A Ritual Renaissance with Day Schildkret

Intro: 0:36

Welcome to Story and Horse, a podcast where we hear stories from creative lives. Meet new people, hear about their challenges and triumphs, and get inspired to move forward with your creativity. Now, here's your host, Hilary Adams.

Hilary Adams: 0:58

Hello, thanks for joining us here on the Story and Horse podcast. I'm your host, Hilary Adams. I'm a creative coach, theater director and founder of Story and Horse. I offer personalized coaching for creative people. And here on the podcast, we share stories from creative lives. Today, we are joined by Day Schildkret. Day is an award winning author, artist, ritualist, teacher and is internationally known for his book Morning Alters. And he just published a brand new book called Hello, Goodbye 75 Rituals for Times of Loss Celebration and Change. And I'm so excited to welcome Day.

Day Schildkret: 1:34

Thank you. It's great to see you too. I'm happy to be here.

Hilary Adams: 1:38

Congratulations on your brand new book.

Day Schildkret: 1:41

Thank you. It's a I'm carrying the rings under my eyes of a newborn.

Hilary Adams: 1:48

Now Day you and I go back quite a long ways. We met each other in New York City. And we're both working in theatre as theatre directors.

Day Schildkret: 1:58

Long time ago, another life many other lives ago for me, yeah,

Hilary Adams: 2:03

But there is ritual and theater and theater directing?

Day Schildkret: 2:07

Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. Ritual and storytelling. I mean, they go hand in hand,

Hilary Adams: 2:13

they do. So tell us a little bit about you and who you are what you're up to.

Day Schildkret: 2:19

Sure. I mean, you're throwing me back to the early days of New York City and theater. There's been as I said, many live since then. And one of the lives that pretty much claimed me since then is is this art practice that you referred to called Morning Alters, which is on a you know, the elevator pitch of it is basically creating and permanent Earth art or Earth altars. There, there are pieces that are dedicated their devotional pieces. That all started, I'd say about 11 years ago, when I was going through a major moment in my life where my dad died. And my partner and I broke up. And so there was enormous grief for me at that time. And, and basically, this practice was, you know, just like came out of the blue. And it was, in retrospect, me experiencing so much chaos in my life from the from the loss, that I literally sat down under a tree and started to take leaves and berries and bark and put them into some kind of order. So that I could actually see that there was such a thing as order. And, and I felt so much lighter after the first time I did it, I just felt like I was returning to myself again. So I made a commitment, could I do this for 30 days, make one each day go to the same tree on this path in the park with my dog. And I did and I haven't stopped, it's been 11 years. And I started to put this out into the world. And the craziest thing happened, which is people in countries like Peru or Iraq, Iran, or Russia, or Poland or whatever countries all over the world, people were inspired to make art out of their land and the places they lived for their own reasons, you know, their grandmother died, or they got a new job, or they moved homes. And they would make this art and dedicate it and send me a photo of it. And suddenly this movement started of 1000s of people around the world doing this, and I wrote a book about it. And and I'm teaching the teacher training 100 people from five continents right now, bringing it to prisons, and elementary schools and memory care facilities. And so that's been interesting, because like Not in a million years would I have thought this would have been my career or my life. And this new book is basically a child of that practice. But it's standing on the shoulders of it, but it's speaking to a much bigger thing, which is about ritual in general. And how our culture's pretty much illiterate when it comes to meaning making, and how especially since COVID, how desperate we are to find meaning and essentially sanity as our world changes. And, and so this book is 36 life transitions. As I, you know, like losing a pet and coming out of the closet and waking up in the morning and divorce and death and birth and these like major and minor life transitions. And essentially, it's a cookbook. It's a ritual cookbook. So help people just mark those moments so that they can find themselves and orient again to their changing lives. So that's a little bit about me. A lot about me. And I'm, you know, I don't take my life or my career for granted. And I'm really, I'm very honored to be here. And I'm also honored to be doing this work in the world.

Hilary Adams: 6:09

Wow, there's, I have so many questions. Mmm hmm. Well, first, I would like you to define could you Steve's I'm sure you've been asked this so many times. But just for us. How do you define alter?

Day Schildkret: 6:24

Well, I thought you were gonna ask how do I define ritual? And I'll,

Hilary Adams: 6:28

that's my second question.

Day Schildkret: 6:30

You know, I'm an I'm a word nerd, I, I love words. I especially love the etymology of words, the roots of words, words are like people they travel, they, they actually are alive, they move through time they change like we do, they don't necessarily mean the same thing that they used to mean. And so all words are like that. And just because we're saying them doesn't necessarily mean they've - they've originated in our culture, or our tongue. So alters comes from Latin. And it means all tests are comes from all tests, which basically means to raise up to raise up higher than you. And so in that story of my father's death, and my own divorce, I put my grief on this altar. And I raised it up so that it wasn't weighing me down. And I was able to actually see my grief as a skill rather than an affliction. And that's how I see alters is an, it's an opportunity to put something down to raise it up. There's no wonder I'd make these altars on the ground. You know, it's like kind of a interesting juxtaposition, you're putting something down to raise something up. Moving on to the word ritual, this is even more interesting. The etymology of that word means to count. But, you know, it's not necessarily like 1-234-567-8910. I had an interesting by the way, thought about this counting often has a destination, like you're trying to count to get somewhere. But actually, this kind of counting, and maybe you'll find this really interesting is more like how a musician or a dancer counts 12341234, and you're not counting to get out of the counting, you're counting to stay in the counting. They're counting to stay in the music, you're counting so that you don't get lost in the music. So rituals, very similar. These are rituals are moments in our lives to basically mark 12341 to mark these major and minor and minor moments in our lives, so that we don't get lost. Because getting lost is easy in life. And forgetting is easy. So rituals help us remember, just like counting music does. And it helps us stay on track, so that we don't get lost. And that's just the word isn't that interesting. That's just the etymology of the word that's telling us that

Hilary Adams: 9:09

That is really interesting. Repeatedly on this podcast, we've had people share variations on the theme, that structure and framework within creativity allows creativity, creativity to thrive. And that counting reminds me of that and you're saying so we don't get lost so that it's a framework or structure inside the poetry or song of our lives. As I'm understanding it

Day Schildkret: 9:33

another another metaphor I really like with rituals like their cairns - c a i r n s - their little for those of you listening that don't know what a cairn is, they're essentially like piles of stone on a trail. And people they're essentially markers on a trail from someone that came before you. And that's a really important part of it. Someone traveled this path before you and basically went essentially off track. Right? They did, because they basically said don't go straight turn here. So this is a very similar thing for ritual, which is, you know, a variety of rituals that have been passed down. They're basically saying, don't keep going on with your life. Turn or return here. Don't pretend like everything's normal. Don't try and be the same person. In that you were, this is a time to return to yourself or return to your partner have returned to your home or return to your values or whatever. And that's what a ritual is, it's a marker on your path so that you're not carrying on because, you know, I interviewed 250 people for this book. One of the stories in the book is a woman who retired, she was at her job for 30 plus years. And she retired and for two years after she retired, she kept on waking up at five in the morning, panicked, every day, panicked, because she felt like she was had a project due or she was late for work, or whatever, her psyche, kept on going straight. And she'd had no inner understanding, even though it was obvious, but she she wasn't getting it on a psychological level, that something had changed, and she's not in the same job, she's not the same person, this is an opportunity to return to yourself, and turn, you're no longer a worker, you're retired, you're no longer this job title. You know. And so ritual really helped her. It helped her not just you know, in her life, but really her inner life, so that she could reorient to her new self. And so that's really, you know, I'm, I'm advocating, I just coined this phrase the other day advocating for ritual, Renaissance, Ritual Renaissance, and one that's not defined by religion. Because that's not that's rituals have found home there. But they're not that's not the origination of ritual, they predate religion.

Hilary Adams: 12:13

Reminds me of the importance of thresholds about the importance of wanting,

Day Schildkret: 12:18

you should read this entire book, you'd really like it, you're naming all of the things. I wrote a whole section on thresholds.

Hilary Adams: 12:27

How do you define thresholds?

Day Schildkret: 12:29

Well, again, you're asking great questions and thresholds is an interesting word to most people define. And this is in the introduction of the book. So you know, basically, it's like a what is a threshold? Because that's a very common word people use even though we don't use the actual word in our modern language, right, like thresholds most people talk about as doorways. Why Why not just call it a doorway? Why threshold? I mean, who here listening to this podcast is actually threshing grain? Probably not many people. But if you've actually threat if you find YouTube it, watch a video people threshing grain. Here's some interesting things about it. First off, they're beating the grain, like a drum. Oftentimes, there's a song, there's a threshing song sung with the beating of the grain. Okay, so here's the thing, there's rhythm in it, right? There's that counting again. But here's the major piece about thresholds and threshing. Sorry, is your distinguishing or discerning essentially, you know, the expression the wheat from the shop chaff. You're taking the edible and removing it from the inedible. That's the very function of ritual. You are separating this from that fill in the blank. You're separating who you were, from who you are, you're separating the relationship that you were in, from the relationships that you're in now. You're separating the home that you were in from the home, that your whatever, whatever's changed, you're separating them through the ritual, so that you can distinguish and discern what is from what was

Hilary Adams: 14:17

and what you're carrying forward. And what you can leave behind. What's edible. Yeah, but it strikes me also the importance of physicality. Because so much now is not physical and so much used to be physical and

Day Schildkret: 14:33

Bingo and that in ritual in the book, I call it symbolic action, which is you're burning something burying something submerging something tearing something, twist, whatever, fill in the blank, what the action is me you can make up your own. I mean, last night, I did this I had lit a fire and I burned something very important to me, because I needed to distinguish, like, I needed I needed help seeing what was burn. There is no other way I couldn't do it in my head. I couldn't change in my mind. I needed to physically see it, burn. And you're absolutely right. We we've gone more and more inside inside of our heads. And we're disinviting ourselves in these times, especially with like the screens and VR and you know, cell phones and technology and so ritual lives in the plane. ritual can travel both in ternal landscapes and external landscapes. But you can't think a ritual, you have to do it. You have to do ritual, you can't think it. So that's a very interesting distinction.

Hilary Adams: 15:46

Mm hmm. Absolutely. I'm also struck by the idea of putting the, like, you're just talking about burning something about being a putting the things outside of yourself. So making the invisible visible, you know, a lot of what we do as artists often is that we're taking our landscape or internal landscape, and cooperatively or individually, allowing it to arrive outside of ourselves. So we can relate to it in a way to have that conversation and for why, and perhaps other people have that conversation, too.

Day Schildkret: 16:22

Yeah, I mean, this is yeah, I mean, this is this is the thing about ritual is that it's a very old, very old technology. And it accesses different aspects of our humanity, that we, as modern people are losing. And all the things that you're naming right now, the physicality of it, the symbolism of it, that taking the external, bringing the internal and bringing it external, all of these things are whoever, wherever you're from, you're and my ancestors understood the importance of that. And our modern adolescent culture has no clue about that. So for instance, lots of people are going back to work into the office right now, right, or to school this past year. But most of them did not do anything to mark that return. So then you have this internal conflict with people where they're like, in their back somewhere that they hadn't been in years. And they're struggling internally, because there's nothing their internal landscape is totally different than the external landscape. And they feel crazy. But the work the, the businesses have from our culture don't care, because they just want productivity. They have no interest where most don't I mean, I'm trying to change that I'm going into businesses to change this. But most, you know, the, the heart of the culture, which is the capitalism, capitalistic culture really just wants growth. Reflection, ritual, is really not about movement forward, it's about pausing or slowing down. You know, so the movements very different. It's not about producing, it's about replenishing or reflecting or, or, you know, understanding or whatever. But it's not, it's a totally different realm. It's not like ritual can exist in a workplace. It can't, it must actually because we need our humanity in the workplace. But it has a different objective, let's say.

Hilary Adams: 18:34

Yeah, yeah. And before we started recording, you mentioned about rest and about the importance of rest and creativity.

Day Schildkret: 18:41

I mean, I'm going through right now the last couple weeks I've had from a trip to New York, I had, I got my circadian rhythm got super messed up. And I've been having insomnia. And that's like, its own personal journey for me. But one of the things that I've returned to is my own my own culture, my own tradition, which is I come from a Jewish culture, and the heart of our culture, like, the original text, not just the text, like, the first part of the text is basically like, God or the universe or the divine, or however you want to refer to it, created and then rested. That's like the basic foundation of the damn text. Like the universe was creative, and then rested. So, you know, they inform each other. And in my culture, like, and for 12 years of my life, my adolescence and into my 20s, like I was something we call Shomer Shabbat, which means basically like a guardian of the rest. Think about that. I had to you, we have a lot of rules. I don't obey them anymore, but we have a lot of rules, so that you are forced to rest. Why? Because you know how seductive creativity is. It's very seductive to work and create and go and push and do all of the time. And, but there's deep value in that. And it happens to be also we have this other thing. I wasn't planning on talking about this, but it's interesting. We haven't other really cool technology in my culture, that's called Shmita, which basically is, if we are meant to arrest every seven days, the culture is meant to arrest every seven years. And we're actually in this year right now, in our calendar. And the cool thing about this thing called Shmita, is basically, the rules are all cultivated, lands go fallow, all debts go neutral. All private property go public. And it's basically like, it understands the culture gets inflated over time. And it's a reset button, not just for you individually, but for the whole people and the land. How cool is that? It really understands rest as an essential part of creation, it's two wings of the same bird. Creating, resting, creating resting. I, this is a huge, huge song in my life right now. Huge. Because I've been working so much for so long. I mean, I think it's been 10 years since I took a vacation. So, you know, I'm learning myself the importance of rest and ritualizing rest, not just like, taking a nap. That's good, too. But actually ritualizing it to distinguish, like, this is not work. This is different. I'm not checking my email right now. Right? You know, I'm not, I'm not doing the work stuff, you can't get back to me, I can't get back to you. Listen, you know, too often, we confuse, and that's an interesting word to to confuse confusion co n, which means with and the fusion, which means to take two separate things and make them one, which is the opposite of what I've been talking about the whole time, which is about separation and distinction, right? The confused parts is that we don't distinguish the rest from the work. And we make them into one thing. And the ritualizing, of of the rest, is the sanctification of it. It's actually separating it out and saying and pardon. You know, there's no religious connotation here. But it's essentially saying, this is holy, you know, what's confusing, is when we, when we mistake ourselves for being the origin of the creation. That's the confusion. Right? As opposed to, and I just taught a whole course on this the other day about, you know, essentially, we are not genius. You know, we have genius, and how to court, the muse, how to court creativity, how to set a space, where the there's the possibility that that spirit can enter in and inspire us. But when we think that we're sourcing it, then we essentially exploit it. And we don't understand that part of the utilization or the collaboration, of working with creativity, is letting it replenish itself. So then then it's not exploitation, it's exploration. You're not taking you're giving. And so it's a it's reciprocal relationship. For instance, thank you so much for visiting me, like to the Create to the inspiration, thank you so much. I feel I felt really inspired today. And I actually made a lot of things with that inspiration. But I'm not going to take any more. Because there's such a thing as overtaking. In any relationship, you can feel it when someone's like overtaking from you or abusing you. You know, it's a very respectful to say like, I've had enough. And I'm going to rest and I'm going to let you rest. And wouldn't it be interesting or amazing if you revisited me again,

Hilary Adams: 24:46

you mentioned early in this that. That there's a sense with if you leave the stones behind for people to find metaphorically, and probably once upon a time, physically and perhaps in what you're building physically. It's so nice to know that other people have walked that way. It's so nice to feel the origins of things in that and that's something that is so often lost now because again, we're not, we used to migrate. We used to go on journeys as people through the seasons. We used to literally be in the places where our ancestors were and walked and I think there's a lot lost in that.

Day Schildkret: 25:26

tremendous. I mean, you really you really need to read this whole book, you're literally saying the entire introduction. First and foremost, there's not just comfort in it, there's responsibility. Right? So people have come before you absolutely. That's deeply comforting, and people will come after you. So there's a responsibility as a descendant of people in the same way people left, you know, signs for you. You have to leave signs for others that are coming up behind you. That's number one. Number two, you just kind of corked a major Pandora's box, in that comment, which is essentially there's an entire Okay, Ins, I'm going to summarize the introduction, this book in like, two sentences, it's gonna be really full in summary right now, but essentially, it's this, or maybe a little bit more than two sentences. My mother has dementia. The book begins with the moment, she forgot my name, which was about a year and a half ago. And I tried to carry on with my day as if nothing happened. And that was impossible, because the woman who birthed and named me forgot who I was. So the entire book essentially opens up with what what did I do to mark that moment when my life tried to carry on as normal? The second, the second question of the book, the second section basically says, if it's possible for a person, an individual to lose their memory, is it possible for a culture? It's a pretty deep question. And essentially, the premise of it is, my people and probably your people ran or were forced out, or somehow left, the places that they lived, the places that they knew the places where they knew the food, the language, the dress, the clothing, the songs, the dances, the everything, the whole culture, they left, but they also left their rituals. And in coming to this new place, you know, essentially, if they had not left, if they had not left all of that the richness of that the book I wrote would not be necessary. So this book is not coming. Because things are working out. And we just need a little bit of help, or we just need a little bit refinement, or we just need like a good mantra. This book is coming on the heels of deportation, or fleeing or migration or, you know, refugees or whatever. And it's coming on the heels of forgetting. And my family participated in in that they wanted to forget the old world. Because there was this new world that was promising a lot more. And the consequences of forgetting are, you know, we're living them right now. So and then then there's the other piece, which I should mention, by the way, which is, I don't know if you have, but I've been kind of privy to lots of I in the book, I talk a lot about ritual, like it's food. So I'm going to talk about it right now. Like it's food. I've been a part of many other cultures, intact cultures, indigenous cultures, where I am in the presence of their old rituals and ceremonies, and it feels like I'm attending a feast. And because, you know, not necessarily me, but I've witnessed many other people attend those feast, and they're starving. They're starving for meaning they're starving for understanding. They're starving for the richness of ritual. And they inadvertently, or sometimes advertently steal from that feast. And so there's the other complicated piece about cultural appropriation. And so on one hand, there's a hard stop around cultural appropriation in this book, not appropriating any culture. If anything, I'm actually borrowing quite a bit from my own house, or reinventing and renewing my own. However, the other side of that coin is because a lot of people are like, well, I don't have any rituals in my culture, or I've lost them or I don't know them. I didn't grow up with them. So then the other question is, well, does that mean that you can't touch? Does that mean you can't be inspired? Does that mean you can't renew and I talked about in the book, like rituals are very much like recipes and cooking and baking, which is just like food. Recipes often come from someplace. They're often passed down and they're also reinvented and remade to fit the times and the and the palette of the of now. And rituals work the same way. They don't do that. The function, certain rituals belong to people, but the function of making ritual does not belong to any people or persons. So I'm really encouraging the creativity and the imagination of my reader to both learn about their own people and, you know, to basically like, try, you know, where did you come from, and were there any rituals from that place and try and remember and that the other side of it, I'm very much standing in the realm of me as an artist, and as a creative and saying, you know, you don't really need much to reinvent and remake ritual, you just need your imagination. They come from both a place of need, and remembrance, and also a place of reinvention and renewal. And so I'm really looking to empower my reader and especially, I'm speaking to people that consider themselves ritual, curious, you know, people that aren't very familiar with ritual, I'm really trying to make this accessible. That's a lot.

Hilary Adams: 31:33

I think you read my mind cuz I was gonna ask those like, so like, the doing of ritual? To me, it's like, so where's that inspiration? Because so much of it seems to be connected. I'm story obsessed. So I love stories. And I think there's, there's some of our oldest currency as humans. And ritual and storing story is ritual ritual is story. Yeah, they can be. And I think rituals have stories in them. And I also think they're, I think, stories, when well told are a form of ritual. You know, and again, that's something that's a fabric in a way that we have, in many ways lost or fractured. And there's a yearning for it, and a recognition of it when it comes. And that brought me to what you were just saying, which is, where does this desire for this ritual curiosity come from this desire, which is arising in people?

Day Schildkret: 32:26

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if there's one answer to that question. Yeah. Where does it come from? I mean, it comes from so many different places, and most of them we don't know, you know, maybe the answer is mystery. You know, I, like I've been at the feet of the eye. This is not an exaggeration. Really, I'm being very honest, maybe you have this experience, too. But this has been rare. I've sat at the feet of a storyteller in my life, first for years for almost seven or eight years now, who I think is a once in, you know, a 500 year kind of person. And when I've sat at the feet of his stories, he brings them to life. And I'm that is not an expression. That is a very real experience. The stories are alive the way he's told the stories, brings them back to life. So suddenly, we're reading Beowulf. And he's also telling stories of Beowulf. And suddenly that story is not a dead story. That story is in the live story. And you're right. In that moment, it very much becomes, I would say, fertile ground for ritual. It doesn't I don't necessarily know if the whole thing is quote, unquote, ritual. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But there are many rituals that transpire from him, courting that story, and bringing it back to life. And that's a very unique experience, because most of our stories these days are canned. Mm hmm. You know, they're like, it's like eating like a frozen dinner. So it's been, you know, to have that opportunity to learn from this great storyteller. And great capitalised by the way, not like a description, like part of how I refer to him as as a great remember a great storyteller. That has been that's really changed my life. And so that is, you know, he's really awakened my love learning, my love of storytelling, my love of language. And it's really informed a lot of both this book and how I proceed in my life.

Hilary Adams: 34:52

You say that people bring rituals into their lives. It enriches their life. And then also big there life can become a story which is fertile ground for additional ritual.

Day Schildkret: 35:06

Yeah, there's a word that you're that's like on the you know, it's in the it's between us right now. So I'll just name it but the word is witnessing hmm. Um, you know, storytelling needs story listening. Right, like you're telling story to who so There are witnesses to a story. So and, and same similarly with ritual, I mean, sure you can, like eat a meal by yourself. But you know, you also often eat a meal with other people. And it's the same thing with ritual, which is you can do a ritual by yourself. But most of the time, it's best and I advocate for this in the book to basically hand the book over to another or others, so that you can be witnessed in the change that you're experiencing in the story of what's happening. Because when you are witnessed, it becomes more real. And sometimes the story that you're experiencing is so big. And so in almost impossible to recognize, you know, let's My best friend is going through a divorce, she's been married to her husband for 23 or four years. She has two kids, her life's about to change dramatically. And she might not be able to recognize her new life. So when she reached realizes her divorce, in the presence of witnesses, then she can see that it's, she can see her life, her new life through their eyes. Right. And there's a there's an author by the name of bio coma. lafaye is an African author who coined a phrase that I really love and I want to use, which is he he calls it witnessing, not witnessing, which is the capacity to stay with the story. Because the story is sometimes are so devastating. That you need other people to like, hold your hand and walk you through that story. Sometimes you can't do it by yourself.

Hilary Adams: 37:19

And hold the space, because part of ritual is space creation.

Day Schildkret: 37:24

Yeah. To hold help hold the space. Yeah. Uphold the ritual.

Hilary Adams: 37:28

Yeah. And help be the reflection back.

Day Schildkret: 37:33

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's an essential function and role within a ritual. So you know, and also kind of goes counter to the the insanity of isolation that we've all been subjected to with COVID, which is, and also the culture, which is like you do it yourself bootstraps, you know, like, there's a kind of individualism that is become almost like a disease in our culture. So witnessing is an opportunity to basically be like, I, I'm my life's kind of grounds changing from under me, and I need you. I can't do this alone. And that's a good thing. That's what makes people more together. You know, you and I worked in the theater, you know, in the same way, like, actors need an audience. They're there are two functions, to different functions. There's a reciprocal nature and the giving and receiving and it's very alive. Long time ago, I wrote a blog on the difference between theater and movie theaters. And I call you know, the theater is basically a living house, movie theaters are not. And you can see the difference in the relationship between the audience and the screen or the audience and the actors. And there's a lot of there's a lot riding on the etiquette of an audience. You know, how they behave inside of that theater impacts the story. I've been present to a variety of actors who have actually stopped the story because of the misbehavior of the audience. So it is ritual in that way. It needs an audience to know their role, which is witness.

Hilary Adams: 39:32

One of the things we do on this podcast is we we invite our guests to share a story that has something to do with creativity. Do you have a creative theme story that you'd share?

Day Schildkret: 39:45

So, you know, let's see which one wants to be told right now. These things are really these the altars are very much like story catchers, in a way they're like little like butterfly catchers for stories. And depending on where I am, you know, they catch or, you know, depending on what I'm teaching, they catch different stories. I'm thinking of one of like I go every summer I built a large scale installation at the the Lake Woods historic cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and one of the stories that's coming up right now is like, I did a workshop on on grief. And there were a lot of families They're in this one family had this like five year old boy who made an altar, I had no idea their story. And he made an altar. And then at the end, we go around and kind of do an art tour slash storytelling where everyone kind of tells us about what they made and tell this tells the story of what it is. And this boy, holy moly, the whole thing was story. And all of the shapes, all of the colors, and all of the numbers told the story of his brother who died that year. All of it had sevens, he was so happy to share about it, because his brother was seven when he died. You know, the colors, the shapes, it all told the story of how much he loved his brother. So that's the story catcher right there, you know, it's an opportunity for this little boy who could not ever communicate that story. Because if you asked him about it, but he made something with his hands. And that thing, gave him the opportunity to both catch that story and communicate that story. It's it's story catching. And it's also like, story weaving, in let him weave that story. It gave him the capacity to do that. Because, you know, for instance, if like, we were just talking or even probably, you know, a family member or a therapist was like, you know, do you miss your brother, tell me about your brother, like, would not do it. But this gave him the capacity to do it, and to be witnessed in that. And it was very healing for the family, for sure. I don't know about the boy. But it was, you know, the parents were crying and, you know, is a very healing opportunity. And so there's also this element of when we're talking about creativity and story, we're also talking and ritual, we're also talking about healing. There's a healing opportunity in there to heal the, the broken disconnections, the forgetting, you know, to weave them back together again, which is another another way of saying, Remember, here's a really interesting thing, since I'm on a story podcast right now. So many stories, I just did it myself, I wrote a book about, you know, their stories in the book, but I wrote it. But there's another really even I think, more interesting thing, which is memorizing a story and telling that story, like orally telling the story. And it's a skill, it's a skill that used to be very, very popular on the planet. And nowadays, it's, you know, most people, you know, are not, there's, there's not a lot of people like roaming around storytelling for a living. But, you know, this is like, this is a very big way that we can remember. And we can piece we can put the pieces back together that way. And by the way, the etymology of the word art is that art and artists, the word actually means to put back together again. Because it's been displaced or forgotten, or, you know, undone.

Hilary Adams: 44:00

Yeah. And that's not only individual healing, it's collective healing as well. Yeah. Such a joy talking with you

Day Schildkret: 44:11

Ditto, it's an honor.

Hilary Adams: 44:15

Is there inspiration, or I always ask if we can have an offering for our listeners, it has to do with creativity. I think you've already gifted us, several of them. But is there is there something that you would like to offer?

Day Schildkret: 44:31

You know, here's, here's what I'll say. If and when you're visited by inspiration. Don't take it for granted. Don't assume that, don't expect it. Don't assume it's going to stay. And then ask yourself, What am I to do with it right now? Because it will leave. I mean, that's what inspiration does is it moves. It's like that's the word it means to breathe. Just like you know, breath moves, moves in you and out of you. So inspirations doing the same thing. So don't take it for granted and do something with it immediately.

Hilary Adams: 45:17

In a way it's sort of allowing, inviting, allowing and then when the inspiration comes taking action,

Day Schildkret: 45:26

yeah, yeah. And then resting,

Hilary Adams: 45:27

and then resting Thank you, that's a wonderful gift for the listeners, if people would like to reach you, there are ways for them to contact or connect with you.

Day Schildkret: 45:44

Yeah, there's my website where - I have two morningalters.com and DaySchildkret.com Also, I feed the world with a lot of beauty on Instagram, which is at sign morning altars and altars, obviously a ltrs, although it's a fun, play on words altar, and alter and morning and mourning. And, and I think the other thing that I'm really proud of that I'd like to raise up on this podcast is this teacher training that I do. It's a year long, the next cohort is going to be I think, nine months. And it's a deep dive into these themes. It's a deep dive into the practice itself. But really, it's a lot of unpacking a lot of what we're talking about today. And it's an opportunity for me to gift seeds so that you can take them back to your communities or your families and implant them there. Because I don't want to be the only seed carrier of this. So I'm very proud of that teacher training. You can find out more information on my website morningalters.com and yeah, there's a lot of interesting projects in the pipe right now.

Hilary Adams: 46:59

And people can find out about your books. They're also

Day Schildkret: 47:03

Yeah, Hello, Goodbye, is, like Amazon has them. Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore might have them and also my website has that has both both books, Morning Alters and Hello, Goodby.

Hilary Adams: 47:19

Yeah, and I believe there's an audio book also.

Day Schildkret: 47:22

And I've narrated it. And that was intense. That was like three weeks of performing for six hours a day. But I think I did a pretty good job. Now, you know, I really want to hear the author read the book. Mm hmm. I really love that. So I told my publisher, I'm doing it.

Hilary Adams: 47:42

Thank you for joining me here today. It's been just real joy and pleasure speaking with you. There's so much richness.

Day Schildkret: 47:51

Let's let's, let's ignite that ritual Renaissance.

Hilary Adams: 47:55

Absolutely. Thank you today. And for everyone who's listening. If you'd like to connect to Story and Horse you can find us on Instagram and Facebook @storyandhorse and on our website storyandhorse.com. And thank you again for joining me here. It's great to connect with you again.

Day Schildkret: 48:13

Ditto

Hilary Adams: 48:15

Thank you. Bye.

Outro: 48:17

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