You are talking to a blind man who asks you to describe something with the colour “violet”. Write down what you would tell this man without once using the word “violet” in your explanation. [I’m doing this for all 7 colours of the rainbow as a writing slump cheat. Read my indigo, green, yellow, orange, blue, red post.]

It was the only time in my life I was mystified by a sunset. We were there on the beach for some surf-side barbeque. But as dusk approached, I forgot all desire for food. The sight of the sunset was nourishment enough. There’s something reality-changing about this colour. Indeed, there is no better colour for magic and mysticism. Something about it that defies worldly norms. Bathe a room in it, and everything within feels other-worldly. If there’s an iconoclastic opposite of mainstream, this colour would be it. I just stood there, transfixed in how this can be. I’d never ever seen a sunset coloured with such fairy-tale magic. It was like a glimpse into another world, a higher world, a spiritual world. A place were everything is sacred and nothing is profane. There I was, standing there right at the edge of land and sea, the waning breeze fading together with the sun, the surf pulling me into the sea, as if pulling me into an alternate dimension. Trippy af, yes. But this was a beach in Bali, an island and a culture steeped in ritual, prayer and old magic. I’m not at all surprised.