Vasquez’s and Windling’s experiences both demonstrate the power of rainbows to dismantle presumptions, reconfigure moods, and generate empowering motivation. Even people who are not particularly spiritually inclined give rainbows their attention when they appear and may reflect upon them as potential indicators of some act of grace or a significant change in potential developments. Without unleashing the power of life-destroying missiles or forcing obedience to a particular law, rainbows dissolve preoccupation with the predictably ordinary and encourage belief in the extra-ordinary.

Such belief, such inspiration, provides much more than passive hopefulness. Authentic inspiration endows individuals with mental or spiritual energy which they are then able to transform into positive action. It can make all the difference between a man, woman, or child allowing despair to permanently paralyze any dreams they may have for their lives, or, exercising sufficient strength of will to make those dreams a reality.

From 1997 to 1999, I was still working as a bookstore manager, putting in ten to twelve hours per day, five or six days each week, while also serving as a caregiver for my mother. My salary was just enough to handle house expenses and pay someone else to sit with my mother while I was at work. Once I returned home, I would pick up where the healthcare assistant left off and switch from my role as a hard-laboring bookseller to that of a live-in nurse. Very little time, or energy, remained to pursue my goal to become a professional author.