Colors, arms, shadows, and gardening

A few weeks ago, we had a fun and interactive day in the garden. It involved connecting with the outdoors in a variety of ways. Matching color swatches to the colors of the garden was an interesting exercise, using our sense of looking around to connect the colors of glossy color swatches to the naturally vibrant colors of the garden. I was reminded of how technology is really no replacement for what we find in nature. Even a single pine needle has so much variation in its color and texture, and when you look at an entire branch or tree, it’s really impossible to condense that into a single swatch. Also, I just assumed that we were pretty much only going to be able to find shades of green, but I was super impressed with everyone’s ability to track down a wide range of colors. 

We also used our bodies (not sexually) to interact with the sun. We were shown how to predict the path of the sun throughout the today, as well as using our own shadows to tell the time. Both of these activities highlighted that we don’t necessarily need numbers or calculations to analyze the world around us. In particular, I thought it was pretty cool thinking of our arms as a sort of unit of measurement. And then using them to trace the path of the sun through the sky was a really interesting way to connect with the sun, as if the sun itself was teaching us - like a magnificent father! So anyway, that was nifty - a kind of mind body and spirit moment, born out of trying to understand the world around us.