BLACK
SYMBOLIC MEANINGS: night, the absence of light; mourning, sobriety, denial; authority; perfection and purity; maturity and wisdom.
Although it’s the opposite of white, both shades are, in fact, due to an absence of color, and technically speaking black is not a “color” at all. This doesn’t stop it having a wealth of symbolic meaning.
Black often has negative connotations for the reason that it is the color of the night, or the absence of light. It doesn’t require a great leap of the imagination to extend this light/dark, day/night symbolism to good/bad. A fundamentally natural occurrence to do with the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, therefore, has had far-reaching consequences, resulting in fear, racism, superstition, and bigotry which even continues today simply because of skin color.
In the West, black is the color of mourning and funerals. In some cultures, white is used in this context, in which case it carries the idea of rebirth. Black, however, is not so sanguine. It is final, conclusive, the denial of life.
Despite the mirthless sobriety of black, it depends how you wear it. The “new black” is a term applied to anything that is in vogue, since black is also somehow dangerous and sexy as well as practical, therefore always fashionable as a color.
The “black sheep” of the family refers to the one who is a bit of a scoundrel, and the “black dog” means depression. Conversely, a black cat is a very lucky symbol in the UK and other parts of the world. A person who holds a black belt in any of the martial arts is considered to be at the pinnacle of their abilities, and indeed, in Japan, black is the color of wisdom, experience, and maturity. In this instance, black is a color of perfection, an idea shared by the Cathars who also saw black as a symbol of completion and purity.
Black is a secretive, mysterious color and used as such in rite and ritual. A polished black mirror provides a perfect, glossy surface for scrying or seeing into the future.
BLUE
SYMBOLIC MEANINGS: truth and the intellect; wisdom, loyalty, chastity; peace, piety, and contemplation; spirituality; eternity.
Blue is the color of the Heavens and is related to the fifth chakra. Blue is traditionally worn by the Virgin Mary, the very embodiment of all the qualities described above. Whereas the reds, oranges, and yellows carry with them a carnival atmosphere, blue is more sober, even somber, despite its many variations. If we’re “feeling blue” then we’re depressed or melancholy. And yet the bluebird is a universal symbol for happiness. The color has even given its name to a rich vein of music. The “blues” actually refers to “blue notes.” These are notes, either sung or played, that are pitched down a little for expressive purposes. An example is Billie Holiday’s heart-breaking rendition of “Strange Fruit.”
There’s something cool and detached about blue that gives rise to its reputation for spirituality and chastity. Above all, blue is the color of the sky. Like the sky, blue is infinitely spacious. It contains everything, and yet contains nothing. The color is therefore associated with ideas of eternity. When filmmakers and animators want to place a subject against a different background, they film against a blue screen since the color can be made invisible. In Jewish tradition the city of Luz, where the Immortals live, is also called The Blue City. Similarly, the mythical sacred mountain of the Hindus, Mount Meru, is constructed entirely of sapphire on its southern face and it’s this that is said to tinge the skies with blue.
To put any color out of context can have an alienating and often frightening effect. Knowing this, early British warriors daubed themselves in woad. These blue-skinned savages must have been an alarming sight for Roman soldiers.
Members of the aristocracy or the royalty are described as having “blue blood,” but why? The phrase originated with the Spanish, sangre azul, and refers to the pale-skinned Castilian ruling classes who prided themselves on never having interbred with darker-skinned races. Therefore, their blue veinous blood was plainly visible underneath the surface of their skin. There’s even a particular shade of blue that is meant to represent this color, called Royal Blue.
BROWN
SYMBOLIC MEANINGS: poverty, humility, practicality.
Brown is the color primarily associated with the Earth, soil, the raw element before it is covered with greenery. The word for earth, in Latin, is humus, which carries the same root as humility. Religious ascetics wear brown as a reminder of this quality and also of their voluntary material poverty.
GRAY
SYMBOLIC MEANINGS: sobriety, steadiness, modesty.
Gray is the midway point between black and white, and tellingly the “gray area” is an area of indetermination, indecision, or ambiguity. To be described as gray is rather less than flattering, since gray is such a subdued and neutral color, and implies that the person blends into the background. However, gray is also a color of balance and reasonableness and is the color used, in photography, to balance all others.
Because people’s hair turns gray with age, the word is often used to describe elderly people and is also a color of wisdom.
For Christians, gray is the color of resurrection and is worn when people are coming out of the full black of mourning as the midway point on the journey to other colors.
GREEN
SYMBOLIC MEANINGS: new life, resurrection, hope; the sea; fertility and regeneration; recycling, environmental awareness; a lucky color; an unlucky color.
Green is an amalgam of blue and yellow, and is the color of the fourth chakra. Green is the universal symbol for “Go!” to red’s “Stop!”
In common with yellow, there seem to be several anomalies in the symbolic meaning of green. To call someone “green” means that they are inexperienced or innocent and obviously refers to fresh young shoots, yet jealousy is also described as the “green-eyed monster.” This saying is actually Shakespearean in origin. In Othello, jealousy is described as being like the green-eyed monster, the cat, “which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Probably the same origin gives us “green with envy.”
Green is a soothing, refreshing color, so it is interesting to discover why it’s sometimes believed to be unlucky. It’s still a statistical fact that fewer green cars are sold in the UK than any other color because of this superstition.
In the Middle Ages, green was meant to be the color of the Devil. He’s even depicted on a stainedglass window in Chartres Cathedral as having green skin and green eyes, strangely similar to a generally held belief about the appearance of Martians. In this sense the color denotes an alien, nonhuman, possibly threatening being; no surprise, then, that it’s the color of the Fairy Folk, and it might well be that the color is lucky or unlucky depending on their attitude toward you. If you dressed in green, it was believed that the fairies could claim you as their own.
In Islam, green is the color of paradise, and Mohammed has a green banner. Paradise actually means “garden,” and in the arid desert landscape of the Bedouin, any stretch of lush green land must indeed appear heavenly.
The epitome of the nature God in the Western world is the Green Man, the pre-Christian deity whose leafy face peeps out from bosky woods and verdant forests and reminds us that Mother Nature is supernal. However, the Green Man is not exclusive to the West. He also exists in Islam, as Al Kadir. Al Kadir is the patron of travelers, and he’s said to live on the very edge of the world where the oceans of Heaven and Earth merge. Be mindful if you meet Al Kadir that you should do as he tells you, however