Color Is God

Monday, 8 December 2025, 2:24 pm
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

There’s a large ginkgo tree now in full yellow leaf that’s framed between houses in the back. On another foggy, damp and cold day in California’s Central Valley, it’s the only splash of color in the gray gloom.

Ginkgos are called “living fossils,” because they have remained virtually unchanged for over 270 million years. They were imported from China, their native origin.

As defined, “a ‘living fossil’ refers to a species that has survived for millions of years with little or no morphological change and has no close living relatives.”

It’s extraordinary that this common ornamental tree would be so old. It’s sad that so few people seem to notice the gingkos autumnal beauty when they turn sunshine yellow.

If you look closely at a small ginkgo leaf, you get a glimpse into what early trees looked like. Unlike the fractal patterns of the capillaries in a maple leaf for example, ginkgo leaves have simple, straight striations without variation.

The days in the northern hemisphere are short now, and by 4:30 dusk descends. Wanting to get a full view over the fence of the ginko, and move a bit after a 20-minute meditation, I circumambulate the backyard.

Immediately I notice something I’ve never seen before. The entire sky, which only minutes earlier was a uniform gray after the fog lifted a couple hours earlier, was suffused with a subtle peach color in every direction. At first I thought it was simply a faint counter-sunset, but the color remained to the east, south and north, and began to intensify to the west.

With every circling of the yard, the colors in the western sky grew more varied and concentrated, and I thought the hues could not deepen any further. Every color of one side of the spectrum blazed – the pinks, oranges and the reds of a huge fading fire.

I stood agape at each turn, the mind shocked into complete stillness and awe. I’ve watched sunsets since I was a boy, but have never seen one like this.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Color is God?” I didn’t quite understand it until those moments of astonishment watching the colors of the dying light that day. The colors of the earth, the sky and flowers are the essence of beauty and immanence.

My partner, who was picking up a U-bake pizza, told a revealing story when she returned. While waiting for the pizza to be finished, she turned and saw the sunset in the full-length windows. Exclaiming to the three other women also waiting, and the two young people behind the counter, she spontaneously said, “Look at the sky!”

Two of the women turned and gasped. The young people behind the counter literally shrugged. ‘Seen one, you’ve seen them all,’ was their unmistakable attitude (though that just proves they’ve never actually seen even one).

Without a word, the four women marched out and stood together to gaze at the sky. Few words were spoken, but one of them said it was the most beautiful sunset she’d ever seen. She thanked my partner for drawing her attention to it, and gave her a hug.

It’s a given in academic philosophy circles that “humans are hermeneutical creatures.” By which is meant we inevitably interpret experience.

Explicitly, the vast majority of philosophers maintain, “Interpretation is a fundamental and unavoidable aspect of human existence, and we never experience the world directly. Rather all our experience and interactions are mediated through a constant process of interpretation.”

This idea, which has become dogma, has its roots in Heidegger and Godamer.

However, do we always perceive new experiences through the lens of our prior experiences, background, culture and language?

With Heidegger especially, “language is not merely a tool for expression, but the very foundation for meaning and understanding.”

That’s a deeply flawed premise. The word is not the thing, and understanding does not come through words and prior experiences, but direct perception and insight.

It’s true that perhaps 99% of the time we interpret present experience through prior experience, and react to words rather than see the thing . But that 1% is the difference between becoming a conditioned human, and being an unconditioned human being.

Anyone can see this and nearly everyone has come upon it. For example, when you first lay eyes on the Grand Canyon, or an astounding vista in any land, the mind is shocked into stillness, and there is no reaction of interpretation.

That is something AI cannot do and will never be able to do.

Our growth as human beings turns on our effortlessly increasing that 1% of direct experiencing, without employing time or thinking in terms of gradually becoming illumined.

© Scoop Media

Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail