The body is not a border in the cartographic sense. It does not divide the world into two sealed territories, clearly separated and self-contained.
In anthropology, a boundary is never a fixed line. It is a zone of exchange — a living space where something circulates, where forces meet, where meaning is negotiated.
The skin, the breath, the gaze, the gesture — none of these belong exclusively to us. They are places of passage. Interfaces through which the world reaches us, shapes us, alters us.
With every inhalation, the outside becomes inside. With every shift in temperature, with every touch of light on the skin, the world is translated into sensation, perception, lived experience.
We are constantly being crossed. And in return, we cross the world through our presence, our movements, our attention.
The boundary, then, is neither solid nor closed. It is porous, mobile, sensitive — perpetually redefining itself.
This is precisely what is meant by the term liminal: an in-between space, a living threshold, relational and unstable by nature.
Liminality: neither fully self nor fully other
In the rites of passage described by anthropologists, the limen designates the precise moment when one is no longer who one was, but not yet who one is becoming.
It is neither the old state nor the new one.
It is suspension.
The boundary between body and world functions in this way continuously.
It distinguishes you while simultaneously connecting you. It separates you while allowing circulation. It layers inside and outside so tightly that they can never be fully disentangled.
This space is one of constant negotiation — between what constitutes you and what affects you.
Nothing here is stable. Nothing is ever fully resolved.
And it is precisely this instability that makes the body-world boundary fundamentally liminal.
The body as symbolic and cultural threshold
Across philosophical traditions, spiritual systems, and mythological cosmologies, a recurring intuition emerges: the body is never understood as a purely biological object.
It is conceived as a relational site.
In yoga, breath acts as a bridge between microcosm and macrocosm, linking the individual to the larger cosmic order.
In phenomenology, the body is described as “the place where the world happens” — the point through which reality becomes accessible and meaningful.
In mythological systems, skin, thresholds, and openings are considered sacred precisely because they are both vulnerable and open.
In Jungian psychology, the liminal is the zone where consciousness encounters the shadow, allowing transformation to occur.
Across these perspectives, the body is not a passive container.
It is an embodied threshold — a point of passage between visible and invisible realms, inner and outer worlds, conscious and unconscious dimensions.
The distance between body and world is not a distance
What we often call distance is, in reality, an intermediate space dense with relationships.
A space of circulation.
A space of continuous transformation.
The body does not stand as a wall between self and world.
It functions as a living threshold — constantly interacting, constantly adapting.
This is where impressions settle, where affects are registered, where symbols take root.
Central proposition
The body is a threshold.
Not entirely interior.
Not entirely exterior.
A space where the world touches us, passes through us, shapes us — where the invisible and the everyday meet without collapsing into one another.
This is why, across cultures and throughout history, human beings have marked, adorned, and protected the body.
Not solely for ornament.
But because this threshold was intuitively recognized as something that required care, structure, and intention.
Why the liminal calls for protection
Because the liminal is open
Every threshold opens a passage.
What moves inward can also move outward.
Within this openness, one can be influenced, disoriented, or permeated by what does not belong — or what one does not wish to integrate.
The liminal is not inherently dangerous.
It is permeable.
And permeability calls for intention, for framing, for conscious engagement.
Because the liminal destabilizes
In a space of passage, old structures no longer hold, and new ones have yet to form.
It is a territory of suspension.
A place where questions arise, where symbols surface, where intuition intensifies.
Many cultures understand these zones as places where forces circulate — psychological, social, symbolic.
Protection does not mean closure.
It means offering coherence to a space that does not yet have structure.
Because the liminal amplifies
Thresholds heighten sensitivity.
Perception sharpens. Emotion deepens. Intuition becomes louder. The unconscious rises closer to the surface. The symbolic takes on greater weight.
Protection allows one to remain integrated — to maintain continuity where boundaries begin to dissolve.
Because the liminal attracts
Liminal times and places have always been associated with multiple presences.
Ancestors. Shadows. Spirits. Ideas. Mythic figures. Psychic projections.
These are not negative forces.
They are simply other.
Protection is not about repulsion, but about conscious negotiation — establishing a symbolic framework through which relation becomes possible.
Because the liminal transforms
Every passage entails transformation.
Something loosens. Something else begins to emerge.
This movement can be initiatory. It can also become chaotic without grounding.
Protection acts as an anchor during mutation.
In one sentence
We protect ourselves from the liminal because where everything can enter, everything can also disperse.
Protection allows us to remain ourselves while passing through a space that fundamentally alters us.
Jewellery as guardian of the threshold
A piece of jewellery does not simply protect the body.
It protects the threshold.
The precise point where the world touches us.
Resting on the skin, it becomes an anchor, a filter, a symbolic marker.
Not to block passage.
But to cross it with intention, presence, and awareness.
