Welcome, September! This is one of my favorite months because it is a month of new beginnings, which I love. Cooler weather, harvest, leaves turning colors, long walks and bike rides, apples and pumpkins, acorns, getting the house organized for fall, searching for things to make for the holidays, fall decorating!  So many wonderful things to love about September! 

September often seems to be about new beginnings.  Here in the South, the school children have been back to public school about a month, so perhaps it is not “new”, but  it still has that feel to me and my Northern upbringing (where we always started school the day after Labor Day) , that it is a time of possibility and change.

Two of our three children are finished homeschooling and are at out of state universities. One will be graduating college in December and the other is just beginning college. Our eighth grader is still homeschooling, but in a hybrid program this year as I have been having some serious health challenges. So it is a beginning that looks different than any of the other years we have been home learning, but it is still that autumnal feeling marked by the mood of Michaelmas.

The season of Michaelmas, for me, really lasts from a few weeks before Michaelmas until a week or so before Halloween.  In honor of this occasion, I have been reading the words of Rudolf Steiner from his lectures  collected and entitled, “Michaelmas and the Soul- Forces of Man”  In the fourth lecture, he relates the four major festivals of the year:  Michaelmas, Christmas, Easter and St. John’s.  He says, “ Easter: death, then resurrection; Michaelmas: resurrection of the soul, then death. This makes of the Michael Festival a reversed Easter Festival. Easter commemorates for us the Resurrection of Christ from death; but in the Michael Festival we must feel with all the intensity of our soul: In order not to sleep in a half-dead state that will dim my self-consciousness between death and a new birth, but rather, to be able to pass through the portal of death in full alertness, I must rouse my soul through my inner forces before I die. First, resurrection of the soul — then death, so that in death that resurrection can be achieved which man celebrates within himself.”

You can read these four lectures for yourself here:  http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MichSoul/MiSoul_index.html  There is also this really interesting collection of articles, lectures, verses and stories all about Michaelmas available in  Waldorf Journal Project #15, edited by David Mitchell.  You can find that here:   http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/WJP15.pdf

I love this festival as one that illuminates the soul into the winter, takes up the challenges in front of us as we wind our way ahead in the dark to help us find that small space of courage and bravery that lets us know we are not defeated yet. We have not given up yet. Imagine a humanity where this was the theme before us of overcoming, of bringing new into the world. I may be attacked along the way of this new birth and new bringing, but I am not decimated. I can move forward.

Here are the things that we are celebrating this month:

• September 1 – Labor Day
• September 8 – The Nativity of St. Mary, the Theotokos
• September 14 – Holy Cross Day
• September 23 – Autumn Equinox
• September 29 – The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

Ideas for Celebration:

For Labor Day, we are enjoying a day on our farm complete with riding and dreams of new projects to get completed before winter. Tomatoes are still coming in, and I am planning some fall and winter canning projects.

The Nativity of St. Mary and for Holy Cross Day, for us, are days primarily for celebrating in church and through prayer and  literature.  There are some lovely books about St. Mary and St. Helena for Holy Cross Day as well. 

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels is of course a big feast day in the church and also in Michaelmas in Waldorf Education.  You can see my Michaelmas Pinterest board for some ideas I collected: https://www.pinterest.com/carriedendtler/michaelmas/

The Domestic Life and The Home Mood

This month we are busy getting ready for winter on the farm – planting a fall/winter garden, gathering supplies for winter for the animals, decluttering. We will be hosting Thanksgiving this year, so I am already thinking about that.

To me, the fall becomes a time of turning inward; a time of gratitude and reflection.  How do my words, my actions, reflect my gratitude toward my Creator and toward my life?  How do I interact with others in order to show this?  There is a quote I often think about from Dr. Rudolf Steiner that talks about this. He says;

The cultivation of this universal gratitude toward the world is of paramount importance.  It does not always need to be in one’s consciousness, but may simply live in the background of the feeling life, so that, at the end of a strenuous day, one can experience gratitude, for example, when entering a beautiful meadow full of flowers……And if we only act properly in front of the children, a corresponding increase in gratitude will develop within them for all that comes to them from the people living around them, from the way they speak or smile, or the way such people treat them.”  Rudolf Steiner from “A Child’s Changing Consciousness As The Basis of Pedagogical Practice”

How do I really permeate this mood and carry it, even when things are overwhelming, is for this season of overcoming and courage as we head toward the longer nights of Winter. I think this is especially pertinent for those of us with teenagers and young adults who often are in the throes of figuring out who they really are, what turn their life is going to take as they launch. It can be a daunting time requiring inner strength on the part of the parent to really hold space.

One way I am working with the mood of autumn and MIchaelmas is through drawing and painting. I hope to be able to share some of this work on Instagram in the future. I am also able for the first time in decades to attend a weekday Bible Study, so I am looking forward to that.

Ideas for the Home:

• The seasonal table is transitioning to yellows with dried flowers, seed pods, bunches of oats or wheat or corn that are dried, cornucopias, nuts, acorns, leaves and little “helicopters.”
• I am going through and taking stock of fall and winter clothes and purging what we do not need. When the children were small, this was a time we often stocked up on woolens and hats.
• Fall menu planning – a time of chili, soup, stew, warming dishes. I am putting together some freezer meals for my husband and eighth grader.
• Crafting – I have some autumn crafting ideas on my Pinterest board, but I think I am going to start with Michaelmas crafts  and autumn lanterns. https://www.pinterest.com/carriedendtler/autumn/

Ideas for Celebrating this Month with Littles:

• Quick Autumn Ideas for Waldorf Kindergarten
• Favorite Fall Tales for the Waldorf Kindergarten
• Fall Stories for Puppets
• Cook, bake, and preserve with apples
• Crafts with leaves, although down here sometimes we don’t get the best color to our leaves until October
• Sing favorite Autumn songs

Ideas for Celebrating this Month With Older Children:

• A Beautiful Back to School Ceremony
• Start working on homemade holiday gifts
• Celebrate an attitude of kindness and gratitude
• Celebrate apple picking and cooking with apples
• Knit fall projects!
• Long bike rides and walks in the cooler air

Ideas for Celebrating this Month With Teens:

• Find great theater, museum, and festival events to attend
• Longer hiking, camping, and backpacking trips
• Bake and cook fall dishes
• Work on fall organizing and cleaning
• Stargazing
• Find new activities outside the home that your teen will adore
• Find  new knitting, crocheting, sewing, woodworking and woodcarving ideas to try

I would love to hear how you are finding September and working with the seasonal changes in your area of the world.

Blessings and love,

Carrie