52 – Green *

Special thanks to Marina for providing the photos of her paintings. Marina is in Greece and I encourage readers to visit her blog Marina Kavanaki: Art Toward a Happy Day. Please tell her I sent you and feel free to comment on her images here. Marina’s work is copyrighted by Marina Kavanaki.

Click the video above for 2 minutes of background waves while reading.

I like walking on the beach. It is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet. It is easy to notice the sea’s color here – the reason why much of the northern gulf coast is known as the Emerald Coast – that shade of green we associate with a gem. Sometimes the water includes a shade of olive-green with a touch of brown.

Green – one of the three primary colors of light found in the visual spectrum – actually between yellow and blue. Do you remember ROY G BIV – the mnemonic for the order of the color spectrum? Think green as the mid-point between faint light appearing and the obscurity of black.

When thinking of green, maybe plants first come to mind. Green plants are associated with chlorophyll – that natural pigment allowing them to convert sunlight into food that the plant later uses as a food supplying energy. Yes – the same reason we use food.

Yes – green plants – as in leafy vegetables, lettuce, greens, kale, spinach, and chards. Yes – green plants – and to think of all the varieties of grasses, flowers, bushes, and trees with varying leaves and stems. 

Yes – green plants – the suppliers of apples, pears, kiwi, melons, avocados, celery, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, beans, peppers, and more.

Yes – green plants – made of cells whose parts are made of molecules, which are neatly arranged atoms made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Even the smaller subatomic quarks that are green.

I think of the different shades of green as kelly, forest, lime, emerald, jade, mint, yellow-green, blue-green, chartreuse, and more. Yet, when thinking of the green plants in nature, oh what a color line they create with their seemingly unlimited shades.

Green – that color we associate with traffic lights, easy, unripe, gullible, the young, and the inexperienced – greenhorns to some.

Green stands for the political principle of thinking about the environment, conservation, being eco-centric, and ecological.

Green is the color for moving ahead, proceeding to the next task, for getting the green light or the green flag. 

Green is the color of jealousy – as in green with envy for those having a green thumb as they grow those little green apples.

Green – a natural color for camouflage, but also an area of very short grass containing a hole marked by a flag on a pole to serve as a target for golfers who dream about the coveted green jacket.

Green – often a meeting place for people in the center of town – a park, a commons.

Green – the color of St. Patrick’s Day, but also the color that combines with red for the Christmas holiday season.

Green – the colors of many flags – besides Italy, Mexico, and Ireland – it is also a color for Islam.

Green – a symbolic color for a variety of concepts varying with cultures. From death to fertility to money to hope to corruption to luck to eternal life to regeneration and rebirth.

Green – the color of the freshness of spring and the upcoming hope and new life. 

Let us not forget green eggs and ham; plus little green men from Mars had nothing to do with Kermit the Frog, Green Day, Mr. Greenjeans, House of the Green Gables, The Green Mile, people with the last name of Green or Greene, and anyone desiring to be green.

Thinking about green has been not only interesting but more diverse than I imagined. As for the clear and colorless water that splashes across my feet yet green in the sea, I earlier promised to explain. 

The olive is from the flow of a nearby river entering the sea to the west. I notice the color when the winds are from the west – not the east. The green is from the ever-presence of green algae – an important component of the bottom of the food chain and energy pyramid. Algaes presence serves as the foundation of abundant sea life and the year-round fishing industry. As Jeremiah the green bullfrog says, Joy to the fishes in the deep blue green sea, joy to you and me. 

Today is a good day to walk and think. I like walking on the beach because it is good for the mind, body, and soul – and refreshing on my feet. 

See what other bloggers have written about green

• Spring Greens (photos and an essay)
• Life in Colour – Green (photos by a new visitor here)
• Green with envy (a photo essay by a visitor here)
• Garrulous and Green (a poem)
• The red and the green (photos)
• Twenty shades of green: Fountains Abbey (photos by a visitor here)

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