You Never Know

Portals. Apparently the other day was some mystical magical day for humanity. It was supposed to be a day where portals would open for people if they asked for that. The whole idea got me wondering about portals. What do they mean? It’s kind of an odd word: portal. It has a symbolic meaning as well a literal meaning. Literally, it refers to a doorway, an entrance, a threshold. But there’s also this notion that a portal is not just a door but rather an opening to something other, something mysterious or unknown. Portals come with the potential to change those who might move through the portal.

Literature has lots of examples of portals. A rabbit hole in Wonderland, a wardrobe in Narnia, a train platform to Hogwarts all proved to be openings that led to change and revelation for characters who stepped through them. These gates offered characters a chance to change, to experience something different. It took courage and curiosity to step through the mysterious portal but the character was transformed by their willingness to take a risk.

There are portals in real life too. A diagnosis that changes things, a chance meeting with someone that puts you on a new path, an opportunity delivered to your doorstep that offers expansion (but perhaps with some risk) - these are the portals of our real life days. These are the times when something pushes you to find courage or to cultivate a new awareness or possibly to step into unknown adventure. The portals present themselves and wait for you to decide if you want to cross the threshold.

The magic of portals lies in their ability to cloak you in possibility. When you’re on the edge of the portal, you know you are dancing with what might be. You are also aware that you might lose the safety of what you know even as you are pulled towards the unknown and possible transformation. Moments like this remind us that life is not just a linear path but rather more like a big room with lots of doors, some hidden, some obvious, some swinging wide open with light and invitation, while others are dark inside and barely cracked open.

The skeptic in me says that so called portals are just labels that we attach in hindsight to the randomness of life events. But maybe that’s where language makes a difference? If I see these disruptions or unexpected twists as portals maybe I can also see them with awe instead of with resistance? Accident? or door? I favor the excitement and wonder that comes with viewing life events as doorways to transformation of one kind or another. I guess the question really is: how do you know when you are standing at a portal?

In myths, portals often have some obvious signal and perhaps even a guard. Generally the character knows that they are choosing to move through an open door. In life, portals rarely announce themselves with glowing arches or talking beasts. Instead, they show up as disruptions, invitations, or moments that pull you out of your ordinary story. A portal could present as a job offer or maybe the ending of a relationship. Maybe someone important dies or there is a local or national tragedy that changes your path. These are portals because the demand a choice. You can stay as you were or you can dare to embrace the unknown. You have to be willing to let go of what was in order to cross the threshold. You need courage and curiosity.

In myths, portals are thresholds into other realms but I think in life, portals are thresholds into other selves. Either way, they are reminders that change is everywhere. We are not formed in concrete but if we want to be fully alive, then we might be wise to keep an open mind about the accidental twists along our life’s path.

I’m currently living an impatient life, a bit lost, feeling somehow suspended in life. It makes me want to find the portal that could be waiting for me. Part of me expects the doorway to be obvious. (Hey, Universe, give me a clear direction here). But I know that portals are often disguised as ordinary things that exert unexpected power. Maybe they present as a question or an interest that won’t leave me alone or maybe a tiny invitation that I want to dismiss. I have to be paying attention. I have to be open.

I also tend to think of portals as something external - a new job, a new friend, a travel adventure. But internal (within the self) portals are real too. Maybe I sit with grief and let it change me. Maybe I shift my internal dialogue in ways that impact me. Maybe I read and/or write my way to new ways of thinking. In other words, the threshold does not have to be in the outer world only. The inner world offers many doors to open, many rooms to explore.

Myths teach that you don’t often have advance warning of portals. They just pop up. That’s important for me to remember. I can scan the days ahead looking all I want for thresholds but, when the time comes, what matters is if I am paying attention. I can’t see the future portals but I can put myself in an attentive place where I will recognize the portal when it appears.

Maybe what I need to do right now is stop waiting for life to deliver that magical and very obvious portal. Maybe I need to practice making a few small ones for myself. Wasn’t it Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “Do something that scares you every day”? That would be a good place for me to start. Maybe just branching out from the ordinary, say “yes” when I (more or less) feel like saying no. IDK. Maybe those kinds of things are practices that might help me recognize the bigger thresholds when they do arrive.

I think the idea is to live life with curiosity. Don’t be too quick to shut doors when you don’t fully know what’s inside. Be willing to open the doors that are barely cracked open, the ones that seem dark and empty, but also be willing to open doors that clearly have my name marked on them. You never know.