The Joy of Color

This morning I was reading in David Richo's book about "the four spiritual potentials: Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity." So when my meditation time rolled around, my initial distractions seemed to revolve around the ways I feel and express (or fail at) love and compassion -- and in fact, my first draft of today's blog was originally a story about my most recent failure to be compassionate.

But then I found myself thinking about joy, and what brings me joy, and I realized how much I was looking forward to going on our annual Bainbridge Island Studio Tour, which opens this morning at 10. Normally a friend comes over from Mercer Island to join me for this event, but she's working this weekend, so I'll be on my own -- and I realized I was still looking forward to it -- but why?

It's not that I buy lots of the handcrafted items sold on the tour; I rarely buy much, and of course this year we're strapped for cash so I'll be even more frugal than usual. I think that what I really love is the feast of color the tour provides: my eyes just fill to overflowing with all the beautiful colors and shapes: the paintings, the scarves, the pottery, the jewelry... everything is just lovely, and I usually come away inspired to create more work of my own.

Yup. Lots of things bring me joy -- friends, family, reading, theater, art, music, nature... the list is long. But two of the things that bring the most joy are giving gifts and seeing color. So that's why I'm sharing this image from Miami's South Beach with you today: it's not that it has much of anything to say -- but I just LOVE the colors! And so I share it with you, and echo the words of Barack Obama as he lit the White House Christmas Tree:

"Even though it's easy to focus on receiving at this time of year, it is often in the simple act of giving that we find the greatest happiness... May you go out with joy and be led forth in peace." I suspect I'll be finding lots of colorful joy today: I wish you the same joy.