One of the center points of Waldorf education is the natural world and our connection to it. Waldorf schools celebrate the passing of the season with seasonal festivals. Michaelmas is the fall festival. It gets its name from the story of St. George and the Dragon. If you don't know the story, it's worth reading because I cannot do it justice here. So . . . the really, really short and non-poetic version is that George, a knight, is called on to save a princess from a dragon that is terrorizing the village. The villagers have been feeding it sheep, then their own children to appease it. It seems that next, the king's daughter will be sacrificed. George fights the dragon. In some versions he calls on the angel Micheal to help him and he either slays or tames the dragon.Metaphorically, the Michaelmas celebration is about the coming of the dark (less daylight) and about us entering and battling our own darkness and dragons. None of this is said the the children. They experience the story directly.
So . . . the little kids each went on a quest to mark Michaelmas. One at a time, the children were dressed in a golden cape and given a sword. They then crossed a river of flame (a shaking red play silk), crossed an icy raging river (blue play silk the ran down a wall into a bed around a tree), crossed the dragons spines (a set of low pilings on the playground), and rescued the princess. After the rescue, the were each knighted and had a star bestowed upon them. The stars ones the children had each "stitched" (as Oliver insisted, NOT sewed) out of yellow felt with beautiful blanket stitching around the edge. My child can sew? The blanket stitch? Cool.
They were all so proud of themselves. The celebration ended with an all-school picnic on the campus.
