Erinyes's Vampire Journal

Erinyes's Journal

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← Sep 2011

= IN THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS =
02:10 Jul 19 2014
Times Read: 893

This house is their church,

and the rocks and the hills are the altars

and the creed is written in the leaves of the trees

and in the flowers of the field and in the sand of the shore.

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite,

every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance.

Communion service is at all hours,

and the bread and wine are from the heart

and marrow of Mother Earth.

There are no heretics in Nature's church; all are believers,

all are communicants.

The beauty of natural religion is that you have it all the time;

you do not have to seek it afar in myths and legends, in catacombs,

in garbled texts, in miracles of dead saints or wine-bibbing friars.

It is of to-day; it is now and here; it is everywhere.

The crickets chirp it, the birds sing it, the breezes chant it,

the thunder proclaims it, the streams murmur it,

the unaffected man lives it.

Its incense rises from the plowed fields, it is on the morning breeze,

it is in the forest breath and in the spray of the wave.

The frosts write it in exquisite characters, the dews pearl it,

and the rainbow paints it on a cloud.

It is not an insurance policy underwritten by a bishop or a priest;

it is not even a faith;

it is a love, an enthusiam,

a consecration to natural truth.

.

.

— John Burroughs (1837-1921), from Accepting The Universe, 1920

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