Celebrating Ayyám-i-Há

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Ayyám-i-Há is a festival of hospitality, charity, gift giving, and preparing for the Bahá’í Fast.

The days of Há—Ayyám-i-Há—are upon us, and our family has prepared by making decorations, thinking of ways to be of service in our neighborhood, and creating joyful activities to share as a family in the afternoons and evenings when our children are home from school.

Last night when the sun set, it was time to initiate the festivities. Our youngest son lit two candles, and we asked the children to hide in the pantry while my husband hid the gifts around the house. Before finding the gifts, he read a special rhyme to each of them, giving them a clue where the gift was hidden. He times them on a stopwatch and makes it a game, so that at the end of four nights, the child with the fastest time gets to be the first to choose one of three balloons which have different amounts of money hidden inside.

After opening the simple gifts each night, we do a fun activity together and eat delicious homemade cookies and cakes together. Last night the fun activity was dancing together and making it like a party with the lights out (except for the blinking Christmas lights that we use only during Ayyám-i-Há). The other activities we have planned are a treasure hunt, a hand-painting poster, watching a movie together, and eating dinner at a restaurant.

Each day, the children will get to write down on a nine-pointed star a service they performed for someone. The only requirement is doing it with joy. At the end of Ayyám-i-Há we will read them out loud and celebrate a great sense of purposefulness and reward for doing good by helping others, especially those who are poor and needy.

While the children are at school, I have planned a gathering with a group of mothers in my neighborhood to bring them baked sweets and sobolo (a local sweet drink) while we hang out together. All of them are struggling to survive and working very hard to support their families and raise their children. It is this group of women with whom I will be hosting a gathering in our home for discussing the significance of mothers in the sight of God and their role in the spiritual education of their children. I am looking forward to this next month.

Another way for me to be of service this year is to buy Ghanaian meals prepared on the roadside and distribute them to various people I know who are struggling for their survival and whose lives are full of needs. When visiting them, I will bring some of the cookies we made as well.

In a relatively short time in our new neighborhood, by the grace of God, I have felt able to connect with almost everyone I’ve met. It is this spot on earth where God intended me to live at this time in my life, so I make every effort possible to be a channel of His love through being genuinely kind, caring, generous, and joyful. It feels like a blessing to have met these souls, as if they are a gift from God, from whom my heart gets to experience great joy. For me, Ayyám-i-Há are the days of extending my heart to as many souls as I can with whom I have had the bounty of meeting, especially those whose lives experience such material hardships.

Descriptions of Ayyám-i-Há can be found in the Bahá’í writings.
 

Pamela Douglas is a Bahá’í striving to live with the fullest consciousness of the oneness of the human race and to bring forward an ever-advancing spiritual civilization. An American who has lived in Africa for more than five years, she has three children and loves baking, drumming, singing, dancing, and writing. Her blog is Gems of Oneness.

 

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Updated on 6.14.13