The Sky is P I N K!
The sky can be absolutely any colour in the world, and in a fantasy or a child’s world, it can be anything we want it to be.
The sky can be P I N K.
The sky can be G R E E N.
The sky can be B L U E.
The sky can be G R E Y.
The sky can be B L A C K.
Let me tell you a short story about my niece. She went to a really good school. But when she was 5 or 6 years old, she had a homework assignment in which she had to colour in a full scene with nature, the sky, trees, some animals, and other parts of a landscape. Coming from our household - and any other sane home for that matter - she was allowed to colour in things in colours that aren’t the real ones. She was a child, and this was her window to exploration and discovery. So in that particular homework, my niece, Mariam, coloured the sky pink. Makes sense to you? It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone. She’s a child and this is the colour she used to express herself and unleash her creativity. Of course none of us - not her parents and definitely not me - would ever be bothered by this choice. In fact, I would encourage her to unleash the endless possibilities of her mind. Because why not!
Well, she submitted her homework to her class teacher. And the teacher’s written comment on the sheet was shocking. She wrote “the sky is blue”. Really? Seriously? That was almost ten years ago, but this really hit me hard since then. It’s been on my mind a lot. Like reeeeally reaaallyyy?
I got to know about this incident because when my sister got the sheets back, she called me and asked me to come over and start working with her daughter to unblock her creativity. Surely something like that has the potential to stop the flow in a child’s mind. Me being an advocate for creativity and creative thinking since youth, even writing about this ten years later is frustrating - it’s horrendous, irresponsible, and uneducated, to say the least.
I worked with Mariam a lot since this incident. We used to lie in bed looking at the ceiling and I would ask her what she sees up there. She used to tell me she could see the ceiling or the lights. I told her “no, what do you see beyond that?” And we were able to unlock the flying unicorns and the girls with white dresses in blue satin sashes! Every time we did this, we tried to see new things. There were times when we could only see the ceiling, or the upper bunk bed, and others when we could really see magical worlds beyond that; ones that inspired me as well. But it took a lot of effort to break this barrier, simply because the sky was blue in her teacher’s world.
Over time, I have worked a lot with some adults who tell me “I’m not creative”. But when we worked together (our they on their own), there was so much creative potential to be unlocked within them. Everyone is creative one way or another, I can assure you that. Some of us just have lower inhibitions to explore, and a higher sense of confidence to make mistakes. Making mistakes is really part of the process to creative thinking. I have always believed that we use the same creative thinking skills to create a new scrumptious dish, as we do a painting, or solving a complex strategic problem. It all goes down to the creative problem solving skills and putting the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that is truly unique to you.
One of the most useful exercises I have been using, especially with adults who don’t believe in their creative potential is fairly simple: using colouring books. We have been so accustomed and encouraged to colour inside the lines that our brains cannot possibly fathom the idea of going outside them. So I ask the participants to only colour outside the lines. By making your pencil colours or felt tips cross these barriers, you are rewiring your brain to be able to cross the mental barriers that have been so ingrained within our beings - and move forward to the barrierless possibilities of creative thinking. (On a side note, if you’d like to start exploring this, check out Nadine Nour El Din’s free downloadable colouring book range - I love them. Or if you don’t have a printer at home, you can order The Mindfulness Colouring Book from Geeq Shop, too. Obviously none of these are ads.)
This also reminds me of the famous quote by Picasso saying that “some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” We have some of history’s best and most successful people seeing things in a way that was thought of as bizarre at their time. People who saw a pink sky in their mind’s eye are as old as time: from Picasso who distorted people’s faces in his paintings, to Noah (the prophet) who built a boat where there was no sea, all the way to women who have made history and business people who have built empires. These people did not see the cliche blue sky that people are fed in classrooms. What differentiates them is that they have their own ways of doing things that is uniquely characteristic to them.
And besides, the sky is only blue sometimes. It’s green when the Northern Lights are, sometimes red even. It’s black or navy blue at night. It’s cotton candy coloured at sunset and sunrise. Sometimes it’s all shades of oranges and reds. It always vexes me why people generally like making generalisations as opposed to being awed by the wonderful anomalies of the world
In this particular picture below, it’s pink and purple.
And here it’s shades of red and orange:
Every morning as I work with the horses, I look at the sky and I remember the story I just told you. Thankfully, my niece turned out to be a very creative person (she’s such a talented writer), but her creativity could have been blocked there and then.
Moral of the story: next time anyone tells you anything similar to “the sky is blue” literally or figuratively, you tell them that your sky has no limit and it can be whichever colour you want it to be.