PTSD and Art
When things seem darkest...
Put yourself way back in time. Let’s say you’re the first living being to see color as simply color— a bird that looked like it flew through a rainbow, the bright yellow of a field of flowers, or the deep crimson and gold of a sunset—not as food, or camouflage or a sign of approaching night—but as the dazzling dance of light that gives us pure emotion. Just think of the jump, the enormous leap of the spirit from a mere captive of biology to another dimension.
You had no way to describe it. There were no words for the sensations. How could you tell someone? This was something far beyond what it takes to stay alive. Maybe there were words, for a tool, or an animal or tree. But something that’s deeply stirring? Something individual? How do you explain beauty?
New words were needed. The shock of beauty, grandeur, or even “pretty” needed a whole new language—an expansion of the mind—literally: a bigger brain.
So, what’s beauty? And who cares? What good does it do? Who needs it? Even today, how many people see the loveliness all around us? Or care? To so many it’s all about money, or comfort or power.
For me, colors are most intense after a great loss, when things seem darkest—hopeless. I find colors and contrasts of colors so pure that they lift me high above any possible despair. But even in everyday life, colors smile at me and make me smile.
This is how to look at color everyday in everything around you. We can cherish the beauty of color because we have a mind—the most precious gift ever bestowed.
It is the capacity to revere something other than genetic survival that makes us human, not all of the clever ways we have invented to be comfortable. And you know, we don’t really need words.
Thank you for writing about awe and reverence, that precious capacity that makes us human and provides the antidote to "it’s all about money, or comfort or power." We have all been through a collective trauma over the past two years, no matter what side of the narrative we landed on. There was a great deal of money, comfort and power wrapped up in these traumatizing events, many of which are ongoing. Art and beauty will be part of our healing. I look forward to more of your posts.
Great use of colors