The colour of the arrival of monsoon cloud shyama blackish like tamala trees., For countries who experience only two seasons -wet or dry making the welcoming of the rainstorm which brings anew the celebration of life with all the’ flourishing beauty abound
Blue is everywhere in my life. The blue of the sky and the water. My favorite color to wear. It was the color of my Catholic school uniform in first and second grade (a LONG time ago!). It is the color of choice in some of my decor, and the color of my favorite flowers, blue hyndrangea. For me, a happy color, inviting calm and joy somehow intertwined. Not exactly an ode, but there you have it!
I read poetry every morning and used to write poetry as a young woman. I’d love to compose something on the fly so I went to look up the structure of an ode. But should it be Pindaric, Horatian, or Irregular (Cowleyian)? I’ll have to set aside the actual ode and simply appreciate color to respond to this one!
I look at color consciously. Occasionally on a walk I’ll make a point of looking for instances of a particular color (one time I did a whole Twitter thread of the instances of blue I could see standing in one place and simply turning in a circle, ending with my own very blue outfit: https://twitter.com/BarbChamberlain/status/1523001095995371520?s=20).
If you looked in my closet you’d expect an ode to the teal/turquoise color block with a verse tagging on royal/cobalt, or else to the peach/salmon/heading toward orange, or possibly to charcoal grey/black. The bright salmon/peach colors and teal/turquoise make me happy when I wear them. They’re cheerful and stand out from the more staid, somber business-y colors. They feel like spring and summer even in the dead of winter. Charcoal grey is restful and provides a nice contrast or base for my bright turquoise. Black, of course, is the ultimate basic, and yet there are so many shades of black! There has even been a fight within the artistic world created by someone developing the ultimate blackest black (Vantablack, which I learned about from 99% Invisible, one of my favorite podcasts https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/their-dark-materials/).
This is a fun question and I may just have to try my hand at an ode one of these days. In the poetry section on this site they invited people to write odes to ordinary things–a place to mine for some inspiration that isn’t Keats or Wordsworth.
An ode? I think I’ll leave the ode writing
those that are better equipped. But,
I will say that I do love the color green
in all of its shades and hues. And then there’s
blue. From the palest blue sky to the
darkest blue that’s basically black. And
of course I love a deep dark ruby red paint
job on a nice looking car.
I’m grateful for the refraction of light.
Yellow is my color.
It speaks cheery….Canary’s song
It speaks bright…..sun
It speaks nourishing……egg yolk
It speaks beauty….daffodil
It speaks needy…a yellowing leaf
Yellow speaks to me!
Since light can be thought of as energy, which is dependent on the frequency that a colour vibrates at, and that we sense this energy, every colour seems to appeal to me at different times. Some days I want yellow, some days purple, some days the shades of blue. Other days I marvel at how orange is a most amazing colour. I am very grateful that I have eyes and a body that can sense colours and seems to have cravings for colours.
My ode is more to being human and to Nikola Tesla for generously contributing his great curiosity to humanity.
Oh, turquoise, I love your coolness, your ability to go with just about anything, your clear, clean essence!
This is before coffee, so that is about the best I can do right now…..
An ode is a tribute, a paying of homage to someone or something. Choosing one color is hard for me but I shall never forget driving through two rainbows while living in Arizona. I didn’t know you could drive through a rainbow. Let alone a double rainbow. I had never witnessed one before nor have I since. I was struck with awe. I was surrounded with so much color and I felt hugged by it. Color can be a blessing for sure but not always. I share a Morning Med I wrote in 2017.
Morning Meds, Oct 20 2017 De Colores
Good Morning, Henri Nouwen is often quoted as saying that “…where sin is, grace is super-abundant…”Any one who has been reading the Morning Meds for very long knows that I’m not fond of the word sin and that I also struggle with the word God, too. I have no doubt that the reason rests with my childhood religious training.
I can still see the image of a trinity of milk bottles to explain my relationship with God and sin. The milk bottles were introduced by the nuns at the age of seven. According to church dogma, that’s the age of reason—the age when my mind could discern between right and wrong.
One bottle is full of lily-white milk and that represents the little girl who is pure and good. She is without sin.
The one beside it is filled with grey milk and that represents venial sin. Venial sin is forgivable by this God who by now I have learned is everywhere but who I find myself picturing as an elderly man sitting on a throne (so much for the age of reason). He doesn’t appear to be very approachable. I better be good or he won’t love me. (Oh dear, love—another one of those difficult words)
Then there is the third milk bottle; it is filled with dark chocolate milk, so dark that it is black. That is mortal sin and it is deadly. I have to confess it to a priest because this God on the throne will never forgive me without the church’s intercession.
On top of all of this milk bottle metaphor, I am told that grace has to be earned. Religion is all about performance. It turns everything into a moral issue. Grace is a state of being lily-white. If I sin, I am a beggar at the gate but am not allowed to approach the altar or even kneel at the throne. Fear is my motivator.
But what if the milk bottle metaphor was re-defined?
What if the dark chocolate milk represented an egoic mind—a guarded heart that feels separate from the oneness of creation, separate from the creative glue of an evolutionary god?
What if the grey milk bottle represented the dawning of consciousness, an awareness of a freely-given-grace that gives me the willingness and the courage to walk in the darkness, knowing that when I stumble, it’s OK, it is just part of the process of learning how to BE the person I was meant to be?
What if the lily-white milk bottle represent all the colors of creation, the good times, the difficult times, gathering together and discovering the creative power of living in the Presence? I prefer that image of God and Sin, that explanation of Super-Abundant Grace.
“Life is the Spring name of God; Warmth is the Summer name of God; Silence is the Winter name of God; Color is the Autumn name of God.” Jeanne Ambre SS.C.M.
Michele, You were right on…You hit the nail on the head. I named them Morning Meds to stand for meditation and medication. I’ve been writing them for several years and send them out to about 30 folks, some close friends, some who I’ve met over the years and some who are members of my family.
I’ll add one more thought: What if we stopped associating the color white with goodness and the color black with badness? That implicit and explicit association is at the root of our nation’s original sin (a word I almost never use).
Isn’t is funny color just appears…I don’t think about it…but goodness if it were not there I would surely notice. I leave WV in the winter months to escape the “Brown” of the landscape…the trees are brown, the ground is brown, the leaves flying are brown. We yearn for the greens in the grass the blue in the sky, the y,ellow of the sun, the brillance of the flowers….pink, purple, blue, orange, yellow! Our world is full of colors…Today, I will be sure to open my eyes and look and appreciate all color!!
There once was a sky so blue
That it made me forget what to do
It caused me to wonder
How on earth can we plunder
All the natural wonders
And not see that they make us feel new
Color, a phenomenon of light. What I have always pondered is do we all see the same palette of color as another. We identify green or red or blue because someone taught us the words to verbally identify a particular color, just as they had been taught. We can not hear another’s thoughts or we can not see out of another’s eyes. Do we each all see the same thing or is it sligtly different from another?
I studied linguistics in college and have wondered the same thing. I know my husband and I have a different line between blue and green because we describe the color of our car differently. I think it’s blue-green-gray; he thinks it’s green.
Languages label color differently so the range of the spectrum described by the word for “blue” may not be the same in one language as it is in another language. The human eye can perceive many more shades than we bother to name, too. I did a quick search and found an article on the linguistic question that describes the basic distinctions that appear in all languages (and then it gets deeper into an analysis of Australian Aboriginal languages) https://theconversation.com/red-yellow-pink-and-green-how-the-worlds-languages-name-the-rainbow-68641.
Black and white are truly basic colors that go well with everything.
Black or white are clean slates, ready to begin.
The black of night, the white of snow….both beautiful.
Both colors are greatly appreciated and always accepted.
hmmm, what color associates with extreme tiredness?? I had terrible insomnia last night, going on like 4 hrs of sleep. Thank god tomorrow I can sleep in. maybe black?
looking forward to reading others reflections today. tgif.
oh, wait, brain thinking … today is blue and green day – part of April’s Donate Life. Those are our colors. so there, blue and green:)
Oh funny! My favorite color happens to be orange. That’s right, orange! I enjoy wearing clothing that have shades of orange in them, my gym bag is orange, and for many years while running weekend retreats I always wore a faded old orange LL Bean button up cotton shirt. If I didn’t have it on kids would say, “Kevin, you’re not wearing your orange shirt.” A healer once told me that orange is a powerful healing color. A friend at the gym, seeing me walk in with my gym bag and wearing a light orange shirt, playfully asked me, “Working construction today, Kevin?” I can’t say why, but orange just makes me feel better. And no, I don’t work in construction!
I work in transportation so of course orange is the color for work zone safety and traffic cones for me. This happens to be Work Zone Safety Month so many of my colleagues have an orange virtual background in our online meetings. (For everyone, this is your reminder to slow down, move over, and pay attention–those cones are there for a reason!)
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Here is to brown
Ordinary
Everywhere
Loamy, dark, simple
source
of all that grows, blooms, blossoms.
The colour of the arrival of monsoon cloud shyama blackish like tamala trees., For countries who experience only two seasons -wet or dry making the welcoming of the rainstorm which brings anew the celebration of life with all the’ flourishing beauty abound
Blue is everywhere in my life. The blue of the sky and the water. My favorite color to wear. It was the color of my Catholic school uniform in first and second grade (a LONG time ago!). It is the color of choice in some of my decor, and the color of my favorite flowers, blue hyndrangea. For me, a happy color, inviting calm and joy somehow intertwined. Not exactly an ode, but there you have it!
I read poetry every morning and used to write poetry as a young woman. I’d love to compose something on the fly so I went to look up the structure of an ode. But should it be Pindaric, Horatian, or Irregular (Cowleyian)? I’ll have to set aside the actual ode and simply appreciate color to respond to this one!
I look at color consciously. Occasionally on a walk I’ll make a point of looking for instances of a particular color (one time I did a whole Twitter thread of the instances of blue I could see standing in one place and simply turning in a circle, ending with my own very blue outfit: https://twitter.com/BarbChamberlain/status/1523001095995371520?s=20).
If you looked in my closet you’d expect an ode to the teal/turquoise color block with a verse tagging on royal/cobalt, or else to the peach/salmon/heading toward orange, or possibly to charcoal grey/black. The bright salmon/peach colors and teal/turquoise make me happy when I wear them. They’re cheerful and stand out from the more staid, somber business-y colors. They feel like spring and summer even in the dead of winter. Charcoal grey is restful and provides a nice contrast or base for my bright turquoise. Black, of course, is the ultimate basic, and yet there are so many shades of black! There has even been a fight within the artistic world created by someone developing the ultimate blackest black (Vantablack, which I learned about from 99% Invisible, one of my favorite podcasts https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/their-dark-materials/).
This is a fun question and I may just have to try my hand at an ode one of these days. In the poetry section on this site they invited people to write odes to ordinary things–a place to mine for some inspiration that isn’t Keats or Wordsworth.
An ode? I think I’ll leave the ode writing
those that are better equipped. But,
I will say that I do love the color green
in all of its shades and hues. And then there’s
blue. From the palest blue sky to the
darkest blue that’s basically black. And
of course I love a deep dark ruby red paint
job on a nice looking car.
I’m grateful for the refraction of light.
Yellow is my color.
It speaks cheery….Canary’s song
It speaks bright…..sun
It speaks nourishing……egg yolk
It speaks beauty….daffodil
It speaks needy…a yellowing leaf
Yellow speaks to me!
Since light can be thought of as energy, which is dependent on the frequency that a colour vibrates at, and that we sense this energy, every colour seems to appeal to me at different times. Some days I want yellow, some days purple, some days the shades of blue. Other days I marvel at how orange is a most amazing colour. I am very grateful that I have eyes and a body that can sense colours and seems to have cravings for colours.
My ode is more to being human and to Nikola Tesla for generously contributing his great curiosity to humanity.
Oh, turquoise, I love your coolness, your ability to go with just about anything, your clear, clean essence!
This is before coffee, so that is about the best I can do right now…..
ooh, great color choice, I think of the beautiful turquoise color of the water driving down the the Florida Keys.
An ode is a tribute, a paying of homage to someone or something. Choosing one color is hard for me but I shall never forget driving through two rainbows while living in Arizona. I didn’t know you could drive through a rainbow. Let alone a double rainbow. I had never witnessed one before nor have I since. I was struck with awe. I was surrounded with so much color and I felt hugged by it. Color can be a blessing for sure but not always. I share a Morning Med I wrote in 2017.
Morning Meds, Oct 20 2017 De Colores
Good Morning, Henri Nouwen is often quoted as saying that “…where sin is, grace is super-abundant…”Any one who has been reading the Morning Meds for very long knows that I’m not fond of the word sin and that I also struggle with the word God, too. I have no doubt that the reason rests with my childhood religious training.
I can still see the image of a trinity of milk bottles to explain my relationship with God and sin. The milk bottles were introduced by the nuns at the age of seven. According to church dogma, that’s the age of reason—the age when my mind could discern between right and wrong.
One bottle is full of lily-white milk and that represents the little girl who is pure and good. She is without sin.
The one beside it is filled with grey milk and that represents venial sin. Venial sin is forgivable by this God who by now I have learned is everywhere but who I find myself picturing as an elderly man sitting on a throne (so much for the age of reason). He doesn’t appear to be very approachable. I better be good or he won’t love me. (Oh dear, love—another one of those difficult words)
Then there is the third milk bottle; it is filled with dark chocolate milk, so dark that it is black. That is mortal sin and it is deadly. I have to confess it to a priest because this God on the throne will never forgive me without the church’s intercession.
On top of all of this milk bottle metaphor, I am told that grace has to be earned. Religion is all about performance. It turns everything into a moral issue. Grace is a state of being lily-white. If I sin, I am a beggar at the gate but am not allowed to approach the altar or even kneel at the throne. Fear is my motivator.
But what if the milk bottle metaphor was re-defined?
What if the dark chocolate milk represented an egoic mind—a guarded heart that feels separate from the oneness of creation, separate from the creative glue of an evolutionary god?
What if the grey milk bottle represented the dawning of consciousness, an awareness of a freely-given-grace that gives me the willingness and the courage to walk in the darkness, knowing that when I stumble, it’s OK, it is just part of the process of learning how to BE the person I was meant to be?
What if the lily-white milk bottle represent all the colors of creation, the good times, the difficult times, gathering together and discovering the creative power of living in the Presence? I prefer that image of God and Sin, that explanation of Super-Abundant Grace.
“Life is the Spring name of God; Warmth is the Summer name of God; Silence is the Winter name of God; Color is the Autumn name of God.” Jeanne Ambre SS.C.M.
Beautiful Carol, from another survivor of Catholicism and parochial school in the sixties when mass was spoken in Latin.
Carol, I had to laugh out loud, your title ‘Morning Meds’ I initially thought ‘medication’ short cut, then remembered ‘meditation’.
Michele, You were right on…You hit the nail on the head. I named them Morning Meds to stand for meditation and medication. I’ve been writing them for several years and send them out to about 30 folks, some close friends, some who I’ve met over the years and some who are members of my family.
perfect. Keep on writing!
I’ll add one more thought: What if we stopped associating the color white with goodness and the color black with badness? That implicit and explicit association is at the root of our nation’s original sin (a word I almost never use).
Isn’t is funny color just appears…I don’t think about it…but goodness if it were not there I would surely notice. I leave WV in the winter months to escape the “Brown” of the landscape…the trees are brown, the ground is brown, the leaves flying are brown. We yearn for the greens in the grass the blue in the sky, the y,ellow of the sun, the brillance of the flowers….pink, purple, blue, orange, yellow! Our world is full of colors…Today, I will be sure to open my eyes and look and appreciate all color!!
There once was a sky so blue
That it made me forget what to do
It caused me to wonder
How on earth can we plunder
All the natural wonders
And not see that they make us feel new
Thank you for this! Really like your poem.
Laura, Love it!
Color, a phenomenon of light. What I have always pondered is do we all see the same palette of color as another. We identify green or red or blue because someone taught us the words to verbally identify a particular color, just as they had been taught. We can not hear another’s thoughts or we can not see out of another’s eyes. Do we each all see the same thing or is it sligtly different from another?
I studied linguistics in college and have wondered the same thing. I know my husband and I have a different line between blue and green because we describe the color of our car differently. I think it’s blue-green-gray; he thinks it’s green.
Languages label color differently so the range of the spectrum described by the word for “blue” may not be the same in one language as it is in another language. The human eye can perceive many more shades than we bother to name, too. I did a quick search and found an article on the linguistic question that describes the basic distinctions that appear in all languages (and then it gets deeper into an analysis of Australian Aboriginal languages) https://theconversation.com/red-yellow-pink-and-green-how-the-worlds-languages-name-the-rainbow-68641.
Joseph your wise words made me think of the musical “South Pacific” and the song “You’ve got to be Taught.” Here’s a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPf6ITsjsgk
Black and white are truly basic colors that go well with everything.
Black or white are clean slates, ready to begin.
The black of night, the white of snow….both beautiful.
Both colors are greatly appreciated and always accepted.
hmmm, what color associates with extreme tiredness?? I had terrible insomnia last night, going on like 4 hrs of sleep. Thank god tomorrow I can sleep in. maybe black?
looking forward to reading others reflections today. tgif.
oh, wait, brain thinking … today is blue and green day – part of April’s Donate Life. Those are our colors. so there, blue and green:)
Oh funny! My favorite color happens to be orange. That’s right, orange! I enjoy wearing clothing that have shades of orange in them, my gym bag is orange, and for many years while running weekend retreats I always wore a faded old orange LL Bean button up cotton shirt. If I didn’t have it on kids would say, “Kevin, you’re not wearing your orange shirt.” A healer once told me that orange is a powerful healing color. A friend at the gym, seeing me walk in with my gym bag and wearing a light orange shirt, playfully asked me, “Working construction today, Kevin?” I can’t say why, but orange just makes me feel better. And no, I don’t work in construction!
I work in transportation so of course orange is the color for work zone safety and traffic cones for me. This happens to be Work Zone Safety Month so many of my colleagues have an orange virtual background in our online meetings. (For everyone, this is your reminder to slow down, move over, and pay attention–those cones are there for a reason!)
Thanks for the safety reminder, Barb, to all of us to slow down…and live longer!
As for me, I haven’t changed the color of my virtual background in Zoom meetings to orange yet, but if I do, it might be time for a new career!
Kevin, orange is the color of The Netherlands, so whenever my husband sees the color orange, he remembers his home country.
I may need to move, Mary Pat!
🧡