Labels are tricky. When we view the world through our labels, we may never see it as it is. Yet, names and labels can also give us distinctions that expand what we see.

That’s how it is for me and the fall colors I adore. I grew up thinking of them as yellow, orange, brown, and red. Now I’m hungry for words that capture more richly what I observe. So this week I went on a color hunt.

Merriam Webster gave me quite a few names for fall colors to choose from:

Sepia –  a brown-gray to olive-brown.	Amber – a dark yellow-orange
Gamboge – a vivid yellow	Scarlet – a bright red
Crimson – a dark purplish-red	Maroon – a dark reddish-brown
Auburn – a reddish-gold shade of brown	Lurid – a pale yellow like dying leaves
Carnelian – a reddish-orange or brownish-red	Russet – a reddish-brown

I wanted more. I found them at the website Simplicable:

Autumn maple	Bark
Bronze	Ochre
Harvest Gold	Burnt sienna
Burnt orange	Vermilion
Copper	Rust

I wanted to eat some of the shades:

Mustard	Chai
Pumpkin	Chestnut
Persimmon	Honey brown
Burnt Almond	Roasted pecan
Caramel	Chocolate

I’ll stop there–knowing there are many more to choose from. The colors outside my window are beautiful even without names. Yet the names expand my imagination as well as my palette.

As I pause to love the colors, I invite you to catch up on recent posts.

In Did Darwin Get It Wrong?, I explore whether Darwin thought human evolution is about “survival of the fittest” or survival of the kindest.

In How to become expert at beginner’s mind, I celebrate the importance of experts and the joy of being a beginner.

In How to love what you don’t like (to do), I offer four steps that can transform what we don’t feel like doing (for me, taxes) into something that might even be pleasurable.

In To Bless the Space Between Us, I remembered 9-11 by asking the question: What good could live between you and me for the sake of us–what could live in the space between us?

The fall colors won’t last much longer. I hope you are enjoying them as much as I am.