Baha'is around the world celebrated their new year, marked by the spring equinox in the northern
hemisphere, on March 20th. "Naw-Ruz," has been celebrated in Iran from time
immemorial, and was confirmed by Bahá'u'lláh as a holy day. It coincides with the first day of the first month of the year in the Bahai calendar.
In Ottawa our celebrations are more subdued yet these observances take different multi-cultural forms in the 120,000 localities where Baha'is reside around the world.
They typically, however, include devotions, celebrations, and feasting. The festival comes at the end of a 19-day fast, in which Bahá'ís over 15 abstain from food and drink between
sunrise and sunset to become detached from all save God.
This year we had well over 400 people show up to celebrate and there were over 1,500 pictures taken! Here are 150 of the most
memorable.
If anyone ever needed a reason not to take pictures in your camera's black and white mode: that you capture a 1 in a 1000 photo like this and cannot view it
in full colour.
This speaks to not knowing where the delete button is on your camera. :)
Brian sporting trendy ethnic garb.
Ladies and Gentleman...Mr. Andy Andrews!
I'm not sure if it's visible from the picture, but all of the
Rouhani's have string around their waists that is connected to each other. One word: inseparable. (Photogenic works as well :)
Look at that right hook!
I swore I was seeing double for hours after this picture.
