Before speaking with Lynn Anderson, I spent time reading Rainbow Seeds Planted by the Light, her debut poetry collection. Though poetry and overtly spiritual books are not my usual reading choices, there was something approachable about Anderson’s writing. Beneath the imagery of seeds, rainbows, and spiritual awakening was a familiar struggle: overcoming self-doubt and learning how to share one’s authentic self with the world.
For Anderson, Rainbow Seeds represents more than a collection of poetry. It is the culmination of 46 years of writing, reflection, and personal growth, a journey she traces back to a profound spiritual awakening in her early 30s.
As surprising as it may seem for a published poet, Anderson did not begin writing poetry until adulthood and kept much of her work private for decades.
“I really did not write a poem until I was about 32 years old,” she said.
Looking back, Anderson believes one of the obstacles in sharing her work was her tendency to compare herself to other writers. Eventually, she found wisdom in a quote often attributed to Mark Twain: comparison is the death of joy.
“In order for me to begin writing, I really had to have a push and a willingness to not worry about the outcome,” she said. “Just focus on the ideas that I would create and inspirations that I would express.”
Those inspirations arrived during a period of profound change from many years ago when Anderson described herself as “an atheist materialist.”
Then, she said, a series of experiences caused her to reconsider how she understood the world and her place within it. One afternoon, while working as a cash accountant at the University of Wisconsin Student Union, she experienced something she still remembers vividly decades later.
“All of a sudden, a voice comes into my head,” she said. “It wasn’t outside; it was in my head, and it said, ‘I love you.’ And I felt it in my heart, and it felt like a light inside of me.”
Then, she said, the message came a second time.
For Anderson, the experience marked the beginning of a spiritual transformation.
“I was left with this blissful, wonderful feeling of being loved,” she said.
At the time, she wasn’t sure what to make of the experience and kept it largely to herself.
“I didn’t tell anybody about it because I was really worried that maybe I was going crazy,” she said.
Still, she felt something changing, and another experience would leave an equally lasting impression and eventually inspire her first poem. One winter morning, Anderson found herself captivated by frost on a window illuminated by the rising sun.
“It just created this array of rainbows throughout the whole thing,” she said. “I just stared at it, and it felt like time stopped.”
As she watched the light move across the frost, she felt what she describes as a sense of eternity and infinity.
Not long afterward, a student worker placed a translucent rainbow sticker on the bulletproof glass surrounding Anderson’s office. A stranger stopped at the window and asked a simple question.
“Does that rainbow mean anything to you?”
The encounter struck Anderson. The man explained that he had asked a friend for a rainbow without really knowing why.
“The only reason he could find was it was pretty,” Anderson recalled.
The conversation brought her back to that morning surrounded by frost and rainbows and to the growing sense that something in her life was changing. When she got home, she wrote what would become her first poem, Rainbow Connection.
Looking back now, Anderson sees those moments as early seeds of the imagery and ideas that would eventually blossom into Rainbow Seeds.
Over the years, Anderson filled journals and notebooks with poetry.
“I accumulated quite a few poems from that,” she said. “I counted, and the book has 330 poems.”
Many of the poems explore spirituality, growth, love, anxiety, and self-discovery. Others arrived unexpectedly, beginning with a phrase, an image, or a fleeting thought.
One poem began with a simple line repeating in her head: “Rose, rose, fading fast.”
“It was just a phrase,” Anderson said. “And I got the image.”
She describes writing as both a creative outlet and a source of healing. It became both a creative expression and a personal reflection, though it remained something she kept private for many years.
“I kept my poem writing very close to my chest,” she said. “I thought people would criticize.”
That fear eventually became part of Rainbow Seeds itself. Throughout the book, readers encounter Mouse and Adolph, two fictional characters who embody insecurity, doubt, and the inner voice that tries to convince people not to pursue their dreams. Anderson believes nearly everyone wrestles with similar fears.
“They represent my own insecurities and anxieties,” Anderson said.
Yet she intentionally allows the characters to grow throughout the book, stating, “Adolph and Mouse are learning along with me a better way.”
That idea forms one of the central messages of Rainbow Seeds: that creativity, fulfillment, and personal growth often require people to move beyond fear and embrace who they truly are.
“To know your very best,” Anderson said. “You don’t have to be the best, but do your best and show your authentic self. Within, you will find the goodness that will complete you, that will make you whole.”
It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that Anderson first began sharing her poetry more widely.
She started making handmade greeting cards for church members, friends and family, often including a poem inside. The response surprised her. People reached out to tell her how much they appreciated the poems.
“And I started thinking, well, maybe it would be good to share these,” she said. “Maybe people would get something out of it.”
Members of her church encouraged her to take the next step, and when she finally committed to the project, Anderson discovered a structure that tied decades of poems together. After grouping the poems by theme, she began thinking about spiritual growth through the metaphor of an apple seed becoming a tree.
“It dawned on me that the stages of growth that an apple tree goes through is very similar to the stages of spiritual growth,” she said.
The metaphor became the framework for the book’s chapters. It also helped clarify the meaning behind the title.
Near the end of our conversation, Anderson shared a passage she had recently written explaining the concept of a “rainbow seed.”
“Rainbow seeds symbolize God’s inspiration given to us to do acts of goodwill,” she read. “Just as sunlight passes through water to create the many colors of our rainbows, Creator’s love shines in us to create a ray of possibilities.”
Looking back at the finished book, she believes Rainbow Seeds became one of those inspirations.
“I realized that the book that I composed was a rainbow seed itself,” she said.
Anderson will discuss Rainbow Seeds during a library event on Nov. 12 from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. The book is available through Amazon, and readers may also contact Anderson directly at lynna@lakeconnections.net to purchase copies locally.
