Spring 2007

1 Jalal 164 B.E. – Monday, April 09, 2007

Spring is here and the birds are singing. There are many birds outside our house. Some nest in the stone pine tree and some are from the neighbors’ yards and trees. We even have a few pigeons flying in from somewhere. The peg ions come to eat the olives off the ground. I don’t have the olive tree sprayed any more, so it produces olives every year and they fall to the ground. All winter we’ve had birds eating olives. Not that I mind, the cats and I enjoy watching the birds pick the olives up off the ground.

We have mourning doves and sparrows nesting in the stone pine tree and the elm tree. There are other birds as well. It doesn’t get so cold in Las Vegas that the birds leave for the winter. I don’t think mourning doves migrate anyway. Early every morning and evening there is a mourning dove calling, it is the most haunting sound I’ve ever heard. It is beautiful, one of the most hauntingly beautiful sounds.

Now that spring is here, I like to go on the back patio and say morning prayers. The sound of a mourning dove calling as I say my prayers adds something to my mourning meditation. For some reason, mourning doves have always had spiritual connotations. Maybe it’s the fact that they sound like they are weeping for the departed, but they always seem to make mourning prayers and meditation a bit special.

It’s in spring that I notice the birds more than any other time of the year. That could be because they are building nest, laying eggs and getting ready to raise a family. It’s in spring that I notice the call of the mourning dove more than any other time of the year. It’s in spring that I enjoy most setting on the patio with my prayer book reading the prayers revealed by Baha’u’llah. There is something special about spring, there is something spiritual about spring.

Naw-Ruz is past and Ridvan will begin next week, these are the spring Holy Days I celebrate. Ridvan begins on April 21 and last twelve days. The first, ninth and twelfth day are Holy Days. Ridvan is the Declaration of Baha’u’llah. I’m looking forward to the celebration and seeing what poems I write about the event.