Nepantla, Ritual, Juxtaposition, Neural pathways

I’m reading Gloria Anzaldua right now, and she speaks of Nepantla as an in-between space, explicitly referencing Victor Turner and Arnold Van Gennep (28). It’s almost as Nepantla is a ritual space of some sort. But she speaks of Nepantla in very spiritual terms, more like how Some would speak of spiritual experience. Nepantla is “the connective tissue” (28). “Nepantla,” she says, is the bridge between the material and the immaterial; the point of contact y el lugar between ordinary and spirit realities” (28). It’s more than ritual. It’s Spirit, capital S. She says, “Nepantla is also where spiritual transformation or rebirth happens during visionary states of consciousness” (28-29). When someone, as in Some, goes into the middle space, they enter Nepantla.

This intersects with my methodological principle of structure and fluidity. All of life is a collection of structure and fluidity. Going too far in either direction results in a loss of life. And both are necessary. In the human body, some parts have more structure, like bones, and others have more fluidity, like the marrow. But both are necessary in different balances and qualities.

Humankind constructs categories. Categories are not necessarily bad. Structure enables social energy. Without some structure, an individual or community slips into undifferentiated primordial ooze. Ooze can’t do. Ooze needs to evolve into a bounded cell, then into differentiating cells, then into differentiating tissues, organs, and systems to form complex life. Likewise, categories of here and there, alive and dead, now and later are created to facilitate energy and movement.

But structure also limits. Structure keeps one part of knowledge apart from another. Perhaps Nepantla is the structure itself, the connective tissue, the information superhighway. It keeps discreet categories. But sometimes we need those categories need to interact. By stepping into Nepantla, we find a place that is neither here nor there. Nepantla is all and in all. Nepantla is within you already. Nepantla is among you.

In the case of healing, structure keeps us from using the wrong herb for the wrong ailment. Eat the wrong mushroom, and you die. When you die, you are ritually put into the category of people which is not among the living. But sometimes this structure can be too strong, keeping communities from using the right herb or mushroom for the right ailment. By entering into Nepantla, a tribal medicine worker can find the connections which facilitate healing. The medicine worker can connect past boundaries of life and death because, in some way, these are categories constructed by the brain and the community. They aren’t bad categories, and they are based in reality. But sometimes they need to be transgressed.

In some way, then, Nepantla is queer. Nepantla is where normativity is removed. Walls are broken down. New connections are possible.

On the flip side, some queer theologians seem to describe queer as destroying all boundaries. That’s not an unreasonable description: in a world where boundaries have betrayed us, it’s necessary to queery them. I think where I’m at now is that complete lack of boundary is necessary, possible, or even desirable. A removal of boundaries for a time is necessary, but all political movement requires boundaries of some sort. Organization. Community organizing. This is a form of boundaries focusing social energy toward political liberation.

Nepantla isn’t a place many can live. In Nepantla, without boundaries, the structure of time and space itself is broken down. To have all of time and space in sensory perception at the same time would be an overload. In general, we cast a circle, create a ritual vessel, enter for a time to reshape relationships and knowledge, then we open the circle again, releasing the energy we’ve brought together for a time. To remain in Nepantla would leave one unable to act in the world, possibly unable to communicate. All the stories of the oracles involve priests who interpret the confusing words of the oracles. Sometime the priests are corrupt. But intermediary between the social world and the boundless world is necessary. The intermediary can be the oracle themself, unless they remain in the in-between.

Even for those of us who practice cultivating a sense of the presence of God, God is bounded in some way. We anthropomorphize God. This isn’t necessarily bad. Christianity teaches that God anthropomorphized Godself. The Epistles describe this as kenosis. In the Bible, God appeared as humankind to Moses (showing Moses God’s anthropomorphized backside), to Jacob as the Angel of the Lord, to Elijah in the still small voice, to the prophets as the Ancient of Days, and to John as the Lamb who was slain. God has to be bounded to be known in the land of knowing. But humankind has to release its boundaries to know God in the land of unknowing (and thus knowing), Nepantla.

Is Nepantla ritual? Not exactly. A better question would be whether ritual could be surprising. If ritual is something unordinary, always instigated by humans, there’s less a chance that it could surprise individuals or communities. But Joy is often surprising. Can one be surprised by ritual? One might be surprised when they find themself in Nepantla. They might be surprised by joy. Maybe ritual can usher us into Nepantla. But ritual may not be the only way to get there.

I think this also intersects creativity and “unblocking” a la Julia Cameron. Her method is a different way of getting to the “in between,” the information superhighways that structure the brain. By moving from the categories to the connectors, we enable new neural pathways to form. The pathways were always potential, always there. But moving in a new way on the path “unblocks.”

Sometimes highly creative people are stereotyped as having poor social skills due to their introversion. Sometimes artists are seen as being disconnected from the public they supposedly serve. Both of these may be true in some cases. But maybe, as oracles need a priests, artistic oracles may be living their lives in the “in between” to the extent that they need a translator of some sort to interface with society at large.

I think this is the artistic way of describing Gordon Lathrop’s juxtaposition. We place objects from different categories side by side to enable new connections. Liturgy intentionally juxtaposes. But we have juxtaposed the same things for so long (and we have mischaracterized texts as unchangeable) that we have lost their ability to bring us into that middle space where we can be surprised by joy. Work must be done to shake the mischaracterizations.  

I’ve done a lot of exploring here, and Anzaldua certainly means more by Nepantla than what I am picking up on. For me, all of these connections showed themselves suddenly as the categories in my brain connected in a new ways. Anzaldua, queer theory, liturgy, creativity, aesthetics juxtaposed is creative and productive. Now, how do we draw the many into this exploration?