Tag Archives: autumn

All Saints Day and All Souls Day

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Honoring the past.

Honoring our ancestors.

Honoring the goodness in people now departed.

In this world that often feels chaotic and crazy, holding on to the ideals of the good people who have come before us can be a small lifeline of grounding and stability.

I hear from people all the time who don’t feel as if they have this within their family lines.  Maybe their family ancestors, at least those that they know of, aren’t who they want to be or who inspires them.  That’s why I think sometimes a spiritual practice can be so helpful, and All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day can be wonderful stepstones towards thankfulness and gratitude.

On All Saints’ Day, we remember those known and unknown who were holy.   I often think of how I can align with those known and unknown saints who stood up for the the right, the visionaries, the idealists.  What is my right, my vision, my ideal?  What people showed courage over fear, bravery over cowardice, and made a difference in the world?

In the Celtic Calendar, this day was called Samhain and was the beginning of the New Year. This beginning  implies that it is a space that hangs between the Old Year and the New.  This is how we began to see the boundary between the living and the dead can be blurred as we offer our great respect to those who have come before us.  The tradition of offering “soul cakes” to the dead began  out of great respect for the dead in many countries.  I also think this ties in with the warmth of the season – how do we show respect to the life before us?  Is it food, remembering, lighting candles, offering a prayer?  Death is part of Life, and finding a relationship between those two things is often something people try to avoid.  Yet, this is something that should be propelling what we do today – how do we take care of each other and the Earth as we don’t have forever here physically.

Create a beautiful harvest, an altar of remembrance, have a harvest dinner, plant some flower bulbs for the promise of spring!  Happy All Saints’ and All Souls’ from my family to yours.

Warmly,

Carrie

Halloween in the Waldorf Home

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October is one of my favorite months of the year!  Here in the Deep South, we are running temperatures are in the 40’s during the night and around the 70s during the day, so it feels crispy and cool in the morning. Typically at this time of year, we are just gearing up for cooler weather, the leaves on the trees changing colors and crunching under our feet, and preparations for Halloween, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are underway!

How will you celebrate this month in your homeschool?

The Eve of Samhain of the Celtic people became All Hallows’ Eve. This used to be the beginning of the New Year in the Celtic calendar, and it was a sacred time. This night was a blurring of space and time. Great respect was paid in Pagan and past cultures to the dead – including the offering of food, fire, “soul cakes”. This persists in many cultures today, or at least the idea of spiritual connection with prayers for the deceased. We contemplate the relationship of living to dying this time of year. How do we die to ourselves, to something great than ourselves in a culture rife with selfishness and lack of community? How do we find a right relationship to death in a world where violence is rife?

One thing that comes to mind is to connect to the Earth, the wisdom of those with courage to face death. Perhaps this is the time to think about bringing “the light” inside as the days grow longer, darker and colder.  “Jack O’ Lanterns” and other kinds of lanterns are popular this time of year, as are crafts and cooking and baking surrounding the Fall Harvest. 

Focusing on what the animals and plants are doing this time of year in song, verse and story is natural, and to include the role of those little beings, the gnomes and the dwarves,  who help carry lanterns and bring the little animals to Mother Earth.  There are also many wonderful opportunities to tell stories about the leaves changing and falling off the trees and the seeds going to sleep for Winter.

This would be a wonderful time to switch your Nature Table to display all the beauty of autumn and the drawing toward winter. You could use a simple autumn wreath or dried flowers and dried seed pods or bunches of oats or wheat. A large platter of gourds or squashes can also be lovely.

Here is a link to a Waldorf newsletter from 1978 describing a Halloween festival of lantern lighting and the sharing of harvest foods:  https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/waldorf.library.journal.books/articles/CHSpring_1978b.pdf This link should work, but if it doesn’t, you can go to the Waldorf Library website, search under journals for “Waldorf Clearinghouse Newsletter” and “Spring 1978” you should see a link to Halloween. Those newsletters are sheer gold, by the way, if you have small children!

Perhaps the above will spark some ideas for your own festivities! This is a wonderful time for festivities including old fashioned juggling tricks, cards tricks or other games. Some games to think about are mentioned on pages 153 – 154 of the book “All Year Round” by Drutt, Fynes-Clinton, and Rowling if you have that book on your shelf!

Here is a link to a Halloween circle from 2012: https://www.waldorflibrary.org/journals/98-gateways/331-fall-2012-issue-63-halloween-circle?highlight=WyJoYWxsb3dlZW4iXQ==

Directly following All Hallows Eve is All Saints Day, a day to honor saintly people and to look forward to the upcoming festivals of saints such as Martinmas on November 11 and Saint Nicholas on December 6th. Then, on November 2, All Souls Day, was an opportunity to remember deceased family members and friends.  People would pray to those who had passed on to ask for blessings.  Usually  food was left out overnight for the visiting spirits of this time ( soul cakes are traditional!). There are many further posts about these festivals on this blog.

Happy planning, and many blessings to you all.

Carrie

Glorious and Golden October

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October is my favorite month of the year! Here in the Deep South, the days can still be so warm, the nights can be so cool in comparison, and the leaves are starting to turn to the beautiful golds and yellows and even brown. I have that poem by Robert Frost in my head in October:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

But October is surely that golden period where all things are suspended in autumnal glory. I start thinking about flannel sheets, elderberry syrup, what to make for Christmas, pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins, lanterns and lights. It’s the best!

I felt like I was racing around in September. We came back from a lovely beach vacation with all of our grown children (yay for our friends who farm sat so our entire family could go!) but from then on it was a mad dash to get all the pediatric, adult pelvic, and lactation patients in plus two conferences. I was working through Saturdays and Sundays and everything else! So, I am also excited for October and a return to rhythm and loveliness in our home. Our basic home rhythm right now, with homeschooling one tenth grader and outside jobs and a farm will be detailed soon!

These are the festivals that are our anchors this month:

October 4th- Blessing of the Animals and the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi

October 31 – Halloween is my least-favorite holiday of the entire year (Ba! Humbug! LOL), but I love All Saints Day and All Souls Day and those are very important feast days in the liturgical year, so I am looking forward to those days and preparing for those days at the end of this month. You can see a back post about Halloween In The Waldorf Home, and this one about preparing for All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day

The little things that make ordinary October days magic:

Playing in the leaves

Apple picking

Pumpkin farm visits

Making pumpkin muffins and breads

Longer nights with deeper and later sleep

Warming foods

Fuzzy flannel sheets

Warm teas

Lantern making for Martinmas

Finding ideas to make for holiday gifts

Some ideas for celebrating:

A back post about warmth and children:

Warmth

Warming Foods – this back post is from January, but it might give you some ideas for warming foods

Autumn Circles and Autumn tales for little ones and you can see an example Circle Time for tiny children here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/10/09/october-circle-time/

Make lanterns

Re-instating tea time – so warming and lovely

If you have small children, you might really enjoy this post from Liza Fox about meaningful work for toddlers

We are going to:

Plant fall bulbs

Make bone broths and infuse it with herbs – dandelion root, burdock, astragalus, and echinacea.

Change bed linens to flannel sheets and adding blankets and thicker comforters

Stock up on birdseed

Make sure we all have hats, gloves, snow gear  and boots for winter

I am thinking about:

Our out-of-the-home activities for the Winter and Spring.

Physical and emotional clutter and having an ordered outer world for a peaceful family

The benefits of rhythm in the home

As we head into the darker days of  autumn and winter, I would love to hear what you would like to see on this blog!  

Warmly from my little corner of the world, and thank you to so many of you who read this blog,

Carrie

The Beauty of September

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School is in full swing now! Our third child is in tenth grade this year, and is working his way through such subjects as geometry, biology, American literature and history. Despite summer coming to a close, I have to say I love September so much and settling into fall. Fall is an amazing time to think about getting cozy in the home for the upcoming cooler weather and the holidays. So many wonderful things to love about September – 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!  

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.

Our farm has been quiet. We had a horse that died recently plus two went to other barns due to owners moving them or leasing situations, so it’s been a tad quiet around here. The bees are getting ready for winter. I am feeding one hive that is smaller and trying to get the bees stocked for winter. Winter annuals will go in soon, and I am hoping to put in some fall vegetables.

For me, September is also a time of contemplation as we head into the mood of Michaelmas. Some of you may know it as The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. It is celebrated on September 29 in the Western Church and for those in Waldorf Education, and it is celebrated by the Eastern Church on November 8. It is truly a time of prayer, meditations, new impulses and an idea of serving others and changing the future.

I love this festival of Michaelmas 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.

There is a beautiful poem in the book “All Year Round” on page 129 that could make a particularly lovely blessing for this time of year and you could modify it as you wish:

Thanks to our mother, the earth, which sustains us;

Thanks to the rivers and streams and their water;

Thanks to the corn and the grain fields that feed us;

Thanks to the herbs which protect us from illness;

Thanks to the bushes and trees and their fruiting;

Thanks to the moon and the stars in the darkness;

Thanks to the sun and his eye that looks earthward;

Thank the Great Spirit for all of his goodness.

Adapted from an Iroquois Indian address of thanksgiving

Here are a few things we are celebrating:

Labor Day – September 1  (Beach time!)

The Nativity of St. Mary – September 8 

Holy Cross Day – September 14

Autumn Equinox – September 22 – You can see my Autumn Pinterest Board for ideas!

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels – September 29.  This is one of my favorite celebrations in the church and at home!  You can see my MIchaelmas Pinterest Board for some ideas!

The season of Michaelmas, for me, really lasts from a few weeks before Michaelmas until a week or so before All Saint’s.  In honor of this occasion, I have been re- 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

The Home Mood:

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”

Gratitude is such an important mood to create in the home. I think this creation can be tangible,  like those gratitude jars or going around the table at night and sharing something we have gratitude for…those are wonderful in their own way, but I think creating a  true mood of gratitude in the home actually is a much harder and deeper task. 

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.

I think prayer comes to the forefront if that is in your spiritual tradition. I have never prayed as hard as I do now for my young adults and all the things they face. Even knowing from a certain perspective that they are made for these times, it can still be daunting. Teaching them deeper joy in the midst of transitions is something valuable that they still can learn from us! The teaching and guiding is not over and in many ways they need us more now than they did when they were small. I also use many affirmations and place that positive energy out into the world on their behalf.

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.
  • Fall menu planning – a time of chili, soup, stew, warming dishes. I eat a lot of plant based dishes, so beans are coming to a forefront.
  • Crafting – I have some autumn crafting ideas on my Pinterest board, but I think I am going to start with Michaelmas crafts! It is beautiful and nurturing to create things ourselves, with or without children.

Ideas for Celebrating this Month with Littles:

Ideas for Celebrating this Month With Older Children:

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

Homeschooling and Working:

Work has been very busy! I see patients many times through the weekend, but this can also give me flexibility for homeschooling during the week. Our tenth grader is in hybrid school classes, but we still have classes we need to do on our own at home plus the work for the hybrid classes.

What are your September plans? If you blog or on social media, please leave a link in the comments below so we can follow each other’s plans!