On the threshold between September and October, a word rose through the mist.

The world itself feels strange this year. The air sharp with static, nostaglia thinned, everything too plastic, too surface. Misdirection everywhere, very much like the fog. We are living in the upside down.

The word was Liminance.

What is Liminance?

Liminance (noun): the dim glow carried through liminal spaces. Not a light that banishes the dark, but one that shows only the steps meant for you.

It is the lantern you hold when the path is fogged, a faint shimmer that carries you forward, not with certainty, but never without aim.

The Two Faces of Liminance

Seasonal ~ Most keenly felt on October evenings and November nights, lanterns on porches, fog curling low, footsteps crunching on damp leaves.  Liminance is that in-between light ~ not full day, not full night, just enough glow to guide a wytch through the thresholds of the season.

Emotional ~ Liminance also belongs to the soul. It names that survival state when grief, change or neurodivergence leaves you raw. Not enough fire to light the World, but enough to take the next step. A fragile glow that proves you are still moving, never aimless.

October Whisper

The season does not soften for me,

nor do i for it,

We meet in silence,

Shadow to shadow.

October does not ask for smiles,

I move like a ghost in her fog,

A dim lantern in hand, 

its light enough to find

the echo of footsteps from the past

or trace of those i choose to follow.

This is my October Liminance,

A glow that does not banish the dark,

but guides me through it.

Keeper's Note

I half blame Liadan ~ Poet, Ancestor, Guide, for slipping this word into my mouth. Or perhaps it was October itself, breathing through the dark. Either way, the word stayed.

Now it is here. Not as an old word, but as one found in the fog.

Closing Whisper

Liminance is not mine to hoard. If it speaks to you, take it. Write it into your pages. Whisper it when the fog is heavy. It belongs to the thresholds, not to me. 

First spoken into being at The Hallowed Nook, October Eve 2025

As September is fast approaching I can't help but feel like this year hopped on a train hurtling towards the festivities of Winter, before I have had the time to shake my umbrella from the torrential downpours of April.

It was last week when I saw the first blackberries and noticed that the conkers are easily visable on the Oak trees at the bottom of the garden. I must of been hibernating, like an old bear, grumbling my way through the sticky nights of Summer i seem to have missed. 

As the Sun is now declining in strength and the natural world around us starts to prepare for the long sleep of Winter, i feel the sudden urgency to stock pile my cupboards, organise myself for the darker months...obviously more candles, because who doesnt like to curl up with a book or a good movie by candlelight, drinking hot brews while the wind and rain rages on outside.

Magic during the Autumn Tide lends itself to the harvesting of the literal and metaphorical fruits of our labours, and while I am sure I have been busy during the year, there is a wild flurry of excitment in my bones, spurring me on to get out in the Sun and forage, bottle and hang, spoon stir and cauldron bubble..

So on that note, this ole crone has no time to waste. There is a mess to be made!