Welcome to The Inner Terrain.
I'm obsessed with the interiority of the human experience. I want to know about feelings and ideas, moods and doubts, fears and dreams. I want to see and hear and understand what’s happening beneath the surface of our lives.
It’s taken me a while to accept this about myself. There’s an embarrassment tied to caring about one’s inner world too much. Folks call you selfish and too fixated on your own navel. And honestly, those folks may be right. But in a world full of chaos and disaster, deep familiarity with my own inner landscape gives me a sense of agency, if not control. I can only do so much about the world out there, but I have a great deal of influence over the world in here, in my own soul. I’m grateful for this.
I’m not only fascinated by the movements and turnings of my own inner life. I’m also incredibly interested in the vast universes present in the people around me, including you. I want to know about how that one thing that happened to you over twenty years ago keeps showing up when you get into a disagreement with your spouse. I want to understand how enlivened you were at that one concert you went to; please tell me all about how you experienced that joy and transcendence in your body. I want to know about the moment you screwed up really badly, and how you struggled to seek the forgiveness of someone you love. These are all experiences of the inner life, with profound ripple effects on those around us.
And I’m obsessed with all of it, and decided to create a space on the internet to explore these exact themes.
The Inner Terrain is a place for me, and you, to make much of the interiority of the human experience.
If you become a paid subscriber, you can expect monthly essays from me, along with any other good things I cook up along the way. If you become a free subscriber, you’ll receive access to occasional public posts.
For those who’ve been readers of mine for some time, you’ll know this Substack was once called A More Beautiful Way, where I wrote about themes of slow and seasonal living. You can still read the entire archive of those posts here. Those few years of writing on A More Beautiful Way laid the foundation for my forthcoming book A More Beautiful Way to Live, which is available for preorder now.
I’m excited for this new season of writing and exploration, and I’m even more excited that you’ll be journeying alongside me. If ever you’d like to reach out and chat, email me: hello@bethaneywilkinson.com.
About Me
My name is Bethaney. I am a wife, author, and non-profit leader rooted in a rural community in Middle Georgia. The South is my heartbeat and home. The creeks, red clay, and whippoorwills in summer all have a way of reminding me of exactly where I come from.
For my work, I lead a non-profit that journeys alongside African-American landowners who are creating resilient land legacies through forestry and conservation. Spiritually, I’m newly rooted in the Orthodox Church, a surprising journey I write about here and here. I also co-sustain a one acre emerging homestead with my husband Alex and our two labahoula dogs, Isla and Bear. We call our home place Cedar Wilde.
When I’m not working, wrangling two very active dogs, or planting seeds with my husband, you can find me daydreaming, baking, rewatching Gossip Girl for the millionth time, or Face-timing my friends.
