Pantheon of Colors: Brown
Colors and Astrology, the Earth, and the Tens of the Minor Arcana
A Rainbow of Energies
“What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.”
― Joseph Campbell
The gods have been personified in many ways by the various cultures of the world. Some know these same powers as “archangels” or “planetary spirits”. In Western astrology, we associate them with the planets and call them by the names of Roman gods. But what they are essentially is invisible energies — energies that do things, each with its own frequency and its own type of influence. The most universal and meaningful associations with these life powers that I know of is their correspondences with colors.
"Colors express the main psychic functions of man." ~ Carl Jung
Colors and Astrology
The above illustration shows how the colors fit into astrology. The model is the traditional RYB color wheel used for paint and design. This is the kind of diagram that can yield almost endless insight with continual contemplation over time.
The Circle around the perimeter represents Time. There we see the qualities of Time in colors associated with the 12 signs of the Zodiac.
The hexagon within the Circle represents the life energies from which half of the signs derive their qualities, in terms of color and planet.
The Center of the Circle represents the ultimate Source of All Things in absolute Timelessness. It belongs to no point in Time more or less than any other. The Center’s absoluteness makes White (all of the colors combined) and Black (no color at all) its equivalents in terms of color. They are extreme opposites, yet they are one, like the two sides of a single coin. As planets, these energies are Pluto and Neptune respectively.
The Primary Colors = Fire
The triangle around the Center represents the 3 Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue, which are fundamental and cannot be created by mixing other colors together. As the spectrum colors ‘closest’ to White, they correspond to the spontaneous motivational impulses of the Fire element, or intuition. If Fire were a section of an orchestra, it would be the brass.
As planets, the Primaries are Mars, the Sun, and Jupiter. The points of the triangle indicate each planet’s rulership (reflected qualities) of the 3 Fire signs in the Zodiac, which share their colors.
The Secondary Colors = Air
A hexagon is formed with the addition of the 3 Secondary Colors, which are blends (‘offspring’) of the Primaries: Orange, Green, and Purple. They correspond to the mental functions of the Air element, or thinking. If Air were a section of an orchestra, it would be the woodwinds.
As planets, the Secondaries are Mercury, Venus, and Uranus. Their points indicate their rulerships of the 3 Air signs in the Zodiac, which share their colors.
In the Zodiac, every other sign is either a Fire sign or an Air sign, sharing the Primary or Secondary Color of its ruling planet, and reflecting its qualities. These 6 signs are the “positive” or “masculine” signs.
The Tertiary Colors = Water & Earth
"Since psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world, and moreover are in continuous contact with one another and ultimately rest on irrepresentable, transcendental factors, it is not only possible but fairly probable, even, that psyche and matter are two different aspects of the same thing." — Carl Jung
The 6 signs in between the masculine ones are the Water (psyche; nonphysical form & feeling) and Earth (matter; physical object & sensation) signs. Theirs are the 6 Tertiary Colors, each a blend of its adjacent neighbors (as though joining with them to form a Circle). If Water were a section of an orchestra, it would be the strings. If Earth were a section of an orchestra, it would be the percussion.
These 6 in-between signs are “negative” or “feminine”, because in them the formless masculine planetary energies take form. Here the term “negative” doesn’t mean inherently “bad”, but refers simply to the impermanent nature of forms.
Forms serve purposes and are neither bad nor good in themselves. But as solid and permanent as many forms seem to be, ultimately none of them really is. Eventually we outgrow, consume, or abandon them, and they dissolve or morph into something else. We can have bad experiences with the feminine signs if we overvalue forms in the mistaken belief that they won’t ever change. Good comes from those bad experiences when we learn from them and get our perspectives better centered.
4 of the feminine signs are ruled by planets in the hexagon whose colors don’t match them, apparently connected with them through their orbit patterns (a different diagram) rather than through color. The other 2 feminine signs are ruled by planets not part of the inner hexagon at all: Saturn and the Moon.
Life ‘Breathes’ Out and In
Life ‘descends’ from the Source into physical manifestation from the Center out, like a blooming flower. Then, as it develops awareness, it ‘ascends’ back to the Central Source.
As human spirits traveling through Time in physical bodies, each of us is continuously developing awareness of all the life energies within. But how can our awareness take us back to the mysterious, ineffable Source?
The color model shows us that we are naturally aligned with the Source when we express all of the ‘colors’ within us clearly and in balance. In the orchestra model, the ‘conductor’ is the Source, and we’re aligned with the ‘Conductor’ when we’re ‘playing all of our instruments’ well and in harmony.
In this series, we’ll take a close look at the planet that rules the sign of the month. We’ll observe its associated color, its legitimate influence in life, and symptoms typically experienced when it’s somehow out of balance. We’ll also see an expression of its basic influence in music and in tarot, as cards of the minor arcana.
Brown
The color Brown in the RYB model is not any of the colors on the color wheel, but is an equal mix of all 3 Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue.
Like green, the color brown is closely associated with nature and health, but it feels more solid and dependable than green.
Brown is the color of earth, of actual ground, under our feet and under everything, not only in the warm seasons of fertility and growth, but in the cold and barren months too, in every season, all year round. It’s always there, and it gives us a comforting feeling of being stable and grounded.
Simplicity and humility are also associated with brown earth, which in nature serves as a dark, quiet foundation or background for the brighter colors of the life that the earth supports.
As earth is the precious basic material without which we could have no bodies or anything else physical in our world, the color brown is also associated with money, wealth, and financial success.
The richer the brown color, the healthier and wealthier its meaning.
The Earth
The planet Earth is neither placed among the other planets in an astrological chart nor considered to be the ruler of any Zodiac sign (not even any of the Earth signs, although all 3 of them represent expressions of it). The Earth receives and manifests the influences of all the other planets as end products. It’s where we stand as we observe the astrology, and our location on it is the spot to which all the astrology we calculate is oriented.
The contribution of the Earth to an astrological chart is the 12 house cusps that define the houses, or “departments of life”, where the astrology manifests repeatedly for each of us according to the exact time and location of our birth.
The house cusps are stable and fixed at the location in question; from that perspective, as the Earth rotates, the planets in the background ‘move’ with time through all the houses, changing houses about every two hours. The house placements of the planets at the moment of our birth are the lifelong planetary influences that appear on our personal natal chart. The example below illustrates approximately the alignments of the signs with the houses for a birth (or other significant event) in the Eastern US when Aries is rising (in the 1st house). At another time on the same day, a different sign would be rising and all the other signs would be aligned with the houses accordingly.
The Earth is where we begin our journey through our particular lifetime, and our field of action for the duration. It’s a journey through time that we know is cyclical, but our immediate experience of it is an apparently linear sequence of events. We are in time, in physical bodies, in a material world. Our first clue to the cycles is our physical experience of the repetitive changes through the 4 seasons.
As described above, the color Brown in the RYB model is not any of the colors on the color wheel, but is an equal mix of all 3 Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue. The Primaries are the “first” colors, derived from the White at the Timeless Center of the wheel. That being the case, why do we not get White when we recombine them?
In terms of the symbolism, IMO it’s because from the perspective of Earth we are not seeing life from the Timeless Center, but from somewhere on the Circle of Time. We’re not getting the pure and total Truth that White symbolizes, but rather a version of truth ‘crystallized’ in matter at a particular point in time on Earth, as Brown.
Truth about our current conditions in time is in our concrete world, its meaning reflected in metaphors. At that level, initially we interpret it literally, blind to its meaning. Through many cycles in and out of physical experience, the ‘mud’ that preserves our bodies is gradually ‘washed’ out of our minds, so that our perception becomes progressively more clarified, purified, or ‘Whiter’.
This calm music by Fáerhin expresses the stability and grounding of the Earth.
Earth Mother
Tarot and the Planets
In tarot, the planets have their correspondences in the cards of the Minor Arcana. Each of the 10 numbers corresponds to a planet. There are 4 cards to a number, one for each of the 4 elements:
Wands = Fire
Swords = Air
Cups = Water
Pentacles = Earth
I’ll give you descriptions of the cards in my deck, along with the interpretations I generally use for them in divination (adapted to context as needed). If you read tarot, the meanings you use may be different from mine, which is fine.
The Tens of the Minor Arcana
The tarot Tens are the Earth cards, and they all represent established conditions. A Ten shows either the ending of a process, or the way a situation already was when one arrives on the scene.
Reversed, a Ten indicates the opposite or reversal of the card’s upright meaning.
Ten of Wands
Upright - An overwhelming situation. There is too much going on, too much to do.
Reversed - The relief of dropping a burden that was overwhelmingly heavy.
Ten of Swords
Upright - A disaster area. Defeat. The worst that could have happened did happen, and the aftermath remains to be dealt with.
Reversed - A sense of relief from the effects of a past tragedy or defeat; freedom to rise above it and move on.
Ten of Cups
Upright - Stable, ongoing love and emotional contentment. Happy marriage and home life.
Reversed - Unhappy marriage and/or broken home. Loss of family or formerly established emotional ties.
Ten of Pentacles
Upright - Established, ongoing material wealth. A legacy to be passed down, or an inheritance.
Reversed - Loss or abandonment of home or fortune.
