Day Schildkret’s Morning Altars: Nature’s Ephemera as Transitory Healing Art

When Day Schildkret found himself stunned by a sudden flurry of emotional body blows, he was inconsolable, taking long walks through Wildcat Canyon with his faithful pup – head down and heartsick. Note: “head down” can bring you face to face with unsought, healing wonder. Day will be leading a workshop on nature, art, and ritual at The Sacred Space in Summerland on October 14. In this excerpted discussion, he explains the Morning Altar/Map of Meaning – an evanescent, mandala-like work of beauty and solace one creates from found natural objects. 

Q. The nomenclature “Morning Altar” is interesting, in part because Altar suggests a place of consecration. 

A. I love words. And if we look at the word Altar itself, it derives from an old Latin word, the word Altus, which means literally to raise up. An altar takes what you put down and raises it up, it makes it sacred, it sanctifies it. In my own story – my grief over the loss of my father – this became a morning practice where I would go under a tree and sit down and create beauty as a way to metabolize my grief. In terms of practicing this myself and teaching this to other people, instead of Morning Altars, I’ve been calling them Maps of Meaning. They’re an opportunity for us to actually craft meaning, to make symbolic meaning. Why? Because sometimes we need something external that represents our inner landscape.

Do you think of the Morning Altar – the Map of Meaning – as a discovery of something intrinsic to nature, like mathematics, for instance? Something fundamental to the natural order?

I think to say “discover” is not accurate because this is a practice in pretty much every single indigenous culture. I had a workshop once in North Carolina at a retreat center, primarily populated by Indians, by which I mean people from subcontinental India. I was told there that a lot of the women were engaged in a practice – one that had been passed down for generations through the mother’s line – called Kolam. In this tradition, the women wake up at dawn and create impermanent patterns out of flour and rice meal in front of their homes as a way of feeding the gods, as a way of calling in rain, as a way of giving thanks. From Peru to India to Thailand to here in America, there are many cultures where the indigenous populations are making impermanent patterns as a way of being in relationship with the places that they live, and the times that they’re in. And so these Maps of Meaning have different purposes.

Does the act of personal creative expression in the making of a beautiful Map of Meaning bring some added weight to the practice? Some meaningful infusion of the present Self into an ancient tradition?

This is a seven-step practice. From foraging to creating the altars, to gifting them, the entire practice is a relationship with creativity and inspiration. Just taking a walk down the street and paying attention to the trees and the flowers growing in the bushes – that is a creative act first and foremost. Nature is a creative act. I have a lot of students who come to my teacher trainings or my workshops and say, well, I’m not an artist, so I can’t really do that. What’s really attractive about this practice is that, unlike drawing or painting or music, it doesn’t really require a particular skillset. It’s just arrangement. But it allows people to tap into their innate creativity and to really feel that sense of “…Oh! I can make something beautiful!” And when you empower someone to have that capacity, that really impacts their lives.

When one is creating a visually beautiful Map of Meaning, how does the uniqueness of terrain inform the spiritual character of the thing being made?

Everything in this practice – this art and modality – is informed by the time and the place. The materials that you’re using are informed by the time and the place, the way the ground looks, the weather at that moment, the movement of the light. I’ve made over a thousand of these myself. In my teacher training I’ve worked with people from 12 different countries, and I’ve taught tens of thousands of people in workshops around the world, and I’ve never seen the same piece twice. I lead four-to-six-week intensives throughout the year. We have our next one coming up at the end of January. We’re training therapists, social workers, clergy, teachers, life coaches. I’m very proud of that.

What role does the impermanent, transitory nature of these things play in the weight of their meaning?

This is the spell that the Western world is under, that certain things need to be preserved and they can’t change. The heart of this practice is that we get to have a lived experience of letting something go, to be present in the moment to really pay attention to what’s here. Right now.  

The Sacred Space in Summerland will be hosting a transformative experience based in nature, art, and ritual led by renowned artist and author Day Schildkret.

October 14, 10 am – 2:00 pm
The Sacred Space
2594 Lillie Avenue
Summerland, CA 93067

Spend the day learning from Day and building your own altar on The Sacred Space grounds. Includes lunch by Field & Fort. $360 per person, limited to 16 guests. For more information call (805) 565-5535 or email blessings@thesacredspace.com.