“The doorway is the one place that will not hold you. This is why you can finally stand in it.” — Onyx Iskra
Dear Soulfire Traveler,
September is a threshold month.
The light changes first. Then the shadows lengthen. Morning carries a different coolness, and the green world begins, almost imperceptibly, to loosen its hold on summer. Nothing has ended yet, but something no longer reads quite the same.
That is where this month’s Footpath Tale begins.
“The One Who Kept the Wheel” follows a master Millwright whose work carries on long after the day shift ends. When the massive wooden gear screeches to a halt, he does what he has always done: he closes the sluice gate, sends his workers home to their warm fires, and steps alone into the chilly water of the tailrace.
He stays because he knows how to fix it. There are burdens that settle most easily onto the shoulders of the one who knows how to carry them. By the time we meet him, he has been spent carefully over years, eroded slowly by a duty that takes without giving back or offering thanks.
Then, the rhythm breaks.
Standing shin-deep in black water, he looks up to see the sky come apart in a shower of falling stars. They flare and burn out in seconds, leaving nothing behind. The sight undoes him. His hands begin to tremble, his breath catches, and for the first time, the cold isn’t the only thing to blame.
When the repairs are finished, the Millwright lifts one foot from the water to leave. Behind him lies the warm, dry mill. Up the path are the gold-lit windows of the valley houses.
Instead of stepping forward or backward, his foot remains suspended in the dark above the moving water.
Not from fear. Not from confusion. But because the place he has been standing no longer means what it meant before.
We are often uncomfortable with thresholds. We want movement, decision, and resolution. Someone standing suspended between one life and another can look uncertain from the outside: stuck, hesitant or unready.
Sometimes stopping is not a barrier to movement. It is the first moment in which our own movement becomes possible again.
It happens after a long season of carrying what needed carrying. When responsibility has become mere rhythm, when we have been so occupied keeping the wheel turning that we haven’t noticed what the turning has taken from us.
There is wisdom in not rushing such a moment. A threshold is not always a place to escape. Sometimes it is where we gather ourselves. It is where we allow what we have seen to become part of us before deciding where to set our weight. A step taken freely is entirely different from a step taken simply to end the discomfort of standing still.
[Read “The One Who Kept the Wheel →]
September Practice—The Suspended Step
Find a quiet place and bring to mind a threshold you may be standing near. For now, set aside the question of what you should do. Instead ask yourself:
What no longer reads the way it once did?
What have I been carrying simply because I know how to carry it?
What becomes visible when I stop moving?
And leave this last question unanswered until you are ready:
What do I want my next step to belong to?
You do not need to put your foot down today.
A Small Threshold Ritual
Sometime near the equinox, step outside at dusk. Stand with one foot slightly raised or set ahead of the other.
Notice the ground beneath the foot holding your weight and the open space beneath the one waiting to land. Stay there for several beats. No declaration, no promise, and no decision required.
Move when you are ready or return both feet to where they were. The choice is part of the practice.
Until next time, tend the fire.
Sheila