When I think about it, I’m fairly certain there are really only two things in this world that give me the urge to dance: music and rainbows.

I remember my first dance party wasn’t to music, it was with rainbows.

My mom had a rainbow catcher that hung in her bedroom window, and one sunny morning, she drew the shades open and the room bursted with bird shaped rainbows. Mom magically made them all dance and glide and sway along the walls and floor by gently tapping the crystal ball into swing.

I leapt and jumped and marveled at the colors moving all around me. I remember feeling genuinely happy and excited. I could not resist the urge to dance and squeal with the rainbows.

Then there’s the time my friend Jillian and I saw a full arched rainbow over the lake during a storm. We stopped the car, jumped out onto the grass and danced in the rain. The third in our party chose to observe our crazed hippiness from the dry comfort of the car.

Here’s a rainbow I saw when I climbed to the top of a temple at the Mayan archaeological site known as Chichen Itza.

It was a full round rainbow, right smack above Pyramid Kukulcan, the highest temple on the site.

I had just turned 21 when I traveled there. I brought my walkman. I remember it was my dream at the time to climb to the top of the temple and listen to “Back to the Earth” by Rusted Root. Cheesy, I know. I wanted to have a Peace Corps kind of experience in the jungle, and this was the closest thing I could get to it, other than of course joining the Peace Corps, and I was too chicken to do that.

I made my way to the top, popped my tape in my walkman, pressed play, sat against a wall and looked up to see this rainbow. You know I flipped out, but it’s not appropriate to dance up there so I resisted the urge. I quietly listened to “Back to the Earth” and admired the rainbow.

I’m the official driver for Team HoneyBadger when they trek up to do the Birke every year. This year was the first year I realized what a huge feat these guys accomplish (why I didn’t think of it before? They freakin’ ski 36 miles!). I got to the finish line to meet the team, saw all the icicle encrusted faces and started to weep with emotion (the spiced wine I was drinking to keep warm might have made me a little more sentimental than usual), but on the way back to our cabin, there were two full winter rainbows in the sky. Truly captivating.

I couldn’t figure out how to relate the beauty of the rainbows to these guys; these guys are men’s men, you know, no messing around with ruffles sort of dudes, so I just decided to say what I wanted to say, “Look guys! Look at the rainbows! That’s God congratulating you.”

I expected them to go off on a “making fun of God and rainbows” tangent, but instead, silence encompassed the car as they marveled at the rainbows and I think I even heard one guy sniffle with tears.

So the other day, I was sorting and it was sunny and I remembered my mom’s rainbow catcher. I decided that with my birthday coming up, that’s what I am going to ask for, a rainbow catcher. Just then, I turned to see this and realized I already had a rainbow catcher, my fish tank is one. Cool, right?

I’m still going to ask for one for my birthday, but I wanted to share these psychedelic rainbow pictures with you.

I hope you find a rainbow today. What gets you up and dancing?