On February 2nd, it’s time to celebrate Candlemas, Imbolg, or Brigid’s Day (all names work, depending on your beliefs). It’s time to recognize that winter is on its way out, the light is beginning to return, and spring is finally on its way! It is a great time to do rituals involving the hearth and home. If you have a fireplace, give it a good cleaning along with the rest of your house, and celebrate Candlemas with a nice hearty fire. If you have any Yule greenery left over, then this is the time to gather it up and toss it in the flames.

During the fourth century, Christians began commemorating the day that Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple. By Jewish law, that would have been the fortieth day after His birth. (Luke 2:21-38). You may remember that a prophet named Simeon predicted that Jesus would bring “a light of revelation to the Gentiles.” So the feast day became associated with candles. Each community’s elder or priest would pray a blessing over candles, then pass them out for people to take into their homes. Eventually the celebration came to be called Candlemas.  The verse “I Am the Light of the World ” (John chp 8 vs 12) is connected with Candlemas.

During the middle ages and renaissance, the feast took on other meanings. In parts of England, Candlemas became the day to take down your Christmas greenery and start spring cleaning. And, as the opening poem shows, many Europeans adopted a superstition that a sunny Candlemas foretold a late, cool spring.

Whether Candlemas be dark or clear, forty days of winter will still be here.

February 2 is also the middle of winter as astronomers calculate it (the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox). Pre-Christian Celtic cultures celebrated this time of year by holding ceremonies to bless the spring planting. It’s  also known as Imbolic.  Imbolc is a melting pot mixture of Celtic, Roman, and Christian traditions — and even briefly mention a few holidays not from Europe, such as Setbun, the Japanese Bean Throwing and Lantern Festival; Li Chum, the Chinese Spring Festival; and Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colour. Pretty amazing, isn’t it – how all people’s of the world find their unique ways to celebrate and recognize the change of seasons.

February 2nd has one of the richest traditional textures of any holiday we celebrate. And yet, we barely celebrate it today. Sadly, the only things most North Americans associate with February 2nd are Punxsutawney Phil and the movie Groundhog Day. There is remembrance in Europe, where they make crêpes (very think pancakes) for Candlemas. Crêpes remind us of the sun, which we’re craving.

To me, those modern additions are like the stones I once found in my back yard – only a few corners showed above the soil, but a whole limestone foundation from a long-leveled building lay just under the sod. Before we disparage the modern remnants of the holiday, and maybe the whole holiday with it, it might be good to take a closer look at how Groundhog Day contributes to the richly woven tapestry of this season. Then, maybe we can decide what, if anything, February 2nd “means,” or “should mean,” or could mean, if we took the time to think about it.

Instead of making a list of New Years’ resolutions you can’t keep, what about taking one part of your life that could stand improvement and working on that, a little bit every day for a year?

To use a metaphor that is appropriate for the feast day, you are lighting one candle at a time, and not trying to keep a whole candelabra going until you’re ready for it. Next year you add another candle, and so on.

Maybe you could do one nice thing, unasked, for a family member, every day. Or learn one new word in French, or read one chapter of the New Testament, or do one physical exercise, or write one line of a poem, or send one note of encouragement to a friend, or say one kind word to one stranger.

When sleet blinds you,
hail drowns out voices,
and snow hides your path,
may you discern in each flake
a star, image of the one
that guided the Magi,
and find that in the pain
of birth, death or change
there is a light
to guide you.

This is a simple way to make life on earth a little better for those around you and for yourself, too!

Brigid is the goddess of creative inspiration as well as reproductive fertility. This is a good time for sharing creative work, or, if you don’t think of yourself as especially creative, an idea that worked or a plan that materialized. Thank the Goddess for her inspiration, perhaps by dedicating a future work to her.

Since Candlemas is a time of new beginnings, this is a good day to ritually celebrate all things new. Plan a ceremony to name a new baby, officially welcome a new person into a family or plight your troth to your beloved. Make a commitment to a goal (like a New Years resolution): this would be an especially powerful thing to do in a group.

If you plan your own ceremony, use these two powerful symbols: fire and water. For instance, wash your hands and bathe your face in salt water, which is especially good for purification. Light a candle as you make your pledge. Incorporate the third symbol of the holiday — seeds — by planting a seed or bulb in a pot to symbolize your commitment, or by blessing a bowl or packet of seeds that you will plant later.

You don’t have to be Catholic to gain spiritual benefits from the voluntary surrender of something you cherish. You can give up something frivolous or something serious, but it should be something you will notice. Folk wisdom says it takes six weeks (or approximately the 40 days of Lent) to establish a new habit, so you may end up with a lifestyle change.

Since Candlemas is often considered the beginning of spring, you can perform another ritual act of purification: spring cleaning. This would be a good time to do a thorough house cleaning, sweeping the floors with salt water, banishing the gloom of winter and creating a sparkling, shiny new setting for spring.

Here are some Reading suggestions:

Candlemas  Day Verse

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
Winter won’t come again.

If Candlemas Day be dry and fair,
The half o the winter’s to come and mair;
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,
The half o the winter’s gane at Yule.

Candlemas Verse from colonial Williamsburg, 18th century

When New Year’s Day is past and gone;
Christmas is with some people done;
But further some will it extend,
And at Twelfth Day their Christmas end.
Some people stretch it further yet,
At Candlemas they finish it.
The gentry carry it further still
And finish it just when they will;
They drink good wine and eat good cheer
And keep their Christmas all the year.

Candlemas Day (Verse from Scottish Quarter Day)

If Candlemas Day be dry and fair,
Half the winter’s to come and mair.
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,
Half o’ winter’s gane at Yule.

(Meaning of unusual words: mair=more, Yule=Christmas)

A Song for Candlemas by Lizette Woodworth Reese

There’s never a rose upon the bush,
And never a bud on any tree;
In wood and field nor hint nor sign
Of one green thing for you or me.
Come in, come in, sweet love of mine,
And let the bitter weather be!
Coated with ice the garden wall;
The river reeds are stark and still;
The wind goes plunging to the sea,
And last week’s flakes the hollows fill.
Come in, come in, sweet love, to me,
And let the year blow as it will!

Candlemas Day by Frances Ridley Havergal

YES, take the greenery away
That smiled to welcome Christmas Day,
Untwine the drooping ivy spray.

The holly leaves are dusty all,
Whose glossy darkness robed the wall,
And one by one the berries fall.

Take down the yew, for with a touch
The leaflets drop, as -wearied much
With light and song, unused to such.

Poor evergreens! Why proudly claim
The glory of your lovely name,
So soon meet only for the flame?

Another Christmas Day will show
Another green and scarlet glow,
A fresh array of mistletoe.

And this new beauty, arch or crown,
Will stiffen, gather dust, grow brown,
And in its turn be taken down.

To-night the walls will seem so bare!
Ah, well! look out, look up, for there
The Christmas stars are always fair.

They will be shining just as clear
Another and another year,
O’er all our darkened hemisphere.

So Christmas mirth has fleeted fast,
The songs of time can never last,
And all is buried with the past.

But Christmas love and joy and peace
Shall never fade and never cease,
Of God’s goodwill the rich increase.

Time of Candles

The season of festivities has ended.
The final yuletide greenery has died.
The land seems dull and drab and dreary.
It’s time to celebrate the feast of Bride.

The rain and melting snow have filled the rivers
whose waters wash the land free of decay.
The winter storms have culled the rotten branches
of trees and swept the autumn leaves away.

The frost has broken up the stubborn clay.
The icy air has purified the land.
And Mother Earth has suffered winters purging
no less than us, though ordained by her hand.

Through the worst of winter’s devastation
signs of approaching spring can now be found.
And everywhere green shoots appear even
through suffocating snow, ice hardened ground.

The slimmest spears of snowdrops pale and white
push through the earth; the symbol of the spring’s
return. The yellow pollen of the catkins
heralds the bounty which the season brings.

In still drab fields the lambs are seen at play;
the first born creatures of the infant year;
carefree and nurtured by their mothers milk
as Mother Earth feeds all her children dear.

Though the approaching spring is still a whisper
at Candlemas we celebrate her youth.
Pure white candles burning to remind us
to leave behind the past and seek for truth.

While human hands are turning to spring cleaning
and human thoughts consider youthful themes.
So human spirits will begin their quest
afresh and human hearts will dream new dreams.

Candlemas Eve Carol by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

1. Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletoe ;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.

Refrain:
Thus times and seasons oft do shift; each thing his turn doth hold ;
New thoughts and things now do succeed, as former things grow old.

2. The holly hitherto did sway ;
Let box now domineer
Until the dancing Easter day,
Or Easter’s eve appear. Refrain

3. Then youthful box which now hath grace
Your houses to renew ;
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew. Refrain

4. When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside ;
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin
To honour Whitsuntide. Refrain

5. Green rushes, then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments
To re-adorn the house. Refrain

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About six years ago I realized that even if I could afford a cleaning person, they would not organize my things, do the laundry or do the grocery shopping. I was amazed to discover that even if we were “rich” I probably wouldn’t want someone else doing those things. (Ahh, but a great vegetarian world cuisine low-fat chef, that would be wonderful!) I got the unfortunate impression as I grew up that household tasks were chores. Somehow I picked up that housework and other daily maintenance were not a “real” activities.

There was no joy or sense of accomplishment in housework. It was drudgery I had to get done so I could do something I enjoyed. I have carried that sense of housework as drudgery into my life and it has been regrettable. As soon as I started living on my own I realized that I was solely responsible for the maintenance of my surroundings. And I resented that once a task was finished, such as dusting, it would simply have to be done again. I was never DONE! As the years have progressed I have learned that I (as an adult) am also responsible for maintaining my health, my family’s health, friendships, relationships with family members, my car, etc.

In short, “Life is Maintenance”.

So, if life is maintenance and I’ve been taught that maintenance is just the stuff you have to do before you get to the real living, how much real living can I get to in a day, especially as a mommy?

This negative view of the mundane has given me a lot of stress. I have been tempted to “enrich” my life and look outside of myself for the good stuff. The fact is that the good stuff, the real stuff, is in my sink. It is in the laundry pile. It is in my refrigerator and on my kitchen floor. It is in cutting my kids fingernails, shopping for their clothes and shoes, and arranging for their many classes and social visits. It can also be in classes or at my computer, but it is most real here in the dust bunnies under my bed.

Just as there is a heady excitement to infatuation, new people and career opportunities, the true sustained contentment in life comes from the everyday. It has been an ongoing challenge to give my children a sense of joy in maintenance, and I feel tremendously inept. I don’t believe in pretending with them about my feelings (I’m too transparent), so I’ve had to address my dread head on. But I have been buoyed by the belief that this is important to their well-being as adults: To see the rewards of a clean kitchen, stacks of neatly folded laundry, a shoveled driveway. And, thus, to learn that the kitchen gets dirtied, the laundry gets worn, more snow falls on the driveway. These repetitive tasks do teach us the “natural cycles of growth and decay”. We work a while, we play a while, we rest a while.

Each activity is worthy, joyful and necessary to our well-being.

Written by © Mary Joan Deutschbein
Used with permission.

A verse:

Blessing on this room of ours,
Blessing on the garden flowers,
Blessing on the birds and trees,
On the butterflies and bees.
Blessing on the dolls and toys,
On our quietness and noise.
Blessing on the children dear,
On the grown ups who come here.
Blessing on our work and play,
God be with us all each day.

To and fro, to and fro,
Sweeping with my broom I go.
All the fallen leaves I sweep,
In a big and tidy heap.

Often times the Waldorf schools will hold a play in honor of St. Michael and his slaying of the dragon. In this play, Saint Michael is often seen being knocked to the ground and momentarily stunned by a dragon, usually played by several students in a long dragon costume. Of course, St. Michael bounces right back up and conquers the dragon. The key element of the Michaelmas festival is that it celebrates inner strength and courage. The festivities,include the enjoyment of a small feast after the play, which includes baked loaves of bread shaped like dragons. Dragons are a central theme of Michaelmas because St. Michael, who represents courage, is traditionally pictured subduing a dragon. The primary idea behind the festival of Michaelmas is to get children to face their own challenges – in other words, their internal and external dragons.

Because Michaelmas falls near the equinox, it is commonly associated with the beginning of autumn. So Waldorf schools also use Michaelmas to teach students the importance of using courage to prepare for the colder, darker, winter months.
It’s symbolic of darkness, so it’s important for children to have warmth inside with them. In addition to honoring St. Michael and marking the beginning of fall, Michaelmas represents harvest time – a time when people make preparations for the winter.

This page gives some history, several verses, a Michaelmas circle, some meditations and activities for Michaelmas as celebrated in Waldorf Schools.

The human being is woven with his whole existence and activity into the spiritual world. ~ Rudolf Steiner

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Q: Do you have any verses for Autumn?

A: I sure do! Here are a few of our favorite verses and even an Autumn story! Enjoy!

Autumn wind came stealing
Through the woods one day,
And creeping round the tree, he stole
Their beauty all away.
He tore their russet dresses,
Combed off their golden hair.
He blew away the tattered bits,
And left them brown and bare.

* * * * * * * *

Autumn winds are sighing,
Stealing through the forest brown,
As they softly pass the tree trunks
Little leaves come falling down.
But a stronger gale is blowing
And then the leaves themselves
Rise and dance about the forest
Just like little elves.
Faster, faster see them whirling
Till the gale has passed.
One by one the tired leaflets
Sink to rest at last.

* * * * * * * *

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Q: We are preparing to paint, do you have any painting or color verses or stories?

A: Oh yes indeed! Here are some that we have used and please also feel free to use the comment feature to share YOUR favorites!

There’s a bridge of wondrous light
Filled with colors shining bright
Red and orange, yellow, green,
The fairest colors ever seen,
Blue and violet, magic rose;
Down from heaven to earth it goes

* * * * * * * * * *

Now I take the brush so gently
In my hand with loving care
Watch the color flow so softly
On the paper clean and clear.

* * * * * * * * * *

Here we go, to and fro,
over the rainbow bridge we go.
Treading softly, treading slow,
over the rainbow bridge we go.
Gathering light from sun and star,
gathering light from heaven afar,
Down to earth all things to greet,
sharing the light with all we meet.
Here we go, to and fro,
over the rainbow bridge we go.
Treading softly, treading slow,
over the rainbow bridge we go.

* * * * * * * * * *

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Create a poster of the gods. Watercolor a huge Yggdrasil tree and then I drew and scanned in a male figure and female figure on the computer to print out many copies of each. He could have probably drawn the figures individually, but he was struggling with perfection at the time and this way he only needed to add the individual features for each god or goddess (hair color, clothes, what they were holding.) As we went through the stories, he colored and cut out the god or goddess we had read about, then pasted them onto the poster with their name. He then drew lines connecting them (i.e. man/wife, parent/child, etc.) but now that I look at it, that part is real confusing since they connect in so many ways. btw, my younger one was also a first grader at the time and he ended up doing his own poster as well.

Also there are a lot of great books for Norse Mythology – I think they are listed in Path of Discovery – and rather than picking just one, we borrowed them all and enjoyed comparing the variations each story (and even the god’s names) would take. Since I didn’t have the time to read each story with him (and since Corey is a voracious reader) I would only read one version with him, then he would narrate others to me, building story telling and memory skills. I just checked his main lesson book and I suppose the other reason I had him narrate so much is he

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Q.  How do I know my child is ready for first grade?

A.  For those of you who may have children from 5 on upwards who believe that “My child is ready for the First grade material”, I suggest that you first look at this checklist, the recommendations and give it much thought before rushing in. If  you need support in your decision in waiting, or if you’re thinking your job at home isn’t really important and critical to your child’s future – then what I am about to share here will really open your eyes. There are statistics, a checklist, suggested reading and finally some verses for you to use…

“Changes in the structure of society in the last thirty-five to fifty years have brought about conditions that pose many problems in early childhood, such as reading failure, learning disability, delinquency, and breakdown of family ties.

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This page has several verses we used for Blessings and mealtime. But before I share those… some thoughts:

Cultivate Mindfulness.
See gratitude as a daily practice.
In pictures, words and songs,
let children express a grateful heart.

Gratitude & Reverence

Rudolf Steiner stated “If he sees that everyone who stands in some kind of relationship to him in the outer world shows gratitude for what he receives from this world; if, in confronting the outer world and wanting to imitate it, the child sees the kind of gestures that express gratitude, then a great deal is done towards establishing in him the right moral human attitude. Gratitude is what belongs to the first seven years of life.”

Steiner also wrote “If one observes children, who by a right upbringing, have developed a natural reverence for the grownups and their surroundings, and if one follows them through their various stages of life, one can discover that their feelings of reverence and devotion in childhood are gradually being transformed during the years leading to old age. A adults such persons may have a healing effect upon their fellow man so that by their mere presence, or through the tone of their voice, or perhaps by a single glance they can spread inner peace to others. Their presence can be a blessing because as children they have learned to venerate and to pray the right way. No hands can bless in old age, unless in childhood they have been folded in prayer.”

Of course, these qualities cannot be taught. They must be modeled by the adult and imitated by the young child. They must “live” within the parents.

(Source: Steiner Human Values & Education and The Renewal of Education)

Waldorf Teachers consider the Moral education of children to be one of their primary tasks. Gratitude, Love and Duty: Steiner asks that we sow the seeds and cultivate these three fundamental human virtues.

Children should say grace before each meal to express their reverence for the earth and her gifts….

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