the color red

I've always loved reds and oranges (OK except during my high school-I-like-wearing-black days), vibrant colors, but these past few days, my eyes are being drawn to it more than usual. There is an abandoned shack next to our apartment building, and behind it are a few bright red shopping carts glowing amongst the green overgrowth. I can just sit at the head of the bed and be mesmerized staring out the second floor back window. There is also this door in a half-used factory building on the way to the office that too has flashes of reds and yellows peeking out between vines. I think it is time for me to capture what I am seeing via photo journal. I will throw a couple of cameras in the sling pack, hop on my bike and ride around town on a mission.

The pictures in this blog entry were taken by my mother from my parents' backyard. They are wildflowers of Colorado...don't ask me what kind, I have no idea.

Color illicits feeling, emotion, memories.... One of the things I wish the Transpersonal program at Naropa had that the Contempletive program does have were the Maitri rooms. These are colored rooms used for meditation that bring out different experiences. Here's a brief explanation:

http://www.maitripractice-international.org/vajra/index.htm

This site's explaination of red energy, or Padma, is:

"an intuitive knowing and fine sense of discriminating, delight in intimate connections, experiencing the intensity of the present moment, an inherent wholesomeness and goodness, empathize, draw out, and engage deeply with people, a sense of pleasure and promise that magnetizes and inspires communication"
It continues to add, "Also overly passionate, intense desires, and obsessive clinging, continually broken-hearted, see life as bittersweet, sentimental, and romantic world is too unstable or too intense so unsatisfying, long for intimacy and contact; then push it away hate to miss out on any source of pleasure"

Interesting. Just some things I will ponder. I'm going to go see if the digital camera battery is charged, then I'm heading out on my bike. More to come on this topic, my friends, more to come.

one of my tattoos. I got it at the commencement of my new journey, post-colorado.