Purple, violet, mauve, lavender … these different hues of a single wavelength of colour define my life, and have done since I was a child of 5 choosing a piece of violet silk for my Gran to make a dolls dress from, for me. You only have to look at my interior décor, my garden, my clothes, my business website (Lavender Fields Therapies) and business cards to understand this. It is a spiritual colour – the colour of transformation and inspiration: and also within that definition lies my salvation – hope.

Memories of Violet

A whirling galaxy,

Nebulous gas particle clouds,

Dancing their indecipherable ballet around

An empty, careless, spinning universe

 

A late evening sky,

With silver lights pinpricking

The transparent liquidity of

The vast heavenly arc.

 

Soaring mountains reduced to shadows

Shift, and etch a crazy pattern

Of crags, rocky outcrops and forest edges

As earth slowely waltzes into the morning light.

 

The great Blue Whale, effortlessly

Leaps and arches into the light.

Then eases its great bulk

Between the waves of a purple washed ocean.

 

His leviathan tail rises up to salute the setting sun,

Which flings its last, defiant rays

Flaming, around the bowed horizon,

Painting two mighty elements, with amethyst hue.

 

A shining drapiness of fine silk

Moulds to the youthful curves

Of a teenage girl body

On the night of her initiation into adulthood

 

Sublime aromas of herbs

Fill the summer air, mingling with subtle

Scents of flowers that tumble riotously

In every shade of seventh heaven.

       

 

Blackcurrant jam sandwiches

Drip their tart purpleness

Down her child’s sticky chin,

Whilst she sips lavender lemonade

 

And that same lavender loveliness

Anoints crisp white sheets,

Blessing her disappearing dreams

Of dancing amidst those spinning constellations

 

Old woman, her time here softly waning

Paints her life in all its violet shades and hues:

The colour of her memories

The colour of her true loves eyes.