my yellow in this case is not so mellow, in fact I’m trying to say it’s frightened like meJimi Hendrix
...yellow is the color of the sun and, yes, the color of piss...the color of light, and life...though, yeah, I know, light is really white, in its purest form...but we live in an impure world...even though a banana really is, sometimes, just a banana...
....yellow slapstick banana peels...yellow is the color of my true love’s hair...well, not really, but it’s the color of my hair...at least I try to keep telling myself that, even as it's increasingly invaded with distressing grey and white...so, in that sense, yellow is youth...though also jaundice, and cowardice...and my somewhat cowardly golden retriever, Duncan...walking in the grass, sniffing yellow dandelions, chasing after yellow tennis balls... my good friend when no people were...used to lie in the driveway outside my dad’s office, on the other side of the garage from the house, by the lawn where the dandelions were...one of his patients would crouch there for what seemed like hours after appointments scratching the dog behind the ears and talking to him...my dad said she teased him that Duncan was a better psychiatrist than he was...to which he replied, “maybe he is....”
...yellow, for some reason, I associate with Buddhism...maybe it’s all those golden Buddhas...or the Flower Sermon...though who knows if that flower was actually yellow, though I might think of it that way...or perhaps, I fear, some lingering racist association with yellow people...as if there really were yellow people, or black or white or red people, rather than bogus divisions created out of some deeply yellow fear of the knowledge that we’re all simply shades of some indefinable human color...which may look something like sadness, which I think is also yellow...as, of course, is joy...and candle flames, like I’d see in the windows when we’d sit in silence Christmas Eve at the Quaker Meeting...
...yellow journalism, yellow fever...mellow yellow...yellow corn...waves of grain I’ve seen generally tending, I think, more toward yellow than amber...mustard seed...school buses...yellow submarines...doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to, isn’t he a bit like you and me?...daisies...sunflowers...the yellow rose of Texas, whose image seems a bit tarnished at the moment...yellow desert sands...yellowing pages of books and old thoughts...Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Yellow Wallpaper, representing repression and madness....when life gives you lemons make lemonade, but if the lemonade isn’t any good, maybe you can get a soda or something...
...the sun’s out today, for what seems like the first time in forever...though I can’t see it from here...yellow in blue...coming across if you’re not actually looking at it as clarity...but to look directly into it is to go blind...
14 comments:
They call me mellow yellow ... now that song is stuck in my head! Lol!
I always think of yellow as a cheerful colour. I love yellow flowers.
Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree
Yellow Rose of Texas
And from William S. Burroughs: Kill The Badger
At Los Alamos Ranch School, where they later made the atom bomb and couldn’t wait to drop it on the Yellow Peril, the boys are sitting on logs and rocks, eating some sort of food. . .
And Donovan's:
Yellow Is The Color/Yellow is the color of my true love's hair/In the morning, when we rise/In
the morning, when we rise/That's the time/That's the time/I love the
best . . .
Yellow is change... autumn (fall) where leaves change colour... and one of sunset's favourite shades.
Transitions, shades in between. Mostly seen as an accent, but really pretty good on its own.
Painted a house I lived in once. My boyfriend and I got advice from our flatmate's mum (a painter) who said... yellow, ochre yellow in particular is a very warm and inviting colour. So the hallway, lounge area and stairwell were all painted yellow. The flatmate's mother was right.
My night clothes for cycling are bright yellow to be seen - a warning or a beacon?
But yes, also a sacred colour, too.
Don't forget the Yellow Brick Road (not the Elton John song). Follow the Yellow Brick Road... that whole movie was based on yogic teachings y'know...
Many paths, but eventually leading to self knowledge in the golden city.
I just don't know what it took to forge your poetic soul. This was simply a stunning post. You know how it is Jay when you read something and the words just speak to you. As if for you and no one else? I have felt like your words went beyond my eyes and into that deep place of understanding we all have. Now I don't know whether that understanding is the same that you intended but all I can tell you is that I got something out of it. My own shades of yellow.
1) Can't believe someone else has read Yellow Paper. They assigned it at my liberal all-girls high school as kind of "Don't get married, ladies," type thing.
2)I was in Shivasana this weekend and a weird image of purple and yellow ball of light. I often see those colors when I close my eyes and wonder why.
I had forgoten all about Yellow Wallpaper . . . thanks for the reminder. Loved this post.
Golden Lemon Yellow, the color of the solar Plexus Chakra, its energy like the root, but more refined. Cleaner--it almost makes me think of petroleum, not the black crude but the slick clear yellow translucent oil.
TO me I think of those early saturday mornings in early spring, when the sun would be shining through our windows and our beige and cream curtains, and made the whole room look like it was suspended in a sticky jar of honey. Like we were eternal souls trapped in amber, and you could watch golden dust motes float all around you in enchanted sun beams. Everything took on the haze of the land of Faerie. Time didn't progress normally in that amber light. Yellow, the color of intellect, illumination, and friendship.
Strangely enlightening, thanks! Never thought the color yellow could provoke this much observation.
*LOL @ the lemonade!* Yellow seems to go so well with so many other colors. As for the sun, I wonder, sometimes, if I might not have a price to pay for all of the sunset photos I take these days. I know it's safe to look at if you don't have to squint, but after all of the photos the other day, I definitely had a bunch of dots floating around the center of my field of vision for a while. I should look into welding goggles, at least.
I had my window open today and the sun came in along with the sounds from the street below - it was like life ... the world coming back to life. Winter is such a downer and my cabin fever is running wild.
As for yellow - you need to check out my mellow yellow monday blog - lots of links to lots of yellow - this isn't a plug for my blog (really) it's just nice to see bright cheery photos once a week.
yellow is my favorite color because it's so warm and relaxing yet happy. things I'll never be able to fully accomplish within myself, but that i'll continually strive for.
One more for this amazing post: Yellow-bellied sapsucker
I love the color series!
Yellow is my color, just like sunflowers are my favorite flower, and the theme to my upcoming wedding. :)
~ Kristi
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