Welcome to the wonderful world of the Rainbow Habit.
A quiet, domestic moment in the convent with Sister Sooty
An explanation of the Rainbow Habit.
At first, I was a normal, everyday black and white nun. Noticing all the other nuns were also black and white, I felt that I needed to change at least myself, and step out of the traditional ho-hum.
My first habit was a beautiful light blue rayon. The habit was made by the people of the Day Centre in Waterloo.I mentioned to one of the boys my desire to be different, and he said, "Why don't you go for a different colour? So the blue habit was made by Rob O'Keefe on the sewing machines at the Day Centre. It took 2 days to make this fine apparel.
I first donned the habit at a manifestation where I and two other good sisters attended a bar in Oxford Street (can't remember exactly which one). One of the gathered faithful, immediately upon noticing my new colour, recommended that I not walk across open fields, or I may be mistaken as Mother Mary. I chuckled. I wore this habit for 6 months, and found that the gathered faithful more prepared to come up to me and talk to me about this colour. I found colour to be a nice change, because it started dialogue between myself and the GF, which in the past rarely happened.
Then one day whilst cleaning this beautiful habit, I suddenly noticed the blue in the rainbow flag and thought to myself "Wouldn't that be interesting, to make a rainbow habit". After many ideas on how to make a Rainbow Habit, it suddenly occured to me that if I could have a single blue habit, why not have a single Yellow ...Why not make an entire habit, one colour?
So after sucessfully sucking up to a sewing-machine-experienced friend, I found myself with two habits, and decided that this should be a project worthwhile for the Order to all be involved in.The idea was now to make 6 individual habits, each a colour of the rainbow flag, and at this stage, no major event would be thought of.
I then wore the red habit to a Mardi Gras parade, all the sisters said "Why are you in Yellow?". Then I told then what my plan was, to eventually have 6 individual habits, and once a year change the colour, and so on and so forth.
So it began. Each year a new colour at the Mardi Gras Parade, with the first day of the new colour being the Mardi Gras Parade and the last day being the Sister's annual Zoo Walk. I suddenly realised then that I needed to wear the colour for one year in total, so as to have the gathered faithful ask more questions about this project. I felt this was a worthwhile thing to do, but still didn't have a focus on what was to become of these habits. During the Yellow Habit, one of the sisters and I sat down and generally just talking, he gave me the idea that the last of the habits would be worn in the Year 1999. I thought to myself "That's interesting!" So what if I put a trail behind each of the coloured habits - what would that make? Naturally, from a great height, it would look like a flag. I came to the decision to expand this project. Not only for myself, but for the Order. The idea now, was in the Year 2000 Mardi Gras, all 6 habits being the colours of the Rainbow, would manifest at the same time, in the same location on the same day.This culminating a 6 year project. There was still something missing. Why was I doing it? And that is a question I ask myself regularly!
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