Arden Day
I want to become a dry sycamore leaf drifting down the Sisquoc River.
Arden Day
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends and say my glory was, I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats
The dead don’t need us to remember them; they need us to live in a way that makes their deaths meaningful.
Martin Prechtel
Arden Lapham Day died on Friday, March 21st, at 7:27pm in his home, a magical yurt in Montecito beneath a canopy of oak trees. He was born in Los Angeles on February 24th, 1949.
A week ago, myself, my wife, Laurel, and a friend, Ruth, backpacked to the Sisquoc River. I carried a pickle jar of Arden’s ashes to fulfill his request to join the river. When we arrived at our river camp, I went off to do some exploring. While I was gone, a man named Jacob came walking down the trail with his daughter and a friend. They were the only people any of us saw over our 6-day trip. Ruth spoke to Jacob, and she happened to share that we were there to spread a friend’s ashes. Jacob’s response was, “Is it Arden? I didn’t know him, but my friend did, and he told me that Arden said he wanted to become a dry sycamore leaf and drift down the Sisquoc.”
That coincidence is pure Arden Day. I can’t even say it’s a coincidence. I had shared Arden’s wish with his friends at a fire circle a day after his death, and Jacob, who had never met him, carried his memory to the Sisquoc, where his words could join the river.
It is hard to draw a circumference around Arden; he had so many friends of all ages, indeed, it seemed that everyone knew him. Even a short walk with him down State St. became a series of happy greetings with one person after another. There were friends from his UCSB days, East Camino Cielo days, Breema practice, Wilderness Youth Project, his Men’s group, Bolad’s Kitchen with Martin Prechtel, Extended Learning, backpacking, his childhood in LA, and so many other associations he forged in his lifetime.
His favorite home was at a bend on East Camino Cielo, just below a hill topped with pines, that he called The Point — a wooden low roofed shack that overlooked the coast to Santa Cruz Island, or Limuw, as Arden would say. The Point had no electricity or running water, which meant to Arden, exactly perfect. He filled the small space with his books of Irish folklore and poetry, Chumash narratives, like December’s Child and Eye of the Flute, and beautiful objects like handwoven baskets, bones, shells, and Huichol yarn paintings–so many lovely things that it is impossible to innumerate. Whenever you visited Arden, no matter where he lived, you were surrounded by indigenous textiles, art, natural treasures collected on his many backpacking trips, and cherished books. His spaces reflected the range and beauty of his mind and interests.
Arden volunteered with the Wilderness Youth Project for years because he valued WYP’s dedication to educating, sharing and honoring the wild with children and youth. Spending time in the wild was not a recreational thing for Arden, rather it was a path of healing, of honoring the holy, and of connecting with one’s true nature.
On the first sunset after his death, his dear community of WYP friends led a deeply moving, and loving, four-day fire circle in his honor. That was another pure Arden thing, to have his death, and his friends, show the more conventional of us, a new way to memorialize and grieve. Over those 4 days, whether at noon or at 2am, there was quiet, there was song, there was story–it was a beautiful transition ceremony. For some, the four days were to allow Arden’s spirit to travel from the Eastern Gate to the Western Gate then on to the afterlife. For me, it created community, time, and space to let the beauty of his spirit and life be honored, settle, and let go.
Arden was a dedicated backpacker. He has hiked the Sierras, the Pyrenees, and the green hills of Ireland, but he had a particular love for the unsung and less visited wilderness that stretches east from Santa Barbara over three mountain ranges to Cuyama. He loved the Carrizo Plain, and the Sespe River, but the San Rafael Wilderness, one of the first designated wilderness areas in the United States, was especially dear to his soul. From the tall pine forests on the ridges of the San Rafael range down to the narrow valley where the Sisquoc River runs free, is a land still untouched and untainted by civilization. It is an ancient place where, for thousands of years, the Chumash people lived and thrived and danced and sang.
For over 50 years, Arden would travel, solo and in company, through that wilderness, and in all seasons. He felt a kinship, and a debt, to the native people of the Santa Barbara region. He believed that the natural world was to be respected and honored. When we neglect or deny our interdependence with wild nature, we do so at our own peril, and cause suffering for ourselves and the wild.
For well over a decade, Arden was a student of Martin Prechtel, the writer, artist, and shamanic teacher from the Tz’utujil Mayan tradition. He’d travel quarterly to Bolad’s Kitchen, at Ojo Caliente near Taos, New Mexico. There he learned traditional crafts from forging metal to leatherwork to making musical instruments to weaving on a loom, and all while studying indigenous ritual, cultures, texts and tales that, he truly believed, still have profound implications for our present way of being. He believed that healing our modern society depended on the acknowledgement and processing of our “undigested grief” that we carry as a culture. As Prechtel said, “Grief is the healing feeling that lets us know we’ve truly loved.”
His work with Prechtel’s school wasn’t confined to when he was in New Mexico, it was part of his deep study all year round. Arden wasn’t after a degree or some technical competency that could translate into a better job or more earning power. He was a dedicated, well-read scholar, with no goal other than the enrichment of his life and honoring the holy.
Arden was, at times, a particular and prickly person. He was strongly protective of his sovereignty. He had many things he did not like: he did not like plastic, he did not like cell phones, he did not like overly happy “How are yours?” or throw away containers, or processed food, or microwaves, or leaf blowers.
He liked to be specific with his words and kept a big thick old-fashioned dictionary at hand for the purpose. Yes, you could look the word up on your phone, but that was not the same. Arguments often hinged on fine shadings of meaning between similar words, but there was no continuing the conversation if you didn’t sort out the difference. He had a poetic way of speaking and would pause to find the precise word before going on. He was a good storyteller and studied to be a better one.
The last job that Arden had, and perhaps the job that most incorporated all the bright facets of his character–his playfulness, his storytelling, his love of music, movement, dancing and more–was as a teacher in memory care facilities through SBCC’s Extended Learning Program. He brought his whole being to his students, with the goal of giving, even those with severe memory impairment, a moment of spontaneous play and delight and laughter. He studied and prepared for his classes with wit and alacrity. Even if his students wouldn’t recall his previous class, they deserved new material and new discoveries. It is said that you show your true character when no one is looking. Arden showed his true love for his students by eliciting delight in those who may not remember it. For over 10 years, Arden was, in the words of one of his directors, an inspired teacher.
Arden was family. He was devoted to his nieces, Rachel and Natalie, and his goddaughters, Plume and Automne. Hard to say how many children’s lives were brightened and enlivened by Arden. I do know that I thought he was my family’s Arden– he was the one who jacked up the kids with wild stories and silly play and then left right before bedtime. But there were so many other children who also felt he was theirs alone. And when, over the course of time, those children became parents themselves, Arden was still that childhood playmate– and was ready to jack up their kids with wild stories and silly play right before bedtime.
Arden is survived by his younger brothers, Andy and Bobby Day, and his nieces, Rachel and Natalie Day.
There will be an “Arden” Day at Scofield Park on Saturday, May 10th, 2025. We welcome all of Arden’s friends to join us in celebrating the life of this singular and beloved man. Bring a dish or bring a story or just yourself.
For more information, contact David Hodges davidalanhodges@gmail.com
