Exploring the Liminal Through Tarot
By Madeleine Gunhart
If you haunt certain corners of the internet, you’ve likely seen a lot about liminal spaces — eerie photos of abandoned shopping malls, darkly lit corridors devoid of life, or vast, empty parking lots. For years, folks have been gathering liminal imagery online, like magpies attracted to the eerie and strange, forming communities around these oft-ignored thresholds.
I long assumed that everyone else had the same reaction to these images of liminality that I did — a primal sort of unease, discomfort, and even fear. I was right, to some extent; many do share this discomfort. But, to my surprise, I recently discovered that others find these images exhilarating, exciting, and in some cases energizing.
After I took a moment to pause and balk — REALLY? People get fuzzy feelings from this broken-down Chuck E. Cheese? — I started thinking about how this range of reactions to liminal images also applies to how we experience liminality in life.
I’ve always felt lost and uneasy during periods of transition and uncertainty, but some people thrive on unpredictability and the adrenaline of emotional freefall.
Of course, as someone who regularly processes thoughts and feelings through the lens of Tarot (both for myself and those I read for), I began to take stock of the cards that explore liminality and what they have to teach us.
I’d like to take us through some of these cards and their lessons. But first…
Seven of Cups, Five of Pentacles, and The High Priestess from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck floating through a dark tunnel.
What is Liminality, Exactly?
The definition of liminal can feel hard to pinpoint — is it about the dark, the surreal, or something else entirely?
Quite simply, liminal means transitional, occupying a threshold that connects two lands. It’s the in-between realm. Hallways are liminal, as are waiting rooms — spaces that are meant to be moved through, not lingered in. The rabbit hole Alice tumbles down to get to Wonderland is liminal. Places usually filled with human life that fall into disuse, whether an abandoned house or a playground at 3AM, are liminal.
Liminality can also be a mental or emotional state, often experienced during transitions. The period between leaving one job and starting a new one is liminal, as is standing in a bare apartment after all your belongings have made their way to your new home. Even more abstract life events, such as the time between realizing you have feelings for someone and taking the initiative to invite them on a date, can be liminal. Pregnancy is a nine-month liminal state.
Liminality in Tarot
Over several years of reading cards for myself and others, I’ve noticed that people often seek out a consultation with the cards during liminal times in their lives. Querents commonly ask the cards: What should I do now? Where do I go from here? Should I make this major life change? All of these connect to liminal states of life.
We crave answers when we’re in these empty hallways, seeking the correct door to open so we can move on with our lives. We often want Tarot to give us precise directions — hang a left, then enter the third door on the right.
But, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my experience slinging cards, it’s that Tarot’s messages are rarely straightforward or definitive. The cards have urged me to sit in the liminal time and time again. I’ll answer your question with another question, my deck seems to say. Pull up a chair and get comfy. Because, darling, the spaces in-between are just as real as anything else in life. (And, in fact, they’re everywhere!)
Tarot Cards with Liminal Energy
I’ve rounded up a few cards that, in my opinion, evoke and embody liminal energy. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and you may or may not agree with my interpretations. (I always encourage folks to rely on their personal interpretations of the cards.) Feel free to use the following examples as springboards into your own relationship with liminality, either using the activities I provide or spreads of your own invention.
That said, let’s get liminal!
Five of Pentacles from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck.
Five of Pentacles: Journeying out of Liminality
The Five of Pentacles is the card that immediately comes to mind when I think of liminality. The figures depicted are trapped outside in the snow, with the warm safety of a church tantalizingly close, but without an entry point.
This scene invites me to reflect on how despair can be a certain liminal space of its own — a dark, barren corridor that you’re not sure will ever end. When hopelessness clouds your mind so thickly, it’s hard to see the exit signs, and it can feel as if the liminal isn’t so “liminal” after all, but actually a permanent residence. You’re trapped in the snow, injured, tired, and unable to see a way out of the storm.
When I pull Five of Pentacles for my querents, I’m often met with grimaces or sighs. I get it — it’s not a card that radiates happiness or good fortune. But the Five of Pentacles, I tell them, is a sign that sanctuary is nearer than they know.
Perhaps there is a warm, inviting environment waiting for them if they can summon the strength to look for it. Of course, this doesn’t mean reaching such sanctuary is easy. The steps we have to take to get out of the cold (asking for help or making difficult sacrifices) can be incredibly taxing — emotionally, mentally, or even physically.
Thinking back to a liminal time in my life, when I had fallen into such a deep depression that I often couldn’t get out of bed, making my way towards the glowing stained-glass window of care seemed an impossible feat. I knew I needed help.
But the act of forming the words, of articulating that need, even to those I loved, felt like scaling a mountain with my bare hands. I reached the top of the peak eventually, and it was worth the raw palms and frozen fingers to finally have some relief.
The liminality didn’t stop there however. Treatment for my depression took time to kick in and happened in phases. I imagine it would be much the same for the people in the Five of Pentacles scene. Getting inside the church wouldn’t magically heal their broken bones or undo the effects of long-term struggle or poverty. But it would be a warm place to rest, and maybe the gateway to a healing community.
We can’t know for sure, just as we never can predict what lies on the other side of liminal periods in our lives. But we can hope and believe and claw our way towards something, even if we have to hobble through the snow until we can find someone to show us the door.
Tarot Activity for Five of Pentacles
+ Pull the Five of Pentacles card from your deck, placing it face up.
+ Reflect on a time when you felt “trapped” in liminality, perhaps a period where you believed there wasn’t much hope or opportunity for change.
+ Pull three cards, and lay them out in a horizontal line. The leftmost card represents your default mindset during liminal periods. The center card represents a block that prevents you finding your path forward. The rightmost card advises you on how to move past this block (and perhaps, in doing so, offers an alternative mindset as well).
+ Journal about what this reading uncovers for you, and reference this entry next time you feel stuck.
Seven of Cups from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck.
Seven of Cups: Decision-Making as Liminal Space
The act of decision-making always feels incredibly liminal to me. It’s its own state of limbo where I anxiously attempt to mentally calculate all possible paths in order to select the “correct” one before the buzzer rings.
The Seven of Cups captures that feeling perfectly. It’s not an earthly scene, but instead an expanse of blue sky and clouds, dreamlike and untethered. The main figure is cast in shadow. The only elements that feel clear and concrete are the assorted goblets, each glimmering with their own unique possibility.
Decision-making periods make me feel on-edge, as if the Universe is blasting the Jeopardy! theme, taunting me that there’s a right answer, and I’m running out of time to find it. I imagine myself as a specter floating above my body, believing I can’t continue existing in the “real” world until I figure my shit out.
I’ve never been good at “mulling it over” or “sleeping on it.” I want out of that liminal space fast, so I overwork myself until I can lock in my answer like I’m in some existential escape room.
My discomfort with the liminal often tempts me into a frenzied rush. I can’t relax into the uncertainty, so I act before I need to, just so I can put it all behind me.
While I don’t believe most of the decisions we make have one “right” choice, I know I’ve made choices that were objectively wrong for me, just so I could feel solid ground beneath my feet.
If I were to let myself hover in the Seven of Cups decision-making clouds for an extended time (and learned to be okay with the weird sensation of floating), maybe I could slow down, and that pushy game show music would fade into the sound of the wind. Maybe the sun would eventually hit a certain goblet just right, illuminating the way forward. Or, with time, rest, and experience, I could make a more informed decision.
In my haste, I risk the danger of grabbing for a garden snake and walking away with a fire-breathing dragon. Floating in midair might be deeply uncomfortable, but it can’t feel worse than a faceful of flames.
Tarot Activity for Seven of Cups
+ Remove the Seven of Cups from your deck, placing it face up.
+ Think about a decision you’re trying to make, or invent one you can practice with (for example: What should I do this weekend?).
+ Lay out a card for each potential option you have to choose from. Let these cards give you insight into each choice.
+ Then pull a final card, asking “What do I need to know in order to make this decision with patience?”
The High Priestess from the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck.
The High Priestess: The Essential Knowledge of Liminality
To me, The High Priestess represents a certain comfort with liminality. She sits not only between pillars, but also between worlds: the one we inhabit and the one that lies beyond the veil (often interpreted as a land of sacred spiritual knowledge or the realm of unconscious wisdom).
She sits contentedly in the liminal, receiving wisdom from many realms without having to lift a finger — a great contrast to the ways we’re routinely shuffled through hallways, physically and metaphorically, with instructions to actively pursue knowledge and expertise.
I remember being frustrated upon college graduation when I had approximately two hours to enjoy my accomplishment before everyone started asking, “So, what’s next?”
In a society that devalues (and even scoffs at) periods of stillness and uncertainty, sitting in the liminal, direct and unflinching, is a quiet act of rebellion.
Not only that, but existing “in between” is beneficial for our mental and emotional journeys. Rest allows us to recuperate and refuel so we’re ready for our next endeavors, and our brains actually use this “down time” to strengthen memories and process information.
I’ve always viewed The High Priestess as occupying the space between receiving knowledge and fully processing it. In my eyes, her posture and expression capture that moment when you read something so profound or thought-provoking that you need to stop and stare into the middle distance for a while. Looking into her face, I can almost feel her mental cogs turning.
Rest and reflection are essential for knowledge retention, both for traditional textbook learning and more abstract lessons. How are you supposed to absorb the wisdom that each era of your life has to offer if you’re always rushing from one place to the next?
Would I really understand everything I learned while earning my degree (not just the facts, but all the social and emotional lessons from those years) if I didn’t have some time to breathe and process?
Passivity is too often used as a negative descriptor, but we need it in order to grow, learn, and understand. The liminal isn’t just there to usher us from one place to the next; it’s a nurturing womb, a cocoon where the magic really begins to happen.
Tarot Activity for The High Priestess
+ Remove the High Priestess from your deck, placing it face up.
+ Pull three cards, to answer each of the following questions:
How can I invite stillness into my life?
What knowledge have I received that I need to process?
What do I need in order to create a nurturing and restful cocoon for myself?
No matter our personal relationships to liminality, the archetypes and scenes found in Tarot can aid our understanding of transitory times and help us process them. I encourage you to reflect on which cards feel liminal to you (perhaps slowly leafing through your favorite deck), and try any of the activities above that speak to you (or create your own!).
Life happens in hallways, empty roads, and places we’ve long thought abandoned. Whether this excites or frightens you, there is much to be found in the rich, dark, fertile spaces in between. All you need to do is pause, pay attention, and perhaps pull a card or two.
SUPPORT OUR BOOKSHOP
If you’d like to purchase the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck featured in this post, we invite you to do so via this link, or other links in the post, which are hosted through our Bookshop.org affiliate page. This is our online book shop, featuring decks and books to support your growth, inspiration, creativity, and magic — hosted through Bookshop.org, a company that directs revenue and other support to independent bookstores across the United States. When you purchase from our Bookshop.org affiliate shop, a portion of your purchase supports Typewriter Tarot as well, helping us continue and expand our work. In our bookshop, you’ll find curated collections on Tarot, creativity, psychology, social justice, ecology, and more — hundreds of books to bring more magic to your life and your library. If you choose to purchase from our shop, we thank you!
CREATIVE SUPPORT IN YOUR INBOX
If you’re a Creative Spirit — as we suspect you might be since you’re here! — we have a lovely gift for you when you sign up for our newsletter (an almost weekly love letter featuring creative rituals, inspiration, and personal essays on magic). This free gift is a fun, magical, reflective workbook that will guide you into new facets of your relationship with creativity. To receive it, simply sign up for our newsletter down at the bottom of this page.
about madeleine Gunhart
Madeleine Gunhart is a writer, witch, and Tarot reader from Seattle. She enjoys helping folks connect with themselves through empathetic Tarot readings and writing empowering stories for young readers. You can find her on the site formerly known as Twitter at @madgunhart and Instagram at @madeleinegunhart.