Reds, Pinks, Oranges and Maroons of 2012

Red, Pink, Orange, Maroon- These colors evoke our fiery sides, our creative instincts, our passions. They bring us to the tribal fire, the kitchen burner, the welling blood, the bright flower.

If you picked one of these colors, you’re inviting experiences in your 1st (red), 2nd (orange) and/or 6th (pink) chakra. You’re playing with sustainability, family, creativity, sexuality, intuition. These are deep colors of female power.

My color from last year was a red and I found that my year was filled with an amazing, difficult, powerful experience. I wouldn’t have picked differently, but I can’t say it was easy.

Growth is rarely easy, but it’s nearly always good!

Becca’s Persimmon Orange

What a pleasure to start with this beautiful persimmon orange!

Becca, this is a perfect color for you! This is as close as I could get to a persimmon, but if you actually look at one, you’ll see all these gorgeous yellows and oranges moving to red, and that, of course, means a fully activated 1st, 2nd, and 3rd chakra! Woot!

The second chakra is creativity and fertility and sexuality, and what better to represent that than a persimmon? And the 2nd chakra’s closest neighbors, the 3rd chakra (power, will, self-perception, interaction with others) and the 1st chakra (feeling like the universe supports you) are two of the best creativity wingmen you can find! 3rd chakra yellow creating structure to support a new idea. 1st chakra red (just a hint!) giving you that feeling that you can do whatever it is you need to do to succeed at your goal!

It’s a fabulous combination, Becca!

Donna’s Honeysuckle Pink

Pantone picked Honeysuckle Pink for its color of 2011. They called it a brave new color for a brave new world.

2011 was a tipping point year for so many people. It was a brave new year.

Donna- let’s look at this color closely. Honeysuckle is a purple-pink. It’s a contradictory color. It’s muted, yet saturated.  Honeysuckle combines the airy colors of the 6th and 7th chakras, but it’s got a deep physical quality to it as well.

For you, my dear, 2012 is going to be a year that asks you to commit deeply, to separate the wheat from the chaff, to decide what matters and live in the space of engaging deeply with it, to interact intuitively with your divine guides.

This pink is the color of the inside of St. Bridget’s cow’s ears. Divine love made earthy and practical.

Angela’s Silva Pink

I love this color! Vibrant Fuchsia. It literally thrums with electric love.

Oh Angela, this color is straight from Georgia O’Keefe. It’s mind-blowing. You too are channeling the divine with this color. This is the color of divine ecstasy.

Expect to come into your own feminine power.

Expect intuitive, instinctual connection and interaction.

Expect to give into your divine animal self. Expect to lambada with angels.  This color is the color of letting go at the top of the roller coaster.

Om Shanti Kate’s Maroon

Kate, I am so happy that you picked this color. It’s the perfect combination of 1st chakra comfort and 6th chakra intuition.

Whenever we face a test of our first chakra, it’s nearly always the universe asking us to relax and feel the safety in our lives.

The first chakra asks us to be caught up in the cocoon of life, safe like a baby tucked into a parent’s arms.

I know it doesn’t feel that way. It feels damn scary. The testing of the first chakra feels do or die.  The more you can relax your body and mind, the more you’ll see that while it feels like you’re dangling over a precipice, your feet are deeply rooted.

My dear yoga teacher, Sara, often asks me to push in two opposite directions at once. She asks me to reach high and ground at the same time. This color is asking that of you. Reach high, ground deeply.

Amalia’s Clementine Orange

Amalia chose a deep clementine orange.

I love clementines. I bought the last 5 lb. bag of the season today.

These are the oranges at the bottom of the Christmas stocking. Prior to modern times, the Christmas orange was a precious, precious thing. Fresh and juicy, it stood in contrast to everything else.

Choosing this color as your color of the year means that you will experience rich creativity, fertility and sex. This is fresh, juicy, strong.  There’s also a depth to this color, meaning that not only will you find yourself experiencing great creativity and connection, you’ll find yourself on a deep inward journey at the same time.

Lose yourself in the creative process, especially creative acts that use your fingers. Make amazing food. Sculpt. Form. Get your fingers dirty.  Don’t be intimidated by your own juiciness, and don’t let anybody else intimidate you about it either. .  You are going to surprise yourself, as you stand in vibrant contrast  to everyone around you, and are appreciated for it, like a clementine in winter.

Linda’s Perfect Pink Rose

How luscious! This is a cerebral pink, a pink that, at first glance looks frivolous, but a longer look, we see a frank and intelligent color.

I’m struck by the clarity of this pink.  It’s such a clear color. 2012, for you, Linda is a time to depend on your intuition, to see clearly through your third eye.  This is straight-up, the color of the 6th chakra. It’s the color of plainly seeing everything going on around you, and making sense of it, being very clear about it and then using this information in a deeply practical way. This perfect pink rose is the color of depending on your own wise counsel, trusting your own sense of how life  works.

This is a good color for manifestation, the manifestation of experience, not the manifestation of material assets (assets  aren’t excluded, just not of the highest relevance to you at this time.).  This is the color of energetic intention, and deep energetic communication.

You’ll be able to see the nature of other people very clearly. You won’t doubt your intuition this year. It’s going to ring like a bell!

Shimmer’s Pale Frosty Pink

9 years ago, my sweetheart took me out to dinner. He wanted me to try oysters. I had an oyster once, a big ugly rank thing. I thought all oysters were that way.  He ordered Kumumotos and I tasted the sea.

The flavor changed from sweet to creamy to just a touch of citrus and brine.

Your color is like a very good oyster: surprising, everchanging, complex, tonal.

I’ve seen this color on the inside of shells, this pearly soft pink.

When people pick a soft color, they are picking nuance over depth.  Your pink is the color of subtle learning.  It’s the color of divine interaction and subtle, nuanced intuitive information.

You’re going to step lightly,  noticing how things change, like watching a sky brighten as the sun rises.

This is the color of dreams that you forget upon waking.  That is going to be the trick for this year, my dear, remembering all of the tiny changes, and their greater relevance.

You might find yourself wanting things to stop their fleeting changes, to stay the same, to deepen.  Don’t worry.  This year of lightness is a good thing, a challenge, not what you expect and that’s okay.

Shulamit’s Orange

Shulamit wrote, I donated $18 (which stands for life, according to Jewish numerology) to Care.ca. The colour that came, shockingly to me, was orange, of all things!

Ah, Shulamit, this orange is the interaction between your 2nd and 3rd chakra.  This is the integration of the creating female and managing male. This is the vibrant dance of opposites. This is, indeed, life.

My son chose this color too.  When creativity and fertility connects with will and order, things happen.  You may find yourself doing things that are far beyond what you’d expect, as if each movement of your finger arcs stars across a sky.

Have you seen the cartoon of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice? How Mickey Mouse, in his ignorance, uses magic to disastrous, yet comical ends? He’s acting beyond his skill set.

I’m not afraid of that happening to you. You’re not going to be acting beyond your skill set, but you will be nearer to the edge than usual.

Don’t be afraid. And don’t confuse ignorance for instinct. Your concentration is required. You need to integrate the cerebral with the intuitive, and go lightly but clearly forward. You need a clear head, a focused eye and a deep sense of self.  This is not the time of Here Goes Nothing. This is the time of Here Goes Everything.

The more that you can ground yourself, and give yourself the time you need to make the most of this gift-time, the more you’ll learn about yourself, your strength, your purpose.

Pema’s Rosey Pink

Pema! When I saw your picture, I found it very difficult to pick just one pink.

I think this is quite indicative of your year. You’re going to go from the pink of birthday cake frosting to the deep mature pink of a hummingbird’s throat and back again.

I’m from Minnesota, and our state flower is the Lady Slipper. It’s an orchid that takes up to  20 years to grow from seed to flower, and it is a beautiful rosey pink.

You would think that this little orchid would live only in greenhouses, but actually it thrives in swamps and bogs in one of the coldest states in the nation.

You and 2012, my dear, have so much in common with this orchid.

Walking through a swamp, it’s shocking to come across this gorgeous flower.  It’s just out there, precious and vibrant, unassuming in its beauty.  The ladyslipper is born of wet, cold darkness.  It’s no hothouse flower.

And in the same way that this flower thrives from such a strange location,  the beauty of your work was created in unexpected and dark transitions, in the wet of tears. The elements that would crush many help you to thrive, because you have the unique metabolism to bring out the best from those experiences.

It’s been a long time coming, this yearning to bloom. And this year and the next are the time when you bloom, and at the same time, relax into your intense capabilities.

And just like the lady slipper orchid, you’re rare in that you can’t be bought or sold.

Once the Lady Slipper blooms, it doesn’t take years to bloom again. Don’t let that worry you.

Jeanne’s Red

Ah Jeanne,  I know what you mean. Aquamarine is a wonderful color to get, though not always a wonderful color to experience. The outcome is terrific, but the watery path of aquamarine has every aspect of the sea to it, the storm, the murk, the strange angler fish, and the bright joy of light through the waves.

We’re not here to talk about aquamarine though, are we? We’re here to talk about your beautiful red.

Wow.  The perfect combination of pink and red, this red has so much going for it. It’s vibrant and deep, the color of tomatoes and geraniums.

When I was looking at this color,  I was reminded of a tomato that is a very similar shade. It’s called the Mortgage Lifter. It’s a big tomato, sometimes growing up to 2 lbs. in size.

My dear, you’ve hit upon the perfect color for the manifestation of abundance in all forms. This is the color of home-grown tomatoes, the color of the 1st chakra, tempered just slightly with the 6th, and in a vibrant shade.  The 6th chakra makes it seem like things are just falling into your lap, effortlessly.

The 1st chakra brings some solidity to the table. This is a meaty color.

This is the color of gratitude too, by the way.  The ability to appreciate all forms of abundance, whether it be the abundance of love, of material wealth, of time, of fabric (?!), and/or garden goods.  2012 is going to be a flush year.

The trick to this color is to not worry about the inevitable leaving of it. Everything has a season, and through the enjoyment of this flush time, many new changes will happen. You’ll want to grip this time like a good soil, not too tight, not too loose.

There’s only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and home grown tomatoes.

Mary’s Pinky Red

This bright fizzy color is a summer color, the color of early summer, when it’s hot enough to wear shorts, but not far into the dog days.

As I mentioned in Pema’s color, I grew up in Minnesota.  We have four weeks out of the year that are just glorious in Minnesota. Two in early summer and two in early fall.

This raspberry is the color of summer days.

2012 is a year to not take too seriously. It’s a year of summer pleasure. Pleasure for pleasure’s sake.  This is not a year to work hard and get ahead. It’s not a year of big discovery. It’s not a year of anything but kool-aid stands and county fairs and simple pleasures.

I am reminded of the sweet verse entitled How to eat a poem

Don’t be polite
Bite in.
Pick it up with your
fingers and lick
The juice that may
run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now,
whenever you are.

Brenna’s Deep Maroon

What a deep color, Brenna.  I am going to tell you a carnivore’s tale, though I am thinking you might be a vegetarian.

When I was a young mother, I had a crazy friend named Donna. She was from Louisiana. She grew up along the oil line.  When all the other yards in Lincoln were frozen, hers would be soft and warm.  She was magical and nuts, the kind of woman who could have a signed Chagall in her living room and an 8-inch gaping hole in the floor of her upstairs bathroom.

One summer, I watched her cockatoo, Alabar, thoroughly de-ivory a piano. It took him most of the summer. It was her daughter’s beloved piano, but confound it, Alabar enjoyed it so.

Anyway, Donna was the perfect combination of awful and awesome. And this color of yours is the same way.

Donna taught me how to cook, and she was crazy about her roux. You needed to cook it until it was the color of her coffee can. Her coffee can was a deep nut brown. The trick was that you had to get it that dark without burning it. If you went just a touch past coffee can brown, you burnt it. But any lighter, and you wouldn’t get that deep rich flavor you’re looking for.

I couldn’t do this to save my life, and I have since given up trying.

This color of yours is not too far off from that color. Oxblood. Buffalo.

The red in this maroon is 1st chakra. The brown is dirt. This is a grounding color if ever I saw one.

When you pick a color like this, you are getting the opportunity to live life at the roots. It’s not an easy color, but it’s a rich one.

This is the color of making do, and in doing so, finding out that you have the best that life can offer.

One of my favorite things to eat is braised oxtails. For hundreds of years, oxtails were the food of poor people.  The wealthy ate steak.  And then one day someone caught on to how awesome oxtails are, and now they are pricey, if you can find them at all.

Your year is going to be like that.

On one hand plain and  difficult, and on the other hand priceless and simple and enjoyable.

Skaja’s Pink

Skaja, when I see this color, I imagine you in a Carmen Miranda outfit.

This is the color of full-on fun.  There’s nothing serious in this color.

Do you know how it is when you meet someone who is nearly always laughing, but at the same time, quite powerful. Nonchalantly powerful?

That’s this color. This color tells everyone to lighten up.

Yet, it’s so intuitive that as your color, you can see right through other people. It’s shocking, hot pink. You will annoy (and sometimes astound) people who don’t get the hilarity of life, but it will be to their benefit and it won’t hurt you a bit.

The time that you’ve had to spend dealing with unorganized, dysfunctional people is going away. You’re going find yourself surrounded by more serious and intelligent people than you are used to. Stay light, stay happy,  enjoy the ride.

Amber’s Tangerine Tango

Pantone’s color of the year, Tangerine Tango is described thusly:

Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

I’m not a fan of this color, but then I never am a fan of Pantone’s choices. They feel like they were made by committee.

But no worries. It’s just a color.

Let’s make the best of it, then and also, I have a suggestion for you of a color that’s more to your year’s taste.

You know how sometimes you encounter a fruit, and you smell it and you think it’s going to be one way and then you taste it and it’s something completely different? This color is that. It’s coral, which seems like a color a woman might wear.  But this is a very male color, the combination of the 1st and 3rd chakra, with the addition of water.

Watering down a masculine color is not a tempering activity. It’s not a balancing. It’s a weakening. This color is a warning for you to not be lukewarm. Don’t betray who you are in the hopes that people will accept you more.

If you are deeply drawn to this color, you need to add another color that speaks to your deep nature, and that shows the contrast. Navy, Deep Purple, or the iridescent Black/Teal of a peacock are all good choices for you.

In fact, when I think about you, I get an old-fashioned midnight blue, perhaps like the color of this Evening in Paris bottle:

Deep Midnight Blue is hush velvet wisdom.

Christyna’s Baked Beets

Christyna, I hope that I got your color right because it’s a beauty.  It’s lush. This is a color of a lush life.

There’s so much blue in this pink.  Blue, as you know, is the color of wisdom. It’s the color of wisdom that’s hidden and hard to find. And it’s combined with the pink of the 6th chakra, intuitive knowledge.

The deep blue of wisdom is timeless. The pink of the 3rd eye is fleeting. And you are in-between, you are relating to the timeless and the fleeting.

This is a year of paradoxes working together. This is the year of things being different and the same, and you noticing both at the same time, especially around knowledge.

And all kinds of knowledge too, everything from the cerebral to carnal. This is a year of engagement, to the point where you might find it tiring, so much is going on around you and you are deeply tuned in to all of it.

Don’t be afraid to shut your eyes and let some go by. This is a stream you’re in, and while it’s never the same twice, you’ll get what you need, and do best by it if you remember to shut off your brain and rest.

Lori’s Powerful Orange

Whoo-hoo! That’s a fresh orange! Similar to Amalia’s Clementine, you picked a bright, juicy beauty!

Your orange has a touch of red to it, as if your 2nd chakra is blending with the top of your 1st.

This is a creative year, where you will do best to notice where your lifeline intersects and carries on your ancestral line. There are people in your family of origin who have similar aspects to you, aspects to be celebrated, and of course, there are others in your family who don’t.  Where you can be creative and fertile and vibrant, and at the same time, take your place in your family line (the place you choose to take up, not necessarily the one chosen by others), you will find yourself deeply sustained.

Take joy in who you are right now, you vibrant, alive creature!

Caren’s Orange

This color is perfect for you. Often we don’t connect with the color that we need. I, for one, avoided yellow for years.

This is the color of a carrot-ginger bisque, isn’t it? Tasty, tangy sweet, a bit creamy.

In the same way that rabbits never wear glasses, this is the orange of clear creative sight. Not just the creativity of art or conversation, this is the creativity of new strategic projects.  You have excellent strategy skills.

Stay grounded, like a carrot. Remember that things grow underground long before we see them up top. And create supportive structure as you develop your new projects. Don’t get bogged down in the parts you don’t have affinity for.  Look for excellent collaborators.

This color likes a good contrast. The contrast for this is green. Bright green, the color of love and compassion. A dose of love and compassion will do you good.

Heather Reddy’s Burnt Sienna

I have yarn this color that I dyed using walnuts.

It’s orange on the cusp of caramel.

This is tricky.

How do you stay sharp and relevant, while letting the right parts mellow? That’s your challenge for this year.

You can be such a pleasure, and so enjoy what life offers you. And you can also be so angry and righteous.

There’s nothing wrong with being emphatic, my dear. This color asks you to notice when you feel despair, and to allow yourself to feel it and be mellowed by it, instead of masking it with argument.  This tension exhausts you.

Mellowing does not mean that you will be less effective. It means that you will make choices that are deeper and that move you and your causes forward with less strife.

The world can be a difficult place. That can’t be denied. Many people are put upon. When the time is right, you will take your rightful, intelligent hopeful place, for that will make things better.

The other thing for you, of course, is self-care. Be loved, my dear.  Things haven’t been easy, and this is the year when things get better.

Did I Miss Anybody?

The violets are coming in the purple section this week.

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