Colours Before Dawn: Notes from a Medico-Anthropologist
In Japanese, the names of colours do not merely describe a spectrum. They encode time, emotion, and transition—states of being rather than shades on a palette. Each colour marks a moment that exists briefly, then disappears.
GYŌAN is the profound darkness just before the first light of dawn.
SHINONOME-IRO, the faint illumination of eastern clouds as night loosens its grip.
AKEBONO-IRO, the sky at the instant the sun begins to rise.
ASAGI, a pale blue-green—crisp, cool, like morning air before speech begins.
These are not colours meant to be held. They are moments to be witnessed.
Then come the greens—the colours of life persisting quietly.
UGUISU-IRO, the olive green of a bush warbler concealed within bamboo shadows.
MOEGI, the vibrant yellow-green of spring leaves just beginning to emerge.
TOKIWA-IRO, the deep, unchanging green of pine trees—the colour of permanence in a changing world.
Once one begins to see these differences, the world expands. It becomes infinite not through abundance, but through attention.
I have been fortunate to witness fragments of this planet in its extremities and intimacies: the Marshall Islands after a tsunami; the three Tokelau Islands; Rapa Nui; Ushuaia at the southern edge of the Americas; Ivalo in northern Lapland; Cochin. These places live within me not as coordinates, but as people—friends whose lives continue quietly, resiliently, smiling through ordinary days.
Anthropology, like medicine, teaches that deprivation rarely eliminates life—it rearranges it.
When colours are prohibited—use anything in your life as a metaphor—humans do what they have always done: they create infinite variations within the narrow palette permitted to them. This is how cultures survive constraint. This is how dignity persists.
For me, GYŌAN has become a metaphor for our beloved Iran today—the darkness before first light. A friend once remarked that observing constant transformation, rather than resisting it, can be deeply grounding. I hold onto that thought.
I live, in many ways, as a metaphorical homeless person—moving between places, languages, systems, and worlds. What steadies me is not permanence, but observation: change unfolding rapidly, transiently, yet forming its own equilibrium. From this comes calm. Mindfulness. Peace. And compassion—towards myself, and towards others navigating their own narrow spectrums.
This, perhaps, is the quiet work of medico-anthropology: to witness transitions, to sit with impermanence, and to recognise life even when its colours are muted.
Shalom
