Liminal Spaces

LIMINAL SPACES

by Azure Arther

What does it mean to exist in-between? And what do we find in those spaces?

Before I began working on the table of contents for this issue, I sat with those questions. Everyone experiences in-between, whether it is found in the evolution from childhood to young adulthood, in the expanse from being single to partnering, or from partnering to being single. Everything has its own transitional space, and in that territory is where I felt ephemeral reality could be found. With that said, Issue 8.2 of Augur Magazine draws on the dreamy realism that Augur Society is known for. This issue asks its readers to immerse themselves in transitions, to question who they are in those spaces, and to seek what answers can be found there.

Since this was my first foray into the curation of an Augur Issue, I really wanted the experience of dreamy realism to stick with the reader. As such, the stories and poems in this issue are intentionally precarious; you are expected to feel somewhat displaced, in a realm that is simultaneously clear but hazy at the edges. 8.2 asks you to exist in the in-between, in the cycles where yes, all things grow and die–but all things also live, vibrantly, exquisitely, and unapologetically–in revolutions where a before, after, and during can be found. The words in these pages encompass threads of dissolution, rebirth, and the gamut of emotion and experience that happens in the conversion. It is an encounter with liminality. 

Augur Society has gone through many cycles in the past years, and we are constantly dismantling the old to build something new. Some things, such as Augur Press, or our podcast, Murmurstations, are the fully realized exploration of our own transitions. Augur is often in-between, in the midst of, beginning or launching, and back again with a goal of literature that not only touches the soul but encourages us all to be in the moment, even if that moment is mercurial, protean, or unpredictable.

What I love about this issue is that it gives the reader the chance to experience a myriad of cycles, to entrench yourself in love and obsession, to grind your gears about that desperate weird space right before or after a relationship ends, and to delight in the resolve that can be found after an event. 8.2 encourages you to feel rage and its after effects, to sink to the bottom of the water and dig through its debris, or to look up at the way the water moves around you and wonder if this is the time you won’t quite make it back to the surface. This issue is that in-between space, the held breath, the moment before, the seconds after, and for many of us in the world, this is a space that we are intimately familiar with. It is recognizable, but not quite, and there is something so very alluring about that faint recognition.

I encourage you to also find whimsy in this liminal issue, to explore creators from a multitude of backgrounds who have constructed worlds that take us into space and back again, who ask us to look at the transitional areas in our lives and find the beauty or the lack of, the passion, and the grief. See memory as a hazy evolution, find yourself in transmutation, bury your last relationship in the seasonal flux of change. These creators have given you the chance to exist in-between, and I hope that you can find permanence in the liminal, and find the ephemeral in the reality.

Happy reading,

Azure Arther
Senior Editor