Rainbow

A rainbow can only be seen when the sun is behind you and the rain is in front of you.

This is because the light that leaves each water droplet is at a fixed angle relative to the incoming light. A rainbow is created from sunlight bending and bouncing inside water droplets. Three things happen, all at once, inside each tiny droplet.

Refraction (bending). This is when the sunlight passes from the air into a water droplet, where it slows down and bends. Each different color bends differently from one another. Violet bends the most, and red the least. This is why red shapes the outermost edge of a rainbow arch and violet shows as the shortest inside arch.

Reflection (bouncing). Once inside, the light hits the back of the droplet and reflects off the inner surface, sending it back to you.

Dispersion (separating). As the light exits the droplet it bends again, exaggerating the spread of colors even further. The result is that each droplet sends a little spectrum of color back out into the air.

Recently I realized people will often equate the colors of a rainbow with feelings to create a quick and easy to remember phrase. Every color has one. Red hot anger. A Yellow-belly coward. Green with envy. Down with the Blues. Bruised Purple. With the outlier being Orange, because as we know, nothing rhymes with orange!

Along the same lines, rainbows are used world-wide as symbols. I see them used biblically as a promise that God will never flood the world again. They’re used as a banner for homosexual pride. They’re used as a color palette for artists. Rainbows can also be seen as harbingers of beauty in nature.

A storm will often appear unceremoniously, or with so few warnings that you’re given mere minutes to prepare. When my life’s storm happened I was given zero minutes; zero time to prepare. Then, I came around to consciousness while fighting through the gales of confusion and pain. It isn’t difficult to know when you’re in the middle of a storm; you witness in real time the combination of elements that happen in tandem to create the weather.

And you’re powerless to stop or control it. I was acutely aware something was wrong and that I didn’t have the ability to reverse my situation. While everything regarding the accident had to be explained to me, there was no need to convince me of the pain I was feeling. After the iterations it took bringing me to a level state, I then allowed myself to consider the future. I was hoping, believing, and working toward a life of beautiful healing, even while my reality was being in the worst storm of my life.

In other words,

To witness the amazing beauty of a rainbow, you must first gaze into the impending rain storm. And such is life.

But if an oncoming storm in your life is inevitable, is it not better to at least see it coming while also having a rainbow appear to provide beauty?

The rainbow visible to you will never be precisely the rainbow visible to the person standing beside you. The geometry of light and angle ensures it. Therefore, both the storms and the rainbows appearing in your life will be only yours to witness, and only yours to live through.

Yet, there’s beauty to be found in life even while a storm is happening.