Tracer Virgo Turquoise

Old French tracier, to trace — sharing root with English trace and track. As a color modifier, tracer implies a saturated-and-streak-of-light quality, the bright color of military-tracer-round and long-exposure-photography light-trail visual streak. Sits at the bright-and-active end of the grid, parallel to flashing and streaking in usage.

Latin virgo, virgin-or-maiden-of-the-zodiac. As a color modifier, virgo implies a maiden-and-earth-sign-and-Mercury-ruled-mutable-earth quality, the visual register of Hellenic-Virgo-and-Astraea-maiden hand-maiden-and-earth-sign-and-Mercury-ruled-mutable-earth Hellenic-Virgo-and-Astraea-maiden-and-Spica-grain virgo-and-maiden-and-earth-sign surfaces under Hellenic-Virgo-and-Astraea-maiden-and-Spica-grain late-summer-and-August-and-September mutable-earth-sign-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to leo and libra in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.