A small sample from among the countless artistic expressions created by individuals and communities around the world for the occasion of the bicentenary of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh.
The Bahá’ís of Duncan, a town in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, presented a specially-commissioned carved bench in a traditional Cowichan ceremony to the seniors’ home on the Cowichan Reserve. The Cowichan are an indigenous people in Western Canada. The yellow cedar bench, engraved by local artist Trevor Husband, features a large and intricately-carved eagle—a bird with significant symbolism both in the culture of the Cowichan people and in the Bahá’í Writings. Carved into the wood above and below the eagle are the following words of Bahá’u’lláh, in the Hul’q’umi’num language and in English: “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.”