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
Original Blogger URL: https://medicoanthropologist.blogspot.com/2026/01/colours-before-dawn-notes-on-metaphor.html