up to bags of blood at least twice--I later learned I got four units, but I don't know in how many separate sets. My mom said later, "It felt like I was in a movie; you kept saying you were cold." Apparently I kept trying to pray and forgetting the words. Apparently my lips were pretty much invisible, drained just as white as the rest of my face.
When exactly I got to the thin place isn't clear, but the experience is. I felt a presence in the room with me that wasn't a parent or a nurse, or even a flesh-and-blood person. With the presence, a knowledge: Jesus is here. With me. It'll be fine. Whatever happens, it'll be fine. Not I'll live, just It'll be fine--I guess whether I lived or not. I wasn't scared, or fighting for consciousness or understanding. I was calm. It would be fine.
I'm not sure how long the feeling lasted. In the fear and uncertainty and pain of the hours and days and weeks and months that followed, I often wanted it back, sometimes desperately. That sense that I was being watched over, the fluttering of the veil so I could sense the one watching. I've never had it again. I've also never completely reconciled it with the medical science, either, never completely removed all doubt that it wasn't "just" a side-effect of low oxygenation or my brain threatening or beginning to shut down, rather than the spiritual experience it felt like. I believe it, but I can't completely peel away the scientific skepticism, either. But it was still a small oasis of peace in that tumult, and there's comfort in knowing those feelings can be so close together, too, whether what draws them close is in some other world or purely in our physical one.
Lenny Fairchild
Location: Washington State
About: Retired and waiting out this virus just a few miles from daughters and grandchildren with my husband. I read and read. The Journals are inspiring. I have begun a memoir! One of 8 children in a Navy family, I have a rich supply of stories to share.
Age: 76
I was just scraping the roasting pan to make a nice gravy for our lamb roast when I glanced out the kitchen window and saw Mimi walking toward the kitchen door. It was getting dark--mid-winter--and I was motionless because she should not have been there. Mimi had died the previous October and so this couldn’t be happening. Granted, we had just moved into her house on the Maine coast and were still living with all her belongings. The little old fashioned cape cod house needed so much updating and I was using the smallest of electric stoves tucked against the window next to the cast iron cookstove that was used to keep the kitchen warm. Leg of lamb on Sundays was her tradition and she would naturally have been drawn to the lovely smell. She had on her down snowflake coat and her little woolen hat. She especially would have enjoyed the visit as our neighbor from across the road had stopped in for a chat with her son. The light plays tricks on winter evenings and when the knock came I sent someone else to answer it. There was one of her best Massachusetts friends stopping by to say hello, hoping by chance we would be home. Short, and the same age with the same outfit on, it was hard to tell ..... For me, it was a little message from Mimi. I’m glad you are there, and happy you are carrying on the traditions.....and looks like you have made that gravy just right.
Shannon Twenter
Location: Alexandria, VA
About: I loved this prompt about the Thin Place, and was surprised when I found my place was my best friend.
Age: 44
A Thin Place gives a glimpse of another world. I think of Fossil Time with Mindy in a closet, water talks in Hawaii, and playing drums at a bomb shelter cabin in IL. Or crashing a tandem bike into bushes to stop, selling our newsletters and old magazines dressed as Helga and Ingrid, and making chalk designs on her porch in her new home in MO. I guess Mindy has been a Thin Place to me where magical things happen. Where Skittle Juice tastes good, and Scooter Crunches at her parents' kitchen table while watching the moonlight bask her backyard trees and shine on deer hidden makes you feel unwordly. Where you can be 26 but act like a middle-schooler swooning over Ben Harper at Bonnaroo on a blanket in the middle of TN, dancing in the rain that is a perfect amount to ease the heat and sun that has smothered you for the last 36 hours. Where you can marvel at James Brown dancing on stage and making more cape changes than singing songs. Where you blast the Power of One from her convertible with the top down while your little sister hides in the back from the wind and pulsing music. Where you can search for many a handkerchief to make her wedding day what she dreamed, including fending off rain. Empowering me to convince a new father-in-law that Mindy's magic is that powerful - to stop rain. To watching her put away her fancy shoes and curled hair after her mom's funeral as she climbs in her jeep with her worn cords and hippy bag and all that is Mindy can be seen in that 1 image. That you can cry to her as you don't understand why life has taken us longer to get our deepest heart desires, though many a lucky adventure, this is true, in that duration, but her unwavering faith that my day will come too, when sparklers will line my path as I gleefully smile with my husband as we leave our wedding and I, too, can text a photo of holding my child where there is no way to describe it but love. So, yes, Mindy is my human version of the Thin Place. That place between worlds. And, I guess, her friendship continues to remind me that it's not just her but the love and faith she carries is the Thin Place, and that she ignites that in me. So, I can create and step into my Thin Place.
Sharmila Rao
Location: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
About: An aspiring writer seeking the companionship of words.
Age: 53
"You must be her daughter," the nurse asked me as she entered the room to administer a new bottle of saline. I was in the midst of a struggle to put on a diaper for my mother- in- law. I didn't reply. Not knowing whether I should speak from my mind or my heart, I let her conclude. "I see you come here very often. You live close by?" she continued trailing.
" Amma, hold still, it will be done in a moment," I assured her as I deftly secured the diaper in place. She tried her best to cooperate with me looking quite amused by the whole experience - a first for both of us.
Everyone in the family called her Amma, (which means mother): her children, grandchildren, sons and daughters-in-law. I naturally followed, as I did, all the other ways and customs of this family I married into.
Amma was the third of six siblings. Providence had decided that this little girl would be tested all her life. She lost her mother when she was only three .Her father remarried and Amma could only describe her as a heartless stepmother. An unreasonable amount of household chores interrupted her love for studies and she eventually gave it up at fifteen when she got married to a man much older than her.
They lived reasonably well for a few years with their six children but as fate would have it ,she was widowed at forty with only a small amount of funds in hand to stretch for their education and upbringing.
Diminutive as she was in her physique she was a deceptive powerhouse of strength that withstood all the hardship and pain with characteristic resilience and stoicism.
Taking on paternal duties as well, she did her best to provide the basics and sometimes more: many a delicious meal was also enjoyed by relatives and friends.
Having had to fend for herself since an early age had made her fiercely independent: she rejected help of any kind but was never reluctant to offer it to anyone. I suspect her children greatly respected her with a kind of fearful reverence rather than an any unbridled feelings of love - for below that tough exterior was a little girl who being deprived of her mother's love was quite uncomfortable with and almost withdrew from any regular and casual physical expressions of love: not for her the warm hug, an affectionate pat, a loving caress or a tender kiss on her grandchild' s cheek. Her life was about duty and it was flawlessly done.
I longed for any appreciation, any genuine praise from her but in the fourteen years that I was with her I could not recollect any such moment. At times I greatly resented this but I continued to do my duty as a daughter- in-law finding my peace in the fact that she chose to live with me, ate the meals I cooked without complaint and considered me worthy enough to share the trials and tribulations of her life.
I have learnt courage and fortitude solely from her and as a bonus also our native language, for as she grew older and began to lose her memory she repeated the same stories everyday. I always gave her a patient ear so much so that my son once asked me in utter amazement, "Mummy, how come you laugh exactly at the same place, in the same story every single time!"
Amma never had any major illness and knew no medicines. May be the divine had bestowed this special blessing on her having taken most of the others. At eighty- five she suffered a silent heart attack one day while gathering flowers in the garden. No one knew. She slowed down considerably after that and eventually had to be admitted in a hospital near our place.
She accepted this with grace and somewhere deep down understood it's implications.
I visited her daily in the hospital at mealtimes and lingered on for awhile talking as we regularly used to do. She had grown frail and seemingly relinquished her will to make way for the divine one.
One day I took her a warm khichdi - made of lentils and rice. She had a few spoonfuls and as usual we talked. She half smiled at something funny I said. It was getting late to return home so I rose to collect the containers and leave. Amma quietly gestured to me and gently taking my hand in hers she held it tight for a few moments and then as I held my breath, planted a soft kiss, her grey eyes lighting up with a smile. We looked into each other's eyes and cherished this almost serendipitous moment of perfect understanding, the final acknowledgement of a deep and unspoken bond we had shared in all those years.
I walked back home with a new found motivation and resolve to do my best to help her regain strength when she returned home. Tears of pride and happiness silently rolled down my cheeks. And in the evening when she peacefully passed away I soaked my thirsty soul in the sacredness of that moment when she would cross over to the heavenly realms but not before rewarding me with that last expression of her love.