Morning Altars by Day Schildkret Highlights the Beauty in Impermanence

California-based artist and educator Day Schildkret has become internationally renowned for his beautiful, mandala-inspired Morning Altars. Schildkret creates each piece of impermanent earth art as a process of mindful meditation, inspired by a blessing, created in collaboration with the natural world, and woven with deep meaning.

Ambassador (2016)
Credit: Morningaltars.com

Creation as Meditation

The creation of these Morning Altars is part of Day’s daily ritual of mediation, connection, and creation. Foraging for natural materials allows him to become connected to, and awed by, the land. The building of the Morning Altar (which can take more than four hours) is followed by a blessing, and then separation. The separation allows the altar to become altered and/or destroyed by natural forces, be it weather, critters, or simply time.

Schildkret’s meditative process and creation of impermanent beauty follows the practice and history of Tibetan Buddhist sand mandalas. Created by Buddhist monks, these mandalas are complex designs made out of colored sand which are destroyed upon their completion. This ritual is intended to to highlight the ephemeral, transitory nature of material life. Beauty and connection is in the creative process. In this way, the creative process is treated as an end, not a means to an end.

An great example of this is The Mourning After, pictured below. It is a grief altar, and the description of it states:

I have no words of wisdom. No balm to make the pain softer. No certainty that says all will be OK. This morning there was grief all around and my hands went to work to digest it all. All I can say is in the coming darkness, you can count on me for beauty.

The creation of this particular altar was a way for the artist to process grief, a way to feel it and connect with it, without trying to solve it or ignore it.

The Mourning After
Credit : Morningaltars.com

Creation as Connection

Schildkret’s creative process is an honest dialogue between the human and natural world.  As a practice of obeying the place and time he is in, he only uses materials he discovers around the place he builds. Each piece is a changing conversation with the past and present (and future) landscape. It is a meditative lingering on ancient remembering, impermanence, death, and rebirth, which Schildkret believes can bring forth real connection and healing nourishment.

Schildkret’s Opening in the Sky  (pictured below), is a beautiful example of this. After the death of a companion, Schildkret’s community experienced the pain of two more deaths, followed by the joy of of two births. He devoted this particular Morning Altar to the stars, the little cracks of light that are our “openings in the sky,” which can serve as reminders of where we come from, and where we go.  His blessing for the piece states, “May our newborns and dying-ones remind us of the awe necessary to be alive.”

Opening in the Sky (2017)
Credit: Morningaltars.com

Schildkret’s Morning Altars and meditative creative practice have brought him a large  following on social media, though his reach extends beyond the world of art. As an educator, he offers mentorship and guidance on creative purpose for spiritually minded individuals. In addition, he teaches community workshops on altar-building and foraging.

Schildkret will be giving one of his altar-building workshops on April 21 as part of Reimagine End of Life in the Bay Area. We’ll be interviewing him after the workshop, so check back in here May 5th to learn more about his story, his creative process, and the healing and connection that can happen when one creates intentional earth art.