Embracing the Voices of Chaos and Possibility:
Developing a Musical Response to the Liminality of the Dying
Andrea Partenheimer
Copyright © 2001 Andrea Partenheimer
All Rights Reserved
Acknowledgments
This paper is a humble fruit of 2½ years of music, growth, struggle and blessing. I have
been immersed for these last years in the graduate-level School of Music-Thanatology in
Missoula, MT., an intensive educational and interior schooling which is preparing me to be a
practitioner in the pioneering field of music-thanatology. This new discipline is a truly creative
palliative care service, offering dynamic, individualized music to the dying and their families. I
am profoundly indebted to Therese Schroeder-Sheker, founder of the field of music-thanatology
and Dean of the school, for her vision, dedication, illuminating teachings, and life-giving music.
I extend deepest gratitude as well to my other resident teachers/mentors in the school, who have
been and remain central in my musical and personal formation: Assistant Dean Sharon Murfin,
Linda Schneck, Jocelyn Botkin, Lois Mandelko, Laura Moya, and Sile Harris. I will always be
grateful to my twelve classmates, who have accompanied me on this journey. Dolan, Kelly,
Sharilyn, Laurie, Barb, Hilly, Suzanne, Anna, Michael, Karla, Cynthia, and Jane: Thank you for
being my “cocoon” when I needed one, and for letting me be your “cocoon” as well. I love you
all. Throughout my time in Missoula, family and friends have faithfully sustained me with love
and belief in my capacities. I am so grateful. Finally, I extend heartfelt thanks to the dying
individuals and their families who have allowed me to journey with them part of the way home.
You are my teachers.
This paper represents an attempt to integrate and expand upon the ideas of liminality and the
anthropological rites of passage which were introduced to me in the school from a variety of
disciplines and perspectives. The ideas and insights of Therese Schroeder-Sheker, as well as
faculty members Alice Reich (anthropology), Fred Paxton (history), Robert Sardello (spiritual
psychology), and Ken Thorp (medicine) have all richly influenced my perspective on liminality,
and its relationship with music-thanatology. I am indebted to you all.
This small work marks only a beginning in what I am convinced will be a continuing
journey into the vast and mysterious realm of liminality. For a variety of personal and clinical
reasons, liminality is a subject that engages me, and challenges my capacities to live in chaos,
develop into my most authentic and potent self, and learn how to love.
Prelude
Throughout my thirty-year journey, I have been quietly yet persistently drawn to people
who live on the “edges” of life: homeless people, the mentally disabled, artists, mystics, monks,
the suffering. This interest has permeated my schooling, my work choices, and my own life as a
seeker. I cannot fully understand or explain the depth of the magnetic pull thatliminal(from the
Latinlimen, “threshold”) people have on me – yet maybe that is exactly the point. They stretch
my humanity, push me to go beyond my fixed (and limiting) ways of “knowing”, urge me to
widen into an ever- more generous compassion and capacity to love. Their teaching is active,
and often painful as it requires the willingness to step beyond my comfort zone and embrace the
unknown, in the other and in myself. This is not easy for me, a person who clings tenaciously to
what is most safe and familiar! Yet perhaps awareness of this propensity in myselfnecessitates
conscious and active engagement with the liminal side of life, an essential ingredient for my own
life and growth. The inability of the liminal person to be fully defined, categorized or
“understood” is a great gift, a reminder that all of life (and certainly all of humanity) is a
continually-changing mixture: part knowable, part absolutely unfathomable.
1
Several years ago, I received a clear, persistent, and visceral “calling” to the work of music-
thanatology.
2
After initial struggle, I listened, responded, and uprooted myself from my East
coast life and moved to Missoula, MT. I anticipated that I would be trained to offerprescriptive
1
According to contemporary Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, as we relate to and serve others, we can either
“totalize” the other (through putting him or her into rigid categories), or relate to him or her as “infinity” – an actual
experience of “always-more-than.” The idea of the other as infinity has been important in the writing of this paper,
in my relationships across all levels, and in relation with the dying in particular. I would like to thank Robert
Sardello for introducing me to his work. Robert Sardello. Lecture notes. “The Spiritual Psychology of Service.”
October 19 & 21, 1999.
2
Founded by musician and scholar Therese Schroeder-Sheker, the vision of music-thanatology is to offer
unconditional loving care to the dying through prescriptive music. An integrated part of palliative care in
Missoula, MT.,prescriptive music (music nuanced to respond to the dynamic, changing physiological and interior
conditions of each individual) is currently being pioneered across the country. For further information about the
field of music-thanatology or the graduate-level School of Music-Thanatology, please contact The Chalice of
Repose Project, 312 Pine Street, Missoula, MT. 59802, or call (406) 329-2810. Refer also to the writings of
Therese Schroeder-Sheker listed in the bibliography.
music in service to the dying. I did not fully anticipate the degree to which my life would be
turned upside-down. In the School of Music-Thanatology, teaching happens in the classroom, at
the harp, in the voice studio, at the bedsides of those who are dying, and in every moment
between these activities! Therese Schroeder-Sheker, founder of the school and the profession,
urges her students tolearn from everything and everyone. We are taught to live musically
through the tangible instruments of voice and harp, and also to “become musical” in our words,
our touch, our intentions, our movement. In this process, the depth and breadth of humanity is
seen and witnessed; all manner of light, dark, beauty and pain are rendered visible (and, from the
perspective of the musician, audible).
Needless to say, this holistic methodology often leads its student to live the dynamic
paradox of the known and the not-knowable. NowIam often the liminal person, as I struggle to
assimilate what I have been and have known with that which is new, which is challenging, all
that does not “fit” into the world as I had known it before. In this process, I am asked to grow, to
open myself to the chaos (everything that doesn’t “make sense” or have meaning), and to
possibility. While this sounds quite manageable on paper, in practice it presents difficulties on
every level. In truth, I am both drawn to and deeply resistant to liminality. Yet I am discovering
that embracing liminality – in its wonder and its difficulty – is itself a schooling in living and
dying, teaching me how to know, form, re-form myself – and how to let go.
The golden thread of liminality (the small, insistent flame weaving between the light,
knowable world and the infinite darkness) lies at the heart of my life, and of this paper. For the
last year, I have consciously paid attention to the rhythms of liminality in myself, in others, in
the intimate human encounters at the bedside, and in my own musical unfolding. Living
amongst the forest fires last summer, and witnessing the unsettledness of the recent presidential
election afforded opportunities to perceive liminality on nationwide levels. Paying attention to
liminality has been easy, illuminating, intriguing. Yet writing about it casts me directly into
paradox: how can I possiblydescribeliminality, a condition which is ultimately indescribable?
This challenge leads me toward silence, or other alternative methods of expression. Writing
about something that is cloaked in mystery feels dangerous to me, and hints at sacrilegious
activity. At the least, it is a daunting task. Yet, I have been listening to the liminal realm and I
have been living it. Part of what I am learning is to trust my experience enough to begin to
language it. I will not claim, or even attempt, to give a definitive “answer” to what liminality is,
or how we “should” relate to it. Instead, in the clearest words I can find, I will lead you into the
interweaving relationships I have been hearing and discovering between liminality, living, dying,
and music. I invite you to journey with me into the watery landscape of liminality.
Andrea Partenheimer
Holy Week, 2001
Missoula, MT.
.
Introducing Liminality
As an observer of and participant in the human condition
3
, it is clear that there are many
ways to be, and many ways tobecome, human. It is also clear that in the full, colorful spectrum
of individual responses to earthly existence, liminality is one element that ties us together at the
roots of humanity. At various points in our lives, and especially in times of crisis (e.g., the death
of a loved one), each of us encounters liminality: the enigmatic realm in which the old ways of
knowing and creating meaning fall away. In these times, we lose clarity, and are thrust into the
dark.
Throughout the ages, the presence of liminality has been consistent, yet the responses to it
have varied greatly. In contemporary Western culture, people harbor resistance to threshold
existence on personal and cultural levels. We consider it a sign of “weakness” when we reach
the limits of our intellectual, emotional, or spiritual capacities – the limits of our knowing. In
our discomfort, we condemn others for their liminality as well, attempting to help them return to
“normal” life – or simply ignoring them. As a result, the homeless man on the street is erased
from the eyes of those who pass by. The mentally ill woman is sequestered to an institution.
Dying is a hidden activity. In essence, the liminal condition is denied. Not only does this denial
prevent us from meeting and helping each other in times of pain and vulnerability; it also acts to
separate us from essential parts of ourselves and our wider humanity.
It is time for us, as individuals and as a culture, to create a new relationship with liminality.
I would like to propose that embracing the mysterious, unknowable liminal realm, in ourselves
and in relationship with others, is essential in recovering and sustaining a fully-living humanity.
We need dynamic waves
4
ofbothlight and darkness, stability and chaos, even strength and
“weakness”, to be alive and awake in our lives and at death.
3
I would like to acknowledge anthropologist and professor Alice Reich, who brought to my attention the
participant-observer paradox of the anthropologist. Alice Reich, “Thinking Anthropologically.” Distributed for
use at The Chalice of Repose Project, Autumn 1998.
4
Ken Thorp, M.D., developed the imagination of waves that join two polarities (e.g. rest, activity), showing the
inherent connection and movement between opposing states. In this imagination, it is healthy to have large,
dynamic “waveforms”. Low wave activity indicates illness. Ken Thorp, M.D. Lecture notes. “The Physiology of
Silence.” November 7 & 9, 2000.
One challenge we face throughout our lives is to not only shamelesslyacknowledge
liminality, but to embrace and cultivate our capacity tohonor the liminal experience, both in
ourselves and in the other. Honoring the unknown and unknowable is not within the
conventional wisdom of our current culture, which encourages us to remain in the known, in the
clarity of daylight consciousness, in that which is accompanied by a scientific explanation. In
subtle and more obvious ways, we are taught to stay away from everything in the realm of
darkness and mystery. Our preference for the “light” manifests across many levels. From the
light pollution that disturbs the natural rhythms of our bodies
5
to the religious imagery that
offers a super-abundance of light at the expense of the dark
6
, our saturated culture is still
grasping for the light, seemingly forgetting that light loses its potency when it has lost its
relationship with the darkness.
One way that our cultural denial of the dark, “nighttime” realm is clear is in our culture’s
strained relationship with death. As the most profound liminal experience on this earthly
journey, death has the power to shake our concepts of order and normalcy, and toss us into
chaotic, gut-level regions. Terror, grief, anger, depression, perhaps awe and humility consume
us for a time before spitting us out again into a state we recognize as human life. Humans tend
to associate order with meaning, and death is not inherently orderly or meaningful (from a
human standpoint at least). Death separates us from our most tangible self: our body, our
recognized form-of-being in the world. In our time, death is a private rather than a communal
process. Dying persons and their loved ones are often isolated in their own world of grief. After
death, grieving is hidden and judged by others according to timelines (“Isn’t he over it yet? She
died a year ago…”) Death – the ultimate unknown – is often viewed as a shame-laden defeat in
our goal-oriented culture.
Yet even as the cultural pendulum swings defiantly away from mystery, cultural movements
exist that recognize the cloaked yet essential elements within liminality and the dying process.
One such response is the path of music-thanatology. Through the offering of human presence
5
In his medical research, Thorp shows that cultural light-saturation parallels physiological patterns in the human
body. The current propensity for over-stimulated nervous systems and denial of rest relate to both our disturbed
relationship with the rhythms of light/dark in nature, and the imbalance between the activating processes in the body
(“light physiology”), and the recovery processes (“dark physiology.”) Ibid.
6
Fox suggests that recovering of the spiritual path of the Via Negativa (surrendering to emptiness, darkness, and
silence) is rediscovering the other face of God. T.S. Eliot writes, “I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come
and the transformative possibilities of music at the bedsides of the dying, music-thanatologists
are reclaiming and honoring the fullness of humanity, in all of its darkness and light.
Ultimately, the intention of this paper is to begin to develop a more human, more musical
response to liminality, particularly as it manifests in the experience of death and dying in
contemporary Western culture. To this end, I will begin by exploring the qualities of liminality,
looking at what it is and why it is often suppressed. I will then incorporate liminality into the
anthropological model of the rites of passage, which gives a language and pattern to the liminal
journey while preserving its mystery. I will explore ritual as a response to liminality, looking at
its historical role, as well as its significance today. I will then focus on the liminality of the
dying, as it manifests in our culture and in the work of music-thanatology, and will develop
several imaginations of how music actively accompanies the individual at the threshold between
life and death. Throughout this journey, I ask you to open yourself to the whisperings of
another, more hidden world: the world of liminality.
Deepening into Liminality: Exploring the Possibilities and the Dangers
“In this gap between ordered worlds, almost anything may happen.” — Victor Turner
7
Liminality, from an anthropological lens, is a threshold condition. As a threshold, a “gap
between ordered worlds”, it is most easily painted by negative description: what it isnot.
8
Anthropologist Victor Turner describes the attributes of liminal people as “necessarily
ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of
classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are
neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned… by law, custom,
and ceremonial.”
9
Indeed, liminality is a release from the structure, boundaries, obligations and
upon you, which shall be the darkness of God.” Matthew Fox, Original Blessing (Sante Fe: Bear & Company,
1983) 129-134.
7
Victor Turner,Dramas, Fields and Metaphors(Ithica and London: Cornell University Press, 1974) 13.
8
Victor Turner suggests that the ambiguous nature of liminal beings makes them difficult to define; however, their
attributes can be expressed through a rich variety of symbols, including death, the womb, invisibility, darkness,
wilderness, and the eclipse of sun and moon. In this paper, I will incorporate several of these symbols, which
indeed “speak” to the liminal condition more readily than pure description. Victor Turner,The Ritual Process:
Structure and Anti-Structure(Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969) 95.
9
Victor Turner,The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure(Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969) 95.
expectations of everyday existence. The liminal individual lets go – and is let go from – that
which customarily binds and defines her in the world.
One can image the liminal process as a general softening and loosening of personal and
relational habits and limits. The “solid” sense of self-knowledge and place in society becomes
liquefied and malleable. Former boundaries are rendered permeable and fluid, so the liminal
person can create new, previously unimagined, forms of relationship. S/he is also freer to move
within her own body, mind and soul.
As the liminal person undergoes social and spiritual dissolution of previous defining roles
and identities, s/he is thereforefree from typical constraints, boundaries and rules. S/he lives out
a form of sacred poverty
10
, a profound exhalation of self, society, and previous constructs of
meaning. S/he is virtually “disappeared” from society, being rendered invisible structurally, and
often physically as well
11
. Turner describes the liminal individual as a “tabula rasa”
12
(blank
slate) and as humanprima materia
13
: undifferentiated raw material. In musical language, his or
her usual tones-of-being in the world: her unique melody, his capacity for harmony with others,
is quieted. S/he moves away from audible toning (an outward expression of individuality), and
deepens into an expanded capacity for listening. Individualizing characteristics fall away, and
the liminal person becomes more androgynous. Her inner gesture is one of opening. S/he is
vulnerable, impressionable, and highly receptive.
Alongside the overall process of emptying into receptivity, liminality simultaneously
enables new life to stretch and break through pre-existing interior barriers. To return to the
dark/light metaphor, liminality may be imaged as a dimming of the light of everyday life. As at
dusk, the liminal individual experiences a movement into the darkness with every exhalation of
personal and cultural identity. Colors change and evolve in a dance between dark and light. The
clear boundaries and landmarks that used to guide the way become less visible and predictable.
Eventually, a silent, darkened world prevails. In this infinite world devoid of color and tone, the
liminal person is prepared to receive new light. In active stillness, s/he awaits the possibilities of
10
Victor Turner,The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual(Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1967) 99.
11
Victor Turner,Dramas, Fields and Metaphors(Ithica and London: Cornell University Press, 1974) 232.
12
Victor Turner,The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure(Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969)
103.
13
Victor Turner,The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual(Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1967) 98.
profound growth, even trans-formation. S/he awaits the dawning of possibility, and of new
music.
14
The potential of interior growth may manifest in several ways for the liminal person. While
powerless from a secular, external view, the liminal being may be imbued with sacred in-sight
and power.
15
Despite a blurry lack of clarity within the social system and often in personal
identity as well, the liminal condition is conducive to enlarging, clarifying, and intensifying
perspective and knowledge.
16
In a musical analogy, Turner states that liminality can lead to “the
highest pitch of self-consciousness.”
17
Perhapsbecause cultural boundaries and personal ego
limitations are stripped away, s/he has room to awake to a more potent cognizance of herself,
even to receive the deeper structure and meaning of the culture and universe. In the liminal
state, gnosis (deep knowledge) is often revealed.
18
At the same time that s/he experiences freedom from the constraints of the everyday world,
the liminal condition may enable a process offreedom to explore and dis-cover one’s deepest
and clearest self. This possibility of “continuing to strive without resolution, of going beyond
only by becoming what one is most deeply”
19
is an activity of sinking below the layers of
identity, and revealing the core “tones” of one’s individuality. For most of us, this journey home
into oneself is a life-long process. For all of us, it requires the willingness to open ourselves to
the welcoming darkness – and light – of liminality.
In contrast to the great freedom, the beautiful “spring of pure possibility”
20
inherent in
liminality, this threshold existence also presents dangers to the individual as well as the existing
social order. “Contrary to all structural principles, liminal people have been declassified but are
not yet reclassified; they have died in their old status and are not reborn in a new one. In a very
real sense, they are nonpersons, making all interaction with them unpredictable and
14
Until the high Middle Ages, dawn was described as “singing light.” Marius Schneider, “Acoustic Symbolism in
Foreign Cultures,”Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality, ed. Joseclyn Godwin. (Rochester,
VT: Inner Traditions, 1989) 71.
15
Victor Turner and Edith L.B. Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1978) 249.
16
Victor Turner,The Ritual Process (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969) 167,188.
17
Victor Turner,Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors(Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1974) 255.
18
Ibid., 255.
19
Walker-Bynum speaks of the potential to view the experience of female mystics in the Middle Ages as essentially
escaping and/or becoming. Caroline Walker-Bynum, “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols: A Critique of Victor
Turner’s Theory of Liminality,”Fragmentation and Redemption(New York: Zone Books, 1991) 49.
problematic.”
21
Turner’s insight that the liminal person becomes anonperson underscores the
crux of human discomfort around liminality. Religious scholars write about the fundamental
human need for spiritualbeing, suggesting that we have a core terror of interior chaos or
nonbeing.
22
Chaos implies an absence or annihilation of order and relationship. When the
liminal being is temporarily displaced from the social order, and previous forms of relationship
are dissolved, this creates undercurrents of chaos. The “music” emanating from the liminal
individual is received as dissonant with the larger whole, threatening to upset the balance. To
preserve the meaningful ordering of life, the liminal individual is often directed toward more
conventional “musical” expression – or s/he is rendered invisible and inaudible, treated as
through she is already dead.
Loss of order presents challenges to the threshold individual as well. Without order, sensing
is not possible, so the world – and the self – are unknowable.
23
The person living in liminal
chaos loses the capacity to orient, or even re-cognize, himself in the world. All layers of identity
and meaning are stripped away upon entering the void of unknowing. The harmonies and
rhythms of life lose coherence. For most, if not all of us, this is a terrifying prospect.
In addition to the loss of order and identity, the liminal individual faces the risks inherent in
openness and impressionability. In surrendering the tight control of her life so valued in our
society (again, creating discord with the norm), the liminal individual lives in heightened
receptivity. Open to wisdom from the cosmos and her own being, s/he is also vulnerable to
information, wisdom, and new realities offered by others. This can ultimately be beneficial or
harmful. An extreme example of this is the person in a cult who surrenders her own framework
and belief system to another’s, severs former relationships, and lives a reality unrecognizable
from her past life. In contrast to the liminal person who moves closer to her authentic self, the
liminal person may also choose or be persuaded to moveawayfrom her essence. Instead of
20
Victor Turner,Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society(Ithica and London: Cornell
University Press, 1974) 202.
21
Robert F. Murphy, et al., “Physical Disability and Social liminality: A Study in the Rituals of Adversity,”Social
Science & Medicine26 (1982) 237.
22
Mircea Eliade,The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion(New York: Harper & Row Publishers,
1957) 64.
23
Siegmund Levarie and Ernst Levy,Musical Morphology: A Discourse and a Dictionary(Kent, Ohio; The Kent
State University Press, 1983) 3.
composing her own life
24
, her life-music may become directed from the outside. The liminal
individual also may, in her warm pliability, simply be deeply wounded. Her melody of
biography may become blocked or confused – she may be stuck repeating one particular phrase,
or lost without a sense of future movement. In these and other ways, it is possible that the
liminal person may trans-form in ways that render her dysfunctional in society or even within
her own being. The fuzzy boundary of “mental illness” may be crossed in which the individual’s
reality conflicts irreconcilably with society. There are no guarantees; in a very real sense,
liminality is not a “safe” realm.
Liminality presents one final danger to the individual, which simultaneously creates tension
within the existing cultural order. While the majority of the time, people eventually re-emerge
from liminality into what they (and others) deem a more acceptable, or “normal”, human
existence, liminality does not operate according to either linear time or a predictable timeline. In
this threshold condition, the liminal being lives in a “moment in and out of time.”
25
Although
s/he may crane her ear toward the callings coming from the future, in the deepest realm of
liminality, the voice of the future is silent.
26
Future changes and promises of stability present
themselves only as intangible possibilities. Clear distinctions between (and expectations of)
past, present, and future blur as these streams of time merge together, potentizing the present
moment. S/he is suspended indefinitely in the Now.
Without the usual context of the past and future, the liminal person experiences even a
“short” liminal existence as infinite. This experience may create serious friction in a time-bound,
future-driven culture, especially when the liminal being does not reintegrate back into society
within a culturally-acceptable timeframe. In the end, the truth is that despite the strong human
propensity to survive in any state-of-being and to re-order our lives despite adversity and chaos,
people in the deepest liminal places may remain permanently lost.
24
David Aldridge writes of the “identity of a person as musical form that is continually being composed in the
world.” David Aldridge, “A Phenomenological Comparison of the Organization of Music and the Self,”The Arts in
Psychotherapy16 (1989) 91.
25
Ibid., 238.
26
Although music meets us in the vitality of the present, it only makes sense when perceived as part of the whole:
linked with the voice of the past, and stretching into the future. Robert Sardello offers the imagination that living
music may actually arrive into the present from the threshold of the future. Continuing this imagination, music may
present possibilities of growth and future movement for the liminal being whose experience is confined to the
present. Robert Sardello. Lecture notes. “The Spiritual Psychology of Love.” February 9 & 11, 1999.
An Initial Reply to the Voice of Liminality: Moving from Reaction to Response
Faced with the potential and risks of liminality, each individual and culture is given an
opportunity to respond. Unfortunately, in our current culture, the response is largely a one-sided
reaction to the “shadow side” of liminality. In the previous section, I explored some of the
reasons why this threshold state is resisted. To put it simply, liminality triggers our discomfort
with chaos, disorder, and all that is unknown to us. Many of our fears of it stem from a natural
impulse to keep the world sufficiently familiar and meaningful for us to navigate in it. When life
becomes too chaotic, we generally strive to return our world to a more palatable homeostasis. In
addition, liminality in others awakens our own susceptibility to liminality. As participants in a
culture that prides itself on knowledge and strength, we do not often welcome reminders of our
own naked vulnerability. In the end, resistance to the liminal portion of life is understandable,
perhaps even inherent,and also creates barriers that limit our growth as individuals and a human
community.
The contemporary cultural reaction to the threat and “problem” of liminality is perhaps most
clear in the case of those persons living in a prolonged, even permanent, condition of liminality.
In addition to the very ill and dying, the physically and mentally disabled populations, gay and
lesbian population, the homeless, monastics, criminals, and the mentally ill are among the
marginalized groups of people who do not “fit” into neat categories in our culture. They are
liminal beings, some by choice and many through circumstances of birth or destiny. Despite
individual circumstances, however, they are most often held responsible for their uncomfortable
and largely unchosen position on the fringes of society. Efforts are made to propel individuals
back into the working social order, if possible. Fewer efforts are made to understand and honor
the liminal condition, and to help the individual reintegrate (if s/he chooses to) in a creative,
healthy way. From previous experience as a social worker with homeless individuals and
families, I fully understand the conflict between the constructed reality/order and demands of the
social service system, and highly variable individual choices and realities. Many threshold
people “fall through the cracks”, the gap between realities.
Modern anthropologist Mary Douglas’ theory of cultural pollution illuminates both
liminality’s threat to society, as well as the subsequent societal impulse to ignore, repress and
shame liminal behavior if it cannot be easily shaped into an acceptable reintegrated form.
Douglas observes the phenomenon that people who are confusing and ambiguous, who defy
categorization, are most often regarded as “polluted”; therefore, they are considered dangerous
and are subject to taboo. Essentially, “dirt” is disorder; theunclear isunclean.
27
Again, the
language of darkness is used; this time, liminality is considered a “tainting” of the light. Douglas
observes that transitional beings (e.g. dying people) are viewed as polluted in themselves, and
threaten to pollute others as well. Thus, they are shunned, rendered invisible, and/or highly
encouraged (at times, virtually forced) to conform to the social order.
28
If we put the two faces of liminality together (freedom wedded with danger), we can begin
to sense the profound complexity of the threshold condition. There is nothing static about life at
the threshold. Instead, liminality presents us with a picture of continual evolution: that of
“undoing, dissolution, decomposition…accompanied by processes of growth, transformation,
and the reformation of old elements in new patterns.”
29
Both elements are absolutely necessary.
Indeed, Douglas points out that disorder spoils the materials of pattern – yet also provides the
materials of pattern.
30
Taking this dynamic wholeness into consideration, we see that liminality holds great gifts of
potentiality and creative trans-formation. On the other hand, liminality threatens the status quo
in a very real way, and presents significant challenges to the individual as well. Both sides are
real, and add to the living dimensions of the picture. The question then arises: given the
complexity of threshold existence, how do we proceed? How do we move beyond a cultural
reaction, and begin to develop a more authentic and encompassing cultural response to the gifts
and challenges of liminality?
Perhaps the first step toward a fuller humanity (and a fuller understanding of liminality) is to
realize that we are not, in fact, divided into purely “liminal” or “non-liminal” beings. In reality,
virtually nothing on earthly life, including the human being, is entirely orderly or disorderly,
formed or unformed, “pure” or “polluted”, sounding or silent. Instead, we are each a unique
mixture of the elements, showing a changing movement toward either polarity.
31
We are often
27
Victor Turner,The Forest of Symbols(Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1967) 97.
28
Mary Douglas,Purity and Danger(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) 96.
29
Victor Turner,The Forest of Symbols(Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1967) 99.
30
Mary Douglas,Purity and Danger(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) 94.
31
“Yesterday’s liminal becomes today’s stabilized.” Victor Turner,Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic
Action in Human Society(Ithica and London: Cornell University Press, 1974) 16.
metaphorically going into the dusk, or coming into the dawn – wavelike movements of changing
color, promises of the continuing evolution of our highly individual “music”. If one is truly
alive, being human is not a black or white condition. It means, in part, to change, grow, break
down and rebuild. It means embracing strengthand vulnerability.
I am not suggesting that it is easy to recognize and truly integrate the liminality in ourselves
and beyond ourselves. One primary and ongoing challenge within this process is to keep the
changing elements of order and disorder, dark and light, the mystery of liminality and stability of
the everyday, in healthy proportion. Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche movement, speaks to
this phenomenon of balancing the elements. “Too much security and the refusal to evolve, to
embrace change, leads to a kind of death. Too much insecurity, however, can also mean death.
To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move on into insecurity and seeming
disorder. In this way, we discover the new.”
32
Vanier suggests that we are “deadened” by a
refusal to engage in the liminal side of life. An active relationship between order and disorder
creates the dynamic variability needed for a healthy life.
33
Yet it is clear that we still have a long
way to go in embracing the darker, more enigmatic side of the human condition.
How can we reclaim both order and disorder as necessary human modalities, for ourselves
as individuals, and for others in their process of growth? How can we preserve the holy mystery
of the darkness while bringing liminality into the light of our consciousness? How can we
develop a healthier, more compassionate relationship with others in the liminal realm? As we
continue our exploration, we will take a look at one constructive way in which cultures have
traditionally responded to liminality, and its relevance to our time. We will focus in particular
on the experience of death and dying in our culture.
Death, Dying, and the Rites of Passage
The passage of life itself suggests a constantly recurring pattern of movement from order to chaos, from
chaos to order, again and again… Our universe is constantly evolving: the old order gives way to a new
32
Jean Vanier,Becoming Human (New York: Paulist Press, 1998) 13.
33
I would like to thank Therese Schroeder-Sheker for introducing me to the importance of dynamic variability
(Light and dark! Activity and rest! Sounding and silence!) in life and music, and to my voice teacher, Sharon
Murfin, and harp teacher, Linda Schneck, for imprinting the living qualities of dynamic variability into my being.
order and this in turn crumbles when the next order appears. It is no different in our lives in the
movement from birth to death.” — Jean Vanier
34
Throughout time, one way that cultures have worked through the seemingly universal
discomfort ignited by liminality is through ritual. The anthropological rites of passage model
shows the archetypal pattern of liminality: an active waveform beginning in the knowable light
world, sinking into the darkness, and re-emerging again into the light trans-formed. It also
illuminates a ritual path that can accompany the individual (and society) through liminality and
safely out the other side.
The tripartite sequence of the rites of passage was first described by ethnographer Arnold
Van Gennep. In his bookThe Rites of Passage, Van Gennep describes the fairly universal
pattern that individuals and groups go through in times of crisis or biological passages such as
puberty and death. The stages, simply defined, are:
1.Separation – The individual is separated from her/his former role, status, or identity.
Symbolic language of death describes this stage (e.g., “dying” to an old way of life.)
2.Liminality or Transition– The individual lives in-between symbolic dissolution of former
role, status, or identity, and re-birth into a new status or identity. S/he is “naked”,
ambiguous, undefined, changeable. This is characteristically a painful stage, yet is
potentially a creative and sacred time of trans-formation.
3.Reincorporation– The individual has more-or-less successfully emerged (been “birthed”)
into a trans-formed social and individual identity.
35
This typical movement fromseparationthroughliminality toreincorporation
36
occurs
regardless of whether the individual is supported through ritual. This has been demonstrated in
studies that span time and cultures, including studies highlighting different perspectives of the
dying process.
34
Jean Vanier,Becoming Human (New York: Paulist Press, 1998) 12.
35
For additional descriptions of these stages, refer to Arnold Van Gennep,The Rites of Passage (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1996), or Victor Turner,Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human
Society (Ithica and London: Cornell University Press,1974) 232.
36
Although the rites of passage is delineated as a clear three-stage progression, in reality the experience is often
more complex. Smaller “waves” of activity may be perceptible within one stage. For example, the seriously ill
person, while portraying the overarching qualities of liminality, may “taste” separations and reincorporations,
actually moving freely between all three experiences.
A recent study of cancer patients shows that upon cancer diagnoses, an immediate
separationfrom their former lives and identities tossed them into the chaotic landscape of
liminality. In the acute onset of liminality upon diagnosis, the individuals were actively
confronted with their own mortality, becoming disoriented and fearful of loss of control.
Throughout the illness, these patients remained suspended in liminality to varying degrees,
articulating changing limits in time, space, relationships, and sense of self. They spent much of
their time and energy constructing and re-constructing meaning. Several of them were able to
speak to their interior process of liminality as it mirrored their bodily experience. For these
individuals, “the experience of liminality is firmly grounded in the changing and experiencing
body that houses both the disease and the self.”
37
Liminality occurs and presents challenges to the terminally ill person across all levels:
physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually. In this final stretch of the journey,
reincorporationmay occur in numerous ways that are highly unique to each individual. Among
these include times of reincorporation during the dying process, through the construction of
meaning, new possibilities for relationship, and renewed forms of identity. In addition, death
itself is a reincorporation: a physiological reintegration with the earth, as well as an opportunity
for spiritual reincorporation.
Along with the dying individual, the caregivers’ life remains highly liminal throughout the
dying process.
38
Upon the terminal diagnosis and need of care, the caregiver begins to surrender
(separate from) her usual roles, social life, and lifestyle to concentrate on caring for her loved
one. S/he quickly moves into the intense, highly changeable life of caregiving. Her perception
of time changes to persistent timelessness. Her relationships with others may change drastically
during this time, as conventional boundaries give way to more fundamental needs. The
abnormal becomes normal. Friends of visiting family members may sleep on the floor, cook,
clean, do laundry, and visit during unusual times of day. The caregiver often intensifies or
distances herself from relationships, depending on the level of support s/he receives. During this
unusually intimate and vulnerable time in which s/he is separating from a loved one, life-long
relationships with others are often established. In a similar experience as the dying person, the
37
Little, Miles, et al., “Liminality: A Major Category of the Experience of Cancer Illness,”Social Science and
Medicine 47 (Nov.15, 1998) 1485.
caregiver may experience glimpses ofreincorporation throughout the illness, but usually makes
a more complete reintegration into society after the death of the loved one, during the completion
of the active grieving process.
Initial research into the subject shows these stories as typical. Observations of people in
transition: those in crisis, and those going through major thresholds (e.g. marriage, death) reveal
the nuances of liminality, yet show that the tripartite rites of passage experience has remained
relatively consistent over time.
39
In contrast, the way the liminal individual has been supported
during the transition – or has been left alone – has evolved significantly.
Traditionally, the liminal individual in most cultures has been accompanied through at least
the most common and pressing thresholds (e.g. dying) through the medium of ritual.
40
The
purpose of the public rites of passage ritual, which can range from a very simple celebration (e.g.
birthday party) to an elaborate community-wide ritual (e.g. wedding or funeral), is twofold: to
facilitate and acknowledge external and internal change. The ritual process functions to ensure a
“successful” passage for the individual or group, while alleviating fear and anxiety around an
unsettling time. The patterned ritual may also serve to meaningfully accompany and
acknowledge an individual or group in the transition to a new role or status. Despite its broad
scope, the rites of passage ritual is largely acultural response tobiological inevitability.
41
Typical examples of rites of passage rituals are evident in many cultures during life transitions
such as birth, puberty, marriage, major illness, and death.
38
Sankar, Andrea, Ph.D. “Ritual and Dying: A Cultural Analysis of Social Support for Caregivers,”The
Gerontologist 31 (Feb.1991) 43-50.
39
The experiences of those living in more permanent forms of liminality may be somewhat different. While
including the same qualities of the stages of separation, liminality, and reincorporation, the “stages” often spiral and
interweave with one another rather than forming what can be recognized as a more straightforward progression.
The validity of the rites of passage model as universal phenomenon has also been challenged by scholars such as
Caroline Walker-Bynum. From her study of female mystics in the Middle Ages (who lived a form of continual
liminal structurelessness, enabling freedom from the binding social structure and communion with God), Walker-
Bynum concludes that the notion of a single, clear-cut rites of passage transformation is derived from archetypal
male experience. Her study challenges us to expand our concept of liminality to incorporateall human experience.
Refer to Caroline Walker-Bynum, “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols,”Fragmentation and Redemption(New
York: Zone Books, 1991).
40
An 11
th
c. monastic death ritual, in Cluny, France, has been an important historical source to the field of music-
thanatology. Besides detailing the central place of music, the Cluniac ritual is significant in that it closely parallels
the liminal journey of the dying monk. I extend gratitude to Fred Paxton for introducing me to his work on this
subject. Fred Paxton, “Liturgy and Anthropology: A Monastic Death Ritual of the Eleventh Century” (Missoula,
MT.: St. Dunstan’s Press, 1993).
41
Myerhoff, Barbara. “Rites of Passage: Process and Paradox,”Celebration: Studies in Festivities and Ritual, ed.
Victor Turner (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982) 109.
Through his fieldwork in an African culture, Victor Turner showed that rites of passage
rituals are more vividly apparent and defined in smaller, stable, seasonally-connected societies.
42
However, it is possible to recognize the same rites of passage progression in contemporary
Western culture through more subtle and individualized rituals such as christenings, graduation
ceremonies, initiations into the Greek system or priesthood, marriages, and extreme unction at
death. To an extent, we continue to utilize ritual in times of transition. Our approach to ritual,
and care of those in times of “passage”, however, has shifted to fit the tone of our society.
Out of necessity and choice, our culture employs “transition technicians”
43
or “threshold
workers” (e.g., doctors, ministers/priests, counselors, lawyers) to assist people through certain
transitions. Normally, their role is not to provide either public or private ritual, but rather
personalized physical, emotional, financial and/or spiritual support. This support is not
universal, and often comes at a cost to the individual. Liminal people (e.g., young adolescents
entering the threshold of puberty) often find themselves at a crossroads with no one to guide
them, and no ritual to make meaning of a significant transition.
Rituals (and human support) during the critical threshold between life and death are often
insufficient as well. Whereas the Catholic rite of extreme unction can be a powerful end-of-life
ritual, it is only offered to and requested by a particular segment of the dying population. In
contrast to earlier times, in which physical preparation of the body was done by family members,
possibly serving as a difficult yet intimate ritual in the separation stage, today we rely on the
undertaker to prepare the body – an act that is much less personal for the survivors, and much
more hidden.
The purpose of the funeral (at least in a Christian context) is to symbolically enable the
soul/spirit of the deceased individual to reincorporate to the spiritual world, while
simultaneously supporting those in the initial stages of grief. In my experience, however, the
funeral ceremony encompasses a broad spectrum of “success” or “failure” as a meaningful rites
of passage ritual. Even when the ceremony is significant, this public ritual (usually the only one
during the dying process) is a mere beginning of the reincorporation process for the family and
other loved ones. The liminal grieving state, in which people live as if positioned between the
42
InThe Forest of Symbols, Turner describes his experience of the rituals of the African Ndembu people. The
adolescent “coming of age” rituals for both boys and girls are particularly clear examples of community-structured
and supported rites of passage. Victor Turner,The Forest of Symbols(Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1974).
worlds of the living and the dead
44
, often continues for an indefinite period of time. Grieving
individuals slowly reintegrate back into normal roles, responsibilities, and social relationships.
Depending on the circumstances of the death and the individual’s process, it may take many
years for the grieving individual to fully reincorporate back into life. During this time, s/he may
be supported through her family, friends, or work environment – or s/he may largely be left on
her own to find her own way back to the “light” of everyday life.
Various scholars who analyze modern Western culture conclude that rites of passage rituals
are still necessary and useful in our time. However, whereas meaningful rites of passage
ceremonies were traditionally community-based, today the meaning has shifted from the group
to the individual. Instead of community-wide rituals, even rituals that involve commitment of
others (e.g., christenings) focus on the individual instead of the larger community. Additionally,
the individual is often left to construct rituals, or to make current rituals truly transformative.
This individual responsibility torecognize a need for and tocreate ritual rather than to naturally
progress through ready-made and supported rituals may increase a propensity in our society
toward mental illness as well as a general sense of isolation and despair.
45
Myerhoff concludes:
There is every reason to believe that rites of passage are as important now as they have always
been, for our social and psychological well-being. Indeed, given the fragmented, confusing,
complex, and disorderly nature of modern experience, perhaps they are more important: to orient
and motivate us in the predictable and unique life crises that present themselves. But now we are
left to devise for ourselves the myths, rituals, and symbols needed to endow life with clarity and
significance.
46
Myerhoff’s perspective is sobering, yet exciting, for it leads us into a wide array of
possibilities. Instead of suggesting fixed answers, it sparks questions that urge us into creative
response. If the rituals surrounding death (and other areas of liminality) are indeed lacking in
scope and meaning, what does this mean for us, asparticipants in andcreators of
47
a culture?
43
Lloyd W. Warner,Religion: An Anthropological View(New York: Random House, 1966) 306.
44
Arnold Van Gennep,The Rites of Passage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960) 147.
45
Barbara G. Myerhoff, Linda A. Camino and Edith Turner, “Rites of Passage: An Overview,”The Encyclopedia of
Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1995) 385.
46
Barbara Myerhoff, “Rites of Passage: Process and Paradox,”Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual, ed.
Victor Turner (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982) 129.
47
I extend gratitude to anthropology professor Alice Reich, who both gave me this language, and the passion to
believe this. Alice Reich. Lecture notes. “The Anthropology of Death and Dying.” March 21 &23, 2000.
Is it acceptable to leave the majority of the physical, emotional, and spiritual care of the dying to
their families and medical personnel? If not, how can we re-envision new forms of “rites of
passage” that are relevant to our time? What role does the dying person have in directing a
meaningful passing?
What can we do? How can we better hear the call of the liminal human being?
Interlude
Nine years ago, I had an experience that enabled me to hear the modern-day cry of
liminality in a new way, and inflamed my desire to respond. At the time, I was working as a
“case manager” with homeless people. It was wintertime, and we were in the middle of the brief
rainy season in California. Along with many of the people in the shelter, I was sick. I had a high
fever, and was worried that I had some kind of infection. I decided to ride along on the weekly
“health van” trip to the free health clinic. Children and adults squeezed together in the crowded
vehicle. We were not “homeless people” and “case worker” in that van. We were all simply
sick people who wanted to feel better! I waited my turn in the lobby, and was finally seen by a
nurse. I chose not to tell her that I worked at the shelter, knowing that she could assume I was
homeless. I noticed that she kept her distance from me, and that she didn’t seem to listen as I
described my symptoms. She seemed to see through me, and wore an expression of tired
disdain. I noticed all this, and thought: she is simply another overworked nurse.
Then the conversation turned. She said that I would have to return to the clinic the
following Tuesday to sign some paperwork. I was working the following Tuesday. I didn’t tell
her the reason why I couldn’t return; I simply said I couldn’t, and tried to gently negotiate with
her about another time. She was insistent, quickly becoming angry and argumentative. Her
voice was tense and hard, and rising in volume. It didn’t take long for me to realize that in order
to diffuse the situation, I would need to reveal my secret. In a quiet voice, I told her that I was
not, in fact, a resident of the shelter. Her response was dramatic. Completely disregarding the
anger she had just expressed, she moved closer, warmly touched my shoulder, and said, “Oh, it’s
sogood of you to work with these people. How can you do it?” I don’t remember what I said. I
am sure that whatever it was, it was insufficient. I would like to respond now.
Responding to the Call of Liminality
Sounding into the Silence:
In our current culture, liminal beings suffer. They suffer because they experience profound
changes in identity, personal relationships, and relationship with the social structure. And they
suffer because most people in our time cannot cope with the tension that liminality brings.
Instead of welcoming the gifts of vulnerability and creativity that the liminal person has to offer,
the foot of a threatened society tries to squelch liminality once and for all. The heart of the
matter is that the liminal individual is no longer related to as a human being.
This unfortunate contemporary situation is evidenced by the experiences of a great variety
of liminal people, including the homeless community and the dying. In his study of society’s
evolving relationship with death, Philippe Aries terms the current era the “invisible death.” He
describes the current situation:
A heavy silence has fallen over the subject of death. When this silence is broken, as it
sometimes is in American today, it is to reduce death to the insignificance of an ordinary
event that is mentioned with feigned indifference. Either way, the result is the same: Neither
the individual nor the community is strong enough to recognize the existence of death.
48
Aries goes on to say that this attitude of silence or “feigned indifference” has not succeeded in
easing a fear of death; instead, it has intensified it. He continues, “There seems to be a
correlation between the “evacuation” of death… and the return of this same death, no longer
tame.”
49
By desperately hushing the subject of death – and the dying people themselves – we
dishonor them, and dishonor ourselves. We are actively refusing to listen to the person before
us, a refusal that has consequences on many levels. Jean Vanier talks about one simple yet
powerful way to turn our faces back to the liminal person. This is through the phenomenon of
naming.
When nothing is named, confusion grows and with it comes anguish. To name something is to bring
it out of chaos, out of confusion, and to render it understandable. It is a terrible thing when certain
48
Philippe Aries,The Hour of Our Death (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981) 614. This material was introduced to
me by Fred Paxton.
49
Ibid., 614.
realities, such as death, are never talked about and remain hidden. When these realities are not
named, they haunt us.
50
Naming death is an audible recognition of the liminal unknown, a simple recognition that
through its very act brings the invisible back into visibility. The silenced is sounded, the
deadened is birthed back to life, and the chaotic reinstated into a larger order. The formless is
given the opportunity to trans-form. The possibility of transformation extends to the one who
names as well. In recognizing the liminal being, the one who names is stretched to wider
dimensions of life within and around herself. And in forming a relationship with the liminal
individual, s/he is opened to inner growth and the surprises of transformation.
The act of naming death, or sounding the dying person, is one of shining the soft light of
human love into the wilderness of liminality. It is an act of restoring humanity, and restoring
relationship. In this context, naming (literally or metaphorically) is not done with the intention to
impose limits
51
, or to fixate something in the glaring light of the everyday world; instead, the
naming breathes life while leaving room for interplay of shadow and light, and for the mystery
which resides at the center of all liminal activity. Essentially, what Vanier calls “naming” is a
conscious choice to wake up, to open one’s eyes and ears to the calling of humanity in the other,
and in oneself. It is a decision to include and encircle all of life, and to be in active relationship
with it.
50
Jean Vanier,Becoming Human (New York: Paulist Press, 1998) 25.
51
In the mystical path of the Via Negativa, it is understood that names and definitions impose limits. In this stream,
God is beyond human knowledge, wholly incomparable and beyond naming. In the context of “naming” the liminal
individual, our challenge, then, is to name while also recognizing the inherent quality of “namelessness” in the
other. Veselin Kesich, “Via Negativa,”The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Simon &
Schuster Macmillan, 1995) 252.
The Sounding of Music-Thanatology:
The recognition of the dying individual can occur on many levels, and manifests through
words, intention, touch, musical substance, human presence and the warmth of the eyes. The
contemporary response of music-thanatology includes all of these elements of naming or
“sounding” liminality, all of which occur within some form of relationship. Before exploring the
ways in which the individual is sounded, however, it is important to sketch out the wider context
within which the sounding occurs. How does liminality show itself in the vigil setting?
As the music-thanatologist crosses through the threshold of the doorway, she walks into a
liminal world. In this world, time is loosened from its scheduled regularity and urgency, and
acquires a plasticity and spaciousness. Relationships with the outside world are put on hold, and
the dying person occupies the physical and energetic center of activity. The individual is usually
lying in bed, in a bodily posture of vulnerability and receptivity
52
. If s/he is in a hospital, her
clothes have been replaced by a hospital gown, one visible way in which her identity has been
peeled away. S/he may be surrounded by pictures and other physical mementos– or may have
none of these tangible links to the life s/he has led. They may no longer be necessary.
The dying individual’s physiology is often in a state of unbinding from earthly rhythms. His
or her bodily changes can be observed in the quality and pattern of respiration and pulse, skin
temperature, nuances in expression and color of the countenance, and shifts in body position.
Physiological chaos may show itself, among other ways, through respiratory distress or through
apnea, a temporary cessation in breathing. Sometimes pain or anxiety is expressed through
words, grimaces, and bodily gestures. Open warmth may also be expressed. In the end stages of
life, the dying person communicates primarily through the windows of the eyes, an intimate form
of “speaking”. I am often struck by the depth that is possible within this unmasked meeting.
If loved ones are present, they often form an outer circle of protection around the dying
person. In this setting, the individual’s human relationships have been sifted down to the roots:
those who remain at her side now are those with whom s/he is most deeply woven. Words,
inadequate in this profound time, are minimal and essential. Communication occurs through
shared silences, and through the tender medium of touch. Tears are common; a mixed substance
52
Schroeder-Sheker observes that our capacity for listening and reception is markedly different when we are either
vertical and strong, or horizontal and vulnerable. Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Anointing the Dying with Sound:
Music-Thanatology and the Care of the Dying,”Caduceus40 (Summer 1998) 26.
of grief and love. If death is imminent, intensity rings in the room; there is an underlying tension
of expectant waiting, and the charged significance of impending transitions.
This description of liminality at the bedside of the dying is not universal, nor does it limit
one’s imagination of what one may encounter. Indeed, one characteristic of liminality is its
suppleness and unbounded nature. The internal and external “terrain” created by each person is
absolutely unique. His or her physical condition and disease process, internal struggles or
acceptance, pain/discomfort level, family dynamics, emotional waves, etc. remain particular to
each individual in each hour. Yet with all of the possible variations, there is almost always an
overarching and tangible presence of liminality, a presence which sounds if we are quiet enough
to listen.
Given this picture of liminality, how does the music-thanatologist respond? Even before
meeting the dying person in her liminal world, the music-thanatologist engages in an activity of
sounding. This preliminary element of “naming” occurs quietly, outside the hospital room. This
is the interior sounding of the music-thanatologist, a continual process of looking deeply within,
acknowledgingwith love all light and dark currents found within oneself, and engaging in a
process of conscious refinement and growth. By embracing the liminal substances of disorder
and order, darkness and light in her own being, the music-thanatologist widens his or her
capacity to be able to meet both the difficult and beautiful qualities of the patient at the bedside.
This ongoing process of inner recognition or sounding also contributes to the depth and breadth
of the music s/he can offer into the world.
Related processes of sounding liminality play a central role in the relationship with the
patient as well. The music-thanatologist does not have a rigid script from which s/he enters and
responds to this unique situation. S/he does not have a recipe book that tells her which piece of
music to play for a highly-liminal person, and how to play it.
53
Instead, to the best of her ability,
s/he remains inwardly open and awake,actively listening to the colors, textures, and tones
arising within this individual’s landscape of liminality.
In her time of witnessing and meeting the dying one, the musician-clinician interweaves a
capacity forengagedlistening with one ofsoundingthe individuality of that person. S/he greets
the dying person by name: softly “sounding” the particular tonal substance that defined him or
53
I am indebted to Therese Schroeder-Sheker for emphasizing the importance of going beyond rigid repertoire and
recipes, and meeting the dying individual within a context of dynamic, living musical relationship.
her throughout life. S/he touches him on the forehead, and feels the unique rhythmic qualities of
the pulse. S/he quiets her inner congestions, listens, and pays attention to the subtle and
expressed bodily and interior conditions of the patient. S/he breathes with him or her, an interior
“sounding” of this individual, and another way to inwardly align with his bodily rhythms.
Breathing, a critical but unconscious activity during most of our lives, becomes a central means
of connection as other layers of identity fall away.
54
I often experience this activity ofbreathing
with as a gift, a reminder of our linked humanity.
Through the medium of music, the music-thanatologist then begins to audibly sound the
patient into the world. One of the primary ways that she does this is by musically breathing with
the patient – in other words, allowing the rhythms and quality of the patient’s breathing to guide
the musical tempo, phrasing, and dynamic nuancing. The breathing itself becomes an integral
part of the musical material. It is very possible that by sounding a patient’s breathing pattern, the
music can act as a guide or an orientation within an ambiguous liminal landscape.
55
Throughout the musical vigil, the “sounding” of the patient emerges out of a living,
changing relationship between music-thanatologist and the individual who meets her. This
relationship can be imaged as an activity of musical accompaniment, or sounding-with-another.
Through phenomenological observations of the changing physiological and interior conditions of
the patient (as evidenced by vital signs, perceived and reported levels of anxiety, fear,
sleeplessness, etc.)
56
, knowledge of the patient’s disease process, and a living understanding of
the reorganizing properties of music, the musician-clinician sounds the patient through music
that is highly responsive to his or her condition in that moment. Specific combinations of
musical materials (e.g. melody, harmony, rhythm, major or minor modalities, dynamic
variability, etc.) are offered, all of which directly relate to the patient, either reflecting his
process, offering a compensatory gesture, or working toward equilibrium and homeostasis
57
.
54
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Shaping a Sanctuary with Sound: Music-Thanatology and the Care of the Dying,”
Pastoral Music(Feb.-March 1998) 32.
55
Speaking specifically about coma patients in Intensive Care Units, David Aldridge comments on the efficacy of
echoing the rhythm and breathing pattern of the patient. He states, “we might argue that such unconscious patients,
struggling to orient themselves in time and space, are further confused by an atmosphere of continuing loud and
disorientating random noise. For patients seeking to orient themselves… the basic rhythmic context of their own
breathing may provide the focus for that orientation.” David Aldridge, “Where am I? Music Therapy Applied to
Coma Patients,”Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine(June 1990) 345.
56
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Anointing the Dying with Sound: Music-Thanatology and the Care of the Dying,”
Caduceus 40 (1998) 22.
57
Ibid., 25.
Additional “materials” of beauty, intimacy, and reverence are poured into the music
58
, affecting
the living dynamic of the musical delivery. In all of this, the patient is taken out of the realm of
invisibility. S/he is seen, and s/he is sounded into the world.
Music: Bridging Chaos, Offering Cosmos
“[Music] stands halfway between thought and phenomenon, between spirit and matter… like and unlike
each of the things it mediates…” — Heinrich Heine
59
Now that I have introduced the work of music-thanatology as a means of “sounding”
humanity, I would like to expand the picture by looking more deeply into the nature of music. In
the limited scope of this paper, it is impossible to illuminate all of the ways in which music is a
suitable medium to meet the liminality in another. However, I would like to explore the subject
of music as active mediator in some depth, looking at why this quality is needed, the
characteristics of the liminal individual that enable music to be effective, and some of the ways
in which music creatively acts as a mediator and guide at the threshold. I will then develop a
couple of imaginations of how music can actively accompany the dying individual in his or her
journey toward unbinding.
As described throughout this paper, the liminal individual (both throughout life, and at the
end of life) lives in a state of unformed chaos. For the liminal being, the world has lost its
familiar stability, grounding, and orientation. Former ways of being, acting, and relating are no
longer relevant. As knowledge of his or her identity and place in the world are slowly erased,
they are replaced by the deep resounding of unanswerable questions. S/he stands, wide awake,
at the doorway between an old world, and new possibility. This threshold is simultaneously one
of suspended waiting, and one of arriving. It can also be imaged as a state of being lost and not
yet found. This lostness is lived out within him or herself, in relationships with other human
beings, even in relationship with the divine.
58
Schroeder-Sheker writes, “The way in which each person dies is an important as the way in which the person
lived, meaning that beauty, reverence, dignity, and intimacy are central to humanity at any time in the life cycle, and
especially so in death.” Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Music for the Dying,”Journal of Holistic Nursing 12 (1994)
89.
59
Dossey, Larry, M.D. “The Body as Music,”Music and Miracles, compiled by Don Campbell (Wheaton, IL:
Quest Books, 1992) 55.
As the liminal individual journeys into the lostness of liminality, defining characteristics and
masks fall away. S/he becomes inwardly “naked”, open, receptive. Schroeder-Sheker speaks to
the quality of expanded listening that is possible at the end of life:
In music thanatology, the patient only receives. Theentire surface of the skin can become an
extension of the ear, thus enabling the patient to absorb infirmary music; creating the possibility for
even deeper emotional, mental, and spiritual reception.
60
For the music-thanatologist, it is both a great privilege and responsibility to be with the
individual at the end of life. S/he is gifted by being welcomed as an intimate witness to the
vulnerability inherent in the liminal journey, a journey which has the potential to encompass the
most human and the most sacred of earthly experiences.
61
In turn, the music-thanatologist
responds to this gift by offering both her presence-of- being and music with reverence and
sensitivity. I carry the image of quietly kneeling down before the dying person, expressing
gratitude for being allowed to accompany him or her along the sacred pilgrimage of unbinding. I
also hold deep gratitude for the music, which has a remarkable capacity to meet another human
being in nearly any emotional, physiological, or mental condition, including pain, anxiety, and
deep vulnerability. What are the qualities of music that enable such a meeting, one that
inevitably changes both the listener and the musician?
Music has been recognized throughout time for its capacity to bridge relationships. In the
6
th
c., Roman statesman and philosopher Boethius said that music was an all-pervading force,
streaming through the universe, a current weaving body, soul, and spirit together.
62
In the 21
st
c., Schroeder-Sheker addresses the dimensions of “weaving together” that are possible through
the human voice. In her perspective, the larynx is a literal threshold in the body, regarded by
many as a temple. At this gateway, spirit and matter meet as dead air is transformed, and living
tone is born into the world. The human voice, in sounding through the threshold of the larynx,
connects the inner experience of the singer’s body, and the outside world. Singing also tangibly
connects the singer and the listener. As air travels through the larynx, and moves the vocal cords
60
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Music for the Dying: A Personal Account of the New Field of Music Thanatology –
History, Theories, and Clinical Narratives,” Advances9 (Winter 1993) 44-45.
61
Victor Turner, “Myth and Symbol,”International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David L. Sills (The
Macmillan Company & the Free Press, 1968) 579.
62
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Music for the Dying: A Personal Account of the New Field of Music-Thanatology –
History, Theories, and Clinical Narratives,”Journal of Holistic Nursing 12, No.1 (March 1994) 89.
of the singer, it is released in sculpted waves. These waves reach out to and “knead” both the
flow of the air, and the physiology and interiority of the receiver.
63
Instruments, as well, have long been associated with functions of bridging not only
humanity, but also earth and heaven. The harp, a primary instrument in music-thanatology, is
often imaged as a solid ship journeying in the watery, liminal realms between life and death.
64
Ethnomusicologist Marius Schneider describes music making as a “borderline occurrence
between the tangible and the intangible, whereby the intangible is actually produced out of the
tangible.”
65
Schroeder-Sheker adds,
“Living music can only occur at the threshold where matter and spirit meet, where spirit impregnates
matter, and is then made audible… In living, streaming music, the human, even the broken and
wounded human, as either musical doer or musical receiver can experience the presence of the divine
in multiple ways, in body, soul, and spirit.”
66
Music meets the liminal individual in a variety of ways. As a mediator, music has the
potential to make audible the qualities of the threshold. As a medium that unfolds in time rather
than space, music’s potency touches into the present moment, then seemingly dissolves. Like
the liminal individual, its emphasis is onbecoming, rather than fixed being.
67
Additionally, the
qualities of movement, structure, color, and variability within music give the possibility for the
musician (and listener) to traverse nearly any landscape.
An artful practitioner of music can sound the threshold in innumerable ways. S/he can
create a dark, enigmatic, watery terrain (echoing the depths of liminality) by utilizing such
elements as less familiar scales or modes, the interiority of minor modality, unmetered melody,
repetition, and unmetered, legato movement. The judicious use of close dissonance, mixed into
consonance, could add the pulsation of tension and relaxation. S/he could also create a particular
landscape (such as the one described), then contrast it, using materials such as meter, dynamics,
major modality, a different timbre, a more staccato expression. The new landscape is important,
casting new qualities of light and musical substance. Yet, thecontrast itself is also important,
63
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “The Imagination of the Body: The Larynx as a Second Generative Seat,” (Missoula,
MT.: St. Dunstan’s Press, 2000).
64
Marius Schneider, “Acoustic Symbolism in Foreign Cultures,”Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the
Interpretation of Reality, ed. Joscelyn Godwin (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1989) 70-73.
65
Ibid., 76.
66
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “I Heard the Call of the Seraph: Working with the Visionlieder of Joa Bolendas,”So
That You May Be One(Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Books, 1997) 57.
67
Suzanne LangerFeeling and Form: A Theory of Art(New York: Charles Scribner’s Son, 1953) 334.
creating an entirely new color and vitality in the transition between worlds. What color and
shade, for instance, are created in the threshold between a well-established minor world, then a
major one? Yet another option is for the musician to alternate the sounding of her instrument
with silence, letting the music of silence permeate the room, then drawing new tones out of the
deep realm of silence.
68
The possibilities of color, tone, and relationships are limitless and highly
creative, much like the liminal state itself.
The musical substances that surround the dying individual not only honor him or her by
meeting her at the threshold. Music also makes audible the materials needed to create new
possibilities of relationship and re-orientation. Through being “sounded” through tonal
substance that reflects the subtleties of physiological and interior changes, the dying one is given
the opportunity to listen to him or herself in a new way. The use of harmonies (either vocal or
instrumental) can facilitate relationships across all levels, re-awakening the meaning and
orientation of vertical and horizontal connections. The sounding of either the individual’s
respiratory rhythm, or a steady grounding of musical meter, can provide a sense of order.
69
A
beautiful melody can be experienced as an meaningful “ordering” as well, as each phrase comes
into being and slowly creates an integrated whole.
In these and other ways, the dying individual is given audible tools to relocate herself in
time and space, allowing her to both hear and “see” herself again. A beacon is shone into the
darkness. Music can assist a disoriented, liminal person in returning to his center, her axis
mundi, a sacred place of active transition which gives him or her “orientation in his attempts to
transform chaos into cosmos.”
70
Schroeder-Sheker adds to this description of music as mediator,
addressing the connection made possible between the worlds:
68
In music-thanatology, alternating sounding with silence is an important part of the musical delivery and
prescription. In Sardello’s imagination of silence, silence is not simply an absence of sound. It is a world of
wholeness, and the language of music. It is possible for tone to be “wrapped in silence.” This mysterious and
wonderful meeting of sounding and silence seems very relevant to a liminal being who has lost her “voice” in the
world. Robert Sardello. Lecture notes. “The Spiritual Psychology of Silence.” October 3 & 5, 2000.
69
According to Marius Schneider, “Rhythm is the creator and upholder of the world. It is the law of periodically
flowing order… [Music], so long as it has not fallen victim to a chaotic way of thinking, has always been regarded
as the archetype of the cosmic order. Marius Schneider, “Acoustic Symbolism in Foreign Cultures,”Cosmic
Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality, ed. Joscelyn (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1989) 68.
70
Julien Ries, “Cross,”The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Simon & Schuster
MacMillan, 1995) 165.
[Music] can reestablish the earth-sky axis for the patient, connect the earthly physical materiality to
the spacious transcendent, surrounding the dying with a setting of refined beauty, creating a window,
an audible glimpse, into the immediate future.
71
In describing Gregorian chant, a genre that is utilized in the practice of music-thanatology,
Marius Schneider writes that it creates “a route or path, a vehicle of movement… Its gentle
ripples are a river or path that indicate to the person praying the best way through the varied
terrain of pleasant valleys, dark gorges, and harsh mountains in the liturgical landscape.”
72
One
can expand this imagination beyond the liturgical landscape, as well, envisioning music as an
tonal compass and supportive guide through unpredictable interior and physiological terrain.
To date, there have been many imaginations offered of how music relates to and assists the
dying individual. All add to the creative way in which we can expand and deepen our work with
the dying. To this end, I would like to briefly develop three imaginations that I have been
working with in this section, all of which relate to the ways in which music accompanies the
liminal person at the end of the life.
We can imagine the liminal process throughout life as one that creates a dynamic wave
between the elements of unbinding/dissolution and growth/ordering. It seems likely that until
very close to the end of life, these two pulsations continue to interact in some form of active
relationship, although the balance between them shifts as the unbinding processes predominate.
Through the medium of tonal color and substance, the music-thanatologist “sounds” and anoints
the dying individual with particular musical materials. This offering of music material (in matter
and spirit) can then be gathered up by the dying person to build the new forms of connection and
re-ordering that are still necessary. These forms are then taken up again into the music (creating
a dynamic wave of activity between the dying one and music-thanatologist), and the liminal
being is free to enter another layer of unbinding. Ultimately, the music can surround him or her
with a sacred “skin” of sound as s/he surrenders all earthly “order” and breathes her way beyond
this world.
71
In this description, Schroeder-Sheker is specifically referring to music delivered to the dying individual whose
psychological work is nearly complete. Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “Music for the Dying: A Personal Account of
the New Field of Music-Thanatology – History, Theories, and Clinical Narratives,” Journal of Holistic Nursing 12,
No.1 (March 1994) 89.
72
Marius Schneider, “On Gregorian Chant and the Human Voice,”The World of Music XXIV, No.3 (Berlin,
1965) 3.
One can also imagine the vital substance of resonant tone meeting the dying person, and
slowly carving out a deep well underneath and around him or her. The protective, circular walls
of the well lend security, allowing the liminal being support and safety in which to unbind. The
walls are not constrictive, but rather remain open, in a gesture of expansion into the heavens.
The well is filled with darkened, ever-changing, liminal waters. It is not possible to see the
bottom of this well, as it seemingly reaches into the depths of infinity. The music listens and
reaches into the well, kneading its waters. It has the possibility to reflect the mysterious currents
below. It can catch the light of the stars that ignite sparks of meaning and help illumine the way.
The music can alsobecome the well, when firmer structure and support is needed.
Finally, one can imagine the music weaving a fine fabric around the dying one
73
, a fabric
which allows for the breathing of both light and darkness, and gently highlights the array of
colors created from the interaction of the two. Inside this wide, luminous cloak, the person is
sheltered as she moves into the final naked vulnerability – the final unbinding. S/he is honored
in her individuality, with the sound substance that speaks her name, but is also gifted with the
freedom needed to release herself.
Postlude
“To be free is to see new truths emerging in the chaos, to see the Spirit of God hovering over the
chaos.” — Jean Vanier
74
“For the singer, one must first show up, and then one must risk. In sung prayer, one must risk
burning and one must risk soaring, nothing less. Whether one falls in love or whether one sings
in love, surrender is an elemental teacher, and eventually one learns to stand in love, to be and
to radiate love.” — Therese Schroeder-Sheker
75
In this paper, I have explored various dimensions of liminality, suggesting that it is time to
face the deep tide of resistance to liminality in our current culture, and time to create a more
compassionate and creative response. I have presented this colorful mixture of chaos and
potential as, not an aberration, but an integral part of human existence. From our first breath to
73
“Of all existing modes of expression, music is the most ephemeral and dissoluble. Its medium, vibrating air, may
be considered the finest of all fabrics…” Marius Schneider, “The Nature of the Praise Song”Cosmic Music:
Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality,ed. Joscelyn Godwin (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1989) 43.
74
Jean Vanier, Becoming Human (New York: Paulist Press, 1998) 122.
75
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “I Heard the Call of the Seraph: Working with the Visionlieder of Joa Bolendas”So
That You May Be One(Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Books, 1997) 48.
our last, the liminal processes of dis-integration and re-integration join together in a dynamic
confluence. Taking a wider view, we can recognize that these processes are not unique to the
human condition. The patterns and relationships of disorder and order create the beauty, the
rhythms, and the quality of wholeness in the natural world, as well. Yet, I wonder: does this
wholeness, or larger “ordering” of life, find its completion within the material substance of the
earthly world?
Throughout time, human beings have turned to religion with their anxieties about the
liminality of death and dying, creating concepts, and/or recognizing the truth that thereisindeed
a larger, underlying cosmic order that offers meaning to the unsettling questions of human life.
76
Perhaps this larger order is revealed to us when we are most emptied of our internal clamor, and
are therefore quiet enough to hear the whispered wisdom of the universe. Perhaps a deepened
awareness of the patterns surrounding us in the natural world – in flowers, trees, the ebb and
flow of the tides – could speak volumes about universal order. Perhaps consciously holding
together the paradox of the springtime of birth and the wintering of death could enable the
wholeness of spirit to grace us.
77
And perhaps we each need to simply practice and cultivate
trust in a deeper pattern, rather than fear that there isn’t one.
In my own life, I am opening myself to the unknown mysteries of chaos, and am being led
toward the mysteries of Love. Could Love be the divine order that holds us all within it,
allowing us to change, grow, and fall apart, but then be re-formed again and re-placed within the
cosmic order? Stretching back to antiquity, Orpheus situated Love at the heart of chaos.
78
How
does chaos transform when it is pierced by love? When Love pulses at the center of chaos, does
it quietly point the way home?
Perhaps it is the steady, burning “tone” of Love that is the most potent witness and guide
through the darkened forest of liminality. What could the implications of this be for the
pioneering field of music-thanatology? Are we actually being asked to pioneer the voicing of
76
In her classes on anthropology, Alice Reich emphasizes the importance of constructing meaning, as individuals
and as a culture. This insight has permeated various dimensions of my life, and has been instrumental in my
understanding of the bedside vigil as a meaning-making activity.
77
Sardello suggests that by holding the tension of opposites in various sectors of our lives, an inner space is created
into which the spiritual virtues of love, faith, and hope may enter. Robert Sardello. Lecture notes. “Dante’s Divine
Comedy: Purgatory.” March 27 & 29, 2001.
78
Alicja Kuczynska, “The Third World of Marsilio Facino or On the indispensability of Experiencing Beauty,”
Dialectics and Humanism15 (1998) 167.
Love?
79
If so, how can we be open to this current, letting it infuse and shape our beings, our
music, and our relationship with the dying? How can we become a clear instrument through
which Love can sound?
80
79
In the School of Music-Thanatology, it is stressed that love is an essential ingredient in the musical prescription.
Schroeder-Sheker writes, “the love that you bring into the work of the bed-side vigil determines the strength of the
current, the warmth permeating the music.” Therese Schroeder-Sheker. “The Imagination of the Body: The Larynx
as a Second Generative Seat.”(Missoula, MT.: St. Dunstan’s Press, 2000) 1.
80
Sardello describes love as an essence that works through us, rather than something that we do out of our own will
forces. His image of becoming a vessel or instrument of love has remained central in my development into a music-
thanatologist. Robert Sardello. Lecture notes.“Spiritual Psychology of Love.”February 9 & 11, 1999.
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