April 21st this year marks the first day of the Festival of Riḍván, a 12-day period celebrated by Bahá'ís around the world to commemorate the 12 days that Bahá’u’lláh (the Promised One) spent in the garden of Riḍván outside Baghdad to declare that he was a Manifestation of God. In Arabic, Riḍván means paradise and is the name of the garden where Bahá’u’lláh stayed for 12 days. Days 1 (April 21), 9 (April 29) and 12 (May 2) are Bahá‘í Holy Days on which work is suspended.
Bahá'u'lláh made three other especially important declarations on the first day in the garden: he condemned religious war, which was permitted under certain conditions in Islam and the Bábí faith; he said there would not be another Manifestation of God for another 1,000 years; and he said that all the names of God were fully manifested in all things.
How is Riḍván celebrated? In addition to gatherings and prayers, flowers are also an important part of the celebrations, recollecting the garden. Read a little more in this blog post.
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Beltane is an ancient Gaelic festival celebrated at the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Like many rituals that are indigenous to the British Isles, the festivities drew their inspiration from local agricultural life, including native plants and animals. Flowers would traditionally be placed at doorways and in windows, or woven into garlands to decorate the barn. Nowadays, the festival has been revived by Celtic neopagans and Wiccans.
It is common to perform fertility rituals during this festival, such as maypole dancing which involves placing a pole in a field with ribbons attached and then each person, usually women and girls, will take a ribbon and dance around the pool as to weave their ribbons in a certain way. Maypole dancing is thought to have evolved from an ancient tree worship ritual.
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