Gifts from the Caldera’s Rim

Still Waters of Isa Lake

I began daydreaming about a visit to Yellowstone back in the fifth grade.  And till yesterday, that sense of anticipated awe remained on a list.  But yesterday, the prospective translated into the actual, and my own definition of grandeur needed to expand to encompass the world I encountered.

The surprise moment was a subtle one, located along the Continental Divide at a small pond called Isa Lake.  Here as geography would have it, the water flows out both ends, one stream headed to the Pacific, the other to the Atlantic.  And reaching down to touch the cool water, that literal Northwest Passage connected me to the vastness that is our planet.

The thermal sites throughout the park are an amazing display that immediately exceeded my idea of them.  The sulfuric vapors, the heated steam, and the shear force of the water escaping from the molten depths puts one in the immediacy of our planet as living organism, in the manner that Jung hints at: the psychic aspect of all matter.

The boiling hot spring in this video clip is from the Artist’s Paintpots.