ceremony quotes

Poem of a Buddhist nun: 

Only within burns the fire I kindle. 
My heart the altar. 
My heart the altar.

Sun Bear: 

When humans participate in ceremony, they enter a sacred space. Everything outside of that space shrivels in importance. Time takes on a different dimension. Emotions flow more freely. The bodies of participants become filled with the energy of life, and this energy reaches out and blesses the creation around them. All is made new; everything becomes sacred.

T.S. Eliot: 

Any religion...is for ever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion. 
Selected Essays, 1927


Thomas Love Peacock: 

Names are changed more readily than doctrines, and doctrines more readily than ceremonies.