For the Love of Purple

On an otherwise ordinary day

someone reached down, scooped up a trowel full of dirt

dropped it into their shake screen

and discovered something that didn't exist.

In the land of Canaan,

nearly two thousand years before the common era,

Hercules's dog uncovered a new symbol of affluence.

The royal dye from his midday mollusk meal

colored a robe so dazzling

King Phoenix decreed the hue be worn

by rulers of Phoenicia to signify their nobility.

Rome, Egypt and the Persian empires followed his example.

Requiring over eighty-five hundred shellfish for one small gram of dye,

the blueish-red pigment was truly worth its weight in gold.

Royal, imperial, Tyrian, mulberry, heliotrope, Han, violet, amethyst -

this cast adorned tapestries in the ancient Tabernacle,

embellished Aaron's sacred vestments,

and decorated the temples of Solomon and Herod.

Millenia and dynasties away, it traveled to the "Forbidden City,"

the secret area of heaven centered near the North Star.

Man found ways to make this tint easier to produce.

We see it everywhere, every day, all around us.

But, it isn't real.

Located between both ends of the color spectrum,

where red begins and blue ends,

our minds interpret;

our minds create that vision

If it only takes a thought, a whisper of suggestion

from bending light

for us to see a color and give it power,

imagine what you can do now that you know.

Lavenders are individual, witty and sensitive.

They desire uniqueness.

Unconventional, dignified, artistic.

You become what you discern.

Dream big.