yes peter i agree with you. alan garner's 'the moon of gomrath' - a piece of fiction for children of all ages - has one of the most poetic evocations of this - a 'track' which is in fact a connecting line or route appearing under moonlight at certain times of the year. in a way although such an idea is not proveable in terms of actual astronomical or cartographic alignment, it has a symbolic rightness to it which is convincing.

Paul Devereux's writing on the cursus and various landscape lines discusses the subject too doesn't it? i can feel the establishment of geometry as a first move toward distinguishing one's culture and life from the chaos and entropy of nature.

i have never doused but it has a romantic appeal for the same reason - and it doesn't need to be scientifically proveable for me to see its poetic value.

and, despite the wonderful mass of incredible information and opinion that we have, the romance of that subjective sense of connection still remains the most important thing...