The land that Tolkien saw?

I am moving to Middle Earth, to the province of Rohan to be precise, or at least to a land of similar vistas. My natural environment until now was more like the Shire: a lovely mix of meadows and trees, tended fields and little woodlands, with here and there a winding brook or small pond. But this new landscape can only be described as epic. I now understand the term, ‘big sky.’ Though trees are few, I do not miss them much for the land itself has much character and speaks volumes that my own small country could never imagine; much like the babbling of children compared to the works of Shakespeare. The landscape is the same, but each whim of sun, cloud, rain, mist, and snow gives it an ever-changing though still seemingly eternal presence. I do not know if certain races are genetically predisposed to prefer one sort of landscape over another, but something seems to tingle in my bones, that this stark beauty is truly home, something left over from ancestors who eked a living in the Scottish Highlands or trod the Connemara region of Ireland: places of rocky heights, rugged vegetation, extreme and erratic weather, and a sky that seems more real than the lands beneath it. It is a place where an adventure might happen, a place Tolkien spent eight pages describing and only scratched the surface. I do not think I could survive in the unending and unvarying cornlands of Illinois and Iowa, but this place has character, a beauty you can feel, a beauty sometimes grim and harsh, but so are all mortal tales.

I wonder at the emotions this stark beauty inspires. It is a place where one dares not be an atheist. For the world is so large and one is so small, that it is here one truly realizes their insignificance in the universe and how utterly pointless is everything without a greater Purpose. For the unchanging hills have seen many a mortal sorrow in their day and never do they care what passes upon their ancient sod, but the One who wrought the hills cares about even the sparrows that flit among the grasses and this brings much comfort to a quivering heart, overwrought with all the horrible wonder about it. But a heart without such hope must soon be overcome and perhaps driven to madness by all the vast and rugged country in which they find themselves. Perhaps one can glimpse eternity in such a place, for the hills have stood since the beginning of time and so has the ever-changing sky looked down upon them and so shall it remain as long as time persists. But in all the smallness and sorrow that has passed upon the face of the world, one can still look up ‘unto the hills from whence comest my strength,’ and be at peace that there is One who has, ‘overcome the world.’ Here there is sorrow, roughness, and harshness, but so too is there beauty and wonder, hope and joy, at least for those who know where to look, or rather to Whom. Some would call it a ‘howling wilderness,’ but even there, one cannot escape the Presence of Him who made all, rather you can feel it more intensely where the hustle and bustle of civilization is not and all that is was wrought by hands not mortal.