Katie Rempe: Welcome to this week's episode of Knit a Spell.
Jim has the week off and so today I'm going solo as we unravel the mysteries of the color blue.
Why is it the rarest color in nature? What's the history of blue and what magical correspondences are associated with it? Keep listening to find out.
Light From Lantern presents: Knit A Spell.
I'm magical maker: Katie Rempe.
And I'm the maker of magic: James Divine.
Join us as we stitch together the symbiotic relationship between crafting and 'The Craft'.
Katie Rempe: Welcome back.
To explore why blue is so rare in nature, we first have to look at the science of color.
Colors, as we perceive them,
are created by the absorption and reflection of light.
When an object appears blue, it's because it absorbs all of the other color wavelengths, except for blue.
And that is what's being reflected back into our eyes.
But nature has its own way of making colors, and blue isn't always so easy to come by.
For example, did you know blue butterflies, blueberries, aren't actually blue? It's a captivating deception.
But first.
Let's begin our exploration by looking at some of the magical correspondences of the color blue.
Throughout history,
blue has held a special place in the human imagination and spirituality.
In various cultures, blue has been intertwined with the mystical and the divine.
In Egypt, blue symbolized the heavens and was closely associated with the god Amun.
This celestial hue adorned religious arts.
And found its way into the revered blue lotus flower.
In Hinduism, blue is closely related with the God Krishna. Renowned for his divine love and compassion.
You'll find blue in chakras as well. It's often linked to the throat chakra. Responsible for communication, expression, and truth.
It's believed you can bring balance into this vital energy center by wearing blue or meditating on blue.
In the world of crystals and gemstones, blue stones like sapphires and lapis lazuli have been used for their metaphysical qualities.
Sapphires are said to bring wisdom and protection, lazuli is said to bring heightened spiritual awareness. Plus, lapis lazuli was originally crushed up to make one of the first blue paint. It's very expensive.
Across cultures, blue is often seen as a protective color used for talismans and amulets.
One such symbol is the evil eye, which has been used for thousands of years across the globe as a way to ward off evil or envy in this case.
It's interesting that this would be essentially a blue eye because Blue eyes don't actually exist. Can you see this running theme?
We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk all about this rare color in nature, and just how it's appearing without any pigment.
Katie's Workshop
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James Divine: Katie. I got this email about a knit with color magic workshop.
Katie Rempe: That's right. I now offer a brand new workshop on my website. 100% self-paced. All about learning how to knit using color magic, cuz you already knit using colors, but why not be a little bit more aware of how they make you react, how you could use them to help other people express different emotions and feelings.
And more importantly, the ability to be more aware of how colors affect you and how you can use them to help make your knitting projects even more impactful.
James Divine: Even me colorblind Jim, and I'm in there in the comments.
Katie Rempe: That's right. Jim has taken the course and Jim has helped me actually with feedback in the bonus colorblindness section, so why don't you go ahead and learn more by visiting light from lantern.com, and if you have any questions, you can always just drop me an email at hello light from lantern.com. Hope to see you there.
Book a Reading with Jim!
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Katie Rempe: Hey, Jim, I feel like you've been doing a lot of readings lately.
James Divine: This is the time of year when people get their palm read. Especially this autumn time seems like it's time for my annual palm reading time for me to understand what's going on .
Divination really picks up so kids are back in school, everyone wants their palm read. So time to book a reading.
Katie Rempe: End the second half of the year strong with reading from Jim. Where do they go to find more information?
James Divine: You know, it's funny. You would go to my website, oh, the Divine Hand, I know, amazing the divine hand.com, and right there on the front page is book a reading.
So I hope you, take this opportunity and check it out for yourself.
Katie Rempe: Welcome back. let's circle back about people with blue eyes not actually having blue eyes.
Eye color depends on the iris. And the iris is made up of two layers. The layer with the pigment is the front layer called the storma. And for people with blue eyes, they have no pigment in this layer. And this causes the fibers to scatter and absorb some of the longer light waves of light that come in.
Thus, more blue light gets back out and the eyes appear to be blue.
Similarly, the sky is not blue and in many cultures, it's white. And this makes sense based on what we just learned about the eyes, because. Sunlight reaches the Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered more than any of the other colors because it travels in shorter, smaller waves.
And that's why we see a blue sky most of the time.
So if the sky isn't blue and eyes aren't blue, then certainly blueberries and those blue butterflies were actually blue. Right? But wait, what about that teaser I made in the front? Well, it turns out things like blueberries contain pigments called Oof, okay, bear with me people. You know I'm really bad at pronouncing things.
I usually make Jim do these parts. Blueberries contain pigments called
okay, I just had to look up how to say it. Blueberries contain anthocyanins.
That was a big one. Which are responsible for their, uh oh, dark purple color. It's not blue at all!
These pigments absorb specific wavelengths of light, including red, orange, and yellow, while reflecting blue and purple wavelengths back to our eyes.
In fact, blue fruit does not exist on planet Earth!
And how about those blue butterflies? Well, it turns out that viewed under a microscope, a blue morphos butterfly wings are made up of diamond shaped scales.
Katie Rempe: Their formation reflects the light in such a way that they appear to be a brilliant blue. And this type of visual illusion is known as iridescence.
And so while there are a small selection of plants that can provide you with a blue dye because of those anthocyanins.
Very few animals have the ability to make blue pigments.
And so the next time you see something blue, ask yourself, is it really blue or is it just because of the presence of an anthocyanin or because of the Riley effect, the scattering of light that makes the sky blue.
Oh, blue Jays. Not so fast. They use that same Riley based technology to reflect it back to us.
But don't worry, not everything that's blue is an illusion.
Blue is such a mysterious color and that's what makes it so great for a multitude of magical purposes. Whether you're equating it with the obvious water connection to make it flowing and healing, or you're going with maybe the more occult, mysterious qualities, the reflecting qualities, the illusionary qualities almost that come to mind when we think of how it appears in nature and how could we encompass that in our magic and our making.
I know I certainly have some new ideas, and I hope you do too.
While blue is indeed a rarity in the natural world, our attraction to it remains undeniable.
Whether it's appearing in nature or through human design. I find blue to be an embodiment of boldness, uniqueness, and daring because of it.
But the scarcity of blue didn't just shape our perception on the color.
It also impacted our languages and cultures.
The word blue was a latecomer to many languages. A testament to its rarity.
Blue dye as we know it wasn't even introduced until a mere 6, 000 years ago.
It's scarcity endowed it with an air of prestige.
Which is why it's often associated with purity or the divine.
Eminent artists like Van Gogh also embraced blue's profound influence in their works.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed me on this solo take on the color blue.
If you found this episode spellbinding and you're looking for more, Please subscribe to the Light From Lantern YouTube channel, where every episode of Knit a Spell is hosted.
That's where you can also share your thoughts in the comments.
Is blue your favorite color? How do you use it in your magic and making? We want to hear from you.
To learn more about the color blue, go ahead and check out the episode Jim and I did on the magic of primaries.
We talk about blue, red, and yellow all in one episode.
I'll post the link right here on the screen if you're watching us on YouTube, or in the description below if you're listening.
Finally, just a reminder that we are back on Patreon! You can now find us on patreon.com/knitaspell Or just search for Knit a Spell, and we'll come right up.
You can support the show for 5 a month and gain access to our behind the scenes posts, episode outtakes, and all sorts of fun stuff. Plus, once you're a subscriber for three consecutive months, you'll get a free Knit a Spell sticker sent right to your door.
That'll do it for this week. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.
Outtro 2022: Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a friend, leaving a review on iTunes and Spotify or following Knit A Spell on Instagram.
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See you next week. Next week.
