Get Ready for Michaelmas - a Festival of Strength and Gratitude! September 27 2025

A Note from the Library Lady

Michaelmas is not just another festival circled on the calendar. Oh no! It is a festival of courage — one that draws us together as a community, fills us with gratitude, and helps us remember the strength that lives within each of us.

The Meaning Behind the Festival

This turning of the year — when the harvest is gathered and the days grow shorter — has always been a time of both bounty and challenge. In Waldorf schools, we recognize this threshold as an invitation: to find courage for what lies ahead, to give thanks for the gifts of the earth, and to trust that our inner light can shine even when the outer world grows darker.
The story of St. Michael (and sometimes St. George) with the dragon is central to the season. The dragon is not a creature to be feared so much as a picture of the inner struggles we all meet: doubts, worries, or obstacles that call for bravery. For children, this story offers a clear image of courage. For adults, it is a gentle reminder that we are always asked to face our dragons — in small choices as well as in life’s greater challenges.

What Happens in the Schools

In the weeks leading up to Michaelmas, the classrooms begin to hum with activity. Children learn songs and verses that carry the festival’s spirit of bravery. Teachers tell stories of courage, and in many schools, the older students prepare a Michaelmas play, performing the dragon tale for the younger ones.
There are crafts and colors everywhere — lanterns, dragons, golden leaves, and bright capes in red, gold, and orange. The smells of dragon bread baking or pots of harvest soup simmering may drift through the halls as children prepare food to be shared by the community.
And when the festival day arrives, the school bursts with activity: obstacle courses, tug-of-war games, and challenges that call on courage and cooperation. The children laugh, sing, and play, and the whole community gathers for the pageant and a meal together.

Why It Matters

You see, festivals in the Waldorf year are not only celebrations — they are nourishment. They create rhythm, anchor us in the turning of the seasons, and give both children and adults experiences that feed the soul.
Michaelmas, in particular, teaches that courage is not the absence of fear, but the will to face what comes with light in the heart. In the season when days grow shorter, the festival whispers to us: Carry your own flame; it will guide you through the darkness.

Looking Ahead

So, don’t be surprised if your child comes home talking of dragons, bread baking, or a new song they’ve learned. These are the outer signs of the festival’s deeper work — awakening courage and gratitude in each of us.
Together, as families, teachers, and children, we step into the darker season not with dread but with strength, with community, and with light in our hearts — ready to meet the dragons ahead, both seen and unseen.

Michaelmas Verses

Autumn Blessing:
Brave and true will I be,
Each good deed sets me free,
Each kind word makes me strong.
I will fight for the right! 
I will conquer the wrong!
Sword of Michael brightly gleaming,
Down to earth its light is streaming,
May we see its shining rays
In the Winter's darkest days.

Brave and True
Brave and true I will be
Each good deed sets me free.
Each kind word makes me strong.
I will fight for the right,
I will conquer the wrong.

St. Michael
Earth grows dark and fear is lurking,
O St. Michael, Heaven’s knight,
Go before us now and lead us,
Out of darkness, into light.

Michaelmas Verse
Sword of Michael, brightly gleaming, 
Down to earth it’s light is streaming.
May we see it’s shining rays
Through the winter’s darkest days.