If you ever go through Cleveland, TN - drive a bit further - almost into the great state of Georgia ~ and visit Red Clay State Park. There is a healing spring there that was used by the Cherokee. There is also a sacred flame that never goes out.

I've got more pictures if I can find my disk from Clark Photo. It's here "somewhere" .

For now, this one in the winter and one in the summer will give you an idea of the magic of it.

Rather than dig out all the information about it again, I cheated and found a post I did back in 2005 when I went with my best friend to Red Clay for Cherokee Days.

Post on ‘the Blue Hole at Red Clay'
From 8-7-2005

 I went to Red Clay to the Native American day (it was the seat of the Cherokee government from 1832 until the forced removal of the Cherokee in 1838. it was the site of the 11 general councils, national affairs meetings attended by up to 5,000 people.

Here, Cherokee leader John Ross led the fight to keep the Cherokee's eastern lands, refusing the government's efforts to move his people to Oklahoma. Red Clay proved to be the Cherokee's last refuge - their capital in exile.)

The dancers and storytellers were awesome but the most totally awesome thing was that there is this spring there they call the 'Blue Hole Spring' and it really is blue.

It 'arises from beneath a limestone ledge'. It's fourteen to fifteen feet deep and has an underground cave (goddess only knows how deep that is) which legend says is where the 'little people' live and is the portal to another dimension. The water is pure and fresh and felt as cold as a glacier and produces over half a million gallons of water a day. ("Some 504,000 gallons, at
a rate of 350 gallons per minute pass through the site each day. The water maintains a year round temperature of about 56 degrees.") I immediately felt that it was a healing spring and found that it was indeed used during healing ceremonies by the Cherokee. Naturally I emptied my water bottle and refilled it from the spring.

I'm a bit sore from exertion but I feel amazingly good and am not hurting nearly
as bad as I normally would have. So a big thanks to all of you for the healing
energies you've sent and also to the goddess of the blue spring!

(snagged from gwg archives so I don't have to dig out all that info again ~ lazy me ;)