The Meaning of Yellow – the Colour of the Golden Sun

Yellow is the colour of light and the golden sun. The word is used to describe many things from sunshine to jaundice, and is one of the oldest colour words used in the English language (after white, black and red). It has its roots in proto-Indo-European language (which is the root of Afghan, Persian, Greek and English among others), although there is no written evidence for its existence. The original word for yellow in this language has been determined to be ghelwo, which entered proto-Germanic as gelwaz and then came into Old English and other more modern languages. It has the same Proto-Indo-European base, -ghel as the word yell; -ghel means bright and gleaming, as well as to cry out. Yellow is a color which cries out for attention. The oldest written use of the Anglo-Saxon word (geolu or geolwe) is in the epic poem Beowulf, in reference to a shield carved from yew wood.

Yellow was one of the first colours used in prehistoric cave art, such as at Lascaux’s image of a horse coloured with yellow ochre pigment made from clay (estimated to be 17,300 years old). Yellow was associated with gold by the ancient Egyptians, and was considered imperishable, eternal and indestructible (the skin and bones of the gods were believed to be made of gold). Yellow was used extensively in tomb paintings (either yellow ochre or the brilliant orpiment, though it was made of arsenic and was highly toxic) and small paintbox containing the paint was found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. It also stood for female energies, for the gentle and sensual. The ancient Romans used it in their paintings to represent gold or skin and it is seen frequently in the Pompeii murals.

turmeric powder

Yellow has been shown to stimulate mental processes and the nervous system, activate memory and encourage communication. It has meanings associated with joy, force, vitality, energy, warmth (yellow lamps are more natural and feel warmer than white ones), brightness (as the color of sunlight, yellow is aften associated to knowledge and wisdom, and in the medieval world yellow was the colour of reason, as opposed to passion [red] and the spiritual [blue]), freedom, personal power, control, fire and the eyes. Yellow is also the colour of the solar plexus chakra, which is linked to fire. It symbolizes a new day, life, rebirth, awakening, rising and new beginnings - a new udaya. A new sun is beginning to rise within you. The colour of the rising sun has the unique and unmistakable glow of shining saffron-yellow or yellow-orange (the color is not actually saffron, it is ochre). The name alone, which comes from the arabic za’farãn, marks the characteristic color of the noble spice and bears the meaning “being yellow”. In Greek mythology, Eos is cognate to Vedic Sanskrit Ushas and Latin Aurora (Old Latin Ausosa), both goddesses of dawn, and all three considered derivatives of a PIE stem h₂ewsṓs (later Ausṓs), "dawn", a stem that also gave rise to Proto-Germanic Austrō, Old Germanic Ōstara and Old English Ēostre/Ēastre, and this agreement leads to the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess. Eos, a Titaness and the goddess of the dawn, who rises each morning from her home at the edge of the Oceanus and hastens from the streams to open the gates of heaven for the Sun to rise, and thus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, is described by Homer in the Iliad as a beautiful woman with golden arms (krokopakhos) and rosy fingers wearing her saffron-coloured robe (krokopeplos) embroidered with crimson flowers. Ovid tells of Her in his Metamorphoses that she may bring the light of day in her chariot which she rides into the sky ahead of the Sun. She has a purple mantle that spreads out behind her as she rides, and she scatters flowers before her. The Vedic dawn goddess whose name the Sanskrit cognomen of Eos is the saffron-robed Ushas. What we're looking at is saffron (krokos) as a signifier of female sexuality in the ancient world. Athenian girls between the ages of about 7 and 12 were required to participate in a festival at Brauron, the Arkteia, referenced by Aristophanes in Lysistrata. For this, they were dressed in the krokotis, a saffron gown intended to make them look like ruddy little bears. The point of playing the bear for Artemis and stripping from the saffron-bear clothes was symbolically to come of age, to be transformed from being an untamed little wild girl and single into a woman and wife/mother material. And in a rite going back almost a thousand years before the Ancient Greeks, the sky father and the nature mother lay down by a river, and a bed of saffron crocuses sprang from the earth beneath them.

saffron stories

In the acrylic paint world the brilliant orange-gold-yellow color of saffron the spice is known as Indian Yellow – which could also be thought of as Native American, or Aztec/Mayan (K'ank'in) – with reference to East Indian, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the saffron or yellow-ochre robes (the robes may not be dyed with costly saffron, but cheaper turmeric or ochre), the special magic of this color, its sacred quality. At a Roman wedding, the bride would wear a saffron colored veil on top of her clothing, indicating the eternalness of the wedding vows – a tradition, which was adapted in a large number of cultures. The enormous symbolism of the gold-red saffron palette reaches across Eurasia and back into the deep history of its people from India to Ireland.

Shades of Saffron by artist Lil McGill

redware pottery - Rare glazed red earthenware brown pitcher with yellow and green splashes. Together with an olive-green handled jug with rust and yellow spots.

warm earthy colors

Shades of Saffron strikingly look like the warm earthy ochre colors of redware pottery. In the Buddhist tradition yellow is the color of the Muladhara chakra. The most basic chakra in the body is Muladhara. Muladhara is stabilization, not realization. It is the journey work of growing stable, rather than flying off into a blissful experience, of shaking the world as a magnetic force when awakened. Yellow indicates the Earth element, representing the beginning of new life. Muladhara chakra symbol is a yellow square bearing the mantra LAM as its sacred seed, one that crawls forward and eventually sprouts, re-emerges. 

Seed by Mara Berendt Friedman

Rain Steam and Speed: the Great Western Railway by J.M.W. Turner

Georges Seurat was later fond of yellow as, most famously, was Vincent Van Gogh who loved the sunshine, as he wrote to his sister, “Now we are having beautiful warm, windless weather that is very beneficial to me. The sun, a light that for lack of a better word I can only call yellow, bright sulphur yellow, pale lemon gold. How beautiful yellow is!”

The pressures of living in an imperfect world cause cracks in us all; but the good we do for others and put out into the world is the gold that repairs us and makes us beautiful. Some people are broken more than once; some cracks are more difficult to repair; and some people can be shattered completely, seemingly beyond repair. But everything that can be broken can also be restored. It may take greater effort, a longer time, and a deeper commitment to repair - but it is possible, especially when you realize there are only two responses to having been shattered completely: to choose to remain broken and useless; or to choose to rebuild yourself into something greater, and become entirely golden. No one ever chooses to be broken. But everyone can choose whether or not to stay that way.