...and how you can get the high vibration and positive energy of red into your practice and your life
Sometimes the smallest details can make the biggest difference. Colour can be one of those powerful details.
We live in a multi-coloured world. Colours are powerful. From our earliest recorded history we have been communicating through colour. Colours are identities: they represent brands, concepts and ideologies. They represent emotions. And colours can have a psychological impact on how we feel, enhance our moods.
Have you got a signature colour or a favourite colour? If you do, did you ever think about why it’s your favourite colour? It could be instinctive or it could be intentional. It could be a colour that holds symbolic meaning for cultural or personal reasons, a colour that makes you feel good, or a colour that makes you look good. Maybe you prefer an absence of colour in a minimalist palette of black and white. I would be interesting to ask yourself why.
Mine has always been red.
Red, like every colour has so many different meanings based on culture, history and perception. We each develop a unique and personal perception of colour based on our our memories and our experiences of the world. Red is passion, fire, love, anger, danger, luck, creativity, courage, confidence, power, prosperity, purity, happiness…
So many different and even opposing interpretations. But one thing is for sure, it’s hard to be indifferent to the colour red.
Diana Vreeland’s signature colour was red. The legendary French-American fashion editor-in-chief once said: ‘Red is the great clarifier: bright, cleansing and revealing. It makes all colours beautiful. I can’t imagine becoming bored with red – it would be like becoming bored with the person you love.’ She famously and extravagantly decorated her 5th Avenue apartment in shades of bold red: walls draped in scarlet chinoiserie chintz, red lacquered doors, an abundance of red furnishings, curtains and carpets, filled with vases of deep red peonies.
Perhaps an apartment entirely draped and furnished in red is just a little over the top ;) But it’s easy to energize and inspire your world with touches of this powerful life-force colour.
That’s what red is about for me: positive energy. It’s vibrant and joyful, strengthening and encouraging, uplifting as well as grounding, inspiring and auspicious. To enhance and harness that beautiful energy, I include touches of red through my life and through HUM in various ways.
These tiny tales, musings really, share of the aspects of red that inspire me, and offer ideas on how you can bring this energy into your own life, and even your yoga practice.
CONNECT WITH EARTH ENERGY
The chakras are the body’s energy centres. You can imagine them as 7 spinning wheels, each a different colour, located in seven spots along the spine, from the root chakra at the very base of the spine up to the crown chakra at the top of the head. Balanced chakras contribute to overall well-being. The root chakra, muladhara in Sanskrit, is related to the earth element which represents stability, safety, and security in our lives. Food, shelter, belonging, trust that our basic survival needs will be met - all of these are related to the root. Red is the colour of the root chakra, helping us to stay grounded, with the power to connect us to the earth. In your yoga practice, bring extra attention to whichever part of your body is in contact with the ground, where you are rooted and receiving the stability of the earth element. In a seated posture focus on rooting down through your sitz bones. In a standing pose, focus on grounding the four corners of your feet evenly to create stability. In every pose, feel firmly rooted and connected.
5 Yoga poses to nurture and balance your root chakra:
GROUND YOURSELF IN JOY
Off the mat, you can wear red shoes or paint your toenails red to ground yourself in the earthy power of the root chakra. I have a particular passion for red shoes. They just bring me joy. I’ve been wearing red shoes for as long as I can remember and even before that. From baby-size Mary Janes to teenage Parisian ballet flats and Riviera-red espadrilles to gorgeous grown-up red patent pumps with a red sole… I can’t remember a time when I didn’t own at least one pair of red shoes and usually several. Red shoes can make you feel like solidly grounded in joy so that your creative soul can soar to the stars and beyond. So make sure you have at least one pair of red shoes in your closet.
ENERGIZE YOUR LIFE
Red is the colour of life, of pulsing, vibrating, flowing energy, stimulating and invigorating. As such, red is the perfect colour to have around if you need to be uplifted and energized. Especially on days when you need to be focused and productive, or on days when you feel your energy level ebbing and you need a boost. For me red is also the colour of creative energy, it is the colour that keeps me inspired and my creative juices flowing.
4 red things to boost your energy and your creativity:
CELEBRATE YOUR INNER STRENGTH
In my previous big-corporation job, we spent a disproportionate amount of time preparing for meetings, especially big meetings with the country CEO or with the global CEO who flew in regularly from Paris. We spent long hours preparing our presentations, our back-up presentations, and the stacks of binders containing backup information, just in case somebody asked for that one piece of data you didn’t memorize. Those meetings were challenging, sometimes combative and aggressive, always stressful. We got used to it. And each of us had our own ways to get through them. A colleague always from another country to sit in. During a break from a particularly gruelling session she said to me: “Now I know why you always wear something red to these meetings!”
Red is a strong and optimistic colour that gives you a sense of confidence and a boost of courage whenever you need it.
3 Tips to boost confidence:
“When in doubt, wear red.” Bill Blass
SACRED TIBETAN RED
Red is a sacred colour in Tibet. It’s the colour of temples and of the Tibetan Buddhist monk’s robes. It’s the colour of the lacquered parasols they carry in some regions to protect themselves from sun. Red has protective qualities, so sacred buildings, houses and doors are painted red. Red is the colour of coral, one of the five sacred stones in Tibetan Buddhism, symbolizing the energy of life-force. Wearing red coral is thought to bring success in life. So Tibetan nomads and farmers wear red bead bracelets, glass beads substitute for precious coral beads, to bring them positive energy and joy, good health and love.
4 Red objects to add an element of the sacred and protection to your home sanctuary:
THE COLOUR OF ABUNDANCE
In Eastern cultures red is a most important and auspicious colour. In China, red is the symbol of happiness, success, prosperity and abundance. So of course it’s one of their most popular colours, especially during weddings and festivals. During New Years celebrations, red lanterns with the symbol of happiness adorn homes and business, and red envelopes filled with money are gifted to invoke even more abundance. In Feng Shui, red is the colour of good fortune, used to activate good luck tokens. Strategically placed red objects are also used to active good fortune and abundance.
Abundance tip: activate your prosperity by using a red wallet.
THE JOY OF HUM
From all these red inspirations, I intentionally chose red as the most important colour of my brand. But it’s not the most prominent colour. It's just a touch of red, and a touch is enough to intentionally infuse every aspect of the brand offering and your home sanctuary with the uplifting energy of red and the high vibration of joy, to invoke clarity, creativity, confidence and abundance for you, and help you create a serenely sacred and protective environment for your home practice. That little sprinkling of red gives me joy in every step of my creative HUM journey.
I’ve sprinkled touches of red through out the collection, those that are obvious (the red HUM logo, the Tibetan Red Lotus Cardigan, meditation cushions in our specially designed red organic fabrics, SO HUM Essential Oil Meditation Candle) and those that are are more subtle and layered (red top stitching on the handles of our yoga bolsters and meditation cushions, the special knot hand-tied with red hemp to attach our golden amulets).
May the HUM red inspire joy, clarity, creativity and confidence in your life and your home practice. Come and explore our RED collection.
RELATED INSPIRATION:
Learn more about The Stories and Symbolism of the HUM Colours
Discover The Purpose Behind the Patterns of our HUM organic fabrics.
Need some more inspiration for your home yoga and meditation practice? Download our free guide to Kickstart Your Home Practice.
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