Color

A few years ago, while painting a series of large colorful abstract paintings on the chakras, I was finally convinced that color truly has a profound effect on our health and general well-being. We can all feel the calming effect of blue, the lightness of yellow, the intensity and heat of red. I realized that they can have both or either a positive or negative effect on us.

Sunlight is composed of a range of color vibrations, each with a different speed and wavelength. Each color is energy vibrating on a different wavelength. Wherever light meets darkness or matter, color arises. We see this when the sun shines thru the rain onto a background of dark clouds and a rainbow appears. A rainbow has red light at the top and violet on the bottom, with all the other colors in between. This is because red has the slowest and longest wavelength and violet vibrates the fastest and has the shortest wavelength.

We absorb these color vibrations into our systems through our eyes, our skin and our auras. The auras act like a prism of light, breaking it up into seven different colors, which in turn nourish our seven main chakras, or energy centers which are located along the spine.

Each chakra, which is sort of like a radio station receiving an energy frequency, is related to different body organs, functions and emotions. The warm colors ( red, orange and yellow) are stimulating- connecting us to the world around us and the cooler colors (blue, indigo and violet) relate more to our inner lives and rest. Between the cools and warms is green, the heart chakra.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that experiments in America with blind people proved that spending time in an all red room and an all blue room affected their temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate and moods differently. Another experiment in Canada involved people walking into rooms that were identical except for their color. Their emotional responses were recorded and huge differences of experience were purely a result of the color.

While working at the Shambhala Mountain Center, a Buddhist retreat center in Colorado, I got to experience Maitri practice of going into different colored rooms and laying in specific poses to greatly amplify specific qualities in yourself. Some colors drove people mad and made them want to run from the room while the same color made others relaxed and peaceful. Some brought out certain imbalances in myself that needed to be worked on and some made me feel blissful and high. It was a fascinating discovery as I experienced what each color brought out.

In the same way that we need a balance of foods in order to maintain good health, we also need to be exposed to a balance of color energies to nourish different aspects of our being. Regardless of whether we like a color or not, each color wavelength has an important and specific contribution to make to our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.

* Info from the “Natural Paint Book” by Lynn Edwards