February is really the month of Love. Not just because of Valentine’s Day, but the rainbows!
February has been the month of rainbows – at least here in the Bay Area. Even if we know the Science behind rainbows, they are special. We’d glance outside, and see the sun peeking out after the rains, and I’d run to see if the magic is there. That in itself is surely magical.
While there are many words to describe the love of sunsets, clouds, starry skies, the sun, the moon, eclipses, forests, rain, thunder and lightning, there isn’t really a word to describe the love of rainbows. No one word to capture the soaring of the heart when it spots the multi colored ring of the Earth’s horizons. The squealing of the young and the old as they charge outside to catch the magical light of this beautiful universe. Imagining how marvelous it must look to hummingbirds and those who can see a larger spectrum of light.
Rainbow Tales
Of course rainbows have enamored humankind for centuries.
🌈I can’t help thinking of the silly fable about the fox marrying the crow and throwing the garland up in the sky, and that is how a rainbow is formed, every time we spot one.
👰Greek myths have a goddess, Iris, who is both a messenger of the gods and a personification of the rainbow. In Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, the demigods are able to use drachmas to communicate with the gods through a rainbow.
🍀The Irish, of course, have a quirky tale about finding gold at the end of the rainbow.
That is why I was this surprised at not being able to easily find a word for a lover of rainbows in a world filled with them.
Should we call ourselves Irisophiles?
🌇Opacarophile: lover of sunset
🎨Chromatophile – a lover of colors
⚡Ceraunophile – a lover of thunder and lightning
🌩️Nephophile – a lover of clouds
☀️Heliophile – a lover of the sun
🌜Selenophile – a lover of the moon
🤽Limnophile – a lover of lakes
🕯️Photophile – a lover of natural light
🌧️Pluviophile – a lover of rain
🌊Thalassophile -a lover of the sea and oceans
🌳Nemophile – a lover of forests
💛Xanthophile – a lover of the color yellow
Here are a list of words to engage any nature-o-philes:
Words for lover of Nature and Weather
What do you think? Should the lover of rainbows be called an Irisophile. Or what other words would you suggest?
Nourish-n-Cherish 