Pink and Green

The green collage in the Sparrow’s Descent series is not just green, as you can see, there is also a good smattering of pink here. This piece is a representation of the heart chakra, or Anahata, in Sanskrit. The heart chakra is the only one in the Western Occult tradition that has two colors associated with it, but there are different explanations for this depending on who you talk to. Really the best answer to me is that none of the chakras actually have colors, the colors are symbolic. When you look at other chakra traditions you will instantly notice how they all have their own, and often very different, color schemes. Colors have varying meanings across cultures, so this makes sense. I’ve heard some people say that the heart chakra is green because money is green and money is a representation of love, but of course money is green almost only in the United States. Really, I think the heart chakra is “green” because it must be to keep the rainbow order intact. However, here in the West we have associations with the color pink that are more aligned with the warm fuzzyfeeling of love.

It’s a common trope that we must love ourselves before we can truly love another, and it’s a trope that has come under fire of late as not only being untrue, but also causing a lot of harm. I see love as a circle in its most perfect form, and we can start at any point on the circle of love. Sometimes the love of another helps you to love yourself, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Sometimes we love someone else who then loves us and shows us how to love ourselves. However, it is this love for oneself that is the most difficult form of love. There’s an old joke where someone asks you if you would accept a gift of $100,000 if your worst enemy also got $100,000. The person pondering this strange gift says, “Of course, why wouldn’t I want $200,000?”

When we consider love to be more of an action than a feeling it becomes easier to love ourselves. You don’t have to have a warm fuzzy pink feeling thinking about yourself, you just have to acceptthat others care about you and would really appreciate it if you ate well and went to the doctor on occasion. Still easier said than done, I know. What really taught me about self love was the feeling of resentment. For decades I had no idea what “love yourself” really meant. I was engaged to be married when I started really thinking about it. When my fiancébroke up with me my friends and family all wanted to blame him for it completely, but I knew I was at fault in some way even if it was much more subtle and complex. I had beencarrying around a lot of resentment toward him that I couldn’t acknowledge openly because of my fear of conflict. If I couldn’t even acknowledge the resentment I sure as heck didn’t know why I felt resentment in the first place! Once I became more aware of that dynamic I realized a good portion of that resentment was because I was putting all of his needs before mine. If I had shown myself more love then I would have had better boundaries and less resentment, and that would have made me a better partner.

If you find it hard to love yourself, that’s ok! A good start is just to know what you need to feel your best and create boundaries around those needs. Make loving yourself an action rather than a feeling. I could talk about love all day long, it is the main theme of my first book after all, but I will leave it here.

By the way, I’ve loved the pink and green color combination since I saw an illustration of a bunny wearing a green and pink ballgown in a children’s book circa 1986. I have no idea what that book was, but let me know if you have any idea.