In a meadow surrounded by trees, it was all but invisible. No wonder I had first missed it! Unverborgenheit, or “unconcealment,” is a word Heidegger coined for the sudden discovery of truth, as if stumbling upon a clearing in a forest. I left the manicured trail for an overgrown path laced with electrified fencing (to keep cattle from wandering). On hands and knees to duck under one set of wires, I couldn’t help but laugh as I thought of the celebrated Heidegger trope of the woodcutter’s labors seeking to hack out a path to the clearing, to the bright “thereness of what is.”

¶ 6:19 AM