Mystic Nightingales

O mystic nightingale! Abide not but in the rose-garden of the spirit.
(Baha'u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words)

Not sure if you can hear it without registering but here is the song of a nightingale (Be sure to right click on your mouse and choose open in new tab/window so that you can continue reading as you listen :)
By reinsamba (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=18799) Nightingale song 3.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17185 )


We went to Elizabeth Park again yesterday to enjoy the roses during our after dinner evening stroll. If you asked me to name a flower that I think of most in connection with the Baha'i Faith it would have to be the rose. Perhaps it is the natural connection with the "Most Great Festival" of Ridvan. A description of the rose-filled days that are commemorated during the Ridvan Festival is as follows:


"Every day," Nabil has related, "ere the hour of dawn, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four avenues of the garden, and would pile them in the center of the floor of His blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when His companions gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they would be unable to see each other across it. All these roses Bahá'u'lláh would, with His own hands, entrust to those whom He dismissed from His presence every morning to be delivered, on His behalf, to His Arab and Persian friends in the city." "One night," he continues, "the ninth night of the waxing moon, I happened to be one of those who watched beside His blessed tent. As the hour of midnight approached, I saw Him issue from His tent, pass by the places where some of His companions were sleeping, and begin to pace up and down the moonlit, flower-bordered avenues of the garden. So loud was the singing of the nightingales on every side that only those who were near Him could hear distinctly His voice. He continued to walk until, pausing in the midst of one of these avenues, He observed: 'Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with burning passion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?'
(Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 153)

The nightingale is also a frequent image that is embroidered into the rich tapestries of the Baha'i Writings. It is lovely to think of a bird that loves roses. Such a notion is supported by the Wikipedia entry on nightingales which also mentions that nightingales breed in Europe and South West Asia but winter in Southern Africa. Pity I was not aware of that growing up but lovely to think that, as a child, unbeknownst to me I may have spent Southern African nights sleeping immersed in the song of nightingales.