White is the Color... --- Days 12/229-235

Walks: San Francisco Various

Distances: Average 5 miles

 

So, when Ciwt first moved to her new place - after 41 years at her beloved but steep stair old home - she could barely have anything in it that wasn't white.  White pillows, white flowers, white sheets and duvet covers, white cache pots.  White, white and white with maybe a touch of something light (pink, green) here and there.  Any bright colors were jarring to Ciwt, seemed like invaders.

Then yesterday she began looking at chairs and sofas. Every sales person wanted her to go for some shade of white; it made Ciwt cringe. And today, almost a year and a half after her move, she found herself scouring the internet for pictures of richly colored pillows, fabrics, carpets.  Something has moved or changed within. Enough already with white.

Now she remembers much has been written about the color white and things associated with it. It's actually very complex color.  In Western cultures, white symbolizes purity, peacefulness, cleanliness. It is associated with light, goodness, softness.  It also symbolizes new beginnings like the blank page of a notebook.

These are all good, uplifting, positive things.

But in many Eastern cultures, white is linked with death and sadness.  It's often used in funerals and other mourning rituals.  It can also seem cold, stark, isolated. Basically empty or negative things.

Then there are associations with white that are a more complex mixture.  White can symbolize a new journey after passing away. It is the color of reincarnation, of rebirth.  It can be used in rituals to make the completion of a cycle and the beginning of a new one. It opens the path for creations and the new. 

Ciwt isn't sure exactly what she has been associating with white.  But it seems like a positive step that she is beginning to open again to more stimulating colors.