Rainbow

The L0veVibe Global Meditation of Sunday November 29, 2009 focuses on the symbol of the Rainbow. We invite you to integrate this idea into your regular meditation practice, or even to devote your session to it. Contemplate it, feel it, paint it, sing it, experience it and -most of all- Love it. Please remember the purpose is connection, so if you do not resonate with a symbol presented here, then feel free to choose your own.


A beam of white light is a superposition of various light beams, often discretely separated as the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. This discrete spectrum of 7 colors is an artefact of human color vision. In reality the spectrum is continuous.


When a beam of light meets an interface between two media A and B, for example between air and a water drop, or between air and a glass prism, then the beam will be partially reflected (returning in A) and partially refracted (going on in B). However, refraction is different for each of the seven colors, and so a beam of white light in medium A is separated into 7 beams of 7 colors in medium B.

If medium A is the air in our Earthly atmosphere, and medium B is the water of a rain drop, then we speak of a Rainbow. The same effect is also produced by a spray of water drops, such as produced by a crashing wave.


The primary rainbow results from the light making one single pass through the raindrop (one internal reflection inside the drop). There is a secondary rainbow visible when the light that makes two internal reflections before leaving the raindrop reaches your eye. For this secondairy bow, the color order is reversed.


A rainbow thus combines several pleasing Natural elements: water, air, light, color, the arc or circle, and human vision. The water drops can be provided by rain, a waterfall, fountain spray, fog or dew. Viewed from an airplane, the rainbow may form a fully closed circle.


The light is usually provided by sunlight at low altitude, or alternatively by sunlight reflected off the Moon (a moonbow). Often times dark clouds form a beautiful contrast with the radiant colors of the rainbow.


In Kannada, the rainbow is called Kamanabillu, where billu means bow, and Kama is the God of Love. In Aboriginal mythology the rainbow snake is the deity governing water.

Beware: When moving towards a rainbow, the bow will move further away.