Want to learn more about festivals in Waldorf sschools?

If you have ever wondered how an egg-laying--or is it egg-hiding?--bunny became associated with Easter, a day commonly associated with the Christian holiday to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you are not alone.  Because it is part of the popular culture, many people are content with the idea that different religious and spiritual celebrations and traditions have blended together over time.  This may be especially true in the world today, particularly in places like the U.S., where so many cultures and traditions have come into contact with each other. Now more than ever, cultures and religions come into contact with others.  While it may happen more often today, these encounters and resultant "blends" are not unique to our time or our place.  They have happened throughout history whenever different cultures and spiritual traditions have encountered, blended with, and/or overlapped with others. 

 So let's look at an upcoming celebration we will have at Live Oak, the May Faire.  This year, it will be held on campus for the classes to experience and, unfortunately, we will not be able to invite you to join us due to the ongoing restrictions related to gatherings in this time of the pandemic.  If you have attended one in the past, however, you know that we have a little play where King Winter passes the responsibilities of upholding the seasons to the May Queen and her lively helper, Jack the Green.  These imaginative personifications and playful celebrations help set markers in time for the children to wake up to the rhythms of nature and the seasons.  Not only are these markers in time, they are more importantly markers in consciousness. 

When my first child was around 18 months old, I was advised to write down his vocabulary, which was obviously quite limited.  Even so, I knew all of his words and expressions intimately. Moreover, I was thoroughly convinced that I would never forget them.  Still, thank goodness, I did as I was advised.  For example, I wrote down "Uhn wawee an uhn guh digah!"  This was clearly translatable as "I want some water and I want to go for a ride in the big truck."  By the time my second child was eighteen months old, two and a half years later, I was amazed to look back and realize how much of this precious dialect of my son's I had forgotten.  It had evolved and it had been added to by my daughter's own unique language--which I also preserved.  Today, these little Rosetta Stones for each child are some of my favorite treasures.  Besides their sentimental value, they remind me of just how surely life keeps moving and how I must occasionally stop and take it in, how I must do things to celebrate and mark the moments, lest they be covered by the sand dunes of forgetfulness. 

Seasonal and religious celebrations serve similar functions.  The flowers don't bloom and wither all of the sudden.  The general trend of average temperatures does not make a sudden shift because the calendar says it is the first day of spring.  These things shift rather gradually, like the growth of hair.  When someone with whom we interact each day grows a beard, we accept the changes daily.  In fact we hardly notice.  This could go on for a year.  However, we notice it profoundly if they suddenly return one day clean-shaven.  The growth experience is more akin to our experiences of everyday life and of the seasonal changes. 

Today, more than ever, human beings in cultures like ours are removed from a more intimate experience of nature.  We live in extremely convenient houses with flowing water in all range of temperatures, with central heat, with blinds to block out light, with windows to block out wind and weather, with climate control, with cabinets and fridges stocked with food--regardless of what may or may not be actually in season for our locale--and electric lights.  Nature does not affect our daily experiences nearly as much as it did for our ancestors.  But is there a cost of this divide we have created for the sake of comfort and ease?  Do we lose something when our sleep is not more and less affected by the changing phases of the moon, when we can eat strawberries all year, when we may not ever feel ice-cold water on our skin, when we do not have to build fires for heat and cooking, when we do not have to hunt, harvest, or gather, when we can escape the summer heat with the touch of a button?  There could be physical benefits to some of these struggles that we have "convenienced" ourselves from.  Perhaps more importantly, there may be emotional and soul-spiritual benefits to really experiencing the rhythms of nature.  Personally, I believe that there are, but we all have to reach our own conclusions about that. 

We use the May Faire to place a marker in time and space for spring, this time when the earthly forces of life and growth miraculously resurrect from the dead of winter.  There are aspects of the fair that have brought up questions.  Why do we dance the May-Pole?  Why is it the fourth graders who dance?  Interestingly, people even ask why we only celebrate Christian holidays.  Let's work our way back.  The so-called Christian holiday has origins and elements that pre-date Christianity.  Eostre, for example, is the celebration that has transformed into "Easter".  The bunny and the eggs, according to some scholars may have originated from a Germanic celebration of Eostre.  In terms of fertility, it is easy to see the associations.  For people as connected to the earth, people who depended on the soil and rain of their lands to be fertile, such celebrations were not simply for fun.  They were appealing to the spiritual world for benevolence.  The May-Pole is also a remnant from Germanic Europe traditions.  It comes to us from people who had a particular reverence for sacred trees.  There have been other theories proposed about the symbolism, but no definitive evidence that such claims are true or accurate.  We use it in our celebration because it is beautiful.  Not only that, but it corresponds wonderfully with lessons we bring to the fourth graders, perhaps most easily obviated by form drawing lessons such as the one below. 

We call these types of Form Drawings "woven forms" and they are typical features of ancient Celtic, Gaelic, Nordic, and Germanic cultures.  While I could write a lot about Fourth Grade Form Drawing, suffice it say that this kind of form is realized when a student is able to methodically approach space and, by breaking a whole into parts, realize a new kind of wholeness again.  If you were to imagine this drawing as a bird's eye view of the May-Pole dance, you would be looking at the path of the dancers.  The red stream represents the path of dancers moving clockwise/sun-wise and the green represents those moving counter-sun-wise. Each dancer proceeds by passing inside and then outside as they encounter dancers in the other stream.  Thus the ribbons are woven around the pole. 

It was a wonderful moment in a recent rehearsal when a fourth grader said, "This is just like our form drawing!"  Teachers try not to state such obvious connections, but rather allow the children to explore and experience them.  When they happen, we quietly celebrate.  Ms Mercer and I gave each other a smiling glance and continued with practice. 

I thought that some of you might find this interesting since we cannot all gather for the May Faire this year.  I hope that it might also enhance your experience of the May Faire when we can return to community celebrations.