> >Or maybe I just live on the
> > west coast of North America and so have always had more
> > iconic landmarks to focus on and never needed to try to make
> > something impressive out of the English countryside.
>
> Dunno what you mean by that. IMO the English countryside doesn't
need
> any help to be "impressive" (not that that's really the point -
subtely
> beautiful is the point, not somethng garish with neon).
I always half-suspected that the reason folk in England and France came up with such intricate sacred patterns linking bits of the local landscape was that their local landscape lacks big 4000 meter stratovolcanoes rising up from sea level. It was much easier for the local tribes to identify their landscape gods when they stood out so prominently (we've got dueling volcanic thunder gods, pieces of the moon that fell to earth, sacred islands, and so on - no need to make patterns to find them!).
In good jest -
Jeff
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