The feeling I get at the beginning of July is not something I can name easily. The solstice has passed, and the next turn of the wheel, often called Lamas, at the start of August, is still weeks away. July exists in the space between two peaks, neither the height of summer nor the beginning of the harvest. It is, in the truest sense of the word, liminal.

Liminal comes from the Latin word for threshold. It describes the space between what was and what will be. The moment of being neither fully here nor fully there. It can feel uncomfortable if you resist it. But if you lean in, it becomes one of the most generative spaces you can occupy.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because July has always held a particular liminal quality in my own life. And this year, that quality feels more present than ever.

A Campfire in the Space Between

For years, while Matt and I were building our tiny house, we would invite friends up to our land over Independence Day weekend for a campout. We would cook in the camp oven, sit around a fire at night, and spend the long summer days doing whatever felt right. Some people would help with the tiny house. Others would simply rest. It was never structured or obligatory. It was just people gathered in a beautiful place, in the middle of something still becoming.

Looking back, those gatherings were the perfect expression of July’s energy. We were in a liminal space in the year and in a liminal space in our lives. The tiny house wasn’t finished yet. The next chapter hadn’t started. We were right in the middle of something, pausing to gather around a fire and let that be enough.

That land and that tiny house are now on the market. Nearly twenty years of a story, and we are standing at another threshold. The next adventure is out there somewhere, not fully visible yet, not fully formed. Another liminal space. Another July.

Both Busy and Lazy at Once

July has always existed in two worlds for me. It is both busy and lazy. The heat slows everything down to a particular pace, the kind of stillness that settles into your bones on a midsummer afternoon. And yet things are still moving. Work continues. Ideas simmer. Something beneath the surface is quietly building even when it doesn’t look that way from the outside.

I think this is the truth about liminal spaces in creative work. They don’t look productive from the outside. They feel like pausing, like waiting, like being suspended between two things. But inside them, something essential is happening. The kind of processing and ripening that can’t be rushed and shouldn’t be.

The mistake most creatives make is trying to force movement in a liminal space. To fill the stillness with noise because stillness feels like falling behind. But the space between is not empty. It is full of becoming.

The Pull of Your Own Work

One of the tensions I navigate regularly is the balance between professional work and my own creative projects. Client work has a rhythm and a deadline and a clear sense of purpose. My own books exist in a different kind of time. They ask for something slower and filled with uncertainty.

Right now I am feeling the pull of my own work strongly. The books I have been developing are asking for more of my attention, and I am learning to listen to that pull rather than push it aside in favor of what feels more immediately productive. Because the liminal season is exactly the right time for that kind of deep, unhurried creative work.

July gives you permission to go inward. To work on the thing that doesn’t have a deadline yet. To follow the pull of a project that hasn’t fully revealed itself. That is not wasted time. That is the work that will matter most when the harvest arrives.

What the Space Between Is Teaching You

If July feels unresolved, that is because it is. That is its nature and its gift. The space between two peaks is where you find out what you’re building when no one is watching. When there’s no milestone right in front of you demanding your attention.

Pay attention to what pulls at you this month. What keeps coming back even when you try to set it aside. What you find yourself thinking about in the slow, still hours of a midsummer afternoon. That pull is not distraction. It is direction.

The campfire is a good metaphor for all of it. You gather in the space between. You let the night be dark and the fire be warm. You don’t rush toward morning. You trust that when the time comes to move, you will know.

July is asking you to trust the liminal space. The harvest is coming. For now, tend the fire.

If you’re in a liminal space with your brand story right now and could use a steady hand to help you find the words, I’d love to hear from you. Let’s find out what’s building beneath the surface.