Irish Spring

Poison in the Dose

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Bad Seed

Writing Reference: Symbolism of Colors

Colors are proven to have a profound effect on the human psyche and moods.

Territories use colors to represent themselves on their flags.

The significance of colors is proven by the high value that our ancestors placed on certain plants or substances that could be made into dyes, such as the Imperial Purple of Rome that was produced from a mollusk that was valued more highly than gold, or the saffron crocus that produced the sacred color of the same name.

Prior to the development of chemical dyes, the creation of colors that did not fade in the Sun or wash away was a combination of art, science, and magic, akin to an alchemical process.

The impact of the Sun shining through stained glass, painting the interiors of churches with living colors that shimmered and danced, in a medieval world where color was often a privilege of the wealthy few, can only be imagined.

The 7 colors of the rainbow—which break down into 700 shades that are visible to the naked eye—are associated with the seven planets, the days of the week, the Seven Heavens, and the seven notes of the musical scale.

Symbolic Meanings of Some Colors

BLACK

Night, the absence of light; mourning, sobriety, denial; authority; perfection and purity; maturity and wisdom.

Although it’s the opposite of white, both shades are, in fact, due to an absence of color, and technically speaking black is not a “color” at all. This doesn’t stop it having a wealth of symbolic meaning.

BLUE

Truth and the intellect; wisdom, loyalty, chastity; peace, piety, and contemplation; spirituality; eternity.

There’s something cool and detached about blue that gives rise to its reputation for spirituality and chastity. Above all, blue is the color of the sky. Like the sky, blue is infinitely spacious. It contains everything, and yet contains nothing. The color is therefore associated with ideas of eternity.

BROWN

Poverty, humility, practicality.

Primarily associated with the Earth, soil, the raw element before it is covered with greenery. The word for earth, in Latin, is humus, which carries the same root as humility. Religious ascetics wear brown as a reminder of this quality and also of their voluntary material poverty.

GRAY

Sobriety, steadiness, modesty.

Gray is the midway point between black and white, and tellingly the “gray area” is an area of indetermination, indecision, or ambiguity. To be described as gray is rather less than flattering, since gray is such a subdued and neutral color, and implies that the person blends into the background.

However, gray is also a color of balance and reasonableness and is the color used, in photography, to balance all others.

Because people’s hair turns gray with age, the word is often used to describe elderly people and is also a color of wisdom.

GREEN

New life, resurrection, hope; the sea; fertility and regeneration; recycling, environmental awareness; a lucky color; an unlucky color.

Green is an amalgam of blue and yellow, and is the color of the fourth chakra. Green is the universal symbol for “Go!” to red’s “Stop!”

MOTLEY

Wealth; a chameleon personality.

Not strictly a color as such, but a combination of many other colors. The word is generally used to describe cloth or clothing. The rainbow nature of motley means that whoever wears it has as many aspects as there are colors, a chameleon personality, and it can indicate the trickster or fool (as worn by the jester, or the Fool in the Tarot) as well as kings, emperors, and deities.

In the Bible, Joseph’s coat of many colors is the object of much envy.

ORANGE

Balance between spirit and sexuality; fertility and yet virginity; energy; the Sun; like yellow, orange is believed to be an appetite stimulant.

Orange has two aspects that we see time and time again, pivoting between the material and spiritual worlds, which is not surprising given that the color itself is a balance between red and yellow. As such, it represents the second chakra, the first being red, and the third, yellow.

PINK

Femininity, innocence, good health, love, patience.

Pink is the ultimate feminine color, being flirty, girlish, and innocent at the same time. Pale pink is used as the symbol for a baby girl, just as pale blue is used for baby boys. This feminine angle is why the color pink has been adopted as a symbol of gay pride. Pink is the color of universal, unconditional love.

PURPLE

Royalty and pomp; power, wealth, majesty.

Purple, or indigo, is the color associated with the sixth chakra. Since it was first discovered, purple has been the color of choice to denote wealth and power. Emperors, kings, and the more powerful members of the clergy—such as bishops—choose the colour as a way of defining their status. This is because the dye itself was originally available from one source and one source only; the secretions of a certain gland of an unfortunate sea snail called the Murex brandaris. Therefore, purple was extremely costly to produce and strictly the color of those who could afford it, since the dye itself was more expensive even than gold. The most popular shade of the color is called Tyrian Purple (named for the city of Tyre, where it was manufactured).

RED

Vitality and life-force; fire, the Sun, the South; blood; good luck and prosperity; power and authority; masculine energy; war and anger; passion, energy, sexuality.

One of the three primary colors, bright red pops out of whatever environment it happens to be in and grabs our attention more than any other color. Moreover, it is the first actual color that is seen by babies.

SAFFRON

Spirituality, holiness, good fortune.

Named after the saffron crocuses whose stigmas create the color, the harvesting of these delicate plant parts is a labor-intensive and time-critical matter and so the actual dye is costly to produce.

VIOLET

Knowledge and intelligence; piety, sobriety, humility, temperance; peace and spirituality.

Violet is the color associated with the seventh chakra. There are many shades of violet ranging from ethereal pale shades through to the darker mauve, considered the only color acceptable as a relief from the relentless strict mourning convention of black and gray in Victorian times. Violet is a combination of red and blue, and its association with temperance is indicated in some Tarot suits.

The humble qualities of violet as a color come from the flower. The tiny violet grows close to the ground, hidden modestly in among the grass, yet noticeable because of its striking color.

WHITE

Purity, virginity; death and rebirth, a beginning and an end; in the Far East, mourning.

White is both the absence of any color and the sum of all colors together, so in a sense it can mean everything or nothing. This combination of all colors has given white the name of the “many-colored lotus” in Buddhist teachings.

YELLOW

The Sun; power, authority; the intellect and intuition; goodness; light, life, truth, immortality; endurance; the Empire and fertility [China]; cowardice, treachery.

Yellow is one of the three primary colors and is related to the third chakra which lives in the region of the solar plexus. This is apt, since yellow, like red and orange, is one of the Sun colors. It could be argued that yellow is the most dazzling of the three, so the association makes good sense.

Because leaves turn yellow and then to black with the onset of fall, in several places, including Ancient Egypt, yellow is a color of mourning. A yellow cross was painted on doors as a sign of the plague, possibly for the same reasons, and even today yellow marks off a quarantined area.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References More: On Colours

bury me with my money

Bury me with acorns,

Don't bury me in a box.

If you must, bury me in

A shroud of cotton.

Bury me in a simple shift

Don't bury me in a suit;

My rising will not be a formal affair.

Don't wear your best to

See me off.

Wear what you can get dirty.

You'll be spreading the mulch

On my gravesite.

Bury me with grave goods,

So if I am discovered by

Archeologists someday,

They will know I was loved.

Bury me with flowers,

But don't bury me with fresh roses.

Nay, plant on me perennials,

So you can still see me every year.

Finally, bury me with a stone marker,

But don't spend a fortune.

Carve for me the name I chose,

No matter what others may call me.

Bury me under sturdy granite,

So I can yet leave my mark

On something set for years.

While you may not see me,

These marks will be my gift to you.

Bury me with my money,

But the riches of the things I hold

Most dear.

A List of "Beautiful" Words: Yellow

for your next poem/story

Aureate - of a golden color

Auric - of, relating to, or derived from gold

Aurify - to turn into gold

Bilious - a yellow or greenish fluid that is secreted by the liver

Citreous - of the color citron yellow

Flavescent - turning yellow; yellowish

Flaxen - resembling flax especially in pale soft strawy color

Fulvous - of a dull brownish yellow; tawny

Gild - to overlay with or as if with a thin covering of gold

Gilt - of the color of gold

Gold - a variable color averaging deep yellow

Icterus - yellowish pigmentation of the skin, tissues, and body fluids caused by the deposition of bile pigments; jaundice

Lutescent - yellowish

Luteous - yellow tinged with green or brown

Luteolous - slightly yellow; yellowish

Mustard - a dark to moderate yellow

Ochroid - resembling yellow ocher in color

Old gold - a dark yellow

Primrose yellow - a light to moderate yellow

Sallow - of a grayish greenish yellow color

Sandy - of a yellowish-gray color

Straw - of the color of straw: pale yellow in color

Topaz - a yellow sapphire or quartz

Xanthism - coloring (as of the skin or pelt) marked by a predominance of yellow pigments

Xanthochroism - abnormal coloration of feathers (as in some parrots) in which yellow replaces the normal color

More: Lists of Beautiful Words ⚜ Word Lists ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

We're neither of us angels

I

The crowd of lesser demons gnawing at my thoughts doesn’t come from us –

my mind circles because our moments won’t stand still to be captured.

I only haunt myself when you’re not in reach to remind me I haven’t died.

II

I weave secrets, around you, over you, yet in your presence nothing is hidden,

not even the carelessness of my wishing. You are the pennies winking low in the well,

taunting me. Every past moment of wistfulness for someone I hadn’t met yet arriving

with the grace and fluidity of rain now distils fears to the nightmare of losing this.

III

No angels will save us – still a barter better than any

offered at the crossroads. I’ll love the demons to death.

Desert Cherry Blossom

Under lacey shade and golden rain

Desert cherry blossom trickles

Bright desert light onto a bed of pebbles.

A verdin hops branches, calling all the time

Honeyed warble from blue-green twigs.

Florid sprigs along crooked boughs,

Silken sun-drops flit to the ground.

Bees delight in their bounty,

Bobbing from petals, bringing new life.

Soon, these skirts are traded for

Seeds, their pods forage for locals.

Gifts abound from smooth-barked

Florida, this Parkinsonia blessing

All who alight in and around her

Resplendent wings.