There’s much speculation about the color indigo. Some say it’s a combination of purple and blue, others claim it leans towards blue, and others see it as more purple. Most will tell you it’s situated between blue and purple on the color wheel.
The truth is that indigo doesn’t feature on the color wheel. It does, however, feature in the colors of the rainbow as identified by Sir Isaac Newton back in the 1670s.
True indigo is 75% blue and 25% purple. So it can be placed between the colors violet and blue, and violet is 50% blue and 50% purple, making indigo a shade of blue.
The most common item of indigo clothing is denim jeans. It’s such an everyday item that many of us wear indigo jeans without placing any significance on the color. Historically, typical denim blue dye was extracted from the leaves of the Indigofera tinctoria plant, which was cultivated as a crop in parts of Asia and Africa. Today, denim manufacturers mostly use synthetic dyes that allow for stone and acid washing to enhance their cloth.
Let’s take a look at indigo’s psychological and spiritual properties to see how it can impact our lives for better or worse.
Psychological Properties of Indigo
Color has long been recognized as a powerful communication tool. Scientific research has shown that specific colors directly impact the body and mind negatively and positively.
As a result, the giant consumer marketing machine uses different hues in its branding and advertising to draw us in and influence our buying decisions.
Nature has known the importance of color for eons as well. For example, plants use brightly colored flowers to attract insects and birds vital for pollination and the continuation of plant species. And since nature isn’t about deceit or treachery, poisonous insects, amphibians, and reptiles advertise their toxicity by displaying vibrant colors.
For us, indigo can be both calming and depressing. It impacts and strengthens the right brain, which is responsible for processing shapes and patterns, focus and attention, emotions, meaning implication, and verbal ambiguity. The right hemisphere of the brain is our source of creativity.
Use indigo for planning, focusing, studying, and when you’re looking for fresh insights on a jaded matter. It fuels imagination, intuition, ingenuity, creativity, knowledge, and insight.
We live in a world of colors that contribute to our lives in subtle ways. Indigo is a dignified color that has intellectual, religious, and spiritual undertones.
Too little indigo in our lives can lead to fear, oversensitivity, suspicion, mistrust, isolation, and a sense of lack. We can get lost in a fantasy world of dreams, wishful thinking, and overthinking.
Overexposure can fuel addictive personalities, lead to fanaticism, drama, delusions of grandeur, judgment, and intolerance. Where religion is concerned, the ego can take over, leading to religious fanaticism, believing that we are spiritually better than others or chosen for a spiritual purpose.
You can wear indigo clothing or jewelry to stimulate your mind, or you can cover your desk or chair with an indigo cloth. If you’re really keen, you can paint a wall of a room indigo.
Spiritual Properties of Indigo
Indigo has powerful spiritual connotations. It was favored by the ancient Egyptians where it was closely associated with the pharaohs.
Spiritually, indigo resonates with the brow chakra from where we interpret the world we see outside of ourselves and our inner world of thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. When balanced and open, the brow chakra becomes the source of clairvoyance, allowing us to ‘see’ divine and spirit communication.
We can use indigo in meditation, prayer, and rituals to seek insight or if we want to develop spiritually. By developing our brow chakra, we can learn to trust our intuition and relax into our spiritual practices rather than trying to force them.
This leads to a sense of freedom and liberation where we realize we’re part of the world beyond and not separate from it; therefore, we can trust the information we get, even when we don’t fully understand it.
Indigo encourages us to take responsibility for our actions, thereby fostering response to situations rather than reaction. It slows our thought process down and encourages reflection and contemplation before taking action. In this way, we automatically introduce more structure into our lives and remove chaos.
A calm, structured mind notices signs, is aware of intuition, has faith, and, therefore, makes better decisions. Conversely, a racing mind trying to control the external world may be completely unaware of any attempts by spirit to offer insight and guidance.
Use indigo correspondences, an indigo altar cloth, or wear it. Crystals like amethyst, lapis lazuli, and angelite vibrate with indigo energy. Also, use lavender, violet, or agapanthus flowers in magick and rituals.
The Indigo Child
Volumes have been written about the “indigo child” since Nancy Ann Tappe first introduced the concept in the 1970s.
Broadly, indigo children are said to be sent to this world to create a new world order to better humankind. Their inherent traits include:
- empathy, curiosity, and a strong will
- often regarded as ‘strange’
- a clear sense of purpose and self-definition
- display a subconscious spirituality from early childhood
- have a strong feeling that they deserve to be here
- highly intelligent
- extremely intuitive
- resist control and authority
Some firmly embrace the concept, and others dismiss it, claiming that these children result from poor parenting or mental health disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
To fairly and objectively discuss both viewpoints would take far more than a single article. First, however, we need to ask ourselves if it’s fair to label a small child as being an indigo or having a mental health disorder before they’ve had an opportunity to reveal their real personality to the world.
Labeling is the forerunner of many atrocious acts globally, from bullying to racism, homophobia, religious fanaticism, and even wars.
Spiritual Healing Ritual
Indigo is an excellent tool to access repressed past hurts so they can be released and healing can begin.
Do this ritual as often as is necessary until you can feel the burden of the past is exposed and you’re ready to let go. I’m assuming that you don’t know exactly what hurt you and how it’s holding you back for this ritual. However, if you do know, you can go straight to that time in your life during visualization.
For pain to be released and healing to begin, we must be willing to walk through the hurt, which can be daunting. So prepare yourself upfront and only repeat the ritual when you feel strong enough again.
In between, use a journal and dreamwork to keep the process flowing. Remember, the idea of uncovering past hurts is not to bring them into everyday life to use as an excuse or ruminate over. Instead, it’s to expose and process it and then let it go so that you can be free.
Inevitably some forgiveness of yourself and others will be necessary, but you can deal with that when you’re ready to release the events.
Past hurts can happen in very early childhood before active memory or any time afterward where the only way to cope with the trauma is to suppress it. There’s also a possibility that unresolved pain can be carried over from a past life.
What you need:
- two cleaned and charged amethyst crystals
- two long white candles
- frankincense incense
- a length of indigo cloth to use as a shawl
What you’ll do:
- Light the incense and candles.
- Draw the curtains or dim the lights.
- Sit in a comfortable chair and cast a circle of protection.
- Take slow deep breaths while holding the shawl in both hands.
- Focus on the texture and warmth of the cloth.
- Breathe its indigo color in until you feel relaxed.
- Gently drape it over your shoulders.
- Feel it embrace you as you would someone you want to comfort.
- Hold an amethyst in each hand (receiving in non-dominant; giving dominant).
- Activate your heart, throat, brow, and palm chakras.
- Feel the warmth of the amethysts in each palm.
- Focus on your brow and slowly drift into the world beyond.
- See the swirling indigo energy lift you up and away.
- Visualize yourself walking through a calm and serene place colored in indigo.
- Gently ask the you who got so hurt to come and meet you.
- Patiently wait until you’re aware of another presence.
- Reach out your arms and embrace your younger self; hold yourself close.
- If you’re a baby or small child, pick yourself up and comfort your tears.
- Ask yourself to tell you all about the fear, hurt, and pain.
- Listen with love and understanding rather than anger and defensiveness.
- Stay until the presence leaves, or you feel anxiety and fear building.
- Gradually bring yourself back.
- Before opening your eyes, channel all negative energy into the amethyst in your giving hand.
- Then channel healing energy from the amethyst in your receiving hand.
- Take comfort from the arms of the shawl around your shoulders.
Ensure that the candles are out before you leave the room, and immediately cleanse the crystals and shawl by running them through frankincense smoke.
Afterward, write about the experience in your journal. Did you recognize yourself? Do you have any recollection of what you spoke about? Was anyone else present, and did you recognize them?
These are the types of questions that will help you get to the heart of the matter.
Over time, the ritual should become easier and the story around the events clearer until you have the whole picture. Once you understand and accept what happened, you’ll be ready to forgive, let go, and start healing.
