We are all members of the legions, eyes wandering and wondering what is real in all we see today, here in a colorful carnival where various hues spill the best and worst of our collective human character. Both pictures exist. The cosmic intersection of our lives is not so much a collision of opposing forces as much as it is a blender, a steady flowing of the complexities, the brilliant emotions and supernova uncertainties of our times. Love is perennial, and danger seems to be everywhere. In a blink we are confident and comforted, in another we are lost and disillusioned. In a flash we are in the cool aqua of school or a house of worship, and in an instant we are in the fire of red or speedily off in another cautionary dash of yellow, the warnings of orange, mourning the loss of all held safe and sacred. Where is the balance in the spectrum?
For a fortunate few of us, it was discovered at The Heritage School in East Harlem here at year’s end when a teen named Sade revealed a crying eye of her own creation. Operation Respect, with our intuitive partners Counseling In Schools and Lycored, staged the Don’t Be Afraid to Show Your True Colors project with creative, young spirits, prepared but unsure of what was to flow. One activity called for students to simply choose a color to fill a blank white box to reflect the feelings of the moment. With no parameters or instructions, the results poured forth, including Sade’s. While most adults would perhaps pick one color and solidly fill in their space, by rote and hardly a thought, the students lifted multiple colors and a river of expression appeared.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I would submit a rainbow-crying eye is priceless.
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