How the elder loved nature! He loved it in three different ways: as angels, children, and sages love it. When he walked through the forest with us, we felt the power of his prayers. It was as though ranks of angels surrounded us. The elder said very little in the midst of nature, but if he did say something, then it was with such child-like joy and simplicity that his earthly age disappeared. Nature for the elder was a book of the holy revelations of God.
Any work of art is ultimately an entry-point into the transcendent, revelatory of not
only subtle, but celestial beauty and power; and if the given work is not so, it cannot
properly be called art at all...All works of art, in other words, are religious, sacred, or
nothing.
~ from THE EGYPTIAN MYSTERIES BY Arthur Versluis