Whilst mountain climbing, I had an intensive experience with the color, aquamarine, as I found myself hanging in a crevasse of ice.
When I was younger, I was an enthusiastic mountain climber and also loved to go on tours over glaciers. Sometimes it could be fairly dangerous, so I decided to go through a training on how to deal with critical situations when trekking over glaciers.
As part of the training, each of us had to climb into a crevasse, so that we could be pulled out again from one of the group members, and thus train for a real rescue operation. So as my turn arrived, I found myself hanging in what seemed to be an almost endlessly deep, glacial crevasse. I was well secured with various safety ropes, but despite this, spasms of fear would have me shaking all over as I hung there totally alone in this world of ice.
However, as I eventually adapted to this strange situation and managed to calm down, I suddenly became intensively aware of the color of the ice. The walls of the crevasse were of a magnificent aquamarine color. This was the first time that I had studied one color for some considerable time, and I noticed how it started to change my feelings. I began to feel a deep sense of vulnerability and at the same time an even deeper sense of trust. In this tranquil world of ice, for a short time totally at loss, I experienced a profound sensation of peace, something that happens when we give up our resistance and accept and submit to a given situation. My experience with the serene world of ice, and its exquisite, delicate shade of aquamarine remained with me all my life. It always comes back to mind whenever I accidentally meet up with the color in different situations.
Later on, when I studied color psychology, I encountered aquamarine from another perspective and was able to understand the experience I had previously made with this color. It is only when we really spend time to experience a color that we are able to penetrate through to its true symbolic meaning. Superficially, our experience of a color will be subjective. We like it, or not; experience it as cold or warm. Our perception of the color will depend on our own feelings. It then acts as a mirror of our internal frame of mind.
Objectively, aquamarine is the color of water and ice. It has something secretive about it. Even though it is very similar to pale blue, it has a totally different quality. Pale blue is the color of the early morning sky which brings with it a fresh and promising new day. It has an almost childish naivety about it. Aquamarine, on the other hand, seems secretive, apart, as though it is hiding something. It is the color of ice and of water. They too hide another form of life that we rarely can see on the surface. Aquamarine shares this aura of mystery.
Water is constantly in a flux of change from fluid to gas, or to ice. Aquamarine, as the color of this element, shares the same transformational quality, giving the impression of not being truly part of this life. It is emotionally somewhat aloof, as though concealing its true nature. People who have this color as their favorite often share these qualities too, in that they are capable of hiding their true feelings, even if having to cope with hard blows. As aquamarine is the color of water, which is constantly taking on new forms, the lovers of this color often have a free spirit and guard it safely. They do not like working in any kind of fixed scheme, and this is why they often have such originality.
For me, since my experience with that world of ice, aquamarine will always be a color that reminds me to let go of my fear, accept the moment as it is, and submit to the changes that are always taking place.