Between Worlds: My Journey Through Liminal Spaces

hi, this is going to be a more personal piece than my usual academic-like articles. But, i got very inspired and I no longer hold inside what my body and my mind need to create and pour into the world. If this text finds you, I really do hope you enjoy it ♡

Max Hudson - wings of light

I am now drawn to the liminal spaces; to the places in between what can be seen and what must be felt.

Where the intellect touches the edge of the ineffable, where silence speaks louder than doctrine, where science and soul are not in conflict, but in communion.

The spaces where the veil thins and worlds bleed into one another. Where synchronicities aren't coincidences but cosmic winks. Where dreams carry messages and birds deliver omens.

Have you ever found yourself standing at this threshold? That mysterious boundary where what you know meets what you sense but cannot name? Perhaps you've felt it in that moment of perfect stillness just before dawn, or in the charged silence after a thunderstorm, or in the fleeting second between sleeping and waking when reality feels permeable.

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The Questioning

I was that child who asked too. many. questions. The kind that make adults pause, unsure how to answer. The kind that made teachers uncomfortable because they probed at the edges of conventional learning. Questions that weren't easily satisfied with "that's just how things are."

Was this also you? Did you feel that restless curiosity that wouldn't be quieted? That persistent feeling that there was something more beneath the surface of what you were being told?

Growing up, I sensed that there were truths buried under what we were taught, that the world around me was not quite whole. That what we called "progress" often came at the cost of something sacred. That there were systems in place that hurt what they claimed to protect.

I watched forests fall to make way for concrete monuments to efficiency. I witnessed communities fracture under the weight of extraction. I felt the pain of a world increasingly disconnected from its own pulse. I saw rivers once teeming with life become sterile channels, mountains leveled for their mineral wealth, cultures reduced to commodities.

And what did this do to me? It broke my heart open. It shattered my innocence. It kindled a rage that burned hot and bright (a necessary fire, I later understood).

I was then, very angry with this so-called "System"! And needed to understand what it actually was; needed to give words and meanings to the tensions I felt all around me.

What was this machine that seemed to demand endless sacrifice?
Who designed it?
Who maintained it?
And most importantly… could it be unmade and rebuilt?

Have you felt this too? The vertigo of realizing that so much that you took for granted was built on shaky ground? The disorientation of seeing through illusions you once believed were solid?

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The Seeking

That ache, that tension, between what is and what could be, became my compass.

It led me into philosophy and academia.

Into sustainability frameworks.

Into systems thinking, environmental ethics, ecofeminism, climate policy... you name it.

I pursued knowledge with a ferocity that startled even me; not for titles or approval, but because I needed to understand how the world works in order to begin the long journey of reshaping it.

Each book, each theory, each framework, was another tool in what was becoming a desperate attempt to make sense of a world that seemed determined to destroy itself.

Do you know this hunger? This insatiable need to understand before you can begin to heal? This faith that if you could just find the ~right words~, the ~right concepts~, you might unlock something transformative?

Fast forward... I've spent over a decade immersed in the academic, the practical, and the political. I've worked with international companies, grassroots movements, visionary founders, and burned-out changemakers. I've taught workshops to thousands of people all over the world on how to reduce harm, lead regeneratively, and rethink the systems we live inside.

I have pages of accolades, degrees framed on walls, research published. I've spoken on stages to audiences who nodded along with my carefully constructed arguments about paradigm shifts and emergent possibilities. I've helped craft policies and strategies meant to nudge organizations toward more “ethical paths”.

And still...

Even in the most progressive spaces, something was missing.

There was intellect, but not intimacy.
Theory, but no myth.
Impact, but no ritual.
Plenty of metrics, but very little meaning.

Have you felt it too? That sense of translating between worlds that don't know how to speak to one another? That exhaustion of trying to quantify what can only be felt? The frustration of watching brilliant minds reduce the sacred to the merely sustainable?

In meetings discussing biodiversity loss, I would find myself thinking about the dreams I had of animals speaking in languages I couldn't quite grasp. In climate conferences, I would feel the grief moving through my body that no PowerPoint slide could capture. In strategy sessions about "green growth," I would hear my ancestors whispering that some things should never be for sale.

I craved meaning!

I felt an ancient language, hidden and just within my reach but whenever I tried to learn through 'conventional' ways... it disappeared. Like trying to catch reflections on water. The more intensely I pursued it through purely rational means, the more it eluded me.

What is it that you crave beneath the surface of your daily life? What whispers to you when the world grows quiet? What mystery calls to you from just beyond the edge of your understanding?

And then… I got sick.

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Hands - Masha Foya

The Breakdown (and the Breakthrough)

My body, which I had treated as merely a vehicle for my busy mind, rebelled.

So I turned inward.

Not to escape, but to re-root.

I began to LISTEN. Listen to my body like a sacred text.

I started to pay attention to my dreams, recording them in journals that filled quickly with symbols and visitations. I noticed how my body responded to different environments, how it contracted in some spaces and expanded in others. I tracked my energy with the phases of the moon. I observed how my creativity flowed and ebbed with seasons.

What would happen if you, too, began to listen to the wisdom of your body? What might it tell you about the spaces you inhabit, the work you do, the relationships you nurture?

And I began to reach out. To the moon, to the animals, to the wind, to the trees... to my ancestors, to other humans, to other women!

These encounters weren't coincidences but cosmic alignments, each carrying a piece of my own fragmented knowing back to me. Through their eyes, I began to see myself not as broken but as beautifully unfinished, a living ceremony in progress. These connections reminded me how to play, to laugh at myself, to dance with abandon under stars.

Perhaps you've had these encounters too? people who arrived in your life not by chance, but by design. Who saw you more clearly than you could see yourself. Who spoke directly to your soul when you had forgotten how to listen to it. Can you recall them now? Can you feel how they've shaped you?

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The Weaving

I felt the change.

I felt tuned in.

I could see, feel, think, with such clarity that it made me want to cry.

But I felt like this wasn't something I could just share with everyone, especially not the people who "know me". Because these people knew me as that over-achiever, that “intellectual” obsessed with knowledge and information.

I worried they would dismiss this as a crisis, a breakdown, a departure from the "serious work" I had built my identity around. I feared being placed in that convenient box labeled "spiritual but not serious" that so often constrains women when they begin to speak of things that cannot be measured.

Have you felt this hesitation? This fear of being seen as less credible, less rational, less worthy of respect because you've touched something beyond the rational? Have you hidden parts of your knowing to maintain your place at certain tables?

But, long story short, I had a dream (I've always had the craziest dreams) and it felt like a message. The message was simple: there is no separation, that is just a farce. Merge the intellectual with the intuitive; because that is your human experience.

I woke up understanding that my journey was not about choosing between worlds, but about becoming a bridge between them. That my unique gift—perhaps yours too?—lies in this capacity to translate, to integrate, to stand firmly in multiple ways of knowing without diminishing any of them.

What might this integration look like in your life? Where do you already weave these threads together, perhaps without even realizing it?

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The Recognition

And so, empowered by this vision, I began to see how these systems (yes, I finally found what the System was) require our fragmentation to function. They need us separated from our bodies, from each other, from the more-than-human world.

They require us to believe in scarcity, in hierarchy, in the myth that some lives are more valuable than others. They depend on us forgetting our wholeness.

I found myself tracing the threads of domination back through history, examining how the same mindset that subjugates women also exploits the earth. How colonization of land mirrors the colonization of the body. How the methodical severing of our relationship with the sacred has enabled unprecedented ecological devastation.

I traced the map of my own wounds and found there a blueprint for healing that extended far beyond myself. I discovered that my body held wisdom about resilience that no textbook could teach. That my menstrual cycle offered insights into natural rhythms of creation and rest that could inform more sustainable ways of working. That my intuitive flashes contained intelligence as valuable as my carefully researched analyses.

Have you explored the wisdom in your own wounds? Have you noticed how your personal healing illuminates paths toward collective transformation? How does your body's knowing inform your understanding of the world?

And I let the forest become my teacher.

this is where i live now

For the last three years, I’ve spent time each day sitting with trees: observing how they communicate through underground networks, how they share resources instead of hoarding them, how they thrive through relationship rather than competition.

And gradually, I witnessed how the same patterns of disconnection that were killing our planet were also living inside me... in the way I pushed past my limits, in how I privileged productivity over presence, in my fear of my own wildness.

I saw how I had internalized the very systems I sought to change, the endless growth imperative that ignored natural cycles, the extractive mindset that treated my body as a resource to be optimized, the colonial perspective that sought to tame and control what is wild and unpredictable.

What systems of domination have you internalized? Where in your life do you find yourself reproducing the very patterns you wish to transform? How might your personal practices either reinforce or resist the larger systems in which we're embedded?

This recognition was humbling. Painful. Necessary. It showed me that the work of transformation isn't just "out there" in policies and institutions, but also "in here", in the ways I move through the world, relate to myself, and engage with others.

It revealed that true change requires both: the systemic and the intimate, the political and the personal, the intellectual and the embodied. That we need both brilliant analysis and deep presence. Both strategic action and sacred pause.

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The Bridge-Building

This integration isn't easy in a world that profits from our fragmentation.

It requires courage to stand in multiple worlds, to speak multiple languages, to honor multiple ways of knowing. It means being willing to be misunderstood, to not quite fit in anywhere, to constantly translate between realms that have forgotten how to speak to one another.

But I believe this is important; to remember our wholeness. To reclaim the fullness of our humanity. To reweave what has been torn apart.

And I believe that those of us who have always felt pulled between worlds, between the rational and the intuitive, the academic and the mystical, the practical and the visionary; have a unique role to play in this great turning.

We are the bridge-builders. The translators.

I would like to know, where do you stand between worlds? What seemingly disconnected realms do you move between? What wisdom have you gathered from these threshold spaces that might serve our collective healing?

And how might you begin to weave your own fragmented knowing back together, not choosing one way of seeing over another, but honoring the unique perspective that emerges when you embrace them all?

Perhaps this is a radical act in a world bent on separation; to remember that we were never meant to choose between mind and body, science and soul, action and contemplation.

We were meant to live in the fertile, creative, transformative space between.

Where are you being called to stand now? What worlds are you uniquely positioned to bridge? What medicine do you carry that our fragmented world is desperately waiting for you to remember?

And so my hunger for knowledge has grown roots.

I no longer seek to conquer truth, but to touch it gently.

I no longer want to dissect the world. I want to listen to it.

To read between its silences.

To care more deeply, feel more honestly, tune in more humbly.

I want to be changed by what I encounter.

If these ideas resonate with you and you'd like to explore them further in community, I've created a space called Rooted Impact where we can journey together at the intersection of systems change and personal transformation. You can read more about it here:

❍ Rooted Impact