Dear Readers,

In the 1930s, most things appeared black and white. Moving pictures were no exception. Yet still, light is captured through film the same as through eyes, so even if we cannot see what is there, such as color in black and white film, it still is there. The invention of Technicolor proves this. Filmed in black and white, The Wizard of Oz was transmuted into full color with overlays of red, green, and blue (RGB). These were not handpainted film strips like color films before. They were meticulously dyed overlays, which brought out the actual color from the play of light captured in film. Dorothy’s rustic life plays out in sepia until a life-altering storm blows through. She awakes, opens a door, and walks into a world completely unlike the other: bright, new, alive, verdant, vibrant. Such is Spring in the desert.

Suddenly, what we questioned may be dead ocotillos or resting prickly pears, are now bright red and pink flowers littering the desert with life we dared not promise ourselves. Despite drought, still they bloom. Dorothy and her dust bowl are similar to desert rats and their dust devils. We are dry, but we thrive. They bloom with faith believing Summer rains will come. Such faith is infinite, perennial, built on millions of years of evolution. The blind faith of nature we all must trust.

Plants and animals do not worship the god of Spring, however. No. Instead, they know an instinct. In doing so, they deeply trust themselves to act for their own survival. Lack of faith in instinct would surely result in death. Though the basis of their life, their cycles, their growth, mating, reproduction, legacy, their very being, rests in Mother Nature, the core truth is they must always be faithful to their own understanding and intuition, or the very god they live by is but a figment of sentient imagination. Animals live and die in sepia, never expecting to open a door to something more. Because of this rawness, this lack of worry and wondering, they see things Unseen. They see nocturnally or through eyes widened by a magnificent peripheral vision. They see a thousand things at once through compound eyes. They sense things we cannot. However, they lack the mind to interpret this information how we do. They lack the ability to open the door to Oz.

This issue was meant to be avant-garde. It was meant to challenge us with whimsy, fancy, freedom, color, growth, mindfulness, contemplation, metaphysical and transcendental truths… It was meant to exhibit that which is intangible and unseen, though the display, full-color, is right in front of us. It is meant to be a collection of overlays to recolor your mind momentarily, perhaps forever, a doorway after a drought, then a storm, into a world entirely different.

With Gusto,

Kate Keenan, Managing Editor