Amongst the increasing number of divisions that we now find in the contemporary world, one of the most damaging separations develops where the modern world becomes separated from, and at odds with, the realm of nature on one hand and what people used to call the “world behind the world” on the other hand. The old wisdom shared by many traditions stated that what is broken or wounded in this world can only be healed by the Otherworld, the realm of spirit and great imagination. In denying or dismissing the nearby realm of the otherworld, modern cultures wind up, not just fenced in by fixed ideas and failing ideologies, but also blindly separated from the very sources from which healing might come.

 

As humans we are mythic by nature, living on the verge of wonder and but a step from the otherworld all the time. We visit it in sleep and become the bearers of dreams. We fall into it whenever we fall in love. We ascend to it when we allow ourselves to be inspired and lose touch with its grandeur and deep wisdom whenever we insist that things be seen as only factual, measurable or simply rational.

 

The betwixt and between, intermediary realm appears in all kinds of myths and stories when the main character has become disoriented or lost and does not know which way to turn. Typically, that is the place the helping animals or the wise old woman or the bird of spirit appear as guides, teachers and healers and Intermediaries from the otherworld. As characters in our own stories, we find ourselves in a time of great upheaval and in the betwixt and between condition that comes at the end of an era. If we accept the condition of “not knowing” and being vulnerable, we move closer to the otherworld which has always been the source of imagination, healing and potential renewal.

 

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