Text: Page 256

Dasein was like Lichtung, which in German means both “light” and “a clearing in the woods.” Lichtung symbolized Dasein and the psychological existentialism of Heidegger because I, Dasein, am like a clearing in the woods. The very act of being in a clearing in the woods reveals “the light” of human existence. Without humans the woods would just be woods. But when “I” enter the woods, “I” bring an ability to have a uniquely human experience. Heidegger replaced consciousness with experience, the experience of being in the world because in the woods “I” experience the world in all its wonder.