Sacred Groves
Many of the world's ancient belief systems also include the belief of sacred groves, where trees are revered and respected and there are priests and priestesses attending to them who also serve as guardians, preventing those who wish to tear down the trees by means of ancient magic and elaborate protection rituals.
From ancient Norse and Celtic mythologies, to the Nigerian and Indian cosmological thoughts, extending far east in the ancient Shinto faith of Japan and the peculiar habits of the 19 tribes of the forest peoples of Malaysia, sacred groves provide relief and shelter from the mundane aspects of life and are considered living temples, albeit absent of stone walls or ornate stone monuments. A place of meeting where ancient rituals are performed, it is also a place of refuge for many in times of danger. For those who were fated to not find peace in this life, it is considered as the final resting place where the soul finds eternal peace as it reunites with the creator.
Read more about this topic: Tree Worship
Famous quotes containing the words sacred and/or groves:
“A hidden strength
Which if Heav’n gave it, may be term’d her own:
‘Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that, is clad in compleat steel,
And like a quiver’d Nymph with Arrows keen
May trace huge Forests, and unharbour’d Heaths,
Infamous Hills, and sandy perilous wildes,
Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity,
No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer
Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)