December has always felt like an in-between space to me — a transition between the year that has been and the year to come. A kind of quiet bardo.

In Pema Chödrön’s language, the bardo is the place where things “come together and fall apart,” where certainty dissolves, and something new has not yet formed. Traditionally, it’s the state between death and rebirth — but she reminds us it’s also every transition, every pause, every uncertain middle we find ourselves in.

I’ve always been drawn to this idea. A space that’s neither here nor there. A passageway. A place like a chrysalis where whatever we are meant to become next has been programmed, and we get to observe the wonder of it, like watching stars while riding in a spaceship to an unknown destination.

And this past Friday, in between post-Thanksgiving Thursday and Back-to-Work Monday, I wondered:

Could this be a mini-bardo?

Could I intentionally designate this as a time of transition, of letting go of the usual routines to simply observe whatever deeper forces might be in play?

So Friday morning, I ignored my alarm and all of my normal morning practices and routines (except for the coffee), and just stayed put…in my bed.

With my tiny canine muse curled beside me like a wise furry elder, I entered a self-imposed bardo of blankets, books, sketchpad, and stillness . No schedule. No striving. No productivity metrics. Just writing, reading, researching, hydrating… and occasionally adjusting the bed’s incline settings to find precisely the right angle for “creative inspiration.”

On the outside, it could have looked lazy. On the inside, it felt quietly transformative.

Because something interesting happens when you lay down the usual agenda and slip into the in-between. The mind unclenches. Ideas move in unexpected ways. Possibilities surface. The next version of yourself begins to introduce herself gently, without fanfare.

Leaving the bed only for a leisurely walk around the bay with the aforementioned muse, I discovered that from the bardo state, that spacious place of no predefined goals and objectives, my book, my work, my life plan all moved forward… almost on their own. Not from pushing, from allowing.

Pema says: “The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation — a situation in which we can learn how to relax.”

I felt that on Friday. And I’m discovering that the bardo isn’t a dead space.

• It’s a doorway.
• A preparation.
• A pause in between the practice — or maybe it is the practice?

In any case, here’s to the spaces where we are no longer who we were, and not yet who we’re becoming — and all the quiet wisdom that finds us there.