True Colors

I remember when I learned that the gorgeous burnt red, orange and gleeful yellow leaves that fill the mountainside in October are actually showing their true colors!

That fascinated me.

Chlorophyll is a green pigment that the leaves produce in warm weather to create energy from light. In turn, sunlight makes the chlorophyll fade, so the trees must replenish it. But, when the days get shorter, the trees prepare for winter and block off flow from their stems. This stops the chlorophyll.

It is then that the dazzling hues which have existed the entire time, are finally able to show their glory!

Waking to a blaze of crimson on the horizon or an afternoon walk over crunching leaves as bright yellow petals spiral and float in our paths spurs something in us -- a divine spark, maybe. Something we can't quite describe but we know is magical!

Perhaps, then, the spark, the magical, is always there in our every-day. When we can finally see through the veil of the ordinary, it enkindles in us an awe of our own and the world's breathtaking true colors.