Laura Dawn: Mourning Altars was initially born out of a need to find a way to grieve. You had just lost your father, and I’m curious what you feel like the Western culture has wrong about grieving, and what do you wish people knew about the power of grieving?

Day Schildkret: Great question. Um, the dominant culture. So I don’t know if it’s just in the West, considers grief to be an affliction. Considers it to be something that you have to power through or, um, get under, get over, or get on the other side of. It’s uncomfortable.

Oftentimes it’s paired with sadness. It’s paired with sorrow. These are other ways of referring to grief. So, grief isn’t an affliction. Grief is a skill. And it’s a capacity to know life well. That includes the endings. That’s what I would say it is. It’s, it’s a way of seeing the fullness of life that doesn’t exile endings. And so the skill of it is, in this very moment, are we grieving? Are you and I seeing the endings here, right now? I mean, we’re jumping in deep in our conversation already, but you brought it, so let’s do it. Are the endings here? Um, I teach a lot to a lot of people, capacities to locate, Beginnings, middles, and endings.

Basically, thresholds. My work lives at the edge of a threshold. That’s why my last book was called Hello, Goodbye. Right? So, can you become what I call threshold literate? Can you read thresholds? Can you see thresholds around you? And the threshold includes a hello and a goodbye. And so, even right now, is there, are there, is it here?

Is there Grief here is the fullness of life here with us or are we only seeing what we prefer to see what’s easy to see what’s fun to see what’s light to see what’s, you know, are we only looking in one direction or can we continue to look broadly and see the fullness. So that’s a really broad way of answering your question but really it’s, it’s a skill, just like going to the gym, lifting weights getting stronger.

That’s becomes a skill, the more you do it, the more you practice the better you get. Grief is the same way.

Laura Dawn: How do you encourage people to pay more attention to the threshold moments?

Day Schildkret: Well, number one, we’re all moving too quickly. So slowing down is an important part of that. Um, number two, there are so many clues and capacities and ways that are embedded in the year. Around threshold locations. For instance, you can just see them in the equinoxes and solstices. You can see them in New Year’s Eve, or, you know, you can see them in an anniversary, a death anniversary, a wedding anniversary. You can see them calendrically, right? And you can see them daily. You woke up this morning. You go to bed tonight. That’s a threshold, right? And so the question then becomes, When I’m at a threshold, big, small, divorce, waking up, what is the threshold asking of me? Because it’s a different way of being in the world Than just kind of your average daily just trying to get through everything and you know Do your work do your errands pick up your kids do the laundry that kind of stuff threshold moments ask something From us and a really good way to wonder about that is slow the f down Right.

Slow down inside of a threshold. If you’re unclear, if it’s a threshold, great, ask the question, is this threshold? I just taught at a modern elder academy, which I was just telling you about in Santa Fe. And the entire week was devoted to people who are going through major life transitions, right? This woman’s husband just left her after 40 years.

Another person’s husband just died. Someone just lost their job, et cetera. And one of the, one of the exercises we did is we did a threshold wander. And they got to walk around the property and just notice what is a threshold, what does it feel like, what does it look like, and slow down physically outside when you’re in the presence of one and see how differently you walk, see what new questions come to mind when you pass through one, see what your body does when you’re walking into it, like just start to play with and practice reading Thresholds and then you can start applying that foundation to larger life moments, but this is a lot of work You know, and that’s this is really the heart of my teachings.

Laura Dawn: There’s a David Gray quote. I don’t know if you know this one, but it says change happens at the boundary of things. I love that where that’s really the catalyst of where transformation happens when we’re at our edge and we need to actually stay there and be present with the edges because I think it’s easy to want to just stay in the comfort.

Day Schildkret: That’s right Yeah, so lingering at the edge is really a very important thing to do like linger move slow feel observe You know, what who what else is here with me? You know, what questions come to mind? Oftentimes when we move through boundaries or through thresholds, we say goodbye to something. We say hello to something.

Um, you know, fundamental questions that you thought you had your hands on, that you had your, your, the reins of suddenly arise a new, and you have to wrestle with these questions that you thought were already in the bag. For instance, like, who am I? Great question, big question. Right, like, Oh, I’ve already been through my adolescence, like I’m an adult, I know who I am.

Right, or, who are you? You’ve been in a relationship for 30 years, or 15 years, or whatever, 5 years. You already think you know who that other person is. Right, so you walk through a threshold together. And then suddenly you’re like actually who are you for instance my best friend Um, I introduced her to her husband 20 years ago and this past year they got divorced,

and he’s the father of two of her kids They’re the they’ve only been monogamous for 20 something years Right, and so but but they walk through this threshold together of divorce and now she’s like Who are you like used to be my best friend used to be my husband You’re still father of my kids, but like, what’s my new orientation to you?

You know, or for instance, last year I moved to a new home, right? So that’s a threshold. And I’m asking the question, like, where am I? Right? You’re in a new space. Like this fundamental question that you thought you knew suddenly becomes really, it’s asking you to renew your relationship to the very question.

And here’s the thing I, so I taught this class this past week, one of the, I’m not obviously not naming names or anything, but one of the women who’s older, 70 something, her husband just left her after 40 years and she had so many other things going on. Like, With her kids and just massive, what I call trapdoor transitions, like life changing, really unexpectedly, and she’s pissed, she is angry, really angry, and she came to the workshop, and without really saying it, but I kind of cornered her because I wanted her to say it, she’s looking for answers. Right? Why is this happening to me? And so even her questions are scouting for answers. They’re all just aiming for bullseyes. Like, give me the information. Why? And how do I solve it? Because that’s really the purpose of an answer. It’s like, I’m asking a question to solve the question so I can have an answer so that I can know where I am. Right. And so the whole week was really me and also all of us relentlessly helping her to hold her questions more lightly so that they outlive the attempt to eliminate them. Because when you walk through a transition, it’s, you’re interfacing with uncertainty. You don’t know. So the questions become the navigational device. And if you’re only asking questions to get the answer, then you’re only trying to get on the other side of the transition. So you have to, the skill is wonder. How do you ask good questions? questions and let the questions guide you through the threshold.

Laura Dawn: There’s so much that I want to unpack here. Are you familiar with David White’s work?

Day Schildkret: course. Yeah.

Laura Dawn: I got

Day Schildkret: Although he put out a newsletter recently and I really, I would love to, to, I would, I invite you, David White, if you’re listening to this, I would love to be on a podcast with you and discuss your last newsletter because I had real disagreements with it on routines and rituals. and I love him as a poet,

And trying to convince his reader that routines are rituals, but they’re not. And there’s a real distinction between these two things. And so, um, and I love your work and I respect you and I want to have an, a lively debate with you about these beautiful topics. But yes, I’m familiar

Laura Dawn: I,

I’m also a cultivator of questions and a, , a bearer of questions. And he says, , the discipline of asking beautiful questions, a beautiful question shapes a beautiful mind. So the ability to ask beautiful questions often in very unbeautiful moments is one of the great disciplines of a human life.

A beautiful question starts to shape your identity by asking it as it does by having it. answered. And you don’t have to do anything about it. You just have to keep asking. And before you know it, you will find yourself shaping a different life, meeting different people, finding conversations that are leading you in those directions that you wouldn’t have seen before.

I feel like that’s exactly what you’re speaking to

Day Schildkret: key word in his writing is beauty. That’s the key word, not asking a question, asking a beautiful question, because it’s the beauty that allows us to unravel from the logical mind and from the pursuit for answers, right? Because you’ve been in the presence of a beautiful question.

It kind of like has you sit back a little bit.

Laura Dawn: Mm

Day Schildkret: Right. And be like, wow, that’s a good question. Right. Um, and it’s the beauty. And, and I am, as you know, as an artist, I employ beauty a lot.

And I’m employing beauty as a way of, as a tactic to slow people down when you’re in the presence of something beautiful.

You don’t want to rush through it. Right. As a tactic to open up. Right. When you’re in the presence of something beautiful art. Maybe your heart opens a little bit. As a way of remembering, sometimes beauty helps us, like, good theater, or good poem, helps us remember something we may have forgotten. And not just remember, but actually put something together in a way we haven’t seen it before.

So it has us look at it through a different angle. Beauty does that. Right? So, he’s employing a similar thing that I employ, which is adornment. You can adorn a question just like you can adorn a threshold, make beauty with it. And that can look like 10, 000 ways, but beauty is a very, and this is the role of our creativity and you don’t have to be an artist to be creative.

And that’s a whole other conversation, but you know, we all have the capacity to ask beautiful questions and to employ our imaginations and to let go of the death grip of needing answers.

Laura Dawn: Well, these were the big topics I wanted to dive into, was grief and creativity and beauty and questions, because you also have a really great quote about the power of asking questions. But you mentioned beauty, and you said, let beauty be your language. And I love that because I feel like, and we’re both a lover of words and language and etymology.

And before we go in that direction, I just actually want to apply that, applying the language of transition and applying the language of beauty to meeting transition. What do you feel like the role of, of actually understanding the language of transition? Because you mentioned that earlier too. It’s like learning words to help us.

like liminal space. A lot of people are like, Oh, liminal. I’ve heard that before. But actually, when we learn these words, when we bring them into our vocabulary, they inform what we pay attention to.

Day Schildkret: Not just that, but think of, I don’t know, the last time you were in a country where you didn’t speak the language, but it’s, it’s hard. It’s scary. And there’s a deep sense of disorientation. Like you don’t have to get around and you don’t have to ask to get around. It’s happened to me a lot, you know, like, and then if you’re in a moment where you really need something and you don’t speak the language, like it is frustrating, right?

So the language leads to orientation. It helps us navigate where we are, helps us be social and connective, helps us like figure out what’s going on and being able to express our needs, being able to hear other people’s needs. I mean, it is, it’s about orientation. Um, And so the language of transitions helps us orient to what’s going on.

Now, I said originally transitions are us interfacing with uncertainty, right? We move from what we know to what we don’t know. That is us coming into closer contact with mystery. With the unknown, many people, and maybe not listening to this podcast. I don’t know, but recently I’ve encountered a lot of people who are profoundly uncomfortable, if not terrified of the unknown. So maybe you think you got your hands on it. Like you’re good. I love, I mean, I recently, I called myself in the same way as, um, heliocentric. I called myself

Mysterio centric. Like I, I like centering mystery. I think I, you know, but, but really. Even I, when I have to like something deeply uncertain happens, let’s say to my bank account, right?

That happened last year, I woke up to the news that my bank account, my bank. What’s going under and what happens to my money, all my money, right? So there are certain levers that even for me, and I teach this, even for me, I can feel my own vulnerability. Right? So I’m crossing a threshold, I’m interfacing with the unknown. And , and this is where I distinguish between trapdoor transitions and threshold transitions. Trapdoors are the ones where, like, you know, suddenly you’re in a war, or your husband leaves you, like, this morning, and you’re in a totally different landscape. Those are trapdoor. Threshold transitions, sometimes you can see from a mile away.

Like, I’m turning 50. You know that I’m 46 right now. I know I’m turning 50 in four, in three and a half years. I can see that threshold from a long ways away, right? It’s still, I’m interfacing with mystery either way, but here’s the thing for a lot of people have that have disorientation around the unknown, it can be terrifying. So let’s center that here, right? I’m moving through familiar landscape to unfamiliar landscape, and my emotional response to that is. Terror and all of the children of terror, anxiety, depression, nervousness, like all of it. So the question then becomes, if we’re talking about literacy or, or language, what’s a new way of being and interfacing with what I don’t know. What’s an alternative way besides terror to encountering uncertainty. And this to me is one of the roles that beauty plays. Is it’s translative. It translates unknown from a big black hole or like a bridge that ends and there’s just a great expanse and you just can’t see it. Death is the ultimate example of that.

But even for me, the last few years, sleep, you know, insomnia, middle of the night, waking up, just being like, I’m interfacing something that I don’t know what’s happening and I’m terrified. Beauty can take the mystery and make it relatable, identifiable, friendly, even. Sometimes. Beauty has that capacity. Art has that capacity.

That’s why we look to the poets, we look to the painters, we look to the musicians, , we look to the artist to translate mystery into something that is Identifiable, recognizable, friendly, and that’s to me an important aspect of what I teach about is employing our creative impulses as a response to the unknown, like to be in conversation, but through beauty making.

Laura Dawn: What do you feel like the role of wonder and curiosity play in that process?

Day Schildkret: , I mean, that to me is exactly the quote you just raised around David White, like asking a beautiful question, beauty is not just art. It’s also like, how can you, can you approach beautifully? Can you wake up beautifully, right? Can you dress beautifully? Can you speak beautifully?

It’s not just art. It’s the whole engagement can be a beauty making endeavor, right? And so because the alternative is fear, which is not that beautiful, right? And the alternative is like tension, fear, anxiety. So the beauty helps us unravel from how tightly we’re holding onto things. And so you just, you know, you brought it up, but you’ve already answered your own question, which is like you brought up David White.

, for instance, that woman that I was speaking about who is in the divorce process. And she, she came to the first night of the workshop like a bundle of nerves. And I said to myself, she’s probably going to leave, you know, cause she was so fragile. Okay. Just like a little inquiry and she just tensed up and you know, and One of the things that we did for instance is we did a exercise during the class She was asking questions during the class about her own life But the questions themselves were such a Trojan horse. They just wanted an answer. Like, why did he do that? You know, like, Oh, you’re just looking like you just want an answer. So what did we do? Here’s an example of shaping a beautiful question. We took her question that was living very much on the surface and that was pretty angry and just wanted answers. And we passed the question around in the circle. What are you hearing her asking? Really like the next layer down. What are you hearing or ask? And so the group Was taking that question and unfolding it into something with a little bit more space A little bit more beauty a little bit more wonder a little bit more community And so we passed around everyone took to her question, but asked it in a new way New new way new way new way and when we got back to her And we said, now that you’ve heard everyone reinterpret your question, what’s the new question you’re asking? And her new question was next layer. the deepest, most profound question, because it would take a few rounds to get there. But that new question carried more beauty, carried more space, carried more wonder. And that was, that’s an example of like, a great exercise for a community, I believe. To take someone’s terror and help them bring more space and beauty and consideration to it.

Laura Dawn: I love that. That’s beautiful.

Day Schildkret: Thank you.

Laura Dawn: I’m curious if you’ve considered This idea of talking about being in right relationship with beauty. in terms of how we orient towards and how we meet beauty in our lives, especially in our spaces and you know, the sacred items that we possess and how we tend to them with openness and not from a place of, of clinging or identification.

And I’m thinking of this beautiful image in your morning altars book of the adorned broom, the silver broom that you had that is just so beautiful. It’s really seems like this gorgeous sacred item that you have that you carry with you. But yet in our culture, we have a sort of like a very distorted dysfunctional relationship with beauty.

Day Schildkret: And things, in general,

I think even before we get into a conversation of right relationship, I think a reframe would be relationship, right? Like, I mean, because we all have Relationships that feel good to us like whether it’s with my dog or a best friend or whatever I mean we have we have an orientation around what does it mean to be in relationship? but the first Fundamental consideration of that is what does it mean to be in relationship? Which means that the other Has its own expression and right its own boundaries and it’s alive If you’re relating to something that you’re relating to something else And there’s consent in there There’s there’s so many different ways that we understand how to be in relationship that we were taught from when we were children So the the consideration is like what does it mean to apply those same

principles to Everything to a tree To your home, to your clothing. What does it mean to care? I’m having a weird memory right now. When I used to swim, I used to go swimming every day and before I would go in the locker room, I would fold my towel and clothing. Like I would get undressed and I would fold everything super beautifully.

Like, cause you could just toss your shit in a locker, right? Cause you’re just about to get toweled off after the swim and then, um, get dressed again. But it was almost like I was giving a gift to myself on the other side of that. And there’s something about, you know, deeply respecting my things and that, and preparing myself so that I would have something nice to come back to.

And, you know, and. And there’s something beautiful about order and folding the clothing nicely and slowing down to do that, not trying to get to the thing. There’s a lot of different kind of built in etiquettes in that little thing, right? , but really deep down inside, it’s just like, how do I treat myself, my things with respect and, and care and consideration in a time where we’re being asked to hurry up in a time where everything’s disposable in a time where we’re all focused on the next thing, you know, what does it mean to just pull back and take deep care of the things that we have and to be in, as you said, right relationship with.

Laura Dawn: You mentioned in your book, Morning Altars, about approaching a space beautifully. And you’re speaking to some of these indicators, but for someone listening, of like, what, what does that mean? How do I approach something beautifully?

Day Schildkret: Yeah. You know, there are, certain cultures around the world who teach this very question. Instead of through language. They teach it through, let’s say, architecture. So I don’t know if, for instance, you’ve ever been inside of a TP or a sweat lodge, but to enter in inside of the very architecture, you have to bow to get inside to get into a sweat lodge, you quite literally have to crawl, and there’s a certain humility that comes with that and a slowing down. You can’t rush in, right? So the architecture itself is telling you how to enter into something, right? And that’s a cultural, that’s like a super, a culture, super subtle teaching. Where it’s built into the very thing itself.

I mean, we have this for instances in houses of prayer, you go into a synagogue or, you know, for me, like we have in my culture, in my Jewish culture, we have like a muzizah on the front door, which is asked to be kissed as a way of entering into the threshold, you know, to kiss and remember. And then move it so you’re offering yourself to the threshold.

Um, but then there’s like kind of more broad examples and I’ll give you one that I wrote about in my second book. Um, I was that book, living on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. And, got stuck there during the pandemic. Happened to, long story short, find this amazing tiny house that I was living on at the edge of the water and down the street from a First Nations reserve.

And I would walk that reserve every day. Partially because it was a relationship I was building. Partially it was a way of staying sane in a changing landscape. And amazing reserve, but there was a section in the reserve where it was old growth cedar trees. And you could tell the tree, the trees themselves were hundreds of years old.

The branches were almost like elephant trunks that were dipping down to touch the earth and rising back up again. And if you really paid attention, you would see that part of the bark was stripped away on some of these trees that the, First Nations, Assawut First Nations people were actually using ceremonially for canoes and hats, etc.

If you really paid attention, you could tell when you walked inside this grove, the light was darker, it was much quieter, there was something else going on there, right? , and I walked , in that grove at the beginning and I knew I needed to enter into that particular part of the forest differently. For So I would then start to practice, if I was on a phone call, getting off the call, saying I’ll call you right back.

Right? If I was listening to a podcast, I would take my earmuds out of my ears. I then started to Like I was entering into something that felt quite sacred I then started to bow when I would enter in and exit out and these were not I mean I’m sure that there were other more culturally informed ways of doing it, which I didn’t have access to So I was in some ways just employing my own sense of respect. Um, but I knew That I needed to enter in differently. And here’s the key. When you approach something with reverence, there’s a real possibility that what comes back at you is reverence, is holy. And so there’s a relationship between how we approach and what approaches us back. Similar math. If we approach haphazardly. Then what might have approached us scatters or fleas in the same way that if I approach my dog aggressively She’ll run away the same thing might work also with the sacred So if I bring reverence that might be what meets me and so the practice is how do I step out of my own? forward moving You know, narrative and kind of momentum and recognizing, um, interfacing with a threshold and slow down and bring curiosity, what’s here and recognize beauty and be in relationship and relationship, meaning I’m a guest.

I don’t know, but I’m bringing like gratitude and humility and gifts. Like you would when you’re going over someone’s house, you know, and so that is a kind of another way of understanding what the question you’re asking, which is that certain places and certain times require different ways of entering and exiting.

Yeah,

Laura Dawn: The etymology of respect points to this understanding of looking again, and it makes me think of this, this idea of how respect is linked to how we focus our attention and what we pay attention to.

Day Schildkret: respect, like spectacles, you know, seeing again, which is a very, it’s one of the early exercises I do with my, in my teacher training, which is we practice, uh, wandering and seeing again. You see something, but what does it mean to see it again? And then it’s kind of a entrance point to the word behold, to behold, to behold.

Not just hold it, but to elevate your holding of it, to really see it with wonder and awe and curiosity and as if it’s something alive.

Laura Dawn: What does , the term, whether the word or the, the concept of alter represent for you?

Day Schildkret: It’s very similar to what I just was talking about. I mean, the word itself comes from the Latin altus, which means to raise up. So when we put something on an altar, It is a way of raising it up to see it again. I mean, the old, old use of the term to raise up was referring to the, to the sacrifice and the smoke and the feeding to God or gods of, you know, whatever you sacrificed, but For me, as a modern person, my interpretation, my reinterpretation of it is, it’s still a raising up, it’s a beholding.

And so, for instance, at the beginning of my journey with mourning altars, I put my grief on the altar. And it was a way of renewing and redeeming something that felt just heavy and, , disorienting. But putting it down so that I could see it again and revalue it, redeem it, um, and so that it can be life giving.

And so that is what the potential of alters are. It’s a transformative landscape. It’s a place to place things so that we might remember, renew, redeem, um, behold, and revalue them. And that’s why, you know, to me, there’s a real correlation in my work between alter making and impermanence. Right.

The things I put down are, a temporary remembering. And so I have to keep on making alters as a way to renew my memory.

Laura Dawn: I want to read this David Gray quote that I pulled up that I started. He writes, change happens at the boundaries of things, the boundary between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the different between the old way and the new way, the past and the future. And one of my favorite lines from your book, Hello, Goodbye, is ritual helps to midwife us through change, that there’s a fundamental process and where we’re talking about meeting these thresholds.

And so. maybe we can go into the power of ritual and how that helps us move through these threshold moments as a, an orientational navigational device.

Day Schildkret: , yeah, a good way to orient towards ritual is. as if you’re walking down a path and you see or you make a kirin c a i r n s like a stack of stones um the kirin is a navigational device really old that says Don’t keep going straight turn right like it’s basically saying like something’s maybe the path ends or there’s a there’s danger or who knows what, but don’t keep going in the direction you’ve been going turn here.,

It’s an orientational device ritual carries the same purpose. The rituals are a cultural or individual way of reorienting. In the midst of change that says don’t keep living normally. This is not a normal moment. This is a moment to mark. And instead of the word turn, like for Karen’s, the word I orient around for ritual is return. Return to what matters. Return to what’s important. Return to your people. Return to your original joy. Return to your original Purpose, whatever it is, but return, right? Cause we need moments where, cause it’s being human as you and I both know is really difficult and we often forget what it means to be a human being. I mean, look at the global and political and cultural landscape right now, all over the place. Not really remembering what it means to be a human being. So that’s why cultures all over the world have ritual and ceremony as a way to remember what it means to be human because we forget. So the returning is a returning to the fundaments, the things that give us life, that the places where we come from, what feeds us, the lands we come from, the people we come from, , the, you know, stories we come from and so the rituals help us to return and so they, they bring us back

Laura Dawn: What do you feel like is the importance of punctuating a ritual with a beginning and an end?

Day Schildkret: rituals have to be have to have a beginning and an end. So, it’s, it’s important. It’s as important as. You know, going to the theater and having the curtain open and the curtain close, it’s, it is what makes a ritual. It’s impermanent. Um, so rituals have a beginning and they have an end to them. And in some ways, they’re teaching us how to enter into an exit out of a container.

And that container can be five seconds, by the way. , it doesn’t have to be, um, You know, a six hour, I mean, part of my work in the world in bringing ritual Renaissance to the culture is like lowering the damn bar because first off we have like ghost rituals all over the place, especially living in religion where like you have the shell of something that was meaningful like 500 years ago, but it sure as hell doesn’t have the spirit inside of it and people are just doing the ritual.

They have no idea what they’re doing. Or you have people that are like making up rituals out of the blue, which is great. I like that. I’m a creative being and the rituals are in the realm of the people’s imagination. However, they need to be tethered to something. They need to be rooted in something. And oftentimes people that go for like these elaborate new rituals, just, you know, in some ways they’re overshooting.

And so, Part of the conversation I want to have with people right now is like lower the bar and make and just do try and work with ordinary things and moments. Can your morning coffee, can your morning shower, , can waking up in the morning, Become a way of remembering as opposed to like these, you know, outlandish rituals, which sometimes have a place, but most of the time fail.

From my experience, you know, try small

Laura Dawn: what do you mean by, , they need to be tethered to something?

Day Schildkret: Tethered meaning they need to have a remembering of the ephemerality of the moment. Tethered to something meaning they have to matter. You, do you understand what I mean by that? Okay. Like, either, rituals are either alive or they’re not, they either matter or they don’t, so to me, there’s a lot of opportunities to even make rituals, like, Just serve, here’s a great word in the wellness community, manifestation. Getting more of what I want. I’m gonna do a ritual to get more of what I want. To me that’s not really tethered to anything. If you want to tether a ritual, sure, call in something that you’re, that you’re wanting. For instance, everyone listening, I’m looking for a husband. So if you know someone, contact Laura, Dawn.

But, but like, It’s the ritual isn’t to just get more of what I want the ritual is a way of remembering what I have and becoming so filled with that remembering that it overflows into my life again, the tethering is a tethering to what’s here right now, and a tethering to the ephemerality of life, and as a path to remembering the sanctity of it all as opposed to just like.

More me, more my, that kind of thing. Does that make sense?

Laura Dawn: Yeah, it’s a fun juxtaposition to play with, like the tethering to impermanence, which is really what I feel like ritual is, is ultimately inviting us into a much more wholehearted, extremely intimate conversation with the true nature of reality, which is fundamentally impermanent. And that is what, if you open yourself to that, that will bring you to your knees.

Every single day,

Day Schildkret: Exactly. And how could it not? Yeah. And I think that that’s, you know, when, when it comes down to it, we haven’t, we have a, in my culture, we have a prayer that we say, uh, I mean, the tradition is to say this prayer in, when we interface with something new, um, the prayers referred to as Shachiano and we say it as a way of basically remembering.

But I also like to say the same prayer at the ending of things because beginnings and endings, same, same. Um, but the prayer is basically saying, I give thanks for meeting this moment because it was very, this is my interpretation. It’s, it was very unlikely that it would happen, but here I am again, here I am again, a new morning. Some people did not survive this, the night that I did. And instead of seeing the morning as another morning, can we see it as this morning? And so the prayer turns us back, it pivots us back to an ordinary thing being quite sacred. But it’s the remembering that it almost didn’t happen, the impermanence of it, that tethers it to something real. Because that’s the reality. It’s like, who knows where you and, you know, our interview right now is quite impermanent. I started off this call asking us if grief is here between us. That’s how we started the call. So if it is here, it’s through us remembering that this might be the last podcast I ever do or the last one you ever do. We don’t know. But we’re inviting the uncertainty into the space between us. How do we navigate this conversation differently? When we remember that and so then it becomes tethered to reality And the conversation becomes really interesting because god if this is the last interview i’m ever giving i’m giving it all I’m, not just on autopilot right now

Laura Dawn: In your book, Mourning Alters, you write, As an artist, I like to think of myself as a conductor, a person who is open to receiving new inspirations and visions. There’s an interesting correlation between the words conduct and conduit.

Both mean to lead or to guide, and that serves as a clue for understanding the purpose of our behavior. I love that correlation,

Day Schildkret: Me too, I haven’t heard that in a long time still holds up to me

Laura Dawn: . Can you speak more about how that correlation manifests in your work?

Day Schildkret: Sure. Yeah, I am. Um, I’m we’re celebrating our 4th cohort in for our teacher training, um, and we’re about to go into our 3rd weekend together, which is devoted to the. The fourth step of the modality, which is all about creation, creating. Um, and we use a quote from Martha Graham as a guiding principle during that weekend. And the whole quote is basically like, speaking to the channel being open. . So, the quote is very much about, creativity, inspiration, the muse moving through us. And it’s not our job, essentially, to determine if it’s good or bad, right or wrong, pretty or not pretty, it’s our job to keep the channel open.

For urges and inspiration and motivations, and then to let that out and see what happened. But too much of the time were spent kind of judging, fearing, controlling the channel. And so if our job is to keep the channel open, another way of saying channel is conduit, right? So if our job is to keep it open, it could be Because the wordplay is helping us understand it.

It could be that our conduct, how we behave, impacts the open or closeness of the channel. And so, that gives us a lot of agency, right? It’s not just like, I’m either gonna, you know, like, Explode with creativity or not, it really depends on the muse, you know. Sure, that is true. But when I wrote my last book, and there were days where I would sit in front of my computer and six words would come out over the course of like five hours, right?

But I still, every morning, made myself look beautiful. Every morning, , I would light my altar. In my office every morning I would give thanks and say some prayers before I sat down to write Every morning, I would really just present myself as a beautiful host Open door something yummy in the air, you know, come come whoever you are Sometimes i’d be visited Sometimes I wouldn’t that’s beyond my control what I can control is how I behave How open the door is how beautiful the house is You And what I’ve come to realize is that that energy, that creative spirit responds well to beauty. And it impacts. What comes out, you know, and, um, and so there’s a lot of my teaching is like how we bring ourselves to the channel impacts what comes through the channel is another way of saying it

Laura Dawn: How do you practice keeping your channel clear?

Day Schildkret: a bunch of ways. Um, inventorying is a really important. One right like do I have like what what’s here? Do I still want it? Do I want to move it like? Inventory letting go is a really important one. Um, you know, understanding places that I feel blocked and Um, presencing those places, um, asking questions about those places, um, you know, anything from like physical exercise keeping my energy well sleep Like these are all connected to keeping the channel open um and also And this is a new thing.

. So forgive me if it comes out a little crude, but most of my work is centered around making meaning and, um, and having the capacity. To, , attribute, to make something meaningful. And yet a lot of the time we relinquish that capacity, making capacity.

And the meaning is made for us, often times by our mind. Right? And so, , our mind creates beliefs and narratives. And a lot of the time they’re not true, and a lot of the time they cause separation. And so we relinquish that creative role to something else, which is our monkey minds. And so this new thought that I’m having right now that I’m playing with in my teachings is, what does it mean to question meaning? Just because it’s so doesn’t mean, you know, for instance, like, here’s a weird thing my mind used to do. I used to live in New York City and, um, If I missed a subway train, my mind would be like, well, now the rest of your day, you’re going to miss more things. Like something’s going to be wrong or I don’t know.

It just, it makes weird meaning. The mind does. Um, if I bring up this topic, I’m going to have trouble sleeping. There’s another one that my mind creates and, but I’m the meaning maker here. And, and so I get to reclaim that capacity. And part of it is letting go of things that block that channel from staying open, like these mindsets that don’t work or make sense or don’t serve, and also claiming that capacity, reclaiming that capacity for when I really do want to make meaning, as a way of having that channel be open and clear and , to welcome new ideas, um, remembrings, um, inspiration and reclaiming the capacity to make meaning with those things.

Does that make sense? It’s a new idea, so I’m playing with it right now.

Laura Dawn: Yes, it makes me think of this Brene Brown quote, which I’m sure you’ve heard that creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers and creativity is the ultimate act of integration. It’s how we fold our experiences into our being.

And I feel like you talk about that too with ritual as a as a process for meaning making,

How do you explain how that works though? How does engaging in ritual help us make new meaning or re meaning whatever it is we’re going through?

Day Schildkret: Well, I mean, ritual, the principles of ritual center around symbols, symbolic action, symbolic objects. They are, they mean something to someone where from, if an outsider looks at a what the object is or the action is, it might mean nothing to them. I’ll give you a very innocuous example. Um, that comes from my culture in our wedding ceremonies, we have a variety of rituals that make sense to us. The religion’s, the culture’s been around for a long time and so people that are not in my culture kind of understand them at this point, but a great example is like at the end of a wedding ceremony, the groom or the bride or however you interpret gender these days, breaks a glass. Makes zero sense to an outsider, but it makes all the sense to us. And that, it’s because the glass, the breaking of the glass symbolizes something. And that is open to 10, 000 interpretations, at least in my culture, but we do the action and it makes sense to us. It’s meaningful to us, right? And so the mechanism of ritual is working in the kind of symbolic realm and , anything can be made into everything. Anything can be made into everything. Again, my coffee. Can become ritualized. And this is the contention I have with David White’s recent newsletter is like, no, there’s a real distinction between ritual and routine. Esther Perel has a great quote, which basically says like routines guide us to the day rituals guide us throughout lives. And she’s right. You know, routines have the word route in it. So they’re directional. How do we get from A to B in my day, but rituals are about meaning making and symbolism and taking something that. Maybe quite deep and bringing it into the hands or the mouth or the feet or the belly or the eyes so that you can see it.

And that you can engage with it. You can have some sense of control of it. You know, I tell a story in Hello Goodbye of a woman whose husband went mountain biking, one day hit a rock, became a paraplegic. She went back a year later to that rock with a bunch of girlfriends to do ritual. And one of the rituals she did was to pour water on the rock that made her husband into a paraplegic. That makes no sense to anyone that’s outside of the ritual. But to her, that was the lever that unleashed her grief. That she was holding pouring water on a rock that is symbolic. So when we start to learn the language of ritual, we can learn that anything can be broken or cut or twisted or burned or buried or submerged or fill in the blank, but it has to be meaningful to you.

And the symbolism has to be in some ways connected to kind of the emotional or psychological landscape of what’s happening. So that’s where ritual helps to mark. moment, and then they also ask us , what’s happening here? What’s the deeper meaning here? What’s the symbolism here? And that’s how the ritual finds its way to action.

This is a little bit more advanced in the conversation, but here we are.

Laura Dawn: I love it. The question you asked, you said, who am I? I also thought of adding now, like, who am I now in this moment to let go of all of the past versions of myself, of who I was when I was married for 10 years and who am I after the divorce and who am I now? What are some other questions that you encourage people to ask that are sort of casting out these beautiful questions that lead us on a journey?

Day Schildkret: I mean, it really depends. It really depends on where you are in your life. Someone that’s, you know, coming out of the closet has a very different set of questions than someone who’s becoming a grandparent. Right. So like when I came out of the closet many years ago, that threshold that I walked through, and by the way, that was the pretty much legitimate initiation that I’ve been through, because I almost didn’t make it through, but I did. And coming out, and coming out to others. meant that I got to take the part of myself that I was hiding and reveal it to other people and reveal the deeply tender end. Unsettling questions that I was really struggling to hold myself. I was almost sharing those questions, but those questions were profoundly personal in hello, goodbye, actually every chapter that I wrote around transitions, like they do end with each one ends with questions, but like they’re not the questions.

They are just a questions. And really, as I said earlier today, like one of the best things that we can do is to keep a question alive and to share your, whatever you’re walking through, share those questions with another, someone you trust and love and ask them, , do you hear my question?

Or is there another question that’s coming up from you? And like, to me sharing questions. is a way to get a deeper question, to get under the surface of what they are. But, you know, I think that it really depends. And I’m more interested in encouraging the cultivation, the tending of a good question, rather than the kind of template of that.

Laura Dawn: I love that. And. I actually really consider myself to be like a cultivator of questions as like an actual sacred practice. And I often find that questions show up, they move through me, they’re knocking on my door. And for me, I feel like asking questions is how I step into a deeper, more intimate relationship with life and great spirit.

Like I’m in this dialogue and I’m asking questions and then I’m actually just paying attention to life around me and what’s showing up.

And I’m curious if there are any questions that have been alive for you recently.

Day Schildkret: Sure. you know, again, like what, which direction am I looking at? You know, if I’m looking in like the, the kind of South of my life, you know, and I kind of mentioned it today, but like, there’s deep questions about love and, um, and not just partnership love, but also loving. Of my gifts and loving of this life and loving of this self, uh, this impermanent thing called day and um, you know if i’m looking in the west of my life i’m asking deep questions about my livelihood and career and the ways I can continue to transform My work to make it even more relevant to the times that we live in, you know, if I’m looking to the east of my life, I’m asking deep questions about, you know, family and beginnings and babies and new ideas. Parts of my, like, things that are just sprouting, you know, in my life right now and, and giving them some direction. And if I’m looking to the north of my life, I’m really asking questions about, where I come from, um, who I am. Belong to where I belong. Um, yeah, you know, I come from, um, the theater. I used to work on Broadway many, many, many years ago. And recently I just saw a musical, , that totally blew me out of the water. And the musical is called, uh, Kimberly Akimbo. It won the Best Musical Tony Award like two or three years ago.

And the musical is really interesting. It’s a story about a girl who’s 16 years old in her high school, and she has this rare disease. And the disease is that she ages four times as fast as everyone else. And so the actress playing the girl. Is like 72 years old, but she acts like a 16 year old and I was watching this show and I was like Kind of a fool in the audience just like laughing and crying at the entire thing and um, and I was like, why is this touching me so deeply and You know part of why it was touching me deeply was like it was really bringing out my adolescent self like It was really reminding me of that teenager that still very much lives in me that, like, really is an idealist and loves adventure and taking risks and coming into himself and expression and sexuality and all the things and, , And I, as I age, I can feel that part of me, like, distancing itself from me or, like, feeling more and more separated, which is partially why I still work with teenagers once a week.

, and then the show also really brought me into my midlife and my elder, um, because the whole show is about mortality. I mean, she, it, with this disease, most people don’t live past 16, she’s 16 in the show. And so she’s contending with these two things, which is like, there’s a quote in the show that says, um, you know, the teenagers are starting to dream into their future.

And she says, um, growing up is your cure for the troubles that you face essentially, but it’s a lyric growing up is your cure. Growing up is my. demise, right? And so it also placed me like very much in my midlife, this show, and feeling my impermanence and that certain opportunities are not available to me anymore.

And one of them, for instance, is like having a baby, you know? And so the reason I’m bringing it up is because the show itself , renewed certain questions for me, certain sacred questions that different parts of myself are carrying. My teenager inner teenager is carrying very different questions than my midlife me and my elder me is carrying very different questions than my teenager me.

And so who are you asking?

Laura Dawn: I love that. With the body of work that you’ve birthed, I like this acronym, BOW. I think of it in terms of our body of work is our body of worship, ultimately. For so many people, it’s like we fall in love with these practices, and then we birth a body of work that we start teaching to other people. We’re building programs, and then we’re getting caught up in so many other things that take us away from our practice.

I’m so curious what that has been like for you as you’ve been, starting to lead training programs. Have you been stretched in your own ways around, you know, bringing this work further, further reaches?

Day Schildkret: definitely. How vulnerable you want me to get? Um,

Laura Dawn: you know, people like us. We’re teaching, you know, nature based practices and mindfulness. And even for everyone who’s doing work, it’s like you’re on social media, even maintaining a social media account, just one is like a part time job.

And so I feel like it’s just a lot. And, , where are you in relationship to that process of birthing your body of work and like the stamina and motivation that it takes to keep going?

Day Schildkret: Yeah, the orientation is seasonality. That’s how I see it, is that everything is seasonal, including certain aspects of the work. And so certain parts of me are in winter right now, you know, for instance, and this is like, quite vulnerable, but like my own art is in winter. Yeah. You know, I’ve been birthing a business, I’ve been birthing books, I’ve been birthing teachings, , you know, and running a business is, is a full on creative act, but it, I’m a limited being, you know, and like actually making art , has been in winter for quite some time.

And I am very excited, for instance, I, um, in partnership with a, major organization in San Francisco. , we won this creative works grant last year. And so this coming spring, I get to make an art installation and just focus on the art. And not have to focus on the business, or the marketing, or the promotion, or the teachings, or the anything.

I just get to make the art. And I’m like, yes! I get to dream again, I get to just play again, I get to make, you know, art again, and That’s feeling really, really good. Um, but the reason I brought up seasonality is because it takes away the pressure that anything’s final and it brings it back into a cyclical nature.

And so things need to be dormant for some time. And like, that’s not a problem. That’s actually necessary. We need to rest. Things need to rest. I have made a lot of art in my life. You know, and stepping away from that and letting it rest is actually a good thing. It’s not bad. Do I miss it? For sure. Do I fear like it won’t return?

For sure. Am I struggling with it? Absolutely. Just like some of us struggle with winter and slowing down and doing less and being dormant. But that’s a cultural struggle because we live in a productivity addicted culture. So you know, but to see it cyclically is like, you know, there will be a spring and I don’t know when that is.

And that’s okay. And my job is to kind of keep staying dormant until I can feel the movement of the warmer winds in my creative life. Um, so, you know, that’s, that’s a little bit of the vulnerable landscape that you asked me.

Laura Dawn: But like, teaching your art form is also an expression of your love for the art form.

Day Schildkret: It is, but it’s different, you know, me sitting on the earth and spending six hours making art. It’s just a totally different process than me teaching other people to do it. And I love, teaching is one of my core gifts. I love teaching. Art is another one of my core gifts. I love making art, you know, like these are, they access different parts of me, , but it, they don’t satisfy the same thing. So teaching art doesn’t, or creativity doesn’t satisfy the part of me that loves to be creative. So they’re different, but they, they kind of share the same path in a way.

Laura Dawn: From the outside, you look so incredibly, I don’t want to use like singularly focused. Like I mean that in a really good way. You’re like, this is my mission and I’m on my mission. And I think so many people are so longing to feel like, what is mine to give? I know perceptions from the outside can look a certain way, but for you, have you always felt like, This is mine to give, or has it been more of like a struggle to figure that out?

Like, are you pulled in different directions?

Day Schildkret: 100 percent

Laura Dawn: pulled in so many different directions. I’m like, I want to create this, and this, and this. Is that like that for you too?

Day Schildkret: I would reframe the, this is mine to give, um, to this has been granted to me.

Laura Dawn: Oh,

Day Schildkret: It reorients it from like coming from me to out into the world to coming through me.

Laura Dawn: Right.

Day Schildkret: so I caught the gift, right, it came, it’s been granted to me, I’m carrying it out, it’s changing as I’m carrying it out in the same way that art changes as we create it, and it’s the making that helps us orient to what it is, you know, like, I’m making it, oh, it’s starting to be this thing.

And it changes. So it’s been granted to me, but I have been on the receiving end of a variety of gifts. And I’ll give you an example. And I just told the story. I saw that musical the other day. I told you I just worked on Broadway. Seeing theater is difficult for me. Because that was another gift I was granted.

I worked in the professional theater. I worked on Broadway for almost a decade. When I left my collaborator, whose name is Tom Kitt, he won two Tony Awards the year after I left our collaboration, right? I watched him on CBS, accepting two Tony Awards. That was difficult to do. I have a sliding door experience in my life, where I’m looking at this unchosen path, where I relinquished it.

Or I transform, let’s just say, the gifts that I was given and move them into another way of telling stories and another way of creating ritual. Theater is ritual. They just are coming out very differently right now. It’s, it comes up for me, and you know, aging, like, regret is an important part of aging.

It’s not something to be avoided. It actually gives us a little bit of a place to like, have a view of our lives and be like, you know what, I’m standing on the mountain of my regrets. Thanks. And I’m looking out at the choices that I’ve made. It doesn’t make it easier. I just get to see it a little differently.

Like let, there are certain things called consequences. We make choices, we play out the consequences of that. I chose to pursue another calling, not that calling. But when I’m kind of adjacent to that calling, there are things like. You know, like tenderness and regret and wondering and, you know, and what would my life be like if I pursued that?

And, I’m in it right now too, you know, I’m choosing to direct a lot of my creative energy on my business, on teacher trainings, on intensives and less art, and there’s consequences to that and we always make choices. But I’m very good, it could be just my family I come from, or my astrological makeup, who knows, but I’m pretty good at pursuing, like, hearing a call and going for it, almost like a bird, you know, like a predator bird, like, I see the prey and I just go for it.

Um, I’m pretty good at that, but I also have, you know, like, been stretched, and made choices that, you know, You know, I don’t know if I, like, there are choices I had to learn from. That helped guide me to make better choices in the future. And you know, I mean, if you really want to get personal and not talk about career, I feel that same way around my dating life, , I’ve made choices and I’m living out the consequences of those choices and I’m trying to redirect because.

, unlike business, like you can’t, like, I guess you can market for a husband, but

Laura Dawn: We’re

Day Schildkret: You know, it’s hard, it’s hard, and we’re doing it now, but it’s harder, and you know, it’s all about choosing. And, , and like actually taking paths and making decisions and consequences are my, one of my beloved teachers, Steve Jenkinson would talk about, um, what does it mean to be awake? Awake. And instead of kind of the more new agey take of the word awake, he actually, this guy’s such a genius, , he broke the word down into a, W A K E, in the same fashion of like you’re on a boat and as you move forward, the boat leaves a wake in its midst, meaning ripples. And so to be awake means to understand, to pay attention to the consequences of how you move in the world and the ripples that you cause. How beautiful is that? It’s really beautiful. And so it’s the same thing. It’s like, we’re all making choices

Laura Dawn: Mm hmm.

Day Schildkret: and , can you be awake to the consequences of your choices?

Laura Dawn: This may be too personal, but what are some of the harder lessons that you’ve learned that you’ve learned from and now you’re making new choices because of those hard lessons?

Day Schildkret: I mean, I’ve spoken to so many over the course of these last two hours, like I’ll give you one people pleasing. People pleasing. That is a way that I have stayed alive in my childhood. That’s a way that I stayed safe in my childhood. And that is very seductive as a teacher, as a business owner. To keep your customers satisfied, right? But, pleasing, , or making everyone happy, Is not always the best way towards learning.

Sometimes we have to encounter things that are uncomfortable when we’re learning. Actually, Jenkinson once, you know, would say like real learning is expensive. You have to pay with what you can’t afford to give up to learn it. Right. And so the, one of the lessons for me is like, what does it mean to not please and to still be standing in what’s true for me. And if audience or students or whoever comes and goes, they come and go. But my integrity is to be true and faithful to what’s true to me, not to please you and make you happy. that’s a very hard lesson for me. And doesn’t feel good all the time, you know, to have someone be like, I don’t want this, or I don’t like this.

Or, you know, I recently taught a course and had a student be like, you tell too many stories about yourself. You’re selfish. And I’m like, that’s just how I do it. You know, just, I tell a lot of stories and yeah, some of them about my life. And if that comes across to you as self centered, probably not the right fit. You know, and that’s a hard lesson, because like my inner safety is like, no, no, no, I need to make you feel good and make you feel better, make you feel pleased and satisfy you. And I don’t, you know, so I’m, I am transforming that pattern into something that actually serves my work and my life and life in general, and not to, you know, make someone feel happy or comfortable or,

Laura Dawn: mm

Day Schildkret: you know, whatever.

Thanks for listening.

Laura Dawn: It makes me think about that line in your book about creating from center. Like when I think about people pleasing, for example, it’s off center, you’re actually overreaching and it’s making decisions based on a survival mechanism or a wound rather than center, which is leading from worth, leading from integrity, leading from a place of actually, I don’t need to People, please.

I can just make a decision from center and create from center. And I feel like when we make that shift and we create and lead from center, we’re leading from our worth. And then sort of what you were saying earlier, like when you approach something with reverence, that’s what Reflects back to you.

That’s what comes back to you in your life. And I feel like when we make those decisions from off center create from off center, just ripples out more wounding rather than healing worthiness.

Day Schildkret: mean, from an artistic perspective, you’re naming my love of symmetry, you know, Like, I love making art where the center informs what ripples out. And when I’m creating, I’m coming back to the center. You’ll notice in my art, , the reason that I think it resonates and looks beautiful is there’s a a relationship between leaving the center, Through the art and being in relationship to the center, remembering the center, the art is telling a bigger story that or it’s illustrating something you’re saying, which is like, how can we have ways that we keep returning to what is our center, aka what matters to us, what’s important to us, what is fundamental to us, what’s original to us, right?

That’s the center. Like, if you look behind me. I have my ancestors on this wall. They’re at my back in this whole conversation. Right? So I have them here cause I’m returning all the time to remembering, like, I come from a people, I come from a place, I come from a variety of places. Thanks to. Being exiled and you know being on my ancestors being forced to flee but like I remember them in this conversation.

And so that is a physicalized way of me returning to my centers like oh, yeah, there’s here they are again

Laura Dawn: Are you framing your trainings as cultivating emotional intelligence, emotional resilience? Are you using that language because it very much seems that that’s what you are actually helping people cultivate.

Day Schildkret: Cool we’ll consider it for the marketing. No, we’re not we’re we’re We’re we’re talking a lot about healing Um, and, you know, I guess if we’re still speaking in like images, the, the way that. My art is, is that we, I take many pieces and I bring them temporarily into wholeness. That’s really what my art is, right?

Like flower petals and acorns and, um, you know, shells and bark, and we’re taking many, bringing it temporarily into something whole so that we can remember something, right? And so to me, that is really what the word remember means. Re Do it again. Member, make whole, right? So forgetting, remembering, but also healing, which means broken. Some parts of us are broken and splintered and healing is bringing it back together into something whole. So the language, it might be the consequence of it is emotional intelligence, but the art orientation to my trainings are healing ,

Laura Dawn: in terms of this, you know, dear humanity podcast, uh, I like to ask and invite my guests to share really a core essence of the message of your life’s work to really distill that message down , as a message that you’re offering humanity.

Day Schildkret: The heart of my work is wonder. So we’ve talked about it in this entire time, right? Wow. Like seeing it again, wonder. And the soul of my work is impermanence, ephemerality, change. , and they go well together, heart and soul, but to wonder after change. Wow. This also is changing. That would be it in a nutshell.

Laura Dawn: Beautiful. Thank you so much for all that you do. It’s really just so great to connect with you.

Day Schildkret: Yeah, you too. Thank you.