Yesterday we had our working bee in my mother's garden. One of my mother's neighbours joined my husband and I and we spent several hours pruning, planting, mulching and chatting. It was lovely for Mum as she had different people to chat with while we were working.
We planted or moved around 25 plants in the garden beds that had been reshaped by the path my brother recently made. Things we planted included camellia, canna, clivia, mondo grass, succulents. Mum's neighbour spent about an hour on a ladder carefully removing jasmine that was covering a large camellia. We filled a green wheelie bin with prunings.
I potted up some geranium, cornea, abutilon and jasmine cuttings that Mum can look after.
I don't have any photos other than this one I took before we started. #GardeningAU#Melbourne
We finished with some more good conversation while eating scones, jam and cream I cooked. Mum and I had Chai Latte that I made. Mum's neighbour went home with potted cuttings.
We left around 2pm, rushed home to get changed and hang out the clothes before going to a friend's place for #Bahai Ridvan celebrations. As these celebrations are about what occurred in a beautiful garden in 1863, I took some geranium cuttings to give children to plant when they got home. I have written about Ridvan and gardening in this article: https://www.bahaiblog.net/articles/holy-days-bahai-calendar/celebrating-ridvan-garden/
I wrote this article a few years ago to explain my approach to gardening and how it ties in with the Baha'i calendar.
Today is the first day of a Baha'i festival called the Festival of Ridvan. It celebrates momentous events in a beautiful garden called Ridvan (paradise in English) in 1863. It is celebrated by Baha'is all around the world. During this 12-day festival I do a lot of gardening work. #BahaiFaith#Bahai#gardening
Yay! The rain has started! It is just light at the moment. #OfficeKitty is a bit disconsolate. She has enjoyed a couple of months in the backyard with no rain. I think it will be an afternoon on the couch for her.
It will also be an afternoon on the couch for me. after a weekend of gardening projects in 2 gardens (Mum's and ours), various voluntary work for the local #Bahai community, a big grocery shop, other household chores (still have bathrooms to clean though) and a lovely all-day excursion to Port Melbourne and the National Gallery yesterday.
My husband is walking to the Gee in #Melbourne for the #HawksvCats game. He is wearing a rain coat, jumper, waterproof pants and Hawks scarf expecting our team to get creamed by Geelong. That is what a dedicated fan does! He has a seat out in the open and is going alone because other family members didn't want to stand in the rain.
This long Easter weekend has been enjoyable and feels good to get on top of some chores. Hopefully it won't be too wet for the footy this afternoon but we will get a lot of rain this evening.
Los bahá'ís de todo el mundo celebran Naw-Rúz, el año nuevo y el primer día de la primavera. Este día es un símbolo de la renovación de la naturaleza, un recordatorio físico para reflexionar sobre nuestras realidades internas y lo que podemos hacer para contribuir al bienestar del mundo.
The interior dome of the Baha'i House of Worship for North America in Wilmette, Illinois. I am a bit ashamed that I snuck the photo (no cameras aloud) but I assure you, I did it most respectfully. At the center of the dome is a Baha'i symbol called the "Greatest Name," which translates as "O Thou Glory of Glories."
Fencing with shadows in front of the Baha'i House of Worship for North America in Wilmette, Illinois. I just love the way the shadows and light play on the pavement.
Another exterior photograph of the Baha'i House of Worship for North America in Wilmette, Illinois. On most of the nine sides are quotes from Bahaullah. He was a prophet from 19th century Iran who, according to Baha'is, is the manifestation of God for the current age. This particular quote - "The Earth is but one Country - and Mankind its Citizens" - is a particularly important one for Baha'is.
Two close up images of the Baha'i House of Worship for North America in Willamette, Illinois.
It is made of a special concrete designed to withstand the extreme temperatures. It has nine sides (a sacred number for Bahais) and has imagery from many major world religions.
At the absolute end of the Purple Line on the CTA overlooking Lake Michigan is the Baha'i House of Worship for North America in Wilmette, Illinois.
It is the oldest existing House of Worship for the Baha'i Faith. One of the newest world religions, the Baha'i faith emphasizes the unity of all religions, equality of men and women, and a new revelation from Bahaullah, the most recent Manifestation of God.
I came here in February because I was feeling particularly drained from work. I wanted to go to someplace quiet where I could disconnect for an hour or two. The space is peaceful and calm. It is open to all people no matter their beliefs. And when the Spring comes, the gardens around the site bloom.
Ayyám-i-Há is a time of celebration when Bahá'ís spread good cheer, perform charitable works, show hospitality, give gifts, and so on. This festival falls in the four or five days that fall before the Bahá'í Fasting month; these are "intercalary days", as they are days added to the Bahá'í calendar to help sync it up with the solar cycle. 🌞
Nages Mohammadi, the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, will go on hunger strike ‘in solidarity’ with Iran’s Baha’i religious minority as her prize is awarded in Norway: #HumanRights#Iran#Bahai
Idly wondering about the feasibility of academic partnerships for our #wiki. 🤔 Bahaipedia's grown a lot in recent years and the word is that it's getting a lot of use from researchers, members of Baha'i institutions, and just random interested folks. I wonder whether we couldn't just hook up with some groups studying with the Wilmette Institute (online courses and the like) to have them do on-wiki projects as coursework. #EdTech#OER#Bahai
Las guerras son causadas por diferencias raciales puramente imaginarias; porque la humanidad es una especie, una raza y una descendencia que habita el mismo globo. En el plan creativo no hay distinción ni separación racial.
Got a couple of #dev projects coming down the pipe that'll hopefully bear fruit sooner or later:
▫️ Working on setting up a remote dev instance to allow me to comfortably keep work going on @pinetta
▫️ Archiving the "best-of" of my old blogs
▫️ Experimenting with a #Gemini site
While waiting for all of the above, I've been filling my spare CPU cycles by helping to get responsive design implemented for Bahaipedia, a #wiki for the Baha'i Faith (see @bahai_wiki).
Speaking of Bahaipedia, here's a little Sunday TIL. You probably didn't know that there's a whole language family of #Bahai#wikis! Apart from the English site (https://bahaipedia.org/), there are sites in:
Did any of you ever notice how #capitalism breaks systems that are supposed to help us? Rather like, we want to pay for useful things, but payment structures for many daily things make it unattractive to use them.
I think the biggest red flag that something is not in your favor is when people shit on taxes. That said, I do think that taxation is theft has some merit. I don't think we should have anything that would put you in prison if you don't do it, because the poor and disabled will be the victims. Also something that #communism#class#warfare people kinda ignore is that many rich people want to contribute but they are not allowed to pay more taxes than is allocated for them.
The right solution here is simplifying taxes to the point that you just have a bank account number and a coin box to leave taxes in. You can calculate a reference, but in the end everyone should be responsible themselves to pay taxes the way that works best for them. This way we have true community buy-in with community contributions. This can also fix issues with multi-country taxation and the very reason we have so many tax loopholes. If you are called on your morals instead of your shareholders, tax loopholes become completely nonsensical.
Also my favorite part of my religion, the Bahá'í faith, is that any and all kind of taxation is not just only done when you are really convinced about doing it, but also only over the part that is more than what you need to survive. I think taxation over the base amount of money you survive on is just criminal. But also, we shouldn't frame taxation as having rich people paying their fair share, but instead incorporating the rich as part of the community tasking to do what they do best, which can often involve putting their money to work.
Any kind of division creates war, and war kills people. Class warfare is never going to fix capitalism, only making sure that we are all part of the same community and society will.