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Wonderful autumn vibes…
…in our gardens!
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A certain glow even when the sun isn’t shining? You can find it right now in our gardens, all dressed up for autumn. With the cooler air, the beeches, oaks and maples seem to have decided to present a warm counter-program of colors.
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Bordeaux red, vermilion, orange and mustard yellow are the colors of the season. They take the melancholy out of grey autumn days and—when the sun happens to pour out its golden light—contrast beautifully with the blue sky. Some trees have already been stripped of their colorful garments by the storms—above all, the fruit trees.
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Now they stand there bare, unabashedly showing their bizarre branching, while all the colorful leaves gather on meadows, paths and beds, rest as hedgehog-friendly piles in the corners, and stick to our shoes.
Leaves in especially bright colors are lucky—they’re collected, pressed and turned into works of art by creative people, young and old. The same fate befalls chestnuts: studded with matchsticks, they’re arranged into little sculptures which, as winter progresses, lose their shine and wrinkle in a way no herb can cure.
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Our beds also bear autumn’s signature. Once-green grasses have shifted their palette and now glow in shades of brown and yellow. Shy in between: small asters and late roses. Along the edge of the Arena, magnificent dahlias are still holding the fort—stubbornly defying the cold before their delicate tubers move to winter quarters. Autumn isn’t just something you see—you smell it, too. The scent of damp earth, wet wood and mushrooms hangs in the air. While nature is slowly ready for a breather, the Arena is bustling. Now in autumn our hardworking gardeners tackle the weeds. Where growth had run wild, tulip bulbs will soon be planted with combined forces—turning our gardens into a sea of color every spring.
Anyone who’d like to let the sight of the autumnal gardens linger over a coffee or tea is warmly invited to our cozy café. Come by for an autumn walk!
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Here are our late-autumn visiting ideas at a glance:
Our Café is open daily until 6 January: Monday–Friday 8:00–11:00 and 14:00–18:00, Saturdays 8:00–18:00, Sundays & public holidays 9:30–18:00. After that the café takes a well-earned winter break, while the farm shop, gardens and the Ark Farm remain open for you as usual.
From 29 November your late-afternoon visit gets even more atmospheric—the Weeks of Light begin. For the second time we’ll wrap Michaelshof’s gardens in thousands of tiny lights and ring in the Advent season. With punch and waffles by the Waldsee and songs from our Advent choir, you can enjoy the special atmosphere of the illuminated gardens every weekend from 16:00 to 21:00 (our café is open then as well).
Or how about one of our events? For example the Lantern Walk on 9 November, the Star Seminar on 15 & 16 November, Baking Cookies Together on 22 November, the seminar “The World of the Gods” on 13 December, or our Raclette Evening on 14 December.And for everyone who loves to celebrate even in the cold season, our Pavilion and the New Café are perfect venues for all kinds of festivities—be it a last-minute Christmas party, a milestone birthday, or even your wedding. Just drop us a short email at info@sammatz.de, and we’ll get back to you to plan together.
As you can see, it’s well worth adding Michaelshof to your winter calendar! ✨
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Why places like Michaelshof
are keys to peace
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Jesús, a Colombian member of our community who came to Sammatz as a volunteer in 2022, recently wrote about volunteering and how he sees his work at Michaelshof. We found it so beautiful that we don’t want to keep it from you.
Some people discover volunteering because they’re looking for an affordable way to travel. Some people discover volunteering while looking for a cheap way to travel. Others find it while on the road, meeting people. And then there’s a third group, like me, who discover it before ever leaving home. Let me tell you a story. I come from a region marked by poverty, little access to education, and a lot of violence. I grew up a bit protected from it, but I couldn’t ignore what was around me. In my last years of high school, I started volunteering in my city.
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I helped in schools, cleaned beaches, joined environmental projects, and organized events to show young people other ways of living. My dad hated it haha. He always told me to find something that gave me money instead of giving my time away for free. But I kept going. Then, at university, I joined AIESEC. For three years, I went from small local volunteering to bigger national and international projects.
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I even worked with AIESEC in Poland, and that’s where I first heard about Sammatz. I helped many people find opportunities like this and live their own experiences. It was in AIESEC where I saw how volunteering can change people when they do it with heart. But many people I met there were just trying new things, or looking for meaning, not real connection. Then I came to Sammatz.
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My first potluck here, I sat at a table with people from Russia, Ukraine, Colombia, Germany, Israel. We were laughing together, sharing food, and talking about what we were going to do the next day. I remember thinking: this shouldn’t be possible. But it was. It is. I started to see the same thing happening again and again. Groups of people from countries that the media says should hate each other… laughing together, walking together, living together.
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Here I learned what it really means to live in peace with people from many countries. A whole village where friendship and volunteering are the engine. I came to the conclusion that peace is not made in offices by presidents and diplomats. Peace is built in places like this. Here we don’t carry the weight of our countries on our backs. We play, cook, dance, laugh, cry together. We build a space where empathy comes first: in conversations while working, in the lunchroom, in four languages at one table, in someone teaching you how to play piano or speak Spanish, in the quiet of the forest, while harvesting, painting, or cleaning animal poop, and in someone really listening.
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In less than three years, I’ve seen Sammatz grow — with tiny houses, the new Flachsenberg settlement, an energy system, a shop, a gym, a playground, and so many other things. But the biggest change happened inside me, and inside the people who walked this path with me. Sammatz keeps changing. And being here changes you too. Each of us brings a religion, a history, a culture. But none of them owns the “right” way to live. Here we learn to respect, not just tolerate. We learn to listen, not just speak. And when we stop seeing each other as people from countries, and start seeing each other as humans first, peace doesn’t feel far away. It feels real. It feels natural.
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If more people could live this or create their own communities with this spirit, I truly believe the world would change for the better. So maybe the question isn’t: Can we create world peace? Maybe it’s: What would happen if more people had the chance to live like this, even for a few months? I am proud to be part of a community that does not discriminate by race, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation. So, I wrote this as an invitation. Please share Sammatz with more people. Show them the way here. Believe me, this is the kind of experience your friends need to live. Because this is how we heal the world. Have you ever experienced a place where people from everywhere live in real peace? What did it teach you?I’d love to hear about it!
With love, Jesús!
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Hear that hammering…
…construction site update
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Maybe some of you have already seen—or heard—our construction site right next to the café? And have you wondered what’s being built there? Here’s the answer: the new organic market at Michaelshof! Our farm shop at the Ark Farm definitely has its charm, but it’s simply become too small for the many visitors. And even though we’d love to present all your favorite products, space is. pretty tight right now. So we’re fulfilling a long-held wish—for us and for you: a larger, more beautiful organic market with lots of atmosphere, numerous products from the farm, and plenty of room to browse and shop. Weekly grocery shopping for the whole family, souvenirs after a visit to the gardens or the Ark Farm, or a quick stop while you’re out and about—the new organic market is here for you!
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And—if all goes well—very soon.
We hope to welcome you this winter through the comfortable sliding doors of the wooden annex and win you over with the new look. Our building team is on fire: during the day together with our colorful volunteer team guided by experts, plus Bjarne and Felix on the carpentry in the annex; in the evenings our “gardeners’ team” everywhere that needs an extra turbo-boost.
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In future you’ll be able to pop over right after your café visit to pick up cheese, bread and much more from across the way. From the farm to your plate—and straight into your shopping basket. 😊
Are there great organic products you’d like to buy in our new store? Send us an email and we’ll add them to our wish list!
Where will our hardworking building team head next? We’re curious—and you can be, too!
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Last days of the gardening year…
…a Green Village photo story
Is there still enough to do for the garden team in autumn? You bet. The work of our Green Team looks very different now than in August, but there are still plenty of days when all hands are needed. Instead of flower splendor and weeding like crazy, it’s now: raking leaves, wintering pots, harvesting winter vegetables and wrapping the greenhouses. Let the cold season come! And because pictures say more than a thousand words, come along on a tour of our autumn gardening…
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Leaves.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of it starts with the foliage our brilliantly colored trees drop in great quantities day after day. As lovely as the crunch under winter boots is, it’s useful for us to bring the leaves to the compost to make good soil—and it’s nice that it reduces the mud hazard for us and for you.
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Heather.
Where nature settles into a well-earned rest, the heather really comes into bloom! So we went plant-shopping and refilled our pots with many varieties of beautiful winter heather. The little wall by the café and the two “flowerpot trees” now shine in fresh attire. Heather is quite the survivor, handling wind and cold with ease. Fascinating.
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Fruit harvest.
Here Noah is picking the last apples of the year; shortly after, we set out to visit their friends, the quinces. We placed an ad in the newspaper asking where in the district there are unharvested quince trees. Our phone didn’t stop ringing that Saturday morning. Soon the vertigo-proof team headed out to visit 17 of your gardens and harvest 1,200 kg of quinces.
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Others even dropped by with boxes full of already harvested fruit. Thank you for so much help! We’ve now turned everything into juice and are already looking forward to tasty quince jelly and much more!
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Winter vegetables.
Speaking of harvesting: the quieter season is slowly but surely arriving on the vegetable fields as well, and the last big harvests—pumpkins, onions and now also beetroot—are done. As you can see, it was a very good year for savoy cabbage.
In the next few weeks the veggie team will take care of smaller harvests, storage their crops, tidy up the fields and then… plan for next year. 🙂
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Tulips? And then there’s the big question on everyone’s mind: when will we all find the time window to pull on our mud trousers, grab the spades and head out on the mission “planting spring”? We’re definitely ready for tulip season—for planting and for spring vistas in the gardens. 🌷
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On hope…
In October, Claudia and Gisela hosted a seminar on hope. We’d like to share some of the thoughts and experiences with you here.
Hope is always directed toward the future. Through hope we can dare a new beginning—bring about change, bring about improvement. It works like a vital element, a life elixir that helps us fulfil our tasks with confidence. The striving for hope keeps us alive in a special way. Doesn’t even a sick person have a chance to get well as long as they haven’t given up hope?
But sometimes hope is anxious hope—accompanied by worry and the fear that what we wish for won’t come true. Then we feel how easily hope can become lonely when we think everything is getting over our heads. Especially in such moments we need other people—friends, companions, an open ear. Hope grows where we are no longer isolated but embedded in human togetherness. It is nourished by relationship, trust and the awareness: I don’t have to manage all this alone. In this way hope can take root in us again—and from it arises the strength to change our lives and the world.
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Which raises an important question: What nourishment does hope need in order to thrive in us? People, places, experiences, thoughts—or something deeper?
Hope stands in a direct relationship to the physical world. Events arise rhythmically—events we may hope for in advance. The farmer knows: if he sows his seed, the plants will grow. The carpenter is certain the table he built will still be standing the next day. And the sun—she will rise again in the morning.
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All this creates reliability, trust, a sense of lastingness. It is as if the world itself bears a quiet promise: that becoming and passing away, sowing and harvesting, day and night are bound together in a deep rhythm. In these words there is a hint that hope is a living being—a spiritual force that permeates matter, connects all living things and carries us in every moment of life. Seen this way, hope is not merely a feeling in the human being but a cosmic principle—a creative breath that keeps the world in balance—and carries us humans as well when we seek inner harmony with it.
We all know the words faith, love, hope—they are firmly rooted in our souls. These three forces—or better: three heavenly powers—belong to human wholeness. They work in body, soul and spirit and are indispensable for health and for life itself. Our whole organism is suffused with faith, love and hope. Love is the greatest of these powers—it unites and heals. But hope is the oldest: it has been there since the beginning of the world and to this day holds all that is physical together. Thus hope breathes in every stone, in every plant, in every human heart—as a quiet, constant force of becoming.
And what gives us hope in a spiritual sense? Some participants brought this question to the seminar. Just as in the physical world seeds grow into plants, we may trust that something also lives within us that is imperishable—an essence striving for development and balance. When we sense this eternal element within, the strongest forces of hope can grow—ones that work far beyond this single life.
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Michaelshof up to date – all opening hours at a glance!
Arche-Hof:
Mon-Sun 09.00 – 19.00
Café (open until 6 January)
Mon-Fri 08.00 – 11.00
14.00 – 18.00
Sat 08.00 – 18.00
Sun & holidays 09.30 – 18.00
Farm shop:
Weekdays, Sundays & public holidays
täglich 10.00 – 19.00
Der WAGEN in Lüneburg:
Wed & Sat 07.00 – 13.00
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Sun, 9 November – 12:00–18:00
St. Martin: Lantern Walk
“Ich geh mit meiner Laterne und meine Laterne mit mir…” Do you remember the songs that accompanied your lantern procession? In honor of St. Martin we revive this lovely custom every year and invite you and your children to join the lantern walk. In the afternoon we’ll craft lanterns; as darkness falls, we’ll parade through the village with our glowing creations. Fancy a cozy afternoon with a shining finale? Then sign up now.
Lantern crafting: €7 per child
Lantern walk: free entry; donations welcome
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Sat, 15 November 16:00–21:00 & Sun, 16 November 12:00–15:00
The Wisdom of the Stars
Earth, sky, human beings: all are part of a whole and connected. We all know the power of the moon and the enlivening warmth of the sun. But what knowledge lies in the starry firmament? Together we’ll observe and understand the heavens and the course of the stars at different times of day—indoors with our movable star chart and, of course, outdoors under the hopefully clear Sammatz evening sky arching impressively above you. Look forward to an extraordinary encounter and discover the relationship between earth and cosmos.
Participation: €20, registration requested.
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Sat, 22 November – 14:00–17:00
Inside Look No. 6: Cookies like Mum’s
What would Christmas be without vanilla crescents? Each of us connects the season with our family’s baking traditions. And of course we at Michaelshof have our own recipe collection. Together with you we want to revive childhood memories and invite you to a big cookie-baking afternoon. Want to bake your own cookies in good company? No problem! Send us your recipes in advance so we can prepare the ingredients. Or trust our good taste and try some of our house recipes. We’ll be happy to provide a small compendium of the contributed recipes afterwards—plus a bag of homemade cookies.
Participation: €20, registration requested.
Plus a small charge for the cookies you take home.
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Every weekend from 29 November to 6 January – 17:00–21:00
Festival of Lights at Michaelshof
Isn’t it wonderful when, at the start of Advent, the darkness is lit by thousands of tiny lights? Every year we look forward to illuminating and decorating Michaelshof festively—with strings and objects of lights as far as the eye can see. A little beacon of hope and a sure guide through a contemplative season full of joyful anticipation of Christmas. Immerse yourselves in the magic of our Festival of Lights and stroll through enchantingly illuminated gardens. Especially at the idyllic Waldsee, where thousands of sparkling lights turn the evening into an unforgettable experience, a feast for the senses awaits you. Enjoy fragrant punch, fresh waffles and the cozy warmth of the fire bowls. After your walk our comfy café invites you to warm up with hot drinks and round off the evening.
By the way: our radiant lights brighten the Advent season on the following weekends as well. Christmas can come!
Free entry! Donations welcome.
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If you get into conversation with Gisela, you quickly notice: Peronnik, the Selma Lagerlöf School and Gisela are inseparable. There’s so much enthusiasm in her words that you can feel how deeply rooted she is in Michaelshof. A good thing—after all, long ago the Sammatz native turned down a permanent civil-service position as a special-needs teacher to give a completely new life model a chance.
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It all began with a flyer in 1988. The still quite small Michaelshof community invited people to take part in what has since become the legendary Jeanne d’Arc Seminar—to get to know both anthroposophy and themselves. Without knowing where Steiner’s path of knowledge would lead her, Gisela plunged into biographical work, anthroposophy and community life. She liked what she experienced—so much so that she decided to stay.
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Feeling welcomed at Michaelshof as a whole human being with all facets, Gisela first took on the care of people with mental illness in the Phönix social-therapy home and later even became its director. Phönix no longer exists, but new projects—many of which Gisela helped initiate—have taken its place.
With head, heart and hands—and together with her best friend Janet—Gisela set about founding Sammatz’s first residential group for children with physical and emotional care needs in 2000. That first Peronnik group was followed by eight more, so that today a total of 46 children can be lovingly cared for at Michaelshof. But what if the kid’s groups provide empathetic support, yet outside Sammatz the children lack individual attention in everyday school life? Right—you found a school of your own, where the children’s special needs are addressed in very small groups. Finding herself, as a special-needs educator, suddenly in the role of school director wasn’t Gisela’s plan—but she has grown into the task and fills it with life every day.
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Nothing, Gisela believes, is more fulfilling than noticing that the children are happy at school. And when she sees the boys and girls outgrow themselves in their self-chosen projects and present their work with pride, she knows she made the right decision.
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Find the value that only you have—and give yourself to the world. Adults could use a bit of that spirit, too, says Gisela. She can well imagine passing on in seminars what the children already manage: simply being themselves. And as it goes at Michaelshof: when an idea ripens long enough, it suddenly stands on its own two feet and starts to walk. So we can look forward to Gisela’s next projects!
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We’re looking for committed, dynamic people who like taking responsibility and enjoy country life. Is a meaningful occupation more important to you than a “9-to-5 job”? Then you’ve come to the right place!
Hands-On:
- Educator for our Peronnik child & youth home
- Ornamental-plant gardener
- Gardener for trees, shrubs & lawn care
- Construction worker
- Landscape gardener
- Pharmacist
- Printer & laminator
Office:
Your qualification isn’t listed and you’re still interested? Give it a try!
Please send your application with photo to claudia.brady@sammatz.de – we’ll get back to you!
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+++ NEWSTICKER +++
Impressions from everyday community life…
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…today: Claudia and Joshua after a good day’s work at Eichenhof during our Apple & Autumn Market…
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…a few glimpses into our autumn festival activities…
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…Gabi proudly presenting the results of this year’s work on the vegetable field…
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…sweet animal moments—a happy calf with its mother in the pasture, and our best dog friends, Donna and Oskar…
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…our Sammatz combo with musical reinforcement from Randa from Algeria…
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…and shake-hands between landbau & garden teams—with Will from Colombia and Tomas from Argentina…
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One of our favorite November photos from last year: goats and sheep in golden morning light—just before grazing season comes to an end.
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Warm greetings and see you next time—Anna & Marina ❤️
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