My day job involves a lot of manual labor, so I have a lot of "free" time, basically all day, to think about whatever I want. One of the million things that crossed my mind was today's color challenge color: blue. What do I have that's blue, and what could I possibly say about it? Then I thought of Leia's blue spec and her blue coat.
Leia's coat is called blue merle. The merle pattern occurs naturally in just a small handful of breeds and is not very common (even though Leia and Rey have four Aussie friends and Rey is the only one who's not merle). Along with the coat pattern, it's likely that a blue merle dog will have a solid blue or marble blue eye, or even two blue eyes. Leia's left eye is marble blue, but I just call it her speck.
With so much blue on my mind I began to think about what blue means in symbolism. Why is it that "having the blues" is synonymous with being sad? Blue is a happy and tranquil color. I can only figure that blue's bad reputation comes from THE Blues (as in B.B. King).
[Rey was waiting for her chance at trying to get the squeaker out.]
A quick Google search of the word blue will generate a myriad of positive descriptions like, "Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven" (1). Trustworthy, loyal, wise, confident, intelligent…these are all adjectives that I could use to describe Leia.
Something about this description also reminded me of the Blue Lanterns in the DC Universe whose strength is hope. I'll save the nerdy commentary for another post, but I'll leave you with the Blue Lantern oath:
In fearful day, in raging night,
With strong hearts full, our souls ignite,
When all seems lost in the War of Light,
Look to the stars-- For hope burns bright!