Purple Haze

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.” -Alice Walker, The Color Purple

I never read the 1982 novel, The Color Purple by American author Alice Walker, though it won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. The violence toward women depicted in the story, I knew, would traumatize me. However, the premise of the title is dear to my heart.

The book’s main character, Celie, is a poor, black, 14-year-old girl living in Georgia in the early 1900s. In spite of (because of?) the horrific abuse she suffers, the color purple for her is a sign of mystery and wonder at God’s creative abilities. It symbolizes her own rebirth and renewal as a character, and the way she moves through the novel from brokenness to healing and wholeness.

For Celie, the concept of god evolves from the traditional male, patriarchal authority figure to the mystery that infuses all of life, particularly evidenced in the beauties of nature and the color purple.

Purple has long been associated with royalty and wealth probably because the dye was so difficult to obtain and expensive to produce.

^ The late, beloved Queen Elizabeth II of England

Originally, purple dye came from the mucus glands of a tropical sea snail known as the murex. The murex’s Latin name is purpura, which is where we get the word purple.

According to contemporary surveys in Europe and the United States, purple is the color most often associated with rarity, royalty, luxury, ambition, magic, mystery and spirituality.

“Purple Haze,” the iconic 1967 electric guitar rock hit by Jimi Hendrix, encapsulated the magic and mystery of psychedelics. Ranked number two in Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time, its meaning is often interpreted as referring to the drug-induced state of altered consciousness brought on by LSD or psilocybin mushrooms.

“Purple Haze all in my brain, lately things don’t seem the same.

Actin’ funny but I don’t know why. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”

– Jimi Hendrix

The other legendary song about the mystery and magic of this deep and intense color is “Purple Rain,” by the multi-talented American musician, Prince.

“Purple Rain” reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in November 1984. In France it reached number one a week after Prince’s death from an overdose of fentanyl in 2016. And it garnered the number one slot on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of All Time.

Prince explained the meaning of the song as follows: “When there’s blood in the sky... red and blue = purple. Purple rain pertains to the end of the world and being with the one you love and letting your faith/God guide you through the purple rain.”

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow

I never meant to cause you any pain

I only wanted one time to see you laughing in the purple rain

Purple rain, purple rain

I only want to see you

Laughing in the purple rain.”

On a side note, while living in Minneapolis in 2016, my daughter went to a party at Prince’s mansion just 3 months before his death. He was deejaying rather than playing but nonetheless it was a surreal experience for her.

She also told me that a purple door means a witch lives behind it. (Her front door is purple.)

“We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.”

-Annie Dillard

So I’m celebrating mystery today, the great unknowing that we inescapably come to grips with but which often eludes us in the rush and stress of daily life. Perhaps gazing at the color purple can transport us, however briefly, to the realms of mystery, magic, peace and love for some needed restoration and transformation.

“Purple is the hue worn by a baby witch or warlock. Pink and blue are for mortals.”

– Agnes Moorehead

“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”

-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

In China, purple represents the highest, holiest, and most sacred values.

It wouldn’t seem so but apparently purple is the color that occurs the least frequently in nature.

A purple patch is a period of exceptional success or good luck. (Bring it on!)

The British chocolate company, Cadbury, chose purple as it was Queen Victoria’s favorite color.

“Purple does something strange to me.” -Charles Bukowski

“The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.” – Ken Kesey

^Evidently, purple can also make you feel giddy.

Friends, for the record, I do not use AI for any part of my blog-writing process. Never have, never will. Not a fan.