rainbow - noun - arch of colors formed in the sky in certain circumstances, caused by the refraction and dispersion of the sun's light by rain or other water droplets in the atmosphere (Google).
I don't know about you, but I have always appreciated the symbolism and artistry and magic of a rainbow. It is God's palette of colors that human beings have associated with superficially unrelated abstract concepts and have reproduced visually probably since their first glance of one. The rainbow has been connected to luck, hope, promise, peace, equality, new beginnings, and internal life. In 1978 after Harvey Milk commissioned him, Gilbert Baker, a Vietnam War vet, artist, designer, and part-time drag queen, created the rainbow pride flag just in time for San Francisco's annual gay pride parade (www.history.com). Ever since, the LGBTQ community has seen the rainbow as a symbol integral to its identity. Yet Baker wasn't the only painter to duplicate the rainbow. In fact, the fine artist Norman Adams realized fifteen on canvas (Google). My personal favorite rainbow portraits are those that children create on paper. I have always poised to enjoy their anonymous pastel colored chalk designs on the concrete of sidewalks and macadam of streets. They generally remember to include all seven colors (the number seven being mystical in itself).
The appearance of an actual rainbow during or after a significant event can be viewed as a sign or coincidence: A sign if you are drifting on a spiritual plain, coincidence if you choose to live the material world. I know that during my daughter's high school graduation in 2009, two rainbows surrounded the football stadium that cupped in its hand administrators, parents, the graduates, the concert band and chorus. The rainbows were so magically timed that not one of the attendees, I'm quite sure, thought of them as a random occurrence.
Unless you have been in hiding from all things digital or analogue, you already know that Queen Elizabeth II, the only British monarch that any of us under 97 have ever known, passed away today. Above Windsor Castle, after the announcement of her death, a rainbow graced the sky. It made news internationally despite the naysaying bourgeois or apostates who would rather label the event "coincidental." I am sure most of the Brits who have loved QE2 best saw it as a mark most likely of the Queen's eternal life or the foreshadowing of a new beginning. I'm guessing King Charles III just might be contemplating the significance right now. As well he should. I'd like to think that God must have saved the Queen and felt He needed to write proof in pretty colors for all to witness so as to assuage the grief of a nation.
The takeaway? May you never cease to notice and ponder the wonder of the rainbow.
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