Colour in our lives  words Carmel Rowley

I took this photograph of our lovely Shaina some weeks ago because she appeared so relaxed and content, almost day-dreaming. I snapped it in the evening, when the sun was low in the sky and as I viewed the image I was delighted by the myriad of red, orange and a dash of emerald green.
On an individual level, I cannot deny that colour affects my state of mind, everything about colour carries strong messages into my subconscious.

Colours have the power to define how our heart and eyes transmit the way we feel and this wonderfully descriptive poem by the famous Dorothea Mackellar titled “Colour” tends to say it all.

“COLOUR”

by Dorothea Mackellar

The lovely things that I have watched unthinking,
Unknowing, day by day,
That their soft dyes have steeped my soul in colour
That will not pass away –

Great saffron sunset clouds, and larkspur mountains,
And fenceless miles of plain,
And hillsides golden-green in that unearthly
Clear shining after rain;

And nights of blue and pearl, and long smooth beaches,
Yellow as sunburnt wheat,
Edged with a line of foam that creams and hisses,
Enticing weary feet.

And emeralds, and sunset-hearted opals,
And Asian marble, veined
With scarlet flame, and cool green jade, and moonstones
Misty and azure-stained;

And almond trees in bloom, and oleanders,
Or a wide purple sea,
Of plain-land gorgeous with a lovely poison,
The evil Darling pea.

If I am tired I call on these to help me
To dream -and dawn-lit skies,
Lemon and pink, or faintest, coolest lilac,
Float on my soothed eyes.

There is no night so black but you shine through it,
There is no morn so drear,
O Colour of the World, but I can find you,
Most tender, pure and clear.

Thanks be to God, Who gave this gift of colour,
Which who shall seek shall find;
Thanks be to God, Who gives me strength to hold it,
Though I were stricken blind.

Dorothea Mackellar was born in Sydney in 1885 into a well-established, wealthy family, and was educated privately at the University of Sydney. At 19 years old she wrote a poem, ‘My Country’, the second verse of which is perhaps the best known stanza in Australian poetry. Her family owned substantial properties in the Gunnedah district of New South Wales and it is in this town which claims her as their own, there a statue of her on horseback has been erected.

Dorothea died in 1968