Seasonal Festivals & Their Meaning
Light and Darkness (Waldorf Education, Part Three-ish)
In an age where the secular and religious are often pitted against each other, there is a universal gathering place we can meet: in the spiritual world of nature.
What do I mean, when I refer to the spiritual?
It’s that core element that brings life into animating our bodies. We are all affected by hurricanes, snowstorms, parching heat, arctic winds. As the light lessens around us in the Northern Hemisphere, and the temperatures drop, we find ourselves drawing inward, encountering what we find inside our self. I grew up in Alaska, with the highest suicide rate in the country, attributed to the extreme darkness that descends during the coldest winter months. The wildest expanse leaves us humans grappling with that which renders us only human, not invincible at all.
Waldorf education is rooted in a seasonal education of community celebrations, with a rhythm that anticipates, prepares, is present in, and celebrates each variation of the year.
Autumn Equinox is marked by Michaelmas, a season for bringing in the harvest grown in the abundance of summer sunshine, forging our inner strength as our world moves into external darkness. As we nurture a space in our self to hold the light, we are led right into Martinmas. Martinmas is a celebration of walking through the dark, shining our inner light, marked with a community lantern walk after the sun sets.
Striking, isn’t it, that Halloween and All Souls Day falls between these two?
As we move nearer to Halloween, I’m struck by the chatter I observe among parents who mourn the now commonplace Halloween festivities of visual gore and madness. This one night in the year where the portal to the underworld thins, and we take stock of the darkness that we can only know from being in light.
As we move closer to Christmas, we move into celebrating The Light of the World, the Sun of God, as the days begin to lengthen after December 21st, the Winter Solstice. I see the Son and Sun as interchangeable forces, bringing beyond-earth resonance to our lives. In the depth of darkness, we can witness the mystical experience of light that is beyond our human capacity to comprehend. If we feel lost, there are ways to anchor ourselves to our own knowing, by connecting to the seasonal flows of nature, as an effect of the radiating influence of the Sun.
There are those who are wary of any belief system that is linked to nature. And there are those who declare themselves proud pagans, “a person who’s religion is not Judaism, Islam, or Christian”, “one who has little or no religion and delights in sensual pleasures and material goods”.
I suggest that nature is always how we have known God in our humanity. When you live surrounded by Mother Nature’s stern ferocity of avalanches, snow storms, and massive tides, you ignore reality to your peril.
“It's as disruptive to the current religious model as the massive upgrade Peter received in the book of Acts, when he went up onto a rooftop to pray, went into a deep trance, and saw an open-eye vision of a giant tablecloth descending from heaven to earth, filled with many different kinds of animals that the Law of Moses said were unclean and forbidden to eat. Peter was told by a heavenly voice of authority, "Rise, Peter, Kill and eat!" Which flew in the face of his religious beliefs, his ego perhaps (pride in staying clean and following the law in comparison with those dirty heathens who eat nasty unclean meats like shrimp or pigs...).
This particular story has been highlighted to me as an example of how disruptive the Sovereign Way of following Jesus (the Christ) into this next Move of God / New Earth / New Society, etc. is to fundamental Christians who have "kept themselves pure" from paganism, so-called "witchcraft" (which is gossip and manipulation, not making healing potions or using crystals!! PSA!!) other religions,"idolatry" etc.
So much of it stems from a sense of loyalty to people's "idea of Jesus" or "idea of God" ...
I was there once myself and very passionate about "staying pure" and "do not fellowship with darkness" kind of stuff. Which is not 100% wrong either......” -Christy M.
What if this is our opportunity to witness a shift in epochs? To learn to see with our hearts of feeling and life, held in check by the structures of the world we inhabit and breath with?
I credit growing up in Alaska for my world perspective. I come from a Celtic and Native American lineage, which I feel predisposes me to relate to the mystics. There are different ways of knowing that are present in different cultures, the same as being fluent in different languages brings us different aspects of understanding a people. Alaska is representative of indigenous cultures that range from Aleuts, Northern Eskimos (Inupiat), Southern Eskimos (Yuit), the Interior Indians (Athabascans) down to the Southeast Coastal Indians (Tlingit and Haida). Each one has its own unique expression. Then there are the old Russian Orthodox communities, and Filipino communities (one of the largest ethnic groups in Alaska), to say nothing of all the oil rig workers “from down South” who come back and forth for work. Each adaptation of culture provides a discernible flavor in the cocktail mix of humanity.
Now living in the Northeast, I’m regularly reminded of how the Salem witch trials happen. Welcome to the cancel-culture shame-fest of the internet. Anything true and beautiful can be turned false and corrupted, as it’s spun through a particular curated filter as truth, across the globe, in a millisecond.
Anything that isn’t subjugated to current established structures is banished.
This is about how we (do or don’t) think. And (do or don’t) feel. And the divide that persists between the two.
The concept of mysticism and the occult has changed since Steiner was using the terms. Today it conjures up an impression of black magic rituals in service to the Devil. A hundred years ago, “occult practices” referred to mysticism, alchemy, and esoteric practices that were reserved for sharing with a select few. (Sounds like the original twelve disciples to me.) The 1960s brought burgeoning interest in spiritual practices, with astrology, tarot, and witchcraft gaining mainstream exposure. As these practices gain popular acceptance, people are feeling unsettled, displaced, and at odds with the worldview they’ve grown up in. It’s good that spiritual practice is becoming consciously accessible to the lay-person, while also unavoidably creating rifts with that we’ve deferred to as authorities. (As Christianity unsettled the Romans.)
(I say this as one raised Catholic in the northwestern wild lands, which feels worlds away from northeastern Catholicism.)
When we contemplate nature, we can see and appreciate our selfhood in the tapestry of life. Seeing yourself in context as a speck in a giant ocean, or on a vast mountaintop, in the veins of a leaf, or the spread of a flower, is another way to take in a grander, fuller, richer human feeling, to being a speck behind a screen in a digital world. It makes sense to view human foibles through the lens of the natural world.
We are intrinsically linked up with the natural elemental forces of the Earth: earth, air, fire, and water. These forces influence our physical and spiritual well-being through our environment and the subtle energies around us. In many spiritual traditions, the elements are personified as beings (gnomes for earth, undines for water salamanders for fire, and slyphs for air) who interact with humans in the natural world. These elements influence our physical and psychological characteristics depending on where we live, the landscape and the prevailing climate.1
Rudolf Steiner explained how different geological regions are connected to specific elemental energies and how we can consciously work with these forces for personal development.2 It’s why I love living so near the Great Lakes, which hold one fifth of the world’s fresh water. It is said that 28% of the world’s surface fresh water flows over Niagara Falls into the Niagara River, and on out to the Atlantic Ocean. The proximity of all that water movement refreshes my energy in flows, ebbs, and eddies.
eddy: “a circular movement of water, counter to the main current, causing a small whirlpool”
“These eddies can transport cold, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean to the surface, creating hotspots of biological activity.”
“when you’re in a whirlpool, your body experiences a number of physiological changes that can have a positive impact on your health… the warmth of the water causes your blood vessels to expand, which can improve blood flow and lower your blood pressure”
No wonder this region has been home for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Underground Railroad, Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Movement, and our current LibertyMovement.org.
Practices like spending time outdoors, grounding exercises, and observing natural phenomena deepen our connection with the elemental world. Our task is to develop our individuality, to express our own values, in community with one another, and “emancipate ourselves from the earthly influences that underly national and racial” identities. The “elemental beings, responsible for balancing land and sea”, have created conditions where we can “develop our gifts and fulfill our destinies”3.
Within the natural world.
Thank you for journeying along with me as I sort through to bring together various ideas that are still percolating…
Let me know what parts resonate and bring clarity for you and which parts are still completing confusing and make no sense! It’s been a week I’ve been stewing over these words.
It’s always a work in progress.