"Sometimes the spirit of a place is so strongyou may think you see its face and glimpse it gamboling over a field or peeking out of a forest. This spirit we sense in each locality would once have been described as the scintilla or spark of its soul, the pearl in the oyster. It accounts for the magic of a region and without it, an acute sense of place dissipates into a vague and lazy feeling of nowhere . . . It's when we lose a vivid sense of region and locality that the spirits of the place crawl back into hiding and human life becomes pale with the loss." Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
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2 comments:
Very interesting site. 'll Come again!
Thomas Moore is one of my favorite authors, and I think his quote about the spirit of place is one of the keys to his notion of re-enchanting daily life.
As the Academic Coordinator for the Museum of Art & Archaeology at the University of Missouri, I enjoy working in an enchanted (not haunted) building in an enchanted landscape, historic Francis Quadrangle [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziJp9qXDW5k&feature=player_embedded], itself modeled after The Lawn designed by Mr. Jefferson. I am interested in learning from others in what ways (if any) enchanted places like university campuses can contribute to student learning in this increasingly virtual world we more or less live in these days.
Finally, my thanks to Ms. Finnemore for standing guard over her place and sharing her little postage stamp of soil (William Faulkner's conception of Oxford, Mississippi as a keystone of the universe)with interested readers like myself. Best wishes for continued success and thanks for this wonderful website!
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