L'aura del Campo

A day of joy or sadness.

Winter: 1 'Ala (March 2)

2006-03-02
morning, 48 degrees. 25 in Western New York.

My family is going to get clobbered with heavy snow. Here? More sun but cooler.

Must gather my thoughts for Tea at Three.

Sometimes I need to look things up. So thanks to Sue Emmel for this link on Bahá'í Scripture and Writings:

http://reference.bahai.org/en

It'll prove very useful during the Fast to look up quotes I need to refer to, that I've written to.

2006-03-02
afternoon, 53 degreess. 61 in Eureka Springs, AR.

Tea at Three coming up. Brochure done. Wish I were in Eureka Springs this Spring! Very nice place. Especially this time of year.

So what does the 2nd of March mean to you?

For me it is the day we buried my father in 1999. Cold partly sunny day at the cemetery. I insisted we have a graveside moment. All I remember though is my uncle sitting there by the open hole at noon. We buried him in 2000.

Before that moment there was 1975. I woke up around noon (I was a college student!) and grabbed a prayer book I had borrowed, probably from Fred Walsh. It opened up to a prayer titled "Day of God":

Magnified be Thy name, O my God, for that Thou hast manifested the Day which is the King of Days, the Day which Thou didst announce unto Thy chosen Ones and Thy Prophets in Thy most excellent Tablets, the Day whereon Thou didst shed the splendor of the glory of all Thy names upon all created things. Great is his blessedness whosoever hath set himself towards Thee, and entered Thy presence, and caught the accents of Thy voice.

I beseech Thee, O my Lord, by the name of Him round Whom circleth in adoration the kingdom of Thy names, that Thou wilt graciously assist them that are dear to Thee to glorify Thy word among Thy servants, and to shed abroad Thy praise amidst Thy creatures, so that the ecstasies of Thy revelation may fill the souls of all the dwellers of Thine earth.

Since Thou hast guided them, O my Lord, unto the living waters of Thy grace, grant, by Thy bounty, that they may not be kept back from Thee; and since Thou hast summoned them to the habitation of Thy throne, drive them not out from Thy presence, through Thy loving-kindness. Send down upon them what shall wholly detach them from aught else except Thee, and make them able to soar in the atmosphere of Thy nearness, in such wise that neither the ascendancy of the oppressor nor the suggestions of them that have disbelieved in Thy most august and most mighty Self shall be capable of keeping them back from Thee.

—Bahá’u’lláh

Sorry about the length, but that was what I read. I went looking for Vahid Shahidi and told him I was ready to be a Bahá'í. We went to the Neves. No one was surprized. Nor did they seem inconvenienced. Later, I understood . Fred, Vahid, Farzad and I all lived in the same dorm. We had our own club, so to speak.

To accept a different religious faith as one's own is not the same as trodding the same path as one's forefathers. There is a certain courage involved. And I am not known for being brash; I am quite cautious.

There are those who didn't understand. Some still don't. I have had Christian friends who are offended, who feel that I betrayed them. Especially those who think that there are no other religions other than their own personal brand of Christianity.

But to become myself, I've had to sometimes betray the false perceptions that others have of me.

Even within a loving Bahá'í community, as in any religious community, there is much pain in becoming oneself.

A poem from March 21, 2004 about my father:

Sapeur-télégraphiste

He ran the wires
behind the lines
that in the north of Africa
defined hell-fire's divide
of us and them.

Communication
brought no comfort to the front of war,
where barren back of brother
tangled with the wires,
cooled silent in the coffins.

He aspired to the signal corps,
felt ired when his back was broken,
retired to a family life,
expired at the age of eighty-two,

running out of time and wire
beyond the lines dividing us,
defining us in life's hell-fire. [161.4]

2006-03-02
vespers, 50 degrees. 25 in Bergen, Norway.

Yesterday, I was talking to someone whose family emmigrated from Bergen. We talked about those old vikings. Until someone told me to shut up. That nearly started a fight. I don't take being told to shut up by a piss-ant drunk too well.

SENSED

Song of the starlings; snowdrops in bloom; leaves on a crabapple tree; red flowers on a maple tree; blue jay; cardinal; a big marmelade cat.

Tea at Three went okay. Saw most of the old crowd. Didn't get to writer's workshop on time. Guess no one else showed up and I was a half hour late. Walked down the hill. Walked back up again.

There are many people who say they write, but aren't serious about it. As Ryan Carroll said today, he writes about 12 pieces a year when he feels inspired. And that's a-okay. He's a student doing other things with his life. He doesn't call himself a writer. But ... if someone says they are a writer than they have the obligation to write or at least have a corpus of work to show for it.

I call myself a gardener. Have no place to garden right now. Given dirt, I garden. Have since I was 9 and I have a lifetime of effort and experience to show for it.

GETTING TO KNOW ME

34. Favorite Movie? Too many. Lets choose Babette's Feast. Know that film and you know me better.

35. Horror Movie? The Birds. It still makes me shudder.

36. Worse movie I went to? Pennies from Heaven. Went with Kev, should've left. Boring and too depressing.

37. Great movie but I may never see it again? Dead Poet's Society. I don't take teenage suicide well. Gives me nightmares.

38. Disturbed me the most? Good Will Hunting. Excellent movie but it pushed all the wrong buttons. Good trauma-trigger if there ever was one.

39. Actors I would like to meet? Leonardo Di Caprio and Matt Damon.

40. Most stunning acting I've ever seen? Leonardo Di Caprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

41. Hollywood, Bollywood or Europe? Europe, although some great film has come out of Iran in the last 10 years, like Gabbeh and The Color of Paradise.



O SON OF SPIRIT! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting.

~ Bahá'u'lláh, Arabic Hidden Words #1.