Walking along the trail, it’s easy to get lost in thought. Out in the natural world I’m blissfully disconnected from emails and phone calls. There are no prompts for upcoming Zoom meetings or deadlines or grading papers. Instead, my attention is drawn to the colorful world around me. It’s easy to forget what it means to “see” an object, like a delicate purple fairy slipper that gracefully appears along the hiking trail in the Spring. However, to understand the true origins of that purple color we have to expand the scope of our environment to see the big picture.