Colors

Holi, the Festival of Colors, is a Krishna religious celebration recognizing the end of winter and God and good in the world in general. There is a countdown and then everyone throws cornstarch (pigmented with probably-toxic chemicals that combine into a nice purple color into your nose) into the air. At the end, everyone is covered in bright yellow, purple, pink, green, and orange. That moment is incredible. The air, the people, and the ground are brightly colored and beautiful. Then the colors start to combine into dark purple, maroon, and brown, and their striking intensity is lost. Someone remarked that it's sad that as the pigments mix together they just become brown and dull.

But something else happens when those colors mix. Everyone leaves looking the same. Whatever they were wearing when they came, whatever color their hair or skin is, they are now a strange melange of subtractive color. It's the same thing that happens when the bright colors of fall turn brown and fall to the ground. Trees are left to their bare essentials--no longer defined by their superficial assets. They are still identifiable by their size and structure, but there is something wonderful about the simplicity of a wintertime tree. I've taken time to appreciate their vivid,colorful spring, summer, and fall selves, but I've never thought much about how the beauty of the leafless time also ends.