The Liminal
Crossing the Threshold into Unfamiliar Terrain
A three-part series.
Saturdays: December 5, 12, and 19
People arrive at a crossing in all kinds of ways.
Sometimes you chose it. You left, you started, you said yes, and now you're standing somewhere you've never stood before, thrilled and a little seasick.
Sometimes you didn't choose it. Something ended. Something arrived. A door closed behind you while you were still looking at it.
And sometimes nothing has happened at all, except that the life you were living has quietly stopped fitting, and you can't yet say what's replacing it.
What these have in common isn't difficulty.
It's that the ground is unfamiliar, and the ways you usually get your bearings don't quite work here.
If you're in the middle of something like that, and you're curious about the terrain itself, how crossings tend to move and who walks them with you, you're in the right room.
A season of
many thresholds
December holds several at once.
The year is ending.
The solstice turns the light.
The larger world is in the middle of its own long crossing, in more places than anyone can keep track of.
And inside all of that, most of us are carrying a personal one too.
This series sits where those meet.
It even begins with the smallest threshold there is.
The first session falls under the balsamic moon, the dark just before the new one, and by the second session we've crossed it together.
Three Saturdays, three ways of reading the terrain
Each session moves between story, teaching, and sharing. We begin with love stories, from the goddesses who descended into the underworld to the heroines of fairy tales and romance novels, because stories are where people have always kept their maps of crossing.
Then the teaching.
Then room to share and ask.
The Landscape and Its Guides
December 5, balsamic moon
What this in-between place is, how we find ourselves in it, and what stops working once we're here. And the guides who walk it with us: Hermes, who knows the terrain, and the Threshold Lover, who helps make the crossing and stays with us for the whole of it.
The Phases
December 12, crescent moon
A crossing moves, and each part of it asks something different. The lunar cycle becomes a way of seeing where you are in the movement. (No previous knowledge of astrology needed.)
The Conditions
December 19, first quarter moon,
two days before the Solstice
What the crossing is doing to you, in four distinct conditions, and the practices that honor each one.
Before the first session, you'll be invited to take the Threshold Lover Quiz, so you arrive having already met one of your guides.
Across the three Saturdays, you'll come away with a way to name three things about your own crossing:
where you are in its movement
what it's doing to you, and
who's walking it with you.
A map will show you where the hotel is, but not how comfortable the bed is.
What could become available
You are here.
Anyone who has traveled knows the moment. You come up out of the station in a city you don't know, and before anything else you find the map and look for the dot that says you are here.
The map doesn't tell you how the trip will go.
What it does is let you land. You get a sense of where you are and which way you're facing, and the next step gets taken from firmer ground.
Knowing the shape of a crossing can work the same way.
It won't tell you how yours unfolds.
But recognition has a way of letting clarity in. What has been hard to see can come into view.
The anxious not-knowing can loosen its grip.
The steps can come with more confidence.
And you may start to notice what has been guiding you all along.
A word about scope.
This is a series about the terrain. It won't tell you what happens next.
What you do with the map is yours, as the journey is yours.
How it works
Saturdays - Dec 5, 12 & 19
Time: 10:00 to 11:30 am Pacific
12:00 to 1:30 pm Central
1:00 to 2:30 pm Eastern
Three live 90-minute sessions via video (Zoom)
Sessions are recorded, including Q&A & sharing
A companion PDF with practices and
journaling prompts
U$125
Enrollment closes December 4 @ 7:00 pm Pacific
Can't make it live?
Every session is recorded, so you can take the whole series by replay, on your own time, through January 5, 2027.
Who’s teaching
I'm Vanessa Couto, an archetypal astrologer, storyteller and teacher, and I approach this work through the lens of depth psychology.
I taught this material a few times earlier this decade. Back then, my maps focused mostly on how a crossing moves, along with a few of the better-known threshold dwellers who appear when we're in one of life's transitions.
Since then, romance novels have widened my view of two things: the terrain of the liminal itself, and the figures who show up along the way.
We tend to remember the ones who test us at the threshold and forget the companions who walk with us once we're through.
Romance turned out to be the piece I didn't know was missing, and the territory is so much richer for it.
Come get your bearings
Saturdays - Dec 5, 12 & 19
Time: 10:00 to 11:30 am Pacific
12:00 to 1:30 pm Central
1:00 to 2:30 pm Eastern
Three live 90-minute sessions via video (Zoom) or by replay through January 5, 2027
U$125
Questions
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Yes, all of it, including Q&A and sharing. Recordings live on a private page for people in the series and come down on January 5.
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You’ll receive an email with the Zoom link and meeting dates. Plus the login password for where the replays and PDF downloads will be available to you.
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The material for each session builds on the previous. So if you miss one session, please make time to watch what you missed to get the most out of the work.
But life happens, so if you can’t watch the replay, you will still benefit from coming to the live session.
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No reading assigned. No previous knowledge of astrology is needed.
Anything else, the FAQs cover how classes work, or send me a note through the contact page.
Walk your liminal ground in good company
A question before you join?
If something about the series isn't clear, or you're wondering whether it fits the season you're in, send me a note.
I'll write back soon.