Whether we notice it or not, each of us lives on a threshold, breath to breath, image to image, word to word, sensation to sensation. Watching the mind, one sees how each perception arises, then comes a gap, then the next perception. To stay mindfully in that gap allows for the possibility of a response that is more appropriate, rather than a quick, habitual reaction. If I stub my toe, there’s a sliver of a threshold I balance on before I either react angrily and call myself clumsy, allowing name-calling to shadow the moment and dump me into a bad mood. Or I might say ouch! and choose a response that is fresh, innovative, creative. I might even laugh! That threshold interval is where freedom of response is possible. 

To live alertly, on a threshold, pretty clearly reveals that we have no idea what’s coming next. Writing a poem is like that, too. You think you know where it’s going, and there’s a turn. Openness, uncertainty, not-knowing—are all parts of living on the threshold, or living as a threshold. We think of thresholds as borders we cross from one way of life into another, but we are thresholds by nature. We’re the meeting place between inner and outer, the point where they open to each other. 

 --Margaret Gibson; from Image, Issue 96