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Alchemical Symbol for Gold

This is the symbol for gold. It is also the symbol for the moment of creation, source, the origin of all things. Becoming conscious is similar to old fashioned alchemy; the ordinary becomes something of great value.

Colorscope invites illumination and great blessing.

Colorscope form

The circle has always been a symbol for wholeness.

The rim of color represents the astrological ascendant, the outer, surface self and one’s correspondence to environment. The outdated verb “environ” means to encompass, surround and literally to put a ring around.

The main body of color represents the astrological sun sign, the personality and vital life force.

The interior circle represents the astrological moon sign, the interior, emotional realm and the feeling nature, what lies inside.

Carl Jung’s Personality Types

Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, determined four basic types of personality. These types correspond to four elements and their colors.

The Intuitive type, Fire element, often will have the ability of seeing the world in mythic or archetypal terms. Imagination, raw talent, creativity and spontaneous expression live here. There’s an expansive sense of things, drama, self-interest and a lot of activity. This is the realm of Spirit.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Earth type, or Sensation type, which is the hands on, meat and potatoes of living life and seeing, touching, tasting what’s immediately before us. This type concerns itself with what it considers real. It’s the physical realm, experiencing the physicality of existence and being at ease in the body. It’s the sensualist or the athlete, the organizers of systems or the guy with practical solutions, the workhorse that stays on task. This is the tangible, linear type.

The Thinking type, Air element, lives in the realm of logic, language and thought systems. Ideas and words are prevalent here. Usually there’s cultural refinement or sophisticated social skills. Sometimes feelings are disregarded as they interfere with or overwhelm logic. One processes information quickly and experiences the world through analysis and thought.

Finally there is the Feeling type, Water element, which understands the world through a heightened sensitivity. Strongly instinctual it’s different from the intuition of fire. It’s softer, it’s the place where hunches live, a place beyond words. There’s usually sensitivity to others, an enveloping quality or an emotional, compassionate nature.

Carl Jung's Personality Types

Kandinsky’s Observations

Kandinsky explored the language of color through intimate observation. Yellow and Orange advance while Blue retreats. Red has a warm, highly lively, inner glow. Green, a mixture of yellow and blue, conveys a self-satisfied repose, passive and complacent. In that perfect balance, pure Green achieves peacefulness and tranquility demanding nothing, which can become a bit tedious. Brown, another mixture, is capable of little movement, yet Brown has the inner beauty of restraint. Black is the great abyss of total nothingness (the great womb of everything). White is the sound of silence, of peace and quiet.

I would also add that Silver is White becoming luminous. Lavender, a lightened mixture of red and blue, contains a soft and quiet inner light.

Kandinsky noted that Yellow, as stimulating, joyful and warm as it is, can not be pushed very far into the depths. While Blue, as cool and detached as it can be, has a gift for depth. Blue moves towards infinity and a profound, spiritual place. It points towards transcendent spheres, being the heavenly color. Red, with its bold energy and intensity, contains a purposeful strength, marking the difference between the light-minded character of Yellow, dissipating itself in every direction. Orange is the satisfying combination of the two.

Relativity of Color

Both the astrological signs and colors have distinctive properties all their own and yet, like living things, they are relational in nature. Just as colors are sensitive to one another, so are the astrological signs. Both affect and alter one another with tremendous interaction.

The abstract artist and teacher Josef Albers stated that, “One and the same color evokes innumerable readings.” When placing one color inside another, certain colors are hard to change and others are more susceptible to change. Some colors exert influence, others accept influence. One and the same color can perform many different roles. A lighter color will register as higher. A deeper color is heavier. Softer boundaries disclose nearness, implying connection; harder boundaries indicate distance, separation. The larger area of color visually reduces distance. As a consequence, it often produces nearness and a sense of intimacy and respect.

Kandinsky discovered that each color, isolated, is consistent– producing the same spiritual vibration. But, because colors are not isolated, their absolute inner sound always varies by the closeness of another color and the spatial forms they occupy. When contemplating the Colorscope combinations, one will immediately recognize what these abstract artists discovered.

Joseph Albers