“Do you have something red or orange to wear tomorrow?” At my very first yoga teacher training, I remember hearing something about what colors we might want to wear on particular days. I also remember thinking that this was both frivolous and cultish. “Silly yoga people”, I thought. This practice is based in Vedic Astrology and the idea is that each day of the week is influenced by a particular planet and its attributes. By wearing the planet’s associated color, we are acknowledging the planet and its energy. It wasn’t until a couple years later that I would see that moving through the week with color is a sweet and useful practice.
After years of wearing DC’s seemingly-requisite black and grey (yawn), my New Year’s resolution for 2010 was to start wearing color. I figured that following this system might give me a nice structure and motivation to follow my resolution. It worked. Although I still don’t follow the system perfectly, I have noticed some pretty sweet benefits from wearing more color including:
- Very easy decisions and saved time in the morning. Knowing that I will wear white on Mondays simplifies the decision making process immensely. Color co-ordinating your closet can also be fun, especially for someone with a lot of pitta 🙂
- Perhaps most importantly, beginning my day by purposefully acknowledging something bigger than myself allows me to have a more expanded view of life as I go through the day. It helps me move from a more ego-focused attention to a wider view of reality. Also, purposeful adornment can honor the way in which we inevitably affect those around us, even with things as subtle as the colors we wear.
- Increased joy! Looking down and seeing a lovingly chosen color can inspire a smile.
In case you want to give it a try:
Day | Planet | Color |
Monday | Moon | White |
Tuesday | Mars | Red/Orange |
Wednesday | Mercury | Green |
Thursday | Jupiter | Yellow |
Friday | Venus | Light Pastels |
Saturday | Saturn | Blue or Black |
Sunday | Sun | Bright Colors! |
Lavender-ly Yours,
Kat