Last night I stood on the deck of dreams listening to the chorus of birds singing the day into night. My mind was turning over the tragedy in Orlando. Then I caught a shimmer of setting sun through the aspens by the deck.
When I processed the image, I discovered that bumping the saturation a little revealed the innate rainbow of color in the “green” leaves.
“White” light is actually a combination of all colors. We see our world only because of the light that falls on it. “Color” is determined by the type of light that is reflected back to our eye from the surfaces we see. When we see “black”, it is because that surface is absorbing the light rather than reflecting it.
As an artist, I constantly look for the color and light that isn’t immediately apparent. I am captivated by the way surfaces reflect not only the light that strikes them from a source, but also the light that is reflected off the surfaces that surround them. Everything is connected by the light. The more I choose to look, the more colors I see in the world around me.
The aspen leaves filtered and reflected sunlight and were impacted by the color of the sky and other leaves that reflected off them. A black bear isn’t simply “black”, it reflects the light that bounces off its habitat…the blues of the sky, the browns of rock, greens of the grass and the myriad colors of the light as it finds its way from sun through filters of atmosphere to strike black bear fur.
On countless levels, I have found there to be a profound connection between art and life. Light connects the elements of a painting and, on a grander scale, represents the interconnectedness of all life.
Love is like white light…it is made of all colors. Choosing to live with compassion means choosing to see, and actively look for, the less obvious “colors” of those around us. The more I open my mind, the more depth and beauty I see in the people around me.
We’ve all met people so dark that they seem to suck the light right out of us. We’ve also all met people whose light is so strong they lighten us just by being close. Some of the brightest lights I have met have come from the darkest of places…yet they have chosen to shine.
We all have within us the capacity for light and dark. We can choose to draw everything into our own darkness or to reflect back the light the falls on us and is reflected from those around us.
Choose to share the light, choose to love.
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