Two weekends ago we got to enjoy the Sacramento Waldorf School Harvest Faire and Children’s Festival. Every year I am struck by the amount of time and devotion our school community gives to this event. And their love and attention to detail is evident everywhere—in every nook and corner there is great beauty and intention. Here are a just a few beautiful scenes I caught on camera.

I think I’ll just let the photos speak for me.

We had a marvelous Michaelmas—almost two weeks ago now—celebrating with our school community with pageantry and gusto. Grades 2 through 12 participated and it was as inspirational as ever.

This year I was particularly impressed by the dragon banners for each grade. Aren’t they wonderful?

This year, Lucas is in the fourth grade, and traditionally that class builds and decorates their own shields. In the Michaelmas festival, they are brave warriors who protect the innocent villagers from the dragon when it arrives on the scene. The shields they made were breathtaking, especially when seen all together. They were decorated with swords, arrows, snakes, dragons, wolves, and even sea turtles. Each child designed his or her own crest for the shield.

The mighty celestial dragon, built and manned by the sixth grade class, was impressive and graceful. George faced it down and tamed it with his wit and goodness, with plenty of help from Michael.

When I conquer within me fear and wrath,

Michael in heaven casts the dragon forth.

Firmly on the Earth I stand.

Michael’s sword within my hand.

When I conquer fear, the dragon’s chains I tightly bind!

Michael’s light is in my mind.

When I thrust against the monster’s might,

Michael is at my side!

Harken all, the time has come!

When all the world at last the truth shall hear,

Then the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

Our lances shall be turned to reaping hooks,

Swords and guns be cast as plowshares.

Nations shall live in lasting peace.

All men unite as brothers.

We also celebrated Michaelmas at home. We made dragon bread, adding an exciting, wicked twist with brown sugar, butter, and dried fruits (cherries, blueberries, and cranberries) rolled up inside. We gave our dragon bread dried, candied cantaloupe horns and dried, candied kiwi plates down his spine. Almonds served nicely as teeth and claws.

And for the second year in a row, we barbecued chicken and created a kind of dragon beast main dish. The “dragon” (colored yellow with turmeric) is resting on purple potato “rocks” in a field of greens and tomatoes and onions (a field of vanquished knights?). I carved a dragon head from a purple pepper and give the beast spinach wings. The boys thought this was pretty awesome, and it was tasty!

We also did a dragon craft over a couple of days. I might write more about this later, but here’s the finished dragon we made.

About a week later, Asher’s Kindergarten class held their own Michaelmas celebration. The children all dyed silk capes of golden light using marigold petals in school. The older children in the Kindergarten (second-year kids or children who will be there only one year) sanded and built golden wooden swords. All the children were given golden crowns to wear.

The autumn wind blows open the gate,

Oh Michael, for you we wait!

We follow you; show us the way!

With joy we greet the autumn day!

We parents were invited to join the class in the school farm amid the fruit trees to witness their Michaelmas circle time verses and songs. It was supremely sweet. I don’t know the parents of this class very well yet, so I don’t have their permission to post photos.  Suffice it to say, it was this cute, times 24.

Dragon and Archangel Michael from 2009

It’s Michaelmas time again, one of my favorite times of year. Over the years, as I’ve engaged in our Waldorf school’s Michaelmas Festival, I’ve come to see Michaelmas as a truly enlivening and uplifting event that reaffirms my faith in humanity’s goodness. Michaelmas happens each year at a time when I find myself noticing nature turning toward dryness and decay. I notice all the upheaval in the world, both personal and global. It’s not that such things don’t happen at other times of the year, but something about this season makes them more poignant for me. As the nights grow longer and the year begins to die, my own dragons surface and start making noise that cannot be ignored. And so, I pay them some attention.

We all have faced some dragons recently! Ian faced the Tough Mudder and emerged victorious, having worked so hard to prepare both physically and mentally. Asher has faced down his own fears about being in a new school. Lucas is wrestling with new expectations on him now that he is older, and finding that sometimes he wants to quit piano and sometimes he doesn’t—for playing requires discipline and fortitude and stick-to-itiveness. My own issues revolve around some beloved family members, and their ill health is weighing on my mind. (Oh, and fear of failure. And fear of success. Money woes. All those old standbys are still present, too.)

Our Michaelmas nature table display, with handmade figures

For me, the Michaelmas festival reminds us that we all have a part of us that lurks in the murk, with our dragons—fears, angers, resentments, jealousies, laziness, etc.—as bitter (and sometimes comfortable) companions. Our societal dragons are fear, hate, bigotry, greed, and isolationism. And yet despite our foibles and in the middle of our challenges, we keep striving, working for the good. We shine our lights into our days and nights and work to make the world brighter in small ways and in big.

With Michaelmas, we have our metaphor of plucking up our courage and going out on the field to meet our dragons head-on. Though we are frightened, we call them by name and take a good hard look at them in the sunlight. And in doing so, we shrink them and corral them, tame them or banish them, or simply bring them under our better control. When we face reality with honesty and bravery, we are imbued with light and can use this strength daily in our interactions will all people.

But let me be clear, dragons are mighty teachers, too. Our dark sides can be a source of inspiration, power, and mystery. The fertile soil of our inner darkness must be balanced and harnessed by the light in us, that we may live healthy, happy lives and do soulful work.

Asher is experiencing in Kindergarten the story of a simple boy, George, who acts out of bravery and righteousness to help others and in doing so overcomes fear and darkness. He retold the story to me yesterday with great gusto. The older Kindergarten children are making their wooden swords of righteousness. They are dyeing silken capes with golden light. They are preparing themselves to be bold and good in the world.

Lucas’s 2010 modeling clay scene of Archangel Michael battling the dragon within a ring of fire

Lucas’s class, the fourth grade, are making shields. In the Michaelmas festival this Friday, they will protect the villagers when the dragon arrives. Their great courage will shield the innocent from harm.

So, if you’re curious about this festival, here are some other places you can look. I hope that it might inspire you as it has inspired me.

My post about Honoring Our Dragons.

A Michaelmas craft the boys and I enjoyed last year.

Last year’s 2010 School Michaelmas Festival. And here’s 2009’s festival post.

Last year’s family Michaelmas celebration at home. How might you make a dragon dinner?

Third graders making dragon breads at Sacramento Waldorf School

Here are some other wonderful Michaelmas links for you to explore:

Read this one. I promise you won’t be disappointed: Barbara Klocek’s article about Michaelmas in the Kindergarten. (Mrs. Klocek was one of Lucas’s Kindergarten teachers.)

Lots of info about Saint Michael and Michaelmas here.

Carrie’s 2009 post about Michaelmas on the Parenting Passageway is here.

A great post about building a dragon with a sixth grade Waldorf class is found on The Waldorf Way blog.

A new article about Michaelmas “The Festival of Human Becoming” by Danielle Epifani on The Wonder of Childhood online magazine.

Mamaroots has a tutorial for making stick dragons

The meaning of the Michaelmas festival by Rudolf Steiner is here.

Rocking Granola has a great list of more resources here.

Last year, as part of our family’s Autumn Equinox celebration, the boys and I made an autumn wreath from clippings from our yard. It was so pretty and lasted better and longer than I had really hoped, so I thought this year I’d share a tutorial, in case you’d like to make one for your home.

Above is our wreath from today. I wish I could say my kids wanted to help this year, but they didn’t. Also, you might wonder why my Autumn wreath doesn’t have many autumn leaves in it. Here in Northern California the leaves haven’t yet begun to turn pretty colors. Today it was almost 100 degrees F. I found plenty of other bits with splashes of  color to use instead of autumn leaves.

Materials

* wreath base made of twigs or vines

* floral picks (short wooden stems with a wire fastened on one end)

* fresh and dried yard clippings (some examples: Japanese maple, pittosporum, nandina, rose hips, seed pods, dried or drying hydrangea, crepe myrtle, myrtle, dusty miller, mint, rosemary, autumn leaves, mallow, wheat ears, assorted shrubs, etc.)

Tutorial

A long time ago, I used to be a floral designer, but I promise you don’t have to have any floral design experience to do this project. Also, I should say that this is a seasonal wreath that will look nice for several weeks. It will not last forever, as the plant materials will wither and dry out. However, many will retain their shapes and colors. Since we won’t be storing this wreath for use again next year, we are free to construct it fairly loosely.

For my wreath base, I used a wisteria vine that I twisted into a wreath earlier this summer when Ian and I were trimming in the yard. Wisteria is leafy and pretty and nicely flexible when you first cut it and it’s fresh. We had so very much of it that I made several wreaths, which subsequently dried up completely. The first thing I did for my autumn wreath project was to pick off a bunch of dried wisteria leaves. You can see how the original green color of the wisteria vines has faded in the next picture.

Choose a single direction in which to add bits of plants to your wreath base. Trust me: You’ll be happier with the finished wreath if it has a directional flow. Mine goes clockwise. It is the direction of the path of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere, and since for me this wreath is a symbol of the changing of the seasons, I’m quite happy with clockwise.

All you have to do is stuff the stem end of your garden clippings into your wreath base, wedging it until if feels secure. That’s it. It’s not complicated at all, but you have to keep doing it until your wreath base is covered up with foliage and other items. I suggest that you choose sturdy kinds of plants to cover the base and provide a foundation for the colorful and more interesting parts to sit on. For my wreath, this was pittosporum. It stays intact as it dries.

Now add lots of variety to your wreath, using the same technique of inserting the stems into the twisted wreath base. Try to find foliage in a variety of greens, reds, and yellows and with a variety of leaf shapes. Keep working in different places all around the circle, adding the same type of item in two to five different places on the wreath. This will help achieve a balanced look.

As the wreath fills out gradually, you can begin to add your showier items. Unusual shapes or colors, seed pods, flowers, or dried flowers all make wonderful accents. If you have plant items lacking a long enough stem, you can use a floral pick and wrap the wire around the item, securing it to the floral pick. Then insert the pick into the wreath base.

You might wish to choose a particular focal point on the wreath. Often this is either the bottom center or the top center of the wreath. Place some of your favorite plant items there.

I chose plenty of imperfect items for my wreath, such as leaves with blemishes, flowers that were long past their prime, and fruits (such as rose hips and lantana fruits) that would normally be trimmed and discarded. I wanted to capture this moment in time, this beautiful juncture between the seasons that is the equinox. My garden is a study in paradox right now, with some plants blooming like gangbusters and some going to seed and drying out. To me this is quintessence of the autumn equinox, and reflects the seasons as I know them.

You can make an amazing autumn wreath without taking too much of any one type of plant, too. For example, I clipped only three hydrangea flowers, four old zinnias, and only a couple of totally dried, brown gardenias. If you use just a little bit of lots of different plants, you won’t need to denude any one.

Here’s my finished wreath hanging above our nature table. It will change over the next several weeks as autumn wears on, which seems just right to me.

How do you honor the changing of the seasons in your home?

I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing and crafting for Little Acorn Learning these last few months, which has taken me away from blogging some. (Or maybe that was the nine weeks and counting of summer vacation.) Still, it’s been a fun challenge to be creative, learn new skills, and write tutorials and know someone might read it, might even try an activity inspired by my creation. I hope that’s happening somewhere …

I’ve gathered herbs, felted, sewed, made soap, folded and cut paper designs, made banners and wreaths for decorating a home or classroom for the changing seasons. I’m channeling my best Waldorf mama self for this and I hope I am being a good role model for my kids in the process. I’ve written poetry and even a song—like with music! These things are stretching me and fulfilling me in some exciting new ways. I never dreamed I could write a song, even one so simple as I wrote for May Day. (I’ll tell ya, that software was challenging!) I’ve tackled thorny themes such as solitude, sacrifice, optimism, and letting go. In my career as a magazine writer, I was rarely asked for my own opinion on anything; rather the focus was on finding an expert to voice their opinion and then writing it up all spiffy. This work is different and difficult and feels grand.

(These photos are ones that didn’t make the cut for my recent articles.)

The August Enrichment Guide can be purchased here. There’s tons of great stuff for families and homeschoolers, and I’m honored to be featured alongside some really amazing, creative contributors. If you buy one, please let me know what you think of my work.

What I haven’t managed to do much this summer is sew for my kiddos. My mother has made four or five pairs of shorts and pants for my boys during her summer break. I managed to sew only one pair of shorts for Lucas, but I did them all myself (with her advice and supervision). They have dragons. They even have pockets, which I’ve never done before. And he wears them. Win!

I have another pair cut out and ready to sew. I am hoping to work on those a bit this coming week. Fortunately here in California, we have a very long shorts season. Maybe I’ll even manage to finish those skirts I started for myself last summer. I hope so.

Oh, and there’s the next round of crafting and writing articles for September.  🙂

In a way, it was kind of his night. Independence Day celebration + 9-year-old boy + adults with fireworks money = Opportunity!

Because you have to test,

have to experience things with all of your senses,

as close as you dare.

You need to observe others displaying both prudence

and risk—to figure out why and when and how.

Sometimes you have to feel danger in your own hands

to learn exactly what makes it dangerous,

learn to harness and create with it,

learn to celebrate it, and ultimately to transmute it into experience and beauty.

Faery Riders

When the moon is round and white

The Faery Riders shake the night

With song and laughter going by:

I love to hear the noise they make,

The pine trees hear it too, and wake;

It fills the room in which I lie.

I hear the trumpets long and loud,

I hear the voices of a crowd,

I hear the horses prancing by:

All night they pass, and pass, and pass,

But not one little blade of grass

Is trampled down or turned away.

If I could see their faces plain,

Or run beside the bridle rein

Of Mab the Queen, as she comes by:

I might know all the Faeries know,

And follow, follow where they go

Before the sun climbs up the sky.

But though I hurry might and main

To look out through the windowpane,

I never see them passing by.

Just when I reach the window sill

The music stops and all is still:

Only the wind is passing by.

—Ella Young

(I wrote this last night and then my computer hiccuped and I gave up.) Happy Belated Father’s Day to my dad, who is a marvel and a rock. He is always there for me. I love you, Dad! I didn’t get to spend Father’s Day with my dad this year, but I know he’s having fun right now.

We did spend part of yesterday with Ian’s dad and Mimi, and had a marvelous lunch. We enjoyed Ian’s amazing grilled chicken (cooked on his new-for-Father’s Day grill), strawberry almond green salad, corn on the cob, and oatmeal raisin walnut bread. GG and Mimi brought the salad and a homemade apple pie that was to die for!

And for the record, there’s no one else in the world I’d rather be raising children with. My beloved husband Ian is a wonderful father in every way.

Here are a few more ideas of how to celebrate the summer solstice. Please feel free to check out the first installment here. I guess perhaps it was the very cold, very wet spring we had this year; somehow this year I’m extra motivated to bask in the sunshine. I’m so looking forward to the summer solstice. It feels right to go big this year.

Make a Sun Mask

The mask you see above is one that Lucas made in summer camp a couple of years ago. It’s very simple—just doubled paper plates painted with copper and gold metalic paints and decorated with a few sequins. It’s iconic and it speaks to me, so it’s still on display in my home office. Your sun mask could be more elaborate, if you like, but a project like this could be enjoyed by even the smallest members of your family and for little investment in materials.

Make a Sunshine Banner

For me, Father’s Day and the summer solstice are two sides of the same coin. (That’s not the case for everyone; in China and Japan, the summer solstice is when the divine feminine forces are celebrated.) I guess I always think of Mother Earth and Father Sun (or Father Sky). Anyway, here is a project that Lucas made a number of years ago with his summer camp teachers. The kids and I are going to do this again for the solstice this year, only this time, we’ll have both Lucas’s and Asher’s handprints to make our sunshine. We’ll only need some fabric, twine or ribbon, a twig or dowel, and some washable tempera paint. And soap!

Crochet Sun Medallion Necklaces

I wish I was good enough at crochet to write a proper tutorial for this, but I fear I’d get the vocabulary wrong. I’m just a beginner, you see. But I managed to work out how to create a flat circle that looks sunshiny. I think I used single and double crochet stitches and just felt my way along, endeavoring to keep the sun round. When it was approximately 2 inches in diameter, I started chaining a chain. The acrylic yarn is leftover from another project, and it’s stretchy enough to just pull over the head to make a necklace. I’ve made two of these for my boys, and promised two more to some friends. This worked up in about 30 minutes, so someone who actually knows what they’re doing with a crochet hook could probably quickly pound out these sun medallion necklaces. Wear them at your solstice party!

Find more of my solstice ideas (and tons more) in Little Acorn Learning’s June Enrichment Guide. Click the button to go there.

There are many ways to celebrate the summer solstice with children. Children seem to naturally exist in a state of perpetual summertime bliss if we let them. So call that summer bliss into your heart and create a celebration that is meaningful to you. Here are a couple of ideas for making this solstice celebration special. Start thinking now about how you can make a whole week of planning, working toward, and enjoying this special time of year.

Bake a Sun Bread

Any good bread recipe will do. Knead your bread and shape it into a sun. Give it a generous, caring face, if you like, and give it sunshiny rays. Let it rise and then bake your sun bread carefully, so that it doesn’t get too brown. Serve your sun bread on the morning of the summer solstice with fresh churned butter and golden honey. There is extra magic in your sun bread if you eat it while you watch the sun rising on the solstice morning.

Go on a Sun Hunt

How many suns or sun shapes can you find in your home? In your garden? In your town? Sun symbols are everywhere: in nature, on our buildings, on food packaging, on book covers, on logos, on statuary and public artworks. Open your eyes and you will find suns all around you. This is a good way to meditate on this glorious beginning of summer as you go about your days. Children may delight in pointing out the sun symbols they see, and most likely will spot them first!

I’ll be posting more ways to celebrate the summer solstice in the coming week, so come on back for more fun ideas. Also, check out Little Acorn Learning’s June Enrichment Guide for lots more solstice ideas. Click the button to learn more.