Forests of Imagination

Colour as Expression and Practice

talk by Padmayogini/Wendy Le Ber 2006

Artists and colour seem to obviously go together. It is often commonplace when thinking about great people and artist’s to describe their life as colourful. Artists have often been obsessed by colour, striving to obtain particular shades of colour such as Yves Klein’s search for blue. Constable was well-known for that touch of red in his paintings Bridget Riley is known for her iconic black-and-white paintings.

In the spiritual life to we may become more aware of colour. In Buddhism we have the colours of the three jewels blue yellow and red. And of the five Dhyani Buddhas, Amitabha‘s red, Akshobya‘s blue, Ratnasambhava‘s yellow, Amoghasiddhi‘s green and in the centre Vairochona‘s white. Traditionally spiritual practitioners have meditated on colours as coloured discs or as mandalas For Lama Govinda East the starting point of a mandala is the dark blue of the sky before sunrise. The south is the yellow of sunrise. West the red of the setting sun, North the green blue of the moonlight sky and in the centre white the integration of all colours. We may find that we have a particular attraction to a colour or to a spiritual figure that has a particular colour associated with it. We may find that we see certain colours or coloured lights may appear in our practice

Then there is the chakra system, systems vary in different traditions but they all assigned colours to each chakra. There are particular practices like colour breathing that work with the colour of the chakras and healing methods involving the chakras as well as various forms of yoga.

As we become more and more aware of colour in our life we begin to uncover more of our riches as well as our difficulties and attitudes and preferences for individual colours Thinking back to our childhood we may remember that we liked very different colours. Children quite often prefer bright primary colours like red, in our teenage years we may decide to wear a lot of black, or become outrageous in our choice of colours. Instinctively we may choose particular colours that are in tune with how we’re feeling , if we are feeling rather introspective we may choose to wear rather muted colours, if we’re feeling b right and energetic we may choose brighter colour. Experimenting with the colours of our clothes can be instructive as well as fun. How do we feel wearing particular colours? Can changing the colour of our clothes alter our mood?

Particular colours seem to go with particular decades, think about the 1960s and the psychedelic colours that were everywhere. Then there were the Browns and oranges of the 1970s and the cool white minimalist style of the 1980s house.

Colours scientifically of course are made up of vibration, red, blue green orange and purple all vibrate at particular frequencies each send out a certain length of wave measured in angstroms. The more visible the colour the longer wavelength they have and a lower frequency or intensity. Orange is more easily visible and is capable of being seen at a distance and that this reason it is often used in safety signs Certain colours seem to go well together complement each other’s wavelength, A colour vibration is sensed not only through vision but also in other ways every colour vibration has an Impact on all physical systems and organs of the body which respond to these frequencies. Colour is used for healing. Yellow is often used as an antidepressant it stimulates the mind the intellect and lifts our mood, blue has a cooling effect ,green quite often speaks to our heart, black is the absence of colour, the colour of potentiality of mystery and white is the colour that encompasses all others and is the colour of many spiritual traditions.

These brief descriptions of aspects of colour indicate just how much we rely on and use colour in our lives. Each area has a huge amount of research and wisdom if we want to look further.