Archive for February, 2011

 

Say you're looking for a photo about a Baha'i activity. How can you negotiate your way around on our Baha'i Views /Flitzy Phoebie site on Flickr and not get totally lost? Click on Collections. That's the secret. Collections will take you to sets, which will take you to a particular photo — without having to sift through hundreds of photostream pages.

• Baha'i administration
• Baha'i children's classes
• Baha'i devotionals
• Baha'i feasts
• Baha'i friends
• Baha'i firesides
• Baha'i holy days
• Baha'i intensive programs of growth
• Baha'i pilgrimage
• Baha'i prayers
• Baha'i music
• Baha'i reflection meetings
• Baha'i study classes
• Baha'i youth and junior youth

If you just want something artful or whimsical — the equivalent of the "I'm Feeling Lucky" on the Google search page — go to Artful sets.

 

 

And did you know that you can get an RSS feed to the photos that show up on Baha'i Views /Flitzy Phoebie? Go here:

 

 

OK, maybe this was more than you wanted to know about this stuff. I'll stop. -gw

 

Up on the rooftop/ Click, click, click / Down thru the chimney with / Good Saint Nick /

 

I had lunch with Tony last week. Tony is a child psychiatrist who shares a passion with me for early childhood mental health. This is a succinct summary of the relationship between the brain and … relationships. -gw

 

A few months back Debbie and her husband Tom visited Egypt as part of an Eastern Mediterranean cruise. Here are her thoughts yesterday at an Ayyam-i-Ha party on seeing Alexandria and Cairo.

 

 

These are incredible times for Middle Eastern countries, very much in keeping with the expectations that come from a reading of Shoghi Effendi and the other Central Figures of the Baha'i Faith. For many this is a time of great optimism on the one hand and fear on the other.

 

On the ride in to work today I listened to National Public Radio in which there was mention of the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine 5 years afterwards. A malaise is back. What does that say? Politics alone — democracy even – doesn't of itself change hearts. What does change hearts is spiritual transformation that can only come from religion And not just any religion is up to the task in today's world. Baha'is would argue, it is the Faith of Baha'u'llah that addresses current conditions. -gw

 

Bonita and I went to three Ayyam-i-Ha parties over the weekend. I noticed the photos from the neighborhood celebration we went to in NE Tacoma yesterday up on the sidebar on Jeunesse Baha'i today thanks to a Flickr gadget. -gw

 

 

An actual photo from Tim & deb's annual Ayyam-i-Ha party and funny gift exchange. Watch this space for the complete photo set. -gw

 

Happy Ayyam-i-Ha to all of my Internet friends and acquaintances. Let's build community wherever we are in the world. -gw

 

 

 

 

 

Bonita and I did our first canoe paddle of the year a couple of weeks ago at Glen Cove on the Key Peninsula. We canoed on … water … not snow. We're chickens, not snow geese, Tom. -gw

 

If I go missing in the dark

Illuminate your heart so I can find you

'Cause in this forest we call life

The howling winds of hate and fear are growing stronger

And I can't sing this song forever

'Cause we're running out of time

If we don't find a way to get along

We'll go missing in the dark

The last several days while riding back and forth to work I have been listening to the self-titled 2010 album by Eric Harper . I can't believe how rich the texture of the songs on it are. I've checked out live versions of some of the songs on YouTube. Missing in the Dark is performed with great exuberance and percussion accompaniment at a Nanaimo coffee house up on Vancouver Island where Eric has been recently living.

 

 

Eric is, of course, the Baha'i musician who learned as a teenager flamenco guitar technique while living in Portugal where his parents were Baha'i pioneers. Yet his first love, as he told the guests for a house party on Vashon Island I attended last year, was metal music. He combined metal and flamenco performing on Mimosa's Two EP. I played "Layli and Majnun" off the album at the end of the last Area Teaching Comittee meeting, which was held in our home, and had Lisa and Sandy's heads bobbing. Baha'i-inspired hard rock/metal music –  now that's rather uncommon, isn't it? The album version of "Missing in the Dark" is a great example of this rather rare genre.

 

But that's not the only great song. "Starry Night" with Gergana Velinova starts out soft and lyrical, gets loud and rockin', then back to soft. There is an anthem-like quality to "MIssing in the Dark" but also portions of many of the other songs – like "Say." To my ears, the album version of "Rain" is a great Killers of a song.

 

Eric's music has a soft side with "Even Though…" There are two versions of a song good and ready for a Baha'i marriage ceremony entitled "You Complete Me." An instrumental, "Under the Lunar Sky," with its distinctive Spanish-guitar finger technique rounds out the mix. -gw

 

 

 

 

 

The photos we took from Kay and Jim's Baha'i wedding are up and flickr. Boy, does having a wedding in a Victorian Bed and Breakfast make for an incredible backdrop for photos of a joyous event. -gw