The original painting

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

When we were kids at school, we would indulge in painting with watercolours. The more colourful our drawing would be, the better, and the happier it made us.

As kids, we would have the same palette of colours, but each one would produce a unique creation.

As grown-ups, we try to copy each other down to every minute detail. Jealousy has become a spiteful characteristic of adults, fighting over who will show they were first in doing something, regardless if they know the truth.

The original is always better than the copy, though, and it is evident which is which.

“You have your brush, you have your colours, you paint the paradise, then in you go” – Nikos Kazantzakis

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The meaning we give

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It was on the dining table. A constant remind of the feelings that characterised that house. Passion, love, caring, sensitivity.

Inundated with colour, the crystal vase featured seven gold-tipped roses. Perfectly stemmed, with petals opened just enough to demonstrate their purity and elegance; the roses were a gift from the heart.

They enclosed a memory of a day overwhelmed with emotions, happiness and optimism. Of a day that brimmed of hope for what was to come. For a future full of colour and love.

They were an everyday cue that love is just a word until someone gives it meaning.

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The jar of colour

©Priya Bajpal

It was always on the table. Ever since it was set there in a ceremonial style by the two of them.

No matter what happened after that, the fights, the disagreements, the shouting, the heartbreaks, it was there. Left there as a constant reminder of the good times.

Because the bad tempers would pass. And the light would be restored.

The glass jar of coloured papers represented exactly that. The positivity of our lives. The need to realise that it is not all black and white. That there is colour. The one we create and we are responsible for maintaining.

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The Earth’s laughter

©MCD

“The Earth laughs in flowers” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. And you can see it with the first bright, sunny days, flowers all around us begin to bloom filling life with colour. And with that, hope, light and optimism. For where the earth continues to bloom, so does the belief that things will become better.

It is the reason we are so happy and radiant when someone surprises us with flowers. Or why our mood immediately changes when we find colourful, blooming flowers in our garden or on our balcony.

But like all beautiful, worthwhile things in life, they need commitment, effort and determination.

Have in mind, though: “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower” (Alexander Den Heijer). And like The Little Prince so rightly reminds us “It is the time wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important”.

“All the flowers of the tomorrows are in the seeds of today” – Indian proverb.

 

Autumn walks

©MCD

There is something soothing about a walk in the park, surrounded by the colours of autumn, the falling orange-brown leaves and the crackling sound of them under your feet. There is something even more calming when you are accompanied by people you hold dear in your heart; more so when you’re holding hands transferring the warmth of love with one cherished.

Autumn walks help clear your mind. Because for those valuable moments you are lost in the footpath, your mind drifts among the crispy leaves, the fallen chestnuts, the tall trees of shades of yellow and brown. The tranquillity touches upon your soul in ways that only nature can. And you return somewhat changed, more serene, ready to set and accomplish new goals.

In a season of change, we need the escape to rethink our own paths in life and be ready to take bolder steps.

The depth of forever

The message said simply “look beyond what you see”.

He looked to the left, to the right, in front, at the back, sideways, even upside down, but he couldn’t see anything. He began to think it was a trick. Or a prank. He grew tired and, instead, persuaded himself that there was nothing there. But, somehow, he couldn’t leave without discovering something. His godmother wouldn’t leave things so mysterious. There must have been something.

The boy stood there almost an entire afternoon, staring at the horizon and beyond, filling his mind with fantasies of what could have been.

But at that very moment when the sun began to fade, the sky turned orange. It separated the horizon into blue, caramel and yellow, playing with the few clouds that accompanied the disappearing light.

His entire body shivered, not because it was cold, but because of awe and amazement.

He stared at the light quickly fading, with the colours changing faster than you could catch your eyes blinking. It was a few moments in which he was lost, forgetting everything and everyone else and just staring into the infinity of a few minutes that seemed forever.

Sometimes forever is just a few seconds, she had told him.

He had finally understood.

Life in colour

Have you ever thought why when you’re sad you’re feeling blue, or when you’re jealous you turn green with envy?  And why is love painted red? Why is it that every time our emotions change, we become chameleons changing colours?

Colours are often associated with emotions, because, obviously, our world is not black and white. We see colours all around us, and these constitute an important aspect of our visual experience. Colours are not only detected by the eye, but by the brain and can thus affect various systems of the body. Dubbed as colour psychology, research has shown that we indeed associate various colours and the emotion they cause with the relevant physiological or psychological state of a person. For example, blue is perhaps the world’s favourite colour. Seen all around us in the sky and sea, blue symbolises openness, while it also soothes, calms and relaxes. Blue is also intrinsically linked to low blood pressure due to the deoxygenised colour of the veins and for this reason it is very often linked to sadness and depression. Contrary, red is the colour of passion. Associated with high blood pressure and heat, red is linked to vitality, ambition, and anger. It is actually linked to all emotions that cause your heart to race and stimulate an increase in adrenaline. In its lighter shade, pink is the colour of related to feminism, comfort, warmth and tender affection.

When you think of green what comes to mind? The environment, plants, recycling, eco-friendly activities. A calmness perhaps and a serene environment. Green creates feelings of comfort, laziness and relaxation; however, dark olive green is associated with illness – and thus we often see ill-stricken cartoon characters turning green. Yet, green also describes envy. In fact the Ancient Greeks believed that jealousy was accompanied by an overproduction of bile, lending a yellowish-green pallor to the victim’s complexion. In the seventh century B.C., the poetess Sappho used the word “green” to describe the face of a stricken lover. After that, the word was used freely by other poets to denote jealousy or envy. The most famous such reference and the origin of the term “green-eyed monster” is Iago’s speech in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Other colours are intrinsically linked to the physiological state the emotion incurs, explaining for example why we turn white with fear due to the presence of all colours causing a rush of emotions, or why white symbolises purity and peace. Yet, colours such as yellow although on the one hand are reminiscent of sunshine and cheerfulness, on the other also symbolise cowardice and fear, probably because it causes more eye fatigue than any other colour!

Did you know that orange is lonely? Literally lonely? Because nothing actually rhymes with orange! Yet the colour itself is psychologically warm, welcoming and vital. Purple is majestic in its own right, while it is also associated with combating shock and fear. Having been used in the care of nervous disorders, this colour has shown to help balance the mind and transform obsessions and fears. Additionally purple is also linked to the right side of the brain stimulating intuition and imagination. Brown, an earthly colour reminds us of home. It arouses feelings of stability and security, as well as credibility and reassurance. Black on the other hand, entails a negative feeling, often of loss, void, emptiness, insecurity and mystery, given that this is caused by the absence of colour.  So there seems to be a colour for every mood, every emotion, every physiological and psychological state. Even for the indecisive and ambiguous, there is grey, for it is neither white nor black!

Colours are our way of experiencing the world. It is why “adding colour to your life” has become such an important expression. Because in order to experience life in its fullest we ought to live out its every colour and every emotion that comes along with it!