Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art, and Ritual Hardcover – October 30, 2018

Yes, Morning Altars delivers colorful, thoughtful photographs of Day Schildkret’s geometric nature designs, but this book offers so much more than the stunning images and complementary essays that qualify it as a beautiful art book.I awaited this book impatiently, knowing Day would produce a dazzling contribution to the photo essay genre, but I didn't expect this inability to put it down—or that it would interest my wife so much. The object just feels so good in hand, we both have trouble letting go. We have resorted to reading it together, which means this book is officially also good for your relationship.The kindness and generosity in Day’s teacher/ writer voice keeps us both reading. I think we're all so hungry for this kind of guidance right now: how to slow down, how to appreciate, how to clear, how to create, how to love, how to give, how to share.This book contains detailed instructions for building your own nature art ritual practice. What’s more, the guidelines Day lays out provide a useful and unique structure for any creative endeavor. I know I will return to it for years to come, not just as a resource for playing artistically in nature, but as a way to stimulate, inspire, and give shape to my writing process.This book is a gift. Get one for yourself and a couple extra to give away.*Please note: Often, my book reviews read a little more like love letters. I know that and post my thoughts among the other book reviews on Amazon and GoodReads anyway. Day is a friend and client. I had the pleasure of reading some of this book in draft form and involvement in the project in its final stages.*

Not what I was expecting in the best way. I have been practicing yoga and exploring varied sacred traditions for decades so I rarely find something entirely new. This was refreshingly so. I found myself in awe at the photos and this new way of opening into a new depth of sacred spiritual connection through nature. On top of it all, the QUALITY of this sturdy, textured and vibrant book… just kept me stopping and taking in the beauty of life and really just provoke a length and softness to my breath just naturally. Can’t wait to get outside and practice. Thanks to this teacher 🙏

Day’s heart-expanding book, Morning Altars, might herald a new genre of “selfless”, community building art books! This book is filled with unbearably beautiful imagery of his ephemeral Earth Art, but it elevates and reaches so far beyond the genre of a pretty coffee table book that celebrates “art for art’s sake”. This book is deeply refreshing in that, at its core, it is a big fat invitation to YOU to partake in the personal and collective joy, healing, and meaning-making that he himself has experienced through this particular creative process. He shares his own stories and experiences with poignancy, beautiful male vulnerability, and open heartedness that he regularly carries into the public and private spaces he creates these altars. I believe we need more ways of expressing, honoring, and releasing not only our joys but our grief and trauma in the open, and in public spaces, and Day’s calling and invitation to join in this creative, ritualistic practice is a also an invitation to a nature-based spiritual practice that is so perfect in its simplicity think anyone could benefit from it. Any practice that connects us more to the earth, and to each other, in these times, is a blessing!

This is a beautiful book, a feast for the eyes and inspiring to my mind and heart. It is full amazing photos of Day Schildkret's impermanent works of art made from natures treasures. Almost immediately after opening the cover I wanted to buy a copy for several friends, I am eager to share this work with everyone I love. Not having time to read it that first day it arrived, I flipped through the pages, thirsty to get an overview and when I stepped outside I saw the leaves, seed pods, and other bits and pieces of the world around me like art supplies everywhere I went. It is book that feels good in the hands also, just the right size and weight. There are also many thought provoking ideas in the written passages and not just for artists. I think any inquisitive human will find kernels of wisdom and wit between these covers."Whatever the occasion, beauty can be made and given as a way that connects us back to the cycles of our life, which are always changing. If we do not mark these changes and honor them, they pass us by and, eventually, life passes us by entirely. " ~Day Schildkret

I came across this book by accident. It looked very beautiful from the outside, like truly beautiful, but in my experience books with lots of images don't carry much content in terms of text, and I like a good balance of the two. The reason why I like this book so much is because it is a book that calms you down, a book that makes you feel. It has the power to silence any device and disturbance as you truly have a synesthetic experience while going through it. I truly admire this artist who presents beauty in such an unconventional yet effortless manner and he does so through nature, the most beautiful and vast database of beauty. Morning Altars makes you breathe nature and for me it promotes such a wonderful and important virtue: patience. The artist, on his knees, putting elements together, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, petal by petal, recalls the calmness and stillness of a child who on his knees puts his thoughts in order while making art on the floor. That warms my heart. I will definitely treasure this book and will make good use of it, especially when I feel lost and crave nature and have none around me. Congratulations to the artist.

Beautifully written and a must-read. I just gifted it to five people in my life. In today’s hectic pace, the writer helps us reconnect to the impermanence of life and the gratitude of reflection.