The New Vocabulary of Place

The word 'enchanted' is used a lot, from old fairy tales to modern pop culture. But enchantment is not something reserved for fairy stories or for vague tingling feelings when we encounter something mysteriously wonderful. What if I were to tell you, for example, that enchanted land is an actual thing, a very real thing. I’ve been to dozens upon dozens of places that are enchanted. You’ve probably walked unknowingly across enchanted land yourself. There is enchanted land on at least six of the seven continents of planet earth, and for a very very long time, among very very many people, land was not considered to even be in its full expression, to realize its full potential as land unless it had been deliberately enchanted. In fact, the enchantment of land has been considered by many cultures their ultimate duty as human beings. And the implications of increasing swaths of unenchanted land are very real for both us and the planet.

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