Definition: The Clearing is the metaphorical and literal place of renewed vision and vigor, where the path becomes known and inspiration carries your resilience forward. It is the open expanse, the place of surrender, and the presence needed for you to meet your Self once again.
Back in 2020, Chris and I saw an exhibition about agriculture at the Guggenheim titled Countryside, The Future. Its explorations on the future of ecology, ecosystems both human and nonhuman, intersected with technology, migration, and urbanism spiraled, literally as the building does, through weaving narratives to the top conclusion: that the only way to move toward a sustainable future is to partner with the wisdom of nature. In other words, despite our technological advances and efforts to innovate our way toward harmony with the natural world, both in ourselves and our environments, it turns out nature did it better.
Nature has known how to build and sustain life through its impeccable ecosystems for millennia, and if we slow down to honor the wisdom already available to us, we will find the path of least resistance and most profound clarity, the clearing.
This sounds obvious, and yet at every turn, us humans broach our naivete with hopefulness to control the present and the future. As the argument is made by this exhibition, perhaps to literally go to the clearing/the countryside is to find the new frontier for the future. I aim here to extrapolate on this even further to the metaphysical to say the clearing/the countryside in you is also your new frontier for the future. Look to nature outside of you, as well as inside of you, for renewed answers, vision, and innovations.
Of course, this exhibition echoes the sentiment of other cultural narratives, such as the documentary, The Biggest Little Farm or Fantastic Fungi, or the book Braiding Sweetgrass, to name a few. Time and again, we see that to humbly turn toward nature as our teacher and to release our predilection to control it has the best outcomes, and that nature itself has intelligently navigated creating networks that far surpass our advances. There is a metaphor in there for us too. Don’t shy away from your wild nature, integrate it into the evolutions of yourself and who you are becoming, it is the only way to sustain your growth. Remain open to the unknown, for the mystery is the very thing keeping the faith, and life perhaps evermore interesting. All to say, so within, so without, so rewild our future, our ecosystems, and ourselves.
