"Green Is The Colour Of Our Dreams"

That's "Colour" American readers. Colour.

John Muir, you may know, was a fella from Scotland who went to the US of A and dreamed, planned, and walked through the  open spaces of America. He is the founder of the vast  National Parks. Big tracts of open wild space that are protected from development. Where wilderness is encouraged and maintained. And that wasn't an easy battle to win in the States, or anywhere really. But John Muir believed that unreconstructed wild spaces are vital for our mental health and for our planet. For our future. I think he was right. Soon there will be a path across Scotland opening, The John Muir Way, in honour (that's honour) of his achievements.

Without visionaries like John Muir, our world would be a messier, more confusing, uglier, unhealthier place. Green is the nemesis of concrete. Our cities are amazing constructions, but without green they become soulless, lifeless, heartless places. The best ones manage to let Green be an inherent part of their structures rather than an afterthought.

I identify with dreamers like Muir. I have dreams of my own. I like to think we all do, even if sadly many of them get buried over time. Dreams about leaving the world in a better way than we found it. One day I'll tell you about my dreams.

Not today though. Today I just want to celebrate the colour Green. It keeps us sane. It's fresh as a pine forest. A natural pine forest, not those greedy man-made, life sapping Sitka deserts that take up too much of the Kintyre landscape where I live. It promises rest, and relaxation and protection. It tells us that water is around. It eases the mind. It sustains us.

If we don't respect Green though we end up suffering the consequences. Like when we destroy the trees in the hills, which used to drink the water and bring life. Instead, the hills become bare and the water  heads to the valleys causing destructive, misery ridden floods.

Or when we let our need for food cause us to turn the land into a desert. Like the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Which used to be a massive, life filled garden, until we invented the sort of agriculture that helped the human species expand, but perhaps also sowed the seeds of our destruction.

Expanding desert. We create it.

But when we stop looking for short term gain, we promote, and protect, and work with Green. Green is the colour of all our best dreams.


"Green is the colour of our dreams" is from my song Touching Green off the album "A Human Being"