Purple has been my favourite colour since I was a teenager. The thing I have noticed about Purple People is that we are so passionate about our love for the colour that we are nearly evangelical. The colour inspires us on so many levels – it’s more than just having blue, or red, or green, as a favourite colour.
On the colour wheel, yellow is the opposite colour to purple. I never really like yellow – perhaps because it is the ‘opposite’ of the colour that brings me most joy. As for orange – well! That’s the colour of the Oompa Loompas, it’s the colour most associated with Donald Trump, and it’s the colour of Cheetos. None of these things is particularly attractive. (Yes, I know oranges are orange, and they’re quite nice, but my point here is that few things we instantly think of when we think of orange are pretty!). I was slightly conflicted by the fact that the colour orange is associated with the sacral chakra. I felt like I should like orange more than I did – that it would be good for me. There’s always a possibility, however, that my aversion to the colour was related to how disconnected I was to my sense, and ownership of, my femininity and my sexuality.
As a result, I never wore yellow, or orange. I thought they were too harsh, too gaudy, too…..much. Until we (my daughters and I) returned to India for an extended trip in 2007. I spent quite a bit of time with a friend in Mumbai, and her family – and I saw quite a bit of orange! There were orange fabrics in various homes we visited; many of the women wore orange – either as an accent, or as the key colour in an outfit.
It was then that I started to re-evaluate my view of orange. It no longer felt jarring on my eye. It no longer felt garish. It no longer felt like a colour that wasn’t for me. At the time, I pondered why this might be, and my initial thought was that it was on account of the light being different in India.
My point here is that things can look different when we view them in a different light – literally, and figuratively. Maybe, therefore, we owe it to ourselves to look at things in a different light to see if we might find them more acceptable, more comfortable, more joyful.
What are your thoughts?
Purple has been my favourite colour since I was a teenager. The thing I have noticed about Purple People is that we are so passionate about our love for the colour that we are nearly evangelical. The colour inspires us on so many levels – it’s more than just having blue, or red, or green, as a favourite colour.
On the colour wheel, yellow is the opposite colour to purple. I never really like yellow – perhaps because it is the ‘opposite’ of the colour that brings me most joy. As for orange – well! That’s the colour of the Oompa Loompas, it’s the colour most associated with Donald Trump, and it’s the colour of Cheetos. None of these things is particularly attractive. (Yes, I know oranges are orange, and they’re quite nice, but my point here is that few things we instantly think of when we think of orange are pretty!). I was slightly conflicted by the fact that the colour orange is associated with the sacral chakra. I felt like I should like orange more than I did – that it would be good for me. There’s always a possibility, however, that my aversion to the colour was related to how disconnected I was to my sense, and ownership of, my femininity and my sexuality.
As a result, I never wore yellow, or orange. I thought they were too harsh, too gaudy, too…..much. Until we (my daughters and I) returned to India for an extended trip in 2007. I spent quite a bit of time with a friend in Mumbai, and her family – and I saw quite a bit of orange! There were orange fabrics in various homes we visited; many of the women wore orange – either as an accent, or as the key colour in an outfit.
It was then that I started to re-evaluate my view of orange. It no longer felt jarring on my eye. It no longer felt garish. It no longer felt like a colour that wasn’t for me. At the time, I pondered why this might be, and my initial thought was that it was on account of the light being different in India.
My point here is that things can look different when we view them in a different light – literally, and figuratively. Maybe, therefore, we owe it to ourselves to look at things in a different light to see if we might find them more acceptable, more comfortable, more joyful.
What are your thoughts?
