As I was getting ready to go to town the other day I kind of startled myself with my collection of goods, or rather their color.  Everything I had was some shade of RED… the diaper bag I made, the baby carrier, the shawl, the coat, and even the couch I gathered then on was RED. 

As a jewelry designer and artist of many sorts, I have come to notice that in my creative process I am mostly guided by color.  I will be drawn into it and spend a lot of time in my studio just making jewelry with variations of one color tone.  Because the medicine of gems stones is so much based on color, I really get a full dose when exploring what one color has to offer and thus understand more deeply what I am creating.  I have come to call this process ‘Going into a color’ or ‘Going into a stone’.  By delving completely into it,  I somehow enter into it’s spell and come out knowing much more about it.

Being winter and an especially frigid December here in New Mexico it is no wonder that Red is the color I have been ‘going into’ lately.  It is the most rooted color on the chakra spectrum, being connected to our base, to the earth, deep inside the core of her and our own beings.  Red of the fires we light to keep us warm, red of the Christmas season, red seeking heat and roots on all levels….But it isn’t just this month that I have been ‘going into’ Red, no it has been a gradual process for, well a couple years now. 

I must start by saying that when asked my favorite color I have always really said rainbow, unless pressed to seriously choose…but a color seems like such an odd thing to favor, as they are all so beautiful, powerful and different.  Each color has it’s own place and purpose, magic and medicine and really without each other there would be no way to love the rest. 

That said, I do have those colors I prefer to wear more often, or decorate my house with.  I have stones that appeal to me more than others and tones and hues that spark my fancy, and let me just say, RED rarely made the cut. I never wore it, I never had it in my home in fact, I really didn’t want it around much at all.  In college I had a friend who only wore Red.  I loved her and thus loved red…only on her…but still had slight aversions to it myself.  Until about three years ago….

I moved in with my husband and he had a beautiful adobe banco with red and burgundy cushions that I really loved (he has great taste!!) and then we got married and I was gifted, upon request, a Kitchen Aid Mixer and a Stock Pot, both red.

We got married on a bright beautiful Bolivian Rug and then I put it in our bedroom and got cozy flannel sheets to match– all some shade of red or orange….

and little by little red started creeping in.  Now I look around the house and there are flecks of red in every corner, in every room, even in my closet!!

I am surprised, but not really, as along with my taste in color, I too have gotten more Red.

With creating a family and getting rooted in a home I am more grounded in a place as well as in my circle of people.  I have loved more deeply opened more completely than ever before and as a side effect I have become more passionate about what I protect and pursue, and of course passionate about loving too.  Giving birth sure helped me connect to my root chakra and to my humble surprise, anger has also become a strong side effect of child rearing.  With all the love, anger, fire, and roots has come a strength and love within myself that has really helped me grow into myself and who I need to be now in my life. 

Red has both fired me up but also anchored me, a beautiful color at a beautiful time.  So thanks to Red for entering in and surrounding me, teaching me and guiding me. Blessed are the helpers in all their forms in our lives.

I wonder what color are you ‘Going into’ these days?