Rainbows have captured the human imagination for millennia, finding their way into myths, legends, artwork and Lucky Charms cereal.
They’ve been symbols of hope, beauty and fortune. They’ve held cultural and religious significance. They’re ubiquitous in June, when displays of the rainbow-colored Pride flag peak.
It’s a lot for one colorful optical phenomenon to shoulder.
We at Inland 360 have been pondering the rainbow and its meanings, which led, as such questions do, to some Googling, and we wanted to share a sampling of the results.
Let’s start with the science. We looked to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s SciJinks webpage, where the agency provides easy-to-understand explanations of weather phenomena, including rainbows, at scijinks.gov/rainbow.
They’ve been symbols of hope, beauty and fortune. They’ve held cultural and religious significance. They’re ubiquitous in June, when displays of the rainbow-colored Pride flag peak.
It’s a lot for one colorful optical phenomenon to shoulder.
We at Inland 360 have been pondering the rainbow and its meanings, which led, as such questions do, to some Googling, and we wanted to share a sampling of the results.
Let’s start with the science. We looked to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s SciJinks webpage, where the agency provides easy-to-understand explanations of weather phenomena, including rainbows, at scijinks.gov/rainbow.
Here’s NOAA’s short answer:
“A rainbow is caused by sunlight and atmospheric conditions. Light enters a water droplet, slowing down and bending as it goes from air to denser water. The light reflects off the inside of the droplet, separating into its component wavelengths — or colors. When light exits the droplet, it makes a rainbow.”
Further explanation and helpful graphics are on the website.
The LGBTQ+ Pride flag, created in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, employs (most of) the colors of the rainbow to represent the diversity of the queer community. The original eight colors “included pink to represent sexuality, red for healing, yellow for sun, green for serenity with nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit,” according to outrightinternational.org. The current flag omits pink and includes royal blue instead of turquoise and indigo.
You might also have seen the Progress Pride flag, created in 2018 by artist Daniel Quasar, which incorporates stripes of black and brown, representing marginalized LGBTQ+ people of color, and the blue, pink and white from the trans flag.
Rainbows, it turns out, show up on flags representing groups around the world, including the Wiphala, representing indigenous communities in the Andes Mountains and the Buddhist flag, which incorporates six vertical bands. More about these and other rainbow flags is at education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/rainbow.
Christian.net explains the importance of the rainbow in the Christian tradition from the Old Testament story of Noah’s Ark, Genesis 9:13:
“It’s a representation of God’s promise to us; He will never again destroy the earth through a flood.”
Rainbows are mentioned several other times in the Bible, including Revelation 10:1 “Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars.”
Ngatyi, or rainbow serpents, are at the heart of the creation story of the Australian Barkandji people. A video of Barkandji artist Badger Bates explaining his sculpture “Save our Ngatyi (Rainbow Serpents), creators of spiritual rivers connecting water, sky and land,” (2022) can be viewed at australian.museum/learn/first-nations/barka/save-our-ngatyi.
Rainbows feature in numerous Indigenous American traditions, including Cree, Navajo, Hopi, Salish, Zuni and Cherokee.
If you’re with a group of people when you see a rainbow, chances are good someone will reference the pot of gold at the end of it, right? This myth, right or wrong, is right up there with St. Patrick’s Day in most Americans’ understanding of Irish culture. The story, as most know, involves the tricky leprechaun who hides his gold at the rainbow’s end — which is itself a trick, because, while we usually only see half of one, a rainbow is 360 degrees and has no end. More about leprechaun lore is at irishhistory.com.
The vibrant stories of rainbows in cultures around the world could fill a book, and alas we’re out of space. But we hope we’ve given you something to think about next time you see light refracted through water droplets in the air. Whatever else, I think we can all agree, it’s beautiful.
Stone (she/her) can be reached at mstone@inland360.com.
