道生一，⇘

一生二，    ⇒} ䷀

二生三，⇗

――――――

=      ䷀ 6 flavours of quarks (q), named up (u), down (d), strange (s), charm (c), bottom (b), and top (t) ⇒

t

d

s

c

u

b

The pattern of strong charges for the three colours of quark, three antiquarks, and eight gluons

(with two of zero charge overlapping).

Colour and the Trigrams

The Masculine and Feminine Colours

In the Later Heaven Arrangement of Trigrams

Electricity is the servant of the God-Mind. Electricity expresses the desire in the God-Mind for creative expression by seemingly dividing the One still light into transient waves of the spectrum. Divided positive-negative colours of light. (TSOL p. 50) [1]

Traditionally, in Western culture, three colours have been considered primary: red, yellow, blue.

Today, in current colour theory and practice there are six primary colours: red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta. Technically, these are the six primary chromatic colours. There are also the two achromatic colours of black and white so altogether there are a total of 8 primary colours in the colour octave. 

Red, green, and blue are often called the "additive" primary colours and refer to light. These are the positive masculine colours. Cyan, magenta. and yellow are often called the "subtractive" primary colours and refer to inks or pigments. These are the negative feminine colours.

Our eyes are sensitive to three areas of lightnesses[2]. These areas are termed long-range waves, medium-range waves, and short-range waves. The length of these waves runs from 400 to 700 nanometers — the range of the visible light spectrum. In other words, the visible light spectrum is made up of those waves that our "eye-brain computers" translate into what we see, just as the audible spectrum is made up of those waves that our "ear-brain computers" translate into what we hear.

 

Our eye-brain computers translate the long-range waves into the colour red, the medium-range waves into the colour green, and the short-range waves into the colour blue. If we see red, this means that the long-range waves are "on" and the medium and short-range waves are "off". If we see the colour green, medium-range waves are "on" and short and long-range waves are "off."

If we see blue, short-range waves are "on" and long and medium-range waves are "off." But "on" and "off" are fundamental vocabulary words of the binary code, so our brains are really making binary calculations over a three-range area (the long-, medium-, and short-range waves). Figure 1 demonstrates.

A solid white line is used for "on" and an open white line for "off." (A white line is used here because when red, green, and blue light are combined, they create white light.) Long-range waves are set in the bottom position, medium-range waves in the middle, and short-range waves at the top.

The colours do not even have to be identified with words. The white solid lines (the lines that are "on") can simply be filled in with the colour that fits that wavelength, as shown in Figure 2.

This is actually a binary code (using the solid and open lines as "on" or "off"), overlaid onto a trinary code (the long-, medium-, and short-range waves). When this particular code of two and three combine, colour is born! Amazingly, our end result also happens to be expressed in four of the eight trigrams of 易經 ㄧˋ ㄐㄧㄥ the Yìjīng, the 5,000-year-old form of metadata binary in China.

周文王 Zhōu Wén Wáng (King Wen), who lived around 1100 BC and was one of the great sages of 易經 ㄧˋ ㄐㄧㄥ the Yìjīng, called the four trigrams in Figure 2 the masculine trigrams. He labelled the red trigram as the eldest son, the green trigram as the middle son, and the blue trigram as the youngest son. Solid lines are 陽ㄧㄤˊ yáng (masculine) lines. Open lines are 陰ㄧㄣ yīn (feminine ) lines.

A masculine trigram has an odd number of 陽ㄧㄤˊ yáng lines, either one 陽ㄧㄤˊ yáng line as is the case with the trigrams for eldest, middle and youngest sons; or three, as is the case with the trigram for "father". Just as a father is in a different relationship to each of his sons than the sons are to one another, so white, as an achromatic colour, is different from the three chromatic colours of red, green, and blue. red, green, blue and white - RGBW - form what musically is called a "tetrachord", but in the colour octave, [3] rather than the traditional musical scale octave.

The feminine colours are often referred to as the three primary ink or pigment colours. They are cyan, magenta, and yellow, forming the second tetrachord which completes the "colour octave".

With the feminine colours, the trinary code of long-, medium-, and short-range waves remains, but this time in the binary code a 陰ㄧㄣ yīn line indicates "on" and a 陽ㄧㄤˊ yáng line "off". Also, black is used instead of white to colour the lines, because when cyan, magenta, and yellow pigments are combined, they create black pigment. This is just the opposite of combining red, green, and blue to create white light.

Figure 3 shows the trigrams with colour words, and Figure 4 shows how the pigment colours look when the 陰ㄧㄣ yīn lines are filled in with the appropriate colours.

Again, by combining a code of two and a code of three, colour is born. 周文王 Zhōu Wén Wáng (King Wen) labelled these four trigrams feminine. He labelled the cyan trigram, eldest daughter; magenta, middle daughter; and yellow, youngest daughter. A feminine trigram has an odd number of 陰ㄧㄣ yīn lines, either one 陰ㄧㄣ yīn line as is the case with the trigrams for eldest, middle and youngest daughters; or three, as is the case with the trigram for “mother .” Just as a mother is in a different relationship to her daughters than the daughters are to one another; black, as an achromatic colour, is different from the three chromatic colours of cyan, magenta, and yellow.

Obviously, we see light in more colours than red, green, and blue, and obviously, we see pigments in more colours than cyan, magenta, and yellow. It turns out that the secondary light colours are the primary pigment colours, and the secondary pigment colours are the primary light colours.[4] This is where the additive and subtractive processes come into play. Figure 5 shows the additive process.

Figure 5

If a green light is added to blue light, cyan light is generated, as shown in the example on the left. If a red light is added to blue light, magenta light is generated, as shown in the middle. Finally, if the red light is added to the green light, yellow is generated, as shown on the right. This additive process uses emitted light, creating all the colours seen on colour television or viewed on computer colour monitors. (This is why colour monitors are called “RGB” monitors.)

With pigments, if magenta and yellow are overlaid together as they are in colour separations, the medium- (green ) and short- (blue ) range waves are absorbed or subtracted, leaving only the long-range waves, which we perceive as red, as shown on the left in Figure 6.

Figure 6

 

The overlay of cyan and yellow absorbs the long- (red ) and short- (blue ) range waves, leaving green, as shown in the middle. The overlay of cyan and magenta absorbs the long- (red) and medium- (green) range waves leaving blue as shown on the right. This subtractive process uses reflected light to create all the colours we see

In printed materials (buying ink cartridges for a colour printer—the cartridges are always in CMY or CMYK).

In Figure 7 all eight trigrams are combined in colour with the familial relationships 周文王 Zhōu Wén Wáng (King Wen)  assigned to them.

The trigrams can be used as a visual language of pattern to describe the symmetry of complementarity and reflection. The symmetry of the patterning is the same whether we are talking about relationships between men and women, relationships between yang and yin lines, or relationships between “masculine” and “feminine” colours. This system or pattern of relationships is so universal that it is even used to describe the relationships between subatomic particles. Figure 8[5][5] shows that the “colour force” of quarks and antiquarks follows exactly the laws of colour theory. and is intuitively a wonderful interweaving of the numbers two and three.

Figure 8

Colour Force/colour light analogy

colours proton and its relatives  (three-quark combinations)	anti-colours anti-proton and its relatives (three-antiquark combinations)
mesons (quark/antiquark combinations) (The permitted combinations of quarks match the laws of colour-mixing precisely. The quarks are not really coloured.)

 

Mixing colours and anti-colours

Mixing coloured lights		Mixing anti coloured lights

 

There are three combinations of two (the quark/antiquark combinations of red and cyan, blue and yellow, green and magenta), and each of these three pairs creates white light. There are also two combinations of three (the quarks of red, green, and blue, and the antiquarks of cyan, magenta, and yellow), and each of these two triplets creates white light.

For behold, My imaged universe is mirrored to infinity;

it is repeated to the endless end;

yet there are but multiples of three in all My universe.

And again I say to thee,

two of those very three are nought but My imaginings,

for My Trinity is but One.  (TSOL p. 138)

 

A union is formed between male and female polar complements. White light is created by the pairing of a masculine and feminine colour. Each masculine trigram finds its feminine complement by the exact interchange of yang and yin lines. The eldest son marries the eldest daughter - red and cyan are complementary colours and together create white light. Middle son marries middle daughter - green and magenta are complementary colours and together create white light. Youngest son marries youngest daughter - blue and yellow are complementary colours and together create white light.

In summary, a masculine primary colour is a colour that peaks in one of the three areas of lightness. A feminine-primary colour is a colour that peaks in two of the three areas of lightness. Then, very simply, the combination of any two masculine colours creates a feminine colour, and the combining of any two feminine colours creates a masculine colour. The four masculine primary colours — RGBW — correspond exactly to the four masculine trigrams of 易經 ㄧˋ ㄐㄧㄥ the Yìjīng. The four feminine-primary colours — CMYK — correspond exactly to the four feminine trigrams of the 易經 ㄧˋ ㄐㄧㄥ the Yìjīng.

Separating the 8 trigrams into 2 logical sets of 4 — one masculine and one feminine — is one of the logical sets of trigrams investigated by Dr. Frank Fiedeler in his books Des Monde des I Ging, Yin und Yang — Das kosmische Grundmuster in den Kulturformen Chinas, and Yijing, Das Buch der Wandlungen.

[1] (TSOL) refers to “The Secret of Light” by Walter Russell. (This article was originally written for “Fulcrum”, the scientific journal of the University of Science and Philosophy, formerly the Walter Russell Foundation.)

[2] Lightnesses is a term used by Dr Edwin Land in his research on colour vision.

[3] The connections between the sound and colour octaves are discussed more fully in “The Metapattern of 8” also by the author.

[4]This pattern of reciprocity appears again and again in Nature. (For example, in music, the same four notes are both the lower tetrachord of one scale and the upper tetrachord of another scale.)