GUEST POST: Rainbow Connections by Kat Anthony

Siri here. I’m thrilled to introduce our very first guest blogger. Kat Anthony is a writer, editor, and founder of Crow Girl Publishing, as well as a student and an all-around smart woman. Today’s post has to do with two things that have always intrigued me: rainbows and mysteries.

We all know the legend of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow–and yet for me, the rainbow itself is the treasure.

The science of light and refraction is straightforward enough, but this doesn’t dispel my rising sense of wonder and anticipation, when I see the sudden brightening of the air in the middle of a rainstorm. The grey sky grows intensely vibrant, and the falling drops turn luminous: sparkling and ephemeral jewels of liquid and light. This exquisite spectacle might seem like reward enough, and yet, it is also the harbinger of the rainbow itself. Even now, when I see the beginnings of a sunshower, I go rainbow hunting. Once I’ve found it, I often as not stand staring, a silly grin pasted on my face (“double rainbow all the way!”), as others walk by, hunched and oblivious, anxious to avoid getting drenched in the downpour.

In India, when any of the adults would see a sunshower, and the glorious emergence of the rainbow, they’d smile mysteriously (as I remember it) and say, “Oh–the fox’s wedding and the monkey’s dance”. The observation would roll off their tongues, with a little bit of a singsong lilt, like the end of a children’s rhyme.

As a small child, hearing it, the saying always seemed like a mysterious fragment of something larger and lost. I grew convinced that there was a children’s book, or some elusive “Owl and the Pussycat” type poem about the foxes and monkeys. But no-one could ever tell me more.

And so, I’d stare out at the rainbow and imagine for myself a gathering of ceremonially attired foxes, some in suits and dresses, others in crisp kurtas and flowing saris. The radiant fox bride would walk up the aisle (in a white, western wedding dress rather than the red-and-gold wedding sari, as the weddings I’d attended up to that point were primarily Christian), and meet up with her handsome fox groom, while the assembled gathering stood grinning their foxy grins in the slanting, luminous rain.

And in the background, the monkeys would be having a grand time–some freestyling, others doing reels and patterned dances, and still others doing swing, in brightly coloured poodle skirts and bobby sox. In all, a magnificent spectacle indeed.

But, these were always my own fabrications, and as I grew older and grew up, I figured the saying was just some strange little peculiarity. I wasn’t even sure whether it was specific to India, or just to our particular little sub-culture in India.

And then, one day, I was watching Dreams, an Akira Kurosawa compilation of short films. One of them featured a little boy, staring out at a sunshower. His mother tells him, “be careful, because this is the weather in which the foxes hold their ceremonies.” The boy then sneaks out and sees a ceremonial procession of foxes. Watching, I felt a dawning sense of wonder and connection. This odd bit of folklore about foxes and ceremonies was a common thread between two deeply diverse cultures–and the fact that it had somehow migrated from one to the other fascinated me.

My sense of wonder and delight grew deeper still when, a little while later, I learned by chance that in South Africa, they have a saying about monkeys holding their weddings during sunshowers.

How absolutely wonderful, I thought, that somehow the South African saying about monkeys and the Japanese saying about foxes has been mysteriously wedded in India, in a funny and folkloric rainbow connection all its own.

 

Kat Anthony has written two Regency romances (think Jane Austen era, but minus the zombies), available at Amazon and Smashwords, but her authorial self is currently in the process of being reborn. Konstantin’s Gifts, her upcoming release due out in late October, is a fantasy novel featuring mad scientists, serfs who have been transformed into creatures from folklore, and other such oddities. She blogs at http://katanthony.wordpress.com, where she has a regular column featuring “heirloom stories” in a similar vein to “Rainbow Connections”. Feel free to stop on by and say hello or follow her on Twitter: @writekatanthony.

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  1. Pingback: A Night of Wonder | Turtleduck Press

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