Blur
your eyes for a moment. We spend most of our time aching to see more clearly—but
there are some kinds of vision not available to the crisply sighted.
Lost
in the sharpness of details, and in the meanings of lettering we can read
too well, the colors and their own silent language may vanish from awareness.
Ah,
the blossoming hues of spring, which sing with the brilliance of bird
song! They do still catch our eye. And the wistful blaze of fall, with
the leaves going out in glory before returning to more subdued soil. Yes,
most of us still notice if the orbits of our footpaths take us there.
Yet color integrates into our lives in ways of which we
often abandon awareness.
Color
has more meaning and integration in the wild. The natural world speaks
through color, with both flashing radiance and gentle green artistry.
Its contrasts are at least as varied as our own neon urban palette. The
wild, brilliant color often has message, beyond
the message of beauty, which is message enough. A brightly colored creature
may signify poison to its predators. One who needs more hiding evolves
into perfect blending with the surroundings—attaining harmony and
invisibility in one stroke of color.
Color’s
range is enormous: but in any natural scene—from the harshest deserts
and ice fields to the most expressive impressionist field of wildflowers—nature’s
composition has balance and harmony. It usually has artistic simplicity
as well, with a harmonizing blend of tones that inspire clear moods.
A
forest of young spring green is the color of peace. A wildflower carpet
is all the colors of exuberance and joy. A white mountain towering above
is the color of silent prayer; the color of humility and reverence. A
vista stretching endlessly below is a patchwork of the moods of introspection.
The
natural scenes blend with enough clarity of palette to allow clear feeling
to rise within us. We know this truth of color, at the core. We feel the
sensations rise in the wild. We feel when the color scheme of our living
room, too, is restful or stressful to the mood. We feel the calming effect
of green plants in our midst. We learn the message of red as danger—a
place to stop. We even know, though we may try to keep ignorance, that
it’s a message of disconnection and disintegration written on the
urban landscape with color. It’s a chaos of hues, placed with insufficient
regard for the landscape or each other to achieve compositional harmony.
No camouflage, no coherent brilliance in total. No place to either belong
or blend in. Uncertainty sets in, of where to go and how to be. We grow
imbalanced and restless without a surrounding of the green color of peace.
How
much nature teaches us about the deep function of beauty! Of
building our lives and inner selves in a context of the harmony of colors!
So blur your eyes once more, and let nature speak its spectral masterpiece,
as a guide to the tone of our lives.
Blur
your eyes for a moment. We spend most of our time aching to see more clearly—but
there are some kinds of vision not available to the crisply sighted. 
Ah,
the blossoming hues of spring, which sing with the brilliance of bird
song! They do still catch our eye. And the wistful blaze of fall, with
the leaves going out in glory before returning to more subdued soil. Yes,
most of us still notice if the orbits of our footpaths take us there.
Yet color integrates into our lives in ways of which we
often abandon awareness.
Color
has more meaning and integration in the wild. The natural world speaks
through color, with both flashing radiance and gentle green artistry.
Its contrasts are at least as varied as our own neon urban palette. The
wild, brilliant color often has message, beyond
the message of beauty, which is message enough. A brightly colored creature
may signify poison to its predators. One who needs more hiding evolves
into perfect blending with the surroundings—attaining harmony and
invisibility in one stroke of color. 
Color’s
range is enormous: but in any natural scene—from the harshest deserts
and ice fields to the most expressive impressionist field of wildflowers—nature’s
composition has balance and harmony. It usually has artistic simplicity
as well, with a harmonizing blend of tones that inspire clear moods.
A
forest of young spring green is the color of peace. A wildflower carpet
is all the colors of exuberance and joy. A white mountain towering above
is the color of silent prayer; the color of humility and reverence. A
vista stretching endlessly below is a patchwork of the moods of introspection.
The
natural scenes blend with enough clarity of palette to allow clear feeling
to rise within us. We know this truth of color, at the core. We feel the
sensations rise in the wild. We feel when the color scheme of our living
room, too, is restful or stressful to the mood. We feel the calming effect
of green plants in our midst. We learn the message of red as danger—a
place to stop. We even know, though we may try to keep ignorance, that
it’s a message of disconnection and disintegration written on the
urban landscape with color. It’s a chaos of hues, placed with insufficient
regard for the landscape or each other to achieve compositional harmony.
No camouflage, no coherent brilliance in total. No place to either belong
or blend in. Uncertainty sets in, of where to go and how to be. We grow
imbalanced and restless without a surrounding of the green color of peace.
How
much nature teaches us about the deep function of beauty! Of
building our lives and inner selves in a context of the harmony of colors!
So blur your eyes once more, and let nature speak its spectral masterpiece,
as a guide to the tone of our lives.