Spin the Color Wheel: Saffron

Step right up and spin the color wheel! I'll close my eyes, and you can reach into my head and spin my imaginary color wheel today.  (Whrrrrrrrr-ing!) Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows!

Well, I know. It's my imaginary color wheel, after all. This week's color?

SAFFRON. 

Let me tell you the first thing I learned about saffron: it runs the gamut of shades from yellow to a brilliant yellow-orange. And it confused me until my eyeballs were swimming through a sea of brilliance -- also known as my Google image searches. It was fantastic. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still see the imprints of saffron shapes and figures and hues. Saffron is like floating in sunbeams. It's like Wordsworth waking up in a field of daffodils, it's like someone has thrown a thousand yellow-orange flower petals into the air and it's raining, raining, raining the softest fire. 

I'm getting carried away. Let me tell you what my brain found post-saffron-induced delirium. 

My quick Wikication told me there are a couple different shades, as I mentioned before. Saffron ranges from a bright golden yellow to a deep, brilliant yellow-orange. Almost a red, sometimes, in its deepest shades. 

It's a spice used in cooking. Saffron is associated with Eos/Aurora, goddess of the dawn, in classical literature. Wikipedia offered up this choice passage to demonstrate the association, and I thought it very lovely: 

From Virgil's Aeneid:

Aurora now had left her saffron bed, 

And beams of early light the heav'ns o'erspread, 

When, from a tow'r, the queen, with wakeful eyes, 

Saw day point upward from the rosy skies.

I think that's my favorite discovery. In Hinduism, deep saffron (or bhagwa) is sacred, worn by those in search of the ultimate truth. A symbol of sacrifice, light, and salvation. This is also the color you see some Buddhist monks wearing. 

All in all, a deeply spiritual color. 

If I had to guess why, it's because it's the color that souls sing. 

And so I humbly present, saffron.

Definition: a tone of golden yellow resembling the color of the tip of the saffron crocus thread.

(via Wikipedia.)

Shades: Rajah, Deep Saffron, Yellow Saffron.

Buddhist monks walk on rose petals in their deep saffron robes.

A crocus flower, a saffron symbol of Spring.
(source)

Cymon and Iphigenia. Wikipedia's caption: "saffron suffuses the canvas at sunrise". 

(source)

A saffron finch. Look for them in South America around the Amazon Basin.
(source)

Saffron cloth billows in the breeze and glows in the sun.
(source) 

Saffron rice. (source)

Saffron threads after being harvested from the violet blossoms you see in the background.
(source) 

My favorite depiction of Eos: draped in saffron and flowing into dawn.
(source)

The Prompt

Write a saffron-colored poem. Close your eyes and picture saffron diffusing through your thoughts until everything, and I mean everything, is a hazy brilliant gold-orange hue. Let your mind's eye see things through this color filter. What does a saffron sky mean? A saffron moon, saffron stars, saffron branches, saffron river -- what do those mean? Transcribe the symbolism of various objects (let's say 10?) painted in saffron hues. How does the symbol of saffron static differ from a saffron sheet? In short, define the world around you in saffron tones. Challenge yourself to write these compact images of saffron in unexpected contexts, and then go one step further by infusing them with your unique symbolism. Use these saffron images in one poem or many. 

Read more of Alexandria's work here.

P.S. While I was writing this post, I was listening to Daughter, a musical discovery courtesy of our editor Alyssa.   Check out her post and inspiration for some music to write to!