becoming what i cannot yet name

the end is wrapping its wings around my aching rib cage. my bones feel like jelly now, softened from nine months of life blooming. i am watching the earth curl back into itself; leaves shedding, animals scurrying underground, gardens falling into a deep sleep. i feel this retreating, and sense it in myself. the seasonal pull to draw inwards—only this time, there is the preparing for the first song of my daughter. a dawn on the precipice of winter. a dying of an old life, a settling into an entirely new landscape of being.

just as the world dances in golden hues and a dying autumn red blaze outside my window, i am standing at a threshold. bridging worlds. becoming what i cannot yet name. feeling for the shape of a life not yet formed.

this is the mystical ground of the unknown: mirrored in the shift of seasons, mirrored in the days before birth. it is a territory not to be missed or overlooked. not to be rushed or hurried through. there is so much to learn, here in the doorway. there is something here that cannot be found anywhere else.

in many ways, i have spent much of my life obsessed with this space. the concept and imagery of impermanence—the mysticism of change and transformation. my early years of studying buddhism taught me this: that nothing is solid, that all of life is an ever-changing river. it was both terrifying and comforting to a young girl searching for solid ground—to be told that ground would never exist.

it has taken me years to understand that this truth is not meant to disorient us, but to awaken us. and perhaps the greatest catalyst for this awakening has been motherhood. there are few teachers greater than our children when it comes to impermanence. we watch, in both heartbreak and awe, as they shift before our eyes. one moment, they are sleeping in our arms, and the next, they are reaching out for the world, already becoming someone new. they were never our own anyways.

motherhood has shown me that everything is always becoming. there is so much death in birthing. so much birth in death. and now, as i feel the tides of birth gather me in once again, i am reminded that entirely new internal landscapes dawn at birth—for a child, for a mother, for a family. our only work is to meet it with reverence, curiosity, and surrender.

and so, i choose not to reach for certainty, but to bow to the mystery. to become a witness to my own becoming, and my family’s. to trust that life is forming me in ways my mind cannot yet comprehend. if this season has taught me anything, it is that the falling away is never an ending—it is the quiet preparation for a beginning so holy we cannot fathom it.

we are always crossing thresholds. birth is only one of many. and perhaps the greatest act of devotion is simply to be present for it—to stand in the doorway with our hands open, allowing life to name us in its own time.

what threshold are you standing in right now? describe this sacred in-between. what is dying? can you sense anything, however vague, that is becoming? what does this mystery feel like—in your body, in your breath, in your bones? write it all down.

thank you for being here.
if this piece spoke to you, i would be honored if you shared it with someone standing at their own threshold.

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tell me about your own threshold in the comments below.

photographs by Sunnie Heers.