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Nature's Own Yellow Signs


The color yellow has a special significance.

BY BARRY HAIST

T' was an interesting day; one in which I received the answer to a question that I had yet to ask myself. The answer: "Because nature has always used it that way." And the question that came later: "Why was the color yellow picked for 'caution signs' that tell us changes lie ahead in our man-made world?"

That color, yellow, captured my attention as I was driving to one of my favorite trails for an afternoon in the woods. The bean fields I passed were in the process of changing from green to golden yellow. What a nice contrast, those big rolling fields of yellow stretching on to the deep-green tree lines.

But that sight has always meant that big changes lie just ahead. Another growing season is over. Another summer gone. Time to start thinking about shifting gears and getting ready for the coming changes induced by winter. Time to be forced to slow down a bit.

As I drove on, my thoughts turned back to other fields of golden yellow that I had so enthusiastically tromped through, just a few short months ago. It was early spring then, and for reasons known only to nature, the giant golden ragwort was everywhere. Fallow fields were painted brilliant gold by the millions of dime-sized flowers of this stalky plant. It was a spectacular sight to behold as I walked along.

But after a few weeks of enjoying the giant ragwort, I remembered how I became anxious for the other colors of spring to show themselves. I wanted to see the reds, the whites, the purples, and the blues.

One day, while trailing along a field still golden with ragwort, I recalled how I had abruptly come to realize what I was doing. I was trying to rush things.

"Slow down," I remember telling myself. "The other colors will come—just enjoy the day."

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OutdoorIllinois


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Or was it nature's yellow caution sign—the flowing fields of golden ragwort—that made me realize that all of the changes of summer were just ahead. I needed only to slow down a little as they approached.

I puzzled over these strange reflections that came out of nowhere. As I drove along, I found myself looking for yellow in the natural world around me—a few yellow leaves hidden here and there among the trees and the yellow blooms of the last flowering summer wildflowers along the ditches of the roads and the edges of the farm fields.

As I pulled into the parking area near the trailhead, I wondered if I would find any of nature's yellows inside the still thickly greened woods. I'd only gone a few yards before I did—poison ivy. It covered the forest floor as it always does, but its three leaves now possessed at least one, and sometimes two yellow leaflets. And as I wandered through the woods, I saw more yellow on the shrubby plants that make up the forest's understory. More of nature's "posted signs" that subtly suggest that many changes are to come. Soon the temperatures will fall. Then the leaves will turn and begin to cover the ground instead of the trees.

By the time I finished this hike, I was convinced that nature uses the color yellow to remind us that she has some major revisions in store for us. And if we catch and heed her gentle hints, we can get an early start on preparing ourselves for what lies ahead.

The human connection with the color yellow came to me as soon as I got back on the highway—the yellow center line. Then came the dozens of warning signs that I passed: no passing; curve ahead; school zone and intersection signs. All urging me to be cautious and to slow down in anticipation. And all yellow—not blue, not red, not green, but yellow.

That's when I asked myself some questions for the first time: "Why did yellow get picked to be the color of all those caution signs? Have we humans always had a strong, subconscious connection with nature buried somewhere deep
Barry Haist is an outdoor columnist and pharmacist who resides in Mattoon. His writing appears in the Mattoon Journal Gazette and the Charleston Times-Courier.
within our souls? Have we always known, without being told, that yellow is nature's way of telling us that changes lie ahead? Perhaps. And maybe today I just became more aware of it.

A lot of springs have announced their pending arrival with the appearance of the first blooms in near-frozen flower beds. Buttercups and daffodils. Both yellow. And this year I had their gentle hints of pending change strongly reinforced by the golden ragwort.

Mother Nature, it seems, uses the color yellow in early spring to wake us up from our own type of winter slumber. And it looks like she uses it in the late summer to gently remind us that another winter soon will be here. Perhaps this is her quiet way of telling us to begin making the necessary preparations for the changes beyond the "yellow caution signs" that she so courteously places all around us.

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September 2001


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