Getting Over The Rainbow: Peacemaking Through Communication

Getting Over the
Rainbow
An Inner Look at
Our Outer Differenc es
Katherine Murray
K. Murray 1 Rainbow
Getting Over the
Rainbow
An Inner Look at
Our Outer Differences
© 1992 Katherine Murray

Indianapolis, IN
K. Murray 2 Rainbow
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................... 6
Chapter One: Understanding Rainbows ........................... 9

Needing Rainbows............................................................10
Seeing Rainbow Expressions ............................... 12
Chapter Two: Seeing Personal Rainbows ....................... 18

Rainbow Materials ...........................................................19
Building Our Rainbows ..................................................20
Cloaks of Rainbow Colors ..............................................23
Releasing the Cloak ...........................................................26
Chapter Three: Seeing Our Own Rainbows .................... 30

Building Our Rainbows ..................................................30
Rainbow Inspection..........................................................35
Chapter Four: Letting Go and Loving Color .................... 43

Changing Perspectives ....................................................45
Letting Go.............................................................................45
Shining in Stillness............................................................47
Getting Past Fear ...............................................................50
Chapter Five: Getting Past the Past ................................ 54

The Hold of the Past ..........................................................56
Arm's-Length Closeness .................................................60
Forgiving Our Selves ........................................................62
A Path of Forgiveness.......................................................64
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Chapter Six: Weathering Storms .................................... 68
Understanding Misunderstanding .............................70
Healing and Helping .........................................................77
Being the Source .................................................................79
Chapter Seven: Some Uncoloring Exercises ..................... 82

Erasing Ourselves..............................................................83
Origins of Light ..................................................................86
Spreading It Around.........................................................89
Chapter Eight: The Illusion of Becoming ......................... 92

The Trap................................................................................94
The Effort of Becoming .....................................................97
Being.......................................................................................99
Chapter Nine: Letting Other Rainbows Shine ............... 102

Not Being Right ............................................................... 106
Respecting Rainbows.................................................... 108
Chapter Ten: Seeing Beauty in Rainbows ..................... 112

Beauty and Newness..................................................... 114
Seeing Real Beauty ......................................................... 115
From the Inside Out ....................................................... 119
Chapter Eleven: Raising Rainbow -Free Children .......... 124

Before Labels .................................................................... 126
Preserving the Light ...................................................... 131
Chapter Twelve: Celebrating Light .............................. 134

Celebrating Connection................................................ 136
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Celebrating Sameness ................................................... 137
Endings ...................................................................... 141
Dedication
To Grandpa Dave,
Because you remember...and love...and smile. :)
Love, Kath
K. Murray 5 Rainbow
Introduction
There are lots of us out here in the world wondering why. Why is
the sky blue? Why are the trees green? Why do birds sing? Why are we
born? Why does our existence seem to be monopolized by an endless
string of annoying details? What is the key to final, lasting happiness?

Why do we have such a tough time understanding ourselves?
Questions are understandable. Questioning is addictive. The
deeper we look into things, the more we look at ourselves; the more we
look at ourselves, the more the quest may seem both endless and
pointless. Sometimes even hopeless. But eventually, no matter what we
are questioning—why our government works (or doesn’t work) the way it
does, why our teenagers are slipping beyond our grasp, why there’s so
much violence all around—we are eventually turned around to see
ourselves. The answer begins and ends with us.
Did you ever get the feeling that we sometimes make life harder
than it has to be? We program ourselves to believe that nothing in life is
easy—that happiness doesn’t just happen—that good things come only to
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those who practically work themselves to death. Or get really, really
lucky.
It’s not true.
Why do birds sing? Perhaps it’s because they don’t have anything
to do all day except fly around, visit birdfeeders and gardens, and sing
with joy. Whatever the reason, they probably don’t analyze everything
they do, sizing themselves up against other birds, evaluating their
performance. They just are. And they’re true to their nature.
There’s a lesson there for us, too.

Nature provided us with all the direction we need to make sense
of our lives. And the lessons we learn from the world around us are not
complicated and esoteric and available only to an intellectual few. They
are as straightforward as an honest smile.

How many times in your life so far have you seen a rainbow?
You can probably remembe the last rainbow you saw—color sweeping
across the sky, reaching from one horizon to another, all within the scope
of your very own sight. Rainbows are part mystery, part miracle, part
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completely explainable science, but they never fail to bring awe when
they paint themselves across our skies.
And rainbows follow us like the moon, did you ever notice? As we
move, the rainbow hangs there in the sky, a creation relative to our
perspective.
This book uses the amazing and awe-inspiring image of the

rainbow to explain the beautiful, striking, and amazingly varied expressions
we create with the energy we bring forth in our lives. The idea is that the
light at our center—love, essence, spirit—is not the color we see and
share, but that there is a way to connect and love all the beautiful
masterpiece we are when we stand side by side. We can learn to relate,
communicate, forgive, and even love from that deeper place of light and
love within us, while seeing the colors for what they are—beautiful
expressions of divine light.
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Chapter One
Understanding Rainbows
My daughter stumbled out to the end of the sidewalk, having
eaten a few mouthfuls of a breakfast she really didn't want, struggling to
force the sleepy look from her face before the screeching of brakes and the
hushed whoosh of a door opening announced the arrival of the school
bus.
She stood there, staring vacantly down the road, with her purple
bookbag, her black, pink, and yellow leggings, and her bright blue
sweater.
She was a rainbow.
And from the moment she woke up this morning, she was an
emotional rainbow, too. Grumbling and grumpy at first light. Calm and
quiet eating breakfast. Tense and irritable when searching frantically for
her lost Science book. Affectionate when she kissed me goodbye. Smiling
when I reminded her that Grandma and Grandpa were coming later.
She's also part of a bigger rainbow. Once she boarded the school
bus, she meshed with a larger rainbow of humanity. Kids of all ages,
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different sexes, numerous religious heritages, different ethnic
backgrounds, various economic groups comprise a much larger rainbow
at her elementary school. And the group of kids at her elementary school
each represent their own rainbow, part of the bigger school rainbow,
and part of a much bigger rainbow --the rainbow of all children across
the world.
Needing Rainbows
Confusing, isn't it? When we stop to think of who we are, what
groups we're part of, where we fit, we see that the more we look, the
more we see. We mold and shape and lump and group ourselves, making
sure that we belong somewhere. We don't want to be floating out there,
unattached to any group, while the rest of world lives in communion.
We join clubs and groups and revel in our ethnic differences.
Underneath it all, we want to make sure we fit so we won't be alone.
So we join rainbows on a societal level and feel some sense of
comradarie and understanding. At least in this group we've joined, or in
this family, or in this church, there are people who understand us.
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Yet a conflicting part of us tells us we must be individuals, too.
Yes, we need to join things, but we need to retain our independence. You
wear your hair short, so I'll wear my hair long. He just bought a truck,
so I'll buy something different. We begin creating our own rainbows, out
of little color labels we stick on ourselves. We need to be different, but we
need to be the same. Our lives become a continual struggle of
individuality and uniformity. We want to be alike enough to understand
each other, but not so much alike that we lose our selves.
After enough practice, we get used to our own rainbows and
operate within them with little trouble. See? We're finished. We're
independent, and we're part of a group. We fit and we stand out. The
perfectly balanced life.
Except that we're living on the surface. We're only looking at the
rainbow, not the light underneath. When you and I understand that
underneath all those "needs" (the need to belong, the need to be
individual), there is a spirit that needs nothing. It's our selves that want.
Our selves create identities and add labels to fulfill our needs.
The spirit just loves.
"There's no one like me on the face of the earth," we're used to
saying. We think we are unique. We look different from other people. We
sound different. We have different experiences, families, feelings, goals.
But underneath, the sameness of us all gleams softly, waiting to
be discovered.
Seeing Rainbow Expressions

What is a rainbow? Not colored light, not curved light; just light.
The colors of the rainbow are simply different expressions of that same
light.
All those differences that seem to make us different on the surface
are just that: on the surface. They don't change the identical Godlight that
exists in all of us, in the quiet, all- loving place of the spirit. Our exteriors
don't change the real us. All our struggling to show how independent
and unique we are doesn't hide the fact that we're connected by
something much deeper than any outer characteristics could show.
Those characteristics come and go, but they don't define us. Those
characteristics--whether you're talking about physical attributes like
skin color or hair color or intangible characteristics like envy or hope--
are merely expressions of our spirit, of our light.
For example, suppose that you've had a really rough day at the
office. You're on your way home when you realize the car is almost
completely out of gas. You don't think you have enough to make it the
last few miles to your house. You stop at the closest gas station and
wind up waiting--five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes--as the
elderly lady in front of you figures out how to use the gas pump. As the
seconds tick away, you find yourself getting more and more frustrated.
Finally, when you go inside to pay, the clerk is in no particular hurry to
ring you up.
You're mad.
Does that mean you're an angry person? Will you carry that
label with you every day of your life, defining yourself with it?
Of course not.
It was one simple incident in a lifetime filled with zillions of
simple incidents. Perhaps you reacted more strongly than you usually
would, but so what? You were stressed and you'd had a bad day. That
doesn't make you an angry person. That anger was simply an expression
of your energy, and it faded away as quickly as it came. That anger
didn't make you any different. It was just how you expressed yourself in
that instant.
In this same way, the things we do in our lives, the labels we use
to define ourselves, are simply expressions of what we really are. They are
just little parts of us that come and go. They do not define us. How many
expressions go across your face in a single day? Thousands, probably.
When your husband asks when you are going to the store, your
expression may show thoughtfulness, peacefulness, or irritation (or any
number of other things). When your daughter shows you her report
card, a difference expression crosses your face.
Like these facial expressions that come and go, other expressions
of the self are fleeting. Emotions are easy to see as temporary -- we
experience so many of them in the course of a day. But it's more difficult
to understand things like sexual preference, skin color, and moral values
as expressions when they seem to stay with a person for an entire
lifetime.
Many years ago, when I was working as an editor for a large
publishing company, a new editor joined the department. She was quiet,
gentle. I was drawn to her. She and I became good friends very quickly,
and we both acknowledged how connected--under the surface--we felt.
Outwardly, our rainbows matched in many ways: our philosophies, our
humor, our individual likes and dislikes made us seem more alike than
we were different.
After we'd been good friends for four years, she told me she was
a lesbian. I nodded and smiled. "So?" I asked.
"Did you already know?" she wondered.
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose so," I answered.
"Why didn't you ever ask me?"
"It didn't make any difference," I said.
She had trouble understanding why, if we were so connected, I
had never asked her about her sexual preference. I had no answer then.
But now I do.
Her sexuality is just an expression of her spirit. And it's her spirit
that I know; that's where the connection is. Her sexual preference does
not change the way I love her at her essence. The sexual preference of a
person is just the outside, the physical self, like one facial expression
showing an inward truth.
The same can be said for the color of the skin.
Now, granted, the differences in our skin color cannot go
undetected for four years. Our skin tones are no surprise. We know
instantly when someone belongs to a different ethnic group than we do.
It's too bad we can't get to know them in spirit first, so when
they say, "You know, I'm black" (or white or whatever) we can say "That
doesn't make any difference."
We put so much emphasis on what we see. We live lifetimes
making judgments based on our own perceptions. We group people
together by race, by sex, by religion and then we place a mental stamp
on the whole group. We write entire populations off as inferior to those
who match our own rainbows. We even apply this visual judgment to
ourselves. When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror
and loved what you saw? Few of us are happy with our physical
appearances. Even fashion models continually diet, change their hair
color, worrying about their muscle tone.
Why do we do it?
Why do we hurt ourselves?
If we understood that what we are judging is the rainbow, not
the light, we wouldn't feel the need to mold ourselves and shape
ourselves and try to live up to somebody else's interpretation of beauty.
If we understood that the us we are looking for is not someone we can see
with our eyes in a mirror but someone we can feel all around and within
us, we wouldn't place so much importance on what we look at with
these human eyes.
And maybe if we could be more loving with our selves and the
physical forms we inhabit, we would be more loving with everyone
around us.
And the rainbows would fade.
Chapter Two
Seeing Personal Rainbows
All the detachment we see in our society is a mirror of the
detachment we feel within ourselves.
When we say "People don't understand each other," we're really
saying I don't understand me.
"You can't find an honest person anymore" becomes I'm not honest
with myself.
"There's so much violence every where" is really I use violence to
motivate my self.
Healing starts with us. That's why it's important to get a feeling
for the rainbows we represent personally before we look at the
multitude of rainbows existing in our world. Change yourself and
change the world, so the saying goes. But "change" in this sense, is not
some action we perform, some spiritual exercise we practice to make our
muscles stronger. Real change is a natural process like growing that
happens only when we free our selves. An opening up. A blooming of
our inner nature.
Rainbow Materials
From the time we are small, we go through our lives putting
little colored labels on our selves. These labels have nothing to do with
the light we are in the center of our spirits. The labels serve only to help
us identify ourselves, to build our selves up, to make ourselves
something.
The labels are our protective answer to the need to belong and
the need to be stand out.
Each label has a color of the rainbow. Like this giant tagging
system, each characteristic we claim as "ours" sticks to us, defining our
shape, molding our identity.
Perhaps you played football. You could have accurately said "I'm
a football player." Add a red label.
But that wasn't all you were.
You took on other labels as well. "I'm no good at roller skating,"
or "I love to watch television." Blue label, purple label. Perhaps you
didn't like to draw but you loved music. You liked to wear cowboy
boots. You didn't like tennis shoes. You hated Chinese food, but preferred
Mexican to any other.
None of these individual preferences summed up the total you.
They were little pieces of color that added to your rainbow. You
accumulate these labels until you have a cloak of magnificent color,
completely enshrouding you, protecting you, giving you something to
look at in the mirror.
But the rainbow is an illusion. It's what we see on the outside. It
points to beyond. You are not the cloak you're wearing. You are much
more than that.
Building Our Rainbows
It seems that it is part of our DNA to label ourselves. Our labels
give us reassurance that we "fit" somewhere. I'm a skier, I'm a painter,
I'm a writer, I'm a mother, I'm a wife--what do all these labels do? They
serve to define a person by her actions. None of these labels are correct.
Each of these labels is only an expression the person in her essence, her
spirit.
We build these little costumes to wear through our lives, woven
of different colors and fibers. When I was small, I considered myself an
artist. I played with dolls. I rode my bike. I roller skated. I made silly
faces. I danced around the dinner table putting napkins on my head and
acting stupid.
When I got older, I managed pet stores, I wrote a little, I played
guitar, I had too many animals, I drove a beat -up Mustang, and I had
trouble trusting people.
Then I became a wife, a step-mom and a regular mom, adopted
more dogs, turned into a housekeeper, a nursery school teacher, an
editor, and a freelance writer.
Then I was divorced, the mother of two, the owner of a house, the
driver of a Bronco, the caretaker of a dog and a cat, a student, a
businessowner, a writer, a musician, a truthseeker, and a rapidly -
nearing-the-edge-of-insanity type A personality.
Who am I? Light.
Each of the roles I put on contributed another label to the
garment I was manufacturing. It was a costume of great color, a rainbow
robe, and it fit me as well as any fabricated covering could.
But one day a seam ripped. And another. And another. And the
rainbow robe fell away, leaving nothing except me in my essence.
Just light.
Same as you. The same as every person you meet at the library,
at the store, at the gas station. Each person you see on the evening news.
The same as the president. The same as every homeless person on the
street. The same as each new infant struggling for life in a pediatric
intensive care unit.
Look at your hand. In the center of that hand, no matter what the
color of the flesh, there's a glimmer of light. And in the arm, and the
chest, and the head, and every other part of the mechanism we call the
body. Inside that hand is the same light that is in Mother Teresa, Ghandi,
and Martin Luther King. In that hand is the same light shared by all the
greatest and most notorious people ever born.
The rest is all rainbow.
Cloaks of Rainbow Colors
If you give most people a blank sheet of paper with the words
"Who Am I?" at the top, they'll write you a brief resume of past
accomplishments.
From a CEO: "Chief Executive Officer of So-and-So Corporation, 4
years. Vice President of This-and-That Corporation, 12 years. Annual
salary 1.2 million. Primary residence on Long Island, secondary
residence in the Cayman Islands. Private jet. Graduated Harvard, with
honors, 1962."
From a college professor: "Professor of English, Loyola University,
1984-present. Member of seven adjunct committees, co-chair of Panel for
Integrity in Education. Published in many academic journals. Mother of
three children, ages 14, 12, and 9. Live in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and drive
an Audi."
From a mother: "I'm 30 years old and I've been marr ied seven years.
I have two children, Nicole and Roger, who are five and two. I attended
I.U. for a while, but didn't finish. I am starting a small editing business
so that I can work at home, bring in some income, and still stay home
with my children."
These people are right, of course. Their biographies accurately
represent some of the outer statistics in their lives. Those are the people
they see in the mirror.
But they are also much, much more than their biographies can
tell us.
Who are the people beneath the cloaks? What do those faces
show when they have no facial expression?
The biographies we weave are no more than a sum total of our
expressions. Our list of past accomplishments and failures attach to us,
colored labels on our cloaks. We wrap them around us and define
ourselves with them. We know we're someone. We know we belong.
There's no harm in having these cloaks. We do have realities to
deal with, after all. Our children need us. We have paperwork to do. The
dog has a vet appointment.
Life calls.
The only harm we do to ourselves happens when we think that
the cloaks are all we are. We're so much more than that. We're peace, in
our essence. True, unconditional love. Those rainbow colors are just one
expression that shows itself to the outside world. They are something
tangible or identifiable, something we can hold on to and say "This is me.
I'm a writer."
But I fool myself. I'm not a writer. I'm a spirit who writes. I'm not
a mother. I'm a spirit who mothers.
Are you overweight? No you're not: y ou're a spirit who inhabits
a shell larger than society's thin standard.
Are you near-sighted? Nope, just a spirit who exists inside a
body that needs glasses.
The costumes we wear are manufactured by our minds. They are
cloaks of rainbow colors we put together ourselves, through the course
of our lives. All those things that disappoint you about yourself--that's
not you. That's just a label you've stuck on your identity cloak. It can
come off as easily as it was put on. There's a spirit inside there that t he
label can never touch. The spirit is perfect.
Releasing the Cloak
The feeling of being more is both freeing and comforting. Finding
our spirits beyond the limited vision of our minds is a process that
eventually happens to everyone, when they are ready . The spirit leads
so silently that you don't know you're being led, until one day you look
in the mirror and know that's not all there is.
Those wrinkles around your eyes that weren't there yesterday.
That single gray hair that keeps growing back. You see yourself aging, on
the surface, but inside you don't feel any different. You don't feel any
older than you did when you were in high school. But the exterior is
growing older, looking more mature, more settled.
Why don't we trust that feeling we experience on the inside?
We're not getting any older. Not the real us. Our physical bodies, these
strange gangly mechanisms, are showing signs of overuse. But the spirit
has no age.
"Seeing is believing" has been a cliche that ingrained itself in our
brains like no other. How do we know we're not getting any older? Can
we prove it? Is there some kind of a scientific test to prove that the spirit
doesn't age?
Umm....no.
How can we believe things we don't see? How do we know, if we
take off these rainbow cloaks, if w e allow all expression to fade from our
faces, that we won't wither and die? If we aren't Mom and Wife and
Student and Employee, who are we? Can we take the risk of letting go of
the protective perspective if we don't know what waits for us on the
other side?
Faith.
We have proof all around us, proof from before we were even
born. There are arms to uphold us. There is an eternal porch light
gleaming, waiting for you to come home.
Remember that look that Grandma used to give you, like you
were the best child ever born? Or a gleam from a friendly teacher? Or a
smile from a stranger?
Those were the arms embracing you.
Remember black days of confusion and turmoil that were
suddenly shot through with a single, unexplicable bolt of hope?
There's that porch light, shimmering brightly in the night, giving
you direction.
But we want it in writing. We don't have a lifetime written
contract with our higher power that we will always be safe. Or happy.
Or contented. We want something to see, to hold, to touch, that says
"This Is True."
The spirit doesn't need assurances. Only the self--the mechanism
with the capabilities of seeing, holding, and touching--wants proof.
But our spirits know those arms are there.
And when we stop trying to uphold our selves, when we let our
spirits shine through those restrictive rainbow cloaks, we get to truly
feel those arms for the first time.
And we all nestle together in those arms, free of our colors, free of
our judgments of each other. We're all enveloped in this giant bear -hug
of humanity, radiating light and loving each other. When we can shrug
off our rainbow cloaks, the love comes pouring out. And by allowing
ourselves to be embraced, we can embrace our selves and our planet.
And all we need to start with is the single flicker inside us right
now.
Chapter Three
Seeing Our Own Rainbows

My son sleeps under a rainbow blanket I crocheted while I was
pregnant. During the night, he wraps himself in it so completely I can't
tell, from the bunched-up strips of color, which end is his head and
which is his feet.
Often I stand over him for the last few silent moments before he
awakens and think about the different identities he already has.
Nintendo player. Artist. Cat lover. Bunny lover. Outdoorsman.
Friend-to-everyone (except his sister). Grandpa's boy.
And he's only four. He already fills up all the primary colors of
his rainbow, and then some.
Building Our Rainbows
When we're born, we haven't yet begun assembling our
rainbows. We don't do things. We aren't trying to be anybody. We cry,
and someone brings us a bottle. We cry again, and someone comes to
hold and rock us. Nice.
And then one day we realize that we're somebody. Somebody
separate from Mommy. Somebody who can throw things. Somebody
who can walk. We're independent. We're capable of seeing a toy we
want and willing our fat little legs to carry us over to it. Our hands
reach for the object of our desire. We can make things happen.
There comes a time when our awareness of our selves changes
from self-discovery to self-identity. Okay, so we've got this walking
thing down pat. We've learned the basics about verbal communication
and the do's and don'ts of temper tantrums. But what, exactly, are we?
Are we a good basketball player, like Mike, or are we better at music, like
Ludwig? Are we more like Daddy or Mommy? Where do we fit?
In this process of trying on various roles, we adopt and throw
away many different colors of the rainbow. If you've been around
children, you know the process. From the time my daughter was three,
people would ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up. "A
garbageman" was her first answer. After that, her career goals changed
as often as her moods. At nine, she settled in to being a writer like her
mom (notice me swelling with pride). The next step was to wrinkle her
nose at the thought of writing and say "No way! I'm going to be an
artist!" (see me deflate). In the middle of these career decisions came a
staggering range of personality changes, emotional upheavals, and
moral issues. She was seeking to define herself. Trying on roles, like a
child trying on her mother's dresses.
In our mid- to late teens, this playing becomes more serious. We
feel the pressure of life, the pressure of our friends, and the pressure of
our parents' expectations weighing down on us. What will we do with
our lives? What type of people will we become? We start clutching at
answers. Labels start flying around us; some stick, and some don't. Good
student. Troubled teen. Drinker. Good girl. Christian. Athlete. Musician.
Druggie.
Things become even more confusing when our sexuality gets in
the way. Now not only are we trying to define who we are and where
we fit, but now we're experiencing hormone shifts that classify what we
are. Strongly male. Timidly female. (Or vice versa.) Heterosex ual.
Bisexual. Homosexual. For most of us, the desire is there and the avenue
we follow (and the labels we adopt) stick with us throughout our lives.
Promiscuous. Frigid. Aggressive. Shy. Macho. Sensitive.
The really horrible thing about all this label-adoption is that
while we are trying on all these labels, everyone else around us is doing
the same thing. Our parents have already accumulated their store of
labels. They've got themselves figured out and all wrapped in colors (or
so it seems to us at the time). But most of us don't want the labels our
parents have chosen, even though they seem to want us to follow their
lead. We want to be ourselves. We reach for independence. We look to
our friends. As our most accurate mirrors of what's really going on
inside us, our friends help us pick labels that suit us on the surface.
"Man, you look cool in long hair" encourages us to leave our hair longer
than usual. "Who needs to work?" another friend says, inserting the
seeds of nonconformity that our parents may not be happy with.
Do we know what we are underneath all this label adoption
business?
Our spirits do.
And our spirits allow us to pick up all these multicolored labels
and stick them on our rainbow cloaks, covering up any little bit of space
through which the light could shine. We line up like kids in the school
cafeteria lunch line, those mauve trays before us with the five separate
compartments. And we walk through the line, one after another,
allowing the cooks to pile labels and labels on our plates. Som e we'll take
in, others we'll leave. Then one day we wake up and we're married, and
we have a nice car, a nice house, and a couple of terrific kids. Life is
sedate, comfortable. We've picked a profession, we've piled up bills, and
life seems to be accelerating at an alarming rate; but we're coping.
And we watch the news at 6:00 and we see people rioting in the
streets. We rant and rave about the injustice done to minorities. We
discuss world issues with our college friends. We all seem to agree that
the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
And we drive by the homeless families on our way to work and
look the other way.
And we tell our children not to play with the "rough" kids down
the block.
And we see how different we are from each other and think the
world would be a better place if only people were more like us.
But what about us?
No, not the us on the surface; the us underneath. Beneath that
rainbow blanket. Beyond those labels. What are we doing, so silent,
hidden way down there?
Rainbow Inspection
We all go through this process of label-adoption. As far as we
know, everyone has, since the day Adam and Eve covered themselves in
the garden. Metaphorically speaking, they put fig-leaf-colored labels on
themselves. We're just continuing the trend.
We cover our essence, the light, with bits of color. We think in
order to be special, we must be unique. How can we be the terrific people
we think we are if we're just like everybody else? No, we need to stand
out. Make that blond hair blonder. Work on that bust line. Trim the
waist. Be smarter than anyone else. Succeed.
As we begin exploring the idea of colored labels, we tend to look
for their point of origin. You may wonder who put the labels on you.
Whose idea was it that you take Latin in high school? How in the world
did you end up taking computer science?
Origins aren't important. You may tell yourself that you went
into business because your parents "made" you or you adopted the
"good girl" label because of your parish priest, but wondering why and
who and what only takes you further away from losing the labels.
You can just drop them, at any moment. You can fall back on the
real you, the light, the spirit. Once you get used to it, the cloak slides on
and off easily. The first time you let it fall is the har dest.
You know, we have to have a sense of humor about our pasts.
Boy, there were some things in my life I really messed up. Decisions I
really blew. Financial moves that should have sunk me. Emotional
decisions about business events. Business decisions ab out emotional
events.
So what?
Those skeletons in your closet. What's the big deal? Everyone has
them. Don't be afraid of them. Laugh at them. How silly they look, tucked
away like they have some sort of power over you. Just a pile of bones.
Those are your skeletons, anyway. They belong to your self, that
person who appears sleepy-eyed in the mirror every morning. Do you
think your spirit made those mistakes?
The past is gone. The future isn't here yet. Now is the only
moment there is.
In this moment, are you Mom, Wife, Husband, or Father? Are you
Employee or Employer? Are you White or Black? Are you Liberal or
Conservative? Are you Student or Teacher? Son or Daughter? Brunette or
Redhead? Young or Old?
These are not multiple choice questions. The answer is no.
You, in your essence, are not any of those things. You define
yourself with those colored labels. The person you represent in physical
form adopts those labels so the mind has some sense of knowing itself,
some sense of being different from everyone else. But the you we're
talking about here is the real you, in spirit. The essence that is not
different from anyone. It's the same light that passes through you and
everyone in every corner of the world.
By the time adulthood hit us (and most of us give in grudgingly),
we find we have at least these labels:
A work label
A relationship label
A sexuality label
A political label
A talent label
A social issues label
And numerous preference labels
The paperboy has his own set of labels. Your mother has another
set. Your children have another set. We define ourselves --and
understand each other--based on the colors we show to the world.
Let's adopt a ficticious person and name her Ellen. She's a thirty -
two year old single mom, living in a city in the midwest. The rainbow of
labels she carries with her on a daily basis might look like this:
Work: Support role in large company
Relationships: Divorced but dating
Mother of one child
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Political: No one looks good enough
Talents: Talking to people
Writing poetry
Tennis
Preferences: Love stories
Fiction
Classical or Jazz music
Quiet dates
Living in the suburbs
Social issues: Contributes to funding for homeless
Recycles
Cares about environmental issues
These, of course, are by no means all the labels Ellen has adopted
through the years. There is another level of labels; these only seen by
Ellen herself. They are the little voices of insecurity that play inside her
mind when she's feeling fearful of a situation:
"I never could talk in front of a group."
"I'd be a better mom if I'd stayed married."
"I'm not attractive enough."
"I'm not intelligent enough."
"I'm no good at relationships."
"I don't know how to take care of myself."
"What I do doesn't make a difference."
The little, pointed inside labels hurt more than the ones of the
outside. They are total fabrications of the brain, not the spirit. If Ellen
could silence the brain for just a minute, she would feel the love and
peace bubbling up from within. The light would make itself known, if
only she could still that inner struggle for the slightest moment.
The labels don't matter.
They're nothing.
They're fiction.
Just illusion.
You are perfect in spirit, just the way you want to be, more than
anything you dared hope. In your spirit, you are light, simply love.
Complete, all-encompassing, unconditional love.
Our minds convince us we're someone. Our minds suck up all
these labels like paper clips to a magnet. We grab and hold these labels
to convince our minds--that independent ego--that we are somebody
doing something important.
What would happen if we let go of our labels?
If Ellen let the work label fall away and stopped being an
Employee for one silent moment, what would happen? She'd probably
start being Mom. When she stopped being Mom, she'd be the Tennis
Player. And when that was over, she'd be the Advocate for the
Homeless. But what if Ellen, one day, allowed herself a sweet few
moments of silence, when she wasn't trying to be anyone? The labels fall
away, having lost their pull to the magnet, and she stands there,
revealed.
Almost.
Now the inner labels start stinging. "I should be doing
something," she tells herself. "I'm not accomplishing anything just sitting
here." I'm not being somebody doing something.
The mind is very uncomfortable not being used. It will push us
and prod us and finally say some really awful things to us in an attempt
to get us moving again.
But Ellen is not Mom or Tennis Player or Homeless Advocate.
She's a spirit who mothers, plays tennis, and befriends the homeless.
When Ellen can understand that her mind is not light, that her
brain doesn't know the recipe for peace, that her labels do not define her
at her essence, she'll get her first glimmer of that place over the rainbow.
And that tiny little shaft of light will shoot around inside her,
bouncing off those inner labels, trying to find a way out through the
gaps in her rainbow cloak. She'll feel it in there, zooming around,
changing her perspective.
And she'll want more.
Chapter Four
Letting Go and Loving Color

So we reach this point where we are beginning to understand
that we've manufactured our selves. The self that remembers to get the
oil changed and the tires rotated is much different from the spirit that
shines in the midst of those activities. The person we see looking back at
us in the mirror is just one expression of the light in our essence.
The fact that I have blue eyes and you have brown is seeming
less important, somehow.
The reality that we all look in the mirror and see only a fragment
of what we truly are brings us a few steps closer together.
Can we really let go of the labels our minds have produced? If we
let the rainbow cloak fall from our shoulders, what will we find
underneath?
The kids run in. Your daughter's friend had a wreck on her bike
and skinned up her knees. She's sitting in the driveway crying. What are
you going to do? You can't say "Sorry, but the me you're looking at is
only one expression of my spirit," and refuse to help them. Of course you
want to help. You grab some bandages and a couple of wet paper towels
and hurry out to the victim. You patch things up, wash away the tears,
and watch protectively as she walks her bike down the street to her
house.
Simply because we explore our spirituality doesn't mean we
won't live in the real world anymore. When we let our rainbows drop
for an instant, it doesn't mean we won't pick them back up. If means
only that once we see the labels we wear, we understand that there is an
alternative perspective available to us. It's just waiting for us to see it.
Things that bothered the outside us don't ruffle us anymore. We begin
forgiving ourselves for the little human goof-ups we experience every
day. We begin to feel more tolerant, more accepting, of others.
Once we see what we are in our essence, we can understand
what others are in their essence.
And we'll see that we're all the same.
Changing Perspectives
When you let go of your rainbow, you are really releasing its
hold on you. You are no longer a captive of a one-dimensional way of
thinking. You see farther. You see another dimension to things, to
relationships, to society.
Will this cloak-dropping change your life? Often we worry that a
shift in our perspective may radically change things. Will you feel the
need for sweeping change? Will you give all your worldly possessions to
the poor and change your name to something no one can pronounce?
Dropping the rainbow does nothing except free you. You aren't
obligated to cleanse your self or live according to any new laws. You
aren't required to justify your actions, your morality, your spirituality.
You're simply aware that there is a deeper level you've been missing.
That level exists within each of us and every person we meet.
Letting Go
As we explore the possibility that we are much more than the
surface "us" we've created, we feel drawn to know more. A craving for
silence begins elbowing its way into our consciousness. Life suddenly
seems so busy.
When do you have time for quiet?
Exploring the spirit beyond the labels can be as simple as a
breath, as quick as a blink of the eye. One minute your mind is searching
for an answer, and then next--there it is, within reach.
You can experience that moment of silence any time you're not
talking, listening, or being anyone. And you don't have to go searching
for it. When you're ready, it comes to you.
The moment can be uncomfortable. For some of us, it's
downright terrifying.
Most of us spend the majority of our days filling time. We
schedule appointments, we plan events. We work through relationship
problems. We need to be doing something. While we're doing the
something we're doing, we're thinking of the something we'll do when
we finish. While waiting in the doctor's office, we make plans for the
weekend. In the middle of the weekend, we prepare for the week.
We're uncomfortable with silence.
Because in silence, what are we? If we're not fully invested in our
colors, if we're not being Dad or Husband or Golfer, who are we? If we
have no action to define us, will we cease to exist?
It's in the stillness that the light begins to shine. But most of us
fear that stillness, avoiding at almost any cost the moment where we
have nothing to do, nothing to think, and no one to be. Our minds push
us into activity, but the spirit waits patiently. Your spirit knows you'll
find it when you need to.
Shining in Stillness
You find yourself looking for opportunities to be quiet. Perhaps
the kids have gone to play at the neighbor's and, on impulse, you turn off
the TV. The house is bathed in silence. Sure, the laundry needs to be
done, but it can wait a few minutes. You sit down on the couch. You're
not being anyone's Mom, anyone's Wife, or anyone's Employee. You feel
a warm something spreading through your stomach, your chest. Your
breaths come easier.
Peace.
And then your son comes screeching in from the yard. His sister
hit him with a stick and he's crying for justice. Your daughter is close on
his heels, preparing her defense.
What did that feel like, a moment ago? And then--zap--as quickly
as the peace came, it goes, and you're stuck right in the middle of being
Mom.
Those of us who are invested in our lives and the relationships in
those lives cannot exist in silence, in peacefulness, all the time. We
probably wouldn't even want to. It's easy to be enlightened sitting on a
mountaintop with no schedules, no strings, no responsibilities.
But living in the real world gives us opportunity to let the love
flow through us. To our kids, to our neighbors, to our spouses, to our
parents, to people we don't even know. It's an eternal challenge, to keep
ourselves aware that we are more than our labels but to let the labels
come and go as they must.
It's all us.
We need to love it all.
Let's just not shortchange ourselves anymore. Let's remember
that we're more than physical bodies, that we're more than a massive
system of organs that live in reaction to demanding world.
Seeing that we have labels is the important part. We can let go,
when we want to. We can understand our lives, our selves, and each
other. We can break down the barriers of color we set up between our
selves. When it's time to put those labels back on, we can do it. But
underneath there's now an understanding that the labels are only one
part of us--one little expression of the real us--that exists in the light.
That moment of understanding comes slowly to those of us who
feel insecure doing nothing. We're afraid to let go of the labels, because
we feel that those colors are what makes us good people.
"I'm a better housekeeper than anyone I know."
"I had more sales last month than any other salesperson."
"I was promoted three times in two years."
We need to understand that by out-competing other people, we
don't make ourselves better. We're not good because of what we do.
We're good because of what we are. What makes us breath, love, hope,
help? Spirit. We don't need to feed our egos. We don't need to be the best -
looking, the most successful, the highest paid. We don't need to
accomplish a ten-item To Do list every day in order to be fulfilled. We're
already fulfilled. We're already whole. We're already perfect.
We just need to let it shine through.
So the next time a potential moment comes to you, take a deep
breath. That's all. Nothing else. Just breathe. Let a couple of labels fall
away. For that moment--even if it's the tiniest sand- speck of time--
allow yourself to feel that you are much more than you ever imagined.
Know that in your spirit you already know everything, understanding
everything, are everything. In spirit we are all complete love, and we
when take off those rainbow cloaks that we think make us "different,"
the light of love comes pouring through. It's a na tural process. We aren't
trying to be loving. We aren't trying to be compassionate. We are love and
compassion, and it shines from us unhindered.
Getting Past Fear
We all hold on. We clutch to unhealthy relationships. We keep
platform shoes and old typewriters and 8-track tapes. We protect our
bad habits; we stay in jobs where we're miserable. We keep playing
messages we received as children over and over in our heads, long after
we've reached adulthood.
And we carry all this baggage around with us because we're
afraid.
What would life be like without this baggage? Like a set of multi -
colored luggage, they've all become color labels, of one sort or another.
Our brains tell us we need them. "If I quit my job, how will I act? What
will I do all day?" or "I know I should get rid of this old stereo, but what if
I want it back some day?"
When we're talking about something as important as the very
way we understand ourselves, changing our perspective can be
frightening. There's a big split between physical and spir itual life. We
make the split bigger than it needs to be. When you understand that you
are much more than someone's Mom or someone's Wife, you don't stop
those relationships, you just understand yourself differently, more truly.
When you understand that you are not a Tennis Player but a spirit of
light who plays tennis occasionally, your perspective changes.
Letting go of labels doesn't mean we won't use those labels
anymore. It just means we stop kidding ourselves --short-changing
ourselves--into thinking that those labels represent all we are.
We come to love the labels we've adopted. We embrace them,
because they are part of the surface "us," personas we needed to help us
along this winding path into our own spirits. We see those parts of our
lives not as roles we play but gifts, opportunities, to share the love inside
us. In your essence, you are not someone's mother, but being Mom gives
you a tremendous outlet for sharing the light that wells up within you.
What happens when we allow the silence to fill us up? We may
be afraid of the unknown. Those "what ifs" get pretty threatening, when
our brains run rampant through our consciousness.
Remember the baby who wasn't trying to do anything or be
anyone? The baby just was. And when he cried, someone came and took
care of him. Someone changed him and fed him and rocked him.
Those arms are still there.
When you stop being somebody doing something and allow the
silence to bubble up within you, you feel those arms, supporting you,
rocking you. Your spirit is so glad to finally meet you.
Close your eyes and let yourself feel the love all around you,
running through you, freeing you of your labels.
See that the love is light.
And understand that this is the point where the healing begins.
Chapter Five
Getting Past the Past

As far as we know, we humans are the only creatures that have
time-based peripheral vision. We can be standing in the present, flash
back to the past, and make projections of the future. Our actions right
now depend on what our mind shows us ab out what we've done before
and what we might do tomorrow.
Let's take an example. Suppose your friend calls and wants you
to go to a movie. In that moment, you think "Well, I just went to a movie
yesterday," and beg off. Or perhaps you're planning to go to a movie this
weekend, so you say no. Your mind plays back what you did yesterday
and what you might do next weekend, and so, even though you really
like the friend and would enjoy the movie, you decline.
Animals, our simpler counterparts, seem to do none of that. They
live, they eat, they sleep, they smile (it's in the eyes). I've yet to see our
dog Trixie convince herself to do anything. It's only a guess, but I would
wager that she doesn't think "Hmmmm, I just woke up from a nap fifteen
minutes ago, so I'd better wait to take another nap for at least an hour. If
I sleep this afternoon, I might not sleep tonight."
To Trixie, there is no fifteen minutes ago, no tonight. There's only
now.
How can we be alive in this moment if allow the moment to be
laden with past mistakes and future fears? How can we ever get clear
enough to hear our own voices if we carry all this baggage around with
us? Almost every moment we live is a mixture of past and future. We get
upset with our spouses because they always give us that look when come
home late from work. We get frustrated with the kids because they never
listen to us.
Always and never are based on past and future. We're upset
because not only have these people not lived up to our expectations in
the past, but they're giving us more evidence that they will fail to do so
in the future.
If we were living in the moment, we'd be able to see the behavior,
or experience, for what it is. It would wash over us like the first time it
ever happened. We wouldn't feel the frustration of "knowing" it will
happen again in the future and thinking boy, will we be upset when it does!
Being here in the moment sets you free of reactions that pile up on you
like dust on fine wood. In each moment, we can get that dust cloth out
and wipe those reactions away. We can be new and fresh in the
experience. We can deal with people and experiences honestly without
the filters of the past or future to interfere.
So what does this have to do with rainbows and light?
Everything.
The Hold of the Past
Before we understand the difference between the rainbow and
the light, we tend to think of our selves as the sum of all our experiences.
Our biographies provide us with a history of events we've accomplished
or goals we've met. We look in the mirror and we think of how we've
changed and wonder what we'll look like in the future.
But there's only now.
The past is a memory and the future is speculation.
Remembering and speculating are two favorite pasttimes of the mind.
They have nothing to do with the spirit.
The spirit just loves, in this moment, truly.
When, forgetting spirit, we think of our selves, we reflect back
over everything that has happened to us to get us here, as though the
past events are still a part of the current us. We carry the past with us,
allowing it to define the way we are, control the way we act. We even
use the past to project how other people will act around us.
But the past is just a series of stepping stones, stretched out
across a wide, rippling stream. The sun shines down through the leaves
of the trees along the bank. In some spots, the stream is deep, in others,
shallow enough to see the moss-covered rocks and gold-brown pebbles
along the bottom. Uneven stones divide the flow of the stream as it
rushes toward a waterfall hundreds of yards beyond. You step from one
stone to another, trying to keep your balance, as you move from place to
place.
One rock is slippery and uneven. It hurts the bottom of your foot.
You bolster your courage and move to another rock. This one seems
safer. Yet another rock up ahead looks ominous, but you know you have
to try it. There's no where to go but onward.
You would never think of picking up those rocks and carrying
them with you. They would knock you off balance, of course. And you
really couldn't carry more than one or two.
The rocks weigh you down as you try to navigate the new rocks.
The rocks sap you of your energy and freshness and r ob you of
your chance for healing.
Leave the past in the past. Those rocks will serve as stepping
stones for someone following you. You don't need them anymore.
Our past experiences are--and should be--special to us as we
come to a deeper meaning of our selves. Looking back is okay,
comforting, even--unless we get stuck there. Unless we look back and
say "I should have been a better mother," or "I never should have quit
that job."
We do the best we can in the moment.
And then we step to the next stone.
If we're carrying rocks with us, we won't be able to balance on
the new one. We're piling the odds against ourselves. We can love
ourselves and see ourselves and understand ourselves with all these
rocks stacked on top of us.
The more time we spend in the past, the more we attach
ourselves to the experiences that happened there. How many times a
day do you think back to something you did, or some way you acted, or
some situation that flattened you, and replay it? In those moments, you
are back there, in the past. You don't see the birds flying around you.
You don't feel the sunlight. You are reinforcing the experience you are
trying to get away from (or get back to, as the case may be). The more
energy you invest in thinking about the past, analyzing it, wondering
about it, the more you make it impossible for miracles to happen right
now. The rocks you carry with you aren't going to change simply
because you're carrying them. They only weigh you down and make you
weaker in this moment.
Those aren't your rocks anymore. You're new, right this instant.
Like Trixie, you don't have to worry about what you did five years ago,
five days ago, or five minutes ago. Let whatever's coming in the next five
years take care of itself. In this moment, you are not your past. You are
not your labels.
You're a spirit of Light, with no limitations, no restrictions, and
no flaws.
Arm's-Length Closeness
On a larger scale, carrying the past with us separates us from
ourselves and each other. We allow things we didn't live up to in the
past to haunt us.
And by allowing them to stay with us, they exert control over
the moments we live now. Those skeletons can hurt only that person we
see in the mirror. But until we know we're more than that person, the
skeletons stand in the way of truth in our relationships, real meeting
among spirits.
When we feel the need to hide something in our past, we never
feel "real" with other people. Whether we hide that something because
we're afraid they will think badly of us or because we're trying to
protect them from a painful experience we've endured, it only serves to
separate us. "What will he think of me?" is a thought that's gone through
everyone's head at one time or another. "What will they say if I do that?"
we wonder.
We live in a shell of protectiveness, trying to hide the "real us"
from other people. And this protective shell requires an incredible
amount of control on our part; we find ourselves watching what we say,
do, and think. The more we control ourselves, the more we find that we
need to control. And one day we wake up and realize that we're not
controlling anything; the shell is controlling us. We've buil t it so well
and so tightly that even our outside rainbow colors are covered up.
All because we're carrying stones that are too heavy for us.
Stones we don't have to carry.
And even though we truly love those around us, we fear
showing them what we think we really are. Our image of ourselves is
truly stuck in the rainbow, forgetting the light at its essence. And we
push ourselves and prod ourselves and try to further control ourselves
into being what we want to be. We set a future goal that we try, time
and time again, to live up to.
And we beat ourselves up when we fail.
And we forget one vital, freeing thing: There is no past and no
future. There is only now.
In this moment, the best we can do is enough.
And we move on to the next stone.
Forgiving Our Selves
So we understand that the past keeps us from living freely in the
moment, allowing ourselves to open up to the light beyond the rainbow.
How do we get from here to there? Is there some magical process that
can wipe away the years of guilt and self- persecution that skew our
perspectives in this moment?
Yes there is.
It's called forgiveness.
In thinking of our past experiences as stepping stones that have
helped us get where we are now, we can accept that they happened for a
reason. We can also believe that we did the best we could with the
situation presented us. I've yet to meet a person who, at a crisis point in
her life, said "I want to make the decision that will hurt the most people."
Often the decisions we are forced to make seem to have no solution. On
the surface, invested in our rainbows, we make the best choices we can
with the resources available to us.
When I was trying to put my daughter's bunny, Hopscotch, back
into the cage, he kicked his feet wildly (not wanting to be corraled) and
scratched my wrist. Did he feel remorseful? Did he feel the need to
apologize for cutting me? No--he kicked harder.
My injury wasn't intentional, nor did it change the way I feel
about the bunny. Life happens. Sometimes we get bumped and bruised
and it's nobody's fault, it just happens. Every person on the face of the
earth has unwittingly hurt someone without the intention of doing so.
Forgive yourself.
You made all the choices you made for a reason, to bring you to
this moment. This is the more important moment of your life. When you
can be free of the past and unfearful of the future, you can live this
moment honestly.
And your light will beam through.
A Path of Forgiveness
As we escape the limited perspectives of our rainbows and learn
to understand the light, there's no need to go anywhere. Finding a little
corner of silence always helps, but there's no need to do anything special
or wander off to the nearest mountaintop to feel contemplative.
One day, when I found myself carrying so many stones I couldn't
move, I happened upon a kind of meditation that helped me get free of
the past.
It was January and the sky was spitting big, wet snowflakes. I
sat in my car in the parking lot of a hotel in Indianapolis and wrote in a
small, dog-eared notebook. This was the first weekend in ten years I'd
been a "single" person; the first weekend since I'd become a mother that I
was not with my children.
I was wracked with guilt.
I was frozen with an overpowering feeling of doom.
And, in the midst of my writing, as it often happens, a little shaft
of light came to me in the form of an idea: "I need to forgive myself before
I self-destruct."
"Okay," I said internally, "I forgive myself."
No, said the voice. Really. Look inside yourself, look at what's hurting you,
and forgive youself.
What else did I have to do? I wasn't supposed to pick up the kids
for six more hours. I didn't feel like shopping or calling any of my friends
who woud comiserate with me. I put the car and gear and began
driving, following roads I'd known all my life.
It was early on a Sunday morning so there was no traffic. I drove
without thinking, and found myself in front of the apartment where I
had grown up. I was amazed at how small it looked.
"All right," I said aloud. "I'm game."
And I took a deep breath.
"I forgive myself for all those times I pouted and carried on. I
know I didn't give my stepdad a chance and I now forgive myself for
that. I know I practically drove my mom crazy with the religious stuff I
used to preach at her, and I'm sorry that it was s uch a painful time for us
both. But I was doing the best that I could then. I forgive myself."
And then I drove to my high school. And by my best friend's
house. And to the place I lost my virginity (really, I did). And to my first
apartment. I went to every place that held a painful memory still active,
for me, in the present.
And in each place, I said aloud that I knew at that time I'd been
doing my best and I forgave myself for not living up to my own
expectations. Especially I forgave myself for all the times I hurt myself,
and put myself down, and lost hope.
And in each place, I felt as though I was leaving little stones,
putting them back in the past, where they belong. At the same time, I felt
I was gathering myself to myself, pulling pieces of me back that I had lost
in those places, allowing myself to heal, to be whole again.
In the years since that experience, I've never picked those stones
up again. By now, of course, I have others, and I periodically have to go
through the process of putting them back. The fact that I actually went
to those places and said the forgiving words aloud had some significance
for me, as though I knew that this was the one and only time I'd need to
do that in order to forgive myself for those events.
But whether you travel to the places on this earth where the
hurting occured or you simply allow your spirit to heal you by bubbling
up the forgiveness and love that flows from you naturally, clearing
yourself of the past sets you free for the present.
When you are accepting and loving and whole yourself, you can
be accepting and loving and connected with others.
And you'll be living the light, not the rainbow.
Chapter Six
Weathering Storms
My daughter was furious with me.
She stormed up the stairs, stomping her feet as loudly as she
could, her footsteps proclaiming her frustration even when her mouth
could not.
The door slammed shut, punctuating our disconnectedness.
I stood at the foot of the steps, looking up, grappling with my
image of myself. Had I been wrong? Had I t urned into the kind of parent I
didn't want to be? Did saying "no" in the wrong moment turn my
affectionate, fun daughter into a raging pre-adolescent mess?
I comforted myself with the thought that in spirit, I was okay.
Outside, I was shaking.
Confrontations at our house are fortunately rare. But when those
storms erupt, sometimes they include hail and wind strong enough to
knock you over. Sometimes life with an almost teenage daughter is
analogous to April in Indiana; you might have sunshine and smiles on e
minute and hailstorms and tears the next.
My self wasn't understanding her.
Her self wasn't understanding me.
The people we were couldn't connect at that moment, even
though in spirit, we were fine. In spirit, we weren't hurting. We loved
each other beyond words. We understood without speaking. But, as I
watched her small frame stamping up those stairs as though her anger
was bursting through the soles of her feet, I knew that we were so
wrapped up in our own emotional rainbows that we couldn't see each
other.
Once we reach the understanding that we are much more than
the rainbows we represent, how can we exist in a storm -ridden world?
How can we hold on to that peace when we are faced, almost every
minute, with things to react to, emotions to deal with, s ituations to
manage? Is it possible to be in touch with the Light and still live in the
rainbow?
It's not easy.
But it's possible.
No matter how far you've come in your quest for spiritual
understanding, you will undoubtedly be faced with moments of trial.
Whatever you fear--your boss, your mother, the IRS--will, sooner or
later, be brought forward for you to confront. In any relationships, we'll
experience misunderstandings, disagreements, or times of disconnection.
As long as we inhabit human bodies, ther e will be a chance that we'll be
misunderstood.
And feeling misunderstood is one of the crummiest feelings there
is.
Understanding Misunderstanding
When we are living in the rainbow, dealing with the ins and outs
of our daily lives, why is it so terrible to feel misunderstood?
Lack of agreement.
Lack of compassion. When someone disagrees with us, we feel
alone.
When someone has no compassion for us, we feel unlovable.
In spirit, we know we are never alone. In spirit, we know we are
love. So why does the fear of being misunderstood have such power over
us?
From the time we are very small, we assemble these rainbow
cloaks to identify our selves and give us some means of explaining our
selves to the world. When you meet someone new and tell them what
you do for a living, how many children you have, where you went to
school, etc., they understand you. They look inside themselves and find
similar happenings in their own lives. They know where you're coming
from. You feel understood.
When you have a fight with your lover, you tell your best friend.
Your best friend has had similar troubles in the past and can empathize
with you. You're understood.
When you're considering changing jobs and don't know what to
do, you talk to a friend who has been through a recent job change. His
insight helps you deal with your situation, and you feel better, knowing
someone understands what you're dealing with.
In understanding, we feel joined with someone else. We're
proving to our selves that, even in the midst of our problems, we' re not
alone. The person in the mirror needs to know there's someone else
standing right there beside her.
What happens when we're misunderstood?
You forget to call your girlfriend when you said you would.
You've done it three times in the last month. She's pissed. She's
convinced that you're trying to tell her something. You're convinced you
just forgot.
She doesn't understand you. What do you think? I'm a bad person.
I'm irresponsible. I don't deserve to be in a relationship with someone as good as her.
You quit your job as a stock broker to work on your uncle's farm
raising cows. All your stock broker friends are making Big Money and
continually put you down for your decision. You try to explain your
reasons for leaving and they all begin mooing and talking with a
southern twang.
They don't understand you. How are you feeling? Boy, I must really
look stupid to these guys. I guess it is pretty ridiculous, leaving Wall Street to raise
cows. Maybe that was a bad move for me. I sure would've made a lot more money if
I'd stayed where I was. Maybe I could get my old job back...
We'll do almost anything to make ourselves fit, whether that
means totally changing the way we feel inside or lying to ourselves or
going against our better judgement.
In the middle of a semester, I decided to leave college. There was a
book burning in my soul that I had to let out. When I started to work on
my assignments, the book would come out. I couldn't get anything done
except the book that wanted its way with me. I told my advisor a nd
tried to explain the depth of my conviction. She lectured me for thirty
minutes, explaining the irrevocable damage I was doing to my future by
not completing my degree.
She didn't understand me. What did I say to myself? Jeeze, they
must think I'm a fanatic or something. I guess I could try to finish the work...if I
really put my mind to it and forced myself.
I couldn't stand to be misunderstood. I needed the people I cared
about to meet me where I was, to understand my experiences, to know
who I was in the center of my being.
And you know what?
They already do.
Whether your girlfriend or your mother or your boss appear to
agree or disagree with you on the surface, in their essence, in the Light,
they understand you. They are you. We're all connected, deeper than
words, beyond colors, beyond labels.
Their selves--those people in the mirror --might appear to
disaggree.
Those little legs stomping away from me on the stairs didn't
show that they understood me. But the spirit, the light inside those legs
knew.
The professors who shake their heads and lament the
wastefulness of my academic career think I've done a really stupid thing.
But here's a valuable insight that proves itself true time and time
again:
People only agree with you to the point that you mirror them.
That's worth saying again:
People think you're right only if you reaffirm the choices they've
made in their lives.
If, in a letter to my advisor, I say --even jokingly--"I don't think
God cares much about college degrees", that college advisor isn't going to
like the comment. (Granted, that wasn't a real smart thing for me to do.)
Of course she's not going to be comfortable with a statement like that.
She's invested her whole life in the importance of college degrees. A
comment like that threatens her .
If all of a sudden you quit your high-paying management job and
start working at a nursery school, your cohorts back at the office are
going to talk about how crazy you are. Of course they will. They need to
stay emotionally rooted in their place. Seeing you take the flying leap of
faith is threatening for them. It makes them question their own choices.
It shows them that someone they know has given herself permission to
do what she wants.
What a terrible option to have.
Most people don't realize they have it.
Similarly, when we start getting over our rainbows, people are
going to look at us funny. The guys we used to hang out with will stare
at us if we don't join in all the ethnic put -downs we used to participate
in. As we start adopting a more gentle, accepting attitude about
differences in people, the people who were used to us being totally
invested in our rainbows will start feeling uncomfortable.
"What are you now, some humanitarian or something?"
"Who do you think you are, Ghandi?"
You're misunderstood. What are you thinking? They will only
agree with me to the point that I mirror them. Their spirits know that my spirit is
finding it way out through all my labels, and it's scaring them.
The put-downs of your friends no longer hurt you or change you.
You don't find yourself second-guessing your decisions or longing to
change back to the way you "used" to be. You simply understand that
your new perspective touches some chord deep inside them that makes
them uncomfortable. Some little ray of light flickers inside them, and
they don't know what that flicker is.
Simply because you're in touch with the Light, their own
rainbows start to fade.
Healing and Helping
Just as other people agree with us when we mirror their choices,
we agree with others when their lives echo our own. When we try to
solve peoples' problems, we find it difficult to break out of our own
experiences. Suppose you have a friend you've been close to since college.
You planned your weddings together. You had your children at the
same time. You go to the same church. You work out at the same club.
One day, she pauses longer than usual in the dressing room. Her
eyes are red.
"I'm thinking about leaving Paul," she says.
What do you do?
All the memories of your connectedness come zooming into y our
brain. You realize that your families won't get together for cookouts
anymore. You remember the time another friend left her husband and
made some terrible choices. You fear for your friend. You fear for
yourself. If she's making this choice, the next time you and your husband
have a rough storm to face, will you begin thinking of that alternative?
Will you meet her where she is, or will you unconsciously
encourage her to affirm your own choices?
The best opinion is no opinion. In situations where peopl e are
dealing with hurting life-altering decisions and ask for guidance, the
words they need most to hear come from that person beyond the mirror.
The only words that will ring true, the only words that will heal
anything, are the ones they can whisper to themselves when they get in
touch with their spirits.
It's hard to see a friend in pain. When we've been through similar
circumstances, the temptation to jump in and make things better is
almost overwhelming. We think we know how to handle the situation.
We know what they should do. We know they'd be happier if only
they'd look at life the way we do.
But, as rainbow -invested people, we forget that pain is only a
surface ailment. Our spirits feel no pain. Our spirits are only love. Even
though your friend looks miserable, cries, and agonizes over her
situation, the pain isn't hurting the real her.
If anything, the pain might be helping.
Because at times of great pain, we look in the mirro more than
others. We wonder what's going on inside us. We feel the shifting in our
labeling system and struggle to put it all together again so it fits
comfortably.
That's a great opportunity for letting go.
A great opportunity for faith.
In those moments of deepest, darkest despair, we have a sure
shot of feeling those arms wrapped around us.
Being the Source
When we live in the rainbow, being misunderstood is a
dangerous thing. Being misunderstood means being alone, isolated,
unloved. Being misunderstood may even mean being wrong, which
makes a question the very "rightness" of our being.
Once we get in touch with our spirits, we know we can never be
misunderstood. Although our conscious minds tell us otherwise, the
spirit needs no explanations, no analysis, no understanding. The spirit
has everything it needs. Only our bodies, our minds, feel misunderstood.
Only our mouths have trouble communicating. Only our hands have
trouble reaching out.
The spirit is love.
When we truly understand the difference between self and spirit,
we can be our own source of understanding. The fun ny looks we get
from our parents when we tell them we're going to skip the family
Thanksgiving dinner and volunteer at the local homeless shelter slide off
us, unstuck. We know that they're questioning our judgement, our love
for them, and our commitment to the family. We also know that our
choice--doing what's right for us--shows them that they can do the same
for themselves. So, to some degree, we might be frightening them with
our freedom. On some level, they might feel compelled to do the same
thing.
But we no longer turn those looks inside our selves and feel
misunderstood. We know that in spirit, we are connected. We know we
have understanding. We understand our selves. We don't need to
convert other people to our way of thinking; we love them and
appreciate them for the choices they've made and live free in the light of
our own.
And we can turn that understanding out and apply it globally,
to all people we encounter, all groups we face, all factions of society that
stand against us.
The light is in there.
We understand each other.
The faces that look back in our mirrors in the morning are
covered with delusive labels that block the light.
But we're shining, inside.
And, sooner or later, those rays will come out.
Chapter Seven
Some Uncoloring Exercises
We are beginning to understand that we are more--literally--
than the eye can see. We're more than our minds can grasp. We're more
than our limited perspectives of our selves have allowed us to
understand.
We're more than the color of our skin, eyes, or hair. More than
our sexual preference or religious affiliation. More than the string of
experiences that have shaped our outward lives.
This sense of looking beyond appearances may bring up new
feelings as you start to explore perspectives previously unav ailable to
you. You may question whether you're taking this spirituality thing a
bit far. Your friends may wonder what's up with you.
The best thing about getting in touch with your spirit is that it
doesn't change you; it makes you more you, the you in your essence. You
feel more centered. You stop thrashing as much through your everyday
life. A sense of peace and general everything's -okay-ness starts to heal
the frantic hurting places inside you. When you begin exploring
spirituality and allow yourself to open up to the possibilities your own
spirit can offer you, the real change happens deep inside.
Once we've come to the understanding of the difference between
self and spirit in our selves, we can understand the difference in other
people. The individual rainbows worn by others are less important
now. You begin to enjoy the outer differences you see in other people
because they no longer threaten you. You don't feel compelled to change
them, or challenge them, because they are different from you. You know
they aren't different from you. In the essence, where it matters, we're all
the same.
Erasing Ourselves
In this first exercise, you settle in to a feeling of rainbow - less-
ness. Sure, you've been reading about it for several chapters, but what
does the light really feel like? Let's take a shot at getting there together.
Consider where you are right now. What's the position of your
body? Are you sitting or lying down? In a chair, in bed, or on the floor?
Run through a mental checklist, from the top of your head to the
soles of your feet, finding out how you are feeling. You may find you
have a headache, tightness in your neck muscles, soreness in your arms.
The forehead, eyes, mouth, and jaw usually store up quite a bit of tension
as we strain to understand what we're reading. Perhaps you're sitting in
an uncomfortable position.
You don't need to make yourself more comfortable.
You don't need to relax or force your tightened muscles to loosen.
Just be aware of any tension or discomfort your body is feeling a t
this moment.
Know that each feeling and thought that pushes its way through
our brains has its own color. Envision yourself, sitting there as you are
now, striped in breathtaking rainbow colors that seem to shine from an
internal light source.
Imagine the colors getting brighter and brighter.
And brighter and brighter, until you almost can't look directly at
them anymore.
And just as they get to the moment of the most painful
brightness, the colors are overtaken by a beautiful white Light.
Now, as you sit there, the light of your spirit is blazing out
beyond the colors of your rainbow cloak. The rainbow fades into the
light from which it came. Your form, without its headache, its muscle
tension, its grasping brain, sits there right now, holding this book,
bathed in radiance.
It's the real you.
The light is stronger than the rainbow, but as an item of true
strength, it does not have to exert itself over the delusions of our minds.
When we look, we find it. When we allow ourselves to open to it, it
shines automatically. When we let the rainbow cloaks fall from our
shoulders it shines out unrestricted.
Our bodies are our only restrictions.
But things we claim define us also limit us.
As light, you are more than your body. As spirit, you reach out
beyond the length of your arms, out past the scope of your vision. The
love that shines from you touches people near and far. Like a string of
dominoes, the love that starts with us touches someone close and they,
feeling loved, touch someone else, and that person, benefitting from the
same love, touches other people.
The light lives on, passing through the rainbows of countless
people, eventually circling back around, just when we need it, and
touching us.
Origins of Light
Does the light begin with us? When we get in t ouch with our
spirits and allow the light to shine through us unhindered by our
rainbows, can we take credit for the love that shines through?
Depending on your religious beliefs (which are one expression of
your rainbow), you may have different views from mine on this matter.
Some philosophers will tell you that God is spirit that exists in
each person, that the thought of a God separate from humans is a
mythological adaptation of Western thought.
Some theologians will tell you that God is a mystical somet hing
beyond definition, making him or herself known to man in three
different understandable personas: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Some learned scholars will pooh-pooh the idea of a personal God,
saying that we as a society are looking for an eternal fath er figure to
handle our problems for us.
I understand the light, our light, to be parts of individual
Godlight. We do not define God anymore than we can define our selves.
But I feel God as the greater something I cannot comprehend, all loving,
all knowing, all comforting, the sum of all the tenderness and gentleness
in a seeking universe. The source of the light within me is the greater
light, the Original Light. This Light flows through all living things, not
just me, not just you. It's the natural proces s of our spirits to be conduits
for that love that cycles through our world on both surface and spiritual
levels. When we drop our cloaks, the love cycles through us unrestricted
and we have become aligned with our purpose on this earth.
But that's just my understanding.
And intellectual understanding is a function of the brain.
Which is part of the rainbow, not the light.
So where does the light come from? Am I talking in circles?
Not intentionally.
Whether you believe in a Bigger Something that is the source of
all light or you believe that we are each parts of that Bigger Something
and it does not exist apart from us, understanding the cyclical nature of
the light is the important part. It's in our nature to give love. We are love,
in our essence, and we feel best on the surface when we allow the love to
find its way through us. The more labels we put on our selves, the
thicker our cloaks, the harder it is to give love. Underneath, the less love
we're able to give, the worse we feel about ourselves. And, a s the amount
of love we give away dwindles, we find ourselves receiving less and less
love from those around us.
It's a cycle.
We allow love to flow through us because that is our nature and
we feel best when we're being true to it. Birds sing. Grass grows . Stars
shine.
We love.
Spreading It Around
The next time you're in a room with other people, you can try
letting some of your light out and watch what happens. Witnessing the
automatic passing-on process affirms the concept we've been exploring.
For example, suppose that you're in a crowded restaurant.
Colors, odors, sounds swirl around you. Your senses have an incredible
variety of resources to choose from. In a moment when you're not
involved in conversation, allow yourself to look around the room. Firs t
notice as many differences as you can among the people you find there.
Skin tones. Eye color. Hair. Expressions. Gestures. Some people are
reserved and quiet. Others are animated. A range of emotions will meet
your eye. Happy, silly, sad. Angry, tense, affectionate. You'll see all kinds
of relationships. Friends, lovers, relatives.
See how individual people make themselves. That one wears
bright pink, while another wears brown. This one smokes flamboyantly,
while another holds her cigarette at table level. This one laughs loudly,
while another merely smiles.
Feel your light gleaming strongly in the middle of your chest. As
you scan the room, allow yourself to sense the light in the middle each of
the people you see. Their gestures, their dress, their exter iors are only
expressions of their inner light. It's in there, even if they don't know it.
Suppose you have a surly waitress. She's feeling bad about
herself, about her place in her life, about her job in general. She's tired of
being ordered around, under valued, and underpaid. She goes to each
table, spreading her negative energy around. After you finish eating, you
leave an extraordinarily large tip for her. She returns to your empty
table to retrieve the tip, sees the amount, and is surprised. Something
inside her loosens. "Maybe I do a better job than I thought," she thinks,
and her self-concept improves just a bit. "Maybe this isn't such a bad job
after all," she says to herself. "There are still some nice people out there."
And she goes to the next table feeling a little better about herself and her
position. And each of the people at the tables she visits benefit from her
improving feelings about herself. And those people go out into the world
spreading their feelings of goodness around.
The giving, not the money, is the point.
When you become a conduit for that love to come through you, it
goes where it need to. It circulates and cycles through people, going from
one to another unnoticed.
By embracing our light, we can release our rainbows.
Chapter Eight
The Illusion of Becoming
My son learned to walk suddenly.
Oh, the process had several very definite stages. There was the I-
can-pull-myself-up stage, in which he'd clutch at the arm of the couch
and, with a white-knuckled death grasp, pull his litt le round body into
an upright position. Then, pleased with his new perspective, he'd squeal
and raise one arm over his head, wanting everyone to see.
Then--plop--down on his bottom he'd go.
After that, there was the Look-I-can-move-while-I'm-holding-on
stage. He could hang on to the couch, more secure now on his tottering
legs, and move a step to the right or a step to the left.
One day he got tired of the couch. He was, I assume, fed up with
watching all the other humans in the house walk around unaided. He
turned, set his sights on the middle of the living room, and let go.
He was walking.
One minute before, he hadn't known how to walk.
We fool ourselves into thinking that becoming is a gradual
process. Someone might argue that my son was preparing to walk--
becoming a walker--since the first day he tried to crawl. Or from the day
he was born.
But no matter how we look at it, the change really happens
suddenly.
One minute you weren't yet born. (Your mother probably
remembers that moment very well.) The next , there you were, pink and
squalling and probably mad as hell.
One minute, you hadn't graduated from high school. You stood
in line, with that hot robe and the hat that wouldn't stay on right, and
waited nervously for your name to be called. When you heard your
name, you crossed the stage and accepted your diploma. Just a few
seconds before, you hadn't graduated. Now, you had.
Every change can be traced to a single moment. When you plant
a seed, it remains a seed until that first green, tender shoot parts t he
earth and shows itself. Now it's a plant. You may not have been around
in the moment it happened, but it did happen in one precise moment.
There was a single microsecond in which the green growth first poked
itself through the moist dark earth.
Understanding, like all other change, happens in one single
instant.
You may tell yourself that it is a process; that alleviates you from
feeling pressure to look for the change too soon.
But understanding, loving, realizing what we truly are takes no
time at all. In the time it takes to read one word, take one breath, or hug
one person, you could be illuminated by your own light.
The Trap
When we are stuck in our rainbow -construction process, we are
eternally caught in the trap of becoming. What do you want to be when
you grow up? What will you do when you get out of school? What is the
next step in your climb up the corporate ladder? And then what?
It's a widely accepted belief that humans are continually
growing and learning animals. In fact, I made the rather b old statement
in a paper I wrote upon my return to college that a person not growing
would die. I meant it figuratively, of course, but I meant it. A person not
exploring, not learning, not seeking, would have no purpose, I thought. A
person not becoming something, bettering herself, achieving a new
understanding, striving for a deeper spiritual base, would eventally
turn pale like a plant without sunlight and wither away.
Boy, was I wrong.
I didn't know then that is is the self in the rainbow that is never
content. Life becomes a constant process of self- refinement, self-
fulfillment, self-satisfaction. When you're fully invested in your
rainbow, you feel this continual push of a hand in the small of your back,
causing you to look for the next step. You jus t can't stop.
In college, you look forward to the day you graduate. Then
there's a job. A new car. Then a relationship. The first house. Kids. Dogs.
A better car. A bigger house.
On a different level, you may search for meaning. You read. You
attend workshops. You go to church. You try various avenues of
enlightenment. You're becoming a more spiritual person, you think.
Hmmmm.
That's what I thought.
My own search for enlightenment was driving me crazy. There
was something, somewhere, I just wasn't understan ding. There was
some philosophy, I thought, that someone practiced somewhere in the
world that would sum up my hope for humanity, my love of God, my
frustration with the game of Us-and-Them played by seemingly
everyone (including the traditional Christian churches I'd attended). I
was consumed by my quest. I read a library full of spiritual books. I
went to workshops. I saw a psychic, twice (don't ask). I saved my money
and traveled half-way around the world to visit the mountaintop
mansion of a popular New Age leader.
"What in the world are you doing?" my mother asked.
"I'm becoming more aware of my spirituality," I told her. She
mumbled something about having me committed and never mentioned
it again.
I was becoming.
I felt, somehow, that I was almost "there."
The hand in my back was pushing harder than ever.
I didn't realize that it was my own hand.
The Effort of Becoming
There are several problems with becoming. The first and most
obvious is that by setting your sights on the future (and what you'll be
when you get there), you totally lose contact with what you are now.
Right this minute. And this minute. And, now, this minute.
The second problem is that you have to exert a lot of effort in
order to become. What will you do when you get out of college? "Oh, I plan
to become a teacher."
That means you'll mold your self and shape your self and do
whatever you have to do to turn yourself into a member of a profession
called teaching. You'll do all the paperwork and the legwork and the
emotional work you need to so that you can live up to society's preset
guidelines.
And that's okay.
It's a natural part of everyone's rainbow assembly process.
But what if someone told you that you don't have to become
anything?
You already are.
But life would be so much easier t o live if we knew that in our
spirits we were already everything we wanted to be. We wouldn't push
ourselves so hard. We wouldn't hurt ourselves by continuing to set our
goals on things just outside our reach. We wouldn't put off our own
happiness until we could just get to that all- elusive moment when we're
rich enough, or secure enough, or fulfilled enough.
We're everything enough, right now.
And we'll find that understanding is waiting for us, any time we
choose to see it.
Being
My husband and I drove to our favorite bookstore, which was 50
miles away, with the full intention of bringing home way too many
books. In our quest for spiritual understanding, we'd accumulated quite
a collection of New Age, Christian, Zen, Buddhist, and Taoist texts.
We wandered the philosophy and religion aisles, pulling out
books, reading sample pages, loading up. About thirty minutes into the
experience, I started feeling out of sorts.
I looked over at him and he knew I was bugged.
"What?"
I grumbled. "Oh, I don't know."
We went back to looking.
Several more minutes passed. My irritation was getting intense.
It was unlike me, the me I knew in my rainbow cloak, to get agitated for
no apparent reason.
He looked up.
"Do you want to go?"
I didn't want to be difficult.
"I don't know," I said.
By the time we got to the car, I was truly angry. I had no
explanation of my feelings; my husband was at a loss in trying to figure
out what had happened to me in the store. He asked me a few random
questions and tried to change the subject by suggesting I pick out a place
for dinner.
I shrugged and said nothing.
He looked at me, bewildered. "Do you have any idea what's
bothering you?"
I glared at the bag of books between my feet. "I don't know," I
said.
And then I did know.
I was tired of becoming. I was sick of searching, of looking, of
longing to be whole. The idea that I would have to read through yet
another pile of spiritual books was making me furious. I was beginning to
suspect that even after I poured over each of those books, I would s till
not have the answers I sought.

And in that moment I had a sense of my spirit I'd never felt
before. The light reached up and shot out through all the rainbow labels
and the becoming traps I'd placed upon myself.
I wasn't becoming anything.
I already w as. In that moment, I was light. My spirit wasn't
reaching. My spirit wasn't looking for anything. My rainbow, my mind,
had convinced me that in order to keep growing, I had to keep searching.
The search is an illusion.
It's all right there, inside you, right now.

Chapter Nine
Letting Other Rainbows Shine
Several years ago I had a dog named Larry.
Larry was a sheepdog, big and hairy, with one unseen blue eye
and one brown. I'd always wanted a sheepdog puppy, and my mind
was filled with expectations of a huge animated teddy bear, my best
buddy, a lovable companion.
Larry wasn't playing along.
He'd been the biggest male in the litter, and from the first time I'd
seen him, he'd been forging his role as the bully of the family, pushing
the other puppies around, rolling them away from their mother,
jumping on them and biting their ears.
"How cute," I said.
Nine months later it wasn't so cute.

Larry had become a bully in our family. He was the dog-
equivalent of a cocky eighteen year old boy, full of himself, sure of his
strength. When my daughter --then five--would try to play with him,
he'd treat her like he had his littermates. I was getting worried with his
aggressiveness.
So I enrolled him in dog training school.
We showed up the first night to an incredible mix of dog species.
Each dog stood or shook or paced near its owner. Yorkies and Rotweilers
and everything in-between. The owners all stood regarding each other
nervously.
A huge rubber mat lined the outer edges of the room,
encompassing us all in a big black oval. The object, we were told, was to
begin walking with our dogs around the mat. The instructor blew his
whistle and we all began walking counter -clockwise, dragging our
canines along with us, like we were participating in some oddly
conceived cake walk.
Larry wasn't about to cooperate.
For that matter, most of the dogs weren't either.

The instructor tooted his whistle and shook his head. "No, no no,
people," he said. "You are supposed to control your dogs. Your dogs don't
control you." And he proceeded to show us what he meant. He walked
up to a woman timidly holding the leash of a tiny Westie. He held the
leash tightly in his hand, said "Heel!" and yanked on the leash so hard
that the puppy's feet came clean off the ground. The owner stood by,
blushing.
He walked that dog once around the ring, very fast. The rest of us
stood silent while our dogs figetted nervously, sniffing at each other.
When he reached the point where he'd begun, he swung the leash
carelessly around to his other side, dragging th e animal like it were a toy
duck on wheels. After frightening the animal into submission, he flashed
a smug smile at the rest of us.
"That's how you do it," he said.
I looked down at Larry. He was hopeless, I knew. I was hopeless, I
knew. I couldn't force my dog to comply to such a ridiculous practice, no
matter how ill-behaved he was. I couldn't force him to walk around
some stupid ring and learn appropriate people behavior and jerk his

leash so hard his eyes would roll. Why was I involved in this
relationship with this dog?
Was it to control him, to turn him into the Perfect Dog I saw in
my head?
What about his own nature?
Why wasn't I respecting that?
As people, we often try to get other people to walk around out
little rubber mats. We jerk the leash. We bark commands. We tell
ourselves that it is for their own good.
When we live in the rainbow, we need to be convinced of how
"right" we are. When we discuss religion or politics, we're not wanting
to be enlightened by someone else's point of view, we're wan ting to
convince others that we're right.
When we walk away from a discussion in which we've made our
point, we think "My, that was a good talk."
When we leave a discussion where we feel that others disgreed
with us, we have this hurting, Nobody -listens-to-me kind of feeling.

Not Being Right
The world continues to operate on a level that is beyond right
and wrong. The sun shines, the flowers bloom, streams flowing into
other streams.
Animals live and die. The earth goes through its cycles of birth
and death. Storm clouds gather, expend themselves, and the sun comes
back out.
None of this has anything to do with who's right and who's
wrong.
As people, as rainbows, we are invested in our arguments. We take
sides (Us-and-Them) and find evidence to support our positions.
When you get in touch with your light, you realize that there is
nothing to take sides about. All the disagreements that happen on the
surface begin to seem a little silly. You find yourself less willing to take
sides, less eager to state your case on any given matter.
It's not as important to be right.

And it's not a behind-your-eyes "Oh these people don't really
know what they're talking about" kind of feeling. More of an accepting
"Whatever they believe is right for them" understanding.
You don't have to point fingers at people anymore. Or label them
wrong. Or spend countless hours and energies trying to convince them
of their error.
You start to understand that, on the surface, you'll only agree
with people to the point they mirror your decisions.
A friend feels strongly about ecological issues. "You should be
recycling," he says.
"I know," you say.
"And how come you still use XYZ products? Don't you know
they pollute the environment?"
"I forgot," you mumble.
"And what's this spray can of veget able oil doing in your
cabinet? Don't you care about our environment?"
You put your hands on your hips. "You're really turning into a
fanatic about this," you say.

And so a heated debate ensues. He didn't mirror your choices,
obviously. And you, feeling threatened (and maybe a little guilty), could
not mirror his.
Who is going to walk whom around the rubber mat?
What a waste of a good evening! Why be right and lose the
moments we have now in disagreement? Underneath all our rainbows,
there is no cause to fight for. There are no battle flags to wave. In spirit,
we are love pouring through. Love that is not threatened by differing
opinions. Love that does not waver because an individual, a group, or a
society does not mirror our rainbows.
Respecting Rainbows
As we come to a sense of true love with ourselves, we open up to
that possibility in others. When you realize that you are more than your
rainbow represents, you find an unconditional acceptance waiting for
you.
Other people are more than they appear.

They are not their skin color, eye color, or sexual preference. They
are not the opinions they offer out. They are not the causes they
represent.
We know them on a deeper level, in Light.
Only our outsides are different.
When we meet with people one-on-one this sense of
understanding usually forces itself into our consciousness, whether we
are living fully in the rainbow or are aware of the light.
Consider two people on differing sides of a very emotional issue.
Each person belongs to a group that has organiz ed against the other.
Each person will heatedly defend her position. Each person is convinced
that the other is totally wrong.
There may be demonstrations and marches.
There may be sit-ins.
There may be flag-waving and name-calling and other showings
of force and violence.
But one day the first person goes for a walk in the woods.
Unknown to her, the other person is doing the same thing. The birds

sing. The breeze puffs at the budding leaves. The people meet,
independent of their causes, and, smiling, say "Hello."
We are not our opinions. Simply because our rainbows don't
match doesn't mean we don't match.
We can allow other people to have their opinions. We're learning
that voicing our opinion only starts an action to which there will
inevitably be a reaction. It's basic cause-and-effect. You say something, I
say something. You believe in one cause, I believe in something else.
That doesn't mean we can't discuss things or that we have
nothing left to talk about. Talking, perhaps unfortunately, is one of the
few methods we have for bridging the perceived gap from rainbow to
rainbow. It's a proven fact that we communicate with each other
without opening our mouths, but, from years of training, mouths pop
open almost unbidden. Words come out. We want to be under stood. We
want to understand others.
Just realize that there is more beyond the talking. Words are only
symbols that point to a mean somewhere deeper. Emotion that gets
wrapped around words--like when I raise my voice in a show of force to

make you understand me--is simply the fear the ego has of being
misunderstood.
See it for what it is. And feel the light shining inside. The light
that does not have to justify itself, that does not have to explain
anything, that has no opinion on the surface issues of li fe.
Then we can throw away our mats.

Chapter Ten
Seeing Beauty in Rainbows

What is it about dandelions that is so annoying?
The passage of winter into spring in Indiana is not a smooth
process. One glorious day and the sun is shining hotly in a bright blue
sky. You wander outside in your traditional April garb --sweatpants
and a sweatshirt--and are amazed to find that it's shorts weather. Your
heart races as you rush upstairs to find those summer clothes that have
been packed away for months. The day is filled with that exuberant
feeling of an early spring, of the promise of returning summer. Get out
the baseball bat. Find the frisbee.
And the next day, it snows.
Not a little snow, either, but a big, sticking, wet -snowflake snow.
April is an entire month of Spring-tease.
And the first morning you see that gleaming yellow head of a
dandelion in your yard, you are extremely happy to see it. Long before

the grass gets green or the trees hint that they might eventually bud, a
dandelion gathers its nerve and st icks it big bold head up into the fickle
spring breeze.
Dandelions are a sign that spring really will come. Eventually.
But the closer spring comes, the more signs there are. One
morning I awoke to a pink sunrise and a yellow carpet completely
surrounding the house. It was breathtaking.
But soon those yellow sundials grew long, thin necks and puffy
white heads. The white stuff made me sneeze. The kids tracked
dandelion guts all through the house.
They weren't beautiful anymore.
They were an eyesore. An irritation.
Now the dandelions were no longer a sign of a soon-to-be-
realized spring but a germ that polluted the continuity of the lawn.
What is it in us that makes us judge things and want to weed
things out? Who was the first person to call the dandelion a weed and
decide it needed to be dug up, while wild violets should be allowed to
stand?

Beauty and Newness
Apparently, time has something to do with what we view as
beautiful. The first time you see something, if it represents something
you really want, you're likely to think it's beautiful. But after a while,
after seeing that something for a certain length of time, you become
desensitized to it.
I have a friend who moved to Kauai many years ago. She was
able to purchase a small house right on the ocean, surrounded by palm
trees and exotic tropical plants. It had been her dream for all of her adult
life to get back to Hawaii (she'd lived there as a small child). Of course,
she was overcome by the beauty. She spent almost every free waking
moment on the beach--for a while. Two years later, she walked by the
ocean on the weekends and sometimes picked up trash that tourists
would leave there. Five years later, she visited the beach --her beach,
right in front of her house--only once a year, when she had her annual
Fourth of July party.
Even in paradise, she'd become desensitized. Think about
someone you love. When you were first getting to know her, do you

remember thinking she was beautiful? And now, after forging a
relationship with the person, after all the ups and downs and little
insights you've gained into each other, your perspective changes. You
see beyond the physical now, and beauty, in its outward sense, may not
occur to you as it once did. Once we get to know someone, or something,
or someplace, intimately, that infatuation with beauty gives way to
something deeper.
You can apply this "beautiful newness" concept to anything or
anyone. Your new car astounds you, at first. It's so red, so perfect, so fast.
All the gadgets inside excite you. Every time you walk across the parking
lot and see it waiting, you tell yourself what a good decision you made.
But eventually the car gets older. You get used to driving it every day.
The newness wears off and you find yourself stuck with the day -in day-
out routines of dodging downtown traffic, having the oil checked, filling
the tank, and all the other ho-hum aspects of car ownership.
Seeing Real Beauty
Why is it that we are so aware of something's beauty when we
first see it? Why does that beauty --or our awareness of it--fade?

The process of becoming desensitized can only happen when we
carry bits of the past around with us. When each moment becomes new,
when we're not carrying those stones of guilt or judgement with us
anymore, everything around us becomes beautiful.
We find ourselves living in a state of continual wonder.
Why is the rainbow so touching? No matter how much our adult
minds try to explain it away, it still seems like some sort of magical aura
encircling our lives. We can see the beauty in the rainbow each time it
appears, perhaps because it happens so rarely. If you awoke every
morning and saw a rainbow outside your window, would it cease to be
beautiful?
No, but it wouldn't be such a big deal, either.
We can find true, indescribably beauty around us every moment
of our lives. Our senses would be overwhelmed, of course, but the
potential is there.
When every moment is new, we can marvel at the complexity of
our world and the diversity of creation. We no longer see a pidgeon and
call it a flying rodent (quote from a friend, not my own) because we don't

feel compelled to judge it or fit it into some kind of Good or Bad category.
Simply that it exists, that it is different from all other birds, is miracle
enough.
We look at people in our lives and are awestruck by how unique
and beautiful and marvelous they are. The range of characteristics in the
human animal, in human relationships, is staggering. His sense of
humor is so different from yours, but you two understand each other.
Isn't that a miracle? Her skin is many shades lighter than yours, but you
two connect in a place much deeper than skin. Amazing.
The only thing we need to do to reach this perspective of beauty
is to allow everything to be new to us in this moment. When you walk in
and see your kids playing Nintendo, don't look at them as the parent
you've become over the last ten years; look at them through a visitor's
eyes, as though you're seeing them for the first time. Notice their hair,
their eyes. The way they smile or frown. The way they talk to each other
and to you. The gestures they make.
Any parent has the continual pull to look at their children as
extensions of themselves, things they can mold and shape, people that

directly reflect what they've been taught. This turns my son's beligerent
remark to his sister "Hurry up, Butthead!" as something I've failed to
teach him about compassion and tolerance. By witnessing that as a
parent, I immediately take it into myself and feel the need to change or
correct it. By witnessing that as a visitor, I can see the behavior as
something he's doing, not something I've done, and I feel the strange
wonderfulness of the rainbow shining around me. That doesn't mean I
won't try to guide that energy into a more acceptable form of
communication, but it does mean t hat I will no longer take his ourbursts
personally. I know that his expression doesn't make me- -the light---
anything. It's simply part of his learning process that needs a little more
love.
That is what getting over the rainbow can do for you. In
realizing that you're not the sum of your labels, the player of a part, you
get in touch with the light at your essence. You can see others around
you not as things that mirror you but as part of a wonderful, swirling,
beautiful rainbow of humanity. You can leave behind your past

judgements--of both yourself and others-- and live truly in this moment,
freeing you to the experience of love in the here and now.
From the Inside Out
It may not sound practical.
Or possible.
Or sane.
But we can live in peace. All of us, together. With our unending
mix of ideas and causes and passions and commitments. With our
differing lifestyles, religious beliefs, tax brackets, and educations.
Being different isn't bad.
Because we're not different, not way down deep, where it
matters. All the rainbow labels and experiences and biographies you
create serve only to help you identify yourself to the outside world. They
give you purpose. They provide meaning. They fill time.
But underneath it all, we're Light. Simply because our minds
disagree doesn't make us any different in our center.
Anywhere you go you'll meet people. Whether you go up to them
and speak or simply glance at them and look away, you're meeting them.

Each of those people you see is breathing, just like you. They are
thinking, just like you. They have lives and biographies. They carry
stones of guilt with them. They have little fears that inhibit them on a
daily basis.
Those people are you.
And me.
They are just us in different rainbow cloaks. Nothing less than
our real identical twin housed in different packaging.
But we can't make them see that, can we? We can't very well
walk up to another person who is hurting us or judging us because of
what we wear or how we look. We can't force that person who won't
give us a job because of the color of our skin to see an "enlightened"
viewpoint. We can only heal ourselves.
Even when we're the victims of repression and discrimination,
even when we're the witnesses--or worse, recipients--of violence
because of the world's separation with its spirit, we can find healing. We
can have peace.
We don't have to view the world as frightening.

Or unfair.
Or hopeless.
Because the world exists within us. Our families are a microcosm
of the world. We, in spirit, are the same spirit that flows through every
person on this earth. As we start to heal, a tiny speck of consciousness
becomes free. Our healing passes to our families, to our employers, to our
churches, to our schools. Healing spreads, like the sickness that preceded
it, into our businesses and into our government.
But healing can only be done in the spirit.
And our agencies--governmental, social, religious, educational--
can pass laws, can adopt new guidelines and try to reduce the injustices
within their limited scope, but healing begins with people.
With us, not our institutions.
We can't wait for an enlightened elected official to come into
office and make everything right.
We allow things to righten, within ourselves.
When we find who and what we really are (and aren't), balance
comes naturally.

Our government won't value people until we value people. And
we won't value people until we realize that they are more than the
colors they represent. Oh, we'll put up with people and their differences,
and we'll call ourselves open-minded. But really valuing people, loving
them beyond their words, seeing them beyond their surfaces, living in
awe-struck wonder at the indescribable rainbows we see, is more than
being open-minded.
It's open-spirited.
The differences we see on the surface don't threaten us. We don't
need to invest our selves in battles of whose right and whose wrong. We
can be at peace and love the incredible number of hues we see cast across
our skies each and every moment of every day.
Even in the midst of darkness, we can see the Light shining
underneath.
The world is not going to hell in a handbasket.
The world is healing, slowly.
And the more trouble we see manifesting itself on a surface level,
the more time we'll spend looking at our selves in the mirror.

And sooner or later, we're going to see that glimmer of light
beyond the rainbow.

Chapter Eleven
Raising Rainbow-Free Children

My son made his first ethnic distinction at age three. He stood
before me, looking up, small and reddened from his exposure to a rather
unseasonably harsh October wind, sniffled, and said:
"Mommy, I let the chocolate boy ride my bike."
Hmmm. How to handle that? I smiled, of course. And although I
knew at some point I would probably need to correct his terminology, I
nodded and said "That's okay, honey."
When you're three, you don't think of things as unimportant as
names when you've found someone new to play with. True to his age,
my son didn't think to ask his friend what his name was. They played in
the sandbox together. They pushed the Big Foot ctr ucks around in the
dirt. They picked up rocks from the driveway and threw them as far as
their little arms would allow. Sharing. Fun. What more do you need
from a relationship than that?

Three-year-olds have freedoms that you and I do not. They don't
have the world-view understanding to know what a put -down is. They
don't have the command of the language that you and I have, so they
don't fill their time with meaningless conversation. They join forces in
an imaginative world of unlimited adventure; they become partners in
fantasy. They can't analyze and scrutinize and judge the actions of
others like we can. They don't carry with them past experience that tells
them to stay away from this group or that group. They only know how
they feel in the moment.
To a three-year-old, life is right now.
Consider, from a three-year-old's perspective, how ridiculous
our labeling system sounds: black, white, yellow, red. Gay and straight.
Christian, New Ager, Jewish, Hindu, Taoist...the list goes on and on.
Black people are not black. White people are not white. Gay people seem
as happy as everyone else. And what else could "straight" mean except
someone who walks with good posture?

Before Labels
We can accept that children are born without labels. Labels are
created by the mind, the ego, as a means of identifying us and others we
come in contact with. Labels don't start to stick until we reach the age
where we are aware of ourselves thinking. Thoughts, as adults, come to
us in the form of words, a kind of internal talking to ourselves. As you
read this book, your eyes scan over the words and something very much
like a voice--your own voice--is reading them to you in your head. We
can capture the thought as though it is being spoken to us. We can hear
ourselves thinking.
At three, my son didn't realize what thinking was. Not like you
and I. He didn't analyze things. He didn't hear that small internal
thinking voice in his head. When he saw freshly baked chocolate chip
cookies sitting unguarded on the counter, there was no voice in his head
to say "Wait a minute, hold on. Mom wouldn't want you to sneak those
without asking." He saw, he wanted, he took. Only through
programming do we teach our children to hear that separate, inner voice
that cautions them to go against their inner nature.

As an adult, have you ever tried to return to the world of
pretend? It probably didn't happen. As a kid, I spent hours and hours
pretending in a drainage ditch close to our apartment. We lived in a
world surrounded by concrete and asphalt, so trees and grass and water
were things to be cherished. My friend and I worked diligently to clean
up the area, digging up discarded Coke cans, pulling up wads of paper
that got stuck in the rocks and the trickling stream carried them out of
the apartment complex. We called it our Secret Cove. I remember that
place with a certain awe-laced love and wonder. No matter how many
truly beautiful nature-filled places I visit as an adult, I don't think the
feeling can match the one I felt sitting on the bank of that ditch, watching
the water rippling along.
My son has close to a million toy cars of varying shapes and
sizes. (Okay, I'm exaggerating. But it seems like a million when I'm the
one picking them up off the living room floor.) When he gets those things
out and starts playing, he goes away, mentally. He becomes the car he's
pushing around.

"Beep beep! Look out! The monster truck is going to squash you!"
the monster rolls over my little car, smashing it into the carpet.
"Call the ambulance! Anybody in there?"
His voice changes to become the ambulance. "Let's get him to the
hospital!"
The voice goes back again to the monster truck. "Look out, you
little cars, I'm coming back!"
And what do I do? I play along. I use different voices. My cars go
to the grocery store, to the gas station. My red car gets washed in the
pretend car wash. I use the Lincoln Logs and the Legos to build garages
and oil-change places.
But you know what?
I'm aware that I'm pretending.
Christopher zooms around, unconscious of the fact that he's a
boy, not a car. He has no idea, in this moment, that he's participating in a
game known as make-believe.

And that is what I think happens to us when we begin to listen to
our thinking and start gathering labels. I think we cover ourselves up so
that we can't be the experience anymore.
"I'm an adult," I think. "What if Doug sees me playing this? He's
going to make fun of me."
Or, even worse:
"Maybe I should use this time with Christopher to teach him
something." And outwardly I say "Christopher, what color is that car?
How many blue cars do you see?"
Wrong.
I should be learning from him. I need to take my Parent label off
for a moment and see how seamless he becomes with the experience.
There's no little voice inside him saying "I look silly" or "I should b e
watching cartoons right now." There is no I. There are no labels. He's
living in this moment, true to the experience, not carrying around
judgment or labels or fears or restrictions.
He is Light.
He's what I want to be when I grow up.

When we can allow ourselves to open to the people we were
before labels, we throw open a door for endless possibilities. Honesty.
Truthfulness. Love. It's this same cloaking process that keeps you and I
from truly loving and trusting each other. We hear ourselves think. We
carry the labels of judgment passed down, perhaps, by our parents and
their parents before them. We can't meet each other like two three-year-
olds looking for someone to play with. Our labels won't let us. There's
too much to think about, too much to fear. Our labels entwine
themselves into this big rainbow cloak that separates us, you and me
and everyone else we'd like to play with.
But we know it's under there. We did it once. We were able to get
by--very happily, thank you--without the protective self-identity labels
we now use on a daily basis. We were able to become fully joined with
our experience, whether we were playing cars or Barbies or anything
else.
When we can become that car, you and I will truly meet at the
point beneath our rainbows.
Our skins, sexes, experiences, and opinions won't matter.

In that moment, they won't even exist.
Preserving the Light
So when we look at parenting from this perspective--that our
children are closer to that something we need to find for ourselves --
parenting becomes less a job of teaching than it does one of protecting.
They are born with an understanding of spirit. They already know how
insignificant things like skin color, hair color, and other outward
differences are.
Those things are only as important as we make them.
Whether we openly discuss the superiority or inferiority of
ethnic groups, our children will absorb our prejudices. Whether we
point to people on the street and make fun of them or keep our comments
to ourselves, our children will know. When we get over our own
rainbows, our children will learn to do the same.
It's a natural process.
But is it possible to raise a child who goes through life with no
labels?

Probably not.
Labels aren't bad in themselves, and label-adoption is part of the
normal self-identity cycle. As we grow, it helps us adapt to our changing
world if we know who we are and where we fit. On a purely surface
level, knowing that we're not alone is comforting even in the worst of
times.
However, it is possible to teach our children that t here is more
beyond the colors we see with our eyes. They can know, from the time
they become cars and Barbies and kings and queen, that they can know
themselves and others on a deeper level, a level that needs no judgment
and calls no names.
We can celebrate our ethnic heritages while still honoring the
fact that we are celebrating the rainbow, while the Light gleams softly
underneath. Our kids can grow up with a love and wonder directed at
all colors of the rainbow, not choosing one and judging the rest, but
accepting them all as similar yet different expressions of the same Light.
And when our kids go through that time of crisis -labeling, as
they approach their teens, we can help them find a sense of peace in the

knowledge that they are more than the people they see in the mirror.
Their hair just isn't that important. Being in the "in" crowd isn't the end -
all. Going to the best college doesn't guarantee anyone success. And
success doesn't guarantee happiness.
Most of all, we can show our kids, by the way w e live, that
happiness is right now --not a few second ago, not back in the good old
days, and not in the future; as soon as we get that new car, new house,
etc. Right now. They see us move unhindered from one moment to the
next, loving each other, understanding each other, carrying no stones
and fearing no horizons.
And we'll be raising a generation of centered, spiritual children.
And in each moment, the world will heal a little more.
God, I'd like to see that.

Chapter Twelve
Celebrating Light
Depending on the make-up of your particular family, you may
have some experience with family reunions. Unless it's a holiday or
someone's birthday, family reunions usually fall on the hottest, most
humid day of the year. The day all the flies are revved up with
extraordinary enthusiasm, landing on the exposed potato salad,
perching on the handle of the spatula Uncle Herb uses to flip the burgers.
And there's always that lime jello with the pineapple chunks
that Aunt Edna makes--particularly attractive to gnats.
When you're young, family reunions are the worst. You sit
around and listen to the old people talk about the way things used to be.
Your older cousins pick on you. You have to eat things you don't like.
You listen to relatives you haven't seen in years tell you how much

you've grown. They ask prying questions about boyfriends and dating
and bra size.
But, underneath it all, there's something that's kind of
comforting.
These are your people. Your great aunt with the moustache.
Uncle Charlie who drinks too much and then always wants to play
softball. Your cousin Raymond who's training for the seminary. Your
cousin Erica who smokes pot behind the picnic shelter house.
As strange as they look on the inside, there's something that
connects you to them on the outside. Something about genes or blood,
they tell you. Blood is thicker than water, or so the saying goes.
But we've come to understand that the something isn't blood.
Or water.
Or genes.
It's light.
And your aunts moustache? Part of the rainbow. That
wandering eye of Uncle Eddie? His own variation of rainbow light. As is
the bellowing claim of Uncle Charlie that A.J. Foyt is the greatest racer of

all time. And his brother's shouting voice claiming Al Unser in number
one. And all the eye-rolling and head-shaking of the women sitting in the
shade of the shelter house.
What you feel is the light.
What you see is the rainbow.
Celebrating Connection
As you get older, you come to appreciate these connections more.
The holidays bring an opportunity --yes, an obligation, but also an
opportunity--to see those people with whom you claim a genetic, ethnic
bond. Our different heritages bring us different traditions that we wrap
around our families, bonding us further. These traditions --whether it is
Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's or Hannukah at the in-laws in
Texas--grow with us and help preserve our understanding of our family
connectedness.
Where is that tradition for our bigger family, the human race?
What kind of family reunion is available to us?

We are so invested in our differences that we seem to be lacking
any kind of outward celebration in which we can come together as a
whole. We can't base our celebration on a similarity in religious beliefs,
certainly. Or on sexual persuasion. Or on any of our exterior
characteristics.
What, then?
What do we all do, all experience, all share? If we can't claim to
be bonded by genetics or ethnic heritage, how can we outwardly
celebrate our connectedness?
Celebrating Sameness
There are, of course, some very basic things we do each and
every day of our lives. These things are the basic mark of a human being,
and without them, we couldn't prove to anyone that we were actually
living.
We breathe. We sleep. We awaken. We eat. (Some of us not as
often as we should.) We share. We love.

Most of these are basic functions of the human animal. There is a
light behind our eyes--whether that light flashes in anger or gleams in
love. It's there. We share it.
Certain poignant times in our lives can be felt, truly, by others.
The empathy we feel when someone describes a spiritual experience--
like the birth of a child--or a heartbreaking reality --like a debilitating
illness--is an expression of the light. We've all got it.
We're more alike than we are different.
Inside, where it matters, we're the same.
But nothing exists in our society to celebrate that sameness. We
live in a time when our government, our businesses, and our media is
convinced the cup is half empty. We overlook the overwhelming
similarities of our spirits and choose instead to concentrate on the range
of fleeting outward characteristics that make us appear different.
When you wake up in the morning, make that first opening of
your eyes a celebration. Feel that people all over the world will be
having that same experience at some point during their day. When you
speak to a stranger on the street, recognize that other people everywhere

are doing the same thing. When your kids get your goat and you feel
yourself huffing in frustration, know that you are linked to every parent
everywhere.
You are not just you.
You are not alone.
When you're stuck in traffic, remember that it's you in each of
those cars. And in me. And in your parents. And your children. That
light gleaming, right down there in the center of things, waiting to be
asked out.
And when you speak harshly to another person, know that you
are speaking to yourself. And if your hand ever raises in anger,
understand that the anger is in you toward you.
When that rainbow cloak falls away, you find a filling sense of
peace that answers all the questions you've ever had. It wipes away
frustrations--with yourself and with others--that have been forever
present. The love that finds its way out of you is staggering and freeing.
Understand that there may be times when the world is
threatening, and your relationship isn't working, and your kids are

driving you crazy. There will be days you look in the mirror and see
nothing but frizzy hair and tired eyes and a worn -out expression. You
may doubt that there is such a thing as Light.
That's okay.
Because you'll be sharing those same human doubts,
frustrations, and trials with every person who ever lived.
That's pretty good company.
And the fact is that no matter how screwed up we think the
world is, no matter how invested we are in our rainbows, no matter
how much our society, our government, and our selves deny the truth
beyond the rainbow, the Light shines on.

Endings
There's always a piece of me that feels incomplete until I say
goodbye at the end of a book. Writing for me is a mystical proces s--
words and images appear in my brain and my fingers type in a frenzy
until the energy is released, as accurately as possible, into sentences and
paragraphs and chapters that appear almost magically on my
computer. But the best thing about writing is that I feel like I'm just
sitting on my front porch, watching the mockingbird, talking to you.
Yes, you--right now, right there, reading. You who are the mixture of
rainbow and light, just like me. Our connection feels very real to me.
The only reason we have for getting over the rainbow is the
healing available on the other side. We step out of the game of Us -and-
Them. We share the love at our essence from a point that defies mere
surface qualities.
But getting over the rainbow, we open ourselves to unlimited
potential for giving and recieving love.
And when we ourselves begin to heal, the world around us
starts its own healing process.

And one day, when you and I pass each other on the street, we'll
look beyond our skin color and eye color and hair color. We w on't judge
each other by our sexual preferences or economic backgrounds.
We'll look in each other's eyes, and smile.

Getting Over The Rainbow: Peacemaking Through Communication

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Getting Over the

© 1992 Katherine Murray

Chapter One: Understanding Rainbows ........................... 9

Chapter Two: Seeing Personal Rainbows ....................... 18

Chapter Three: Seeing Our Own Rainbows .................... 30

Chapter Four: Letting Go and Loving Color .................... 43

Chapter Five: Getting Past the Past ................................ 54

Chapter Seven: Some Uncoloring Exercises ..................... 82

Chapter Eight: The Illusion of Becoming ......................... 92

Chapter Nine: Letting Other Rainbows Shine ............... 102

Chapter Ten: Seeing Beauty in Rainbows ..................... 112

Chapter Eleven: Raising Rainbow -Free Children .......... 124

Chapter Twelve: Celebrating Light .............................. 134

Endings ...................................................................... 141

string of annoying details? What is the key to final, lasting happiness?

There’s a lesson there for us, too.

are as straightforward as an honest smile.

This book uses the amazing and awe-inspiring image of the

eaten a few mouthfuls of a breakfast she really didn't want, struggling to

hushed whoosh of a door opening announced the arrival of the school

She was a rainbow.

backgrounds, various economic groups comprise a much larger rainbow

Confusing, isn't it? When we stop to think of who we are, what

sure that we belong somewhere. We don't want to be floating out there,

unattached to any group, while the rest of world lives in communion.

We join clubs and groups and revel in our ethnic differences.

Underneath it all, we want to make sure we fit so we won't be alone.

So we join rainbows on a societal level and feel some sense of

comradarie and understanding. At least in this group we've joined, or in

of little color labels we stick on ourselves. We need to be different, but we

need to be the same. Our lives become a continual struggle of

individuality and uniformity. We want to be alike enough to understand

After enough practice, we get used to our own rainbows and

perfectly balanced life.

underneath all those "needs" (the need to belong, the need to be

The spirit just loves.

saying. We think we are unique. We look different from other people. We

sound different. We have different experiences, families, feelings, goals.

But underneath, the sameness of us all gleams softly, waiting to

Seeing Rainbow Expressions

All those differences that seem to make us different on the surface

something much deeper than any outer characteristics could show.

characteristics--whether you're talking about physical attributes like

are merely expressions of our spirit, of our light.

wind up waiting--five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes--as the

Finally, when you go inside to pay, the clerk is in no particular hurry to

ring you up.

It was one simple incident in a lifetime filled with zillions of

of your energy, and it faded away as quickly as it came. That anger

expressions go across your face in a single day? Thousands, probably.

expression may show thoughtfulness, peacefulness, or irritation (or any

card, a difference expression crosses your face.

of the self are fleeting. Emotions are easy to see as temporary -- we

as expressions when they seem to stay with a person for an entire

and we both acknowledged how connected--under the surface--we felt.

Outwardly, our rainbows matched in many ways: our philosophies, our

a lesbian. I nodded and smiled. "So?" I asked.

"Did you already know?" she wondered.

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose so," I answered.

"Why didn't you ever ask me?"

"It didn't make any difference," I said.

She had trouble understanding why, if we were so connected, I

But now I do.