Festival of Light and Courage

The celebration of Archangel Saint Michael is traditionally celebrated as a religious holiday. In Waldorf schools it is also a time to consider reconnecting with the cosmic-divine. The same consideration occurs with all four festivals that make up the annual cycle: Saint Michael, Advent, Easter, Saint John, all linked to the seasons respectively: autumn, winter, spring, summer.

The Feast of St. Michael is preceded by the celebration of the autumn equinox, when the two ground poles are the same distance from the sun and light is perceived equally in both hemispheres. We can say it is a time of equilibrium for the earth. It is a time when day equals night.

In our atmosphere during this time of year meteoric iron falls to earth as rain of stars, it is a powerful healing force. In our blood iron is needed for strength. A person or small child with insufficient iron in their blood is anemic and lacking energy.

As teachers we help the children develop greater strength in many ways. Our students are encouraged to face challenges and enabled to overcome their own difficulties, overcome their fears, gain courage and confidence in themselves.

For us as teachers and parents this is a time that invites us to know our own limitations and fears, to find our own light and strength, to find our balance in life, to accompany our children with increasing success in this task that we have together to make them loving persons of good despite all the difficulties of the time.

Golden light is turning grey,
Mists begin to rule the day.
Bare the trees, their branches lift;
Clouds of dead leaves earthward drift.

Through the field the farmer goes,
Seeds of ripened corn he sows;
Trusts the earth will hold it warm,
Shelter it from cold and harm.

For he knows, that warmth and light
Live there, hidden from our sight;
And beneath a sheltering wing,
Deep below, new life will spring!

Deep below, deep below, new life will spring!