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A
place that has touched me!
Victoria
Falls
At
the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe
by Kristina Trowbridge
Dreams
can change your life and anything around
you changes with it. You wake up and
you're not sure. Was it real? Maybe
reality is the dream???
Likewise, any time someone goes abroad
their lives are changed when they return
home. Was that a dream too? Who knows
what is real anyway. Everything is a
perception in the end ... or not?? You
decide.
Imagine a Lunar Rainbow!!!
What is that you say? Are you serious?
Sure enough, under just the right
conditions, the moon will cause a rainbow
... after sunset .... in the dark. No way
.... ! Absolutely true. This is the stuff
dreams are made of. It will touch you and
change your view ... anything is possible.
Nature is amazing!!!
This is a double Lunar
Rainbow.
My life has never been so touched by a
natural phenomenon as it was that night at
Victoria Falls.
All week, I was hoping for a cloudless sky
or the rainbow would not appear after
dark. It only happens when the moon is
full and the spray is high. This is not an
every night event. I had come all the way
to Africa to be at Victoria Falls on this
day, my last day in Africa, hoping that
the gods would be kind. They were.
It's a dizzying feeling. You loose your
senses of what is real and what is
fantasy. Who will believe this? Must I
prove that I saw this? Why? How do I
describe this feeling of utter unbelief,
yet euphoric? It's so beautiful.
I want to share this moment with everyone
on earth. Why am I so lucky? All these
thoughts went through my mind ... yet I
felt at peace and I really didn't care. I
was here and this was my reality at this
moment. It was gorgeous.
Then the moon went behind a cloud and the
rainbow was gone. Just like that.
But, wait ... look how pretty that moon is
behind the cloud! What an evening! Pinch
me!
Here
I am ... totally void of place and time.
Is this a dream or is it real?? Who knows?
A lunar rainbow or a moonbow is a rainbow
produced by the moon instead of the sun.
It always appears in the opposite
direction from the moon, which shines
through the water spraying up from the
falls, thus creating this delicate vision
of a rainbow. A lunar rainbow is truly a
natural wonder without equal.
The sky must be dark and the moon must be
fairly low in the sky to produce a good
moonbow. A lunar rainbow is more fragile
and fainter in color than that produced by
the sun and therefore more difficult for
the human eye to see, due to the nighttime
conditions, but it showed up beautifully
in my pictures. Holding the camera still
was another matter!
I don't know if I have a new outlook of
everyday life or if my interactions with
people have changed. The whole experience
has allowed me to appreciate my life on
earth better; maybe I will be more
accepting and more flexible in life
decisions. My greatest personal
discovery is how fragile and how beautiful
nature is. I did find out that the earth
doesn't belong to the people, but all
people belong to this earth. Nobody owns
these heavenly visions. Everyone with eyes
can see it if they are in the right place
at the right time. I was very lucky. I
feel that I've been touched by nature.
The gods were looking out for me that
evening! I was touched by heaven.
A Lunar Rainbow is one of the Natural
Wonders of the World and I can understand
why.
John Muir described the experience in his
book The Yosemite: "This grand arc of
color, glowing in mild, shapely beauty in
so weird and huge a chamber of night
shadows, and amid the rush and roar and
tumultuous dashing of this thunder-voiced
fall, is one of the most impressive and
most cheering of all the blessed mountain
evangels."
For
more Lunar Rainbow pictures click here
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