It was a week of pirate ship building, catching leaves, hay fort making and pumpkin rolling. We had some cooler brisk days where the hats didn't come off, and some warmer days that still allowed for some water play. The clocks have turned back and our evenings are coming earlier. The children have begun making their lanterns for next week's lantern walk and singing songs about lanterns.
The lantern walk comes from the feast of St. Martin of Tours, who, according to legend, helped the poorest of the poor in the worst of weather, guided by his lantern. In Tours, children would take to the streets carrying lanterns. This celebration has been adapted to Waldorf communities and is a lovely way to recognize the change to darker nights and a shift in seasons. For adults, it holds the symbolism of finding ones own light and bringing it forth. The celebration is exciting for children as they experience carrying a lantern in the dark, surrounded by close friends and family, and then joining around a fire for a warm, baked apple. But that is yet to come! This week, they painted their paper that will become their lantern and sang some of the songs we will sing for our celebration.
There was also a whole lot of brotherly love. Our one big brother in the group introduced our big bear hugger to the art of wrestling--a beautiful match. In the above center picture, there are actually three boys, our one child who has TWO big brothers was game for a pile-up. We also tried some hammering and it was lovely to watch the intense concentration of the children at work.
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