Jan. 10, 2025

Winter's Colors

Show Notes
Transcript

Challenging the notion of winter as monochrome, Olivia discovers the season's surprising palette, from shadow-blue snow to the bright berries that persist through frost, revealing how winter paints with subtle and stunning hues.

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Ah Calorocus Shock Media. I'm Olivia, and today on five

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Minutes of Gratitude, we're exploring the surprising colors of winter,

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and before we begin, if you'd like to receive these

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gratitude moments without interruption, there's a link in our show

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notes to learn about our commercial free version. We often

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think of winter as monochrome, a world of whites and grays.

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But this morning, as I walked through our neighborhood before sunrise,

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I started really looking at winter's palette. The deep purple

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of dawn clouds, the russet bark of maple trees, the

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golden glow of windows just waking up. Even the snow

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itself isn't really white, is it. It's a canvas for light,

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shifting from blue shadows to rose gold at sunrise, to

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that peculiar silver just before snow falls again. My neighbor Emma,

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an artist, taught me something fascinating about winter colors. Look

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at the shadows on snow, she told me, pointing to

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the space beneath a hedge. They're not gray or black.

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They're blue, the purest blue you'll ever see. Now, I

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can't stop noticing it, These pockets of cobalt and cerulean,

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hiding in plain sight, as if pieces of sky had

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fallen to earth. Yesterday I visited our local botanical Garden's

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winter greenhouse. Maria, the head gardener, has created what she

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calls color therapy stations, little spots where winter blooming plants

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cluster together. People think nothing blooms in winter, she said,

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showing me a shelf of cyclomen in shocking pink. But

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some things bloom precisely because it's winter. The witch Hazel's

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spidery yellow flowers, the Hellebores nodding their deep purple heads,

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the winter Jasmine's bright stars, all of them choosing the

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darkest season to shine their brightest. Even city winter has

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its own color story. My friend David, who drives a snowplow,

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says he sees a different city in winter dawn. The

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salt on the road sparkles like diamond dust, he told me.

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The old brick buildings look like they're painted with cinnamon.

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And there's this moment, just as businesses start turning on

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their lights, when the whole street glows like amber. His

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words reminded me how much beauty we miss when we

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rush past with our callers turned up against the cold.

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Winter berries have become my meditation lately, the cardinal bright

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holy berries, the deep indigo of juniper, the surprising coral

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of bitter sweet. My daughter and I started keeping a

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winter color journal, painting little swatches of the colors we

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find each day. Mountain ash orange, she wrote yesterday, like

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a traffic cone. But friendlier children have such a way

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with words, don't they. I've noticed how winter changes colors

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indoors too. The blue hour, that time just before sunset,

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seems to last longer, turning our living rooms into underwater gardens.

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My cream colored walls become canvas forever, changing light shows

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golden morning, silver at noon, lavender at dusk. Even my

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houseplants seem to intensify their greens, as if determined to

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remind us that life still pulses beneath winter's quiet. My

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friend Sarah, who teaches art to elementary students, has them

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make what she calls winter color hunts, little viewfinders cut

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from cardboard. It teaches them to really look, she explained. Yesterday,

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one of my students spent twenty minutes staring at a

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patch of ice on the playground. It's full of rainbows,

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she said, and she was right. The thin ice had

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fractured into prisms, turning winter into a kaleidoscope. The winter

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farmer's market is another revelation of color. The deep garnet

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of winter beats the sunset orange of stored squash, the

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forest green of kale made sweeter by frost. Last weekend,

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missus Chen, who sells winter vegetables, aged her booth in

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what she called color stories. Purple cabbage next to pale

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green brussels sprouts next to golden turnips. Eating with your

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eyes first, she said, especially important in winter. Our local

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coffee shop has started what they call color of the

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day specials. Today's was dawn Pink, a rose tinted hot

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chocolate topped with crimson berry dust. The owner, Jack, says

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winter inspired him to play with color. More people come

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in looking frostbitten and gray, he told me. They leave

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carrying cups of sunshine or berry stained happiness. Color is

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medicine in winter. More in a moment. Today's affirmation is

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Winter's colors paint my world with unexpected joy. Take a

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moment to let these words sink. In winter isn't a

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pause in color, It's an invitation to look more closely,

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to appreciate subtlety, to find beauty in unexpected places. Each

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shadow holds a hint of blue. Each sunset paints the

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snow in shades we don't have names for. Think about

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how winter colors appear in your own world. The copper

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of pine needles on fresh snow, the silver trace of

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frost on windows, the deep green of evergreen standing sentinel

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against gray skies. These colors tell the story of winter's

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quiet beauty, of life persisting beneath the cold. Remember that

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even in the deepest winter, color surrounds us. It might

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whisper rather than shout, but it's there, in the heart

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of a split pomegranate, in the blush of cold cheeks,

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in the subtle rainbow of a snowy evening. Winter teaches

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us to be better observers, to find beauty in subtlety.

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Let's say our affirmation together one more time. Winter's colors

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paint my world with unexpected joy. Thank you for sharing

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these winter colors with me today. Until next time, May

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your heart be full of gratitude and your eyes open

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to winter's rainbow.

Winter's Colors

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