Living in a Purple Haze—Using Color to Release Resentment

 ©Ever so long ago, by Ivory Phoenix in Vibration Magazine

Donna says, In November, 2006, Vibration Magazine, the online essence journal published a special theme issue about essences, light, and color (August, 2006). This was one of the articles, reprinted here with Ivory’s complicity. 

Long ago and yes, so far away, I got involved with a lightwork school of the occult persuasion. I studied there weekly for a number of months until it became clear that I could not agree to their prohibition on sharing their teachings with others. I still have serious issues with suppressing knowledge that can relieve suffering and enhance evolution — at this crucial stage of human history, we don’t have time for that!

I pursued lightwork and color healing on my own over the years. It’s a bona fide medical specialty in England, Europe, and countries in the former British Empire, but it is essentially banned by the Americian Medical Association in the United States. Those who use it here and make claims of physical healing from it run a serious risk of being prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license. This intrigued me — any form of healing that diehard occultists on the one hand and the A.M.A. on the other don’t want you to know about must be pretty powerful!!

As I considered what color to write about, purple seemed the most compelling. Imagine yourself for a few moments in a purple haze — immerse yourself in it, taste it, let it seep into your brain, let your mood sink into it. What state of mind does that create in you? What memories or situations drift into your consciousness, and what feelings do those memories evoke? To me, it’s like brooding, bruising, or a deep funk. I would bet good money that resentments begin to stir in more than a few of you as you undertake this experiment. Not too coincidentally, drawing on a variety of metaphysical sources, it appears that purple is the color for healing resentment, one of the most poisonous of emotional habits.

When we hold onto resentment, nursing a grudge, or indulging in days and days of gnawing away at a grievance, the sheer drama of it can be quite satisfying. However, resentment pollutes our consciousness and our mood, feeding on itself so that it looks for further reasons to continue in that state of mind — living in a purple haze. We do tend to get attention and sympathy when we call ourselves victims of injustice, and yet when the resentment goes on too long, that sympathy and attention evaporate because few people care to be around such toxic vibrations for any length of time. We can wind up alienated and isolated, unless we learn to let go of these feelings. I worked long and hard with purple light to release clogged and stagnant resentments from difficult events.

 In its pure form, purple is made up of red and blue. In my studies, red is the color for energy, assertiveness, and the release and healing of anger, while blue is the color for healing fear. Thus we might reason that resentment comes about when we are angry and yet afraid of doing anything about it, so that action to resolve the situation is blocked. Nursing a resentment by going over and over it in our minds is an attempt to try to break through the blockage, and yet it tends to get stuck and remain internal. Are there essences based on the ways purple — or its component elements, red and blue — appear in nature that can help us break though the blockages?

A gem elixir that springs to mind is Amethyst, which does work on resentment but also on clearing out any accumulation of blocked negativity, the stagnant kind that puts you into a purple haze. Ruby helps heal the heart, always a plus when you are trying to handle conflict with those you love. Elixirs from blue gemstones like Aquamarine or Blue Topaz seem always to be described as calming in times of fear or stress. A primary red flower that helps integrate and heal anger is FES’ Scarlet Monkeyflower; and their Fireweed, which flourishes in fire-scarred areas, heals the aftereffects of trauma and re-energizes one’s being. Dramatic purple Monkshood, from Alaskan Flower Essence Project, heals those who have become alienated and averse to human company. (For resentment, my old standby has been Bach’s Willow, but that is not purple.)

The interesting thing is that there are many, many vivacious red flowers and many intense purple to lavender ones, and yet almost none that are blue naturally.

While gardeners and essence makers like to call certain flowers blue — like borage — to me, they are more than a little purple. Texas bluebonnets, maybe, but I make it a practice never to go to Texas. There are a few verging-on-blue hybrids that are products of long years of manipulation by growers, like the glorious giant pale blue irises available for $16 a bulb here.

Since Mother Nature herself created so few blue flowers, could we not conclude that FEAR AND FLOWERS DO NOT NATURALLY COEXIST? Immerse yourself in almost any lush flower garden, and see if anxiety does not begin to recede!! Possibly, then, flower essences in general may help us overcome the myriad blockages created by the manifold fears that we experience. Some teachers of the Course in Miracles, like Gerald Jampolsky, say that there are really only two emotions, fear and love, and that love is letting go of fear.

It being Spring as I write this, the lush hydrangea bush on the property made me start to wonder what an essence made from hydrangea flowers would do. They are an amazing, versatile, and long-blooming bush. Depending on what minerals you feed it — and on the resulting soil conditions — hydrangea blossoms can be anything from white to nearly red (various shades of pink) to nearly purple to nearly blue. Thus hydrangeas are a co-creation of the animal (human), vegetable (flower), and mineral kingdom.

The interesting thing here is that the gardener chooses what to feed the bush to bring about the desired tint and intensity of the flower’s colors. Likewise, we get to choose whether we are going to let our resentments feed on themselves (the purple end of the spectrum) or whether we open our hearts to loving the person (the pink end of the spectrum) and see the divinity in ourselves and those we are in conflict with (the white end of the spectrum.)

I did research on the internet to find out what companies are making Hydrangea essences and what they say about it, but didn’t find much detail. New Millenium Flower Essences of New Zealand has a Pink Lacecap Hydrangea essence that helps access hidden anger behind the façade of love — quite logical in terms of color healing principles — and a Blue Lacecap Hydrangea essence to help say no to invasions of one’s boundaries, even psychic or extraterrestial invasions. Other makers were quite vague and grand in their descriptions, with little in the way of concrete examples to back it up.

The research left me quite uncertain as to what could be expected of a course of this essence, and yet the odd botanical properties of the plant still suggest healing resentments and transmuting them into love. Perhaps rather than a single color of hydrangea, it should be a mixture of the whole spectrum of colors of hydrangeas. Perhaps it is one that, in conjunction with essences like Willow and Amethyst, could catalyze the conversion of grievance into forgiveness. If any essence maker cares to send me a bottle of this essence, care of the editors, I will undertake to give it my personal trial! (Did I mention that beyond being a metaphysical dilettante, I am also somewhat of a mooch?)

Do I hear you asking why I don’t just go on and make the essence myself? Moi? I am, I assure you, just a rank amateur, and have every intention of staying that way.

What about you,  Reader?  Are there any colors you’re instinctive drawn to in times of emotional upheaval?   And what effects do various colors have on you? 

An Assortment of Healing Tools: 

• The Healing Power of Colored Glass
• Healing With Fire, Earth, Air and Water
• Ways to Use Water to Heal Yourself and Others
• More Help for Money Blocks—Clearing Past Life Barriers
• Pluto and Opal – The Gemstone for Transformation
• More Insights into Healing Grief and Loss
• Understanding Healing Reactions or Healing Crises

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: In her emails to us, the otherwise-anonymous Ivory Phoenix calls herself “an inveterate metaphysical dilettante and spiritual shopper.” We think she’s being too hard on herself — unless, as is entirely possible, she is merely having us on. We love Ivory’s writing, enjoying the way she vacillates between being a wise observer and a wiseacre. She is, indeed, an Essence User Extraordinaire, as you will find if you visit her Frequent Contributor’s Page, which has links to her earlier articles in Vibration.