"'Place and a mind may interpenetrate till the nature of both is altered,' the Scottish mountaineer and poet Nan Shepherd wrote in her lyrical love letter to her native Highlands, echoing an ancient intuition about how our formative physical landscapes shape our landscapes of thought and feeling. The word 'genius' in the modern sense, after all, originates in the Latin phrase genius loci -- 'the spirit of a place.'" In this post, Maria Popova delves into the themes of M.R. O'Connor's book, "Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World."
