Zealous Blue is like an azure blue sky, or a vibrant blue lake, with a touch of turquoise added to it. I woke up thinking about this colour this morning and its ‘old’ meanings. Before Zealous Blue became the colour it is today, it had meanings that I haven’t discussed in any of my Zealous Blue colour writing so far. When my colours evolve, I don’t discard old meanings, but they do tend to get a little rusty from under-use while I’m exploring and mastering a new angle. It’s really good for me to review past meanings from time to time so that I don’t forget them.
The original meaning for this colour was based on information provided by Australian aura reader Judith Collins. While I never met Judith in person, I do think of her as my main physical teacher, when it comes to aura colours (most of my colour teachers are spirit guides!).
I can’t remember Judith’s exact wording, but it had something to do with people rising above their birth-station and getting ahead, by applying themselves in a driven, obsessive manner. The terminology ‘birth-station’ might seem a bit old fashioned, but I have found this concept quite useful and will give you some examples.
When it comes to Zealous Blue, I define ‘birth-station’ as the family attitudes and circumstances you were born into. People rise above their birth-station when they shatter limiting expectations they or others might about ‘how they will end up’ or ‘who they will be’, on the basis of their background. This background might include family values, finances, education, behaviours and genetics.
I’ll give you an example. A few years ago I was counselling a young woman who was alienated from her family. The reason for the alienation, as she saw it, was because she had dared to seek an education and what she considered a better quality of life for herself. She wanted to learn and she wanted to earn. The rest of her family were unemployed and uneducated, but they were proud of who they were and accused this young lady of being a snob. “You think you’re better than us!”
The reality of the situation was probably far more complex than this, but it’s a good example of Zealous Blue in action, in more ways than one. The young lady was focussing obsessively on study and work, because this is what she needed to do to realise her dreams and be true to her values. Was her alienation from her family caused in part by neglect on her behalf? People going through Zealous Blue phases need to be careful their relationships with people don’t become the unwitting victims of their passion to forge ahead. Relationships need time and love put into them if they are to flourish.
Then we have the ever-present issue of judgement that is so often an issue for people exploring the blue colour stream.
For me, the universe is filled with streams of colour that we all wade through, in some way, shape or form, in our journey through life. Each colour holds lessons. These lessons help us understand and master each stream, so we can tap into it and channel it through our lives in a healthy, balanced way. To find this balance, we need to explore all aspects of a colour, one at a time, often moving back and forth between unbalanced extremes. One of the major challenges we face while exploring the blue stream, is “How do I have an opinion, a voice and values, without being judgmental and holier-than-thou towards others? How do I honour and speak up for my own perspectives while honouring everyone else’s right to do the same? How can I do what’s right for me, without making other people wrong?”
Answer these questions and embody the answers in the way you live your life, and you will have mastered a major current in the universal stream of blue.
In the story I have told you about this young lady, let’s call her Ella, there were a lot of Zealous Blue opinions flying around. It’s entirely possible Ella really did come from a family that felt threatened by her desire to improve herself. Some families have strong rules about not standing out and not drawing attention to yourself. These rules can have many sources, but some examples might include pride about inherited family values, or unresolved family wounds to do with fear or failure and/or abandonment.
Ella’s family might have been trying to protect her from the hurt of failure. These sorts of fears can be particularly strong when we don’t believe in ourselves. A family carrying this kind of wound will tend to discourage its members from striving to get ahead because it has a psychic wound in the form of an unresolved memory of painful failure, probably associated with humiliation. Instead of continuing to try, we protect ourselves from further pain by not trying and then we erect all kinds of smoke-screen reasons to cover up the fact that we are afraid.
‘Don’t stand out’ rules can also be associated with cultural values where group harmony, loyalty and honour are far more important than the individual. In these cultures, you are part of a group, and the group moves forwards (or stays put!) together as one. This is an excellent brown base chakra survival mechanism, based on co-operation. There can be greater protection and more possibilities available to us when we pool our resources and work together as a team.
The downside to being part of a group is that you have to adhere to group rules in order to belong and you have to sacrifice some of your individuality for the sake of group harmony and well-being. These are the issues we face with when exploring Family Blue, a close relative of Zealous Blue, and another part of the Blue Stream. With Family Blue moving through our aura, we might be struggling to reconcile our personal needs and desires with the needs and desires of other family members. Zealous Blue might be a different blue frequency, but it still explores the same issues, albeit with a little more intensity and extremism!
With Zealous Blue moving through her aura, Ella is being stirred to strive and reach and out-grow her current circumstances. To reach the goals she has, she needs to make choices very different to the choices her other family members have made. For this kind of motivation to drive us, we often need to feel a great passion for our goals and a distaste for staying where we are and who we are. For this distaste to be strong enough to propel us out of our comfort zone, we almost need to reject a part of our selves. As we shed our old skin, we tend to pull away from anything associated with that old self: not just behaviours and values, but even people and places. It can be difficult, for example, to give up drinking if you continue to go to the pub and spend time with your drinking friends. What bound you to this group is now something you are rejecting, and in rejecting it, your friends can feel as though you are rejecting (and judging) them. This might be how Ella’s family felt when she decided she wanted to study and earn.
In letting go of one family or group, we might not necessarily strike out on our own completely. Most of the time, Zealous Blue moves us from one group to another. The new group embodies the new values and aspirations we are hoping to embody ourselves. By immersing ourselves in this new group environment, we can wash the old way of being away from us and soak up the new, almost learning by osmosis. Ella was surrounding herself with other students and people with a strong work ethic, because these people shared her values. With these people, she truly felt she belonged, and could be understood. She respected them, perhaps in a way she might not have respected herself if she stayed where and how she was…. and perhaps in a way she doesn’t respect her own family. Her family, feeling this lack of respect, push back with a judgement “you think you’re better than us” (ie you are a snob, and we don’t respect you for that). This mutual rejection pushes her further away from the family and closer towards a new family of friends and associates who are more on her wavelength.
Some families celebrate us when we rise about our birth-right. They are happy for us and they encourage us. In these situations, the bond between the family we are moving away from stays strong. We attain individuality and we live according to our personal values rather than our inherited family values, but we bring our family with us in a way. This can be such a beautiful way to grow: our family grows with us and instead of rejecting and leaving parts of ourselves behind, we build on what we have and who we are.
I can think of an example from my own childhood. I didn’t grow up in a musical family. I grew up in a visual arts, science, environment, and written word family. There were small influences or suggestions of music around me, but I certainly was not immersed in a musical performance kind of world. My mother spent a little time learning the violin as an adult in the privacy of her bedroom, my grandfather sang in a choir as a young man, my great uncle encouraged me to play the recorder in my childhood, and my step-father would sporadically play and sing with his guitar. I recently found out my aunt might have pursued music if she had been given more opportunities as a child, but it didn’t work out for her.
My passion for music suddenly popped up out of nowhere when I was 14 years old when an amazing music teacher came to our school and infected all of us with her passion for music. I became happily obsessed. I stopped playing women’s soccer and started going to choir practise, singing lessons and band practise. When year eleven came around I decided to enrol in music, even though I had almost no understanding of music theory and had to study four years of music theory in one year to catch up. This is a Zealous Blue kind of behaviour: immerse yourself in a new world, be obsessive (live, eat and breathe your passion) and push yourself far beyond what is expected of you.
I did very well with music in my teens and could possibly have pursued further study and a career in this area, but I didn’t. This particular stream of Zealous Blue energy leap-frogged down the line to my little sister who grew up watching me perform on stage. She was immersed in a world I never had exposure to in my own childhood and she caught the bug young. Zealous Blue was the wind beneath my sister’s wings, driving her to study and build a career in the music industry. My daughter, in turn, grew up immersed in the fun and sparkle of watching my sister perform on stage and has been infected with the performance bug, with a love for singing, dance and drama.
I rose above my ‘birth station’ when it came to music, embracing music with a fierce passion and obsessiveness that was not role-modelled for me by anyone else in my family. My sister took this further by picking up where I left off and turning this passion into a career path. In effect, my family grew with me and my sister broke the family mould, proving that you can turn a music passion into a full time career. This becomes a model now for future generations; a possibility that is available to them because it has been chiselled into our family history and identity. The ‘music birth-station’ of our family has evolved.