Elemental Color

COLOR–What to do about all the little discrepancies of interpretation among Feng Shui teachings?   I’ve seen many a Feng Shui author call bright blue or yellow a Fire color, when my opinion classifies those as Wood and Earth, respectively.  Are those authors actually responding to the way that color makes them FEEL in an environment, and could it just be that ANY very BOLD color (read YANG) makes them sense it’s “in your face” quality, which is so like the radiating outward movement of classical Fire element?  And then there are those traditional directional associations of color in compass school that seem so abstract and rigid.  In truth, I have never found any one book that gives me a satisfactory layout of color and its effects on people…I think the best way to gain that knowledge is to research several sources, and just continue to synthesize your own gut feelings about them. And distill your language about color to its essentials, to discover what impact a color is possibly having on a deeper level.

I HAVE found that a study of the 5 Elements has been my best teacher, as well as simply observing how different colors affect my moods and body awareness. For that reason, many of the color interpretations in books ALWAYS seem to have at least one or two color beliefs that contradict my own feelings about them…I think, therefore, that we EACH HAVE OUR OWN RESPONSES TO EVERY COLOR that are a direct result of our state of being in the moment…which chakras are needing clearing, which light wavelengths are most useful to us at the moment, etc.  I suspect that each of us even SEES a color differently from anyone else depending on the unique rods and cones in our eyes. We can find trends among colors, based on their emotional impact on the general public, but, you know, those trends will change significantly when you visit other cultures, which have other environmental influences causing them to need certain colors to balance them with their environment and society. And those balances are often not interpreted according to the language of Feng Shui’s 5 element theory.
For example, in the desert Southwest of the USA, blue, especially bright turquoise blue, is often interpreted as a cooling water color, even among Feng Shui practitioners there.  When we look at the basic rules of 5 element theory, however, we see that it is a Wood element color.  So why the difference?  It’s just language.  When you REALLY know the 5 elements workings, you easily see why a Wood color just FEELS like it is cooling water in a desert situation.  It is CONTROLLING the dominant Earth element of the vast golden baked earth landscape–therefore giving you a balancing RELIEF, that FEELS as refreshing as a cool dip in water does in that hot atmosphere.  Folks who are not using the 5 element language simply label the blue color there as water, because of how it makes them feel refreshed…..but we know that in 5 element theory the reFRESHing quality is quintessential Wood.

So, when seeking to find the essence of a color, I always fall back on applying the basic 5 element movements and psychological states:  WOOD=upward movement, new growth,fresh start.  FIRE=outward in every direction, social, talkative, attention-getting. EARTH=still, stable, grounded, symmetry.  METAL=inward moving, condensing, discriminating, essential, mental.  WATER=Downward moving, deep mystery, flowing, spirit, unconscious.  I also try to weed out the overlapping qualities of yin and yang, and cultural bias.  I’ve mentioned how a bold, saturated Yang color will sometimes be labelled Fire, not by its red spectrum quality but by its psychological impact.

So, step on into the pool of your own body sensations with color, then look to see what kind of internal and external environment you are experiencing them with, and see how those sensations fall into the deeper 5 element theory of Chinese medicine for your own Feng Shui of color!