Ampersand Gazette #25
Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …
“Say hello to Viva Magenta, the color no one asked for, coming to a world where no one lives.…
“On Thursday, Pantone announced its 2023 color of the year: Viva Magenta. A hue with a lust for life. … New York Times critic-at-large Jason Farago put it, ‘a saturated shade honking at the threshold of fuchsia, definitely not organic but not quite electric.’…
“Jeremy Allen: I’ve grudgingly got to hand it to A.I.: Magenta might be the only color for 2023, a year that’s going to be all about divided government, divided everything. It’s neither here nor there (‘pinkish-purplish-red’ is one of Wikipedia’s definitions, and it’s exactly between red and blue on the color wheel), but it’s screamingly in-your-face.…
“According to color scientists, magenta does not technically exist, which is a less positive sign. There’s no wavelength of light that corresponds to magenta. It is simply that place where blue fades into red.”
From the Style Section of The New York Times
“Pantone’s Color of the Year Was Made for the Metaverse”
December 3, 2022
And my 12.2.22 weekday Patreon entry …
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming because of the annual Color of the Year announcement by Pantone.
For 2023, the color the Institute has chosen is Viva Magenta. Excerpts from the announcement appear below in italics, and my comments appear after that.
Described as "a nuanced crimson tone" that balances warm and cool, Viva Magenta is "an unconventional shade for an unconventional time," Pantone said in a statement unveiling its pick.
"Brave and fearless, (Viva Magenta) is a pulsating color whose exuberance promotes optimism and joy," the statement added. "Powerful and empowering, it is an animated red that encourages experimentation and self-expression without restraint; an electrifying, boundaryless shade."
The company went on to describe the color as "audacious, witty and inclusive of all."
The Pantone Color Institute's choice … serves as something of a mood ring, with shades chosen to capture the zeitgeist.
Amid the ongoing pandemic, Viva Magenta represents reassurance, confidence and connection in a world trying to get back on its feet.
"We are living in quite the unconventional time. The only thing that has become conventional is the unconventionality of it. Rooted in the primordial, Viva Magenta reconnects us to original matter. Invoking the forces of nature, it galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength."
Well, I'm not so sure; um, let me start again. I definitively am sure that the emotional energies the Institute cites, namely, that Viva Magenta "represents reassurance, confidence and connection in a world trying to get back on its feet" belong in the category of wishful thinking.
If the Institute were chakra-informed—a tragically ancient, new concept I just now coined—they'd know this.
Toward the end of their announcement, the information gets a little more chakra-real. Let's take their phrases one at a time.
"Rooted in the primordial," um, yeah, the first chakra—all about survival, but not individual survival, group survival, be it family, clan, affinity group, club, troop, tribe, town, state, nation, planet.
"Viva Magenta reconnects us to original matter," uh-huh—all about our basic needs: food, clothing, water, air, shelter, warming/cooling. The "original" things that "matter" to us. Basic life issues.
Back to wish fulfillment here: "It galvanizes our spirit," oh yes, at least, we hope it does. The thing is, at a spirit level, we can all very easily see that we are the same. It's at the human level that we splinter and see only differences.
"Helping us to build our inner strength," well, yes, now, in the very last second, we get to the how. Building our inner strength. Restoring our rootedness to incarnation and rootedness to the planet.
I'm definitely with the Institute on their choice, but not (entirely) for their reasons. Truth?I think many, many, many Americans are feeling existentially threatened. Oh sure, we like to point fingers and say, it's this or it's that which threatens me, but most of those accusations are smoke and mirrors.
Our existence is threatened, Beloved. We've mal-used our planet. We've mal-used our wills. We've mal-used one another. We’ve mal-used ourselves.
What Viva Magenta says on a chakric level is: Come home. Get grounded. Return to what's important to you. Stop looking so hard outside yourself, and begin to look within—and then from a groundedness within, look outside to see how you can help.
Make some time this weekend to spend a few minutes gazing at the color. Consider how it makes you feel. See if you aren't more grounded, more connected to yourself, feeling stronger from within.
Such is the benevolent, eternal magic of color.
Further thoughts … two things stuck out to me especially from The New York Times fashion roundtable. First, it is the exact shade between blue and red on the color wheel. Second, what the color scientists noted: magenta does not technically exist; it is simply that place where blue fades into red.
On one level, the scientists are right. There is no wavelength of light for magenta, but … on another level, said the Libra, they’re wrong. There is definitely a pigment for magenta.
Follow my logic. Because there is no energetic (light) behind magenta, we are reduced to mere pigment—its manifestation. But those who know about manifestation know that energy must precede manifestation. It’s the law.
What is our task, then, with Viva Magenta? Like Indiana Jones, to build the bridge of light through faith so that there are energetics to support its manifestation. I’d say we have our spiritual work cut out for us, wouldn’t you?
&
“Finding pleasure in another person’s good fortune is what social scientists call ‘freudenfreude,’ a term (inspired by the German word for ‘joy’) that describes the bliss we feel when someone else succeeds, even if it doesn’t directly involve us. Freudenfreude is like social glue ……
To better understand freudenfreude, it can be helpful to demystify its better-known counterpart, schadenfreude: the pleasure we feel when witnessing someone’s misfortune.”
From a column by Juli Fraga in Mind in The New York Times
“The Opposite of Schadenfreude Is Freudenfreude. Here’s How to Cultivate It.”
November 29. 2022
Without putting too fine a point on it, let me say first that I think, generally speaking, that humans have become singularly bad at celebrating the good of others, no matter if they’re people we know or people from People Magazine. I think I know why, too. (We’ll get there.)
W.N.B.A. basketball player Brittney Griner was released from her ten-month imprisonment in Russia this week. I think we ought to rejoice for her and for her family. For the relief alone, not to mention the joy of having her home.
The Letters to the Editor in The New York Times were a whiney medley of white nationalism, political partisanship, and sour grapes. I was astonished.
The most amazing thing to me was the letter writers’ explanations for why. She’s just a celebrity. She’s Black. She’s only a sportswoman. She’s a lesbian. On and on it went.
How could this be? How could anyone not relate to a loved one held thousands of miles away in an unknown purgatory returning home?
Then I read more carefully. Most of the writers seemed to feel that others were more deserving. We’re all allowed our opinions, of course, but … why wasn’t there a collective sigh of relief in this country?
Honestly, I think it’s because some of us are determined not to be happy—for ourselves or anyone else, and, that a lot of times, that unhappiness has the flavor of … well, if this isn’t taken care of too, then why be happy about that?
I think that’s the equivalent of getting a new dishwasher and being mad that you don’t have a new dryer too. You didn’t buy a dryer, dear one, you bought a dishwasher.
These folks like to hold up other problems, other injustices, other issues as the reason we ought not to be glad for this one good thing. Okay, sure. Stuff’s wrong. I get it. But stuff’s right, too, and the more we focus on what’s wrong, the less things go right.
Read that last sentence again: The more we focus on what’s wrong, the less things go right.
That’s correct, Beloved. Focusing on what’s right does the world a world of good, and no, I’m not talking about positive thinking. Not at all. Nor am I talking about spiritual by-pass or denial or anything less than full engagement with manifest, 3D reality.
This is why gratitude practice is so effective—because we’re looking at what’s right, not what’s wrong.
The other thing this does, the right-not-wrong practice, is it keeps us out of comparison which is my theory about why we have such a hard time finding joy in the joy of others. Our entire educational system in the West is entrainment into comparison.
Oh, Josie got a new car, and I just have this old clunker. Uh, is it reliable? Does it take you where you need to be? Do/did you like it when you got it? What have you done with the gratitude channel? Tune into it.
Another thing that celebrating the good of others does is pull us, almost instantly, out of our own tendencies for narcissism. It’s not all about me. Ever. Really, ever, ever. There are others here. Others who deserve as much yummy goodness as you or I do.
Celebrating the good that befalls others hastens our own good already on its way to us. Stealing that joy from others delays our own good. Do the math, darling, and be glad for those whose gladness you get to witness.
&
And in the category of Nothing But Delight …
“A California girl has overcome one hurdle in her search for a magical creature: permission from Los Angeles County animal control officials to look after a unicorn in her backyard.
In a handwritten letter dated Nov. 14, the girl, identified only as Madeline, wrote to Los Angeles County and asked it to allow her to look after a unicorn at home, should she succeed in corralling one.
‘I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard if I can find one,’ Madeline, 6, wrote. ‘Please send me a letter in response.’
On Nov. 30, Marcia Mayeda, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, wrote back. Ms. Mayeda said she had approved a unicorn license for Madeline and listed the county’s five conditions for unicorn licensing.
Unicorn owners must feed their unicorn watermelon, ‘one of its favorite treats,’ once a week, she said, and polish the unicorn’s horn ‘at least once a month with a soft cloth.’
In addition to the dietary and grooming requirements, the unicorn must have ‘regular access to sunlight, moonbeams and rainbows.’
‘Any sparkles or glitter used on the unicorn must be nontoxic and biodegradable to ensure the unicorn’s good health,’ she said.”
The Department sent her a heart-shaped tag for her unicorn, and a stuffed unicorn to look after until she finds her own.
from an article in The New York Times
“Yes, Madeline, You Can Have a Unicorn, L.A. County Tells Girl”
December 11, 2022
It made for light hearts in Animal Control. They posted it on Instagram and Facebook (and yes, you schadenfreudens, they redacted her last name.) They also made a little girl extremely happy.
Yes, Virginia, you too can have a unicorn, to meld a Christmas metaphor into the works.
And so can you, Beloved.
Unicorn comes from Latin roots: uni- = single + cornu = horn. Does cornu ring any bells for you? It should. It’s the root of the word cornucopia, what we’ve come to call the horn of plenty.
Virginia and Madeline aren’t the only ones with access to a unicorn, your own version of whatever you consider plenty. You have it, too.
Sure, it takes creativity, which you have in spades; imagination, check, got that in abundance; courage, gulp, uh-huh, done; and small, deliberate daily actions, scary sometimes, but oh well, to take you to finding your own unicorn (with a license) to care for in your very own backyard.
All that, all that, sweet one, comes with being human.
Now add what’s right, not what’s wrong, and a huge dollop of gratitude. I’m betting your unicorn rings the doorbell.
&
And in publishing news …
Lots of goodies … more and more podcasts, check iAmpersand.org
If you can’t get it to come up, wait a bit. The whole site is under reconstruction to reflect my chakra work. My web wizard is working as fast as she can. Very exciting. Please be sure to check it out when you can.
Don’t forget the Energy Integrity Workbooks are on Amazon, or if you’re outside the US or the UK, soon you’ll be able to get them as PDFs in The Emporium on iAmpersand. I’m so grateful to Lauren Grace of The Afterlight Podcast for letting me know they couldn’t be ordered outside those two territories!
And … I’m excited to announce the …
Also available on the Emporium, this is a test to determine chakras whose blessings you’ve mastered, and chakras whose blessings are still a mystery. This quiz shows you which are which. The personalized report is written specifically by me for each person. A gift that keeps on giving …
And, of course, all, all, all my fiction:
Wishing you and yours a freudenfreude-filled holy-days—go gently, slow things down, savor what you love, do what it takes and not more, and have yourself a happy, merry, bright.
The next Ampersand Gazette is due Christmas Day. I might do one and I might skip it, and I’m not going to decide until then.
Take good care of yourself, as always, and be ampersand,
S.