"It is always wise to avoid show-places and choose for your excursions into the country the simplest and most natural scenery you can find."
____John Cowper Powys, The Meaning of Culture
The countryside takes on the burden of our needs for refreshment, especially at the end of summer when we take to the roads on the last few days of holiday to seek recreation.
Ironically, the very places that are solitary and full of sacred power are now becoming the most exhausted places of all. Even side of natural beauty that offer wide-open spaces of forest, water, and hill are choked with holiday-makers seeking the wilderness and the refreshment of nature. Instead of wildlike, vista, and peace, they find only each other - and in increasingly large bands.
The burden of expectation upon the countryside is something that we can help redress, with a little consideration. This redress may involve finding other, less popular countryside place to visit, or finding places within or near the city. But chiefly we should consider what we can give when we make our country visits. To leave the countryside as we found it, without traces of our passing, is a duty we can teach to our families, so that the beauty may be preserved for future generations.
Our pilgrimage to the country, whether it be for spiritual refreshment or physical recreation, can be purposeful and beautiful excursion that restores us in soul and body. Our thank-you gift to the country and the beings who live within it is our respect and gratitude of our heart.
"Meditate upon your favorite place in the country and visit it in soul-flight. Consult the spirit of the place and ask its advice and permission about your next visit. Ask what gift (a song or a blessing, perhaps - something that will not harm the land) would be acceptable. Do this whenever a visit is planned."
[From: The Celtic Spirit by Cailtlin Matthews]
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