Festivals
The Denver Waldorf School is a community that embraces the festival life. We come together to celebrate the turning of the seasons, to find joy and meaning in diverse cultural traditions, and to strengthen our connections to each other and to this world. Our festival life always nourishes both our community spirit and our sense of the seasonal rhythms – it is a treasured part of our days together! While some cultural festivals are celebrated as a part of a specific grade’s curriculum, other festivals take place as schoolwide events. For those new to Waldorf traditions, below is a brief description of festivals that take place within the larger school community.
Rose Ceremony
The Rose Ceremony is always how we begin and end our years – it is an event that marks the transition from one stage of life to another. It recognizes the beginning of a new journey for all of our students, with much celebration and reflection especially for our 1st, 8th, and 12th graders. We begin the year with our 12th graders welcoming our 1st graders with a rose, and we come full circle at the end of the year with our 1st graders passing along a rose to our graduating seniors. Our 8th graders guide our 1st graders during the ceremony. It is our way of celebrating the beauty and growth of our students as well as marking the passage of time and change within each student.
Michaelmas
On September 29th of each year, Waldorf schools around the world come together in celebration of the first major festival of the year – Michaelmas. Michaelmas is a traditional Waldorf festival that is celebrated as the summer warmth and light dwindle. As we begin to face the challenges of the darker season ahead, Michaelmas reminds us to find our own strength and courage to overcome fears in our lives. Typically, we celebrate Michaelmas with either a field day of games requiring us all to bring our strength and courage, or with a school-wide pageant to embrace the underlying meaning of Michaelmas.
Halloween Journey
This is a yearly favorite of our youngest students – all ECE through 3rd grade families are invited to journey with our 7th grade as they lead them through our transformed playground and embark on a wonder-filled exploration together. The 7th graders prepare for weeks writing their original scripts and creating the sets for short performances that are sure to bring magic (and perhaps some treasures too) to our little ones for the Halloween season.
Lantern Walk / Martinmas
Martinmas occurs each year on November 11th. We celebrate by honoring St. Martin and the gentle warmth and love he brought to the world. Legend tells us that St. Martin was a gentle and unassuming man who upon discovering a poor beggar, took his own coat, tore it in half, and covered the shivering beggar from the cold. Martinmas calls us to shine our inner light to others as the darkness of the season grows stronger.
Festival of Light Emerging
As the days get progressively darker and colder, we, as human beings, have a unique opportunity to search within ourselves to find the light and warmth we each carry in our hearts – a light that burns most bright in the depths of mid-winter. In December, we celebrate the Festival of Light Emerging with weekly assemblies with our students on each Monday morning, sharing a story and lighting a candle each week.
Winter Spiral
Walking the Winter Spiral is a Waldorf tradition that is celebrated as the days grow their darkest. Each class walks the Winter Spiral together, with the children taking turns to quietly carry an unlit candle along a spiral evergreen pathway leading to a single lit candle at its center. As each candle is illuminated, it is brought outward and placed along the spiral- expanding the light and shining brightly together for those that follow. It is a reminder that within each of us is our own light and beauty- so that we may move forward in the darkest season ahead, radiating our gifts with one another, and contributing to make the light.
Santa Lucia
In celebration of our festival of Santa Lucia, on December 13th, our 2nd graders spread the light of kindness, generosity, and hope to our school community. With baked saffron buns to share and sweet singing, it is tradition for our 2nd graders to visit each classroom in procession following a crown of lights, spreading warmth to all in the winter season ahead.
Shepherd’s Play
Recommended to Waldorf schools by Rudolf Steiner, The Shepherds’ Play, is one of a trilogy of plays from the middle ages and has been an annual event at The Denver Waldorf School for more than three decades. The story reflects and contrasts the simplicity of the shepherds, the practical and earthly interests of the innkeepers, and the divine birth event of the Christ Being, amid a fervent reverence for nature. It is performed by our high school students and faculty together.
Festival of Life Renewed
This is our school’s spring celebration. It is meant to be inclusive for all living on our Earth, celebrating the health-giving rhythms of the year and bringing attention to the efforts toward sustainably honoring our planet. Bringing together several spring traditions, we gather, play, sing, and dance as our whole school community unites in celebrating the renewal of life and the passing of winter. All families are invited to join the students on the school playground to watch students sing, dance the maypole, celebrate Holi, and enjoy spring activities hosted by the Parent Council.