All posts by Collis Ta'eed. Browse Other Authors

Hi I’m Collis! I live in Darwin, in the Northern Territory. I’m a Baha’i, designer, entrepreneur, climate tech angel investor, and engaged in philanthropy to support First Nations young people in Australia. I've been working on Baha'i Blog since its inception in 2011!

Baha’i Blog Job Opening: Social Media & Community Role (Australia based)

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Recently we laid out our plans for a new Baha’i Blog vision and direction, and our small team is working away on bringing it to fruition in the coming weeks and months. With all the magic the team manages behind the scenes, it sometimes seems like we’ve got lots of people working here, but in fact the core operational team is just two people, with a couple of regular contributors, and a wider community of occasional contributors.

With our new plans, we’re making a couple of team changes, including growing the team! Which means we’re on the hunt for someone in Australia to join us! The role would best suit someone with social media, online marketing and creative skills who is super organised, can work independently within some clear parameters, has great judgment, and is happy to work in a remote, distributed team. Design, video, or audio skills are a big plus! Continue reading →

12 Community Projects Inspired by Abdu’l-Baha’s Life of Service

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Acts of service take many forms, and we are very fortunate in the Baha’i Faith to recognise this diversity of approach. It can be as small as checking in on a neighbour, or as big as organising a whole community to action. With the focus this Baha’i year on Abdu’l-Baha’s life, one thing that stands out to me is His tireless and unmistakable commitment to service to humanity. In my own life I often feel busy and overstretched, but when I consider the life of the Master, there’s no way I have more on in my day to day than He did! And yet there are countless stories of Abdu’l-Baha taking time out of His day to look after people everywhere He went. Whenever I feel too busy to take something on, it’s this facet of Abdu’l-Baha’s life that always gives me a little more resolve!

With the focus this year on commemorating Abdu’l-Baha’s life of service, we were inspired to put out a call on our Baha’i Blog’s Instagram account to see what projects and activities communities around our home country of Australia, and indeed the world, have been taking on. We were blown away by how many Baha’is regularly integrate acts of service into their lives, and were excited that so many have been sending in photos to boot!

We’re still collecting and highlighting images, so it’s not too late to send something in. I know that for many people, service is something one does for the sake of the service and not the photo op! But remember that taking photos is a wonderful way to encourage oneself and others. Certainly the response we’ve seen from people on Insta as we’ve published images has been incredibly enthusiastic and vibrant. While there’s plenty more to come, here in this post, we’ve collected 12 recent projects. We hope they uplift your hearts as much as they have ours!

If you have a photo or photos from a service project you’ve been engaged in, feel free to tag us or direct message @bahaiblog on Instagram to share images from your community!

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A New Baha’i Blog

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With the whole Baha’i world on the precipice of a new phase of its history, working to the singular aim of releasing the society-building power of the Faith, we’re excited to announce our own evolution. As a proudly Australian independent initiative, Baha’i Blog has always existed to focus on Baha’i-inspired arts and media. There’s never been a more important time for the arts and media in our communities, and it’s time for us to take a fresh step forward with our humble initiative. Continue reading →

11 Beautiful Photos of the Baha’i House of Worship in Chile

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It’s hard to believe that it’s already a year since the House of Worship in Santiago, Chile was officially opened. In the year that’s passed, Brazilian photo journalist Nabil Sami has captured a beautiful array of images of the mother temple of South America. From shots of the temple covered in the shrouds of winter’s snow, to gatherings in the burst of spring, these photos form a beautiful montage of this wonderful iconic part of the Baha’i world. Continue reading →

10 Gorgeous Photos Inside and Out of the Baha’i Temple in Germany

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Located at the foot of the Taunus Mountains of Germany, in the village of Langenhain, near Frankfurt, the Baha’i House of Worship in Germany was completed in 1964. Today Baha’is in Germany number in the thousands, and the country was home to one of the world’s first National Assemblies, elected in 1923. And when the House of Worship was dedicated, it was done so by the Hand of the Cause Ruhiyyih Khanum, who represented the first elected Universal House of Justice.

The German Baha’i House of Worship is the mother temple of Europe, and is known for particularly notable acoustics created within the dome. Built from steel, aluminium and glass, the dome has over five hundred diamond shaped windows that bring light in while giving the building its characteristic visual feel. We’ve collected a selection of beautiful photos of the temple for your enjoyment! Continue reading →

9 Breathtaking Photos from the Baha’i World Centre

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The Baha’i World Center in Israel is the spiritual and administrative heart of our Faith. So it’s no surprise that images of the Holy places are always popular with Baha’is around the world. In fact our previous post of images from the Baha’i gardens is one of our most viewed. When I recently stumbled upon Californian photographer Dana Allen’s gorgeous gallery of images from a 2013 trip to Haifa I was particularly excited. They are not only beautiful photos, but also some of the more unique that I’ve come across in their treatment and view. Dana’s graciously consented to us showcasing a set here, but if you’d like to see the whole gallery, as well as more stunning photography head to his portfolio site.

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12 Photos of Africa’s Extraordinary Baha’i Temple in Uganda

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For more than fifty years, the Baha’i House of Worship in Kampala, Uganda, has been in the Guardian’s words, ‘the spiritual heart of Africa’. It was built in the first decade of Uganda’s Baha’i history, and has stood through the years of plenty, when the Baha’i community of Uganda grew to be the largest on the continent. In the 1970s a wave of Sub-Saharan countries banned the Baha’i Faith, including Uganda, under then rule Idi Amin, but this ban was rescinded in the following decade, and today Uganda is home to tens of thousands of Baha’is.

We’ve collected a dozen photos of the mother temple of Africa from Flickr and 500px, to give you a visual glimpse of this beautiful hub of Baha’i activity and worship. Continue reading →