I’ve started a series of writings based on Mandalas that I’ve been coloring. It’s from an adult coloring book called, “Balance”, a lifelong adventure for me – finding balance, that is. It gets easier as I get older, due to experience, due to developing more patience, and due to the need to live in harmony with myself.

I’ve always loved mandalas. They satisfy my desire for symmetry, even though I don’t always surround myself with it. I’m pretty sure I love symmetry because it gives me a sense of balance, and because I am so eclectic and erratic that symmetry is something my brain can latch onto that creates order.

Also, I LOVE colors. Along the way, in this series, I’ll tell you about scientific experiments I had my students do around color, and I’ll include some nifty facts about color, but for now, I’m going to share some of the emotions and thoughts I’ve had around the colors I’m using in my mandala drawings. And yes, there is an irony here, for a woman (me) who is pretty non-conformist and highly creative (it says so in my recent behavior / personality chart) that I am very careful to color within the lines of these mandala drawings. I am meticulous and deliberate. The process is an amazing contemplative and mindful meditation.

You can consider this a synesthetic journey, where I have emotional reactions to colors.

I’ll start with Black, White, and Grey. Or gray, if you are my document sentinel. I’ve had to retrain my computer innards to accept grey.

While I enjoy the contrast of black and white, the cleanliness of it, and how I associate black and white with the concept of yin / yang, which is how I view the world, for some reason I had to add some gray to this mandala. 

I don’t think of most things as black and white. I’m not really a digital thinker. You know. On or off. Black or white. It’s this way or that way. Even when you look at yin and yang, you can’t have one without the other. So, essentially, nothing is either just black or just white. It’s never just this or just that. I suppose that’s why the idea of having only 2 political parties is ridiculous to me. There are so many nuances to the way people think. I realize that decisions have to be made, lines drawn in the sand sometimes, deadlines that must be adhered to, but really…how many things are all that specific? How many things really require absolutes, or drop dead time frames? There are some, but most things are fluid and have leeway. 

I’m sure some people, those who thrive in black and white worlds, will argue that things are black and white. A rule is a rule. And yes, we live in a digital world, not an analog one. 

And so forth. 

I call shenanigans on that. Even the law isn’t black and white. Sure, laws are created, but they are created by humans. They are often interpreted differently by different juries, and they can change over time. Even Constitutional amendments can be changed, added to, and, as the word denotes, amended. Nothing is black and white.

Black and white is merely the absence of color or the amalgamation of all colors. When blended, as they inevitably will be, as they bleed into each other, black and white will create gray. Shades of grey. 

Ironically, although I adhere to a philosophy of gray, it is a color that I don’t often appreciate. Over the years, I have come to like certain shades of it, and only on certain objects, like some pieces of clothing. But gray has connotations for me. 

It’s a gray sky. That doesn’t depress me as much as make me yearn for a decision from the weather.  “Do something! Declare what you are!” I lament. “Are you going to rain? Will the blue sky peek through? Are you going to dump some snow? MAKE A DECISION!!” 

After thinking through that, I suppose that I do like black and white. So clean, so decisive. But something about it irked me in this mandala. That’s when I decided to add a bit of dark gray. To provide some shadows. To provide the ambiguity that I often have about – everything. Sometimes, it’s annoying. Sometimes, I welcome ambiguity because it allows me to see various perspectives. It allows me to know that there are other thoughts supporting my ideas. 

The gray in this mandala provides shadowing. It actually provides support for the black. It allows you to know that there is a transition between the black and white. Not limbo, but a place that connects. A color that is the intersection between the others. 

When I looked at my new sweater this morning, which is a dark grey, soft chenille, it actually made me feel cozy. Like a place that invites me to sink into it, opening its arms to me, enfolding me in a place that doesn’t care if I make decisions. It doesn’t care about right or wrong, good or bad, on or off. It’s a place that invites me to just BE. Just curl up and marinate in the love, in the feelings, where no decisions have to be made, nothing has to be done. It’s a place where my thoughts and emotions can gestate, and eventually flow out in creative sparks. 

Grey is the place where I live most of the time.