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Loading ...Friends, nothing can inspire me to write blogs like the clock of the seasons as seen through the lens of the Badi calendar, more commonly known as the Baha’i Calendar. For 14 years I have observed time pass with this calendar and the vision and insight it brings is beyond compare. There are 19 months of 19 days. Each month is named after an attribute of God. There are also more sacred names for the days of the week. Some will react strongly against this but please bear in mind that such a system is likely to be widely adopted only in the far future. The pagan Gregorian calendar has a few miles (centuries) yet! For the time being, the Baha’is use the Badi Calendar only on a personal basis. But let’s note a few observations. I liked the solar calendar and I liked the concept of a lunar calendar; but what’s a 19-day month got to do with anything? I puzzled over this for years until in 1999 I found out that the sun and moon are themselves in a cycle which repeats every 19 years! The Badi system groups each cycle of 19 years, and then subdivides these years into 19, and the months into 19. And so the system actually brings a unity between the solar and lunar calendars.
19 X 19 = 361, so where are the remaining days? They are the Intercalary Days, also known as Ayyam-i-Ha, a title which might be rendered ‘Days of H’, or more meaningfully, ‘Days of 5′, 5 being the maximum number of intercalary days (in a leap year).
The Days of Five are days of gift giving and good cheer. They are a spiritual preparation for the Fast, a month of restraint. What I like about these intercalary days is that they are time apart. On Sunday evening, as sunset approached, I became aware that I was in the final ‘normal’ moments of the year. In a way, the winter had ended, as testified by the Robins and Wrens and Dunnocks (but no Blackbirds just yet). There would now be a brief time apart and then a month of fasting. This endurance climaxes in a wave of glory when we reach the 21st of March: fasting will end, the spring will have arrived, the solar new year will arrive and the Baha’is will celebrate the beginning of the year 164 B.E.!
The source of all this joy is, of course, Baha’u'llah, who wrote a meditation for Ayyam-i-Ha. It begins with the words, “My God, my fire and my light!”
This will be my final posting on the Neocrats until next Monday, when I will post my latest piece in celebration of the fast-approaching Neocrats’ first anniversary. In the meantime, can I invite you to add your Ayyam-i-Ha diaries in the comments? Tell us what it is like for you!
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Ayyam-i-Ha, Day 1: pure blue sky. I drove through the landscape and played medieval music from Andalusia. I went to Buttercup’s house and ate a mousse. Later there was a mass-produced pizza and some popular culture.
Ayyam-i-Ha, Day 2: Heavy rain, but not unpleasant. In my dreams, particularly in the months prior to full conversion, water always symbolised divine revelation. It also gives sustenance to song birds and growth to my new escallonia hedge.