My Book, The Rainbow Onion, was published in July of 2020. It’s about the Transformative Power of Color Thinking. I thought I might take a couple of blog posts and dive into what color thinking actually means.
This week, I’ll start with a few excerpts from Chapter 1, The Science and Language of Color. Next week, I’ll go into thinking. Then I’ll pull it together.
Some key points about color:
- Color is light being reflected by a physical object.
- White light is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow reflected back to us.
- All light contains color.
- Light is made up of electromagnetic waves (which are caused by vibrations).
- We can feel color, even when we cannot see it.
These things are all scientific facts, yet they sound like New Age stuff. They could even be understood and unpacked as full of theological symbolism, right?
One Color, Many Meanings
The language of color is as complex as any language made of words. We use our hearts, our eyes, our memories, and our brains to communicate with color. We medicate with color— selecting colors because they make us feel a certain way. We create, heal, attract, repel, announce, and represent with color. We do so many things with color.
Color is a phenomenon and a phenomenal language. We use color to communicate our messages out to the world, be we also receive messages from the world via color. In The Rainbow Onion, we will mostly focus on understanding how color speaks to us in order to use it as a means to support ourselves on our paths to transformation.
All the examples above of the levels and layers of meaning in the language of color show how color is contextual. We need to understand our particular historical, cultural, and personal context to be able to decode all the secret messages colors send us.
Hmmm, that’s interesting. I guess I’m saying color helps us understand ourselves, but in order to understand color, we need to understand more of ourselves. It’s a bit of circular logic. Oh well. We’ll just make colorful circles.
Why Color?
Ultimately, humans love color. We are attracted to colors in a visceral, powerful way. That’s why color allows us to access so many parts of ourselves—our energy, our history, our culture, our beliefs, our stories, and our emotions. We can use all of this to engineer, support, and document our own personal transformations.
Confusing? Maybe. If you are looking for The One Thing—an absolute truth in black and white—then The Rainbow Onion isn’t for you. But if you like poetry, music, complex flavor profiles, layer cake—anything with layers of meaning (or flavor), then this is a language for you!
How can I summarize color? I can’t – and that’s the beauty. It is complex and nuanced. You cannot boil the language of color down to a simple essence, because it is essentially complex. Colors have universal, cultural, personal, symbolic and spiritual layers of meaning, to name just a few.
In the meantime, remember these things: You are loved. We are all loved. Let’s all be kind. And in all things – progress, not perfection!
Love and light, Maggie
*****
If you’re interested in being on the launch team, sign up at www.therainbowonion.com/launch/