Cyber Sofreh: Day 1

In the days leading up to the celebration of the New Year at the Spring Equinox, two rituals unfold that measure the passing of time:

Bahá'ís fast while the sun is up, watching the clock to determine the precise moment of sunrise and sunset, and many Iranians around the world watch sabzeh, sprouts of wheat or lentil, grow from seed into luscious plates of green grass. Whether you are watching the hours of sunlight grow longer, or the centimeters of sabzeh grow taller- Spring is clearly around the corner.

This span of consecrated time very roughly corresponds with the season between the Christian liturgical calendar's timing of Candlemas- the ritual purification of Mary- and Easter, the death and rebirth of Christ. Curious.

What do these observances have in common? Decorated Eggs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cristic/ / CC BY 2.0

Most people have a hard time coming up with a coherent explanation of the connection between colored eggs, an Easter Bunny, and the crucifixion of Christ while keeping a straight face.

During the two weeks before Naw-Rúz, the dishes of sabzeh on the sofreh (cloth/altar-like spread) inconspicuously set up in the Bahá'í Center where I grew up were a more obvious symbol to me- Green, New Life, Spring Equinox. As I saw more elaborate sofrehs in friends homes, with the traditional Seven Items of the Haft Sin, plus special individual touches reflecting that families individuality- colored eggs, candles, a mirror- it drove home the point that Naw-Rúz (NoRuz) was about creation and renewed life. It's hard to take any other message away from it. That made Fasting and deprivation all the more confusing in contrast.

Candlemas, Imbolc, is commemorated by pagans and witches as the moment in the wheel of the year when new life first sprouts underground-invisible to the eye-after the harshness of winter. The victory of life over decay. Those sprouts equal the first fluttering and kick you feel from a newly growing baby in the womb of Mother Earth, a sign of her fertility and sexual powers that keep us moored to this planet. The Christian overlay of Candlemas's Ritual Purification of Mary onto this seasonal pagan fertility festival (as well as onto Rome's Lupercalia- the precursor of Valentine's Day) makes a very clear and demeaning statement about Mother Earth's sexuality as something from which we all need saving, rather than the ground of our being. In fact, it makes a statement about all mother's sexuality. The Christian rite of "churching" (and before it, Mosaic law) prevented women from entering sacred spaces for 40 days after childbirth, because they were seen as ritually impure from such a carnal, vaginal, bodily act. This was true of all women, and is the root of the practice of baptism- to clean the vajayjay off of the newborn and re-birth it with the amniotic fluid of the patriarchal Church. What astounds me, is that this belief in the polluting nature of female sexuality was so strong, not even giving birth to Jesus Christ, "God Himself" exempted a woman from it. Some theologians claim Mary wasn't defiled by the act of vaginally birthing Jesus of Nazareth, because he was, well- Jesus, but I think the fact of the establishment of a Feast Day for her Ritual Purification speaks for itself. They made an example out of her, for all the rest of us. Not even pushing God out through your pussy could redeem it- Ηappy Candlemas. The Holy Male Metaphysical Infibulation of Biopower vis-a-vis the Church had to step in to redeem her. Even her. And subsequently, everyone else because of her kind. Later, as you may have heard, Jesus had to go to the trouble to die for our other bodily sins.

So, going back to Easter, the Rabbit, and the colored eggs that wound up on the Sofreh Haft Sin and inside the Easter baskets of children at this same Spring time of year....What does this have to do with the Fast?

Before the Arab invasion and Islamic conquest of Iran, the month proceeding NoRuz, Esfand, was sacred to the Mother Goddess Spendarmat. The Mother of all humanity and of the first human couple, her month was filled with celebrations of love, sexuality, womankind, and fertility. The Feast of Esfandgan in February honors mothers and unconditional love to this day. The imposition of a fasting ritual rooted in defamation of the material world during what was originally a month of reverence towards the Divine Female Progenitor of that world strikes me as a fairly obvious example of "churching." In Christianization, the old gods and goddesses became demons and their celebrations were coopted by the Church. The same is true of Islam, or any conquering religion. And in the establishment of a uniquely Iranian Bahá'í calendar, the Fast has implications of biopower, and a continuing "churching" or ritual purification of the female body. Of all human bodies.

So I am happy that colored eggs have remained on the sofreh for Iranians, and I am happy they remain a focal point of Easter. (Easter, named for another fertility goddess.) The Eggs are about honoring what rituals of purification actually shut out: Sexuality. They were dyed red and passed around long before Jesus was ever born. Centuries before.

This year the Letters of the Living Feast-during-the-Fast will be a Cyber Sofreh. A table set with reminders of what we consciously cherish as a community, no matter how rag-tag, and also of What We Disallow.

Day 1- Eggs.