Robert MacFarlane “The Wild Places” (Penguin 2008)

A long Christian tradition exists that consider all individuals as peregrini, in that all human life is seen as an exile. This idea was perpetuated in the Salve Regina, the chant often recited as a last night prayer. Post hoc exilium, the prayer declares: all will be resolved after this exile. The chant, when sung, sounds ancient and disquieting. It is unmistakably music about wildness, an ancient vision of wildness, and it still has the capacity to move us (28).