Alchemy of becoming

In the Ramayan, Trishanku seeks to ascend to heaven in his mortal body. When gods reject him and curse him to fall, sage Vishwamitra halts his fall mid-air and Trishanku remains suspended between heaven and earth, neither here nor there - a liminal, unresolved state. A living paradox, or a state of being in between. This is often quoted as the allegory for the old that has fallen away, but the new that is yet to take form.

Akin to transitions when what was has ended, and what will be has not yet begun. In place of melancholy woven into Trishanku's suspension and his exile from belonging, the Japanese offer a luminous counterpoint to this discomfort, as Ma, a gap or a pause. A positive hiatus, holding on to the potential that may arise, a longing filled with pregnant but peaceful emptiness.

Ma is not an absence, nor a loss, nor a void. It is the silence between notes in music, the space between brushstrokes, breath before speech. The suspension between formlessness and form. In our modern times, we often fear this - trishanku sthiti (position), transitions that punctuate our own lives.


Stillness feels like failure, emptiness like loss. We rush to replace every gap with noise, every uncertainty with action, and strive woefully to exit the in-between in our search for our versions of heaven or earth. Unlike Trishanku's anguished suspension, Ma is chosen. Perhaps this is an invitation to see the in-between not as exile but as sanctuary.

There is a grace in the in-between - a quiet space where we are no longer who we were, and not yet who we will be. Trust this quiet alchemy of becoming.