Orange

Orange

• Physical comfort
• Food
• Warmth
• Security
• Sensuality
• Passion
• Abundance
• Fun

Orange is not the first color I pick, usually. But I’m learning to appreciate it more. Yesterday I saw the new growth on the trees—long orange tips of exuberant life in a leafless landscape. And off on a distant hill, the orange branches of the berry field gleamed against the green of the grass. New life is popping out all over.
There’s the warm orange glow of a fireplace on a cold winter night. And all the wonderful orange things we eat—citrus in winter, apricots in summer, squash in the fall. Such a rich, warm abundance.

Orange is not my strong suit, but I know people who do it well and I treasure them dearly. They bring such a friendliness and abundance and energy into the world. Every single one of these people cheer me  on, no matter how tough things get. They are deeply caring people and get along easily with just about anybody. They value those who are different from themselves and the unique gifts they bring.

This is the thing that continually amazes me—these colors and qualities are everywhere. Even in the areas where I’m weakest, I’m surrounded with people who have those qualities and I learn so much from them. And to be honest, it’s rather a relief to know that I don’t have to be everything. That’s why we need each other. We bring different gifts to the table. When we learn to value those differences, we’ll be able to accomplish so much more.

It’s all about love

I bought some fabric the other day to make summer clothes—in beautiful greens and purply blues. An elegant print with some solids to go with it. It all just worked and I was very excited to get started.

Saturday, when I sat down to sew, I kept battling a nagging doubt that this is all so frivolous—it’s just clothes. But then I pictured myself giving a workshop wearing these colors and what a calm and reassuring effect it would have on me and those around me.

In the process, I realized one more thing—it’s all about love. The love I put into making these garments has an influence. The love I put into creating the workshop has an influence. And love has this magical quality of spilling out into everything else.

When I am doing what I love, my whole being changes. My interactions with others are more caring and gentle. There’s a lot more room to just accept what is happening for them. To just accept what is happening for me. And know that everything will work out.

Love is like the oil in an engine—it lubricates the parts and eases the friction. Soon all the pieces are working together smoothly again. A deep happiness settles in. A happiness that knows that all is right with the world. No matter what the challenges ahead, we will find a way to work it out.

These are not just clothes. Just look at how much I’ve learned and I haven’t even cut the fabric yet!

Yellow

Yellow

• Emotional strength
• Friendliness
• Creativity
• Confidence

Today I focused on yellow and the robins showed up. Okay, okay, robins aren’t yellow, but their beaks are.

Seriously, it was the most amazing thing. I went to my favorite spot beside the young cedar tree and just gazed out over the field. Suddenly I heard rustling behind me and two robins came scuttling out from under the hedge. They were a bit surprised to see me there and watched me suspiciously for awhile, heads cocked to one side. But when I didn’t move, they lost interest and got to work looking for breakfast among the furrows of the field. Surely spring is on its way.

I caught a glimpse of crocuses as I drove through town the other day. We live up on a hill, so things take longer to bloom out here. I haven’t seen the daffodils open yet, but their buds are just about ready to burst.

Yellow. Creativity. I wake up the in the mornings and the air is clear and the birds are singing and my head is full of ideas. I bought fabric the other day and can’t wait to get started on creating something beautiful to wear.

It’s amazing to me how powerful and wonderful these natural rhythms and cycles are. When I started this process a couple weeks ago, focusing on the colors one by one, it was still winter—cold and wet and dark. Yellow felt exhausting to me. But since then I’ve freed myself from a couple burdens that were weighing me down and I feel much lighter, more whole. At the same time, the sun has come out, the world is waking up and spring is sending out it's early call. Yellow just seems like the perfect color for all this renewed energy.

Clear

Yesterday I went out walking and realized that perhaps the most important color is no color at all. It’s the color of air, the absolute clearness that allows us to see all the colors in front of us. Imagine if the air was blue—we couldn’t see a thing.

It’s so amazing that air surrounds us and sustains us, yet is completely invisible to us.What is the color of the wind? Only when air takes on a color—yellow smoke, gray fog, white blizzard—do we realize how much we need it to be clear.

Just look at what clear gives us. Through its transparency, we can see every color of the rainbow. Every blade of grass, every blossom,feather and twig.

“Clear” is just as important for our inner sight. When my vision is not colored by emotion or by what I want, I see the situation more clearly. I see what is actually happening, rather than what I want to happen. I see my own motives and actions and I can choose a wiser path. I see what is happening for the people around me and can respond better, rather than with knee-jerk reactions.

Ironic, isn’t it? Without the absence of color, we could never see the colors themselves.

Purple

Purple

• Spiritual awareness
• Vision
• Authenticity
• Truth
• Quality
• Containment
• Luxury

I’m putting together a team of people to work on content for our local Baha’i website. I was a little nervous about the first meeting—getting all the people together, getting us all on the same page, etc. So I started thinking about what qualities I needed for this work. The first thing that came to mind was purple, the spiritual color.

As I focused on the purpose and vision of this project, I realized that it’s all about connection—connecting people with each other, connecting to the Source of all things. We need to inspire ourselves and become channels for that love to flow through us. What are the stories that inspire us? Stories of love and service and transformation. Personal stories of triumph and insight, of overcoming obstacles and rising above limitations. That’s what we need to focus on.

Purple. The color of inspiration and insight. And it’s through story and song that we tap into these treasures.

Purple. It comes as no surprise to me that the first flowers I saw this spring were purple. Cheery little primroses in my neighbors yard. Yet another inspiration that keeps me going as winter settles back into cold, rainy weather once again.

Green

Green

• Restoration
• Reassurance
• Environmental awareness
• Equilibrium
• Peace 

I went for a hike today. It was one of those exquisite February days in Oregon when the sun comes out, the earth warms up and the birds sing their hearts out. The whole world seems to heave a sigh of relief—spring will come. Winter won't last forever.

Everywhere I looked I saw green. Fir trees, ferns, moss and ivy—all the evergreens. But there were new buds too. And carpets of new young plants covering the forest forest floor. Daffodils were pushing their points up through the earth. And snowdrops shining in the sun.

February is such an extraordinary time. It's no longer the dead of winter. There's actually sun and warmth. Not the biting cold sun of January, but warmth on your face, a kiss of spring. Yet it is still winter and chilly in the mornings as I watch my breath hang in the air. It's a time when the world starts stirring, getting ready for that burst of energy that is spring.

Spring - such a meaning-laden word. February feels like growing tension on a coil, turning the crank on the Jack-in-the-Box until suddenly it bursts through the door with blossoms and birds and busy-ness.

Gray

Gray. The psychologically neutral color. And yet there are so many flavors of gray. Sure, we all know the depressing gray of a rainy day. But there's the ephemeral gray of fog stealing between the trees at dawn. The solid gray of rock and stone. The delicate green-gray of lichen growing on the bare tree branches. There's the dramatic grays of a stormy sky. The soft gray of a mouse's fur.

Even that gray rainy day has many different qualities. Sometimes it's a soft gray mist. Sometimes it's a driving downpour. But isn't it odd that we think of rainy days as depressing when this is the water that nourishes us all? That gray is pretty important. Besides, those rainy days make it even more delicious to come inside to a warm house.

There are dark grays and light grays, silvery grays and purpley grays. Hard as steel, crumbly as concrete, solid as a rock. Soft as fur, a wisp of smoke, a fleeting mist.

As I am discovering with all these colors, gray was just gray before. But there's so much more to it.

Letting go of yellow...

I'm at the point where I need to pass on some of my volunteer responsibilities. When I started these jobs, my workload was pretty light. That's no longer the case.

As I started thinking about handing off one particular job, my brain immediately filled with all kinds of ideas about how to make it better, all the things that need to be done before I hand it off, how to manage it after I hand it off, and on and on - a flurry of bright yellow sparks of creativity. It was exhausting.

Then I remembered I've been trying to focus on the qualities of brown - groundedness, support, earth, the restoring hibernation of winter. This isn't the time for "busy" energy. This is the time for rest and reflection. So I visualized gathering all those bright yellow idea sparks and bringing them back into a seed and a pot of soil and then handing them off to someone else. Then I could let go.

That was my problem! I wasn't willing to let go and let someone else take over and be creative about the job. Once I brought it back to "seed and soil," I felt much calmer. I can do this. I can hand it off and let someone else make it grow.

This focus on colors is so amazing to me. It is helping me see more clearly the natural rhythms of life and how I get myself out of whack. There's a season for things. This is the season for reflection and restoration. The season for creating and growing is coming, but it's not here yet. When I'm out of sync with my natural rhythm, I feel like I spin my wheels and waste so much energy. Seeing the world through colors, I understand more quickly what those rhythms are and what I need right now.

Brown

Brown

• Seriousness
• Warmth
• Nature
• Earthiness
• Reliability
• Support 

It's fascinating to me how the colors flow into one another. I'd decided to focus on each color in turn and picked green next. I felt like I needed peace and equilibrium. But I just couldn't focus on it. Then I realized—I'm still in winter. Everything is underground. But at the same time, I can feel things stirring under the soil. Seeds moving in their sleep, dreaming of great things to come. Seeds are brown, the soil is brown, yet they produce all the green things around us. Green comes from brown. I wonder what brown is?

Brown is seriousness, warmth, nature, earthiness, reliability and support. Hmm. That does sound good. I could use some warmth and groundedness right now. Maybe it's brown I need and the green will come out of it.

Oh! The soil is rich brown and alive. It's the soil time of year. Last year's grass has died down and this year's grass is just starting to grow, so patches of earth show through. Brown is the earth, from which all things arise. It's the rich brown soil. It's the foundation, the state of potential, the seed.

That's where I'm at right now. Dormancy. The sleep of life. All things are quiet, resting, preparing for spring. Building, storing, collecting energy for the new burst of life when the sun warms up and spreads its smiles across the landscape. For now, though, it's rest, connection, groundedness. Touching the earth and knowing it is solid.

Brown is warmth and sturdiness. It is the trunks of trees and the twigs and the branches. It's what gives our world structure. It is our support. It's the wood we frame our houses with, the strength of our furniture. It's the solidness under our feet and the bones of the trees that reach for the sky.

What an incredible color brown is!