Ubiquitous Orange – a daily delight

You’re in my eyes.  How else could I see light?
You’re in my brain.  This wild joy.
If love did not live in matter,
how would any place have any hold on anyone?

Rumi
Translator Coleman Barks

 

Orange there.  Orange everywhere.  At our neighbors across the street, pumpkins of all sizes parade along a ledge showing off their shapes and orangish hues.  Further up the hill, persimmons glisten in the morning light.  Monarch butterflies dance through the air with their deep orangish color in contrast with handsome black veins and body.   Marigold flowers, rose hips, and leaves bring more awareness of this particular season of orange.

As if this weren’t enough, the November full moon takes on an orange color as it passes through the shadow of the earth in a partial lunar eclipse.  The normal luminosity of the moon will be mostly hidden.  This odd occurrence in the nighttime sky has long captured human attention, evoking stories of both fear and wonderment.  The orange reddish color inspired myths of the moon being eaten by a wild animal, such as jaguar, leaving the color of blood as evidence.  It also is said to represent a welcomed pause, and a time for inner reflection.

Of course, orange appears throughout the year. Our sense of time and timeless is measured in radiant colors, including many shades of orange, each dawn and dusk.  The color orange evokes many feelings, such as joy, warmth, playfulness, and even tranquility.  In restaurants, orange is sometimes added because it sparks the appetite and a desire for more.

Orange, ushering in nighttime and daytime, praises the fabric of earthly life, especially the constancy of transition and connectedness.  This is a sweet reminder that each moment is a transition from what was into what will be, with pure being-ness in between.  This reciprocity is apparent in our fluid receiving and offering of the breath, and the larger cycles of life.  The present is a continual bridge between the past and future.  All directions meet each morsel of life wherever it is, whether in the air, rooted in the ground, reclining, or walking.

Regardless of its depth or lightness, the color orange simultaneously carries the flavors of golden sunlight and earthly reds.  Thus, it symbolically offers a sense of balance between the heavenly and worldly.   So, even when the moonlight seems to have abandoned the earth during an eclipse, the orange hue conveys an uplifting reminder of the steadfast and tranquil presence of solar and eternal light.  (Ironically, it is the planet earth that hides the light by coming between the sun and the moon.)  It is not surprising that in some parts of the world, holy people wear orange robes as they live with the light of pure awareness.

As I read the words of Rumi, I gain yet another insight into the joyfulness of being in the companionship of the color orange – Love, God’s Love, Eternal Love.   My hope is that orange sparks a fresh perspective or insight in you.  If so, please share.

Practice
This short practice offers an awareness of letting go.

Prepare – 

• Turn your phone and any other devices to airplane mode.
• Find a comfortable seated position, supporting and inviting ease in your lower body.
  • If you are in a chair, allow the soles of your feet to relax without tension by placing them evenly on the floor, a cushion, or any other stable surface.
• Rub your palms vigorously together until you feel some heat in your fingers.
  • Then gently brush your palms down your arms from your shoulders to your fingertips.
    • As you do this imagine you are brushing off the energetic dust that you have accumulated in your activities prior to this practice.
    • Then, brush off your legs, front and back of your torso (as far that is comfortable for you to reach), the back of your neck, your throat.
• Once again, rub your palms together and then gently brush your fingertips over your face, including your nose, eyes, mouth, chin, cheeks, and ears.
• Pause quietly for a few minutes, lower body supported, and breath free and easy.

Practice – 

• Turn your palms upward, allowing the backs of your hands to rest on your thighs.  Pause for one or two breaths.
• With your palms still upward and in front of you, lift your forearms and hands slightly away from your thighs to a level where your shoulders and upper chest still feel relaxed.
  • Slowly open your palms and your fingers.  Allow your fingers to tilt slightly downward as you reach full openness of your palms.   As you do this, say to yourself, “I let go of unneeded tension.”
  • Repeat three times.
• With your palms open, either still slightly elevated away from your thighs or resting on your thighs, invite a sense of receiving an orange in each hand.  Allow yourself to fully receive the gift of this round fruit.
  • Using your imagination, feel your palms, fingers, and wrists relax as they receive the weight of the orange.  Allow that relaxation to move up your forearms into your shoulders, upper back, and your heart center.
  • Pause.  Just receive, relax, receive – free of labeling or inner dialog.  There is no right or wrong here.  You are just here with the gift of these imaginary oranges.
  • Note: if you are allergic to oranges, please choose another orange colored natural food, e.g., a yam.
• When you are ready, reaching your arms slightly forward and upward while staying with a feeling of relaxation and perhaps joyful reverence – particularly in your hands, fingers, and wrists — offer the oranges to that which you consider most sacred.
  • Pause with the feeling of offering, again free of inner dialog.
  • After a few moments, invite an awareness of your seemingly empty palms being filled and overflowing with love.
  • After a few moments, bring your hands to your heart center, one palm over the other with your head slightly bowed.  Silently say, “thank you.”

Transition back into your day – 

• With your hands wherever they are comfortable, sit quietly for a few moments.
• When you are ready, return to your day.

The poem by Rumi appears in Mala of the Heart: 108 Sacred Poems, page 48, edited by Ravi Nathwani and Kate Vogt and published by New World Library.   The photo is by Peggy Sue Zinn on Unsplash.  HEARTH is posted each new and full moon.  KateVogt©2021.

 Stay in touch with the wisdom that lives in every moment.  Listen. Observe. Absorb.
If you wish to explore the posts further, please explore katevogt.com for:  meeting up with me virtually one-on-one;  joining one of my virtual community classes; contacting me about whether you are a fit for my monthly Wisdom Circle: or, having inspiration at your fingertips with your own copy of my book “Our Inherited Wisdom:  54 Inspirations from Nature and Poetry,” available through Bookshop, or order through your local independent bookstore.