The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.
HANS HOFMANN
Whether seen with our eyes in the outer world or sensed within the realm of our inner world, color energy is everywhere. We are enveloped in a spectrum of color that is born of light.
Color generates or bolsters healing processes. Every color vibrates at its own frequency along the electromagnetic spectrum of light; therefore, each invites a specific type of change in the physical body or energetic anatomy. In essence, when we are healing with color, we are healing with light, and vice versa. When a color light is directed at a diseased part of the body, its frequency encourages physical and emotional healing.
Subtle energy practitioners can augment many of their techniques with the use of color. Just visualizing a particular color being applied to a part of the physical or subtle body is enough to access the healing frequency of that color, but color can also be applied literally. The following chromatic therapies are just some of the ways that color is used for healing and revitalizing the fields, chakras, and channels:
Directing color into the auric field. By inserting the correct colors into the field, you release blocks and stagnation, fill holes and leaks, and open the field to manifest your desired reality. You can direct the energy with mindful intention, by placing your hands over the area requiring a color boost, or by shining colored lights into the auric field. You can also expose yourself or a client to colored light bulbs in your environment.
Visualizing color being applied to the chakras to balance and open them.
Applying color to acupoints, known as chromapuncture. While professional chromapuncture specialists use machines and instruments, we can place colored stones on acupoints, put colored paper over a small flashlight and shine the light on the points, or put our hands on the points and visualize the color we wish to send.
Tapping into the natural partnership between color and the elements, such as using colored water and gemstones to affect change throughout the subtle body.
Wearing clothing or jewelry in specific colors to boost energetic boundaries.
Subtle energy practitioners, especially those whose strengths include visual intuition (see chapter 6), can assess the condition of the subtle energy body by discerning which colors are present and in what hues, as well as what colors are absent. Particular colors in the auric layers or chakras, for example, can tell you which energies need to be released because they are causing congestion or blockages and which energies need to be absorbed in order to restore balance. The absence of particular colors can tell you what frequencies are needed for healing and balance.
THE POWER OF LIGHT IN SUBTLE HEALING
SINCE THE INVENTION of lasers nearly forty years ago, low levels of visible or near infrared light have been used to reduce pain, inflammation, and edema; to promote wound healing; and to prevent damage to tissues and nerves. Such healing properties were originally thought to be peculiar to laser light (soft or cold lasers), but now we know that noncoherent light, the type of light emitted by LEDs (light-emitting diodes), also has such properties. Photobiomodulation and photobiostimulation are two emerging treatments that use low-level laser light to stimulate cellular function and tissue repair.
Some researchers are exploring the healing effects of full-spectrum light, like that provided by sunlight and specially designed full-spectrum lights. Full-spectrum light affects our sleep, mood, and our overall health. Contrary to popular belief, research is showing that proper exposure to the sun actually prevents certain types of cancer and major illnesses, rather than causing these diseases.1 Light, it seems, is its own nutrient, promoting healthy levels of vitamin D, boosting the immune system, stimulating metabolism, lowering blood pressure, and more.2
The following at-a-glance reference guide offers a “palette of meaning” to help you make these evaluations and determine which colors or hues would be the most helpful for you or your client. Also see “The Seven Hindu Chakras” in chapter 4 to review the colors corresponding to each chakra.
The lowest vibrational color, red has the most tangible impact on the physical body and relates to the heart. Depending on various factors, red can either attract or repel money and material possessions, and impact our overall sense of safety and security. When out of balance, red relates to money worries, anger, anxiety, and obsessions.
Specific red hues in the subtle energy body translate to the following qualities:
Clear red: Powerful, energetic, competitive, sexual, passionate
Deep red: Grounded, realistic, active, strong-willed, determined, survival-oriented
Muddied red: Angry, irritated; internalized criticism or blame, which can be projected on others
Orange-red: Confident; creative power
Red for use in healing. Red increases our heart rate and improves our circulation, respiration, and blood pressure. It stimulates the appetite, boosts brain-wave activity, and nourishes the sexual glands. In general, red provides healing energy and warmth to counterbalance colds and flu and feelings of chilliness, fatigue, lethargy, and passivity. In its pure state, red can nourish a healthy ego.
Pink combines all the energetic and spiritual qualities of red and white. The specific shade of pink in a subtle body gives you specific information:
Bright and light pink: loving, tender, sensitive, sensual, artistic, pure, compassionate, affectionate, romantic; can indicate clairaudience
Dark and murky pink: immature, shallow, dishonest
Pink for use in healing. Pink is used for healing grief, sadness, and a feeling of separation from the Divine. It helps to connect us with our feelings and can restore youthfulness. Pink can also be used to relieve tension (both muscle tension and stressful thoughts) and suppress an overstimulated appetite. Because of its soothing influence, it is often used in the decorating schemes of hospitals and healing centers around the world.
Orange corresponds to the reproductive organs, sexual expression, emotions, and creativity. It is the color of vitality, vibrancy, vigor, and good health. It is the color of energy, enthusiasm, stamina, creative productivity, adventurousness, and courage.
Orange-yellow: Intelligent, detail-oriented, perfectionist, scientific, creative
Orange for use in healing. Orange can be used to stimulate appetite and the digestive system. A color of warmth, cheer, and excitement, orange is useful for addressing apathy, melancholy, and depression. Orange also has a freeing influence on the psyche, alleviating feelings of shyness, introversion, and constriction, as well as relieving repression.
Yellow is the color of positive life energy, inspiration, awakening, intelligence, action, play, optimism, and ease.
Light or pale yellow: Hope and optimism; positive excitement about new ideas; psychic and spiritual awareness
Bright lemon-yellow: power struggles and working to maintain control in a personal or business relationship; fear of losing control, prestige, respect, and influence
Dark brownish-yellow: Mental strain, overanalyzing, mental fatigue and stress; “cramming” for a test or overworking to meet a deadline
Yellow for use in healing. Yellow energizes, improves memory, relieves depression, and stimulates the appetite. It helps to balance the nervous system and stimulate the mind (including the subtle energies of mind). In traditional Chinese medicine, yellow stimulates Spleen meridian chi.
Gold is related to yellow. See “Over the Rainbow: Other Important Colors in Healing” later in this section for details.
Green correlates to the beauty and healing capacities of nature. It is also the color of the emotional and spiritual heart. When seen in the auric field, green usually represents a state of balance or growth leading to positive change. It also corresponds to the love of others—people, animals, and nature.
Bright emerald green: Strong healing capabilities; a love-centered person
Yellow-green: Creativity stemming from the heart, heart-centered communication
Dark or muddy forest green: Jealousy, resentment, a victim mentality; blaming self or others; insecurity and low self-esteem; lack of personal responsibility; sensitive to perceived criticism and defensiveness
Turquoise: A wise healer, counsel, or therapist; compassionate; corresponds to the immune system
WHITE LIGHT HEALING: A Cosmic Energy Exercise
YOU CAN USE this exercise for yourself or guide a client through it.
1.Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and turn off any potential disturbances. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, concentrating only on your breathing. Relax and let go.
2.Visualize, sense, or feel white, universal cosmic energy entering your head through your crown chakra. Invite and allow the white light to move down and spread to every part of your body—especially to any area where you have tension, pain, or disease. As it passes through each part of your body, notice your oneness with this energy. As you do, feel the specific part(s) of your body relaxing and opening.
3.Let the energy move down into and through your feet while simultaneously allowing it to flow down your arms out through the palms of your hands. Spend a few minutes feeling this energy flowing through both palms and feet.
4.Repeat steps 1 through 3 with a color of your choosing, noticing any sensations, images, or feelings that arise as you are working with this color.
5.When you are ready, and feeling blissfully saturated with color and light, gently open your eyes.
Green for use in healing. Green is relaxing and helps to alleviate anxiety and depression. It represents harmony with nature (inner and outer nature) and is deeply soothing to the body and mind. Green is useful in helping to relieve almost any physical ailment or emotional disruption. In addition to aiding the heart, green is also soothing for the lungs.
Blue is a cooling and calming color. It relates to loving care guided by intuitive sensitivity. Blue correlates to the throat and communication that integrates physical sensing with higher knowing.
Soft blue: Intuitive, peaceful; clarity and truthfulness in communication
Bright royal blue: Clairvoyant; strong spiritual nature; generosity; indicates that one is on the right path or new opportunities are coming
Dark or muddy blue: Fear of the future; fear of facing or speaking the truth; fear of self-expression (especially verbal self-expression)
Blue for use in healing. The calming effects of blue can be used to decrease respiration, lower blood pressure, or cool fever and inflammatory reactions. Blue can help to relieve headaches, as well as to balance or heal the thyroid. The astringent nature of blue can help to break up congestion and lymphatic stagnation. On the emotional level, blue calms strong emotions like anger, aggression, hysteria, or general overwhelm.
Blue light therapy is used for a variety of issues, from healing acne breakouts to alleviating circadian rhythm disorders, like delayed sleep stage syndrome and seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Purple is the color of deep feeling arising from intuitive sensitivity. Correlated with the third eye and the pituitary gland, purple is the color of visual intuition and spiritual insight. It often represents positive and powerful transformation.
Violet: Psychic power, attunement with the higher self, idealism born of vision, being a visionary; art and magic of a spiritual nature; relates to the pineal gland and nervous system
Lavender: Imagination, intuitive vision, etheric energies, daydreaming
Indigo: Spiritual philosophy, contemplation; increases subtle perceptions of psychic realities
Purple for use in healing. Inviting spiritual renewal and inner peace, purple is a potent color for breaking through delusion, denial, and addictions. Purple is also good for alleviating migraines and moving through sadness into empowerment.
Silver signifies the awakening of the cosmic mind. It is also the color of spiritual and physical abundance. Bright metallic silver indicates receptivity to new ideas based on intuitive sensing. Dark or muddy gray relates to blocked energies, guardedness, or a residue of fear that may have accumulated in the body and holds the potential for health problems, especially if gray clusters are seen in specific areas of the body.
Gold is the color of enlightenment and divine protection. When observed within the auric field, gold indicates that a person is being guided toward their highest good. It is the color of the spiritual mind and intuitive thinking, inner knowing, and high wisdom. A bright and shiny metallic gold correlates to an inspired person whose energy is activated and whose power is awakened.
Black is a transformative color, whether for the betterment or detriment of a person. It draws or pulls energy to it and, in so doing, transforms that energy. It captures light and consumes it. It can indicate long-held resentment and blame toward another, which can collect in a specific area of the body and manifest as a health challenge. If it appears in the ovaries, black can also correlate to unreleased grief from abortions. Also, it can indicate a past-life wound or an entity within the auric field.
White reflects a pure state of light and the spiritual, transcendent, etheric, and nonphysical qualities of the higher dimensions. It relates to angelic qualities, such as purity and truth. It can also represent a new, positive, and not-yet-designated energy within the auric field. Flashes of white light or sparkles in the energy field indicate that angels are nearby. They can also signal that a woman is pregnant or will be soon.
Earth colors and earth tones correlate to soil, wood, minerals, plants, and an essential groundedness. This palette of colors indicates a love of the earth and is often seen in those who work outdoors and live “close to the earth”—farmers, avid gardeners, construction workers, park rangers, for example. These colors are generally indicative of a positive connection to the natural world. But a dirty brown energy correlates to holding on to something out of a feeling of insecurity.
Rainbows, in Hawaiian shamanism, signal the presence of the soul. Rainbow images in the energy body, such as rainbow beams streaming from the hands, head, or body, can signify a healer (such as a Reiki healer), a star person, or someone who is experiencing their first incarnation on earth.
Pastels, as unique blendings of color and light, represent sensitivity, sometimes on the emotional level and sometimes on an intuitive level. Pastel colors appearing in the auric field can also indicate the need for peace, serenity, and kindness.
Equipped with the previous “A Palette of Meaning” reference list, you can intuitively examine the energetic anatomy (the fields or auric layers, the meridians, and the chakras), as well as the physical body, in order to assess the following:
Regarding the chakras and auric fields specifically, are the appropriate colors present or not (e.g., red in the first chakra, orange in second chakra)?
What is the quality of each color that you see (e.g., clear, healthy, strong, vivid, muddy, murky)?
Whether you’re working with a client or on yourself, you can conduct a guided relaxation and visualization process to assess the colors and their qualities in the energy body. Once you have a baseline assessment of colors that are present or missing, ask the Divine or a gatekeeper the necessary questions to determine which colors must be released or applied. For example:
What color is needed most right now?
If you are working with a specific physical condition, like a broken leg or kidney disease, ask a targeted question: What color is most appropriate now to help restore balance to the leg or kidneys?
The same applies if you are working with an emotional state: What color is most appropriate now to help release this anger/heal this hurt/feel more confident/find forgiveness?
Once you receive the requested insight and information, visualize the release of any congested, unhealthy, or negative colors and the inflow of positive, healthy, and healing colors. If you’re working with your client, you can use your hands to help draw out the unhealthy colors and send the healing colors. Intuitively sense the unhealthy colors and the healthy colors that should replace them. Now aim one of your hands at the unhealthy area and ask Spirit to draw out the unhealthy colors. Don’t pull the energy into your hand; rather, see it flowing over your hand to be disposed of by Spirit. Aim your other hand over the congested area, and while the unhealthy energy is being removed, ask Spirit to insert the healthy colors. This energy also flows around your hands into the area. You can also visualize (or direct your client to visualize) exhaling any stagnant, life-depleting colors and inhaling the appropriate healing, life-enhancing colors. As you inhale the necessary colors for healing, use your powers of visualization and intention to send the colors wherever they need to go.
In addition to this basic format for healing with color, some of the following techniques may be beneficial in specific instances.
The following color-healing tips and techniques can stand alone or be used to augment a broader plan of healing for your client or yourself.
Transfer color energy from an object. You can perform healing with gemstones, colored water, or other natural substances that are the appropriate healing color. Hold the colored substance in your hand and energetically transfer negative energies into that substance; then energetically send the positive energies of the color into yourself or your client as a replacement for the unhealthy energies. See chapter 20 for a comprehensive list of gemstones and their healing properties.
Create gem essences based on color. Selecting gemstones with the appropriate healing properties and color, create a gem essence using the process described under “Gemstone Essences” in chapter 20.
Drink colored water. Use “solarization” to program drinking water with a color’s healing frequency. Place a glass bottle of water over a colored paper, cloth, or piece of cellophane and expose both to sunlight for an hour. Drinking the color-charged water will imbue your energy body with the color’s healing frequency.
Use colorpuncture. Visualize a needed color flowing into an acupoint while you press on that point. See the “The Ten Golden Acupoints” listed in chapter 12 for the top points to work with. Know that professionals often use various pulsations or oscillations generated by a machine that uses electricity and glass rods to produce the most beneficial effect.
Use a pendulum to find healing colors. Use a pendulum to determine what colors are appropriate for your healing situation (or that of your client). Pendulum work, also called dowsing, is described in chapter 23. Using yes-no questions, you can ask the pendulum to tell you if specific colors would be beneficial or not. Hold a pendulum over a color wheel and ask it to swing toward the most beneficial color.
Muscle test to assess colors. Use muscle testing to ask your body, or that of your client, which colors need to be released and which need to be accentuated or brought into the system. See the section on “Muscle Testing: A Mind-Body Communication Tool” in chapter 15 for how to make use of this applied kinesiology technique.
Apply colored light. You can apply colored light directly to the physical or subtle body by directing a light source (sunlight, a light globe, or light bulb) through some kind of transparent or semi-transparent filter material, such as glass, light fabric, a crystal, or cellophane in a suitable healing color. For example, having determined which color you need, expose an area of your body or energetic anatomy to a beam of sunlight shining through a window covered in cellophane of the selected color. If working with bare skin, expose yourself for no more than fifteen minutes.
Use the grab-bag technique. Assemble a bag of colored glass beads, marbles, or tumbled stones. Holding in your awareness the physical, emotional, or mental healing or balancing you would like, place your hand in the bag, blindly feeling around until your fingers sense or feel the right object—the one with exactly the color you need. Carry the object with you for a few hours or days, as you feel guided to.
Wear your color remedy. Intuitively assess which color(s) will promote the healing or balancing you desire, and dress in the color you need. By wearing the necessary color for a day, you infuse yourself with that color and its healing properties.
Color your world. Surround yourself with the colors that uplift and inspire you and those that calm and soothe you. For example, select the colors of your walls or carpet by considering the vibration that will continually be emitted into the room and, therefore, into you. If you need a specific color for only a little while, you can drape colored cloths over your furniture, choose specifically colored paintings, or simply put colored candles in a room.
Combine color and the healing streams of grace. When calling on the healing streams of grace for yourself or a client, ask the Divine for the appropriate color to be added to the stream. And then trust and know that it has been done.
Create your own color-healing visualizations. Create your own detailed guided meditations involving color healing. The section “Writing Your Own Guided Visualization Scripts” in chapter 15 explains how (and includes tips for leading guided visualizations for a client). For instance, if you are working with yellow, you can guide your client to wander through an autumn forest with radiant yellow-golden aspen trees, wearing a yellow poncho and taking in the energy of the yellow sun. The possibilities are endless.
JENNIFER WARTERS, a well-respected sound healer in England, has developed a unique energetic-alignment technique involving color.3 It’s called the Emerald Alignment. In this process, when you focus on two rays of the electromagnetic spectrum (the fifth ray, which is emerald, and the second ray, which is blue), energy is channeled from the higher vibrational planes and Spirit down through the spine to every part of the body, realigning our core energetic pattern at the cellular level.
The Emerald Ray links Spirit to matter and realigns our molecular structure to its original form.
The Blue Ray strengthens and protects, sealing the auric field at the end of the exercise.
This exercise is particularly effective for treating panic attacks, insomnia, and attachment issues, and for establishing peaceful environments. It is ideal for use with children and the elderly, because it provides ease and calm. It will also deepen meditative processes and assist with therapeutic healing. Warters recommends using it before and after surgery as well.
THE EMERALD ALIGNMENT PROCESS
1.Sit or stand comfortably. Allow your body to relax. Become aware of your crown chakra’s entry point at the top of your head. Breathe comfortably and flow energy downward through your body, from the crown through your spine and legs to your feet, releasing any sense of heaviness or discomfort. End with moving your energy through and away from your toes.
2.Return your focus to your crown and then shift your conscious awareness to the top of your spine. Let your energy travel out across your shoulders and down your arms, through your elbows and wrists, to flow out your fingers and thumbs and away from the body.
3.Breathe energy back up from your feet and flow it back upward to the crown of your head, following your spine.
4.Breathe energy back into your body through your fingertips, flowing it up your arms, across your shoulders to the top of your spine, finally landing on the crown of your head.
5.Now imagine that the Divine or a higher guide is placing a glowing emerald at the crown of your head. From it emerges a beam of emerald light.
6.Draw this beam of emerald light straight down the center of your body through your spine to the place between your heels. Feel your body straighten in response.
7.Now imagine that the Divine or a higher guide places an emerald at the tip of each shoulder. Beams of emerald light emanate from the shoulders’ emeralds and flow down into your arms to the palms of your hands.
8.Envision a blue energy outlining your entire body, extending about an arm’s length around it in all directions. Notice this blue energy sealing and protecting you within its circular warmth.
9.Breathe slowly and return to a comfortable place in the center of your body.
AYURVEDIC HEALING WITH COLOR, GEMS, AND PLANETS
In the Vedic scriptures, all creation is said to begin from the divine light that emanates from the Supreme Being. The seven colors of the rainbow—the components of visible light—are believed to be among the rays that form the body of the universe. The powers of these rays are identical to the powers and qualities of the Divine.
In Ayurvedic texts, the color rays within creation are joined with the five great elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. The ancient Vedic healers and scholars concluded that earth is the condensed green color, water is orange and indigo, fire is red and yellow, air is violet, and ether is blue.
Each of the doshas (the constitutional body types in Ayurveda, discussed in chapter 19) is connected to a different element or elements and, thus, is the product of different colors. The vayu or vata dosha combines air and ether, thus originating from blue and violet. The pitta dosha is of and from fire and derived from the colors red and yellow. The kapha dosha is a combination of earth and water, coming from orange, indigo, and green. In Vedic healing philosophy, subtle and gross material creations become animated and able to function on the physical, emotional, and mental levels due to the presence of these cosmic colors. To remain healthy or to regain health, the rays within the cells should be in a state of equilibrium.
The Vedic healers observed that specific precious gemstones hold within them the strongest concentration of the light rays found on the planet. In Vedic astrology (the jyotish astrological system), the following seven gemstones are among the most potent healing tools available. Each is linked to not only one of the rays, but also one of seven planetary bodies.
Ruby emits the same ray as the sun—red.
Red coral emits the same ray as Mars—yellow.
Yellow sapphire emits the same ray as Jupiter—blue.
Pearl emits the same ray as the moon—orange.
Emerald emits the same ray as Mercury—green.
Diamond emits the same ray as Venus—indigo.
Blue sapphire emits the same ray as Saturn—violet.
In your self-healing sessions and client sessions, you can work with these combinations of gemstones, planets, and colors using the intuitive-assessment techniques outlined in this chapter. Whether you use the actual gemstones or invoke their healing properties (as done with spirit plant medicine, described in chapter 20), you can use this ancient knowledge for healing on every level in present time.
Thanks to the Vedic Cultural Fellowship for inspiring this resource.4