Liminal Pathfinding

“A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance.

(A Thousand Plateaus, 25)

Pathfinding, AKA “Trailblazing” along with networking are essential behaviors Rhizomes display in their processes of evolutionary adaption.

In these efforts, rhizomes and trees are complementary. Looking at the natural world there is a mutual symbiosis constantly occurring between the two.

Trees give structure, rhizomes give novel connections, trees provide fixed order, and rhizomes provide novel pathways. Trees give a consistent process, and Rhizomes have nonlinear creative novelty.

The hierarchical structure of the Tree is foundational, but it’s only enabled by the nonlinear, nonhierarchical chaotic, and pathfinding dynamics of the Rhizome.

Looking from the perspective of the Forest Ecosystem, Trees and rhizomes are together necessary parts of a larger whole.

Similarly, structure and anti-Structure, order, and chaos are the two poles beyond “Good and Evil” that one must negotiate in natural magic.

In this Rhizomatic art and science, one thrives on the edge and the liminal “Betweenness” of all things.