The higher the climb the steeper the slope; finally, a bird’s view of the once obstructed end of Deep Lake. The lake stretches in front of me, blue-green against the red of the cliffs. Reflections of dusty red bluffs on the majestic blue-green surface of Deep Lake. The blue green mixture looks as if someone let paint flow freely over a canvas. The reflection of the northern slope scribes an illusory false peak onto a surface of glass. An explosion of autumnal colors surrounds the placid lake. Reds, yellows, oranges and whites, scattered from water’s edge to deciduous tips. The lake is a place of intersections: earth and water, civilization and wilderness, the familiar and the alien.

A dock provides an embassy for terrestrial creatures to mingle with their aquatic counterparts. The frogs and birds still sing out in the familiar tones, my wandering minstrel troupe singing the songs of home and childhood. The icy depths sink into my body, refusing to let me move, a white flash, hard to breathe; suddenly I’m free, moving as fast as possible towards the dock, towards warmth. I feel lighter when I emerge, the weight of my old self still gripped by the icy lake: I am reborn, baptized in the waters of Deep Lake. The lake washes away all the dust of travel, then down to the deeper filth of the past; I am reborn in my image.

A sort of homecoming occurred: alienated by all this brown and gray a return to cool water and green plants set my heart at ease. A familiar world seen with eyes newly opened by an alien landscape. Wandering the water’s edge becomes oddly similar to navigating life: know boundaries by watching their edge. If you cannot be inspired through silence, then you will not be inspired by actions or words either. Silver sage and yarrow dance in the wind, I pluck a few, leaving my complete story; my hair in its stead. A night time visit reveals a new landscape, a gentle mist rising off the water’s surface, drawing the eye upwards only to be intercepted by the celestial plane displaying the most astounding light show since the Acid Tests. The fluid and flexible will always prevail with time; power, not force