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Yes, Fall is ablaze. But while such a vibrant season is still relatively young, it's a happening of the summer past I wish to share. It's not without a reasonable amount of frustration [and interruption] that I finally got it posted. I had the Word doc up in edit mode the same day the remnants of Ike blew up and across the state of Ohio. I believe we're calling it the great Wind Storm of 2008. Recent stats show it will be more costly than the Xenia tornado, in 1974. But I digress!
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Though we survived another mild drought, the landscape in my little part of the world looked dry and brittle. I ran the air conditioner more than I would have liked, but health concerns make that a given; regardless the electric bill. And one thing I noticed this year is [which gave thought to not having seen them last year] there were no fireflies! That made me quite sad. It would seem we are losing the fireflies much the way as we've lost the honeybee. [Lights out? Experts Fear Fireflies Are Dwindling]
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Back in August, the high winds of a storm took down several main branches of the beautiful crab apple tree across the street. Split it right in half. I judged my first signs of spring by that tree. Now it’s gone. The half left standing was felled, cut up, and hauled away a few days later. A cable line broke that same night leaving the neighborhood without cable TV, the internet and/or digital phone service [depending on one's package or bundle] for more than a day and a half.
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Lightening has never bothered me. But on that night, as I opened the back door to go out and drive my car into the garage, a bolt flashed and streaked across the sky overhead, just in front of me. I froze in the pouring rain. After a moment, I turned around and came back inside. That was ju-u-ust a little too close! It literally scared me back inside and I had no desire, whatsoever, to go back out. The car (though I’ve no way to afford another one) was on its own.
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A few days later, August 7th to be exact, more storm clouds blew in and across the evening sky. Though the day’s forecast hadn’t called for any significant rainfall they were dark and menacing nonetheless. I’d spent the better part of the day up here in my studio cleaning up some unfinished projects; putting certain things away and readying new ones.
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I sat at my sewing table pulling fabrics together for a new quilted pillow case, for one of the pillows I keep on the chairs in the kitchen, when I heard a light rain begin to fall. Since I hadn’t gotten around to changing out the music CD, I had only the noise that filtered in through the window behind me. I took a quick look over my shoulder and then went on about my work; fully expecting the usual downpour.
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There’s something soothing about the sound of a gentle rain. As an equally genteel breeze wafted through, it carried a scent that beset my senses; that rare fresh air clean that accompanies such a shower. I’d not smelled that kind of fresh air in a long time. I turned around, drew it in deep and savored it. You don’t get air like that a storm. And that seems all we experience of late; storms. Though it continued to drizzle the neighborhood stood dappled with sun. Another thing I’d not witnessed in a while; rain while the sun still shone. I smiled and then turned back around to the collection calico fabrics.
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What happened next I can’t fully explain. Nothing distracted my attention from the task at hand. No sudden noise, rhyme or reason. I merely turned back around and there it was, right outside my window. Not one but two brilliant, bold, and striking rainbows. A double, both-arches-in-complete-view, rainbow.
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Before you scroll down to look for one, or post a comment asking where one is, I had the Nikon IN MY HANDS. I went and pulled it from its bag in the closet and returned to the window. I raised up the screen, had the camera strap double wrapped around my left arm, and I set up the shot. I pressed the shutter release button. Nothing. I refocused and pressed the button again. Nothing. Again. @#%&! The batteries were dead. And I had not the first spare.
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What happened next I can’t fully explain. Nothing distracted my attention from the task at hand. No sudden noise, rhyme or reason. I merely turned back around and there it was, right outside my window. Not one but two brilliant, bold, and striking rainbows. A double, both-arches-in-complete-view, rainbow.
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Before you scroll down to look for one, or post a comment asking where one is, I had the Nikon IN MY HANDS. I went and pulled it from its bag in the closet and returned to the window. I raised up the screen, had the camera strap double wrapped around my left arm, and I set up the shot. I pressed the shutter release button. Nothing. I refocused and pressed the button again. Nothing. Again. @#%&! The batteries were dead. And I had not the first spare.
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Yes. I dwelled on the disappointment, but then thought, No matter! I sat there content merely in jaw-dropped wonder; overwhelmed with the sheer joy of it's presence. It struck me at that very moment that it’s quite simply impossible look upon a rainbow and frown. Or scowl. I also thought on how they've sparked countless imaginations for millenniums. I thought of their place in myth, legend, and the covenant with Noah after the great flood. [Genesis 9 11-17]
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I also realized how easily, in this harried world, it could have gone unseen. Afterwards I questioned what even made me look out the window in the first place? Their want to be experienced? Oh. I truly believe they wanted to be seen. They wanted someone to notice they were there. And I wanted someone else to see them as well. I wanted someone to walk down the street and wonder why I hung out my window, so that I could point, “at the rainbows!” I wanted to see someone, anyone, walk through their front or back doors so that I could yell, “Turn around and look at the rainbows!” But no one did.
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They was so close. So vivid and full. I could see each band of color perfectly. I’ve never seen the like. So striking and beautiful it’s something I’ll never ever forget. And quite frankly, I don’t want to. Yes. I know they are easily explained by Science. I get the whole rain + air + sun + refracted and reflected light = a rainbow. And because of the optical effect one might not even be seen by someone on the other side of the street. And, what I felt as I gazed upon it goes beyond the standard of such a discipline. They filled me with a childish sense of wonder.
Yes. I dwelled on the disappointment, but then thought, No matter! I sat there content merely in jaw-dropped wonder; overwhelmed with the sheer joy of it's presence. It struck me at that very moment that it’s quite simply impossible look upon a rainbow and frown. Or scowl. I also thought on how they've sparked countless imaginations for millenniums. I thought of their place in myth, legend, and the covenant with Noah after the great flood. [Genesis 9 11-17]
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I also realized how easily, in this harried world, it could have gone unseen. Afterwards I questioned what even made me look out the window in the first place? Their want to be experienced? Oh. I truly believe they wanted to be seen. They wanted someone to notice they were there. And I wanted someone else to see them as well. I wanted someone to walk down the street and wonder why I hung out my window, so that I could point, “at the rainbows!” I wanted to see someone, anyone, walk through their front or back doors so that I could yell, “Turn around and look at the rainbows!” But no one did.
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They was so close. So vivid and full. I could see each band of color perfectly. I’ve never seen the like. So striking and beautiful it’s something I’ll never ever forget. And quite frankly, I don’t want to. Yes. I know they are easily explained by Science. I get the whole rain + air + sun + refracted and reflected light = a rainbow. And because of the optical effect one might not even be seen by someone on the other side of the street. And, what I felt as I gazed upon it goes beyond the standard of such a discipline. They filled me with a childish sense of wonder.
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What is most important from that moment? I knew them as a thing Nature bestows upon those who chance to see; a gift to its beholder. That makes it more than a mere act or by-product of a natural occurring event of nature. And the gift is to the soul and the sense of the greater wonder of it all. That I consider it boarders on the spiritual drove my desire to put the experience into words. That makes it more than what Science can satisfy.
What is most important from that moment? I knew them as a thing Nature bestows upon those who chance to see; a gift to its beholder. That makes it more than a mere act or by-product of a natural occurring event of nature. And the gift is to the soul and the sense of the greater wonder of it all. That I consider it boarders on the spiritual drove my desire to put the experience into words. That makes it more than what Science can satisfy.
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What does it say about an event that makes one want to pick up a pen and share it with mere words? Is it simply where I’m at in my life? I sat there not wanting to lose what I knew to be so fleeting. Though I remember thinking, well that just made my day! it could easily have gone unseen. No. A force incited these words and I knew these rainbows to be a gift. It was my double rainbow. My joy and I’ve claimed it.
What does it say about an event that makes one want to pick up a pen and share it with mere words? Is it simply where I’m at in my life? I sat there not wanting to lose what I knew to be so fleeting. Though I remember thinking, well that just made my day! it could easily have gone unseen. No. A force incited these words and I knew these rainbows to be a gift. It was my double rainbow. My joy and I’ve claimed it.
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The very notion of the want of being noticed brought tears to my soul. I wept for such a want. It was no mere act of nature. There was a spirit to it; strong enough to make me write these words and share it someone else.
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I can emphasize the grandeur of it all as I may. Anyone reading will either chose to believe me or push it off as hyperbole. To say I’ve never seen the like is the greatest understatement I can make. Hence my ill-fated trip for the camera. And why should I feel this experience is of interest to anyone but me? Because it filled me with the kind of joy I hope might be contagious. Though it’s up to each of us to find our own, I can’t be faulted for trying to show the way.
I can emphasize the grandeur of it all as I may. Anyone reading will either chose to believe me or push it off as hyperbole. To say I’ve never seen the like is the greatest understatement I can make. Hence my ill-fated trip for the camera. And why should I feel this experience is of interest to anyone but me? Because it filled me with the kind of joy I hope might be contagious. Though it’s up to each of us to find our own, I can’t be faulted for trying to show the way.
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I sat that evening and watched my gift fade from existence. The second and lesser arch faded first; left of the sky to the right. The bolder of the two began fading as well. Simultaneously, the last of the murky clouds drifted in to cover it over, and I was left with but a fractured view. Once the bits and pieces were gone from sight, I lowered the window screen and reluctantly turned away.
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With that reluctance comes my words. These are my echoes and my sharing. My not wanting others to miss out on what this world still has to offer. It’s a knowing that lost in all the vast amount of misfortune: global natural disasters; massive ill-health; scandals; jobs sent off-shore; political wranglings; theft and murder; price gouging; golden parachutes; puppy mills, factory and fur farms; famine; unchecked genocide; war and threats of war, annihilation, and assassinations; shaken and radical faiths; untold lies and shades of the truth; numerous looming prophecies; financial crises; along with varying degrees of conspiracies [NWO, webbot predictions, HAARP, etc.] and/or pending doom [lack of sunspots and solar winds, pole shift, etc.]; (insert breath here— ) there are still rainbows.
I sat that evening and watched my gift fade from existence. The second and lesser arch faded first; left of the sky to the right. The bolder of the two began fading as well. Simultaneously, the last of the murky clouds drifted in to cover it over, and I was left with but a fractured view. Once the bits and pieces were gone from sight, I lowered the window screen and reluctantly turned away.
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With that reluctance comes my words. These are my echoes and my sharing. My not wanting others to miss out on what this world still has to offer. It’s a knowing that lost in all the vast amount of misfortune: global natural disasters; massive ill-health; scandals; jobs sent off-shore; political wranglings; theft and murder; price gouging; golden parachutes; puppy mills, factory and fur farms; famine; unchecked genocide; war and threats of war, annihilation, and assassinations; shaken and radical faiths; untold lies and shades of the truth; numerous looming prophecies; financial crises; along with varying degrees of conspiracies [NWO, webbot predictions, HAARP, etc.] and/or pending doom [lack of sunspots and solar winds, pole shift, etc.]; (insert breath here— ) there are still rainbows.
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Take time out of your busied days and look for them!
Many blessings, L.L.
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