Whitsun -23rd May

Ten days after ascension we celebrate ‘White Sunday’ (so named because people were often baptised at this time and wore white at their baptism) WHITSUN or PENTECOST. This is the festival of Community, when the Disciples, gathered and all shared a common experience, a bonding together.  In the Waldorf celebration of this festival with children we try to cultivate a sense of community – the family, the wider community of friends and school and the still wider community of the whole Earth.  The White Dove is a picture of the Holy Spirit, of one’s higher aspiration.

The mood for this day is sharing and of understanding each other.  The children light candles and bring white flowers, white doves flutter in the classroom bringing peace.   When my girls where little they made white doves from paper and tissue and “flew” them on the bottom field. They dressed in white and our white lilac is usually out so the children would take in a huge spray for a hat. As the children get older we can focus more on understanding if there is a group of older ones is a really interesting exercise to read a poem each line in a different language and see if the children can reach a shared understanding of the meaning.

I often think of world religions like this, one poem but in different languages.