We are swamped with colour from the day we are born. Indeed, we are born into a specific colour that stays with us for life. Colour is an aspect to everything we eat, drink, touch and are surrounded by. We use colours to describe our physical health, attitudes, emotions and even our spiritual and psychic experiences.
Colour is an intimate part of our being, even though we take it for granted. However, it is impossible to be indifferent to colour. It affects every home environment, as well as those of factories, offices, schools and hospitals, Even the colours of your clothes reflect your personality and influence your mood, and colour has a practical bearing on all your personal relationships. Without light there is no life. If you put a plant in a dark cupboard, it will wither and die.
Many of our healing needs can be met by the use of colour to bring out the harmony and balance within the psyche and the body. The invisible vibrations of colour can either relax or stimulate us according to the colours chosen for healing.
Ancient cultures worshipped the sun - whence all light, and therefore colours, comes - and were aware of its healing powers. The therapeutic use of colour in the ancient world can be traced in the teachings attributed to the Egyptian god Thoth, known to the Greeks as Hermes. Following these teachings, Egyptian and Greek physicians - including Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine - used differing coloured ointments and salves as remedies, and practised in treatment rooms painted in healing shades.