Enlightenment Pt 2: Red

Red, the lowest frequency of visual light, rolls in on long, penetrating waves to alert the senses with unmistakeable demand. It is the color of the first chakra, at the base of the spine, where the coiled serpent of kundalini energy originates its cycle through the chakras. This is the root chakra, closest to the support of the earth, occupied with the business of survival, elimination, and stability. The element associated with this chakra is earth, and its controlling sense is smell.

The experience of red, as it surrounds in nature and design, is a highly individual event. If you try to think of what red smells like, assuming you aren't a synesthete, it may be like sun-warmed strawberries picked right off the plant or it may be like the Kool-Aid that washed down every meal you had at summer camp. That all depends on your personal memories. Culturally, red has a variety of associations far beyond the first chakra. It is the valentine color of love, the crimson dye of devotion, the lucky color of celebration throughout Asia, the sexy attention-grabbing hue of machismo and female availability, the ritual color of Neanderthal cave art, the alarming signal of emergency, the politically charged designation of conservatism, communism, nationalism, and plenty of other isms. When I make connections between colors, chakras, elements and senses, I do not mean to suggest that our nervous system is that simplistic. I am describing an overlaid pattern to the infinite combinations of stimulation and response that occur constantly within a conscious body and mind. Amid the chaos of sense awareness, these connections are the strange attractors, the emergent complexities arising from the turbulence.

Eye-catching and powerfully charged with symbolism, red begins the spectrum. I would like to say that the long waves are more easily processed than subtler waves at higher frequencies, but I don't know that as a fact. I did a little online reaction response test just now. (You can too at http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/backtime.html.) I was a tiny bit faster at responding to red the first time but not on all subsequent attempts. (I suspect the varied delay times also affect attention and reaction.) I think it more likely that we have evolved to respond quickly to shedding blood, a substance so high in oxygen-carrying iron molecules that it turns bright red on exposure to air. It is that primal alert that denotes survival, our basic need for safety and drive to live.

Linked closely to survival is the sense of smell. It is the primary sense of the reptilian brain which sits at the inner core of the human brain and presides over reflex and instinct. The amygdala, an important little hub in the limbic brain, evolved from more primitive olfactory bulbs. Smell is the sense that first directs us to food and away from danger. It is so basic that we don't even have to be awake for it to affect us, nor do we need to actively notice it for a whole cascade of physiological responses to kick in.

Of the elements, earth is at the densest end of the spectrum. In an inverse relation to lightwaves, the tighter packed the atoms are, the less the motion. It is this closeness of particles that gives rise to surface tensions and the sensation of solidity. As creatures that walk on two legs, an alternating balancing act, we rely heavily on the myriad proprioceptive nerves in our feet, knees, and hips that join in a nexus at the base of the spine. We are held up by the earth and maintain stability by this constant conversation at the root chakra.

Arousal to awareness begins here in the iron rich reds of earth and blood. When we sit to meditate, we can't avoid putting strong, direct pressure on the first chakra. Here, the serpent uncoils its energetic self to slither up the ladder of the spine and spark the other chakras alive with its motion. Then, once the day is through, the belly full and shelter found, it seeks to return here, in the red setting of the sun, to the lightless mercy of our nightly slumber.