Nowruz 2015

This evening the sun will pass the vernal equinox, bringing a much-awaited Spring (at least for us in the winter-bound US). That also means it's Nowruz, usually defined as Persian or Iranian New Year, but as I noted some years back:

It's a pretty broad brush: Iranians, of course, and Kurds, Afghans, many Turks, a lot of other folks where greater Persian civilization once held sway up into Central Asia, and members of a number of religions — Iranians of all varieties, but also Parsees (Zoroastrians) everywhere (who invented the holiday), Baha'is, Syrian ‘Alawites, Turkish Alevis, Albanians of the Bektashi Sufi order (thank you, Wikipedia, I didn't know about that one) — and doubtless many I'm leaving out.

To all those folks, Nowruz Mobarak,  and for more background see my earlier post on the Haft Sin (the "seven S's"), which Michelle Obama explained in the White House's early Nowruz celebration.

Haft Sin Table