Marking the Threshold.

at summer solstice, a story of stepping in to the rest of your life.

My youngest child is one of those kids who over flows from his own skin.  He is boisterous, loud, crass, and trembles with both joy and grief in equal measure.  As my dear friend says, his body will be big enough for his spirit when he’s reached full height, not before.  This year, 5 days before summer solstice, he turned seven. 

Seven is a witchy number.  Years ago, I learned about the seven year gates, the thresholds that we pass through every seven years around the sun.  One year per direction: east, south, west, north, up, down, and in.  Modern cultures often forget the last three, but they are arguably the most important – ‘up’ and ‘down’ orient us to our particular place at the threshold between earth and sky, and ‘in’ reminds us to yield back after all the orienting outward.  Together, all these directions make us three dimensional, never flat, and ultimately help us navigate and evolve – or wayfind and shapeshift.

Every seven years, our entire body remakes itself, each cell fully changed from its prior iteration.  Exciting, isn’t it?  When I think about life divided into sevens, I remember myself at 7, suddenly aware of my self in relation to others, the importance of 14, curling in and creating a belief system; at 21 differentiating from those formative others, and at 28, 35, 42, further spiraling into the thick of my life.  These thresholds happen whether we acknowledge them or not, as we turn over the next stones of our short, bright lives.

On his 7^th birthday last Sunday, just as the gloaming was reaching its height and the first stars were coming into focus, my child and I went out to the arbor that stands between ‘yard’ and ‘forest’.  He did not want to do this ritual during his romping party with ice cream and friends, and I knew, knowing him, if I leaned in to strongly with the idea of a ‘ritual’, he’d kick back like an agitated horse.  I find rituals are most meaningful when they are emergent, and simple.  After all, what’s a birthday without a candle to wish on?

The arbor had been discreetly draped with a colorful braided rope, careful not to disturb the clematis and hops beginning their ascension.   The pine needle basket I made - after several miscarriages trying to get him here - sat to the side, full of dried marigolds that grew during his seventh year. 

“Do you want to walk from the wilderness into the (more tame) yard, or from the yard into the wilderness?”  He answered without skipping a beat: “from the wilderness into the yard.”  He took his place on the far side of the threshold, dark forest at his back, just as my partner and oldest child came out to join us.  Then, with fistfuls of marigolds, I said to him, “Altair, you’ve completed a journey.  Welcome to the rest of your life.”  He smiled, then did something I’ve never witnessed before: he walked up to the threshold and let his foot hover for a moment.  This headstrong, willful, full-of-energy child actually paused, letting the air thicken and the breath catch.  Then he stepped calmly into our open arms, and we tossed the orange blossoms into the air, whooping with delight.  

The next morning, this overflowing person woke up and poured himself a small amount of milk in a glass.  This person who has never been able to pour less than a brimming glass of anything, said, “I only wanted a little bit, and I left some for you.”  With this cup of milk, well poured, in consideration of others, I see him changed.

Thresholds are present whether we acknowledge them are not.  When we center them, even for a short time, even improvised, we get to feel like we aren’t alone in passing through them.  We get to know others are seeing us, watching, knowing us, even as we shapeshift.  It’s so important to do for children, young adults, and elders, but also those of us slogging through the middle, holding all the balls in the air, tending to those on either side of us.  We all need moments to lean back in the sun and open, while being seen.

We bring our glasses of milk outside to the bright dawn light of high summer, and sip quietly together as our small teenage cat slinks through the same threshold, toward the wilder places.