I was thinking about sayings I have heard over the years that are meant to give inspiration, give warning, make a person think.

And the songs Flowers are Red (it’s actually by Hary Chapin – I always have to look this up) got me to thinking about rainbows. Which leads us back to Roy G Biv, now at the time I started to write this I didn’t know how the naming of the colors in the rainbow started. I briefly looked it up – found a single source and have much more to research. (Don’t take my word for it – go on an adventure and search for your own answers) But this is how I learned the colors of the rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. “Roy G. Biv”

And I was thinking on my walk in sun that’s a little too hot. That the colors blue, indigo and violet, as you follow them down the color spectrum, to the darkening shades, turn black.

And we have been taught for so long that black is bad. But is it? Or is it just another color that can portray beauty by a different light? I mean really, on the blackest of nights, I see blue. My black is hinged by blue. White snow turns blue, trees turn indigo and if we take but a moment to still our imaginations, our fears; wondrous things appear.

So, it is not merely good and evil, black and white. But a realigning of our perceptions.

Do not get me wrong, there are scary, evil things out there. But I think they are almost an absence of color. And that to me is a scary thing. Because if you say you do not see race or color or people or the privileges you have been given… then I believe you miss seeing so much beauty.

Nothing in life is free. Good things must be worked towards, and bad things happen. But it is up to each of us to learn how we perceive the world, and if it is slightly dark – to learn a new way to look at life. To change our perceptions, to re-learn our truths. Where we have come from, what we have learned tinge the colors of the world we see. If they are cloudy and murky, then it is up to us to learn how to clean that lens.

Only then will we see color. Only then can we look back on the path we have walked and accept not all was as it seemed, and look forward into a more colorful world.

Because if you cannot see color, you may miss seeing the smallest lights of brilliance.

(National Post, Feb 16, 2015, Postmedia News “Why the colour indigo is disappearing from Sir Isaac Newton’s ‘occult’ rainbow)