Festivals

CELEBRATED AT THE TIME OF THE WINTER CROSS QUARTER. 

AROUND FERUARY 2nd EACH YEAR

Life after death 

life before birth; 

only by knowing both

do we know eternity. 

Rudolf Steiner

With these few simple words Rudolf Steiner drew attention to the mysteries of pre-birth and an awareness of intentions carried in the soul before physical incarnation. This mystery is beautifully celebrated in February, at the winter cross quarter time, long-associated with cultivating an inner light.

CELEBRATED AT THE TIME OF THE WINTER CROSS QUARTER. 

AROUND SPRING EQUINOX EACH YEAR

As the Christmas thought by its inner livingness has brought forth the St. John's thought after a half-year, so must the Easter thought bring forth the Michael thought. Humankind must attain an esoteric maturity, so as to think, not merely abstractly, but to be able again to think so concretely that we can again become festival-creating. 

Then it will be possible again to unite something spiritual with the cycle of sense phenomena. 

Rudolf Steiner |  Easter 1923

CELEBRATED THE 50th DAY AFTER EASTER

ONE OF THE YEAR'S MOVEABLE FEAST DAYS

At the times when the great festivals of the year approach our souls, it is good ever and again to bring before our inner eye, out of spiritual cosmic connections, the meaning of the festival year. And I should like to do this by setting before you how, under the influence of spiritual insights and over long ages, the festival year has gradually evolved out of the whole constitution of the Earth. 

The Cycle of the Year as a Breathing Process 

Rudolf Steiner, March 31, 1923

CELEBRATED AT THE TIME OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

FEAST OF ST JOHN'S IS JUNE 24 EACH YEAR

...in the glow of Summer, just because a nature-consciousness is then at its height in humanity, it is all the more necessary for the cosmos that ~ if only human beings are willing ~ the cosmos should bring the spiritual to meet them. Hence we can say: In Summer human beings are closely enmeshed in nature but, if they have the right feeling and perception for it, objective spirituality comes towards them from nature's interweaving life..."

~

"...And now for St John's-time, there appears ~ to describe it in human terms, which are of course bound to be only approximate ~ an extraordinary earnest countenance. It arises glowing warmly out of the pervading radiant Intelligence. We have the impression that this figure forms its warm body of light out of the radiant Intelligence. And for this to happen at the height of Summer something I have already described must arise: the elemental spirits of the Earth must soar upwards. As they do so, they weave themselves into the shining Intelligence up above, and the shining Intelligence receives them into itself. And out of that gleaming radiance the figure I have just mentioned takes form.

"The form was divined by the old instinctive clairvoyance, and we can give it the same name by which it was known then. We can say: In Summer, Uriel appears in the midst of the shining Intelligence."

The Four Seasons and the Archangels  |  lecture IV The St. John Imagination  |  Rudolf Steiner October 12, 1923

CELEBRATED AT THE TIME OF AUTUMN EQUINOX

FEAST OF MICHAEL IS SEPTEMBER 29

"If people could take the initiative and found a festival whose source arises only in the spiritual world, (and) which can kindle feelings of fellowship among human beings ~ a festival whose immediacy and reality would be created through the fresh, full power of human hearts ~ then something would come into being which can unite people once more in the social realm. Far more important than all other reflections on social conditions ~ which can lead to no results in our present chaotic conditions unless they contain the spirit ~ would be this: that a number of people with understanding for these things should come to institute on earth, in accord with the cosmos, a Michael Festival." 

Rudolf Steiner | May 23, 1923

 CELEBRATED AT THE TIME OF THE AUTUMN CROSS QUARTER.   

 AROUND NOVEMBER 2nd EACH YEAR  

Most cultures around the world recognize a sacred season for honoring loved ones who have died, and in the Northern Hemisphere, this season corresponds to the Autumn Cross Quarter, when outer daylight wanes and we experience greater outer darkness. Much of anthroposophical spiritual science concerns itself with the trehshold between the physical and spiritual worlds,which we encounter each day in waking and sleeping,  and each year at this Autumn Cross Quarter. Now our programming turns to ways to engage ceremonially with this opportunity in the cycle  of the year. 

"What the human being experiences as their destiny or karma takes place for him, within him, and about him, from earthly life to earthly life. But in the heavenly worlds the consequences of what the human being did and experienced on earth go working on and on~and they work on even into the historic shaping of this earthly life. For there are many things which are not grasped or controlled by the individual human being here upon earth. My drear friends, you must take this statement in its full weight and importance."

 Karmic Relationships Vol III, lecture 2  |  Rudolf Steiner July 4, 1924  

 CELEBRATED AT THE TIME OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE  

 DURING THE 12 DAYS AND 13 NIGHTS FROM CHRISTMAS EVE TO EPIPHANY  

The Holy Nights are a time for review of the year past and anticipation of the year ahead, when we leave off from what has been and turn to face what will be, from Solstice time to Epiphany. The days and nights of this time are as though set apart in the cycle of the year, when there is a natural pause in outer activity for the fire of one's inner striving to flame forth and illuminate the way ahead, in harmony with spirit beings that wear as their garment the starry regions of the zodiac.

Each year ASA provides rich programming to support the inspiratioins that natrually arise in this season, framed by the 12 constellations of the zodiac, the virtues, the arts, and the unfolding human biography.