It is unthinkable to some that this should be the case, but it can be so. And there might not be any conceivable reason for it. Though it must be said that yellow for some is not the colour of sunny, of unmitigated happiness, but of melancholy. So bright it hurts the eyes; so forceful with its hot fingers into and over everything that a person can feel, at times, violated. Yellow is not always kind; yellow can be the colour of cruelty.
Blue, too, is not for all the colour of cheerlessness, nor thought as gloomy, dispiriting, no matter the shade. Blue uplifts them, and makes them feel dynamic and purposeful. The crystal-clear stream likes a blue sky, a blank blue or studded with clouds, and filled with song, song of the wind, song of the trees, song of the birds and the chatter or the patter of squirrels. More often, however, it receives the song of sirens, that of emergency vehicles, not that of mythical creatures who are part-woman, part bird.
Grey is safe, grey is reassuring. Grey is not dull. A light tone brings relief, a respite from heat, a gradual, natural decline over time, whilst mid to dark tones suggest a seriousness, an introspectiveness – doors and windows have been shut – a going into oneself, though not necessarily to brood but to learn, to give oneself to something. Grey focuses the will. Grey is anything but glum. Through grey gleams silver, suggesting hope, a new beginning, a fresh start.
Black is the one, the colour to be cautious of. The black dog, Churchill's dog, a best friend. A friend he didn't want but a friend that was there. Good or evil. Good and evil. An all-black dog, the colour of night, which could be a mere trick of the light, a mere trick of the eye. But no, there it laps, a huge black dog with a broken chain round its neck, at the crystal-clear stream. Lap, lap, lap with its enormous pink tongue. Thirsty. The stream likes the dog, for the dog has its own knowledge of the world. A deeper, darker knowledge, it is true, but a knowledge, too, that happiness lies in satisfying needs through the most basic and natural means. The law of the dog. How you have to live like a dog to know it.
Therefore, the dog drinks. Drinks deep of the stream as the stream tastes of it, having chosen not to evade its lips but to give of itself freely.
What do the crystal-clear waters that tinkle like glass gain from their encounters with the huge black dog? They learn what it is to be the hound and be hounded, to be the protector of a house and household, and to feel devoted to the master, so devoted it might snap and snarl and bark unpleasantly at strangers, or excitedly wag its tail at family members and known friends of. And learn, too, what it is like to be told off, for reasons it can't comprehend, sent to its bed or sent outside, forced to leave its master's side. No creature knows both abuse and faithfulness like a dog. Or abandonment, forced to fend for itself and to rely on the kindness of humans, unknowing whether they might mean it harm or good, and having to trust always it will be the latter. For black is its colour but not its heart.
The stream evokes, in all that drink from it, hard realities and fond memories, but the dog is its second-most loyal patron. Its first-most is a wood nymph who, like Narcissus, uses it as a mirror, though not to admire herself but to gaze into the outside world, to literally see through the blue-grey and blue-green eyes of her captor and, possibly one day, liberator; and who if she were freed could then teach not to be beware of the dog, but to be dog-like.
Picture credit: Cave Canem: Beware of the Dog Mosiac at Pompeii (source: Wikipedia.org).
Written March 2020.
