by David Mitchell
How can we create new festivals that give life-long strength to the children we teach? Today's children require tactile experiences. Those incarnating today have strong social awareness and they long to 'touch" the world with their full beings. Considering the twelve senses allows us to facilitate this need.
The festivals help us to mark time. They give us reference points both to look forward to and to look back upon. They help us to breathe from a cosmic perspective of contraction and expansion, and all this helps us to psychologically to put things in order.
From the perspective of a teacher, my colleagues and I and our students journey through the three major seasons of nature, autumn, winter, and spring. Wise people in the past ascribed festivals to these nodal points and called them, amongst other names Michaelmas/Yom Kippur, Hanukkah/Christmas, and Passover/Easter. These seasons within the year present us with the opportunity of bringing a living meeting with nine-fold man through the activities we create. They also afford us the possibility to specifically educate the twelve senses of the children we teach.
The festivals help us to mark time. They give us reference points both to look forward to and to look back upon. They help us to breathe from a cosmic perspective of contraction and expansion, and all this helps us to psychologically to put things in order.
From the perspective of a teacher, my colleagues and I and our students journey through the three major seasons of nature, autumn, winter, and spring. Wise people in the past ascribed festivals to these nodal points and called them, amongst other names Michaelmas/Yom Kippur, Hanukkah/Christmas, and Passover/Easter. These seasons within the year present us with the opportunity of bringing a living meeting with nine-fold man through the activities we create. They also afford us the possibility to specifically educate the twelve senses of the children we teach.
So, if each festival is a season and is part of a threefold whole then:
Michaelmas /Yom Kippur is the festival of our 'will."
Christmas/Hanukkah is the festival of our 'feelings."
Easter/Passover is the festival of our 'thinking."
The nine-folding occurs because aspects of the other two are present as well.
Michaelmas: Willing / Thinking / Feeling
Christmas: Feeling / Willing / Thinking
Easter: Thinking / Feeling / Willing
At Michaelmas /Yom Kippur we feel a resurgence in our will-life as the meteoric iron streams through space. The cool air in the northern hemisphere pulls us more inside into our thinking; we are set free from the dreaminess of summer. Our feelings are sparked by the changing of the leaves and the metamorphosis of the dying plant kingdom. We are being contracted within ourselves in this cosmic breathing of the year.
At Christmas/Hanukkah we meet the darkest time of the year. Our feelings are quickened by the overshadowing darkness. We may concern ourselves with altruistic caring of others; our will can be engaged toward this same purpose. The cosmic year is at its deepest in-breath. We are at one with our thinking. Now we can ponder how the frost holds the etheric world of nature under its heavy stamp. We are now most alive in an inward sense.
At Easter/Passover we are at the time of nature's rebirth. Our thinking has been exercising itself actively and has reached a peak with regard to the support it receives from the outer world. Our feelings are being stirred by the movements of the natural world and the soft breezes of springtime.
How can we bring this experience to our children? The answer lies in the activation of their senses. Below is a sketch of how this could be contemplated.
The weave that connects this wonderful tapestry is music and eurythmy. This list barely scratches the surface of possibilities. There are many more activities that can be added. If we can activate and educate the children's senses then we are truly preparing them in a holistic manner while at the same time we are creating a 'new" festival through our own wakeful consciousness.
