Monday, April 21, 2014

R is for Rainbow



Rainbows fascinated me, when I was a child. Being bright, elusive and ethereal, they made me believe in the heavens above. The thought that every storm had a rainbow following it, made me face the storms with courage. Their presence was a reassurance that there was hope ahead.


While growing up books told me, that rainbows had a strong presence in mythology as well.  
Image Source 
The above painting titled Noah's Thanksoffering (c.1803) by Joseph Anton Koch depicts how after Noah builds an altar to the Lord after being delivered from the Flood, God sends the rainbow as a sign of his covenant.

As the flood had killed all other living beings, the rainbow came to symbolize God's promise that he would never send another flood to destroy all of the earth and that never again would all living things be killed in the waters of a flood.

In Greek mythology, the daughter of first-generation gods Electra and Thaumas, Iris dresses in rainbow colors. As messenger of the gods, she flies on golden wings. The rainbow was a mode of transportation for Iris, who proves to be as elusive and unpredictable (yet unforgettable) as the rainbow itself. Charming!!

Western mythology refers to Bifrost, a rainbow bridge between earth and heaven that is attainable to only the good or virtuous, such as warriors and royalty. Royal!!

In fairy tales, leprechauns buried pots of gold at the end of a rainbow. Enticing!!

Later on science came in and took the magic out of rainbows.
 It told me that a rainbow is just an optical and meteorological phenomenon that is caused by both reflection and refraction of light in water droplets in Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. Boring!!

Whatever.. I prefer to believe that a rainbow is a sign of hope. I prefer to hope that  somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly,and the dreams that I dream of really do come true.

By the way, do you know that we have a rainbow within us?!! Check this post to know more about this.


Leaving you to ponder over this quote...



This post is a part of Blogging from A-Z April Challenge.


The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge was first held in 2010. The challenge is that we have to post every day of April, except on the four Sundays. April 1st is a theme with letter A, 2nd with letter B and so on till April 30th which will be Z themed. My theme is #Learning Everyday, I post about new random things every day.


9 comments:

  1. Exactly Rainbow is a sign of HOPE. Well written (clap,clap)

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  2. Rainbows are lovely and I jump up and down like a child when I get to see them. But I didn't know that rainbows had so much significance in mythology too:)

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  3. rainbows make me excited evn til date :D i just knew the fairy tale story behind them. thanks for sharing this :) n yes, rainbow does symbolizes hope for me too :-)

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  4. Always believed in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow :)

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  5. A quote from my favorite musical. Every once in a while we catch a double rainbow, which is even more beautiful than a regular one.

    Thanks for visiting The Busy Mom's Daily.

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  6. I much prefer your colourful description and interpretation of a rainbow than the scientific ones :) The leprechaun and the pot of gold is the popular one and one of my favourites incidentally!

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  7. Rainbow is a wonder to me, it never ceases to amaze me even at this age. Think of the magnitude... miniscule particles reflecting sun's rays to form a HUGE bow!
    Liked reading your thoughts on it. :)

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  8. Science may have taken the magic out of rainbows. But hasn't science given us the magic to reach beyond rainbows? Of course, I understand what you mean. We need to cultivate our imagination a bit more.

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