| Persecution of Baha'is in Iran intensifies |
[Thursday, 15th May 2008 @ 07:49] |
From: http://news.bahai.org/story/632
"Six Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and taken to the notorious Evin prison yesterday in a sweep that is ominously similar to episodes in the 1980s when scores of Iranian Bahá’í leaders were summarily rounded up and killed."
Please help us get the word out.
Contact your government representatives, Senators, Congresspeople, Members of Parliament about this issue. |
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| Fabric |
[Monday, 7th May 2007 @ 16:16] |
I weave your name on the loom of my mind,
To make my garment when you come to me.
My loom has ten thousand threads
To make my garment when you come to me.
The sun and moon watch while I weave your name;
The sun and moon hear while I count your name.
These are the wages I get by day and night
To deposit in the lotus bank of my heart.
I weave your name on the loom of my mind
To clean and soften ten thousand threads
And to comb the twists and knots of my thoughts.
No more shall I weave a garment of pain.
For you have come to me, drawn by my weaving,
Ceaselessly weaving your name on the loom of my mind.
~Kabir |
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| The Festival of Ridván |
[Monday, 30th April 2007 @ 00:38] |
| [ | Mood |
| |  rosy | ] |
| [ | Music |
| | Baha'i World Congress - The Garden of Ridvan | ] |
The Baha'is celebrate the Festival of Ridván (Paradise) annually from April 20th to May 2nd. This period of time marks the beginning of the departure of the Prophet-Founder Baha'u'llah from Baghdad, He was being exiled to Constantinople. These twelve days are especially remarkable as they were spent on a garden island in the river Tigris, throngs of people visited Baha'u'llah before His departure to express their respects, regret and admiration. He publicly declared His station as a Manifestation of God, as the return of Christ and the fulfillment of many other religious prophecies during these days.
Yesterday was the ninth day of Ridván, significant as it was the day that Baha'ullah's family were able to join Him in the garden. We celebrated this day in a way that I've never seen it done before. David and myself were planning the celebration, and we wanted to recreate some of the atmosphere of those beautiful spring days in 1863. What little we knew about it was from the written accounts of Nabil-i-Zarandi:
"Every day ere the hour of dawn, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four avenues of the garden, and would pile them in the center of the floor of His blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when His companions gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they would be unable to see each other across it. All these roses Bahá'u'lláh would, with His own hands, entrust to those whom He dismissed from His presence every morning to be delivered, on His behalf, to His Arab and Persian friends in the city."
As it happened we had friends in the community who had recently procured a large tent in their backyard. We found a rose farm nearby and somehow figured out a way to get some 140 roses at wholesale prices (which are tremendously cheaper at less than $0.50 per bloom). At least half of these roses had a beautiful rose fragrance and were lavender-coloured. We even found black (Black Baccara) roses which were dark black-blood-red. Portland's rose garden store supplied us with a bottle of rose otto diluted in jojoba oil, and we also found solid rose perfume (made with coconut oil). This together with rose water, Persian tea (blended to the recipe David had gotten from the tea-maker in Bahji several years ago) and rose-flavoured Bosnian sweets were served to the guests. They were ushered in to a tent lit by lanterns. The walls had patterned batik sheets. A huge pile of roses lay in a corner of the room atop an African cloth print that had used to belong to Ruhiyyih Khanum. We had prayers, readings, story-telling, chanting and music - in different languages. It was.. amazing.
It's very difficult to even try to convey the mood of the evening, suffice to say that every face in the room was in some way more radiant. This year is going to be so awesome, in every possible way.
"The diversity in the human family should be the cause of love and harmony, as it is in music where many different notes blend together in the making of a perfect chord. If you meet those of different race and colour from yourself, do not mistrust them and withdraw yourself into your shell of conventionality, but rather be glad and show them kindness. Think of them as different coloured roses growing in the beautiful garden of humanity, and rejoice to be among them."
~Abdu'l-Baha
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| Thinkpad love |
[Sunday, 22nd April 2007 @ 00:54] |
My first Livejournal post was made on a Thinkpad. It has consistently been my favourite laptop for the past 7 years, and after a brief 1.5 years bereft I am now using a T30 again. We bought this on ebay for no more than $250 including shipping, and despite being some four years old, it appears to either match or outperform newer laptops of other brands. It's not so much the technology within but the robust Thinkpad design that I love so much. The swappable optical drive bay for a secondary hard drive, the red mouse nub that responds to my lightest touch and accelerates at a nudge, and this gorgeous matte screen. Not to mention the fact that I've seen my Thinkpads boot up after coffee/liquid spills. The newer notebooks now feature drains to channel away liquid spills in the keyboard area. Non-plastic hinges!
Thinkpads aren't for everyone but there's a certain camaraderie at thinkpads.com forums that assure me that I am in good company. The cool thing is how Thinkpad fans aren't the sort that get super passionate about the machines. They wax on about the specs and share histories, are open about the what they want changed and have no qualms with suggesting that the Thinkpad is not the be-all-and-end-all solution. They are rational. I love that. Some run Windows, others various flavours of Linux, and yet another who has a Mac OS running on one.
I just discovered that Lenovo has several blogs by people who work on Thinkpad design. Their articles are awesome, they share so much about the design process and more lately, their issues with sales, supply and demand. I was just about to purchase the T60p, pretty much the dream machine on their site, when I discovered that the T61 will be out in just 2 weeks featuring Intel's Santa Rosa platform. What's more, some thoughts by those who work at Lenovo have already helped me decide what I'll need (or not).
Summary? I love Thinkpads - I'm so glad to be using one again, and can't wait to get my sticky fingers on the T61 soon!
If you're about to buy a laptop and want to consider a Thinkpad, check out lenovo.com - the prices are pretty decent right now, bit of a mini-sale going on.
Fave Lenovo blogs which tend to discuss Thinkpads : Inside the Box and Design Matters |
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| Jewel |
[Tuesday, 27th February 2007 @ 19:12] |
Pebble couched in shadows
And yet I knows
that should I avert
my sight ever so slight
the light may ring bright
blind me from
these shades of night
and behold
you - the jewel
"..that all may become the waves of one sea, and bright stars of the same endless sky, and pearls within the shell of singleness, and gleaming jewels quarried from the mines of unity; that they may become servants one to another, adore one another, bless one another, praise one another; that each one may loose his tongue and extol the rest without exception, each one voice his gratitude to all the rest; that all should lift up their eyes to the horizon of glory, and remember that they are linked to the Holy Threshold; that they should see nothing but good in one another, hear nothing but praise of one another, and speak no word of one another save only to praise."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 229)
Life is simple when you allow it to be just about love. |
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| Cocoon |
[Saturday, 30th December 2006 @ 12:24] |
I have felt, for the past few weeks, like a butterfly emerging out of a cocoon. More accurately like one struggling and fighting its way out of the cocoon. This morning I realised that I wasn't even sure if my wings had developed yet, that I was desperate to get out and relying on the faith that my time spent in this cocoon had been sufficient for my wings to grow and develop.
This analogy is particularly suited to my spiritual understanding of this world and the next. That my life in this physical plane is a womb, and I spend it developing virtue which will function as my limbs and members for my spiritual form in the next world. In many ways the first quarter-century of my life was cocoon time for me and the past few years, a fight to spread wings that I imagine I have. But of course I will only know if they're formed fully and perfectly when I try to fly. Fortunately for me, use of a metaphor allows me to return unto a cocoon, while a caterpillar that failed to metamorphose has no such choice. (Aside: I enjoy finding the point at which metaphors break)
The past two days have tried me especially - circumstances that I am familiar with played out again to test my resolve. Mundane trials - nothing particularly cryptic - a chance to sacrifice my opinion for someone else's, the choice to smile rather than frown, an opportunity to rise above circumstances and the actions of others. In some, I did admirably and in others, failed miserably. It is the latter that started this worry about my wings, or lack thereof.
There will be no struggle against the cocoon today. Instead we will gently manoeuvre, no sudden moves and nobody gets hurt - it's too windy for a test flight out there. |
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| Excuse me, my age is showing |
[Friday, 22nd December 2006 @ 21:07] |
| [ | Tags | | | lj | ] |
| [ | Mood |
| |  bah | ] |
I've browsed through every style available on Livejournal and can't find one that I really feel. Adamant that I need change, I must pick one but.. which?! I've settled for now on a "Dear Diary" style. I may have to resort to a paid account to create one that suits me. Or go S1. Speaking of paid accounts, when did LJ start restricting paid accounts to a minimum of $5? Much as I love LiveJournal, I think I preferred it wayback. Also I wonder if I'm the only developer out there who can't stand CSS. |
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