Why do we live the way we do?

When I had children, I was reduced to my core – stripped back and unplugged. So I set out with a new focus on what was important for me and our family.

After a long inward journey, I found it really boiled down to connection: connection to ourselves, our family, the universe and nature.

Then we found Steiner Waldorf education, and the idea of educating the whole person resonated with us. The curriculum was a rich mix of intellectual development, arts and spirit. I believe a sense of wonder is invaluable, and it became clear that connection and wonder were fundamental to the Waldorf approach.

Finding this community, at school and online around the world, was amazing. I especially loved that it offered a way to navigate the year with wonder and connection built in.

A compass through the year

Waldorf education follows the seasons through a series of festivals, each with its own values and messages. They’re like breathing in and out through the year, and for my family they act like a compass.

Why do people across religions, ancient and modern, celebrate the turning of the year and the changing seasons? Beyond tradition, festivals are a wonderful way to renew and refresh ourselves. We may be divided by language, culture and religion, but we’re united by our common home. We all see harsh winters and glorious springs, play-filled summers and reflective autumns.

In today’s world we can choose to ignore these basic human truths and live outside nature, inside technology. But our lives are richer, and our children’s lives are filled more deeply, when we connect to these intuitive cycles.

When we connect with celebrations as more than traditions, we feel the festivals that came before us. We see how religious festivals were woven into the rhythms of the year, and how the rhythms of the planets still beat – like a heartbeat leading us through each year.

Rudolf Steiner described the great festivals as a way of becoming aware of our connection with the whole universe – points of focus in the year that can become living realities in our hearts.

Our festival year

After the expansive St John’s Tide in midsummer, we play through the summer, then gather our strength and good deeds in autumn with Michaelmas and Martinmas, with harvest festival and a harvest supper around the same time.

Before those, we say hello to harvest time and goodbye to summer with Lammas on 1 August. It isn’t usually celebrated at school because it falls in the holidays. It’s the old English festival of the first harvest, traditionally marked by sharing a loaf baked from the new grain. It’s the perfect time to gather family and friends, light a fire, enjoy the warm weather and practise gratitude for all we have.

I hope you have time to explore the festivals through the year. I’ll keep sharing how we celebrate as the year turns.

Explore our Seasons & Festivals printables, including our Martinmas workbook.