Tamar Valley Steiner School celebrates the rhythm of the year with seasonal festivals. They are an enriching part of our school’s community life, and a vital part of Steiner Education. Together with art, music, story and poetry, the children learn to identify and recognise the changing rhythms of nature.
“If people can take part in an annual cycle of seasonal rites of passage that have an observable reality in the changes of nature, they may, it is hoped, feel a stronger responsibility as adults for the earth and its needs, and not be confined to their heads.” - Rudolph Steiner
In Autumn we celebrate Michaelmas, also known as the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, to mark the end of the summer harvest and beginning of autumn. Each child is asked to bring something for our harvest table, which forms the centrepiece of the festival. This produce is donated to a charity to provide nourishing food to members of our community.
The Harvest Festival is a feast of colour and autumn songs, and the school performs a play about St Michael and his courage and guidance taming a terrifying dragon. It is a message of inner strength, initiative, and the triumph of light over darkness. Each class has a specific role in the play that complements their stage of development, which forms a rite of passage as students graduate from role to role throughout their years in the school.
The day is also celebrated with the sharing of vegetable harvest soup made by the children during the week.
This year, families gathered after lunch to help plant native seedlings for the school’s LandCare revegetation project.
The Harvest Festival is a feast of colour and autumn songs, and the school performs a play about St Michael and his courage and guidance taming a terrifying dragon. It is a message of inner strength, initiative, and the triumph of light over darkness. Each class has a specific role in the play that complements their stage of development, which forms a rite of passage as students graduate from role to role throughout their years in the school.
The day is also celebrated with the sharing of vegetable harvest soup made by the children during the week.
This year, families gathered after lunch to help plant native seedlings for the school’s LandCare revegetation project.
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In preparation for our annual Lantern Walk, Tamar Valley Steiner School invited the community to join us in a free lantern making and decorating workshop.
Quickly we filled up five different stations on our St Leonards campus and even managed to make room for more eager participants! We watched those of all ages - parents, children and friends - create beautiful, individual pieces to display on the night. 
Water colour paper lantern, decorated with Autumn leaves
and woollen handles 
Tin can lanterns with see through patterns
and wire handles |
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Tamar Valley Steiner School
Launceston City Park City Park Lantern Walk
May 12th 2017
Photo by Brian Dullaghan
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Celebrating the Seasonal Transition from Autumn to Winter
Bringing Connection to Nature into Our Children’s Lives During the lead up to the Lantern Walk celebration it is a great time to bring in a connection to nature by talking with children about the change of season from Autumn into Winter. It’s a time when the cold air increases, steady rains come and the daylight hours grow short.The paddocks are receiving their first heavy rains and are being ploughed for next year’s crops. The apples have been picked from the trees and the leaves have changed colour and are falling to the ground. The green colours in the bush are coming to life as the dusty leaves of the gum and the wattle trees are refreshed with rain. Rosellas are foraging for dry seeds on the shrubs and grasses. Native animals are able to find surface water again in many puddles and streams. They can move back into the bushland to find shelter and no longer have to travel long distances to permanent water holes. We can acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians of this land during this time by considering the seasonal rituals they may have practiced at this time of the year. It may have been a time of movement between summer and winter hunting grounds or tribal gatherings between neighbouring groups. They would have watched for signs shown in the birds, animals, plants, sun and stars that the season was changing. We encourage you to connect to what you see changing in the natural world and reflect on what it means to you. It is nice to set up a seasonal table and bring things in from nature for the table to show and tell. You can share what you see on your way to work, tell stories of times past at this time of the year and create your own seasonal rituals to mark this change.
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What Does the Lantern Walk Celebrate?
The Lantern Walk is a time to honour the seasonal transition from Autumn to Winter and our beautiful lanterns represent us taking our light into the darker, shorter days. Proceeding peacefully along lantern lit paths, we carry our handmade lanterns and all those walking sing traditional Lantern Walk songs that encourage us to be the warmth and light for ourselves and for others. This festival celebrates hope and kindness and reminds us all of our shared humanity. It is a time to celebrate generosity towards others. Traditionally, the Lantern Walk celebrates Saint Martin of Tours, a Roman Soldier who became a monk. The most famous legend of his life is that he once cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar’s life. During the 2017 Lantern Walk, we symbolically shared warm spiced apple juice with each other as a gesture of generosity. We also partnered with the St Vincent de Paul society to help with the work that they do in providing for people in need in our community over the colder months. We received many kind and generous donations including many warm blankets and clothing. Listen here to the songs we celebrated with on the night
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