Jessica Blanton: Image and Pilgrimage 1(March 2, 2010)

Reading the chapter in the Image and Pilgrimage book on liminality and the liminoid state in pilgrimages makes me think about my time in the Army, particularly in Basic Training. The first phase of Basic is to shock the system; to suddenly and abruptly sever the ties between all the new trainees and the realities of the outside world. You are yelled at immediately, forced to give up all personal items that are not previously approved by the Drill Sergeants; you are treated like a criminal. Within my first month in training, I got a phone call from my mother telling me that my cousin had died; he had been hit by a car. But instead of being sad, of crying, somehow it wasn’t real to me. It was outside the gates of our barracks, so it couldn’t be real. I didn’t comprehend it at all; I was so completely cut off from all things. It made me feel guilty that I couldn’t properly grieve the death of my cousin until I got out, and by that time it had been so long that I couldn’t recall the exact way I should feel. Basic training had truly hardened me. It took me a long time to be able to feel again. This is what I think of when hearing about the liminal state; you are on the brink of what you left behind, but not yet where you are going (graduation, being a soldier). Therefore you are nothing. You have no emotions, and are impervious to all discomforts. It would have been nice to experience the liminal state in a more positive connotation.