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Fasting: So it’s not just about food?

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Image by Mamchenkov (Flickr)

The Baha’i Fasthas just ended. I’ve been fasting for 20 years now and I’m embarrassed to say that I still find that I have to constantly remind myself that the Fast is not just about the food! Okay, so for those of you who don’t know me, you should know that ohhhh I love food! My family and I are renowned for talking about how much we like food and the different types of food we like, even while sitting around a table and having a meal together. In fact, there’s even a Tablet written by Baha’u’llah to my family some generations back, which relates to – you guessed it – FOOD!

Most of us identify the Baha’i fast with the act of not eating or drinking between sunrise and sunset. But as Shoghi Effendi explains, there’s much, much more to it than that:

It is essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual recuperation, during which the believer must strive to make the necessary readjustments in his inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual forces latent in his soul. Its significance and purpose are, therefore, fundamentally spiritual in character. Fasting is symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desires.Shoghi Effendi, Directives of the Guardian

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Nineteen Days: Photos from the Fast

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Photo by Layli for Nineteen Days

A very cool collaborative art project that takes place every year during the Baha’i Fast is Nineteen Days, a project started by friends and fellow bloggers Leila and Amy.

For each of the nineteen days of the fasting month, the pair invite Baha’i photographers to share their special moments at sunrise and sunset, caught as the photographers begin and end their days of fasting. The imagery is often haunting, evocative and serene. Each day’s post is accompanied by quotes from the Baha’i writings as well as comments from the photographer.

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16 Novel Ideas for Your Next Holy Day

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Every year, as Baha’is, we gather for eleven holy days including the festive celebratory days like Naw Ruz and Ridvan, as well as the more commemorative days that mark the Ascension of the Bab and Baha’u’llah. And like everything in the Baha’i Faith, hosting these gatherings is something that is open to one and all.

The first time I hosted a holy day, I wasn’t totally sure what to do. There were twenty people attending and, beyond gathering some prayers, I didn’t know what else could go into a holy day celebration. Since then I’ve been compiling ideas so that next time I’ll be ready!

Listed below are sixteen ideas for your next holy day event listed below. If you have some suggestions of your own, I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Photo by Madcowk (Flickr)

1. Run a Drum Circle

A drum circle is a fun way to bring a community together. It simply entails getting everyone some sort of percussion instrument, setting a steady beat and sharing rhythm! If you have access to them, African Djembe drums will give you a real throbbing beat, but you can make do with all sorts of make-shift percussion. If you have someone with a good sense of rhythm to lead the circle, this can work well. A simple introductory activity is to have the leader tap out a beat and then have the other participants ‘reply’ with the same beat.

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Welcome to the Newly Relaunched Baha’i Blog

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Hello and welcome to the newly relaunched Baha’i Blog! I’m Preethi, your friendly editor, who together with Collis, Naysan and Vahid, make up the Baha’i Blog team. So, what exactly is Baha’i Blog? Baha’i Blog is a project which aims to create a cosy little nook in the blogosphere for Baha’is and friends of the Faith alike. As Baha’is, we all know what it’s like to live with an awareness that you truly do have family (spiritual, if not biological) all over the world. This blog aims to mirror that by creating an online community around the Baha’i Faith and connecting people from all over the world.

Baha’i Blog first found life as a project run by Ryan Lash some years back, but with his hectic travel schedule, Ryan kindly permitted the site to be recreated and relaunched as you see it now. We’ve gone live on Naw-Ruz 2011 and in our first few months will be working on making the blog an online resource where Baha’is and friends of the Faith around the world are able to access a wealth of information. Continue reading →

MANA – Backbiting

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Music video to the song “Backbiting” from MANA’s debut album ‘Reflections On The Life Of The Spirit’. MANA is a Baha’i-inspired music and cultural performance group from the Pacific Islands, based mostly in Australia. The word MANA means ‘the Almighty’ or ‘the Powerful’ and signifies strength of spirit in many languages of the Pacific. All lyrics in the albums are based on the Baha’i Writings and passages found in the sequence of courses developed by the Ruhi Institute.

You can read Baha’i Blog’s post about MANA here.

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