On genius

Dick Richards, author of Is Your Genius at Work? (coming in November 2005) blogs here and owns the website onGenius.com with an intent to extend a methodology to enable people to recognize their own genius and unique natural power. Malta is one of the places around the world where he has sensed 'genious loci':

The way that I use the term genius, as distinguished from its popular meanings of intellectual ability or extraordinary creative achievement, is also alive in a branch of architecture known as environmental design or ecological design. Designers such as Jim Cutler and those at the Knossus Project know the concept as genius loci, the “presiding spirit” of a place. D.H. Lawrence described it like this: “Different places on the face of the earth have different vital effluence, different vibration, different chemical exhalation, different polarity with different stars: call it what you like. But the spirit of place is a great reality.” (as quoted by James Irish)

I feel certain that you have sensed a genius loci somewhere. I have; on a ridge overlooking the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania, at the edge of the Grand Canyon, on a large rock at the coast of Malta, at various places in and around Sedona. Sometimes even in my back yard.
Genius loci is described by some architects as the guardian spirit of a place or as its spiritual force. These designers create architecture that makes use of what a place wants to be—its genius loci...