The feast of St. Martin is the first Waldorf-inspired festival we have celebrated as a family. It truly was the perfect place for us to start.
I first became acquainted Waldorf as a form of education when I was in college in Chicago. I lived with a family as their nanny during my junior year and one of the neighbor boys the children I cared for played with attended the local Waldorf school. Then I started nannying for another family that had attended Waldorf school for several years and still hung on to some of the philosophy. But while it (Waldorf) was a word that I was somewhat familiar with, it didn't hold a great deal of relevance for me at that point in my life and I didn't give it much thought.
And then I got pregnant with Pan. I did so much reading about pregnancy and birth for those nine months that I carried him with me -- I was so focused on the birthing day that I really didn't read ahead on infancy and the young child. I did all the physical preparations of stuff, researching cloth diapers and slings, knowing that I wanted to breastfeed and practice some form of attachment parenting. I made clothes for him and readied his space in our world -- but didn't quite have the foresight to truly ready his space in our lives.
And then he came and he was so very intense. I had only frantic rushed time to finger through baby books, scanning for passages relevant to fussy, high-needs babes. I felt totally unprepared and inadequate in giving giving giving constantly to this little tiny thing -- and getting seemingly very little back in return. I clung to bits of my old life and we pushed forward in the only way we knew. Our days were unstructured, as neither of us were working at that point, and we slept when we felt like it, ate when we felt like it, went out when we felt like it. We took Pan out with us at night to coffee shops and live music, because, well, he wasn't sleeping anyways. We watched our movies and listended to our music with him because I had to sit with him to nurse pretty much all of the time and I felt that I needed something to occupy my attention while doing so.
And then we attended a conference on fostering community in the home and at school and I felt as though I had discovered magic. The whole weekend had a strong lean on Waldorf philosophy and presented a huge array of resources and workshops that focused on using this gentle and thoughtful approach to nurturing the young child. So much of what I heard, and then researched and read about on my own at home, totally clicked -- especially looking back over the last 5 months with our baby. It took us several months, and, really, a big rearranging of our life at that point, to really figure out what might work for us and how to apply it. I was working full time at that point, and Sebastian was Pan's main caregiver. However, the combination of his personal challenges with adult ADHD and the enormous array of responsibilities he had throughout each day outside of parenting made it quite difficult to really settle into a consistent, home-based rhythm with Pan. In retrospect, I can see that what really propelled us into the place we are now was my emergency surgery and the necessary recovery time I spent at home to see our situation for what it was and make the changes (moving to a new neighborhood, resigning from my job and really committing myself to a daily rhythm with Pan -- and one that involved sleeping regularly!) we needed to. Although we are still feeling our way through many things, I can say -- with much peace-of-mind and happiness -- that we now truly are on a path that has direction and intent and we are moving with a rhythm and grace that feels so so right.
We are just beginning to feel out the seasonal festivals celebrated in Waldorf tradition that help bring a rhythm and movement to the year. I felt quite drawn to Martinmas for many reasons, the main one being its focus on sparking inner light to carry through these darkest days of the year. I struggle greatly with the dim, grey winter days of the Northwest, I always have. But now my personal struggle has a great effect on people other than myself and I feel a strong need to face this inner darkness and really work through it. Inner work is something that I've been rather lazy about, as I am much more drawn to work that shows tangible results. But I can see that this is the only way I am going to be able to approach my birthing time and those intense early months with a new babe with any sort of sanity or -- possibly -- grace. And so, on Martinmas, I committed to trying out a month of guided inner work.
I did a bit of research on how the day is traditionally celebrated, and then carefully chose the elements that I thought would work for our small, young family. While I hope that these early festival celebrations will grow into traditions that are significant and exciting for Pan (and the new one!), he is young to truly grasp them just now and so the celebrations are primarily for us as parents, to feel out what works best for us so that it might become something consistent and solid in the future. This one turned out just right. At the end of a very full but very beautiful day, Sebastian and I felt so content and happy at how it had all gone -- which is something I rarely feel at the end of an anticipated holiday.
Although it is too late for this year (Martinmas is celebrated on November 11 annually), I wanted to share a few resources I found especially helpful in planning for our celebration.
- The Story of St. Martin: We read this story, as well as another short story about carrying a spark of light both in a lantern and within, at our dinner. Sebastian made up a tune to the verse on this page and sang it at our meal, as well.
- While there were some great ideas about autumn food to prepare in this book, I used them primarily as inspiration for planning the meal and found the recipes around the web. We had a fairly simple meal of acorn squash soup (I made ours with fresh a bit of fresh thyme, topped with parmesan cheese), homemade whole wheat rolls (which we split and shared with each other in a symbolic gesture mirroring Martin's own gesture of splitting his cloak and sharing with the beggar), and an apple and hazelnut clafoutis for dessert. Our breakfast scones were pumpkin with a cranberry butter (the recipe came from the 2009 Taste of Home Annual Recipes Cookbook).
- I found a great deal of inspiration on Grace's blog about setting up a breakfast with a few special handmade treats, and also on making lanterns. We shared our evening meal and lighting celebration with Sebastian's parents, but kept it in the home as I felt that the lantern walk was something to introduce when Pan is a bit older. Because we weren't going out walking with our lanterns, I made miniature lanterns out of watercolor paper painted and oiled and then cut and wrapped around baby food jars with votive candles inside. The effect was so very beautiful and filled our small apartment with a gentle warmth.
- Something I've struggled with a bit in the Waldorf festivals is that most of them are connected to saints feast days -- and we are not so big on christian religiosity. However, this radio show on autumn and early winter festivals discussed the idea of celebrating the Christ-like qualities (rather than the religion of Christ) of St. Martin, which are admirable and desirable for anyone. We interpreted the qualites of giving and sharing that Martin exhibits in the story -- qualities that also help us to foster our own inner light and warmth by projecting it onto others -- and delivered a special package of our breakfast scone to a homebound friend (who is also a veteran of the Vietnam war and has severe health complications as a result -- appropriately, yesterday was also Veterans Day). Pan shared a bit of his own joy and light, too, and was smiley and delightful. We also found some winter clothes to donate to a local charity shop, to help those who are in need of physical warmth this winter.
- And, lastly, I found a great deal of inspiration in images that I found on flickr. I'm a very visual person, and most of my planning for our celebration was based in how I could create an environment to reflect the beauty and grace of the day.
Onward, then, to birthday celebrating and planning for Thanksgiving and St. Nicholas Day (coming very, very soonly).
+Chelsea
