I love Rainbows

Rainbows … I love them. They have always fascinated me. My head knows this is a just the way light refracts from the droplets of water. Spreading different colours based on the angle of refraction. But the heart says it is a kind of blessing. It makes me happy as if I have just remembered some joyful memory. For many years the rainbows I saw were half formed, not a complete bow. Always wondered what it would be like to see a complete one. The pot of gold at the end of one really exists?

One day we were driving back from Wales and it had been raining. I was concentrating on driving in all the spray being thrown up by other cars. The clouds cleared and the sky became intense blue, almost as if washed clean by the rain. The sunshine was so intense that I had to squint in the sudden brightness. At this moment I thought why is it I never see a complete rainbow? It would be so good to see a full rainbow. The next moment a perfect rainbow formed in front of me. It went right across the Severn Bridge that we were crossing. The rainbow band was very broad and colours intense. This sudden sight of a complete rainbow just as I made a wish for it made it feel like a spiritual experience, almost as if that was a moment in time when my wish was granted. A simple wish that was unselfish. I wonder if in that moment I had wished for anything, would it have been granted? I guess not. The sight of a complete rainbow is uplifting and an experience that makes my heart glad and light. I forget any worries I might have and get lost in the moment of perfect rainbow and its colours.

Since that day I have always seen complete rainbows, whether it has been across a valley in the Himalayas or driving on M4. In Mussoorie (India) we stayed in a hotel what jutted off the mountainside. The bedroom had full windows that opened on to a balcony hanging off the mountain side. The view was right across the valley below and the foothills on either side. Every afternoon the clouds bubbled up from the valley and rose to drift into our room if the windows were open. In the middle of the afternoon one day the clouds got dark and there was a rain storm in the valley. As I sat watching it slowly cleared and weak sunlight filtered through. There against the dark skies was a rainbow right across the valley with either ends disappearing behind the hills on opposite sides. As I watched the rainbow with the usual gladdening of my heart there formed another rainbow next to the first one! My first complete double rainbows, the best sight I have seen.

One day driving on M4 across Berkshire, it had been raining as usual. The spray on the road was so intense that I could not tell the difference between the rain and the spray for quite some time. As the wind was strong the clouds moved along and the squall of rain drifted away. Sunlight broke through the clouds and I started looking around for my rainbow. I saw it start on the left of my windscreen, from the corner of my eye. As I was driving I hoped that it would come across the windscreen so that I could see it. Suddenly, I saw that the rainbow was in the middle of the road. The rainbow actually ended in the middle lane of the motorway. I have never heard of anyone actually seeing the end of one let alone driving through the middle of that band of colour as it flowed on the wet tarmac for a few feet. Then we were on the other side of the rainbow, again an experience that is strange as normally the rainbow is always in front of you. While sadly there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow the spiritual joy the experience produced was priceless.

Now you see my reasons for thinking of rainbows as a spiritual and uplifting experience. I hope that other have this joyful connection with nature be it rainbows or anything else. I have not stopped looking for rainbow every time it rains and that is always a certainty in UK.