Originally appeared in
Earth Star Magazine February/March 2009
By Rosemary Gaddum Gordon, D.B.O., M.A.
A Color a Day keeps the Eyes in Play
The eye is a light-catcher. To catch the light best it needs to be open and to move freely. So often our eyes feel tired and heavy. We give them repetitive tasks where their movement is restricted to back and forth along lines of print, or up and down from keyboard or desk to screen. Frequently the colors we see doing these tasks are also unchanging. This is dull stuff for a light-catcher.
Here is a game to enliven your eyes by looking for colors. Each morning pick a color, any color of the rainbow plus brown, white, black or grey. During the day you look for that color. This encourages your eyes to move around rather than to stare straight ahead. No need to search, be open to the color and let it come to you. This is the first part of the game. In some places like on the subway or at a sports event you might even count the number of red hats or green jackets. This is especially good to do with kids as long as there is no comparing of results, which might make it competitive.
In the second part of this activity, rather than thinking of hats or jackets, you just attend to the color itself. So, instead of a hat that’s red, it is redness that happens to be on a hat. It is just the color that counts. Let yourself absorb red. Take in redness. This is a different way to see for many people. It helps us to see from a deeper place. It allows us to be touched by what is coming in through our eyes. You will probably find it relaxing and pleasurable. You may notice that your visual field expands and that you are also seeing more details, even though you are not looking for them, you are just enjoying the color.
The world is full of colors. Everything has a color, unless it is pure black. As we’ve mentioned before, black is also wonderful for the eyes. It’s wonderful because the retina does not respond to it. It’s a blank for the receptors; emptiness. In this way it is restful and quiet for the whole visual system. If you have any black velvet take some time to look at it in this way; just absorbing it’s blackness. Notice how your eyes enjoy it. How soothing it is.
So too, you may notice various qualities about the different colors as you attend to them. Some of them are subtle and some more obvious. Sometimes the color will go by in a flash and sometimes you’ll be able to spend some time with it. The point is to encourage movement and receptivity.
As you play these games you will begin to notice how colorful the world around you is. Your light-catchers will move more freely and the whole of you will be more open to the richness of life. Enjoy!
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