Thoreau states that the colors of the water are different at different angles and can even be different from the same point of view. "At a great distance all appear alike," people are sometimes like this by conforming. This however, is his perspective and it is subject to change, just like the pond is. One point of view is that the pond can be used to symbolize emotions or feelings. When a persons emotions are "stormy", they can have a "dark slate color" in their eyes. The nature of the sea is very much like that of humans because they constantly and unpredictably change. Once covered up, things will either be completely masked and become something else or it will merge and become something new. The pond can also be used to symbolize society as a whole. Because some consider the color of water to be "pure blue", they are expressing then need to conform to a standard. The color of Walden pond varies randomly and even from the same perspective it is different. So it makes it very difficult to determine its exact nature. Numerous things in this reality are the same, such as viewing an abstract painting. No matter now many times it is examined it will always yield something innovative. The pond then is the embodiment of heaven and earth by the way it takes on colors of both while reflecting it. But that same embodiment is also a symbol of transcendentalism because in order to see past heaven and earth you have to be on the seam plane as heaven, and so he stands on the hilltop, a step closer to heaven.
A clue to the symbolic meaning of the pond lies in two of its aspects that fascinate Thoreau: its depth, rumored to be infinite, and its pure and reflective quality.
Once in the winter, many years ago, when I had been cutting holes through the ice in order to catch pickerel , as I stepped ashore I tossed my axe back on to the ice, but , as if some evil genius had directed it, it slid four or five rods directly into one of the holes, where the water was twenty-five feet deep.
