| Thursday, November 12, 2020 | | Rainbow Light | Sometimes my blogs read like a meteorologist’s travelogue through an Outer Banks month; sometimes they read like a naturalist’s diary, with records of key sightings signaling seasonal change. This blog is all about light—specifically, the play of light, on or through water, on clouds, on my heart. But these weeks didn’t start out that way. I never foresaw what was coming.
My first chance to spend a chunk of time outside since I posted my last blog occurred in flat light, at the wrong time of day (the lack of bright light is what made the wrong time of day work). I walked the Pea Island berms looking for American White Pelicans (they are here now but I did not see them) and finding instead some long-legged waders at close range while tens of thousands of ducks were at long range in both north and south ponds. As I witnessed last year, a Bald Eagle overflew the ducks who along with some Great Egrets in their midst blasted off only to settle back down in almost the same spot a few minutes later. My favorite encounter came near my walk’s end. A Tricolor Heron was ambling along a stand of marsh grass that bent to kiss the water, forming a near circle in the process. I’ve asked birds before if they would mind moving into an optimal position and favor me with a better image. Once again, I reached out with my please, and the Heron obliged.
What I had set my sights on, though, was a chance to photograph a Blue Moon, this month’s second. Not just any blue moon, either, but a blue moon from Ocracoke’s upper edge, across Hatteras Inlet. The moon’s path, like the sun’s, varies throughout the year. The angle I wanted occurs only once or twice every twelve months, and this was it! The wind was blowing when I left the house October 30th headed for the ferry. I’d checked the NCDOT website and info postings before I left and checked again partway down. Ferries were running. I got in line around lunchtime only to have one of the transportation officials come around to each car in turn to say DOT had just canceled ferry service (for the day, turns out) due to the winds. Now what?!? I meandered around lower Hatteras Island and finally drove back up into Frisco. I wanted a beach strand that faced south, not east, so that the setting sun and rising moon would be off each shoulder as I looked seaward. As the sun began to drop lower in the sky, the wave sets to my right turned silver, while those to my left began to toss up rainbows in the spray. The angle for rainbow light was perfect. Next, the seas to my right changed from silver to yellow-gold and finally, near sunset, took on the orange/maroon hues of the sky. The color intensified while I waited out moonrise. The moon’s moment of rising was obscured by low-lying clouds to the east. It finally played peek-a-boo from behind those clouds before climbing into a clearer sky. By that time, the sky had turned a sailor’s-delight red in the west while I watched taillight trails head toward Hatteras, and I turned aside to head in the opposite direction, toward home.
A few days later I drove down to Nags Head to socially-distance greet friends who’d just arrived. We stood in the parking lot of their hotel while the eastern sky deepened into the slate blue I associate with rainbows, despite the lack of moisture or raindrops from above. Just before the sun dipped below the horizon, the eastern sky lit up with a slice of rainbow arching like a closing parenthesis on the day across a deep pink cloud. The next day in late afternoon, we all drove in separate cars down to Pea Island so they could cross the new bridge. By the time we got to the parking lot at the visitor center, we had steady rain. No walking! We agreed to go a little further, to the canoe/kayak launch, and turn around to head back north from there. Cloud rifts in the west allowed the sun to break through, shining another swath of rainbow over the ocean. We got out and photographed the rainbow and she made some images of me at my request so I could update my bio photographs. A group of four pelicans flew overhead and seeing them coming, I asked, in much the same way I did for the Heron earlier, if they would please consider flying over toward the rainbow instead of continuing their flight path over the dune. I actually spoke out loud—my friend knows who I am, and how I try to relate to birds and animals in a deep way any chance I get—and we were both rewarded as the birds diverted almost immediately and flew right where I had imagined them to go, straight for the rainbow’s promise.
A few days later, I was once again out in late afternoon, this time to get groceries, and without any rain at all, shortly before sunset, I noticed what appeared first as a sort of shimmer high in the sky to the east. I parked and got out and watched. In just a few minutes the shimmer took on rainbow hues and elongated, while the sun was setting to my back.
I wrote a song earlier this year—I am hoping it will be the next one I record and upload to youtube for those who follow my channel—that talks about Rainbow Light. You’ll have to wait for the whole thing, but the last line of the chorus is, “Let Love shine/In our time.”
I equate Rainbow Light with Love Shining, all the hues displayed in their individual glories that eventually meld into the light we see, and see by. Imagine how much poorer our world would be without yellow, the color I associate with joy. Or without purple, the color I fell in love with in my teen years. Every time I see a rainbow, I think about two things. I think about the Noah story and God’s promise to preserve the earth after the flood. (As I said to someone recently who loves to read but is not a church-goer, even if you think of this only as STORY, there is a tremendous lesson and power in the promise the rainbow implies.) And I think about how many colors it takes to make colorless light. I’m so grateful to God for color and for eyes to see all the beauty in this world. Yes, there are dark times, literally and metaphorically and emotionally and spiritually. I’ve known my share. But the light always breaks through and gets my attention. How about you? Can you take a deep breath and let yourself sink into Rainbow Light?
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click for larger image | I look for rainbow light in wave spray, but this is the first time I've photographed it on a south facing reach of beach. |
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click for larger image | I have waited years for a sunset like this one; after the sun went down, the color deepened. |
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click for larger image | My friends and I watched in awe as the rainbow appeared with no rain in the sky whatsoever. |
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click for larger image | On Oct 31, the moon higher in the sky, I looked east across a cove of the Sound and made this double exposure for the Blue Moon. |
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posted by eturek at 9:52 PM |
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