Waldorf Matters … Elmfield's Advent Assembly

Mr Alex Murrell is our Subject Guardian for Science at Elmfield as well as being the Class 9 Guardian. In our blog series about key aspects of Steiner Waldorf education, Alex discusses our Advent Assemblies and places them within a wider context

The Advent Assembly is a festival unique to Elmfield ! We gather the whole school in a spiral  around the advent wreath. One of the children lights the candles and then we speak the Elmfield Winter Verse:

                                         When days are darkest the earth enshrines

                                        The seeds of summer’s birth

                                        The Human Spirit is a light that shines

                                        Deep in the darkness of earth.

We aimed this year to make the festival as broad and inclusive as possible. A teacher  shares  some seasonal and historical thoughts from around the world and we sing  the People Look East carol with its splendid words by the poet Eleanor Farjeon. 

                              People look east the time is near, of the crowning of the year

                            Make your house fair as you are able, trim the hearth and set the table

                            People look east and sing today, Love the guest is on the way.

Then the school leaves from the middle outwards so that everyone has the experience of moving inwards and then outwards, something like this double spiral symbol:

We get to meet  in passing children from all classes of the school, all the wonderful characters, growing individualities , and superb human differences in each and every one! Thank you and well done to all you parents ! 

The readings come from many different cultural and religious traditions, and when Mr McDonald  told us about  the Hopi Indian  people in their connection to the winter solstice I was reminded  of  what I know about the deep connections to  the Winter festival in the  land of Ireland.

An old tumulus, little more than a grassy knoll in a field ,  had a threshold stone covered in spirals. When Archaeologists explored and then  renovated  the ancient monument they found that the door led to a sloping passage. A window above let in the light from the winter solstice so as to arrive in a three-chambered  central space. Since 1985 visitors have been able to experience again the  rising winter sun  illuminate this  inner chamber of the Newgrange  Tumulus  constructed  around  5000 years ago!

Here is a  photograph from today with the threshold stone still in its original place:

The Megalithic Chambered Temple in Ireland (https://www.newgrange.com/) was reconstructed by archaeologists in 1980 AD . What had been classified as an Ancient Tomb was recognised as a Temple or Mystery Centre again. The restored window above the threshold stone let in the light from the midwinter sunrise, for the first time in five millennia .

And here the sunrise at the winter solstice arrives in the floor of the inner chamber.

The stones at the back of the chamber are also decorated with spirals and there is no doubt  that the spiral was a sun symbol signifying the turning point of the seasons on December 21st .

Mid winter and all the festivals that happen around this time are naturally different in different parts of the world, and in different traditions. Our Elmfield Advent Assembly brought home to me that all cultural, spiritual, and religious practices come from the unfolding drama  of the Becoming of Humanity, in the hearts and minds of each one of us. How great it is to hope for, to realise and to celebrate year on year the victory of the human spirit over darkness without and within!

How wonderful to see this Becoming Human in the growth and learning of the children aged from 7 to 17!