If you’ve been following my ‘daily happinesses’ you might have noticed that each one is posted in a different colored font. And if you met me, after a while you might begin to notice that on certain days I wear red, on other days I might have on an orange scarf. Not always, but usually on Mondays there’d be a lavender or purple something. And on Fridays I’d be wearing something green.
I grew up in a home and school situation where family, teachers, and friends were attuned to nature and cosmos. That included being aware that each day of the week is connected to a planet, which is in turn connected to a god or goddess. Each planet is connected with a color, a metal, a personality. (This could become very long – I’m going to keep it short.)
Monday – moon: lavender or dark blue. Luna is internal, emotional, reflective, a great day for silence and meditation.
Tuesday – Mars: red. Mars (and Saturn) has had lousy p.r. reps through the ages. Actually Mars is the god who will help us in our search for Self, standing up to others, fighting for the good, working for kindness…action. Energy.
Wednesday – Hermes or Mercury, the messenger god. His color is yellow. This is a great day for communication, and accomplishing tasks that require mental acuity.
Thursday – Jupiter. Orange. Expansive. Friendly. Opportunity, luck, good fortune. A good day to look at the big picture or start a big project.
Friday – Venus. Green. A day to make one’s self or one’s environment beautiful and harmonious.
Saturday – Saturn. Dark blue or black. Saturn helps with the details: making sure everything is on track. Don’t be bummed by him – he’s there to help over the long haul.
Sunday – Apollo. White. Apollo was the storyteller, the musician, the poet, the god of light. A good day to be creative.
Now, in my philosophy, it doesn’t matter whether these soul qualities are or are not ‘true.’ What matters is that in our busy lives, where we rarely give ourselves time for essential quiet like meditation or deep breathing, using color can help us attach a rhythm of balance and simplicity to our days.
Balance.
Color makes a difference – I’m not making that up. Colors have different vibrations, and they impact us. Burger King has known this for years (all that pink and orange actually does make you eat faster). Blue draws you inward to a place a quiet. Yellow does lift your spirits! So by becoming conscious of all the different colors in our limited spectrum, one is balancing one’s nature. Otherwise one gets drawn to reds, and then one loses the blue-ness of one’s interior being. Or one loves green, but forgets to absorb the soul of yellow.
Simplicity.
Simplicity is the essence of calm, harmony, serenity. Having to choose between a number of things is stressful. Being aware of color in this way simplifies my life. If it’s Friday, I simply reach for my pale green sweatshirt; no agonizing. If it’s Saturday, I wear blue jeans. At the mind-numbing market, if I can’t decide between Shiraz or Pinot Grigio, or between blueberries or strawberries, I’ll let the color of the day guide me. My accessories are easily decided on as well: I reach for those moonstones or pearls on Monday. Not having to stress about decisions is incredibly relaxing. And it can make mundane tasks much more fun.
Working with colors is a tool that helped me enormously when I had young children, when sometimes I’d be paralyzed with indecision. By now it’s become something I take for granted. We all have tendencies to a wide spectrum of temperament, personality type, and so forth, but we tend to favor one aspect. Balancing one’s melancholic tendencies by wearing yellow, or soothing one’s anxiety with a peaceful green, makes sense to me.
The most important thing for me is my enjoyment in growing more aware of the beautiful colors in our world through this daily practice. After a while, becoming more conscious about the days of the week, and the ancient gods and goddesses who ruled them, as well as the placement of the planets in the sky, is a good thing: it’s like watching a rose unfurl, or the leaves on the maple tree begin to turn.
This is really interesting and puts me in mind of a fasciating BBC documentary about the book Planet Narnia. C.S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia have had a huge following through the years and the author Michael Ward seems to have unlocked an unknown parallel in each of the stories with the imagery of each the seven heavens of the medieval cosmos. This gives the stories and extra cosmic level of resonance .
To go back to your post, the planetary and colour associations are something that must have been with us for eons. They are markers that help us orient ourselves. Colours in particular may even have a hardwired physiological meaning that filters up through our layers of wellbeing. Personally I realise that I have in recent years added more greens to my predominately red wardrobe and that the notebook I chose for my writing ideas is purple.
Thanks, Winslow, this post will keep me thinking and examing the individual (multicoloured roses) in my garden for a long while.
YES!!! “Colors have different vibrations, and they impact us.” I could not agree more. As a PT and infant massage instrucotr, I teach about colors and there effects on us in my weekly baby massage class. So important to think about in terms of how we surround our babies. They so often will sooth the second we take them out in nature… hmmme… connection? I think so. Not only the soothing colors of being outdoors (depending on where you live i guess) but the fresh air and the sounds of nature as well.
ENVIRONMENT MATTERS! it effects us physically, emotionally and spiritually… and our babies. Thanks for this great resource. I’ll refer back to this post often. maybe even when i am picking out our nursery paint colors for twins room due in Jan (which we will be doing in about 5 weeks!) THANKS AGAIN!!!