"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates

My question is about last sentences of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates

"My sweet little blue-eyed girl," he said in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.

I don't understant what is the meaning of taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him?