limen
October 19, 2009Limen is the point at which one “stands” mentally and/or physically where a stage or journey ends or is eclipsed by a new adventure/journey. It can be thought of as akin to reaching the first crest on a roller coaster; a hell of a ride awaits just fractions of a second into your future.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus stumbles upon limen each time he prepares to embark on another trip or when his attempts at finding his way home are thwarted or delayed by god, goddess, or creature.
In Watership Down, an example of a conscious threshold that the rabbits reach is when Hazel and several loyal friends head off towards Efrafa on their doe-retrieval mission. Holly accompanies them “as far as the end of the wood” and then detaches from the group to go back to their safe home, leaving Hazel’s squad to their dangerous mission. At this point, as they continued south with their frightening militaristic Efrafan destination settled in their mind, each began to realize all the dangers that would almost certainly be encountered at some point.
In The Matrix an example of limen is the point in the movie at which Neo is given the option of choosing either the red pill or the blue pill. As neo downs the red pill he is choosing to take that step into “wonderland… [to see] …how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
