Why Kaleidoscope?

The kaleidoscope I received as a child ranks high in the list of my childhood toys because it was magical. Watching the many colors sliding into one design after another, as though there would be no end, reminded me of stained-glass windows and an image I created for myself. This mental image formed in early childhood days when language was not easy or understood.

My internal kaleidoscope resembled a grotto pool, dark, but reflecting light. This mental picture, which I later called “my core” was marbled with swirls of color like rainbows in pools of water suspended above the spots of oil in our driveway after rain. The colors at my core formed shapes which were the visible manifestations of ideas for which I had no words. My understanding developed through these patterns which somehow explained to me the outer world. It was a language of color.

Green was the color of my imagination, a green world to explore like fields of grass or the crowns of trees, a sheltered realm where thoughts could blossom wildly in a carnival of exotic forms as I tried to find the shapes which would settle out like shore sand from receding tide water, leaving solid understanding.

Blue slithered its coolness across nerve endings scraped raw by my struggles to cope when anger erupted around me, or when violet seeped into my being like sludge.

Violet was the icy cold of frozen anger—mine.

In contrast, orange was fiery anger, the kind that bursts quickly into flame and then just as quickly burns out. Orange flamed into my head when I was treated unfairly, for example when a playmate would not share my own toys with me. When my orange anger was stifled, it descended into the depths moldering into violet.

Red was the color of strength, of home, of growth. It could be violent. Earthquakes were red.

But favorite of all was yellow, the color of joy.

The Kaleidoscope feature, like the multi-colored images seen within the optical instrument of the same name, will present shifting topics from week to week. Here I will explore of the oddities of the English language, such as words which seem to contradict themselves. Blog subjects may also be related to material in the website features Glass Rain and Refractions and Through the Looking Glass. This week’s blog is related to the poem in the last listed feature and to the topic of synesthesia (see Splintered Glass section).

#ColorandEmotion