Wednesday is named after the Anglo Saxon god Woden, otherwise known as Odin (the Scandinavian form of his name). In Roman times, Wednesday was known as dies Mercurii, “day of Mercury”, and classical theorists equated Mercury with Odin because they both led the Dead to their final homes. Of course, this is only one of Odin’s many roles — he is also the king of the gods, the god of battle and hosts, wisdom, magic, poetry, prophecy, and the hunt. He thus combines characteristics of Mercury, Jupiter, Apollo, Pluto, and Mars. Evidently those classical theorists needed to get out more.

Odin (or Woden)’s name comes from Proto Indo European wet, meaning “carried away” — either with anger, insanity, or inspiration. Wet also referred to “breath”, reflecting the ancient Indo European belief in the breath as a source of inspiration and spiritual connection (still reflected in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, etc.). His name was Wodenaz in Proto Germanic, “he who brings wod; the Inspirer”.

The energy of Wednesday is one similar to that of the word win: a willful strength that initiates a rising, tight power, narrowed and targeted. In Wednesday, the result of that targeting is a flourish of directed power.

The tomato plant is native to the New World, either to the west coast of South America, or possibly Mexico. It is not known whether it was domesticated and eaten by native peoples: there is no evidence that it was, but a huge amount of horticultural information was lost in the upheaval of the Spanish invasion. In any case, the Spanish certainly enjoyed it, and it became a staple of Italian cooking by the late 1500’s; but in England and its colonies, it was thought to be unfit to eat, because it contained glycoalkaloids (which are indeed poisonous, but the fruit is safe to eat). Tomatoes gradually became acceptable fare there during the 1700’s.

The word tomato comes ultimately from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word tomatl, literally “the swollen fruit”. It entered Spanish as tomate, and English as tomate in about 1600. By 1750, it had become tomato, perhaps by analogy with the closely related potato.

The central syllable of tomato is a manifestation of expansive, elastic energy, fitting its plump shape. The manifestation arises from a movement of earthy energy, and the result of the manifestation is more movement of earthy energy.

From Proto Indo European bhlewas, meaning “light colored”, applicable to anything from yellow to light gray to pale blue. In Proto Germanic this became blæwaz, and descended into Frankish as blao and Old French as bleu; this was borrowed as bleu or blwe in Middle English (when spelling was a creative art). Old English already had a perfectly good word for blue — blaw – but the French term was preferred. It’s uncertain exactly when the word changed from meaning “light colored” to “blue”, but color words tend to be slippery in that way — in Scandinavian languages, for example, it came to mean a deep black, while in Middle High German it meant “yellow”.

Energetically, blue is much like a fountain of water — a burst of liquid energy, flowing, fast-moving. Compare it to its homophone blew, and remember the music named after it, the Blues – these words have the same energy.