Midwinter, reverence and decluttering

We went to Mikaela's kindergarten winter festival and lantern walk tonight. It is a lovely way to mark midwinter and to recognise that the days will be getting longer again from this point on.

I was chatting to another parent afterwards, commenting what a magical experience it is for the children, walking along in the deepening evening, their way lit by the (candle) lanterns they carry, and by the larger candle-lit lanterns marking the path, singing their midwinter songs. I compared it to the fireworks nights we had in early June when I was a child, and still had here in Canberra until a couple of years ago. Both events held magic, flames and winter darkness. An important difference though, is that the lantern festival is directly associated with midwinter in a way that our fireworks night (the Queen's birthday celebration) wasn't. It gives the children - and parents - a sense of connection with the rhythm of the seasons that is overt, not just by the by.

Another important difference is that the lantern walk is done in an atmosphere of reverence. This is something many children (and parents) in our society now have very little opportunity to experience, and they make a deliberate effort to give the children such opportunities at the school. In a lovely article on the benefits of reverence and rhythm
Esther Leisher writes about the "openness toward the world and other people that reverence brings".

I love what she had to say about everyday reverence: "To permeate life with reverence means not just at set-aside times, but also reverence for everyday things. This creates a mood in a family. <big snip>...Reverence prepares your children to notice the good in life. What greater gift could you give them?"

I don't feel we do this terribly well in our family. It's one more thing I think would be easier - sorry *will* be easier - when we have decluttered our house. The value of the Steiner idea that the young child should be surrounded by beauty and order becomes more and more clear to me with each year at Orana and with each child. We have not done so well on this either, but there is still time for some of Mikaela's early years and most of Eliane's to be lived in such an environment.

I don't kid myself. I am not going to suddenly become a neat freak or a fabulous housekeeper and neither is Chris. But I do think getting the clutter down could will make an enormous difference.

And I do think that living in a more ordered environment with less clutter, will give us more room in our lives - figuratively as well as literally - for beauty and for everyday reverence.

In the meantime, I am glad Mikaela has her beautiful kindergarten classroom to escape to two days a week, and I am grateful for events like tonight's lantern festival, as well as the full primary school one we went to with Liam last week, which give both the children and us an opportunity to experience reverence in a more organised way.