Creating Sacred Space

Sacred Space allows us to enter our quiet inner world where healing takes place.

Sacred space can be opened before a healing session, at home for your meditation practice, or simply to create an atmosphere of peace and protection. 

Within sacred space, we leave behind the affairs of ordinary life, the bustling world of meetings and schedules, and prepare to meet with Spirit.   Our burdens become lighter, and we can be touched by the hand of Spirit.  

Shamans traditionally open Sacred Space by calling upon the archetypes of the Four Directions, (South, West, North and East), the Earth and the Heavens in invocation or prayer. You can create Sacred Space for yourself, using your own words or reciting the prayer below. Like any prayer, It is your intent that is most important, not the actual words. Feel free to make it your own.

When you have finished your healing work or meditation session, sacred space should be closed.  

To close the space, follow the same procedure as for the opening, acknowledging the four directions, Mother Earth and Father Sun. Thank the archetypes for being with you — serpent, jaguar, hummingbird, and eagle— and release their energies to return to the four corners of the Earth

A Prayer for Creating Sacred Space* 

South
To the winds of the South
Great Serpent

Wrap your coils of light around us
Teach us to shed the past the way you shed your skin
To walk softly on the Earth
Teach us the Beauty Way
 
West
To the winds of the West
Mother Jaguar
Protect our medicine space
Teach us the way of peace, to live impeccably
Show us the way beyond death
 
North
To the winds of the North
Hummingbird, Grandmothers and Grandfathers
Ancient Ones
Come and warm your hands by our fires
Whisper to us in the wind
We honor you who have come before us
And you who will come after us, our children’s children
 
East
To the winds of the East
Great eagle, condor
Come to us from the place of the rising Sun
Keep us under your wing
Show us the mountains we only dare to dream of
Teach us to fly wing to wing with the Great Spirit
 
Mother Earth
We’ve gathered for the healing of all of your children
The Stone People, the Plant People
The four-legged, the two-legged, the creepy crawlers
The finned, the furred, and the winged ones
All our relations
 
Father Sun
Father Sun, Grandmother Moon, to the Star Nations
Great Spirit, you who are known by a thousand names
And you who are the unnamable One
Thank you for bringing us together
And allowing us to sing the Song of Life

* From the book Shaman, Healer, Sage by Alberto Villoldo