Making Rainbow Magic
Hey y’all, it’s Pride Month! The perfect time to talk about the wonder of the rainbow, its parallels to life, the importance of living our truth, and supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Stay with me to the end for the pot of gold!
Rainbows have come to symbolize harmony and unity (and Gay Pride!), but they can also be a powerful metaphor for the alignment of thought, action, and spirit in our lives. At Redtail Creative, we help our clients find a new path to purpose and prosperity by creating an intentional business. We teach it, coach it and work to live it everyday in our own business. But for it to work, all the conditions have to be present. Same with that little piece of scientific magic that instantly creates awe and joy! Rainbows only appear when conditions are just right.
Double rainbow over highway with cars passing underneath. Raleigh, NC. Photograph by Shelly Leslie
A rainbow forms when sunlight passes through rain at just the right angle. Typically, this happens when the sun is low in the sky, either in the morning or late afternoon, and rain is falling in the opposite part of the sky. To see the full spectrum, you have to be positioned between the sun and the rain, with your back to the sun. This precise alignment of elements is essential for a rainbow to appear. Kind of like when you hit that sweet spot in life and magical alignment occurs that lights your path!
Finding Harmony Through Alignment of Thought, Action, and Spirit
Just as specific conditions create a rainbow, life's most magnificent moments often happen when our thoughts, actions, and spirit are in harmony. These moments of synchronicity—when everything seems to fall into place—can feel as magical as witnessing a rainbow. Like this rainbow on the floor of my living room that happens at just the right time in the afternoon, if the sun’s in exactly the right spot to shine through a glass prism on the shelf in front of the window. Feels like a God wink every time I see it. Now take that into your life, starting with your intention. What basic elements are needed — that when blended just right — create that magic?
How to Create an Intentional Life
1. MInd your thoughts
The first step to creating intention is your thoughts. Whatever dream, desire, or ambition we have starts with positive, focused thinking. Your pattern of thoughts and attitude creates your mindset. Mindset is created moment by moment! Expecting good things to happen, finding the gift in the “bad stuff,” moving through life in a Spirit of Gratitude, these are the things we can control. Change habitual thinking, change your mindset, change your life! Self-reflection is a required condition for powerful intentions. Like rainbows need internal reflection to shine its many colors, so do we.
2. Take Action
You can’t just sit and think good thoughts! When we act in alignment with our intentions, we invite “synchronicities,” becoming a magnet for what we want. Those aligned actions create an energetic pull, a change in direction. For a rainbow to appear, the sunlight enters the water droplet causing it to change direction or slow down, a process called refraction. When we take control of our minds, then take actions consistent with what we say we want, we cause change from the inside and set up the perfect conditions for the Universe to do its thing!
3. Align with Spirit
Our spirit is the driving force that sustains us. It represents our inner truth and authenticity. When our spirit is aligned with our thoughts and actions, our internal light shines on our path creating a circle of knowing, the same way refracted light makes a rainbow bend.
Have you ever seen a vertical rainbow?
We See You With All Your Colors.
Just as we expect a rainbow when conditions are right, each of us creates the conditions in which every person can be seen and celebrated for their uniqueness. This act, in itself, is an intention. A collective spirit that fosters belonging. It starts with our own declarations.
Redtail Creative is a Certified LGBT Enterprise™
We are proud to have recently received our certification from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), the business voice of the LGBTQ+ community. It was important to us as a lesbian-owned business to raise our (rainbow) flag, to be seen, and to declare our intention as a creative agency to serve other LGBTQ+ owned businesses. We’d love to connect with you. To all the allies out there, thank you for your work to create a safe, diverse, inclusive world where we all belong.
How about this rainbow magic?
In 2016, on every night of our honeymoon in the Abacos, Bahamas, my wife and I would walk the beach at sunset. On the very last night, this rainbow appeared .. no rain where we were, just the rainbow! It had taken us fifteen years to get to that moment, in that spot…the result of an intention, sustained effort, so much truth telling, the generous acceptance of our “wasbands” and our grown children, and a whole village of people who stood for and with us. I never thought I could ever live this life publicly, and here I am writing a blogpost about it with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
Redtail Creative co-owner Shelly Leslie with her wife, Cindy, in Abacos, Bahamas, 2016
