The Color of Hope

Hey there Spring Chicken!

I found someone else’s words to attune us to the season today. This passage is from a book called Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope, by Irish poet-philosopher-priest John O’Donohue. In one section he penned little ruminations on several different colors. (What a great idea! 🤓) I chose green for us.

Green: The Colour of Growth

Green is the colour of growth, the colour of hope. As winter begins to relent, the first green buds appear. Against the bare barks of tree and bush they seem out of place, some kind of mistake. Yet these infant spots of green secretly hold all the fabulous dressage of the spring, summer and autumn colour yet to appear…

… Green is the colour of youthfulness; it is full of spring energy. It is the colour of the earth aflourish. Green is not static but full of the energy and direction of growth, urgent on its journey toward the light. Gravity cannot keep it down; the call of light is always stronger. Green is the colour of relentless desire. Even from under earth smothered over with concrete or tarmacadam, the green blade will rise. Nothing can keep grass down. Its desire endures, holding itself focused to enter the most miniscule crevice and begin its soft climb to the high light. You can find the green blade anywhere — on top of ancient ruins way above the ground or growing in little indentations on top of massive rocks. It rests the eye, and still remains the colour of the day’s desire.

That last part reminds me of a weekend I spent with a friend years ago at a Zen retreat center north of San Francisco. I took the short walk to the beach alone one afternoon, my chest feeling full and light for the first time in a while. After abandoning myself to the child-like ecstasy of running headlong down a steep path at full speed and tilt — hadn’t done that in decades! — I sat on a rocky cliff overlooking the roiling Pacific Ocean, scratching out poems and little watercolor paintings. In verse I was marveling at the tenacity of the tiny gray-blue-green plants near my feet, constantly battered by winds and saltwater spray and surrounded by nothing but cold stone, yet choosing to keep growing there nonetheless.

The passage also makes me think of a conversation in my drawing class at the museum this week, when the phrase “beginner’s mind” came up. I told my students I aim to always be a beginner at something. It’s such a fresh place to be, so full of possibilities and wonder.

Like the coming of spring.

What about you?

How have you weathered this winter, metaphorically or literally?
What surges and urges are defying gravity and beginning their “soft climb to the high light” in your life?
Where do you — or might you — find the open-hearted enchantment of starting something new?

May we find renewed life energy in the leaf-buds pushing out the ends of twigs, and the crocus heads popping up through the soil. And may we stop to also notice the growth emerging in the most unlikely of places.

With sprout-like tenderness,
Pam

P.S. I’ve been feeling a “relentless desire” to play around with new collage paintings in my studio this week. They’re not shop-ready yet, but I do have birds and flowers and other images of growth available for purchase. Check out art prints here, and greeting cards here. Use the discount code GREEN2023 for 23% off your entire order (valid through Wednesday, March 15).