Powerful writing! I think understand what you are talking about here, similar thoughts have entered my mind at times, and I think (whether they acknowledge it consciously or not) the very act of urbanised people 'getting away' to the country, be it to camp out or simply walk in nature, is a spiritual, meditative experience for people. Our brains and bodies are still very much tied to the natural world we evolved in and I think people feel a real discomfort from being outside of that in their day to day lives...

Some of what you talk about is covered in the Edinburgh journalist, Graham Hancock's book 'Supernatural' which is all about the development of spirituality, religion and altered states of consciousness, with and without ethanogens.

The connection to something greater is definitely a feeling I experience when I am in nature. Last year, before I had my house and I was very poor, staying on a friend's camp-bed in their workshop I was feeling quite miserable, homeless and loveless on the edge of an unfamiliar city (and, as you can guess, I was beginning to understand the changes I have needed to make to my life recently!) Living on the outskirts with a large country park five minutes away, rather than in the heart of the city, I really feel that helped save me. When pressure got too much, I cycled into the woods and set up camp. An oddly-shaped birch offered me a comfy seat, so there I settled, a warm fire, fragrant with cederwood and pine, tea from birch-sap and lime-flower, that changing spring air, from crisp and refreshing in the early morning, but warm in the evenings. Simple things, but I still feel like that peaceful place balanced me and helped me become whole again.

Its interesting when you talk about identifying 'holy' or special places. I think humans have a unique ability to identify such places. I don't know whether it is about the composition of a place, the aesthetics of its geography, or of a specific tree or rock, the air or the light of a place, maybe it is a combination of all those things, but sometimes, though a place may seem little different from another, you can still *feel* it to be special in some way.

Which reminds me, I have a book I think you would really appreciate, I think it fits with your general philosophy and way of thinking. Its by a Scottish lady that lived just a mile or so from the house I grew up in and is all about her wanderings in the mountains, on the Cairngorm Plateau. She was fascinated by the interactions of people and place and understanding what she called the 'inside' of the mountain - looking beneath the surface, not just the outside and the masculine 'conquering' approach of mountaineering - the obsession with reaching peaks and summits rather than experiencing the mountain as a whole.