When you have a quiet moment to yourself, close your eyes and visualize colors that resonate with you. Find one that really feels right, like it could heal, comfort, bathe, and support you.

While visiting my friend and healer Tia (mentioned in a previous post about metamorphosis), at the beginning of my cancer ordeal, I was open to trying and discovering new things. One of them she offered was this question: “What color?”

I closed my eyes, settled in, and rotated through several options. Being an ecologist, the colors were very specific, and existing in nature.

Freshly unfurled spring leaves, practically a neon green in their youth and vigor. Stunning, but that wasn’t it.

Bright, blue, and clear Florida summer skies, with a few puffy white clouds. Cheerful, but that wasn’t it either.

Oooh….the aquamarine, crystal clear blue of a healthy Florida spring run. Dappled with green eelgrass and traces of algae. Refreshing, but not the one.

Fall foliage in a beautiful mountain setting. A mix of yellows, oranges and reds in all possible shades cascading among valleys and river edges. Magnificent, but not it. Feeling warmer though…

Then I saw it, and felt it. Golden winter light filtered, then expanded, through the trees. Winter time in North Florida, produces a very specific color that I’d come to love over the years, but was only now truly connecting with. Winter light is different, than all other times of the year. The sun is lower in the sky, and the light seems more akin to the warm glow of a fire place. Winter light is golden and soft.

At this time of year, a walk through the woods is more well-lit too. The sun can peek through the canopy, finding the forest floor in more places. The deciduous trees are in various stages of having dropped their leaves for the season. Some are entirely nude, while others still hold on to a few. Pine trees still have their needles.

What’s most stunning about this particular wavelength of light is how it’s filtered through branches, leaves and needles, but then at certain view points, radiates and magnifies in all directions outward. Sometimes it looks sparkly, you can see the light wavering and pulsating. It dapples golden hues onto seed heads, foliage, and Spanish moss, illuminating them. Grey and brown fall plants transform from drab to fab!

This is the hue that felt most healing and comforting to me.

 

Once I connected to this color, I started seeking it out more. I wandered a lot through the woods between Forage Farm and the Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery, usually with my dog. We’d wander the cemetery trails, where I was secretly looking for desirable final resting places. You know, just in case.

In the woods, that light was always found, and eagerly greeted by me. I’d get just the right angle and position for the light to filter through and then pour down over me. I’d close my eyes, stand strong yet soft, with palms turned up and out to receive the light. Then the psychedelic stuff would start.

With light bathing on closed lids, the images my brain continued to produce became an important part of this light-seeking experience. I would “see” radiating light waves, moving towards the sunlight. After a few moments, that directional movement continued, but changed to very tiny particles still flowing with determination towards the source. Millions of tiny dust-like sparkly particles were moving quickly and surrounding me.

I felt a release from my physical body, and experienced a feeling of oneness with everything. My cells felt a part of the greater expanse of the universe around me, the trees, damp soil, and everything beyond. In equal exchange, the massive expansiveness of the universe felt very much apart of all of my cells.

In this state of consciousness, feeling absolutely free and untethered, I asked. It didn’t seem like too much to ask, given the connectedness and oneness I felt. I asked the great Mother Earth with all her beauty, and the universe beyond in all its vastness and wisdom, to absorb some of my illness and pain. I could feel that light absorbing it, and the sparkly light behind my eyelids, still pulling me up and out.

It’s hard to describe this experience, but it was profound, to say the least.

I felt softened of heart, mind and body. And expanded, far beyond my physical self and this physical world. Softened, and expanded. Receiving.

What a tremendous gift to receive. Beauty, connection, and healing.

I continue to seek this light out, and connect even if only for a few moments in a busy day, to it’s power and life giving force.

So, what’s your healing hue?