Release yourselves, O nightingales of God, from the thorns and brambles of wretchedness and misery, and wing your flight to the rose-garden of unfading splendor.
O My friends that dwell upon the dust! Haste forth unto your celestial habitation.
Announce unto yourselves the joyful tidings: “He Who is the Best-Beloved is come! He hath crowned Himself with the glory of God’s Revelation, and hath unlocked to the face of men the doors of His ancient Paradise.”
Let all eyes rejoice, and let every ear be gladdened, for now is the time to gaze on His beauty, now is the fit time to hearken to His voice.
Proclaim unto every longing lover: “Behold, your Well-Beloved hath come among men!” and to the messengers of the Monarch of love impart the tidings: “Lo, the Adored One hath appeared arrayed in the fullness of His glory!” …
-Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 319
O ye heralds of the Kingdom of God:
… because these days are the days of Naw-Ruz, you have come to my mind and I am sending you this greeting for this glorious feast.
All the days are blessed, but this feast is the national fete of Persia. The Persians have been holding it for several thousand years past.
In reality every day which man passes in the mention of God, the diffusion of the fragrances of God and calling the people to the Kingdom of God, that day is his feast.
Praise be to God that you are occupied in the service of the Kingdom of God and are engaged in the promulgation of the religion of God by day and by night. Therefore all your days are feast days.
There is no doubt that the assistance and the bestowal of God shall descend upon you.
– Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 10
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Why this photo? It has no thorns and brambles, no rose-garden, no nightingales; neither does it look in the slightest bit festive. Ah! Herein lies a tale:
Two mornings ago just before dawn I decided to escape the animated discussion of my dear ones, so I went outside and immediately noticed this moon hanging in the eastern sky. “My God!” I realized. “Naw Ruz will fall upon a new moon!”
The whole purpose of this blog is to celebrate that as of THIS VERY DAY – Naw Ruz 172 BE (21 March 2016) – the entire Baha’i world will conform all its celebrations and Holy Days completely within this the unique and wondrous Badi calendar – and the fact that it is starting on a new moon is of cosmic significance! (I think)
How strange and lucky (I thought) it is that Naw Ruz falls on a new moon this year … when suddenly I realized it is not “luck” in the slightest.
The reason the Universal House of Justice called for the Badi calendar to be brought into full operation this year is because we have completed nine CYCLES of nineteen years. (9 * 19 = 171) Ancient astronomers discovered that the solar and lunar cycles lined up every nineteenth year. Therefore if Naw Ruz is on a new moon this year, it was on a new moon every nineteen years going back and will be on a new moon every nineteen years from now until the earth’s orbit changes or the sun burns out. And so the year 1844 when the Badi calendar began, the year the Baha’i Faith began, was a year in which Naw Ruz fell on a new moon.
That’s what I thought was “lucky” – until I realized that that year, the year 1260 in the Muslim calendar, had already been announced in the Book of Revelations! I knew that from the beginning that had no beginning, the Lord God Almighty held the sun, the moon, and all our days in His loving hands.
HAPPY NAW RUZ to you all.
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FFWR - Celebrating the Baha'i Calendar 