The Colours of Death

BLACK: In Western culture, this has become the colour most widely associated with funerals and mourning. If the Grim Reaper is depicted, he is most often portrayed wearing robes of midnight black.

GREEN: According to certain Irish traditions, green is the colour of faeries and the Otherworld, and is thus related to the spirits of the dead.

PURPLE: In Victorian times, the horses in a funeral procession wore purple plumes upon their heads. Elements of this practice still linger in the purple colour of the flags used to designate the cars in a funeral procession.

RED: The crimson colour of fresh blood, red has associations with violence, death, and passion.

WHITE: The colour of the funeral shroud. In Eastern cultures, white - not black - is the colour of death.

Meditation: Showers of Light

1) Get into your magickal mindset.

2) Visualize a cloud floating several feet above your head. The cloud can be white and fluffy, or dark and grey. It hovers a few feet over your crown.

3) The cloud will rain down drops of light. At any time, if you feel uncomfortable, experience the discomfort for a moment and, if you desire, change it to a more comfortable colour. If drops of light are causing the discomfort, you can change their form to snow, mist, bubbles, or a beam of light descending down upon you.

4) The cloud rains down drops of red light. Feel the ruby red drops descend upon you, and flow from your crown all over your body. They cover you inside and out, even inside and around your protective shield. Feel the energy of red light.

5) After a few minutes, change the colour of the drops, spending some time on each colour in the spectrum. Use the following order of colours at first, but when you repeat the meditation, change the order as you see fit.

Red - like a ruby
Red-orange - like the embers of a fire
Orange - like the fruit
Gold - like the metal
Yellow - like a lemon
Lime - like the fruit
Green - like the grass or an emerald
Turquoise - like the stone or warm seawaters
Blue - like the sky
Indigo - the colour of a clear, midnight sky
Purple - like a grape
Violet - like the flower
Black - like a windowless room
Brown - like the earth
Rust - like metal
Pink - like a flower
Silver - like the metal
White - crystal white like a prism or opal

6) After you spend some time with each colour, end on crystal-clear white light to clear out any remaining energies that you do not want to carry with you.

7) Return yourself to normal consciousness, counting up, and giving yourself clearance and balance. Do any necessary grounding.

The Rainbow Pathway (meditation)

Sit or lie comfortable in a favourite spot. Close your eyes. Ground and center. Acknowledge your personal guardians and gods, and project a circle around you. Breathe deeply and steadily.
Begin in your power place. When you are ready, imagine, superimposed on the landscape of that secret and special place, a translucent rainbow pathway. The Pathway. Observe that when you look from side to side, the stripes of colour are each wide enough for a person to stand in comfortably. The bands of colour are three-dimensional, like tall shafts that go on forever. You walk all the way over to one side of the path in order to begin in the red section.

And the red swirls around you like a fog, like a translucent column of light. As you begin to walk down this path, you become acutely aware of all the things red means to you. The symbols that red energy harmonizes with fill you with that energy, and your body becomes very warm in the energy of this vivid warm colour. Perhaps you even experience sounds associated with red; smells, feelings, tastes, rhythms, intentions… actions… You drift and trance in the totality of the red light that now penetrates your skin, your flesh and blood. Let your spirit take from the light whatever it needs… and breathe… When you are ready, step into the orange light.

Just as red filled your senses and feelings a moment ago, so now orange and all it means to you surrounds, permeates, and fills you. Orange isn’t quite as warm as red, however, so you may find the temperature changes… You take your time, letting the orange light deepen in you… learning all orange has to teach you or show you, just as you did in the red section…

You step, colour by colour, repeating the pattern from above, in the order of the rainbow, going through yellow next, and then things cool down considerably as you move through green into blue… in each colour, you stay long enough to receive any messages, healing, or lessons your spirit needs, moving finally to purple, the mixture of blue and red, and you feel a warmer glow within in this colour… Take your time to move from colour to colour and even back again, if you feel the need. Linger as long as you like… when you are ready, go back again to your power place, and know that the journey, for now, is complete. You have walked the width of the rainbow and learned much. You know there are other colours and other layers - for instance, brown is somewhere between red and orange, crosswise to green. And silver and gold, the pure light of the Lady and the Lord, still await exploration. And there are darker and lighter shades, too… but these must wait for another time, another meditation. You will be back, and you will find more each time you visit, for the Path is constantly in motion, swirling the colours of our lives in many ways and combinations, teaching us, healing us, making us stronger. Hold to that knowledge.

(*** "Dedicant" - by Thuri Calafia ***)