The Meaning of the Rainbow Bridge

Why We Chose This Name

There are moments in history when humanity finds itself standing between worlds.

One world is familiar, even if it is painful. The other has not yet been built. Between them there is a crossing, a threshold, a path that requires courage, truth, and community.

For us, that crossing is the Rainbow Bridge.

The name Rainbow Bridge Church was not chosen because rainbows are soft or decorative. It was chosen because, across cultures and across time, the rainbow appears again and again as a sacred threshold. A meeting point. A place where worlds touch.

When we began listening deeply to the stories that live beneath cultures, mythologies, and spiritual traditions, one pattern kept rising like light through rain: the rainbow is almost always a bridge.

Hawaiian Mythology: Anuenue as Living Presence

In Hawaiian culture, the anuenue is not just weather. It is alive with meaning. It is a pathway between realms, a sign taht the een and unseen are brushing against each other.

In some mo’olelo (stories), people become rainbows, continuing to exist in luminous form after death. The rainbow becomes a living memory, an ancestral presence, a reminder that spirit is never far away.

For us, this matters deeply. Rainbow Bridge Church was born from land-based relationship and from the understanding that healing is relational. The bridge is not abstract. It is something we stand inside together.

Greek Tradition: The Rainbow as Messenger

In ancient Greek tradition, the rainbow belonged to Iris, the divine mssenger who traveled between the gods and humanity. The rainbow was her path, a channel through which communication flowed.

This idea resonates with our work because we believe healign happens through transmision: truth spoken honestly, stories shared bravely, wisdom passed from one heart to another.

The bridge is communication. It is connection restored.

Indigenous Australian Traditions: Creation and Renewal

Many Indigenous Australian traditions speak of the Rainbow Serpent, an ancient creator presence connected to water, fertility, and the shaping of the land itself.

Here, the rainbow is not only a bridge between worlds but a force of creation and transformation. It carries noth power and responsibility. Water gives life, but it also asks humans to live in right relationship with the earth.

This echoes the heart of our mission. Healing is not separate from land. Restoration of self and restoration of community move together.

The Thread That Connects Them

Across these traditions, the rainbow holds a shared pattern:

• A pathway between realms

• A messenger between worlds

• A symbol of transformation after change or hardship

• A living reminder that spirit and earth are not separate

We did not choose this name to claim ownership over any one culture’s meaning. We chose it because cultures separated by oceans and time have looked to the rainbow and recognized teh saem pattern: a crossing place. A moment where heaven and earth touch. A reminder of transformation after the storm.

The rainbow appears wherever light meets water, wherever contrast creates beauty, wherever something broken begins to refract into something whole again.

Rainbow Bridge Church exists as that crossing place.
A bridge between spirit and science.
…between ancestral wisdom and modern healing.
…between isolation and belonging.
…between survival and purposeful living.

This is not about escaping the world. It is about learning how to walk across the bridge together, carrying our stories, ourcultures, and our humanity toward a more conscious way of being.