The migration
On the annual turn toward Maine, the intelligence of the in-between, and a mantra that bridges
🌑 NEW MOON | MAY 2026
New Moon in Gemini. Of all the signs, Gemini understands the in-between — the threshold, the crossing, the capacity to exist between two truths at once. This lunation opens at the start of summer, when the light is longest and something in us is already moving.
This week I close one house and point myself east.
Every June it goes like this — a slow unraveling from California, the accumulated weight of a year's worth of ordinary life packed or left behind, and then the long drive and the longer flight toward mountains I have been dreaming about since March. The Rangeley lakes. The silence of a Maine morning. The way the light falls differently there, cooler and more honest, through trees that have been standing long before I started returning to them.
I have made this migration enough times now that it has become its own kind of practice. There is a version of me that exists in each place — distributed, not divided. The woman who teaches and tends her community in California. The woman who paddles on Rangeley Lake before anyone else is awake. I used to feel the crossing between them as a kind of loss, a departure. Something I had to recover from on either end.
What I understand now is that the crossing is the practice.
In the Himalayan tradition (as is in many spiritual traditions), the threshold moments — sandhya, the twilight times, the in-between — are considered especially auspicious. The ordinary categories that keep us fixed in one way of seeing become, briefly, permeable. Something can cross that couldn't cross before.
Sunset swim in Rangeley Lake
Sri Sukta, the great Vedic hymn to Lakshmi, carries this quality in its bones. She is invoked as the one who bridges — connecting one shore with another, the energy of abundance and grace moving across water. When I chant Sri Sukta in transit — in airports, on the first night in a new bed, in the disoriented hours before a place feels like mine again — I am asking to be fully present to the crossing itself. To let the in-between be as sacred as either shore.
Gemini holds this same intelligence. The twin nature, the messenger moving between worlds — the refusal to be only one thing, in only one place, in only one season. There is wisdom in knowing how to carry yourself across a threshold without losing what matters.
My practice travels with me. That has taken years to trust.
This is my third summer offering sound baths at The Rangeley Hideaway, my little coffee and coworking business that has somehow become its own kind of gathering place. If you find yourself in the mountains of western Maine — for the hiking, the lakes, the unstructured summer days — come by and visit!
For those who want more than an afternoon in the wilds of Maine, I am hosting a very special women’s ceremony and retreat October 1–5, 2026. The mountains in that light, the trees ablaze in gold and red, and a long. Three spots remain. Learn more HERE.
🌑 PRACTICE FOR THE NEW MOON:
Before you cross any threshold this week — a doorway, a departure, the moment before something begins — pause for three breaths. If you practice with Sri Sukta, let even one round of the opening verses be your bridge. If you don't yet, simply bring your full attention to the crossing itself. Let it be a moment, not just a movement.
What do you carry with you from season to season — and what do you consciously leave at the threshold?
Where are you being asked to exist in two places at once? What would it mean to trust that capacity rather than resolve it?
🌱 THIS NEW MOON ASKS:
What if the in-between is not the space before you arrive — but the practice itself?
What if you are exactly where you are supposed to be crossing?
With you in the dark,
Stephanie Chee Barea
Sacred Sound Teacher | Mantra Practitioner | Spiritual Guide
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