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It was around this time last year that the mystery of “white” unfolded before me in a surprising place: science class! The artist in me has always felt out of place among the sciences. I experienced it as monotony. Where was the opportunity for breadth, creativity, pizzazz? Neat little systems, lists of weights, measures and other numbers; I felt numbed out on endless equations requiring robotic reproduction at test time. I could feel my eyes glaze over as I stared at white lab walls or doodled on blank white paper. Daydreaming, I would hypnotically stare at the little red clock hand, willing it to tick faster. It never did. Instead it kept to its neat and tidy path, its dull, mechanical little tick echoing inside me. I felt like that little red hand—or maybe a rat on some experimental wheel—circling a vacant space, convincing myself that I was going somewhere.

Suddenly I recognized the hollow waste of it all. Not science class, but the way I refused to engage in it. I had allowed myself to quietly retreat into boredom, sealing off my creative heart like a tomb blocked with a monumental stone. The real tragedy was that this cold disengagement happened so subtly, softly: I had been totally unaware. My life was slipping by, and no one had noticed—including me. This realization was a moment of profound agony for me. I had hit rock bottom.

The funny thing is that, once at the bottom, I could look up. That’s when I saw the light of hope. I think Thomas Merton said it best: “One cannot truly know hope unless one found out how like despair hope is.”

Literally, this particular class topic was light. Looking out the window onto the dreary silhouette of winter trees against the sky, I thought I knew all there was to know about light. Haggard branches slicing across the white sky like broken blades, backlit by a watery-pale sun. Looking up, humming artificial light seared my eyes. White light: mundane, everyday, boring, even irritating. How wrong I was!

“White light is not the absence of color, but rather the very presence of it.” With a shock, I heard my teacher’s words, but couldn’t quite grasp it at first. White wasn’t blank or blah: it was a combination of every color in the spectrum. This idea hit home with sledgehammer force, and within a mere moment, the heartless white light of this season, and my life, transformed. I was dazzled. My teacher had opened a new window on my reality. I realized that in all aspects of life, something extraordinary is often hidden in the ordinary, a slumbering greatness waiting to be noticed, to be awoken.

Humbled, I recognized I had been my own obstacle to a rich and colorful view of life. My childish monochromatic awareness prevented me from seeing so much vitality! But, as I finally pushed away the stone sealing my heart, I let fresh air in and opened myself up to rebirth and new life. Spring had arrived.

For me, that changing appreciation of “white” parallels the spiritual and seasonal movement of Winter to Spring.

Spring is traditionally known as the season of light and hope emerging after winter darkness. Its entree, however, is unpromising. With its roller coaster temperatures and forecasts, the climate’s indecision whiplashes weather-weary people. The days become longer, but those first hours of increased light reveal an unlovely scene in shades of gray. The horizon between earth and sky blurs: white sky, the pale sun, the stale ground—a dreary desolation. There is a sense of too little spread too thin, like that blank canvas stretched taut over a wooden frame. Ebbing layers of snow reveal old growth, an uneven layer of melancholy and debris, splayed across lawns tufted with dead grass.

But in the past, that wasn’t the worst of it.

The most challenging aspect was the effect on my inner landscape. I felt disoriented and stranded in a seasonal no man’s land. To mask these vulnerable feelings, I burrowed into a comfortable rut of inaction and procrastination, lulled by routine’s static rhythm. Like the weather, I became trapped in a quicksand of indecision. I lacked the courage to choose patient waiting-the kind needed for slow growth and rich blossoming. This prevented new growth in my own life. Yet I sensed powerful, living undercurrents beneath that seemingly dead, blank surface. They called me to take charge, to look carefully for signs of life and change, to creep out of my hibernation.

And now I do.

I look out on what seems dead and drear and see it as a symbol of surrender. I truly begin to ache for color to lift my spirit, to enchant my eyes. I raise my white flag, so to speak, and wait, convinced that life will gently conquer death, that my energy and vision will return, and my inner landscape fill with color once more.

Spring comes.

April slowly unveils hidden, beautiful colors in my life. In some ways the process is physical; in others it isn’t. I have learned that by sifting through the subtle tones of relationships and experiences, I can reflect on shades of meaning, even in the simplest expressions—a song, a smile, a joke. With patience I can rediscover treasures overlooked and forgotten over the steady flow of time. With awareness, little wonders can creep into my consciousness and bring healing and hope, just as Spring crocuses and daffodils splash color over old mould.

So take courage. Look for all the rainbow-colors, even on a backdrop of what seems barren and dull. Take advantage of Spring’s slow growth. Clear out the old debris of destructive habits, fruitless relationships and rubble of past seasons. A little patience, a little weeding, and open eye and an open heart: that’s all it takes for Spring growth to flourish within us.

So wake up to Spring! It’s a reminder of the palette and promise life offers to each of us.

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