How Designing a Badi Calendar & a Reflection Journal Brought our Family Closer

When I met my wife Sarah, she had already been making Badi calendars for a few years. On her own, she would identify art, quotations, and the thing that caught my attention—a 19-day layout.

Most Badi calendars overlay onto Gregorian ones, but my sweetie was inspired to overlay the Gregorian one onto the Badi calendar.

I had done my own research into the Baha’i calendar, or Badi calendar, over the years and had been enamored by the sense-making principles and mystical nature of the calendar.

The adoption of a new calendar in each dispensation is a symbol of the power of Divine Revelation to reshape human perception of material, social, and spiritual reality. Through it, sacred moments are distinguished, humanity’s place in time and space reimagined, and the rhythm of life recast. – The Universal House of Justice, letter to the Baha’is of the World, 10 July 2014

It is a perfect solar calendar; it resets based on relative celestial positions each year. This is really useful. By comparison, the Gregorian calendar has irrational reminders of time it has to account for. Not only that, but the Badi calendar embeds the lunar calendar in its celebration of some of its Holy Days.

But the mystical rabbit hole goes deeper. Each month, day, day of the week, and even year (within a set of 19 called a “Vahid”) is named after a divine attribute or quality. So, as we pass through “time,” we are very much passing through different combinations of attributes of God.

Suffice it to say, my wife’s craft project aligned with my calendar-geek side. It’s no surprise that our now-project Badi Calendar Art has been expanding a bit since we got married.

One of the names of God is the Fashioner. He loveth craftsmanship. Therefore any of His servants who manifesteth this attribute is acceptable in the sight of this Wronged One. Craftsmanship is a book among the books of divine sciences, and a treasure among the treasures of His heavenly wisdom. This is a knowledge with meaning, for some of the sciences are brought forth by words and come to an end with words. 

– Baha’u’llah, Additional Tablets and Extracts from Tablets Revealed by Baha’u’llah

It’s interesting doing a craft project with your spouse that you give out into the world. In some ways, it is just like any other common endeavour. You have to consult, try things out, change direction, and offer each other encouragement for such an, at times, vulnerable process of making art.

We recently released our Reflection & Meditation Journal. There are many wonderful journals out there, but we wanted to ask ourselves how the structure of a reflection journal could take the shape of reflecting the teachings of the Faith in its themes. It became clear to us that we wanted to make a tool that could help embolden people’s capacity to bring themselves to account, while still being flexible enough to allow for personal reflexivity in the process.

We are happy to announce and share the journal on our website, badicalendarart.com. But to be honest, the process has been the most valuable thing to me and Sarah. Having a family craft project has given us not only an outlet for creativity and mutual striving, but also joy in our endeavour to bring the beauty and practicality of some of the teachings to hand, creatively–it has become a precious point of unity for our newly formed family.

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Noah Hamilton

Noah spent two years homefront pioneering in the U.S. before working at the Welcome Center of the Baha’i House of Worship for North America, followed by another pioneering post. After completing his Master’s in sociology, he relocated to Luxembourg, where he now lives with his wife, Sarah, and stepdaughter. He works as a freelance communications professional, writes, creates music, and makes art inspired by the Baha’i Faith.