by Elizabeth Yelen

What color is the grass?

Most people might immediately say green, but what if I were to tell you it was brown, who is right? Well, what if I have only seen grass in the Winter, and what if you have only seen it in the Spring? So to me it is brown but to you it may be green. So we have different perspectives based on different life experiences, but both are true.

Now what if I were to tell you the grass was gray? Most people would probably give me funny looks. Well perhaps I am color blind and so I see the grass as gray. Again I am not wrong, I simply have yet another perspective based on a different life experience. So the grass is gray, and green and brown. All are true, they are just a matter of perspective.

This whole idea is what finding personal truths is about. What is true at one level may not be true at another, just as what is true for Joe may not be true for Mary. I could say that grass is not green at all, and there is an element of truth in that statement as well. If you look at plant cells under a microscope, you will see that the chloroplasts contain chlorophyll, and it is the chlorophyll that is green, not the plant cell. In fact, a decent sized chunk of the plant cell is completely clear, so I could even say that grass has no color at all.

Sometimes we become limited in our thinking, and decide that if the other person is right, it must mean that we are wrong and vice versa. However, it is possible for more than one seemingly contradictory truth to exist side by side. I could even argue that grass was blue, pink, and purple. There are ornamental grasses that are those colors, so again, what I am saying is true, even though all of these statements would seem to be contradictory in nature. It all comes down to perspective, and if we can shift our understanding of the world, we can see how others arrive at their truths and see the validity of those truths.

Often, the process of figuring out why the grass is blue, or pink, or clear heightens and deepens our understanding of the world, and helps us expand our consciousness. This does not mean that we must stop saying the grass is green, but rather being open to the idea that the grass is not only green. It ceases to be either/or, black or white, top or bottom, and becomes either and or, black and white, and top and bottom. It makes the world quite an interesting place.