What I want for you in 2022: Color.

This animal has so many more cones (photoreceptor cells in the retinas of vertebrate eyes) than us humans that it can see colors we can’t even dream of. To be more specific, humans can process three channels of color, while mantis shrimp perceive the world through twelve channels! Ultraviolet and polarized light are found within these twelve channels, along with other aspects of light that humans can’t perceive.

The mantis shrimp’s visual system is unique in the animal kingdom: they have about 10,000 photoreceptive units arranged across their eyes, so they perceive color almost like they’re scanning a barcode. So rather than relying on brain processing to interpret colors and what they mean, (like humans) mantis shrimp perceive color immediately.

While this might seem like the coolest thing ever — our satellite imaging has actually copied this process — it means that mantis shrimp lack the ability to place meaning on or within color, except to a very small degree. Because their eyes are scanning for color in an almost mechanical way, they might see something and interpret it as food or sex or predator, but that’s really about it.

This seems like such a waste to me! Imagine constantly walking through endless multidimensional rainbows all day without the ability to appreciate the magic and depth and expansiveness of the experience. But isn’t this kind of what we all do? Whether it’s due to ignorance, unfamiliarity, or naiveté, how many of us are truly open and willing to taste the full spectrum of color that life has to offer?

Or perhaps we’ve been hurt and decided to protect ourselves against the risk inherent in being open and curious and vulnerable. Regardless, I’m convinced that most of us exist in a space that is small and limited — because we’ve chosen to exist this way.

Imagine you have the ability to step into this new year with a gorgeous pair of magic prism glasses gifted to you by the Queen of the Mantis Shrimp. You get to keep your humanness — your ability to perceive and grow and intuit meaning and feel the feels — but when you’re brave, you can use these glasses, signaling to the Universe that you’re ready. You’re open. You’re here for it. You want to taste the rainbow, and you accept the risks of opening your heart. You understand that filtering out the colors that are perhaps a little difficult to sit with means depriving yourself from the beauty and depth of expansion.

This year, each day, I’m going to choose color, and I invite you to join me. Let’s be the rebels, the outliers who dare to be open and accept the full range of the rainbow of the universe. Because as painful as it is to be vulnerable, I cannot stomach the thought of living my life in the dullness, the dimness of a narrow, colorless space of stagnation. I’ll take pain and heartache over the small life of a limited reality — in fact, I will welcome it.