“Well yes, in a sense that's right, but let's expand on that. The magician invokes the three colors because of their relation to light, but why is that relation significant?
The professor, himself dressed in a light robe of mottled green and brown designs, continued: “Light is half of the essence of all things. It is the creative side; the side of manifestation into what we usually call 'the world' or 'reality'. Again, none of this is in the strict meta- physical sense, but rather in the perhaps more real sense of our lived relationship with reality.
“When the natural light we perceive is broken down into its most basic spectrum, we meet with the qualities of red, blue, and green, or some variation of the same from which all other coloration stems. Coloration of the world, combined with how we have learned to interpret those designs, leads us to the understanding of consensual reality that we have.
“The three elemental qualities are relevant beyond the simple optical associations because of the basic importance of light to our wider reality and its effects on our own beings. The most common understanding of this is in the psychologies that deal with color associations. Most of us know that certain colors, when encountered as qualities of a part of our reality, can affect emotional or other mental states. Could it be though that these effects are not just a superficial conditioned response to stimuli; that the influence of a color is actually invoking a deeper aspect of our lived experience, and that any change to our conscious state is nothing more than a symptom of the underlying encounter?”
The teacher paused to allow his students to catch up, and pressed a button on his remote. The lighting in the classroom changed.
“Red usually invokes a primal, animal feeling. We think of blood, and earth, and the rawness of mortal things. It is deeply connected to our life-force; the fire within us that makes us continue to be. It can be the electrical sparks that propel your body and thoughts forward. It can at the same time be the internal sun some of you may call a soul, that produces no heat, yet constantly seeks purpose. It is our metabolism and the warmth of our veins. It is a never-ceasing element of our existence that presents itself concisely here, in this quality.”
The lighting in the room changed again. “What about blue? What does blue invoke for us magicians?”
A hand raised in the dim light. “It feels relaxing, and yet scary. Like when you can't see the bottom of an otherwise very pleasant lake.”
The teacher gave a slight nod. “While there are no right or wrong answers here, I daresay that is a very good one. You have identified the underlying duality that exists in perhaps all qualities, and it is in this manner that we should be generally thinking in our work.
“To the point though, blue is the color of seeing beyond. The unknown is potential knowledge, and that is frightening. We never quite know how what we may soon learn will affect our reality. Nevertheless, knowledge can be a relief when it reassures us or allows us to plan for what is to come. Furthermore, by referencing the future, this blue is giving us reason to hope, which allows us to plan a reality we want to come into being. While red brings us into this reality, blue shows us that it is infinite.”
“Based on what we have now said about the first two qualities, what might we be able to say about green?”
When a student finally responded there was hesitation in his voice. “Logically...it should be some form of control. I mean, we don't just all go expanding into infinity.”
The teacher gave the thought a nudge: “Right, so what's the underlying principle behind our organization?”
“Looking around at much of the world there doesn't seem to be one. Everyone organizes things differently based on their codes, whether they're moral, scientific, or philosophical. Shouldn't a unifying element have some harmony to it?”
“Well there you've hit it right on the head!” the teacher grinned. “Green represents the harmony of this reality as inhabited by all these forces engaging in the activities of living and learning. Now you notice where it often fails, and we find conflict, disruption and consequently, suffering. Where the quality of harmony succeeds though, in those places we have a vision of what an ideal reality may be.
“You must not however, mistake this green element for a placidity. The turbulence of the world, insofar as it does not bring harm to the inhabitants of reality (which are not separate from it anyway), is a necessary component of proper harmony. It is the double-sided coin again; each quality in the world carries its extreme state and the opposite. It is in the balancing and the middle path that our lives should take their course. It is in understanding the shifting of that balance that we succeed.
“When all three of the elemental aspects are engaged in a positive way, the manifestation of reality will be only in a positive light. It is part of our job as practitioners of this way of seeing to engage with our life force, seek clear knowledge, and establish harmony as much as we can in the world. It is humble task, because in taking on these pursuits, we realize that we are not taking any special perspective on the world. These three elements of life are so basic that they are taken for granted in the complications of peoples' consciousness. We are seeking a path towards paradise by re-focusing on what is really real, and building the world from that point.”
