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As we lead up to the Winter Solstice in the next few weeks, we begin to start hosting each of our Winter Festivals, designed for each age group and class.
Why does Chrysalis celebrate festivals? In the words of Sharifa Oppenheimer, Waldorf teacher and author of Heaven on Earth: A handbook for parents of young children:
“In earlier times, children were raised within the agricultural calendar.
… they knew the steps in a process, and learned the lesson to persist until the goal was attained. From planting a seed and persisting through
till harvest … these children had a … sense of sequencing.
In our technological lives which are fractured … and [have] a thousand distractions,
it can be difficult for children to have a sense of the long rhythms of life,
and the step-by-step sequences these rhythms involve.
To celebrate seasonal Festivals gives our children an opportunity to live these long rhythms, the rhythms of the earth and sun. These children will begin to know the long, slow sequences of their own human lives.”
We celebrate the Winter Festival at Chrysalis as near to the winter solstice as we can; when the sun sends the least power to the earth. The days are short, the nights are long and the winter festival helps remind us all of our ability to bring light into darker times. Under the starry skies of winter, we come together to celebrate the winter solstice through a variety of activities, including the reverent, light-filled spiral. As each student participates in the winter festival each year, they are provided with the opportunity to move inwards towards the light and find their light within. In the very centre of ourselves, we discover our own beauty, strength, insight and gifts that we offer the world. We then turn from the discovery within and carry our gifts of radiance back out into the world.
We look forward to sharing the Winter Festival with you this year.
Lisa
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