jumping the fire, and eid mobarak

So it’s the Nowruz, the biggest holiday for Persian people worldwide. They celebrate the exact hour of the equinox which marks the change in seasons – this Saturday at 10:32am PST (check your local time here).

NOWRUZ info at wikipedia here.



The Tuesday night before Nowruz, you’re supposed to jump over a fire to leave sickness and weakness behind you, and take strength and health from the flames. I wrote about it last year in a little personal side-project blog here (with links). I missed the Chahārshanbe Sūrī festivities at the local middle eastern market this Tuesday, so we’re going to build our own fire in the backyard tonight so we can jump the fire together.

“Spring cleaning, or Khouneh Tekouni (literally means ‘shaking the house’) or ‘complete cleaning of the house’ is commonly performed before Nowruz. Persians (Iranians and Tajiks) and other groups (Kurds, Armenians, Azarbaijanis and Balochs) start preparing for the Nowruz with a major spring-cleaning of their houses, the purchase of new clothes to wear for the new year and the purchase of flowers.”

This morning as I hid in my room I heard a flurry of activity downstairs. The visiting aunt and uncle were cleaning the entire house in preparation for nowruz, and I only felt a little guilty for not helping out. With my limited Farsi it’s difficult to communicate and because I’m not a very capable housewife they usually end up going back and re-doing whatever cleaning thing I attempt. This afternoon the ladies are out on a shopping excursion (Persian ladies LOVE Macy’s, Nordstrom, and TJ Maxx) and the guys are walking around without shirts in the backyard “fixing” stuff and I am taking advantage of my last quiet hours before complete chaos descends upon the house.

The next two days will be spent continuing the shopping and cleaning, and most importantly preparing the Haft Sīn, or 7 s, for Nowruz. There’s all sorts of tradition tied in with the items you prepare. They’ve been sprouting plates of wheatgrass and mung beans for two weeks now. There was some drama a couple of days ago because the little baby plants weren’t growing quickly enough. (Do you leave them inside? Take them outside during the day? Spritz them evenly every hour or water vigorously twice a day? Opinions were passionately divided in the H household.)

Here’s info from Wikipedia about the Persian New Year table [source].



The Haft Sīn هفت سین items are:

• sabzeh – wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish – symbolizing rebirth
• samanu – a sweet pudding made from wheat germ – symbolizing affluence
• senjed – the dried fruit of the oleaster tree – symbolizing love
• sīr – garlic – symbolizing medicine
• sīb – apples – symbolizing beauty and health
• somaq – sumac berries – symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
• serkeh – vinegar – symbolizing age and patience

Other items on the table may include:

• Sonbol – Hyacinth (plant)
• Sekkeh – Coins – representative of wealth
• traditional Iranian pastries such as baghlava, toot, naan-nokhodchi
• Aajeel – dried nuts, berries and raisins
• lit candles (enlightenment and happiness)
• a mirror (symbolizing cleanness and honesty)
• decorated eggs, sometimes one for each member of the family (fertility)
• a bowl of water with goldfish (life within life, and the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving). As an essential object of the Nowruz table, this goldfish is also “very ancient and meaningful” and with Zoroastrian connection.^[45]
• rosewater, believed to have magical cleansing powers
• the national colours, for a patriotic touch
• a holy book (e.g., the Avesta, Qur’an, Bible, Torah, or Kitáb-i-Aqdas) and/or a poetry book (almost always either the Shahnama or the Divan of Hafez)

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