Color can be both light and matter. In fact, color connects the worlds of light and matter - two worlds that are worlds apart on their own. In German mythology, color also connected worlds: the bridge between the human and the Godly world was a rainbow. It was named "bilrost" - roughly translated, that means: 'hovering platform', a thing that automatically takes you to places - much like a 'car' for the soul.

Color actually has a connection to the world of electricity and machines. As a sensory perception, color represents a small section of the electromagnetical spectrum, that we can actually see. We don't only respond to colors when we see them, but also when our skin is exposed to them. When a blind person enters a red room, his/her heartbeat will increase. And when babies don't get blue light on their skin, they risk developing rachitis (a bone-disforming disease). But color can also be connected to mood or psychology.

The quality of color, as a sensory perception, is not really explained by physical science. Unless you're satisfied with explanations like "color is light with a specific wavelength". This is true, of course (and great for building color TV's), but it doesn't tell you anything about the essence or the quality of colors. Some argue it's categorically impossible to define the quality of color in a deliberate way. But I think it's possible, with the help of Goethean color theory.

Goethe's hypothesis was: color is created when darkness and light interact, within a transparant form of matter (a 'medium' like air, water or glass). When light has the active role in this interaction, you see a blue or violet color. When darkness has the active role, you see yellow, orange or red.

When the sun sets, it shines through ever more troubled (darkened) layers of air. Close to the earth, there is much more dust and moisture in the air. When the sun starts to shine through that, it looks yellow. When it sets further, it turns from orange, to red, and when there's a very clear sky, you can see a carmine sun.

Blues can be seen when the atmosphere is lit completely, and the sky is clear. When we're looking at a vast area of transparent air, with darkness behind it, we see a blue sky. If we go up, with a balloon or a plane, that blue goes ever darker and more violet, as the lit atmosphere between us and the darkness gets thinner.

When you look through a prisma, you see things on another spot as where they originally were. You might in your prisma be looking at a dark painting on a white wall, that's hanging somewhere on your far left. In the prisma, this painting has colored edges. On the right, that will be red/orange/yellow. The dark spot moved to gain terrain, on that side. But where it pulled away, where the light spot moved forward, you'll see a blue edge. So, red/orange/yellow are about active darkness and passive light, while turquoise/blue/violet are about active light and passive darkness.

We can translate this 'dark' and 'light' into human capacities. Light, color and darkness can be compared to the human capacities of thinking, feeling and acting. So you might say that reds are about activity: first then act, then to reflect on that action. And there's a whole range of them, from light to dark: yellow, orange, orange-red, scarlet red and carmine. Yellow is more like: creative talking (like a salesman). Orange is about active feeling. Orange red can be interpreted as: taking physical action. And carmine, that deep dark red, can be seen as: the body being active - or, activities connected to basic vegetative bodily processes: digesting food, sleeping, nurturing, physical love (either sensual or motherly). Meditating carmine red is very good when you can't sleep.

The blues, turquoise, cobalt blue, ultramarine and violet, can be connected to the more reflective side of our psyche: first to think, than to act. Perception. Turquoise is about lots of light: intellect, or having intensified sensations. Turquoise people have very intense experiences. Light cobalt blue is more about, just to see things in their natural light, the way they are. Light cobalt blue is a very healthy color, both physically and mentally. Ultramarine is about, seeing how the light is going away. A certain sense of tragedy can be involved. It's the kind of feelings men can have within themselves, totally overlooked by their women friends (women's feelings are much more active: gold or reddish orange).

Of course, this sense of color can deepen very much by relative painting exercises, and by meditating colors. But the key is: light, color and darkness - compared to thinking, feeling and acting.

I haven't discussed green and magenta yet, I'll do that in another article.