chickpea pastries, and new spring fashions. Families gather around their haftseen, a ceremonial spread that some describe as a mashup of Easter, Passover, Day of the Dead, and Chinese New Year symbology.
My own sofreh sits across the room. There’s colored eggs (for fertility), apples (for beauty), garlic (for health), sabzeh (for rebirth), coins (for prosperity), dried fruit of the Lotus tree (for love), sumac spice (the color of sunrise), and books (poetry for knowledge, or a Koran for faith).
Everywhere are flowers and sweets. Upon a wooden pomegranate is written a poem by the famed Iranian poet, telling us that neither sorrow nor joy rain eternal.
Every time I see the sofreh, I am reminded of how entangled our seemingly different traditions really are. All revolving around rebirth and the equinox. All of them regarding love, purity, faith, wisdom, and the beauty that is life in all its forms.