Pilgrimage- Katie Randazzo

Liminality, as understood in Image and Pilgrimage, is a part of the rites of passage of the pilgrimage. This happens after the individual separates from their community. In this separation, often the “shedding of the village” happens, as they leave the marketplace pace of society and into solitude and isolation. The liminal stage is seen as a doorframe- the act of leaving the known and entering the unknown. The tension here is between the liminal stages not only being a state transition, but also a state of potential. I think about the different stages of the AT and how at multiple points hikers feel the liminal stage of a pilgrimage. When do you think that the majority of hikers feel this liminal stage? Before they start hiking, as they enter their first town, or in the midst of a long hike?