The Birth of the Bab

Today was the commemoration of the Birth of the Bab, a manifestation and forerunner of Baha'u'llah. Our family attended the community celebration last night with prayers, readings and refreshments, and it was lovely... But the actual holy day awaited us in the morning and we had not a single plan for honoring it. That didn't feel right.

Before I went to bed, I sent the word out to my mama friends that there would be a birthday party for The Bab this afternoon at our house. And yes, there would be cake. Let me start by saying that I should ONLY throw parties without any prior foresight or thought. It leaves absolutely no room for stress and opens wide the doors of simplicity and joy. I never even had a chance to lose sight of the key components: the Guest of honor (in this case, The Bab), the children whose hearts I wished to connect to this Guest, and cake.

While Samaya was at school, Violet and I made a trip to the grocery store for the crucial ingredients. We ate lunch, baked cupcakes, whipped together some frosting, cleaned up the house. The children came and we all sat down to make watercolor cards to give to The Bab. When we had finished, we sat in a circle and read them out loud so He could hear them. There were hearts and stars and messages of love and...portraits. Today I asked Samaya, 'How did you know The Bab's favorite color was green?' (It is actually associated with Him.) But tomorrow I will attempt to convey "the impossibility of representing, in any human form, whether pictorially, in sculpture or in dramatic representation, the person of God's Manifestation"(UHJ) and that even attempting to do so is disrespectful. Their station too great. Our understanding too limited to even approach Their true nature through artistic representation. 

I read a brief story about The Bab's birth and early years, and then it was time to sing Happy Birthday. Though The Bab was there in spirit, He was not physically able to blow out His candles, and so we each took it upon ourselves to make a wish of peace for the world and blow out a candle for Him. Upon further consideration, it was also deemed necessary to eat two cupcakes each, one for ourselves, and one for...you get the point. And that was it. We played outside, we said our good byes, and, on another whim and stroke of utter (lazy) genius on my part, we made green ice cream for dinner. Definitely a new tradition. A whole bunch of kale thrown in the vitamin with frozen cubes of coconut milk and frozen bananas. Instant, healthy, fun dinner.