25/07/2025
As St. John's Tide draws to a close, here is a short review of the highlights of this festival celebrated in school.
Celebrating St. John’s with water games and fire jumping are always great fun. Beneath this fun is a deeper meaning that gives the festival a great importance: change your ways!
John always proclaimed that we should change our ways, that we should clear the path or prepare the path for the lord. This twofold message to humanity may be represented in the game played during this festival. Water, for example, has long been associated with St. John’s festival Water is used to purify, to cleanse, to refresh. When we prepare for a big event, we shower. In this manner we prepare the way for the event that is to come. This too is part of St. John’s message.
Fire on the other hand is something we normally do not associate with St. John. And yet St. John also called to repent, to change our ways. Repent in Greek is metanoia. It means more than changing ways; it means to change our thoughts. This is more difficult. How do I change my thoughts so prejudices, biases, likes and dislikes, are transformed into creative ideas and constructive deeds? Clearly this is more than what water can do. This needs a different catalyst to bring on the transformation. Fire can do this when used constructively and purposefully. Thus John also proclaimed that one greater than he, one who baptises with fire was to come.
At Manila Waldorf School (MWS), we celebrate St. John’s festival with water and fire. After all the water fun, the urge to cleanse oneself is there. To jump the fire, our misconceptions and fearful thoughts of fire are confronted. Each is an opportunity to meet the call of St. John, the voice who called from the desert.
Photos courtesy of Michael Fong