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Theme Thursday - 29APR04 - Purple

Purple - A Rare and Beautiful Contradiction

Of the spirit...

Purple Sign

Of the earth... (purple cabbage)

Purple Cabbage

Purple is a mixture red and blue light which perhaps contributes to its contradictory significance to me. I think of red as an energetic color, but I think of blue as a peaceful, tranquil color. So in combination, purple often makes me think of a centered, focused, mature energy - a combination of the best attributes of blue and red.

I understand that compounds that are purple are rare because they have to absorb a narrow band of mid-spectrum light (green), which makes purple all the more unusual and special. (Other colorants are less picky about the light they absorb, absorbing light that spills into the invisible infrared or ultraviolet frequencies, which of course does not matter to what we see.)

Violet is at the end of the visible spectrum, just before invisible ultraviolet light. This is a possibly an explanation for why violet, or its visual equivalent purple, sometimes is used as a symbol of things abstract and pertaining to the spirit.

But again, purple's significance is contradictory: blood (unexposed to air) and some vegetables and berries are purple; So, for me at least, purple could also signify things concrete, pertaining to the body and to the earth.

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