This summer, I was blessed to be able to see a double rainbow. I had been outside, near the ocean and watching storm clouds come in, and eventually those clouds brought with them a torrential downpour. I ran back into my retreat room, only to wonder whether a rainbow might be in the mix. Sure enough, as I stood on the porch of my retreat room, a rainbow emerged. Although it was still raining, I ended up standing there, drenched, because I did not want to miss out on the gift. I waited and enjoyed “soaking it all in,” rain and rainbow, an experience of Ignatian savoring. To my surprise, as I stood there, a second bow emerged, parallel to the first one. The colors appeared slowly until I saw a double rainbow.
The next day I read, in the Gloucester Daily Times (Massachusetts), a scientist’s explanation that a double rainbow is really the same water droplets, refracted differently. The droplets produce a primary arc and a reversed secondary arc. Essentially there are two different paths for the light going through the same water droplets. What looks like two different bows are refractions of light from the same source.
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