Oct is a person of my favorite months of the year! Here in the Deep South, we are in uncharacteristic chilly snap the place temperatures plummeted from the 70s (F) to in the 30’s (F). Generally at this time of year, we are just gearing up for cooler climate, the leaves on the trees shifting shades and crunching underneath our toes, and preparations for Halloween, All Saints’ Working day and All Souls’ Day are underway!
How will you celebrate this thirty day period in your homeschool?
The Eve of Samhain of the Celtic people turned All Hallows’ Eve. This employed to be the starting of the New Calendar year in the Celtic calendar, and it was a sacred time. This night time was a blurring of area and time. Fantastic respect was paid out in Pagan and earlier cultures to the useless – together with the supplying of foods, fireplace, “soul cakes”. This persists in many cultures right now, or at least the strategy of non secular connection with prayers for the deceased. We ponder the connection of living to dying. How do we die to ourselves, to anything terrific than ourselves in a culture rife with selfishness and absence of local community? How do we obtain a suitable marriage to death in a globe wherever violence in rife?
A person matter that arrives to thoughts is to hook up to the Earth, the knowledge of people with braveness to confront loss of life. Potentially this is the time to imagine about bringing “the light” inside as the days grow for a longer time, darker and colder. “Jack O’ Lanterns” and other forms of lanterns are preferred this time of year, as are crafts and cooking and baking encompassing the Tumble Harvest.
Concentrating on what the animals and vegetation are undertaking this time of 12 months in track, verse and tale is pure, and to incorporate the part of these tiny beings, the gnomes and the dwarves, who enable have lanterns and provide the small animals to Mom Earth. There are also a lot of fantastic options to explain to tales about the leaves modifying and falling off the trees and the seeds heading to snooze for Winter season.
This would be a fantastic time to switch your Character Table to show all the splendor of autumn and the drawing towards wintertime. You could use a simple autumn wreath or dried flowers and dried seed pods or bunches of oats or wheat. A large platter of gourds or squashes can also be lovely.
Right here is a url to a Waldorf e-newsletter from 1978 describing a Halloween competition of lantern lighting and the sharing of harvest foods: (you will have to scroll down): http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Clearing%20Dwelling/Spring%201978b.pdf
Maybe this will spark some thoughts for your own festivities! This is a fantastic time for festivities like aged fashioned juggling tricks, playing cards methods or other game titles. Some games to think about are described on webpages 153 – 154 of the ebook “All Calendar year Round” by Drutt, Fynes-Clinton, and Rowling if you have that e book on your shelf!
Directly subsequent All Hallows Eve is All Saints Working day, a working day to honor saintly folks and to seem ahead to the approaching festivals of saints these kinds of as Martinmas on November 11 and Saint Nicholas on December 6th. Then, on November 2, All Souls Working day, was an prospect to recall deceased loved ones associates and friends. Individuals would pray to people who had passed on to ask for blessings. Usually meals was still left out right away for the viewing spirits of this time ( soul cakes are classic!).
Delighted preparing, and numerous blessings to you all.
Carrie
