“Is there also such a thing as ‘the essence of color’? For me, the essence is the spiritual aspect that lives in color. Making this spiritual aspect accessible is the purpose of this book.” ―
Kees VeenmanWe are all familiar with the world of color, but can we learn to experience color more intensely? Can we learn to penetrate colors in a more profound way? This book takes the reader into the activity of the colors of the spectrum by investigating them meditatively. The author explains aspects of color phenomenology and prepares the reader for color meditations, including some that he has incorporated into his own personal practices.
Kees Veenman, a phenomenologist who specializes in colors, begins by observing the spring gold and the autumn gold of trees before introducing the phenomenological method whereby his research connects with Goethe’s theory of color and that of Rudolf Steiner. Using numerous examples and experiments, Veenman guides the reader toward the dynamics and essence of colors, describing his research into the nature of colors along with fresh questions that help us penetrate the world of colors ever more deeply.
The author also considers light therapy and the relationship of colors to the seasons, as well as to fairytales. The reader is encouraged to meditate with and in colors to discover and experience, among other things, consciousness of Christ. All of this is presented with clear descriptions supplemented with color images.
Color Meditation is for those who want to appreciate the phenomena and wonders―the being―of color more deeply and fully understand how color can enrich one’s soul and spiritual activity.
“The correspondence between the emergence and effect of a color outside us and the appearance within us is found in the polarity between light and darkness. Light is a symbol of clear day consciousness, whereas darkness represents the impenetrability of the will. Here we come to the intimate relationship between the world of colors and that of human consciousness with its active and passive side.” ―
Christine Gruwez (foreword)
Translated by Laura Liska from Kleurmeditatie (Uitgeverij Pentagon, Amsterdam, 2015). Cover image by Beppe Assenza (1905–1985): Eklipse, watercolor, 23.5 x 20.5 in.
Kees Veenman was born in 1953 in the Netherlands. He studied physics in Utrecht before becoming a physics teacher at the Waldorf school of Haarlem. Veenman has researched the theme of color for thirty years. He was the regional coordinator in the Netherlands for the Natural Science Section of the Goetheanum School for Spiritual Science from 1998 to 2020.
Christine Gruwez (b. 1942) studied philosophy and linguistics at the KU Leuven, the Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium. She met Anthroposophy through the Waldorf school in Antwerp, which her four children attended, and where she taught from 1976 to 1986. She also taught for a decade in the Waldorf Education Training Program. Since 1997, Christine has led seminars and conferences at Emerson College, at the Goetheanum, and in Japan. The publication of Bernard Lievegoed’s
Battle for the Soul renewed her contact with the Manichaean impulse. Having studied the language and texts at university, her life’s research question became: How can we actualize what historical Manichaeism has initiated in human history? Christine has followed the history of Mani and his communities throughout the Far and Near East, from the Balkans to North Africa, Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, along the Silk Road to Japan. Her book,
Walking with Your Time: A Manichaean Journey, addresses ways to become a contemporary human individual and the question of good and evil in our time.
Laura Liska is a naturalist, researcher, photographer, and writer who spends a vast amount of her time wandering among magnificent landscapes and works of art, wondering about color, seasonality and beauty. She has been a freelance research associate with the Institute for Contextual Science at the Goetheanum in Switzerland for over a decade. Her original “Falling Leaves Project” explores nature’s coloring in the seasonal cycle of the year through applications of Goethe’s color theory and Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical spiritual science. Her current research expands into questions of scientific and theological aesthetics, and the role of beauty in the reconciliation of science, art, and religion. She also has the privilege of editing and translating written works by European Goethean scientists for the English-speaking world. Prior to all that she worked as both an artist and as the biodynamic education coordinator for Rudolf Steiner College, the Biodynamic Association of Northern California, and the Biodynamic Association of North America. Laura currently resides in the French Alsace on the border of Switzerland where she continues to wander happily in stunning Alpine valleys and through Europe’s exquisite museums of art.
