The Mystic
Candles that have been burned, a stack of books on things that cannot be measured, and no interest in defending any of it. Amethyst is the crown stone, and Neptune is the planet of the things that arrive sideways.
What balances it
Violet has no natural floor. One green or earth-brown thing, a plant or a clay pot, gives it ground.
Bedroom
Purple is the hardest of these to live with and the best when it lands. The version that works is dusty and greyed, nearer a dried flower than a jewel.
- Walls
- Charoite taken down, a soft greyed violet. Saturated purple on a bedroom wall reads as a hotel.
- Bedding
- Plum, or plain white with a violet throw. One or the other at full strength, not both.
- Selenite
- Near-white, on the lampshade and the linen. Every dark palette needs its palest stone doing real work somewhere.
- Fluorite
- The blue-violet mid-tone, which is the bridge. A rug or curtains in it keep the deep and the pale from looking unrelated.
Light
Candles if you light them, and one warm lamp. Purple under cool light goes grey and a little sad.
Where it goes wrong
Candles are the one real hazard in these nine rooms. Burning them in a closed bedroom raises fine particulate measurably, so open the window a crack, and never leave one burning in a room you have walked out of.
Living room
The palette for a room with a corner given over to something quiet: a cushion, a low shelf, a few objects that are not there to be useful.
- Walls
- Pale violet-grey, or plain chalk with the colour carried by the textiles. Purple works better as fabric than as paint in most rooms.
- The corner
- One low shelf at sitting height, three or four things on it, nothing else. A shelf you keep rather than a shelf you fill.
- Amethyst
- The deep violet, on cushions and a throw. The strongest colour belongs where you can move it.
- Wood
- Dark and warm. Neptune is a watery planet and this palette drifts without something solid in it.
Light
Low, layered, warm. Nothing overhead.
Where it goes wrong
A corner like this collects. Once a month, take everything off the shelf and put back only what you would choose again.