Lichtung
"In the midst of being as a whole an open place occurs. There is a clearing, a lighting. Thought of in reference to what is, to beings, this clearing is in a greater degree than are beings. This open center is therefore not surrounded by what is; rather, the lighting center itself encircles all that is, like the Nothing which we scarcely know. That which is can only be, as a being, if it stands within and stands out within what is lighted in this clearing. Only this clearing grants and guarantees to us humans a passage to those beings that we ourselves are not, and access to the being that we ourselves are."
Martin Heidegger, On the Origin of the Work of Art
Lichtung or Clearing
“Clearing” names the illumination belonging to Dasein as a being who understands being, and who through this understanding discloses itself and the world. Heidegger first uses the term “clearing” (Lichtung) in §28 of Being and Time, entitled “The Task of a Thematic Analysis of Being-in.” Heidegger connects the disclosure of the clearing to the traditional idea of the lumen rationale, or “natural light,” as a figurative description of human understanding.
“If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.”
