Purple Horseshoes (A World of Color, Day Seven)

Note: This is part 7 in a series of posts titled A World of Color. You can read the previous posts here: Introduction, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue.



Purple is an interesting color. It can be mysterious or royal, spiritual or sexy. Personally, it was one of the great, momentous events of my childhood when in 1984, purple horseshoes were added to Lucky Charms, my favorite breakfast cereal at the time (previously blue diamonds had been added to the original 4 marshmallow shapes, but that was slightly before I was born in 1975, so the horseshoe addition was pretty exciting for a 9-year-old).

Purple is an interesting mixture of one of the warmest colors (red: fire, passion) and one of the coolest colors (blue: ice, calm). Thus it can take properties of both colors. Purple can stimulate a child's imagination (one survey says 75% of pre-adolescent children say purple is their favorite color), but too much purple can cause moodiness or frustration.

Purple is long-associated with royalty and status, because in ancient times the dyes needed to produce purple cloth were particularly expensive. In the Bible, a lady named Lydia was once described as a "seller of purple." That was all the explanation needed in that day to indicate that she was a successful businesswoman.

Purple is a color of mystery. It is associated with death in Thailand, as the color of mourning for widows there. It appears often in stories of fantasy and magic. It relates to spirituality in many cases.

Drawing on its kinship to blue, purple (particularly lighter shades such as lavender) is believed to have a calming effect that is particularly effective against migraines.



Finally, purple (like orange) is a very difficult word to rhyme.

So grab a glass of wine and an eggplant sandwich, and check out these guys....