Like so many, you tend to put yourself last

You give so much to your clients or students, but can get overextended and feel out of balance.

You feel replenished in nature, but have trouble prioritizing it.

You value creativity but barely schedule time for your own creative expression.

You believe rituals are powerful tools but need more guidance implementing them.   

You understand the wisdom of slowing down, but in the day-to-day stresses of work, family, and life, you find it hard to make time.

And as a healer and helper, you know you always need to take the medicine you’re giving.

• You believe that the most profound healing for you or your clients can happen when you let your body touch nature’s body.

• You understand deep healing happens when you slow down, unplug, and remember your sense of belonging to this living planet.

• You know that creativity is the antidote to fear and the skill to navigate uncertainty gracefully.

• You feel in your bones that pain, grief, and loss can be transformed into something beautiful and meaningful for deeper understanding.

• You don’t want to do this alone and long to be in a learning community with other wildly creative, nature-loving, open-hearted healers and helpers.

Since then I’ve…

• Created over a thousand nature altars

• Authored two best-selling books on healing with nature, art, and ritual

• Taught workshops to thousands at esteemed places like Esalen, the 9/11 Memorial Plaza, and the Google campus

• Spent hundreds of hours studying with legendary teachers such as Stephen Jenkinson

• Have a permanent, hands-on exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California

• Been featured on international television such as the CBC, NBC, FOX, and CBS

Nature, Creativity & Ritual

The foundation of the Morning Altars therapeutic modality is supported by three pillars: Nature, Creativity, and Ritual.

If you’re here, you…

• Already believe these three are essential pathways for healing, connection, and remembering our humanity.

• Already have a deep relationship with one or more of these pillars. 

• Already work with (or intend to work with) one or more of these pillars with your clients, students or community.

But what’s unique about this training is that it’s an integrative process which combines these three pillars into a scientifically proven mindfulness modality that compliments any therapeutic and educational method for your clients and communities.

This invitation is from our heart to yours

I’m inviting you to join me in receiving my life’s work. I’m going to be teaching as if our world depends on it because, well, it does. 

I’m taking us on a powerful 9-month journey into the heart of this potent healing modality that integrates nature, creativity, and ritual therapies. No other training in the world does this. This is a practice that transformed my life. Maybe it’ll transform yours too.

I’d love it if you joined me and our growing community.

Again, please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.

I’m here for them all.

And you, always.

The Morning Altars Teacher Training is a 9-month certification program for helpers & healers who work with groups or individuals and wish to deepen their understanding of the Morning Altars modality and become certified facilitators. The program provides in-depth training, mentoring, practice groups, and curated resources to help develop the skills and knowledge necessary to integrate this modality into your own practices, clients, groups, and communities.

Day is a world-renowned author, artist, and teacher who developed the Morning Altars modality in 2011 as a way of healing from his own loss and grief. He has written two award-winning books on nature, creativity and ritual, and has shared his modality with thousands of people, from Melbourne to Madrid. He has taught workshops at esteemed places like Esalen, MEA, the 9/11 Memorial Plaza, and the Google campus, and has been featured on international television such as the CBC, NBC, FOX, and CBS.

Getting certified as a Morning Altars Teacher will greatly enhance the way you serve your populations. The modality equips you with fresh skills, activities, and perspectives that you can utilize to guide your clients, students, or communities. As the world’s only modality integrating nature, art, and ritual therapies, you’ll be able to differentiate yourself from others in your field.

We believe in a curating the community to make sure everyone is a good fit. Because we’ll be exploring transformational practices, grief, and healing, we want to ensure it’s a supportive and held container.

The Big Weekends are a combination of on-screen conversations and outdoor activities. The group gathers on Zoom, and then alternates between learning directly from Day, going off-screen to practice what is taught, and reflecting in small groups on what you’ve experienced and learned. The weekends are pinnacles of the programs and are seen by participants as an invaluable part of the overall training and community building.

While there is no artistic experience necessary, you will quickly discover that you are profoundly creative. The Morning Altars modality helps us all discover that we all have the capacity to see, feel, create, and express beauty and gives us a way to access that deep truth.

The program begins in late September, 2023 and will conclude in May, 2024. The Big Weekends will happen in September, November, January, March, and May.

Unfortunately, we cannot be in all places at all times (much as we might like to be). If you want to participate in this course but can’t make the timing fit your timezone, we have designed the program with alternative options for those who can’t participate live. There will be recordings of the weekends and the Practicum Lessons all with access to the community threads on the Mighty Network (our private Morning Altars online community). Plus, there will be occasional Practicum Lessons offered live for our European and Australasian members. Depending on which time zones end up participating, we will arrange practice groups to accommodate individuals in similar time zones. We encourage participants from any timezone to apply–we’ve found solutions for participants from Iceland to New Zealand, and we’re sure we can make it work for you as well!

The magic is happening in these live gatherings where you’ll get the most investment from being there, but we also recognize that our schedule might not be realistic for everyone. We want to do everything we can to make the program accessible.

If you miss a weekend session, there will be recordings made available on the Mighty Network (our online community). You will be able to watch videos of the group conversations and engage with the activities on your own, at your own speed.

Each recorded session will directly link to active threads within the community where you can join-in and participate in the conversation even after the weekend ends. We even include the “chat” from the calls! If you think you might have problems with the dates, please still consider applying and we’ll work it out directly with you.

Between each Big Weekend, there will be one assignment designed to help you practice to offer a public workshop. Completing these assignments will be mandatory in order to be considered for certification, and will culminate in a Final Project at the end of the program. Assignments will vary between sessions, and will typically involve a bit of planning, a bit of doing, and a bit of reflecting.There will be periodic meetings with your Practice Group and your Mentor between the Big Weekends, to help ensure you’re feeling on-course with the program and to help build the “we” of your Practice Group.

The first two years have proven to be a massive success. It is our hope that this third class will build on the success of the first two years and cement this program as an annual offering. However, as with all things, there is no guarantee, but we have sincere intentions to continue again next year.

We create and foster our cohort by providing an intentionally welcoming and safe environment where all feel valued and cared for, and where all are given the opportunity to form meaningful connections with one another. We foster a climate of purposeful inclusion of all. We cherish the diversity of gender, age, race, ethnicity, national origin, range of abilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, financial means, education, and political perspective. We actively create a safe space during the weekends by encouraging sharing from all participants for anyone who feels called to share with the large group, and by providing small, more intimate opportunities to share and dive deeper with just the individual practice groups. We also maintain open channels of communications with all our students to come to use with any issues that might arise, ensuring everyone feels seen, heard, and cared for.

Whether it’s public health, housing, physical mobility, or just time-zones, we recognise that sometimes circumstances are such that we can’t actually get outside. We’ve designed this course to try to mitigate that whenever possible. As with the Morning Altars practice, sometimes we need to augment our approach to allow for our surroundings. For many of the activities, we have designed alternatives that can be done indoors to explore the lesson at hand. It’s amazing what we can find to wonder about and create inside of our own homes.

As well as access to the outdoors, we recognise that sometimes our mobility circumstances will require us to change our approach to the practice. If this is the case for you, we will work with you to adjust the practice to fit your needs.

If you have any additional access needs, please let us know in the application process, and we will do whatever we can to make this journey accessible to you.

The course is part-online, part-outside. The weekends will mix Zoom-based conversations with immersions outside. There will be screen time and nature time, journaling time and wandering time. There will also be audio experiences you can take with you outside to guide you through activities and meditations. Outside of the weekends, you will meet on-line with your practice groups, get to hear more from Day during the virtual Practicum Lessons, and spend time in nature as you dive into some of the depths of the Morning Altars practice.

To participate, you will need a computer with a stable internet connection, a webcam, a comfortable seat, a fully-wired imagination, and space to wander and play.

Our private online community is called a Mighty Network, and it is where the course lives when we’re not meeting live on Zoom (or when you’re not out in nature). This is our main gathering place online (akin to Facebook but not open to the public like Facebook) where you will be asked to post photos, have interesting conversations with classmates, access additional content, reference upcoming events, and dive into our vast resource library. We hope that you find it a comfortable space to engage with this community of practice that we are all building together. And yes, there are free app versions for iOS and Android if you want to access it on your phone or tablet.

Not to worry, the course is designed to provide as much support as possible to help you with the technological journey. Since we are all nature-folk here, we have chosen platforms that are easy to work with, and most importantly, we will be able to help you with any technical challenges you may encounter along the way. If you have any questions, you can contact us directly inside the Mighty Network or by email at any time and we’ll get back to you.

This program is designed for helpers and healers who want to expand their modality toolbox and deepen their ability to help themselves and those around them. The most important thing is that you have a love for nature, creativity, and meaning-making. We encourage you to be familiar with the Morning Altars practice and its attendant 7 steps. If you’re not, please read Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art and Ritual beforehand. Everything else will be taught.

If you are interested in deepening your own practice but do not have a community that you intend to bring this to, we encourage you to still consider applying to the program. We can discuss your needs and intentions during the application process, and help create an approach that will work best for you.

Becoming a certified Morning Altars Teacher, you will have access to the Morning Altars name and brand; have a library of resources to pull from such as logos and contact templates; belong to our international professional network of helpers and healers; and promote yourself on the Morning Altars webpage. Additionally, you’ll be offered job opportunities to bring workshops, installations and teachings to communities and organizations looking for certified Morning Altars Teachers as they arise. Lastly, you may have an opportunity to become a Morning Altars Teacher Training Mentor in future cohorts of the training.

The certification does not expire but we will invite you to join the Morning Altars Graduate Program after certification to continue practicing this modality within our community.

While having a business in place certainly gives you something to work with, this program can absolutely serve as the starting point for a new business venture or side-hustle. As you begin to book gigs, you may need to start setting yourself up as a business entity of some sort, but that is certainly not a prerequisite for participating in the program.

This program will put you into a cohort of international practitioners and professionals, all of whom make up an incredible network. Some of your cohort-mates will also have extensive networks of their own that you may be able to tap into. In addition to that, you will also have access to the alumni community of program graduates, all of whom will be wonderful contacts to make. And finally, you will be part of a community of Teachers who will have access to job opportunities as they become available, either through Day and his network, or through the networks of your fellow teachers.

Being part of the Teachers cohort will give you access to teaching opportunities, sourced by either Day and his network, or through the networks of your fellow Morning Altars Teachers. Professional opportunities often arise that are not feasible for teachers who fielded the original request (this is often the case for Day as well), and in these cases we make the opportunities available to our community of certified teachers. We will also invite you to share about teaching opportunities of your own on the online forum, where you may be able to amplify your message or find participants. You will also be listed, if you chose, on the Morning Altars website as a certified teacher available for work.