We all colour the world around us just by being who we are.  Our personality, our attitudes, the way we dress, our mannerisms and even the expressions we use both facially and verbally. These can all affect the way we make people feel and are just a few of the aspects of how we colour our world.  These all contribute to the colour of your crayon.

What is colour actually and how do we ‘see’ it? 

Perceiving colour is actually the human eye and brain together translating light into colour.  Light receptors within the eye transmit messages to the brain, which produces the familiar sensations of colour. Sir Isaac Newton observed that colour is not built-in or inherent in objects.  Rather, the surface of an object reflects some colours and absorbs all the others.  Therefore what we see as an object’s colour is actually only the colours that are reflected.  Thus, green is not ‘in’ an apple.  The surface of the apple is reflecting the wavelengths we see as green and absorbing all the rest.  When an object appears white, it is reflecting all the wavelengths of colour.  When it appears black, it is absorbing them all.

A few interesting facts about colour

There are so many of these but I have chosen a few that are thought provoking, amusing or just unusual and unexpected.

• Just after birth, a baby sees only in black and white. Red is the first colour they see probably because it has the longest wavelength. This makes it the easiest to process by the developing receptors and nerves in the baby’s eyes.
• Carrots weren’t originally orange but purple. Hot chocolate tastes better in an orange coloured cup.
• Yellow is the most luminous colour and most stimulating to the brain therefore making you feel hungry.
• The human eye can detect more shades of green than any other colour. Only 2% of the world’s population have naturally green eyes.
• Blue is the most popular colour and most favoured by males and mosquitoes.
• Originally the colour purple came from a dye from the mucus glands of a tropical sea snail known as the murex. Hence, being rare, it is associated with royalty, nobility and luxury.
• Pink is a calming colour and has been used in prison cells to effectively reduce anger and erratic behaviour.
• The colour brown can be created by mixing all the colours together and is perceived by many to be unpretentious or wholesome.
• Being colour blind affects about 1 in 12 males and 1 in 200 females. It means you are unable to fully ‘see’ red, green or blue light to varying degrees.  At first you are unaware that you have this limited vision and there is no knowing when you will come to the realisation.

To conclude my description of what colour actually is, an interpretation by the brain, I am compelled to quote Terry Pratchett.  In his satirical novel “The Colour of Magic” he calls his colour octarine “a pigment of imagination.”

Perhaps seeing colour in a new light, I ask again, what colour is your crayon?

 When I ask myself that question, a few things come to mind.  I picture how I perceive I have coloured and continue to colour my world.  I also think about how I understand others have coloured my world too.  Remember colour is not intrinsic but an interpretation of what we see reflected and we may just be colour blind. Perhaps not physically but in our ability to comprehend.

I imagine that every one of us is given a box of coloured crayons when we are born.  I think it’s a treasure chest generously filled with many colours.  As we grow and mature we reach in and pick out those that represent who we are at the time, a reflection of our soul.  These we carry around with us in our small portable pencil box, this is our palette for the present.  I picture holding one colour crayon at a time and as the day progresses, we exchange them as we tint and shade our world.

The family and community in which we live and grow up in, also has a great influence in the colours we choose because of how they are culturally perceived.

How some colours are viewed differently in various cultures.

White is generally seen as a positive colour associated with purity, innocence, peace and goodness.  It is the traditional colour worn by brides throughout Western countries.  In Eastern countries, the colour white is worn for mourning and death.

Red symbolizes excitement, energy, passion, love and danger in Western cultures.  It’s also associated with communism and revolution in countries like Russia.  In Asian cultures it symbolises good luck, joy, prosperity, celebration, happiness and a long life.  That’s why Asian brides chose red for their marriage celebrations.

In Western cultures, blue is commonly associated with feeling depressed, melancholy and loneliness.  Hence, having “the blues” but it also symbolises trust, security and authority.  In many Middle Eastern countries, blue means safety and protection and is symbolic of heaven, spirituality and immortality.

Green represents luck, nature, environmental awareness, wealth, inexperience and jealousy in Western cultures.  In the Middle East green represents fertility, luck and wealth.  In Eastern cultures green symbolizes youth, fertility and new life.

So I cannot even begin to suggest what a colour may represent to you but I can ask you what your intention is behind you choosing your portable palette and the colour of the crayons you hold for the day.

So how do we choose our colours?

At first, when we are young, I believe these are chosen subconsciously, in a way in which we are not even aware.  This points to the family and community that I referred to.  Human beings are such dynamic creatures that it comes as no surprise to realise that your palette of colours change over time.

With age we progress on our journey of life and mature by varying degrees.  We begin to develop mindfulness and consciousness which influences our choices of the colour crayons we pick.  As we begin to understand intention our minds go back to the treasure chest and we change the array in our pencil box to more accurately reflect the colours of our soul.

Your intention determines the hue and intensity of the colours you choose and how you use them.  The interesting thing about intention is that it can change the effect of the colour of your crayon.  Take red for example.  It is the colour of passion.  Applied positively it can signify celebration, joy and love.  Given the opposite intention it signifies anger, oppression and even murder.   That is the power of intention.

Is your intention to bring vibrancy, positive energy, enlightenment and harmony or is your intention to diminish, to bring bondage, fear and discord?  The tragedy is that some of us may not even be mindful of the colours that we carry or even be aware that we are bringing oppression and not upliftment.

Take some time to consider this:

Every morning as you prepare yourself for the day, be mindful. Consciously choose the portable palette that you carry and the colours that you have chosen to paint with for the day.  What is the intention behind the effect that you will create?

What colour is your crayon?