Steeping ourselves in a place, simmering in its bounties, celebrating its wonders, and loving its peculiarities are necessary steps on a spiritual journey. We often take for granted the places where we work and play. To get to know them again, or perhaps for the first time, involves acts of consecration and imagination. Or as Wendell Berry puts it: "My most inspiring thought is that this place, if I am to live well in it, requires and deserves a lifetime of the most careful attention."
... there is music even in the beauty,
and the silent note which Cupid strikes,
far sweeter than the sound of an instrument.
For there is music wherever there is a
harmony, order, or proportion: and thus far,
we may maintain the music of the spheres.