Wear your bright colors

Stillness 9-26: It’s a good day to look at all the colors around you and inside you. Feel like a tree in autumn. Wear a yellow scarf. Notice the blue of the sky. Be like a purple umbrella. Color lifts our mood, cheers us, influences us more than anything else.

One of Goethe’s most interesting insights into color is that darkness is an active ingredient of color, rather than the mere passive absence of light. He said that “color is a degree of darkness.” To me that means color is physically real – it exists (rather than just being something we perceive with optic nerves and brain). Goethe was one of the first philosophers and physicists to explore the psychological impact of different colors on our emotions — ideas he largely intuited spiritually. He gave attributes to colors, like beautiful and noble. Yellow, as the color nearest to the light, was bright and exciting. It stood for good. Red stood for dignity and attractiveness. Blue was powerful and cool.

Enjoy your day—enjoy all the colors in it. Colors are wonderful bridges between our conscious and unconscious, our inner and outer, our spirit and our human selves.