Alaine Brawley · Clarity
Sunrise over Howe Sound near Squamish — mirror-still water between two mountainsides.
The Clearing · September 2026 · Squamish, BC

We don't retreat.
We advance.

Two days in the mountains, for the questions that keep returning.

01 · The kind of question

The questions
that keep
returning.

Some questions don't have clean answers. They shapeshift, resist our best thinking, and keep returning, asking for more.

Most of us are carrying at least one of those right now.

The Clearing is built around that kind of question, and what becomes visible when we finally give it enough room.

02 · The gathering

September
2026.

In September 2026, we gather in Squamish, British Columbia for two days in the mountains. There is something about physical scale and beauty that loosens what felt fixed.

We move our bodies, make things with our hands, and sit together with questions worth sitting with. We build something in two days that does not require everyone to arrive at the same answer.

When
September 2026
Where
Squamish, BC
Format
Two full days
Seats
Ten
03 · The shape of the days

Two days
in the
mountains.

Day one is about grounding. Day two is about the one thing.

i.

Day one · grounding.

We begin with values: not as a list to admire, but as a working instrument. When we know what we value, every decision has somewhere solid to land — including how we want to lead in a world that is changing faster than most of us have had time to think about.

We move. We make. We listen to one another carefully enough that themes begin to emerge. They are almost always personal. They are almost always shared.

ii.

Day two · the one thing.

With more space between ourselves and what we carried in, each person turns toward what she came to look at.

The work is personal. The room holds it.

04 · The conversation most rooms skip

What do we
want from AI?

We also make room for a question that most professional gatherings don't: what do we want from AI, and what do we want to protect?

We bring that question into the room the same way we bring every other question here: grounded in values, examined without rushing, held alongside people who are asking it in good faith.

We treat that question the way we treat every other question in the room: with time, with honesty, and without an agenda.

05 · A different word

We don't retreat.
We advance.

You leave Squamish with more clarity than you arrived with. Clarity has a way of arriving when we stop bracing against it.

Ten seats · founding rate

If this is calling to you,
reach out early.

There are ten seats. The founding rate is $1,500 plus GST per person. This rate reflects a first cohort and will not be the ongoing price.

Accommodation is not included. For those traveling to Squamish, I am happy to help coordinate options that fit.

Register your interest
06 · Questions

Before you
reach out.

The Clearing is for people who are good at what they do and in the middle of thinking about what comes next. That might be a career transition, a question about sustainability, or something less defined. The question does not need a name yet to be worth bringing. The people who belong in the room usually know it when they read this page.

Readiness is not a prerequisite. What helps is having something real to bring: a decision that keeps circling, a question that hasn't resolved, a sense that something is worth looking at more carefully. The Clearing is not asking you to have the answers. It is asking you to bring the question.

Day one begins with values: not as a reflection exercise, but as a working instrument for the decisions in front of you. We move our bodies, make things with our hands, and listen to one another carefully enough that real themes begin to surface. Day two turns toward the one thing each person came to look at. The schedule has structure and it has space. Both matter.

We make time for a conversation that most professional gatherings skip: what do we want from AI, and what do we want to protect? We approach that question the way we approach every other question in the room: with values as the starting point, with time, and without an agenda. No prior knowledge of AI is required or assumed.

Ten. That number is small enough that every person has room in the conversation, and large enough that the range of experience and perspective is genuinely useful.

The founding rate of $1,500 plus GST covers two full days of facilitation, all meals during the retreat, and the materials we work with. Accommodation is not included. For those traveling to Squamish, I am happy to help coordinate options that fit.