Courtesy of my niece, I share with you this little gem from YouTube and Joy Nash.

I have found some Naw Ruz videos on YouTube and thought you might enjoy them. Thanks to Dan Jones for posting the "Non-Fiction" one, which led me to the others. Naw Ruz is already a week old but I enjoyed the chanting anyway...

My family had been amused at me lately: I got very excited on Sunday about glimpsing the first robin of the year. I had also seen a jay and a chickadee that day. Ridiculous small pleasures...and then today, I have a small orange crocus in my front garden which has opened its pixie face to the world. Yesterday I sat out on the front step with my cup of tea and soaked in sun for an hour. Life is good.

I have also received new books in the mail: I recently finished Bruce Feiler's work, Where God Was Born, and enjoyed it greatly, so ordered some of the works he suggested for critical reading. One is Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane. Already I am finding it rich, but I also find that I am amused at myself: I grunt out loud, unconsciously, when I come across a particularly interesting point, and the sound pulls me out of the reverie of reading...something like the times when, in my sleep, my own snoring snorts so loudly that it wakes me up. Fortunately, when the book is engrossing enough, I fall back into its phrasing, its ideas, its lure, quite quickly, until the next "huh" escapes my convoluted brain via my lips. It's an unlovely way of expressing my intrigue.

What is more lovelier, and a little strange to me: of course, there are many friends and acquaintances in our faith who come from Iran, which is where Baha'u'llah's teachings originated in the 19th century. I know a little Persian...not a lot...enough to invite people to tea, to thank them for delicious meals, to be courteous. I can count to ten and I know that the first person singular present conjugates with the am ending. But I know the sounds enough to recognize a little when the prayers are being chanted, as they often are in Baha'i meetings. The other day, at our Naw Ruz celebration, one of the Persian Baha'is opened the program with a chanted prayer, and when she closed her book, she kissed it and raised it to her face in reverence. I was deeply touched, somehow: it reminded me of the continuities of faith. I think of the Jewish people and the emblem at the door, the centering when they arrive in their sacred home space, and of the reverence in the Catholic mass, the rituals. My husband is somewhat impatient with such rituals, perhaps because as a former Catholic, he grew up with them, and rejected them along with dogma. I did not grow up with these kind of repeated gestures: there is no equivalent, in Baha'i teaching, to the sign of the cross. So to observe the embrace of the book, the love for the text, seemed very fitting, especially for someone who has a reverence for the word, and the Word.

Baha'u'llah has banned the burning of books, which from my point of view, is just one of the evidences of His truth.

Today, I read Eliade, and revel in the open book of the spring ground as the first crocus appears in our front yard. Life is good.

Today, a Holy Day for Baha'is around the world, the highlight of my day was dinner with my family. With one daughter already living in Ottawa and another likely moving out in the fall, our family-of-five rarely gathers as just us. Tonight we did. Bernie brought Vietnamese take-out so I didn't have to cook, and we had desserts left over from last night's Gatineau Naw Ruz party (I made an amazing double chocolate swirl truffle cheesecake which the girls polished off this evening), and then we visited in the living room and laughed and laughed and laughed. My kids are just so much fun!!! Our family pilgrimage is this summer, and I am already in a stage of I-can-hardly-wait.

In the meantime, the winter gasps its dying days. I wrote a poem for Naw Ruz here, and will paste it below for you to enjoy. It's a simple poem, but I wanted to try for two languages since our community is so multilingual...and "Allah'u'abha" is a greeting we use which means "God is Most Glorious."

shift to spring

comme moi, j’attendais
the melt on bended knee
the eyeward glance
delightsome dance
of here’s the new day singing

comme moi, je chantais
yeux ouverts, les rivières et les plaines
de cet amour
de Dieu,
je chantais fine et forte
with all my heart

comme moi, je cherchais
loin et proche
for all the joys
of prayer and song
pour les amis et les familles

and I, I looked for gold
in springtime skies
the song of Alleluia
rising high to celestial rains

chaque atome et chaque cher ange
qui nous apporte cette louange
je l’offrais de mon coeur et âme unis
avec le monde entier

throughout each place, each magic leaf
through acts of grace, through gardens drawing near
the Ridvan of His honeyed tongue

comme moi, je goutais ces mots sacrés,
Allah’u’abha,
le printemps est arrivé

and we give praise.

Have I introduced you to my sister Coral and her family yet? If not, here they are, taken last summer at the Sylvan Lake Baha'i Summer School in Alberta, Canada: Ovidio, Coral, Celeste, William, Juliette, Angelica, and Sarah. Coral & Ovidio met and married in Haifa when doing service at the Baha'i World Centre in the early '90s, and then travelled as Baha'is to Central America to support community development there, known as 'pioneering' in our faith. Ovidio is originally from Honduras and the children were all born either there or in Belize.

In 2002, I did some overtime and managed to save enough dinero to take our three children to Belize, and while there we travelled by bus and truck throughout Guatemala and Honduras, where Ovidio's family showed us every kind hospitality for a week. This lingers in my memory in many ways, and one of the long poems I have written about the experience has been accepted by an excellent Baha'i periodical from the United States, World Order, so I won't retell the story here since it is forthcoming at some point in poetic form from that publication. Suffice it to say that I still write about these experiences. A couple of friends, Hunter and Hans, joined us for part of the journey, as during that time they were part-time residents of Tegucigalpa, where their parents were then living.

Since then, my sister and her family have moved to Canada, and are living in northern British Columbia (where yes, Ovidio does get a little tired of snow...but on the other hand, how many Hondurans do you know who can drive a zamboni?) Sometimes I think I should write a book about my family! I am not sure they'd ever forgive me, though! Anyway, I thought today would be a good day to share more loved ones, as I have learned that a variety of family and friends around and about do in fact tune in to the blog to keep up with our news.

I think I'll share one of the poems from our Central American experience. Perhaps this will give you a wee armchair journey, with a mother and her three children to see a beloved sister and her family in Santa Lucia. When I think of them, my thoughts go to Ovidio's mother, Tia Julia, who left this world for the next one just recently, and whom all of us loved.

journey

he took us for breakfast in San Pedro Sula
heat tamed, air conditioned, buffet:
eggs, chorizos, frijoles , Honduran pastries
after morning on a sand beach where
two large ships anchored before journey north.

we drove into mountains, stopped for ice at a petrol station, bathed
in melting cubes, climbed past watermelon stands, pineapples, bananas,
a higher altitude lake, fish on lines.

buildings lined rickety road like overgrown meccano, tipsy
down into Siguatepeque, ancient valley houses of stone & mortar,
survivors of hurricanes, cobbled streets narrow with doors
into pocketed landscapes, byways foreshadowing plains &

coconut water drunk through straws made in plastic factories of nuevo america
riches from plunder after rock faces shattered with ads, “Cafe Maya”. cinder block homes, stone beauty, goods carried in baskets on the backs of brown women & weavings, clay bodies pregnant in Valle de Angeles.

like any other tourist, i travel carrying plates, earthen figures,
painted scorpions, lizards, tiny fruits, minimos, sweet small bananas
named for the coin that sold them for nothing, not worth growing,
shaped like doughy fingers of pan dulces dipped in cafe con leche,
bread swollen bodies to fill small brown bellies near Burger King

¿cuantos lempiras?

wood beauty boxes with inlaid hours of brown hands chipping future.
on the hillside, the statue of Jesus watches the city near big Mac.
Tegucigalpa, hear how it flows to the sea like the rivers of road west
to ships sailing

her white hand on one brown man
rewrites history. Old cities overlook slides from mountain
to milpa, cross stitch the borderline wound
of this skin. elegy on cobblestones near a church
in Santa Lucia until the next ship goes north.

There have been a number of exchanges today between family members...that is, cousins I don't usually keep in touch with. Connections were made, and some are curious to see our family. So I shall re-post a few pictures, since finding them in the archives could be time consuming. First, our family portrait, taken in Saskatchewan in 2005 on the occasion of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Another shows three generations: my father, my son, and my husband, taken last fall when my parents were still visiting. Happy times.

One of my favourite Canadian small presses is Ursula Vaira's Leaf Press, to which I keep a permanent link for you to enjoy a poem from time to time. One of the features she offers is Monday's poem, and I am delighted to hear that this week, she intends to post one of mine...so, on Monday, have a look and if all goes well, I'll have a week of online publication.

Many years ago, when I was still teaching at Maxwell International Baha'i School on Vancouver Island, I recall telling my students that every time they said a Bad Word, they should say an "Allah'u'abha" (which is a Baha'i invocation and greeting meaning God is Most Glorious) to make up for it. I was only half-joking. I told them that we are supposed to have sugar-shedding lips and a honeyed tongue, imagery I borrowed from a Hidden Word. And on that basis, having gone on record about my dislike of profanity (by using some) yesterday on Facebook, I would like to offer a selection from Baha'u'llah's Hidden Words, by way of mea culpa and as a timely reminder to myself, as they seem a propos:

33. O MY BROTHER!

Hearken to the delightsome words of My honeyed tongue, and quaff the stream of mystic holiness from My sugar-shedding lips. Sow the seeds of My divine wisdom in the pure soil of thy heart, and water them with the water of certitude, that the hyacinths of My knowledge and wisdom may spring up fresh and green in the sacred city of thy heart.

66. O EMIGRANTS!

The tongue I have designed for the mention of Me, defile it not with detraction. If the fire of self overcome you, remember your own faults and not the faults of My creatures, inasmuch as everyone of you knoweth his own self better than he knoweth others.

22. O SON OF SPIRIT!

Noble I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.

26. O SON OF BEING!

How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.

26. O MY FRIEND IN WORD!

Ponder awhile. Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide in one heart? Cast out then the stranger, that the Friend may enter His home.

69. O CHILDREN OF ADAM!

Holy words and pure and goodly deeds ascend unto the heaven of celestial glory. Strive that your deeds may be cleansed from the dust of self and hypocrisy and find favour at the court of glory; for ere long the assayers of mankind shall, in the holy presence of the Adored one, accept naught but absolute virtue and deeds of stainless purity. This is the day-star of wisdom and of divine mystery that hath shone above the horizon of the divine will. Blessed are they that turn thereunto.

Every word of thy poetry is indeed like unto a mirror in which the evidences of the devotion and love thou cherishest for God and His chosen ones are reflected. Well is it with thee who hast quaffed the choice wine of utterance and partaken of the soft flowing stream of true knowledge. Happy is he who hath drunk his fill and attained unto Him and woe betide the heedless. Its perusal hath truly proved highly impressive, for it was indicative of both the light of reunion and the fire of separation.

Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, 175-176

Here are Nontsiki, Leseli & Siphosihle Carmel Martel.
Proud husband and father, my former student and now dear friend, Olinga.

I've spent quite a bit of time today figuring out technology. I organized swaks of pictures into albums. I listened to several of Omid Djalili's videos on his website and ordered his DVD...he is an Iranian British Baha'i comedian and actor whom I find funny and talented. I talked to my family (three sisters, some of their families, and our parents gathered in Whitelaw, AB.) and now it is time to read until sundown. There is sun, too...the blizzard seems to come and go today, and I am sure my son is glad that it's not steady since he's been kept shovelling.

Last night we attended a showing of The Vagina Monologues. I've seen it 4 times now and that's enough. I enjoyed viewing my niece in her role, and some of the play makes me laugh and sometimes grieve...but it does remind me of a book recommendation, one I read a long time ago and really enjoyed: Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography. Bravo.

The second day of the Baha'i fast, and I will share with you one of the wonderful readings which was chosen for the Feast which began it, which Bernie and I attended with the "Sector 8" friends in Ottawa:

Noble friends, seekers after God! Praise be to God! Today the light of Truth is shining upon the world in its abundance, the breezes of the heavenly garden are blowing throughout all regions; the call of the Kingdom is heard in all lands, and the breath of the Holy Spirit is felt in all the hearts that are faithful. The Spirit of God is giving eternal life. In this wonderful age the East is enlightened, the West is fragrant, and everywhere the soul inhales the holy perfume. The sea of the unity of mankind is lifting up its waves with joy, for there is real communication between the hearts and minds of men. The banner of the Holy Spirit is uplifted, and men see it, and are assured with the knowledge that this is a new day.

This is a new cycle of human power. All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a garden and a paradise. It is the hour of the unity of the sons of men and the drawing together of all races and all classes. You are loosed from ancient superstitions which have kept men ignorant, destroying the foundation of true humanity.

The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion. War shall cease between nations, and by the will of God the Most Great Peace shall come; the world will be seen as a new world, and all men will live as brothers.

'Abdu'l-Baha