Colours to Inspire – Elemental – Earth, Water, Air, and Fire

I’ve blogged about my favourite jewel, neutral, and metallic colours
and I’m currently inspired by elemental themes and tones…

The elements – earth, water, air, and fire – make up the essence of nature, the core of our existence, and they feed our spirit. The colours of the elements are deeply ingrained within our lives. Greens, browns, and earthy tones clothe the forests, mountains, and valleys. All manner of blues along with cloudy white and grey, and golden sunshine tones fill our skies. Ocean blues and greens, clear rivers, and fluid crystalline colours run through our lives in water. Sizzling reds, oranges, and yellows spark passion and fuel our emotions with fire.

Which of the elements calls to you, and do their colours inspire you?

Earth © Lisa Shambrook

Earth – the greens of the forest have been my favourite colours since I was a child, offering peace, calm, and tranquillity in a heart that was often anxious and unsettled. As an adult I go to the forest and to the hills for peace, to renew my senses and to recharge. Listening to the wind susurrate through the trees, whispering serenity to my soul, and feeling my feet softly stepping on springy moss always relieves my heart and allows me to regain my breath. It’s like uttering a prayer in solitude and then listening to nature’s response as birds twitter, trees whisper, and soft music lightens an aching heart.

Water © Lisa Shambrook

Water – the ocean with its blues and greens is the opposite for me. A calm sea is lovely, the sun twinkling like stars on its surface can also still a racing heart, but I love the sea when its waves are crashing and the pebbles tumble beneath them. I come from Brighton and pebble beaches have a rousing effect on me as the sea churns stones as it rises and falls. I have travelled the UK and come to love soft sand beaches in Wales and Scotland, and could spend hours staring at the sea as the tides change. I have seen the ocean switch in front of me from its crystal quartz white surf, to aquamarine, then changing to adventurine and amazonite green, before deepening to turquoise, then to apatite blue, and finally to a deep dark sodalite navy. The sea can change from blue, to green, to brown and to grey, and it’s changeable nature is what inspires me. Water is the element that speaks to me most, and one that guides me. Water cannot be stopped, if it encounters an obstacle, it goes around it and carries on… I need that wisdom in my life.

Air © Lisa Shambrook

Air – have you ever stood on a mountainside and felt the wind billowing through your hair? It’s exhilarating and freeing. Air offers release and liberty; if I could be a creature I’d be a dragon, flying free up in the thermals… Birds fascinate me, upon their feathery wings they fly through our atmosphere, light enough to do so, and free enough to travel wherever desire takes them. Air is what drives us, filling our lungs, and moving us forward. And the colours I associate with it change from the blues of the sky, to the white of clouds, to grey storms, golden sunshine, and all the colours that merge in auroras and celestial azure skies.

Fire © Lisa Shambrook

Fire – the easiest of the elements to imagine. Known for passion, anger, and fierce emotions, it flickers with red, orange, and yellow. Fire is destructive and renewing, full of danger and desire, it harnesses ambition and fuels dreams, but it can also offer peace and safety. Seeing light amid darkness can guide you home to a hearth and food. Watching a flame dancing atop a candle is hypnotising and relaxing, and listening to the crackle of a fire burning within a fireplace is the symbol of home comfort and sanctuary.

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire © Lisa Shambrook

The elements need each other to survive. Fire feeds on oxygen in the air, and though it can destroy trees and grass and flora, the earth contains it, and water can quell it. Once scorched, the earth can renew and life returns with the help of water. Water is a constant, the ocean rises and falls every day ruled by the moon above, it feeds and helps everything grow. Air moves the water to where it’s needed, and keeps the atmosphere exactly as we need it. And earth, the rock beneath our feet, holds everything together, keeping us safe upon this rock that is clothed in air and water and encases the fiery molten core that keeps our earth alive.

The elements are both chaos and essential,
and when I’m asked which is my favourite – I’m not really sure…

What’s your favourite elemental colour and what does it mean to you?

Three Line Thursday: Flame

Matt Adamik Photography

Consumed by frigid winter’s gust, lost amid cold’s blizzard,

I call… His answer reaches frozen bones, wakes my soul.

And I brace – for love’s blazing bonfire torch…

A short flash of flame for Three Line Thursday…

Blues Buster: Gun

© Lisa Shambrook

The barrel sat still warm in his hand, still soothing and fluid within his grip. He clenched his knees together and pressed his toes firmly against the soles of his shoes. The blazing fire in the hearth disguised the stench of sweat and the acrid smell that rose about him. He lifted the gun to his face gently brushing the metal across his stubbled cheek, like a lover would her lips. Blood pulsed through his body, muscles tensed, and his ears rang. He sat on the edge of the bed, sheets crumpled and dirty, and he inhaled as if a cigarette hung from his mouth.

For a moment he basked, letting the excited tension that consumed him relax and allowing heady delight room in his mind. The gun settled on his thigh, resting with ease and the sense of a job well done.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, enjoying the moment as you would a long-awaited gulp of whisky. The fire crackled and spat and the bed beneath him shook.

His eyes sprang open and his head whirled, as if he’d forgotten his deed, as if he’d neglected the woman sitting wide-eyed and terrified at the top of the bed.

She sat upon the pillow, curled up tight beneath a cherry-stained, yellow-streaked sheet. Tears ran muddy rivers down her cheeks and pale, rigid fingers clutched the bed sheet up to her neck.

He gazed at her and her eyes stared like a rabbit’s right back. She shook like a leaf in a gale, uncontrollably and violently. The yellow puddle beneath her seeped through the sheets and he failed to supress his curled lip of disgust.

She refused to look away and his finger, resting on the gun, trembled. He looked to her side and his heart thumped, his excitement growing ever richer. Beside her, the black-haired body, the mound in the bed, blossomed red, wine red…blood red. He chuckled and his eye twitched.

She shrank against the wall, her skin stuck to it with the sweat of fear.

He lifted the gun again, stroking the barrel with quivering and calloused fingers, and watched her shaking body writhe. He shuddered in anticipation. She spoke, or at least words tried to leave her mouth.

“Didn’t get that, sweetheart?” he drawled.

“No one will love you, not ever, no one…” The words escaped with a vitriol he hadn’t expected from one so afraid for her life.

The gun brushed his arm, and he licked his lips, twitching again involuntarily.

“No one,” she repeated, suddenly forgetting her fear and leaning forward. “When they see what you did…you’ll have no one,” she hissed.

He lifted the weapon to his lips, but it was cold, the metal unforgiving, and his arousal vanished. The hate glistened in her eyes, black as night, and flashing crimson as demon against the red firelight roaring in the fireplace. Spittle frothed on her pale lips and revulsion spat. “They’ll hate you!”

Her intonation took only a split second to invade his fragile mind, to infect the deepest parts of him, to turn his rage inside out.

The gun gleamed in his hand, and the shivers that twisted down his spine grabbed at his heart. He shook the gun at his wife then turned the muzzle toward his face, caressing the beloved metal that threatened to curse him. It sang in his hand, whispered in his fevered mind and the kiss it offered burst like summer rain as his mind splattered across the bed and his unfaithful mate.

(587 Words)

An explosive tale for this week’s Blues Buster over at The Tsuruoka Files prompted by the song ‘Gun’ by Emiliana Torrini.

Blues Buster: Not From Here

My Blues Buster for The Tsuruoka Files…written for the prompt song: ‘I’m Not From Here’ by James McMurtry.

Not From Here

Rain stings my face, tiny pinpricks in the swirling wind. My elbows press tight against my side, my lower arms at right angles, tense, hands outstretched. The wind whips through my hair, and I dare not lift my hand any further to brush it away, so it remains stuck to my cold, wet cheek.
I open my eyes and squint at the panorama.
The city spreads before me, grey and distant. The tall buildings, the banks and offices, rise, as rigid as my body, towering over the streets and its inhabitants. Smoke coils from the government buildings, huge billowing clouds of soot and ash, and my lip curls.
I yearn for the rolling hills of green and a clear cerulean sky as I stare at the city below. I don’t belong here.
My toes claw inside my trainers and my arms shoot out from my side as a vicious gust of wind whistles past. I lick my lips and close my eyes. My heart races, my eyelid twitches, and my chest constricts. My mouth is dry and I can barely breathe. My frame sways and my leg muscles stiffen, my feet desperate to grip and I almost lose my balance.
I open my eyes. The undulating meadows of my childhood are as lost as this city and I would no longer belong there either.
My fingers stretch out as sirens permeate my fractured psyche. I stare at the cars moving aside in slow columns as fire-engines snake through the narrow streets, and people, strangers, swarm like ants, and I let my tears fall as biting as the rain on my face.
The wind picks up again and I lurch, my heart in my mouth. Sweat oozes beneath my thin shirt and I shiver.
Beneath me, chains clang against metal, the sound vibrating up the steel, tickling my feet through the rubber soles of my shoes. I want to fling back my head and scream, let my howl echo across the flat overcast skies. I don’t move.
The scream bubbles in my throat and dies upon the desert dryness of my tongue. I blink, no longer seeing the burning city below, but just a blur of tears and rain.
The girder rocks beneath my feet and my arms steady me as the wind shrieks its rage winding round my legs. The hook shakes under my feet and the jib arm sways. I teeter.
My mind reels and my heart sinks slowly to the pit of my belly. I let a smile curve on my lips and now, light-headed, I lift my arms, embracing the city as flames lick the horizon behind the business quarter.
I welcome this final moment, a moment of belonging, and then the gale that feeds the flames below whips my legs from beneath me and I fall. Maybe, this time, I’ll end up where I belong…

(479 Words)

Photo manipulation
by Lisa Shambrook
(Please do not use without permission)