(Whrrrrrrrr-ing!)

Yep, you know what that means. It's time to spin the color wheel! Today we're keeping it short and sweet with...

AMARANTH.

You've got romancing to do. I've got a date with my beautiful bed. So we're going to embrace amaranth with our eyeballs and get keep the romance rolling. 

Fast Fact: In Greek mythology, the amaranth is a flower that lives on Mt. Olympus which never dies. 

Definition: A reddish-rose color that comes from the color of the amaranth flower.

Shades: amaranth pink, radical red AKA bright amaranth pink, amaranth (deep) purple. 

The Photo Inspiration 

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The Prompt

 We're getting acrostic on this color. That's right: acrostic on amaranth. How's that for alliteration? Not sure how to write an acrostic poem that doesn't sound like Kindergarten? We wrote up this handy guide to help you out. Write an acrostic poem with the word "amaranth", and try to focus each line on building an image based in the color. Once you have completed the prompt, go to sleep. Then, wake up and prune that poem as needed. See what you get. Maybe it'll be something, maybe it'll be nothing. If it is nothing, excavate the lovely pieces of the poem and save them for a rainy day. 

P.S. Amaranth not doing it for you? How about...Scarlet? Indigo? Saffron?  Emerald? or Lavender? 

I hear that old familiar sound: (Whrrrrrrrr-ing!)

The color wheel is spinning around! Today's color of choice? 

LAVENDER.

I know: collective oohs and ahhs from the crowd. Get ready for some serious color-induced relaxation. I saw Lavender most commonly associated with two things during my internet travels: (1) relaxation and peace, and (2) decadence. 

Also, back in the day, Lavender was the "in-between" mourning color for women. After a certain amount of time you could stop wearing all black and then wear Lavender and other sober, muted tones. (via Wikipedia. Obviously. If you've read my other Color Wheel posts, you know by now that I love the quick Wikication.)

And here's one I didn't see coming: lavender is tied closely to homosexuality and various political movements regarding homosexuality. This dates from the late 1800s onward. During less...evolved times, a "streak of lavender" referred to a "sissy" or man with feminine characteristics. (According to Wikipedia, Carl Sandburg used this term to describe young Abraham Lincoln. Okay?) "Lavender boys" refers to homophiles, or people who support and feel positively about homosexuality. A "dash of lavender" is used to describe a heterosexual person with homosexual tendencies.

All in all, a fascinating color. It's associated with: peace, decadence, in-between mourning, and homosexuality. We're talking about a color that can inspire a wide variety of emotion depending on its context. AKA: a writer's dream color.

Presenting: Lavender. 

Definition: a pale purple. To be specific, the color of the palest part of the lavender flower.

Shades: lavender blush, lavender mist, languid lavender, lavender gray, lavender blue, wisteria, pale plum, heliotrope, floral lavender, amethyst, purple mountains majesty (a la Crayola), twilight lavender.

The Photo Inspiration 

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The Prompts

1. Choose one of the many shades of Lavender to serve as your title. Let that color dictate the tone of your poem. Example: "Lavender Mist" might be a poem ethereal and mysterious, secretive yet at peace.

2. Choose a Lavender photo. Free write for 15 minutes about it. Try to describe every minute detail you see. Make sure you are using simile and metaphor for each description in order to bring your artistic gaze into focus. Don't let yourself off easy, and don't stop by saying "deeply purple flowers" -- try aiming for something a little outside your comfort zone, like "kiss-bruised lips purse on every waving frond, every blossom whispering". Get the idea? Use those images to craft a future poem, or write a piece using lavender imagery.

Read more of Alexandria's work on Floodmark.

I closed my eyes this morning and spun my imaginary color wheel. (Whrrrrrrrr-ing!) Today it stopped on...

EMERALD.

You know, I read somewhere (and maybe this was in the movie, I can't remember now) that in The Wizard of Oz, Emerald City isn't actually emerald. Everyone is simply wearing emerald-tinted glasses. That threw me. My first thoughts: Does emerald lose its meaning if everything is emerald? Does emerald become the equivalent of black and white? How do people even get dressed in the morning?? WHAT IS THEIR REALITY?! 

Yes, I had a serious mental crisis. And then I turned it into inspiration. Because poetry. Anyway.

Emerald is the deepest, richest, and most calming of the Greens. Cleopatra draped herself in them. The Incas and Aztecs considered them holy stones. Indian holy scripture discuss their healing properties. They were made into cups, embedded into dagger hilts, wrought into fine jewelry, and generally ogled throughout history. The first recorded use of emerald was in 1598. Ireland is often called "The Emerald Isle", and with good reason: from afar the whole island could be an Emerald you might hold cooly in the palm of your hand. There's the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. And apparently they call Seattle that, too, though this is the first I've heard of it. (Hey, if Seattle can compete with Ireland, I'm there.) When it comes to gemstones, folks call the natural fissures in emeralds "jardin" (garden). Because emeralds are so lovely that their flaws bloom inside them like flowers. 

Without further ado, I give you emerald.

Definition: brilliant green with blue under tones. 

Etymology: from Old French (e(s)meraud), via Latin (smaragdus), via Greek (σμάραγδος (smaragdos; "green gem").

Emerald Eyefull

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(Mughal Emerald necklace: source)

(Emerald Ash Borer: source)

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(Emerald Swallowtail: source)

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(The Emerald Isle: source)

(Emerald City: source)

The Prompt

You are walking down the street, looking at your feet striking the wet pavement. It has recently rained. You can smell the earth around you. No one is really out and about yet. Winter is just now passing, and your neighborhood is showing signs of waking up. But for now, mostly everything is brown. You round the corner, and something catches your eye in the crease of the sidewalk. A small patch of green curling out of the concrete, tendrils waving tentatively at the sun. In their midst, something glints. You pick it up, intrigued. The world goes emerald. 

What happens next? If you're a poet, focus on the imagery. Translate the beginning of this snippet into some concentrated images to set the stage. Then let your poem spiral out of control as the emerald runs its course. If you're a fiction writer, pick up the storyline and run with it. Try not to let this get over three pages and challenge yourself to keep the plot short and sweet. It's an ordinary day, after all. 

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

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A saffron finch. Look for them in South America around the Amazon Basin.
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Saffron cloth billows in the breeze and glows in the sun.
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Saffron rice. (source)

Saffron threads after being harvested from the violet blossoms you see in the background.
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My favorite depiction of Eos: draped in saffron and flowing into dawn.
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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!

Hello, folks! Ready to spin the color wheel? If you haven't heard of this prompt series yet, I spin an imaginary color wheel in my head and choose a color. Then, I give you lots of great material to use in your own writing related to this color. New words, phrases, ideas, and photos will accompany these prompts. Without further ado, let's spin! (Whrrrrrrrr-ing!)

INDIGO.

Indigo is likely my favorite color. Just wanted to get that out of the way so you know I'm terribly, unapologetically biased. You may have even noticed that one of Floodmark's key colors is, in fact, indigo. Yep. So now that that's out of the way, let's get indigo.

Interestingly enough, my first encounter with Indigo was also in my crayon box. (Thanks, Crayola, for providing me with a lifetime of inspiration.) When I was a kid, I reserved indigo for the color of the night sky. I thought it looked like deep velvet, with the stars nestled away like diamonds. I think I ended up with more night skies than anything else.

A quick Wikication told me that Indigo was named after the indigo dye derived from Indigofera tinctoria, also called true indigo. (In case you were curious, true indigo is in the bean family. Humble beginnings.) India started the indigo dye game, and basically dominated it for a long time. Somehow El Salvador is the modern-day indigo big wig. Go figure.

Get this: it's pretty hard for your eyes to see indigo. Or anyone's eyes, for that matter. The colors that lie between blue and violet are tough for the human eye to differentiate. Perhaps that's why indigo looks deep blue one second, and deep violet the next. It's constantly shifting and shimmering as your eyes try to make sense of what they're seeing. 

One last thing I stumbled upon during my travels across the Internet: indigo children. 
See, Indigo is a mystical color in New Age philosophy. It symbolizes sixth chakra which includes the third eye, which is related to intuition and gnosis (spiritual knowledge). Unsurprisingly, when someone has an indigo aura, psychics associate this with intense spirituality and intuition -- hence, indigo children have predominantly indigo auras. They are believed to possess unusual and special abilities, have telepathy, and/or be more empathetic/creative than other children. Very interesting. 

So, without further ado, I present to you: indigo. 

Definition: the color between blue and violet. 
(via Wikipedia)

Shades: electric indigo, deep indigo, Tropical Indigo, Denim, Imperial blue, Persian indigo. 

Indigo Sounds

To listen to while you write and read the rest of this post. Also to live by, because this type of jazz is the best music for: writing, showering, cooking, and loving. No dispute. 

1. Mood Indigo, Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong 

2. Mood Indigo, Ella Fitzgerald

3. Blue Indigo, Frank Sinatra

Indigo Sights 

(The night sky, source) 

(Marc Chagall's America Windows at the Art Institute in Chicago, source)

(Indigo Fields, source)

(Indigo dye, source) 

Blue jeans. 

The Prompt 

Write an indigo poem. Use the color as a filter, through which you see your life and relationships. Let it inundate your imagery. Tackle the shimmery quality of indigo -- the parts of the color that you're never quite sure about. The bits that jump from  violet to blue to somewhere in-between. Do you know someone like that? Someone who is never quite what they seem, who is more expansive and mysterious than previously realized, or who is deep and unpredictable? Write about this person and follow your imagery about them into the heart of indigo. 

Bonus: Write a poem titled "Indigo Child". 

Read more of Alexandria's work here.

Welcome to a new weekly prompt, in which I spin the imaginary color wheel I keep in the corner of my mind, and choose a color for you to use as a filter for your poetry. Today's color? 
(Whrrrrrrrr-ing!)

SCARLET.

I first encountered scarlet in my crayon box. A classic, to be sure, but it's been around much longer than Crayola. (A quick Wiki-cation revealed as much.) And you know, I found something veeeeeery interesting in my Wikipedia travels. 

In the context of masculinity, scarlet symbolizes power, royalty, and courage. See: military uniforms (a la the traditional British military garb of red coats),  Roman Catholic Cardinals, British nobility & the House of Lords, various flags and national colors (i.e. symbols of power). Sometimes it symbolizes sin, especially when you're leafing through the Bible.

(Note: this is simply a pattern I'm observing. Obviously there are exceptions to every pattern.)

In the context of femininity, it is most often affiliated with sin, sex, and prostitution. See: Red Light District, the Whore of Babylon (that's right, we're getting biblical on you: "[The Bible]...describes the "Great Harlot" (meretricius magnus) dressed in scarlet and purple (circumdata purpura et coccino), and riding upon a scarlet beast (besteam coccineam)), Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. When I initially Googled "scarlet" and looked at the images it turned up, half of them were naked women looking mighty mischievous or mysterious.  

The good news? Scarlet symbolizes blood and sacrifice pretty much everywhere. So that's a nice,  universal silver (or should I say scarlet?) lining. 

Naturally, my mind boggled at both the double standard, and at how one color can mean such wildly different things in different contexts. When I first drafted this post in my head, I thought my Googling would turn up naturally occurring instances of scarlet -- open and shut. Instead, I find this complex history tied up around the color. The feminist in me cringed. The historian in me scrolled as if in a trance, making mental notes all the while. The aesthete in me reveled in the amount of decadent scarlet filling my vision. 

And the writer in me rejoiced. Ambiguity is our life's blood, after all. 

Without further ado, I present to you: scarlet.

Definition: a brilliant red color with a tinge of orange.

(via Wikipedia, of course.)

Shades: Torch Red, Flame, Fire Brick, Armenian Red, Kermes, Cochineal, Crimson, Cadmium Red (aka the preferred red of Matisse). 

Photo Inspiration: 

Pictured: roses, a lovely woman wearing red lipstick who isn't the Whore of Babylon 2.0, Scarlet Schwalbenschwanz (butterfly), a Blood Moon, a ship with scarlet sails, and scarlet ink in water. 

(I tried to find more neutral photos and let the color speak for itself.)

The Prompt

Write a scarlet poem. Let it be a filter you see the world through, and let the color & its related imagery drive the poem.  Don't be afraid to address its duality. Don't be afraid to hit something (or a symbolic somebody, I suppose) in the feels. Remember courage and sin are equally at stake here. Where's the line? Can scarlet ever be a color of balance? 

In the end, remember: scarlet is blood. It's sacrifice. We may call it power, we may call it sex, we may call it sin -- and perhaps it is all those things as well. But in the end,  scarlet is the color of your blood being given up to the air. 

Read more posts by Alexandria.