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The afternoon passes, the light fades, and evening is coming when are upon the cold, treeless ridges in austerity and awe, utterly removed from everyday life and everything we are used to in light and sound. As we top the last edge, we see below us Blue Lake. Bottomless, peacock blue, smooth as glass, it lies there like an uncut, shining jewel. Symmetrical pine trees, in thick succession, slope down to its shores. This Blue Lake is the most mysterious thing I have ever seen in nature, having an unknowing impenetrable life of its own, and a definite emanation that rises from it. Here is the source of most of the valley life. From this unending water supply that flows out of the east end and miles and miles of the stream to the Pueblo, fields are irrigated and winds down and feds all our fields and orchards. It has never been surprising to me that the Native Americans call Blue Lake a sacred lake and worship it…it is fitting to sleep beside it and try to draw what one could from its strong being. Most of us are used only to the awesome holiness of churches and lofty arches, cathedral where, with stained glass and brooding silences, priest try to emulate the religious atmosphere that is to be found in the living earth in some of her secret places.
1945
Collected in: Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature by Lorraine Anderson
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