Lotus Eaters

Today, Tommy and I ventured out of Santa Fe to the village of Los Ranchos (on the Rio Grande near Albuquerque) to attend the annual Lavender Festival. Honestly, I was a bit more excited about it than he was, and had visions of us romping admidst the heady scent of purple fields (cue sappy music here) the likes of which one rarely sees outside Provence.

The coolest part of the fest takes place at an organic farm called Los Pablanos, which is at the end of a lane shaded by massive cottonwoods. Once we go there, we were surrounded by lots of folks in shorts, sandals, and straw hats, and I overheard a couple people say something about the lotus pond. Naturally, I was expecting a cute little koi pond, and since I love the lotus and its symbolism (transcendence, enlightenment, beauty) I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it. . . and then. . .



OH MY GOD!

How could I possibly miss it? Because there, to my left was a swampy area the size of a Missouri farm pond teeming with pink and white blossoms and round green leaves the size of platters. It was unbelievable, and for minutes, I just stared, convinced this was a dream. Lotuses? In the desert? Where is this? Egypt? And then I got overly excited because I remembered one of the final scenes from of my favorite childhood books, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis wherein our protagonists sail a ship to The Very End of the World, and when they get there, the water grows calm and there are only lotuses as far as the eye can see.

I was talking about this when Tommy told me to lower my voice a little. Anyhow, it was utterly mystifiying and we took quite a few photos.




Law of the universe: where there are lotuses, there are dragonflies.


Hope me standing here gives it a sense of scale.

Of course, we got to see the lavender fields, too, and they were every bit as lovely as I had hoped.



And we got a passerby to take a photo of us. (Please note Tommy's little chicken legs, but very stylish hat.)



Even though the car's air conditioning went kaput on the drive there, all in all, it was a good day.