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Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
JUNE 21
Winter Solstice Festival
<This is December 21 in the Western Hemisphere>
To depart from the usual expositional style; I have penned a small story to introduce some of the historical aspects of the all-important Winter Solstice Festival.
At the school in which your author taught for many years, the Winter Festival was easily the most popular of all four seasonal festivals with the children – and I daresay, the teachers as well. For one thing, on most Winter Solstices the whole school, right up to Class 12. – even Kindergarten! – would all pile into busses and take off to camp overnight at some exotic Winter sacred place, such as limestone caves, or a mountain river setting. Here we would conduct the Winter Festival, often in an exciting campfire setting. Each one was unforgettable.
So, to the story:
***
A thin line of ladies waited on the windy headland, straining to catch a glimpse of a sail on the last leg of its homeward journey.
These ladies were the Ingaevones of Denmark. Would the first Viking ship bear on its proud square-cut sail the Raven? Or the Lion? The Sun Hero perhaps?
It was only one day before the Spring Equinox. (Be patient, this story will eventually be about the Winter Solstice. – Ed.)
“I can’t wait for full moon!” said the sweetly innocent young-married, tossing back a disobedient flaxen plat.
“Me neither.” replied her more experienced friend with relish “Nine months is a long time to wait for it.”
“But why can’t we do it whenever we feel like it – I mean, it?” And I feel like it often enough!” said Flaxen plaintively. “Well in times past, so the Wise Ones tell us, we ladies only became fertile in the three months following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. That was when we were in ‘season’, so to speak.”
“Vernal?”
“Spring, you · know, the Spring Equinox, tomorrow in fact. This is when there is exactly twelve hours each of night and day. Equinox is from a word meaning ‘equal’ – when day and night, or light and dark, are equal all over the world.” (How would she know that? She’s never moved off the Jutland Peninsular. Ed.)
“That old ‘season’ business seems like the breeding cycles of some animals” said Flaxen doubtfully “For instance, whales only breed in the Spring.”
“Apparently advances in human individuality brought corresponding genetic freedom. Now (in theory anyway) we can do it any time of the year.”
“Well, if we can, why do our customs proclaim it verboten except for three months? Is that a sail?! No, just a flock of Puffins.” moaned a disappointed Flaxen.
“The Wise Ones” continued Experience calmly (She knew a Puffin from a Raven well enough! Ed.) “see many months ahead. They are preparing for the Mid-Winter Solstice in nine months – nine months, get it?!”
“Ah, I see, that’s when everyone who conceives in the Spring will have their babies. I often wondered why all the birthdays seem to be within a couple of months. Well almost all. You couldn’t find a summer-born Cancer or a Gemini if you coo-eed.” (To clarify, Cancer and Gemini occur in Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Ed.)
“Yes, but not all have our virtuous restraint – have they?” said Experience, peering into her young friend’s· face to detect a flaw in the clear glass of innocence.
“Er, no – I mean no! Who wants their child to be exiled and called a bast …” (Stop right there! Ed.)
“At least it could explain why our men-folk go on those silly raiding parties in their dragon boats for nine months of the year. What’s so special about the Western Isles? What do the men do · there anyway?” queried Flaxen.
“Better not ask! But to go on; every third year, on the Holy Night of Mid-Winter, the first boy born is chosen to be a future king. When the anointed one reaches the age of thirty, he holds the scepter for a three-year rule – until his 33rd year. The Greeks call this king a Sun Hero, a Chrestos.” Experience turned her eyes back to the slate-grey sea.
“I remember!” exclaimed her young friend “Last year we all gathered round the sacred grotto on the longest night of the year. (In Denmark that sounds a very long night indeed. Ed.) Everyone had those lovely lanterns – what was it called? The Festival of Kindling Lights – a kindill is a candle or torch.”
The older woman smiled knowingly “That’s the one – I loved it when the Wise Ones came out of the grotto at midnight and announced that the divine virgin, Nertus, had given birth to a Son of Light. What peace we felt, what goodwill to all men – and even women for that matter – even that bitch Inge, the one who … (Don’t forget the defamation laws! Ed.)
“Hey,” Flaxen counted on her fingers “this is the third year. If l conceive and have a son, maybe he’ll be the next Sun Hero – Where are those bloody ships?! (Delete that. Ed.)
***
And now for the expos1tlon, beginning with the New Testament: The Gospel of St Luke describes the Mystery of another Sun Hero. The Archangel Gabriel appeared to a maid and foretold of a son to be born – the Annunciation. This son too became a king (The King of the Jews – what I have written I have written.) at the age of thirty! And his name? Christ Jesus.
The Luke Gospel describes the ‘night visions’ of the Shepherds, including the singing of the Holy Host. It tells of a manger, or grotto, in Bethlehem (Hbr. ‘house of feasting’; a true festival – festival – center) to witness the birth of Light in darkness.
It is the Gospel of the Virgin; Mary’s image has consistently been painted with a heavenly blue cloak over an earth-red vestment; St Luke is the Patron Saint of Painters! He was reputed to be a painter himself – as well as a physician.
His is the gospel symbolized by the Cosmic Bovine, or Winged Bull. It is the gospel proclaiming that most important dictum for mankind, ‘Peace and goodwill to men’. It is the gospel of the birth of a Child of Peace.
This is that child who, only in the Luke Gospel, has his lineage traced right back· to Adam – hence the Garden of Eden, with its Tree of Life – the first Christmas tree, with its ‘kindling lights’.
The Christmas Festival was once moveable, but from the 4th century it was returned to the original solstitial festivals of the non-Christian world – or pagan in its true sense (‘pagan’ merely means peasant).
In Australia, the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year – the Triumph of Darkness – receives only a token mention in the weather report on the evening news, in spite of its being the most important news of the day! It is one of the most sacred celestial events of the year; a special day given top billing for thousands of years in the Northern Hemisphere.
Here in the South, we attempt vainly to experience the Kindling Lights in days of 30° heat in December, complete with fourteen hours of sunlight. Little wonder we make such a botch of it! (Speak for yourself; I got a computer for Christmas. – Ed.)
But back to Winter: many people are making a tentative beginning to celebrate, with lovely festivals, Australia’s Holy Night on our Winter’ Solstice. Songs and plays are specially written for the occasion, and lanterns carried to decorated grottos of one kind or another. On one occasion, two groups of musicians climbed hills on either side of a gully and conducted a ‘conversation’ in beautiful harmonics, a tonal dialogue which rode easily on the still night air – magical!
On another Midwinter Night, a group of children launched candles down a stream in little boats they_ had made. The lights slowly drifted from sight, a flotilla of Spirit vessels taking the message of Light far from the small, wide-eyed group. (What about bushfires? – Ed.)
Naturally, being somewhat cool and damp anyway, there was no danger of bushfires. (I didn’t think of that. – Ed.)
The whole cosmos works to create a unique festival; in Australia, in astronomical terms, Midwinter occurs on the cusp of Taurus and Gemini (in the post-1413 zodiacal calculations).
This Festival of Sol, as the mid-Winter Festival was called in ancient Rome, was exclusively for the worship of the emperors. These men of power celebrated ·the Dies lnvicti Solis, or Day of the Invincible Sun. (‘Invincible’; typical Romans! – Ed.)
The universal human spirit seems to need this reassurance of the return of the Light. As well as being the darkest time for the earth (plant growth stilled and the like), it is for Man also. Apparently the hardest place for people to survive psychologically at this time of the year is Antarctica. Here the darkness is absolute! Toe ‘inmates’ who winter over in the Australian Antarctic bases have to make strenuous efforts to assure continuous recourse to their own ‘inner suns’.
For the experience of this elusive inner sun, some cloistered religious orders were said to wait the whole year, with excitement rising to fever pitch, f9r the approach of the Holy Night. This is when months of meditative preparation would be rewarded with the Vision of the Midnight Sun – the Birth of the Sun (Son) in the darkest hour of all.
Whales, apart from having the distinction of being the only animal named in the Genesis creation story, are famous for their annual solar pilgrimage to breed, in the Spring, in the Coral Sea. (Cetacean Ingaevcines – Ed.)
As the Humpback whale pods travel up Australia’s East Coast, they are opposite Byron Bay, the most easterly point on the continent, right around the Winter Solstice. Will the wind-blown whale- watchers, and the various festival-conscious local communities, one day co-operate to celebrate both amazing events at the same time? Imagine the beauty of hundreds of ‘kindling Lights’ moving around the lofty headland of Cape Byron on Midwinter Night – from an offshore whale’s perspective!
Now back in time to 1972 to the author’s own school, Lorien Novalis at Dural in New South Wales: Mother Nature really made her presence felt at the school’s very first Winter Festival – it poured raining all day!
The Lantern Walk, the first we know of in the country, was enjoyed by the children in raincoats and galoshes. How eccentric they looked trudging through the sodden park over the road, lanterns swinging, and voices raised in songs of praise (all composed by the teachers). There was also the traditional candle spiral at this event.
Earlier in the day the children made their beautiful cardboard and colored tissue-paper lanterns and ‘stained glass windows: and learnt the songs with a magical accompaniment.
One winter song was All is Still (see lyrics below). This proved that music of the highest order could be created by ‘simple’ schoolteachers and was the first of dozens of festival songs – and others – that were penned in the school for the children over the years. Most of them were good- very good; many, like All is Still, were timeless masterpieces, the melodies rivaling anything being written at the time by peers like Donovan and Cat Stevens. With the best songs the teachers of Lorien Novalis created in 1972 alone we could have launched a first-class educational music album. Of course, many poems and plays were also created for the four seasonal festivals. ·
ALL IS STILL
A Winter Song
Chorus:
All is still.
We gather round a tiny light,
On the shortest day and longest night.
And as we watch our spiral grow,
Our hearts and eyes begin to glow.
As daylight light fades and evening falls,
The darkness rests upon the earth,
The bush folk sleep, a barn owl calls,
All awaiting the new sun’s birth.
Chorus
Then through the night a soft bird’s cry,
Whispering leaves, a breeze’s sigh.
Colors run fast in chilly dawn,
With the promise of Life, the sun is born.
Chorus
THE BOTIOM OF THE WELL
The moon was bright – and still the night,
The blackened trees were stark.
The forest floor was littered thick
With limbs and leaves and bark.
The silent desolation hung –
The animals were still …
The frost to every branchlet hung –
A willy wagtail’s trill!
And that is the way it has always been,
As far as I can tell.
On the shortest day we look at the world
From the bottom of the well.
But even the longest night has an end,
For the next day will be longer.
There is always light at the top of the well
And it’s growing stronger and stronger!
We will grow with the sun and gather wings
To fly into the light.
We will leave behind the shortest day,
And the longest, loneliest night.
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