"Peredur stood and compared the raven and the whiteness of the snow and the redness of the blood to the hair of the lady that best he loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her skin which was whiter than snow, and to the red spots upon her cheek, which was redder than the blood upon the snow."
___ Peredur, from The Mabinogian
In his adventures, Peredur (Perr-EDD'yr) comes upon a scene that transfixes him so completely that his companions are unable to gain his attention. He sees a raven stooping upon a wild duck in the snow; and the fusion of the three startling colors - the redness of the blood, the whiteness of the snow, and the blackness of the raven's feathers - causes him to fall into a reverie of his best beloved.
These three colors - black, white and red - appear in worldwide folklore as heroes and heroines long for the beloved of their heart. A kind of soul-alchemy surrounds these colors, which are considered to be the sacred colors of many spiritual traditions. Within the Celtic tradition, these colors appear in triadic fusion as the colors of the spiritual quest, which has its easy, difficult and inspired phases. These respective fair, ugly, and strong phases of our soul's circuit are the central core of our personal pathway: all phases are important; none can be excluded. As we follow our personal quest for meaning, we can draw upon the wisdom of each phase.
"Obtain three balls of wool or reels of cotton in the colors discussed above and cut three arm-lengths from them. Meditating upon your spiritual path to date, consider the difficult times, the easy times, the inspired times. Weave together these three colored threads into a braided cord. Decide which color represents each strand of your life. This sacred cord now embodies the three most important strands of your soul's pathway. Keep it safe."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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