Tag: Rainbow

Rainbow Resonance
Rainbow Resonance, August 18, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)

Perhaps a purist will scoff, a musicologist for example, when I hitch a rainbow (a double rainbow) to resonance. But I’ll claim poetic license long enough to sneak past the physics police or whoever else patrols these matters. Rainbow resonance isn’t just a pleasantly alliterative title for this post. It’s an observation. Rainbows — witnessed in person, via image, or in words — resonate. They reverberate. Visual reverberation, visual resonance. I’ll defer to the more scientifically inclined to explain why this phenomenon is true. I’ll simply assert it. Rainbow resonance is real. Spy a rainbow, and you instantly want to convey it through some form of communication.

“Hey, look. A rainbow!”

Or you snap a photo, text it to your beloved.

Maybe you pen a poem or paint a watercolor or compose a song…

On August 18, 2020 I witnessed and romanced this rainbow from Rosslyn’s lawn and then from our waterfront. I snapped a photo and typed a quick haiku. And then I shared them. Rainbow resonance. It’s real.

Rainbow Resonance: Haiku

Here’s the arresting impossibility of a double rainbow distilled into as few words as possible, lest the words occlude the vibrant arcs.
```
Iris arcing her
opulent salutation
‘tween earth and ether.
```
Perhaps this is a nod to Pablo Neruda.
```
Dónde termina el arco iris,
en tu alma o en el horizonte?

Where does the rainbow end,
in your soul or on the horizon?

— Pablo Neruda, Libro de las Preguntas (Book of Questions)
```
Or perhaps this is just a haiku nodding at a double rainbow…

Rosslyn Rainbow Resonance, August 18, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)

Rainbow Reverb: Social Media

Sometimes a thought, image, or video posted onto social media drifts briefly and then vanishes. Short lived. A non event. A message whispered into the chasm, swallowed by the wind and water and a mesmerizing murmuration.

Once in a while a message is timely or touching, a lucky capture, or for some other mysterious reason finds its target. Again and again. Reverberating. Resonant. These moments can be affirming and beautiful.

When I shared the rainbow over Lake Champlain photograph at the top of this post (and below) on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter on August 18, 2020 I was pleasantly surprised with the feedback. I include all three posts as an effort to interweave some of the most compelling comments. Enjoy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEDew4QJG4i/

https://www.twitter.com/RosslynRedux/status/1295915240421502977

Click on this Facebook link to view the original FB post (or add the following URL into your browser.)

https://www.facebook.com/rosslynredux/photos/a.193160807397700/3188013817912369/

Thanks!
August 25, 2020
Drizzly Day Discoveries

Drizzly Day Discovery #1 was this rain soaked vista that inspired an itty-bitty poem. (Source: @virtualdavis)

Drizzly day disappointment is real. It’s a sort of malaise. Perhaps not for all of us, but definitely for some of us.

And yet an inclement day needn’t always disappoint. Far from it, in fact. So — as much to convince myself as to convince you, patient reader — I’ll share a glimpse of two memorable aspects from Tuesday’s rainy washout.

Drizzly Day Haiku

I almost opted out of my morning bike ride because rain was threatening. From early morning “gray light” to sunrise around 5:45 AM to an overcast-but-brightening first hour of the day to… darkness. It was as if we’ve been plunged back into night.

But I pulled on my MAMIL clown suit and headed up to the carriage barn to get my bicycle. It was increasingly clear that raindrops would be falling. Soon. As I pushed my gravel bike outside it begin to drizzle.

Not the most inspiring conditions for a ride, but I decided to give it a go. Over the next 75 minutes the drizzle increased into a full-on rain, then back to drizzle, then a rain scarcely heavier than mist, then back to driving rain. I was drenched. My shoes slurped with each pedal stroke. Road spray blurred with the falling rain. Water up, water down. And from time to time I enjoyed thorough drenching from my flank as a vehicle thundered past. It occurred to me that taking a bicycle through a car wash might feel similar. I don’t advise trying it.

On the positive side, the morning’s temperature was cooler than recent days, and the rain was actually refreshing. Cycling in rainy conditions has the effect of shrinking the world a little bit, decreasing the rider’s focus to a relatively small bubble around him/her while pedaling down the road. This hunkering can sometimes catalyze some pretty useful thinking. Soggy but catalytic headspace!

When I was almost home, pedaling up the small hill at the intersection of NYS Route 22 and Middle Road (where I suspect we may soon confirm Hillcrest Station to have stood a century or so ago), I came across the enchanting view above. It’s a vista that I have appreciated often, but the rain transformed it. Something about the light, the softened edges, the muted palette, and the playful juxtaposition of depth. The tree in the semi-foreground and the Adirondack mountains in the semi-background, both silhouetted as a middle focal horizon between between lush green fields and tie-dyed skies. I stopped and stood awhile absorbing.

And a itty-bitty micropoem was born, a subtle haiku that I mashed up and shared with the image above on Instagram and as a peculiar AI-voiced haiku video on TikTok, a platform with which I’m totally unfamiliar.

If you’re unable to find the haiku on either, here it is.

Midmorning mist mutes,
rain drizzle watercolors,
familiar fades. (@rosslynredux)

Drizzly Day Double Rainbows

And then, as if the soggy haiku wasn’t enough, I also enjoyed another drizzly day discovery in the evening. Our Santa Fe friend and carpenter, Hroth Ottosen, who’s been visiting and helping rebuild Rosslyn’s deck captured a double rainbow over Lake Champlain. Certainly that is some sort of lucky! Although I missed the moment, he snapped some excellent images including the one shown below.

Drizzly Day Discovery #2 was a double rainbow that inspired a micro meditation video. (Source: Hroth Ottosen)

All things considered, this was a drizzly day to reset all expectations. From now on I’ll anticipate good discoveries no matter what sort of weather nature sends out way. And maybe you too have a drizzly day positive story? Hope so!

August 4, 2022
Rainbow Ramble

At the end of the rainbow… A ferry!

That seems like the perfect, cheesoise title for this photo I just snapped standing in the road between our home and the boathouse. Looking east at Vermont’s Green Mountains, though you’ll have to take my word for it since the rain and fog have veiled the view.

But fully in the dairy free camp in recent years, I’ll sidestep the cheesoise in favor of the inane.

No rainbows were injured making this picture.

Just to show I’m a nice guy. And comfortable patting myself on the back for being a nice guy. Or is that goofy? No, this is goofy.

No ferries were injured making this picture…

Basically the photo speaks (or whispers) enough on its own. I need to zip up my blather mouth and let the moment carry the post. Quietly. Except of the wind which was whipping. Is whipping. And the raindrops which — despite the sun and clear skies behind me — were beginning to pelt down. Hence my retreat from the boathouse hammock to the sunporch with a very soggy Griffin who chased frisbees in the rolling waves without the least concern for darkening skies and rainbows.

Yes, rainbows. There are actually two. Can you see the slightly fainter echo of a rainbow just to the right of the more pronounced one? Look carefully. And you might even spot a pot of gold. Or a ferry?

July 1, 2014