Follow the rainbow

rainbowman.jpgI’m having a great time at the moment following the site stats for A Sensitivity to Things. Which is not to say that I am statistically inclined, not particularly any way, not like one of my webmaster friends, who writes articles on economics in his part and full time; rather, I am enjoying discovering the where and how in the world people are beating a path to my door.

Near the very end of the visitor origin stats, and right at the bottom of the list of search key-phrases, were a handful of surfers who visited by following a rainbow, more literally than figuratively, their Google searches for the meaning of rainbows leading them to a recent posting of Sri Chinmoy’s beautiful explanation of their spiritual significance. I certainly hope they found their pot of gold.

One search key-phrase however stood out from the rest, like a multi-hued rainbow across a sky of dull grey if you will:

“Seeing a rainbow in your living room means what?”

Er, what?! I think a rainbow just appeared in my mind…

I told you I was having a great time—a seemingly simple phrase, a possible statistical anomaly and among all the visitors recorded a one in a thousand rarity had me more than intrigued. Rainbows are special, certainly, but a rainbow in your living room? Now that is something I would like to see!

And find too. Long since through the rabbit hole, I am compelled to follow this rainbow further…

A quick search of Google (0.22 seconds for the statistically minded) revealed 1,190,000 potential answers. Curious to see where an in-the-spirit-of-serendipity search would lead me, and mildly interested to know how high my only-several-weeks-old website was ranking, I followed a rainbow to the following sites, listed in rough order of search ranking and ability to catch my fickle eye:

Harmonic Concordance
“Creation began with a tone, and so it shall end as all is about harmonics.”

Forgetting for a moment my just created philosophy of colour-dazed search, I stopped for a moment to read, reminded of a conversation overheard in childhood about how you could destroy the entire world with the right harmonic frequency (!), although ‘wrong frequency’ it seems to me would be a more apt description. Several paragraphs in though I draw back the reins of my eyes—it is time to press on and follow the hand of serendipity rather than the heels of distraction.

Moving down the list and then to the next page, my eye is caught by the name of the following site, and upon further investigation, its writers’ disturbingly positive outlook:

A mommy going crazy
“I see the rainbow! This afternoon I am feeling much better, I still have my wrist in a splint, but that is my only obstacle I am faced with today, YEAH!”

I have often wondered how to live with psychic gifts. The next site tells you how:

Living with your Psychic Gifts
“As for your psychic abilities, it seems to me you are both a healer and an empath. Different abilities can combine like this, it isn’t uncommon. The heat you feel is the movement of the healing force through you. Let it happen! Set an intention that you will heal them, see positive white or rainbow energy flowing from you into them. Read Hands of Light and other healing books. The world needs more healers!”

rainbow_storm.jpgHmm, I read that book once. Kind of made me feel bad for not being able to enter into other dimensions as easily as described by its author. Luckily I discovered in time, and not without bruising my forehead somewhat from repeated trying, that there is more than enough in the right here and now to fascinate and amaze, let alone any other plane of existence. It just requires a certain attention to detail, an open heart, and the ability to see the world as a child once again.

But what about rainbows? Aren’t we supposed to be following a rainbow? Back to the search…

Living the dream—A Rainbow Start
“Saw this rainbow while I was preparing to bathe, really happy to see it on a New Year’s Day (: Not being auspcious or superstitous here but it just bores well for a New Year.”

A rainbow on New Year’s Day? A fellow fan of syncronicity it seems. Glad to have made their acquaintance.

I suppose I’d better stop ignoring all of the ‘New Age’ search results. Yes, nobody has a monopoly on wisdom and insight (especially not myself), so I really shouldn’t be so dismissive of crystal gazing, well-meaning wearers of rainbow coloured sweat-pants…

the meditation room, your window to the world of life after death
“The Fifth Chakra: This is the throat chakra and deals with communication, expression and judgment. It has the color of blue, the crystal stone is blue lace agate and it has the musical note of “G”. The blue lace agate crystal stone will help with expressing how you feel. In other words to help clear and clarify the way you wish to communicate. This chakra controls the vocal chords, the thyroid gland and the bronchial system. This chakra can sometimes be the most important of all the chakras. Because it controls the thyroid gland, and it is this particular gland that has complete jurisdiction over the entire body. If the gland is not operating properly then it can create all sorts of very bad sickness. When in an activating mode, this particular chakra, through your meditations, will then be dealing with the frustration’s within your communications that you will have to resolve. It is with this chakra that you will question the wisdom of your self expression when it is concerned with your judgment of others. When you meditate on this chakra, your throat chakra, you will find that your voice will become a lot clearer and more fuller in depth, with the sincerity of life itself..”

Interesting stuff. And there is more. Much, much more…

The Power of Purpose
“Whatever your age, if you learn to listen, your inner voice will speak to you about your path,” writes oncologist Dr. Bernie Siegel in Peace, Love and Healing, your ‘job on earth.’ This wisdom that is directing you from within is your birthright… an inner message, an inner awareness, that says, ‘This is your path, this is how you can be the best human being possible.’ If you follow it, you will achieve your full growth and full potential as a human being before you let go of the Tree of Life…”

The next site had me hooked at first sight. Hopefully not a real psycho of course, but I just had to take a look:

Sweet Hallucinations of a Psycho

Behind my mask…
Today I woke up through a new energetic horizon,
Washed my face in a pool of certainty,

Put on my costume of self-confidence,
Wore the perfume of eternal luck,

Placed my glasses of bravery,
Fixed a forceful smile

And checked my appearance in the mirror of grandiosity.

On the surface so invincible
Underneath yet so vulnerable…

Sweet Hallucinations of a Psycho was actually a bit of a gem. A little more self-analytical that I personally prefer, as analysing what is“wrong” with yourself doesn’t lead you any closer to happiness, and this is from one who has tried, but I really liked the heart-on-sleeve lucid observations of reality informed by a search for truth I found there. I myself also wrote poetry like this once, but the world is probably a better place for it not having seen the light of day.

A small gem from a“God-sleuth” came next:

Unravelling the spiritual mystique
“Even in the rain, there is sunshine. The silver lining of the clouds. In life we often get sun and rain. No matter how much rain comes pounding down on our parade, it’s just clearing the sky for sunshine.

“Usually, immediately after this happens, a rainbow appears. Now I don’t have a degree in meteorology and I can’t explain it other than what I see. From my experience, I have seen it more often than not. A rainbow is God’s smile.”

Memories of Fuji Stott is a site dedicated to a pet cat, which if the photos are any indication was something of a sour beast only an owner could love—but there I am judging books by covers again. Still, and with a pre-emptive ‘New Age’ alert, the following is an interesting take on the afterlife, animal-lover style:

Memories of Fuji Stott
“Just this side of Heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies who has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to the Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all our special friends, so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food and water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable…

“The animals are happy and contented, except for one thing: they miss someone very special to them who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. The bright eyes are intent; the eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to break away from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster. YOU have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together…”

A school principal being treated for cancer in hospital is surrounded by gifts of love from her students:

Inspirational Stories—please add your own
“Then the kids traced their hands onto colored paper, cut them out and glued them together to make a freestanding rainbow of helping hands. “I feel like I’ve stepped into Disneyland every time I walk into this room,” my doctor laughed.

That was even before the six-foot apple blossom tree arrived adorned with messages written on paper apples from the students and teachers. What healing comfort I found in being surrounded by these tokens of their caring.”

And last but not quite least, words of wisdom from a higher plane. The spirit guide“Rama” gets the final“rainbow” word:

The rainbow serpent Project
“I am from the time of Atlantis, brought forth in the time of Egypt, and now again this time of Aquarius, the Golden age the age of igniting, empowerment, of positivity and glory, of the preparation. Many gods where shrouded in gold through out the ancient spiritual information, and now the embodiment of that gold will happen throughout the world by those that choose it, it is not a case of the chosen, but it is a case who chooses to grasp that energy, to work with it within their free will, you are living within a time of very battered free will. You are not permitted to be special, you are not permitted to bring forth information deep from within you, you are not permitted a spiritual heritage, you are not even permitted your heritage most of the time. This is truly because of the evil that has taken hold of the world again, pulling the strings for pure greed. But forget that and embody your beauty, a man with the possilities of attuning to the energies and light vibrations around this planet, which have been set there by the Masters of light, by your higher self. And you have not only lived 30 years on this planet, you have lived thousands and thousands of years to become what you are as many have.”

In the end I never did find my own site in the search results—they stopped at result number 500, and thus am somewhat in the dark as to how exactly a searcher made it to my site with the afore-mentioned query. While the sad truth is that this site is to all intents and purposes a Google non-entity, it is worth bearing in mind that it takes a considerable period after launching to be ranked, and even to be in the top 1000 isn’t so bad at this point. If you think about it, being 1000th in the world at something is not insignificant. 1000 out of 6 billion—pretty much the front of the queue!

As a child I used to be fascinated by the idea that I could be doing or thinking something at a particular point in time that nobody else in the entire world was. The vastness of the idea used to make me feel a little giddy, and would almost send the sky above into a spin.

While it is probably true that my site is never going to become one of the hubs of the internet, I am heartened by the fact that as one tiny voice amongst 6 billion, I am already making a unique, never heard before contribution to the world in my own small way.

And I am heartened by the number of other people doing the same, one at a time but collectively in numbers too vast to discover them all. In the spirit of serendipity, a sentiment borrowed from another like-hearted blog, I have via the random course of a statistically constructed search engine query discovered how to live with my psychic gifts, how the meditation room is my window to the world of life after death, where to find my childhood pets when I die, and perhaps more importantly and less flippantly, that there are countless people in the world writing about, and trying to live, inspiring lives.

I’ll follow that rainbow any day.

7 Comments
  • Sumangali Morhall
    Posted at 22:43h, 11 March

    Thanks for this post, John. I too enjoy this rainbow-following cyber-serendipity, seeing the Internet as a childlike adventure, but it’s a real luxury to have the wheat neatly sorted from the chaff and presented here in a friendly format. Chaff meaning content not relevant to the reader, of course; I’m sure all content means something to somebody, at least to the person who put it there 🙂

  • Jaitra Gillespie
    Posted at 23:07h, 11 March

    Thanks Sumangali. I‘m just glad this“I don’t know what to write” hail-Mary web-search-of-desperation actually turned into something—pen in hand, sorting the wheat from the chaff can be hard enough sometimes just in one’s own backyard.

  • alf
    Posted at 23:45h, 02 May

    I still think this is a cool post, one of my favourites.

  • Jaitra Gillespie
    Posted at 11:46h, 10 June

    You’ve got a number of cool posts yourself Alf. And you’ve just inspired me to follow the rainbow again…

  • Harp
    Posted at 06:57h, 27 April

    Well, this is a fine compilation of what meaning folks make out of rainbows. Personally, i am with you on being a bit skeptical of new age reasoning, and yet at the same time trying to come to some understanding about my own, seemingly, psychic gifts. in the end, though, i believe in god, however unfashionable, anti scientific and anti intellectual the notion/reality is in this modern world in which we live…and i trust that whatever gifts i, and others, are given, we will be presented with ways to use them for the greater good, in small or large ways as they present themselves…because if my gifts are not for the greater good, then what good are they? each drop of rain eventually fills the ocean. Blessings and peace.

  • Jaitra
    Posted at 03:02h, 28 May

    Really excellent sentiments Harp! Yes, believing in God may be unfashionable, but maybe it is our ideas of God that are unfashionable, anti-scientific and anti-intellectual, and rather than blaming or dismissing God, we instead need to fashion new ways to see him.

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