The Winter Garden in Waldorf Schools December 01 2015

The Waldorf Winter Garden or Advent Garden

Garden of Light
In a Winter Garden,
Dark the Earth below,
Earth is waiting, waiting, waiting
For her seeds to grow.

Many young children are afraid of the dark.  Actually, many grown ups are afraid of the dark too.  Late autumn and early winter, when the days grow short and the darkness dominates everything, festivals help mark the time until the light begins to fill the days again.

First there is Michaelmas or The Feast of St. Michael: This is at Autumn equinox when day is exactly as long as night. The stories at this time help us gather courage. This courage serves us when Halloween comes and the earth breathes out its last of the year’s efforts of growth and the harvest is done. The quiet is absolute and scary! Death is apparent in all the fields. The day of the Dead in Latin cultures is at this time. Next is followed, in the United States, with Thanksgiving. Our hearts relax and experience gratitude when we realize the abundance of the harvest and the good fortune we have to be alive. Gathering with family and close friends to prepare for the winter season gives us comfort.

During the month of December, the days grow their darkest. In Waldorf schools, just after Thanksgiving, there is a celebration called the Winter Garden, or the Advent Garden.  Advent means “To Come” and aside from this term used in some religious celebrations, it is meant to announce the coming of the light.

Karl König, anthroposophical doctor in the early part of the twentieth century, invented this celebration for Camphill Villages, to give community members a way to picture the need for light in the darkness, a way to anticipate mindfully the return of the light.  Many cultures and religions have celebrations at this December time of year: Hanukkah, Christmas, and Druid Solstice ceremonies to name a few..

For the Advent Spiral or Winter Garden, children come into a darkened room filled with a spiral of evergreens on the floor. Teachers carefully prepare this spiral of living greens. The evergreens make a path for children to walk in a spiral to the center. The evergreen spiral is dotted with crystals, flowering plants, and other treasures. In the center of the spiral is a candle. Into the dark room comes one child carrying a lighted taper. Often this child is dressed in white like an angel.Walking slowly around the spiral to show the watching children how to do it slowly and mindfully, the "angel" then lights the candle waiting at the center of the spiral.

Then, one by one each child goes to the start of the spiral, receives from a teacher an apple with a candle inserted into a carved hole in the apple.  The child walks the spiral with the unlit candle, goes to the center and lights the candle on the central candle that was lighted by the “angel” of the Winter Garden, the first child.  Once the candle is lit, the child walks carefully back through the spiral and finds a place on the spiral to set the apple with the now-lit candle down. Then the next child comes and does the same thing. Each child has a turn until all the children have had the chance to light a candle and place it on the spiral. Music plays and fills the room while the children walk the garden and light their candles one by one.

By the end of the ceremony, the spiral is bright with light, illuminated with all the children’s candles. This offers the children a powerful picture of light in the darkness, of one’s candle contributing to the great light with others in the dark world, of the coming of light from each of us.  It offers a reminder of the reliable turning of the sun from weakness to strength each year at the Winter Solstice. Waiting quietly in the darkness for the return of the light, contributing a little bit from each person to make the world bright, are important lessons to learn for life.

Few words and powerful pictures offer the best kind of learning.

A Winter Garden at the Lakota Waldorf School.
No matter how humble the circumstances, the Winter Garden offers children a powerful picture of their place in the bringing of light in the darkness.

Advent Stories for the first and second Sundays of Advent!

L’Ange Bleu

(First Sunday of Advent)

How do we know that Christmas is coming?  You cannot see it with your eyes, because the days and nights are as they usually are, people live and go about their business in an ordinary way.  You cannot hear it with your ears because the sounds are the same noises as we always hear:  cars drive by and planes pass overhead, children play and cry out as they always do.

And yet, four weeks before Christmas something happens that is very important:  a great angel descends from heaven to invite the inhabitants of the earth to prepare for Christmas. He is dressed in a grand cloak of blue, woven of silence and peace. Most people do not notice him because they are so busy with other things.  But the angel sings in a voice profound, and only those who have an attentive heart can hear him.

He sings:  “Heaven comes to the earth, God lives in the hearts of men. Pay attention!  Open the door!”

It is on the first Sunday of Advent that the angel passes and speaks to all people.  And those who are attentive in their hearts can prepare for Christmas, and sing the song that enkindles a spark….

L’Ange Rouge

(Second Sunday of Advent)

On the second Sunday of Advent, a second angel descends from heaven. He is dressed in a great mantel of red and he carries in his left hand a great basket all of gold.  This basket is empty and the angel would like very much to fill the basket so that he can carry it full to the throne of God.  But with what will he fill it?

The basket is very fine and delicate because it is braided from rays of sunlight; one cannot put anything in that is too hard or too heavy.  The angel passes very quietly into all the houses of all the earth and he searches.

For what is he searching?  He looks into the hearts of all people to see if he can find a little love that is very pure.  And that love he takes to put in his basket…and he carries it to heaven.

And there, those who live in heaven -  the angels and also those people who lived on earth but have died – they take that love and make from it the light that lights the stars.