My Favorate Color, The Grand Lodge, & Haint Blue

Yesterday, I went to the City Cemetery to meet up with a docent to discuss an upcoming tour. All I could see was more obelisk, more sarcophagus, more masonic symbols, symbolic birds, and Strickland. It just had me thinking how at each point everyone says they exist for only aesthetics and was trendy for the time period, but of no spiritual significance because they were all Christians. Then the symbols. The masonic symbols. So crystallized in my mind was, "how could this be so consistent, yet hold no meaning?"

Today, I visited with the Master Historian of the Grand Lodge at 100 7th Ave North (with no admitted intention given to the address chosen). He didn't say much details about history but he did give me their dictionary to peruse. To preface what I am about to say about what I found in the books he handed me I need to note a conversation prior to entering the library with the head of the Scottish Rite. I was shown an apron, a picture, and various other items in the office that had a light blue color around the fringe. On a previous visit to the lodge I noticed the color blue on the walls and asked the guide about it, who told me "it was just the color of choice and had no significance". Well, this time I was told that color was also the color of the mason's symbolic lodge. I asked why, I was told to "ask the historian". I asked the historian and he said he didn't know. I thought wow. How could the building be blue, the apron, the person on the wall, the carpet, the symbolic lodge...all blue, and the master historian not have a clue as to why? Does he really not see what is around him or was he playing possum?  I shrugged it off as a secret I would not get out of him. Then he shared with me the books, which spoke volumes. I will share with you what popped out at me right away and how it relates to Seshat. My mind began to focus in on what I was about to see when he asked me if I knew the builders of the Union Station, which has a statue of Hermes (of relationship to Seshat in Greece) on top, built by Foster Creighton. I said no, why? He stated, because most builders were masons.

So I began to delve into the masonic books after first being turned by the librarian to the definition of the color blue. The other topics I stopped on were Stone of Foundation, Scribe, Scriptures, Seven, Seven Stars, Three, Sovereign Gran Inspector-General (the two birds), Sun, Moon, and Stars, and Blue. Blue happens to be the color of masonry.  Check out my previous blogs about the color blue. For instance, the one in which I mention the blue pearl among the Buddhist being a connection to the higher soul. Or, the blog about West Africa and the diaspora's connection of blue with a female ocean goddess, or the blog about the Black Madonna song that mentions "Queen of Heaven, the seraphim down. Give us a blue inside your coat, Dawn, crowned with stars..I touched the Virgin, her skin glistened black, Mother of God." Each culture referencing a female, wisdom, a star symbol, and the color blue in the same myth. This trip to the lodge revealed much of the same, yet no mention of the nameless female scribe herself.

The Masonic dictionary states several things of the color blue. It is "emphatically the color of Masonry...it is the color of the vault of heaven...It is therefore the only color, except white, which should be used in a Master's Lodge. Decorations of any other color would be highly inappropriate" (p108).

It notes that among the Jews blue, tekelet (perfection) is symbolically represented among the following:

• The robe of the high priest ephod
• the ribbon for his breastplate
• the plate of the miter were to be blue
• the people were directed to wear a ribbon of this color above the fringe of their garments
• the color of one of the veils of the tabernacle

Among the Druids

• Blue was the symbol of truth
• initiation into the sacred rites of druidism wore a robe of white, blue, and green

Among the Egyptians

• sacred color
• hair of the gods
• the body of Amun painted in light blue
• (I will discuss more later not found in the dictionary)

Among the Babylonians

• Jeremiah states idols were clothed in blue

Among the Chinese

• blue was the symbol of "the Deity"
• male and female
• active and passive principles

Among the Hindus

• Vishnu was celestial blue
• Wisdom emanating from God was to be symbolized by this color

Among the medieval Christians

• Symbol of immortality
• She color of the celebrated dome, azure..stated in Symbolic Colors by Weale
• Divine language and symbol of eternal truth

Among the Masons

• First 3 degrees of the Ancient Craft Masonry
• Scottish Rite: various significance. In 19th degree it is the predominate color-mildness, fidelity, gentleness
• Grand Master- blue and yellow refers to Jehovah appearing to Moses on Mount Sinai in clouds of azure and gold
• 24th degree in Scottish Rite: Tunic and apron is blue. Refers to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
• Blue Blanket- "The Banner of the Holy Ghost" at the alter of St Eloi
• Blue Degrees- The first three degrees of Freemasonry
• Blue Lodge- A Symbolic Lodge

Not in the book yet interesting to note, several languages, including Japanese, Thai, Korean, and Lakota Sioux, use the same word to describe blue and green. For example, in Vietnamese the colour of both tree leaves and the sky is xanh. Also, in ancient Egypt lapis lazuli, well the history is so vast google it. The cloth mummies were wrapped in was dipped in blue die. Blue was associated with the sky and divinity. Amun made his skin blue. Blue was used to paint wood, papyrus, canvas, for beads, inlays, pots, etc. The Greeks imported indigo dye from India, calling it indikon. They used Egyptian blue in the wall paintings of Knossos, in Crete, (2100 BC), Europe's oldest city. it was used as a background color behind the friezes on Greek temples and to colour the beards of Greek statues. Napolean and Americans use blue as the color of uniforms (military, police, post office, etc.). In the 1700s it symbolized liberty. I could go on about this in cultures. 

About a year or so ago I spoke with Paul Pressly about a visit to Ossabaw Island in Ga. He shared with me the significance of the color blue among West Africans who were brought to America to cultivate indigo (I. suffruticosa, native to Central and South America) on the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia. Ossabaw was purchased in 1760 by a French Swiss man who purchased 30 slaves (who today hold the most intact African culture in America and are known as the Gullah Geechie Nastino) to cultivate and build the land. Over a period of 100 years they "made the plantation into one of the largest producers of indigo in Georgia, a crop cultivated and transformed into blue dye in West Africa..." the Gullah Geechie also "cut live oak trees for sale for use in boat construction and constructed at least one vessel destined for the transatlantic trade." These were skilled craftsman and agriculturalist with intellectual property passed down from generation to generation. The significance here is that the blue made from this plant and the African American's urine (yellow) was used to make a paint that was used on many southern porch ceilings, shutters, and doorways as a protection from evil spirits or haints/haunts. This color in the deep south, became known as "haint blue". This connects the color blue to the Goddess Mami Watta (in Nigeria represented with red and white).  “Mami” is derived from “Ma” or ”Mama,” meaning “truth/wisdom,” and “Wata” is a corruption of not an English, but the ancient Egyptian word “Uati,” (or "Uat-ur" meaning ocean water), and the Khosian ("Hottentot") "Ouata" meaning “water.”

"In Togo, West Africa, and in the United States, the priestesses of Mami Wata are called Mamisii (Mamissi, Mamaissii, Mammisi). Certain paths of high-priestesses who are called to open an Egbé (spirit house) are known as "Mamaissii-Hounons" which translates as “queen of the ship,” or literally “mother wisdom” (Alapini 1955, Massey 1994, p. 227, Rosenthal 1998, p. 116-117). This is an ancient name probably having its etymological roots in ancient Egypt, where we find the name Mammisi meaning “motherhood temple,” as the sacred shrine where the queen/ priestesses gives birth to spirit. (Walker 1983, p. 572-573).......(Saint Martha, Santa Marta, Dominican Filomena or Lubana) "Martha" a name of Afro-Asiatic Aramaic origin, meaning "lady or mistress of the house." Her worship and image was brought to the Dominican Republic (Hispaniola) by enslaved Africans."

The Ishtar Gate (Persian: دروازه ایشتار‎)(Arabic: بوابة عشتار‎) was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was constructed in about 575 BC by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city. Originally one of the 7 wonders of the world.

This star on blue sky is on the ceiling of several older buildings in Nashville. Some of which we will be visiting this Saturday. Perhaps your city also has significant buildings that have withstood the test of time adorned with star studded ceilings with a blue background for aesthetics purposes...