Mediums Network

Colours and their meaning.

Author: | Posted on: November 7, 2012

On this occasion healing colours and the usage of different shades, elements and pigments is going to be the main focus of this article.  Healing is a main attribute of spirit and more the type of healing can visually convey how the effects can be felt.  There are many fields of colour interpretation, defining of what colours can do and how they can be instrumental through means that are unexpected and surprising.

Colours are shown as crucial through multiple dimensions in our lives.  From the type of colour we convey a preference for to the tones we avoid, they each have a meaning and can simillarly individually be used to bring potentially life shaping effects to us.

Understanding about colour is the first step to encompassing knowledge on what each can mean and how they can be used to develop beneficial effects in our lives.  As simple as choosing a colour which we love or feel drawn to will highlight what attributes that shade has and how it can be influential in physically lifting our mood and sense of health.  

Historically the colours, means by which they are used and role in events or celebrations have been evoked through cultures to focus on what they stand for and the effects they bring.  It can sometimes be as basic as the instinctual link we feel to a tonal quality and yet it is important to know that each has a reverse result, can be used to build or diminish desired needs.

Each shade or tone can potentially have many different forms.  In this piece I would like to refer to Red. 

Red is the colour of life.  It is the shade of the blood which is carried in your veins, it can be bold, vibrant and used in emotional extremes.  When we love we portray red as the colour of the heart, it is used in symbols of passion, to bring attention in lettering and bring a feeling of richness.  Although all the colours in the spectrum can and are utilised through healing, red should be the one which is used to treat certain parts of the body and not in effect if the injured spot is inflamed or swollen.  This is because red can be used to envision an expansion or heat and this will only impinge on specific classes of distress.

Red or seeing red is a phrase used when someone is in the latter stages of anger.  It is a good, strong colour but one that is powerful and can be best inserted into a spiritual psychic or traditional mode of health improvement in low or specific means.

When we practice healing, we do not think of the act separately or feel any defined positional action as the intervention is directly from spirit.  The high form of energy is sensed in a tangible feeling, visually the energies can sometimes be seen and the temperature fluctuation during this process can also be noticed.

The colours are integral to a healing.  If an ailment is specified then the corresponding colour, as with crystal or element choice, will be picked and interwoven into a personal approach suited to the body.  Red, will be the response to a blood condition, a problem with the cardiac cavity and circulation distress.

Comprehension of the power of red is necessary as it can bring on, increase or bring out stress.  Just being angry surrounds you with a sense of colour which if photographed with an aura camera or seen by spiritual individual will show up.  Red, can build on hate or stress.  This in turn will chemically have an effect on your hormones.  This imbalance which can be made worse by the person themselves could lead to severe angst, pressure and cause strokes or situations of a problematic nature to arise.

Every colour has the positve and negative reflection.  Do not dismiss colours as surface quantity of which there is no deeper meaning.  When you fully appreciate the spectrum and shades of the elements around you it can open your perspectives on an involved and influencial form of life and body states.  

Throughout ages the bonds of red and its wider appeal have meant that in India, bridal clothes are cut from red cloth to show happiness, in Japan weddings have a tint of this same colour as it is believed to disclose a happy and content spiritual future.  Inside caves 13B at Pinnacle Point, archeological site on the coast of South Africa, paleoanthropologists in 2000 found evidence that, between 170,000 and 40,000 years ago, Late Stone Age people were scraping ochre, a clay colored red by iron oxide.  It is probably with the intention of using it to color their bodies.  Once it was thought that red should be worn on the outside as a lucky charm. 

Red hematite powder was also found scattered around the remains of grave site in the Zhoukoudian cave complex, near Beijing. The site has evidence of habitation as early as 700,000 years ago. The hematite might have been used to symbolize blood or taken as in an offering to the dead.

Red was not only evoked as a positive link to life and death but also has its begining in the earliest days of the first man. 

Red and black and white were the first colors used by artists in the Upper Paleolithic age, probably because natural pigments such as red ochre and iron oxide were readily available where early people lived. Madder was a plant whose root could be made into a red dye, grew widely in Asia, Africa and Europe.  The cave of Altamira in Spain has a painting of animals colored with red ochre that dates to between 15,000 and 16,500 BC.  Red was also the first color, after black and white, to have its own oral composition.

In ancient Egypt, red was associated with life stealth, health, and victory.  Henna was used to color their hair and paint their nails.  Cosmetics kept interpreted feelings of beautification, demenour and internal sensual thoughts came into view with red chosen by females of the past and actresses Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

In ancient Rome, purple was the color of the Emperor, but red had an important religious symbolism. Romans wore their togas with red stripes on holidays, and the bride at a wedding wore a red shawl, called a flammeum.   Red was used to color statues and the skin of gladiators.

In fighting red was also the colour associated with army; Roman soldiers wore red tunics, and officers wore a cloak called a paludamentum.  It was developed upon the quality of the dye, and could be crimson, scarlet or purple.  In Roman mythology red is associated with the god of war, Mars.  Current and wars years after also drew red in as the suits of Generals and rememberance of such heroes. A Roman general receiving a triumph had his entire body painted red in honor of his achievement.

The Romans liked bright colors, and there were many Roman villas were decorated with vivid red murals. The pigment used for many of the murals was called vermilion, and it came from the mineral cinnabar, a common ore of mercury. It was one of the finest reds of ancient times – the paintings have retained their brightness for more than twenty centuries. The source of cinnabar for the Romans was a group of mines near Almadén, southwest of Madrid, in Spain. Working in the mines was extremely dangerous, since mercury was highly toxic; the miners were slaves or prisoners, and being sent to the cinnabar mines was a virtual death sentence and hereby bringing the cycle of red back to its background feeling which was thought to line itself with essence of life and passings. 

• Royalty wear red as heritage and ancestral consideration.  After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the princes of Europe and the Roman Catholic Church adapted red as a color of majesty and authority. This has also played an important concern in the Catholic Church – it symbolized Christian martyrs – and it associated the power of the kings with the sacred rituals.

Red was taken in to care as being a reminder of the past.

Red clothing was a sign of status and wealth. It was worn not only by princes, cardinals but also by merchants, artisans and townpeople. Red dye for the clothing of ordinary people was made from the roots of the rubia tinctorum, the madder plant. This color leaned toward brick-red, and faded easily in the sun or during washing. The wealthy and aristicrats did buy scarlet clothing dyed with kermes, or carmine, made from the carminic acid in tiny female scale insects, which lived on the leaves of oak trees in Eastern Europe and around the Mediterranean sea. 

Liberty and free domain was denoted by crowds who wore red during the revolutions.  Red was worn as a choice or alliance to a faith particularly in epoques of disturbance and periods of excessive difference in politics, government or beliefs.

Red played an important role in Chinese philosophy. It was believed that the world was composed of five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth; and that each had a color. Red was associated with fire. Each Emperor chose the color that his fortune-tellers or spirit believed would bring the most prosperity and good fortune to his reign. During the Zhou, Han, Jin, Song and Ming Dynasties, red was considered a noble color, and it was featured in all court ceremonies, from coronations to sacrificial offerings, and weddings.

We placidly talk today about red without real analysis of what it means or how internally well situated within customs and traditions it was.

Red was also featured in Chinese Imperial architecture.  Women were only allowed to shop, put or dress in red if there was an ambition to do so and if this was suitably in correlation with other ideas of it.    

When we say we pick up red, the human eye sees red when it looks at light with a wavelength between 630 and 700 nanometers.

Man and other primates can distinguish the full range of the colors of the spectrum. Many kinds of mammals, such as dogs and cattle, have dichromacy, which means they can see blues, yellows and greens, but cannot distinguish red. Bulls, for instance, cannot see the red color of the cape of a bullfighter, but they are agitated by its movements.

One theory for why primates developed sensitivity to red is that it allowed fruit to be distinguished from unripe fruit and inedible vegetation. This may have driven further adaptations by species taking advantage of this ability.

Red light is used to help adapt night vision in low-light or nights, as the rod cells in the human eye are not sensitive to the red.

Red was (and sometimes still is) used as a safelight while working in a darkroom as it does not expose most photographic paper and some films. Today modern darkrooms usually use an amber safelight.  Circles of a spiritual sitter and medium populous sit in a dark room with only a red light as this propels spiritual manifestations.

• Bulls, like dogs and many other animals, have dichromacy, which means they cannot distinguish the color red. They charge the matador’s cape because of its motion, not its color.

On the color wheel long used by painters, and in traditional color theory, red is one of the three primary colors, along with blue and yellow. Painters could mix red and yellow to get overall a new paint, and red and blue to get violet and other mixtures.

In modern color theory, also known as the RGB color model, red, green and blue are foremost colors. Red, green and blue light combined together makes white light, and these three colors, combined in different mixtures, can produce almost any colour. This is the principle used to make the colours on your computer screen and television.

Red is associated with dominance in a number of animal species. For example, in mandrills, red coloration of the face is greatest in alpha males, increasingly less prominent in lower ranking subordinates.  The red is correlated with levels of testosterone. Red can also affect the perception of dominance by others, leading to significant differences in mortality, reproductive success and parental investment between individuals displaying red and those not. In humans, wearing red has been linked with increased performance in competitions, including professional sport and multiplayer video games. Red is the colour most commonly associated with love, followed at a great distance by pink. It the symbolic color of the heart and the red rose, is closely associated with romantic love or courtly love and Saint Valentine’s Day. Both the Greeks and the Hebrews considered red a symbol of love as well as sacrifice.

The Romance of the Rose, a thirteenth-century French poem, was one of the most popular works of literature of the Middle Ages. It was the allegorical search by the author for a red rose in an enclosed garden, symbolizing the woman he loved, and was a description of love in all of its aspects. Later, in the 19th century, British and French authors described a specific language of flowers; giving a single red rose meant ‘I love you,’ 

Fifteenth-century Illustration from, a Thirteenth century French poem about a search for a red rose imply how literal images of emotive faith are designated along with red.

Happiness, Celebration and marriage.

Red is the color most commonly associated with joy and well being. It is the color of celebration and ceremony. A red carpet is often used to welcome distinguished guests. Red is also traditional color of seats in opera houses and theaters. Scarlet academic gowns are worn at by new Doctors of Philosophy at degree ceremonies at Oxford University and other schools. In China, it is considered the color of good fortune and prosperity, money at new Year is given in packets of red and it is the color traditionally worn by brides. In Christian countries, it is the color traditionally worn at Christmas, because in the 4th century the historic Saint Nicholas was the Greek Christian Bishop of Myra, in modern-day Turkey, and bishops then dressed in red.

• President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India famously stood on a red carpet at the White House.

• The benches in the British House of Lords are red, symbolizing the noble status of the members. The members also wear red robes at the opening ceremony.

• Father Christmas traditionally wears red, because the original Saint Nicholas was a bishop of the Greek Christian church in the 4th century.

Aggression, Passion, Heat and War

While red is the color most associated with love, it also the color most frequently associated with hatred, anger, aggression and war. People who are angry are said to “see red.” Red is the color most commonly associated with passion. In ancient times red was the color of Mars, the god of War- the planet Mars was named for him because of its red color.

Red is the traditional color of warning and danger. In the Middle Ages, a red flag announced that the defenders of a town they would fight to defend it, and a red flag hoisted by a warship meant they would show no mercy. In automobile races, the red flag is raised if there is danger.  In international football, a player who has made a serious violation of the rules is shown a red penalty card and ejected from the pitch.

Several studies have indicated that red carries the strongest and notable reaction of all the colors, with the level of reaction decreasing gradually with the colors yellow, and white, respectively. For this reason, red is generally used as the highest level of warning, such as threat level of terrorist attack in the United States.

Red is the international color of stop signs and stop lights on highways and intersections. It was chosen partly because red is the brightest color in daytime, though it is less visible at twilight, when green is the most visible. Red also stands out more clearly against a cool natural backdrop of blue sky, green trees or grey. But it was mostly chosen as the color for stoplights and stop signs because of its universal association with danger and carefulness.

•  Red is the color of a severe terrorist threat level in the United States, under the Homeland Security Advisory System.

Red is the color that attracts attention.  Surveys show it is the color most frequently associated with visibility, proximity, and extroverts. It is also the color most associated with dynamism and pro-action.

Red is used in modern fashion much as it was used in Medieval painting; to attract the eyes of the viewer to the person. People wearing red seem to be closer than those dressed in other colors, even if they are actually at the same distance. It is also commonly worn by lifeguards and others whose job requires them to be easily found.

Red by a large margin is the color most commonly associated with seduction, immorality, alarming senarios and it is possibly because of its close connection with passion and with extreme situations of risk.

Pictures are of red, two red foxes, red lead, father Christmas and the powder which is used to paint and pattern the palms.  Pictures are taken from online encyclopedia.