Sacred Colors

There are three primary colors within which all of the cosmos is wrapped. Those colors are Red, White, and Black- whose associations and understanding stems first from the Slavic cultures. The rest of the colors are not sacred, merely useful for setting the mood in the general sense, or to aid in spellcasting through color associations and psychology.

Red, in a traditional sense, encompassed a much wider range of colors that included not just Red in the modern sense, but also shades of crimson, orange, pink, and warm brown tones. It was associated with aggression and protection. It was also associated with wealth and beauty. Most importantly- the Slavic peoples being a fire worshiping group of cultures- it was associated with fire and the sun. But also with blood, and with life and everything alive: Warmth, fertility, health and wellness, vibrancy, energy, etc; it is the Life’s Blood.

Black in the traditional sense encompassed many dark tones- from the proper ‘saturated black’, to dark browns and dark grays, dark blues, and many other dark tones across the spectrum. It symbolized the nutrient-giving ‘black soil’, fertility, wealth, and reward for hard work. But it also symbolized the primeval wilderness, the omnipresent, the unknown, and the unseen. Likewise, it was the color of the Underworld; of the Ancestors, and of Ancestral connections, and the hearth. It could also mean rejection and separation- especially from society, or the social group.

White was often called by various adjectives like ‘gleaming’, ‘sparkling’, ‘glittering’, ‘lucent’- or hinted at with epithets like “created from light”, “full of light”, or “reflecting light”. It represented the light itself, but was associated with the otherworld, and death; a color of ritual passage between worlds, and a state of being in itself. It was also a harbinger of fate, and a revealer of secrets and mysteries- neither good, nor bad. It was the color of contradiction, transition, and change, and often worn at the most fragile but sacred transitions of life: Birth, Marriage, and Death.