A Very Nearly Tea

Yellow is one of three primary colors on the color wheel. It is bright, the color of the sun. It is a common color found in nature, especially in flowers. Day lillies, dandelions and sunflowers all use their bright yellow petals to attract bees and other pollinators. Gold finches, bumblebees, lemon tetras and coral snakes are just a few animals boasting this brilliant color.

Like most colors, yellow has symbolic meaning as well. Yellow is generally associated with cheerfulness or bright beginnings. The yellow rose is symbolic of friendship. While its history is spurious, a yellow ribbon has come to mean a token of a distant loved one. But it is also associated with age as the pages of a book yellow with the passage of time. When a ship raised a yellow flag, it meant there was sickness on board so can also be symbolic of illness. It's brightness, normally associated with cheer, can also provide warning through a yellow light, a caution sign or a yellow line. Yellow journalism denotes sensationalism in reporting. It is also the color of cowardice and treachery.

Yellow occurs four times in the bible. Three times, it is used in association with diagnosing leprosy. The fourth is rather more postive:

Though ye have lain among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
--Psalm 68:13

Despite its historic connection to treachery, I associate this lively color with the joys of childhood. In a couple of months, yellow will also mark the passage of summer into fall. For me, it marks an ending of sorts and latent hopes for the future. Whether that is due to the display of fall colors or the opening line of Robert Frost's famous poem, I am not sure.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The color for this week is actually lemon yellow, an exceptionally bright yellow. This color has been formulated a number of ways to produce vibrant pigments. By its brightness, I am guessing that lemon yellow is essentially yellow mixed with white.


Collect dandelions and rub them on a variety of surfaces.

Make a daisy chain. This is a little out of season, but you can also use yellow cone flowers or even large dandelions, although you might not want to make a crown of the sticky dandelions.

To make a daisy chain (or other flower chain), you first need to collect several flowers.
Cut a small hole in the stem with your fingernail.
Slide the stem of the next daisy through the hole.
Repeat with that daisy until the chain is as long as you'd like it.

Or you can make paper daisies for your chain.

Collect a variety of tube shaped pasta and make necklaces.

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