The Story of Indigo

Cerro Tololo Observatory near Vicuña, Chile, 1998

People often ask me how I came up with the name Indigo Organizing.

The answer is a bit long and windy. It spans many years, from childhood to today, and it means a great deal to me.

The name “Indigo” came about in three seemingly unconnected ways:

• When I was a teenager, I was a bit of a science geek. So much so, that I majored in physics and astronomy in college and took an entire semester off to do a dream internship at an astronomical observatory in the Andes mountains of Chile. Thanks to being that lanky science geek, I know that, in the 1600s, Isaac Newtown identified "indigo" as one of the seven elemental colors. It represents a focus on what is necessary, what is elemental. A building block for seeing so much else.

• Now for the second part … I have a husband with an eye for design. (He is another little treasure that I brought back with me from Chile.) He has lots of beautiful design books laying around. One day, as I was still brainstorming a name for my business, I opened up one of his books, and it immediately turned to a page describing what the color blue signifies. It said: 

“The colour blue signifies relaxation, a successful result … trust … reliability, expansion, recovery, harmony, satisfaction, peace, stillness … endlessness, cleanliness, hope, solidity, intelligence, yearning [and] courage."

UM, YES. That is exactly what I want all of my clients to experience. 

• The last one gets me a little choked up … My parents love birds and nature, and we spent much of my childhood camping and hiking. It is from THEM that I learned that there is a bird, called the indigo bunting, who migrates by night, to South America, guided by the stars.

And so, years ago, like an indigo bunting, I traveled to South America, guided by the stars. 

And many years later, that husband from Chile with an eye for design helped me to make another dream a reality by designing a beautiful logo, with those amazing little indigo buntings nesting together.

And now today, guided by all that the word “indigo” means to me, I get to help others find more joy and simplicity in their homes and their lives.

Sniff. (I told you that it would be long and windy.)

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