Gandalf the Grey was wise and dutiful, but when he fell and rose again as Gandalf the White, his strength of character had no bounds, and his elevated status was a brilliant light to behold.
White is the colour of purity because it is clean, bright and also complete with all visible light, no matter what wavelength. Those, like me, who seek wholesomeness and unboundedness are attracted to white.
But sometimes we forget that, to get to an elevated or matured white, we must traverse the land of grey.
The world we live in is black and white or left and right. We live in a world of duality. Even the grey matter of our brains is divided into two hemispheres and criss-crossed at its juncture into reality, like the black and white checkered floors of fashionable estates. The child in me wants to skip and hop my way across to the other side on a sea of white. As children, we used to sing “if you step on a crack, you marry a rat”. What if I step on a black square? Does it mean I fall into the abyss of nothingness?
Gandalf must have been someone before he became Gandalf the Grey. Would he have been white first or black first? Righteous or a lefty? Didn’t Middle Earth already have a white wizard?
I suppose it doesn’t really matter how I started out if I make the effort to follow an elevated and mature path of oneness. It was fun skipping and hopping through safe zones. But now let me dissolve the lines and gently traverse a sea of grey straight down the aisle and toward my destination.
Gandalf’s story proves that there is wholesome White after a void of Grey, and that’s enough to keep me flying across the mountains and high seas, in this world of duality.
