Perhaps within you there is something that might be called the Forest of the Unnamed. You might find it waits within you on the very periphery of your awareness, hovering in anticipation of your attention. It lurks hungrily, greedily, its vast unknown waiting keenly to devour and to be devoured. It is a promise, and a gift, and a threat, a tension and obligation, a pledge of self to self.
Perhaps this Forest of the Unnamed has languished. Perhaps it has languished out of mind’s sight, forgotten, its paths abandoned, its ways lost in a haze. Perhaps you have neglected it, ignored its subtle siren calls. Perhaps you have set it aside, turned away from its invitation, permitted yourself to slide past its green embrace.
In favor of what have you declined the call of the forest? The call of pavement and smog. The call of street signs and regulations. The call of authority and order. The call to suppress spontaneity in the name of conformity. The call to deny the natural flow of the body as it is. The call to value the self only in terms of predetermined categories, the blandishments of capitalism, technocracy, reductionism, objectification.
A thing is not a thing. A thing is a door into magic. Anything can be a door into magic. Everything is a door into magic. Magic is another name for the Forest of the Unnamed that waits, forlorn yet hopeful, for your embrace. Yet this secret, hidden in plain sight, has been hidden by authorities, by judgment, by greed, by objectification, by control. Untether a human being from their inner Forest of the Unnamed and you can control them and make them think this is a good thing. You can destroy the world in their name.
The process of recovering one’s personal Forest of the Unnamed is fraught. It requires the embrace of fear, doubt, contempt, rejection, and loss. The price paid to reconnect with the magic within is set high by a world that is twisted into hierarchies of objectification and reductionism, exploitation and denial. When we are beyond the maps we have been given, there and only there can we find ourselves.
The willingness to recall the call of the Forest of the Unnamed is the beginning. It can be a mantra, to call oneself back to that Forest over and over again. Each time we touch that verdant vale of mystery, we might find some new part of self (re-)awakening. This is frightening and painful just as it is exciting and joyous. Facing one’s numbness hurts, yet it is also a gateway to exhilaration.
What do you not permit yourself to be? What thriving do you suppress? What creativity do you stifle, choke, and abandon, expelled into the deeps of the Unnamed Forest within? Will you not dare to foray there, to discover the beautiful secrets that merely wait your loving gaze and embrace?
Authoritarian objectification will say to you that there is no Forest, and if there is, that it is bad, unpredictable, untrustworthy, unruly, in need of management, in need of a rigidity that you will never be able to permanently impose once you allow that Forest to breathe in the sweet oxygen of your loving attention. Do not be fooled by this swindle. The beginning of your journey into the Forest of the Unnamed may have some false starts, mistakes, fumbles, but this is just an artifact of inexperience. The Forest will be your teacher if you but suspend disbelief long enough to allow it to be so.
There will be failure, perhaps at times disastrous. There will be illusions of self-discovery that in time are exposed as mere surface excursions into the mysteries of the deep. There will be truths terrifyingly exhilarating, intimidating like the soaring heights of great mountains. These are all necessary developments if we are to come into accord with the Forest of the Unnamed.
Yet beware the old impulse to think the Forest can be mapped, bounded, controlled. Beware the subtle seduction of the internalized authoritarian, who in the Forest’s Unnamed name would reduce it to strip malls, coal mines, corruption, predictability. Personal liberation and social liberation are parallel processes.
To truly listen to oneself is to cultivate self-empathy. Self-empathy is tending to abandoned forest paths, to learning the names of the beasts, trees, and streams. Listening to the hooting owls, buzzing bees, howling wolves, and groaning boughs within. The Forest of the Unnamed awaits you, biding its time with grace and patience. It is never too late to seek its wisdom: “Forest of the Unnamed, teach me to be your friend!” The journey begins thus.
