The Ninth Day of Ridvan

Baghdad in the Mid-1800's

'On the ninth day the family of Bahá'u'lláh also moved to the Najibiyyih, and the twelfth day was appointed for departure. Thus the Festival of Ridvan comprises twelve days. Throughout the twelfth day, people poured into the garden for their final farewells. At last the mules were loaded, the kajavihs (howdahs) were settled on them, the ladies and children took their seats in the Kajavihs, and towards sunset the red roan stallion was brought out for Bahá'u'lláh to mount. All those whose narratives have come down to us state that seeing Bahá'u'lláh in the saddle, and about to depart, evoked from the vast crowd heart-rending, unbearable cries of distress. The call: 'Allah-u-Akbar' - 'God is the Greatest' - rang out time and again. People threw themselves in the path of His horse, and as Aqa Rida expresses it, 'it seemed as if that heavenly steed was passing over sanctified bodies and pure hearts'. On that day for the first time they witnessed Bahá'u'lláh's splendid horsemanship. During all those years in Baghdad, although horses were never unavailable, Aqa Rida states that Bahá'u'lláh had always chosen to ride a donkey. Another symbolic sign of the divine authority that He now visibly wielded was the change in His headgear, on the first day of the Festival of Ridvan - the day He left His house in Baghdad for the last time, to take His residence in the Najibiyyih prior to His departure for the capital of the Turkish Empire. It was then seen that He was wearing a taj (crown), finely embroidered. A number of these tall felt headgears have been preserved: red, green, yellow and and white, beautifully adorned with embroidery of the highest quality and skill'.

(H.M. Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah - The King of Glory, p. 174)

Aviation Photographer Chad Slattery

BOEING 787-9

Mark Mathews

Inside a wave.

Idaho Small Business Owner

Idaho small business owner.

On the Design of the September 11 Memorial

A dramatic memorial was achieved;  I question the concept.

The fountains remind me of huge drain inlets.  

The falling water is a perpetual reminder of the buildings collapsing.

The foci are holes in the ground. I think it should have been skyward to the new tower.

Vallejo Street east of Jones

IMAGE BY ALAN JONES


Looking southwest on a small portion of Vallejo Street east of Jones, where at lower right a balustrade in the design created by Willis Polk is at the top of a ramp where the hill ascends sharply. --Alan Jones

Hazel Pohlmann

Hazel Pohlmann, Pebble Beach photographer.

Spring Flowers

Early California Impressionism.

Spring Flowers--John M. Gamble

From the Crocker Art Museum:

A leading California Impressionist, John Marshall Gamble acquired a national reputation as a painter of California meadows and hillsides laden with wildflowers. Born in Morristown, New Jersey, he spent his teenage years in New Zealand. He came to San Francisco at age 20 to study art at the California School of Design, first under Virgil Williams and then Emil Carlsen. He continued his training in Paris at the Académie Julian under academicians Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.

Gamble returned to San Francisco in 1893, but when his studio was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, he moved to Santa Barbara. In both locales, he rendered the state’s poppies, lupine, buckwheat, and ceanothus — often in combinations of complementary hues. Of these, the golden poppy, adopted as the state flower in 1903, was his favorite, as it seemed to evoke California’s color, youthful energy, and promise.

This coastal view depicts poppies and lupine at Goleta Point near Santa Barbara. Many of Gamble’s paintings depict the Santa Barbara region where, by the 1920s, he had achieved success and earned the appellation Dean of Santa Barbara Artists. In 1929, he joined the faculty of the Santa Barbara School of the Arts, teaching drawing and landscape painting. Failing eyesight slowed his painting in later years. He died at the age of 93.

John Marshall Gamble (American, 1863–1957), Spring Flowers (Poppies and Lupine, Goleta Point), n.d. Oil on canvas, 12 in. x 16 in. (30.48 cm x 40.64 cm), Crocker Art Museum, Melza and Ted Barr Collection, 2008.102

On The Persecution of the Prophets

"Consider the past. How many, both high and low, have, at all times, yearningly awaited the advent of the Manifestations of God in the sanctified persons of His chosen Ones. How often have they expected His coming, how frequently have they prayed that the breeze of Divine mercy might blow, and the promised Beauty step forth from behind the veil of concealment, and be made manifest to all the world. And whensoever the portals of grace did open, and the clouds of divine bounty did rain upon mankind, and the light of the Unseen did shine above the horizon of celestial might, they all denied Him, and turned away from His face — the face of God Himself."  Baha'u'llah

Muriel on Castro Street

Muriel on Castro Street about 1921.

Northern California Spring 2019 Bloom

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SPRING BLOOM 2019

The Mirror of the World

April 11, 1912 was ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s first day in America.  Reporters were transported by tugboat to board the Cedric.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s first words were about journalism.

“The pages of swiftly appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world....But it behooveth the editors of the newspapers to be sanctified from the prejudice of egotism and desire, and to be adorned with the ornament of equity and justice.” 


      

The Art of the Photograph

Photographer Unknown.

Misty Thames, London, 1931

San Francisco

Image of San Francisco by Anya Bananya

Tilted Cone

TILTED CONE, MUSEUM OF GLASS, TACOMA

Cover by Yoyoka