Monthly Reflection: Jalal (Glory) – On Nightingales & Roses

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I have been thinking about roses and nightingales as my community prepares to celebrate the Festival of Ridvan. Several years ago, Yvonne Perkins wrote about celebrating Ridvan in her garden and how she organizes her gardening efforts to coincide with significant dates in the Baha’i calendar. I think about that article often because Yvonne beautifully expresses how she sees her natural surroundings in relation to Holy Days. While Naw-Ruz heralds the spring equinox in Tehran and while the celebrations for the Festival of Ridvan often invoke references to roses and nightingales, imagining these seasonal and place-specific markers can require effort and creativity depending on the clime of where you live.

Hand of the Cause Leroy Ioas once told a story of a Canadian pilgrim who asked Shoghi Effendi if words like “rose” and “nightingale” could be changed to “penguin” and a type of ice flower for Indigenous communities in the far north of Canada, where neither roses nor nightingales live. Shoghi Effendi explained that the words of the Sacred Writings must be translated exactly as they are. However, he gave the pilgrim a bottle of attar of rose to anoint her friends back home so that they could acquaint themselves with its heavenly heady scent.

My heart aches with envy–how I wish I could have that vial! But then I wonder if, perhaps, we have all been given metaphorical vials of attar of rose in order to imagine what it might have been like in the Garden of Ridvan in the form of artistic expressions that have been created, or will be created, based on the Writings.

For example, we published an Adelaide Studio Session featuring Delia Olam, where she sings in French these words of the Blessed Beauty that feature a rose:

O FRIEND!

In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold. Treasure the companionship of the righteous and eschew all fellowship with the ungodly.

We also released a Hungarian melody and an English one based on that same excerpt from The Hidden Words.

And it was not that long ago that we shared this soaring melody about nightingales and also this Studio Session that speaks of roses AND nightingales that counsels us:

O mystic nightingale! Abide not but in the rose garden of the spirit.

These melodies bring nightingales and roses to life for me–they are a veritable garden of songs!

If you’re looking for Ridvan related resources, we have a special collection dedicated to the King of Festivals and in its anticipation, Baha’i Blog team member Cherie has created three invitation templates that can be customized, downloaded and used for Ridvan celebrations:

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You can access and edit the fountain, rose and ocean themed Ridvan invitation templates all on Canva.

With April school holidays already or nearly here, Cherie has also put together a couple of templates for children’s festivals including a possible registration form and a banner!

All of these templates are offered, not with a one-size-fits-all approach in mind, but knowing that sometimes having something to edit and modify to fit your needs and the reality of your community or neighbourhood can be helpful.

We wish you a happy and joyous Ridvan Festival and a wonderful school holidays!

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Sonjel Vreeland

In her innermost heart, Sonjel is a stay-at-home parent and a bookworm with a maxed out library card but professionally she is a museologist with a background in English Literature. She currently lives on Prince Edward Island, an isle in the shape of a smile on the eastern Canadian coast. Sonjel is a writer who loves to listen to jazz when she's driving at night.