Synesthesia

Have you ever described something visual as delicious? Or laid eyes on visual clutter and labeled it cacophony ? This is the phenomenon of synesthesia, the crossing over of the senses, and we all do it.

There are even people who see the letters of the alphabet in different colors or have assigned different hues to the days of the week in their mind’s eye. In her book, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens, How Synesthetes Color their World, Patricia Lynne Duffy describes in depth her such experiences and those of others.

In Buenos Aires I would be awakened early each morning to rattling trucks careening down the avenue at breakneck speed. These behemoths, seeming only to be loosely attached components of scrap metal, hit every bump in the road, surely losing nuts and bolts along the way. As I lay in my bed with my eyes closed, this auditory experience transmogrified into giant mobiles of swaying Mondrianesque rectangles of primary hues.

Last night, Saint-Saens’ Symphony in No. 3 in C minor evoked all kinds of imagery, especially swirling bowls of cake batter with lots and lots of butter. But I think I was just hungry.

Now please, if you will, post a comment and tell me about your synesthetic experiences. I will be listening as I read them.

Wearing of the Green...Shamrocks and Leprechauns

She was wearing the coolest green knee socks. When I spied them, green with envy, I realized today was St. Patrick’s Day and of course, everyone is wearing green. Luckily, including me. It is after all my favorite color. It got me wondering. Just why do we wear green on this day?

So I did a little research. According to Wikipedia,” The “wearing of the green” is actually the wearing of shamrocks on your clothing. According to Christian legend, St. Patrick used this three leaved plant to explain the Holy Trinity to pre-Christian Irish. However, this story did not appear until 1000 years after his death. The actual color associated with St. Patrick was blue.

In ancient Ireland, the Celtic people revered the shamrock as a sacred plant because it symbolized the rebirth of spring. By the 17th century, when the English began to seize Irish land and suppress Irish language and religion, the shamrock became a symbol of Irish nationalism.

Here’s another tidbit: According to Bridget Haggerty, author of The Traditional Irish Wedding, in the United States, it's customary to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. But in Ireland the color was long considered to be unlucky, “Irish folklore holds that green is the favorite color of the Good People (the proper name for faeries). They are likely to steal people, especially children, who wear too much of the color.

Does anyone know why we pinch someone who is not wearing green? Is this just the stuff of vicious school yard shenanigans?

Did you wear green today? Did you get pinched?