This is the prayer brought back by Alberto Villoldo from the Inca of Peru. For further information on Alberto and his work, please follow this link: The Four Winds
You can open space over any area you are working in where you have permission, for example, a treatment room, a house or grounds. Ideally, stand in the compass corners of the intended area as you open sacred space. Ensure you have consent to do this. It is not appropriate to open sacred space for an entire building if there are other people present who have not given permission.
When opening each of the directions, make sure you are facing them, so you will need a compass. When you pray to mother earth, make sure you are in full contact with the ground beneath you, hands and feet; feel the earth as you speak to her. When praying to Father Sun and Great Spirit, look up at the stars. This is particularly powerful when done outside.
Ideally, hold a rattle out in front of you and shake it once as you say ‘Ho’, but in the absence of a rattle, your open hand held out in the direction you are facing is enough.
You may change any of this to honour the more personal nature of what you are doing, whether it is to support a sacred fire, a journey, a healing session, whatever. The more personal and heart-felt this prayer is, the deeper it will go and the more profound the support you will receive. It’s all about the intent.
At the end of your practice or therapy session, it is important to close sacred space. To do this, simply repeat the prayer, but this time substituting any requests to ‘be with us’ to words of thanks. Instead of ‘Ho!’, say ‘Go now in peace and beauty. Ho!’.
“To the winds of the South,
Great serpent, the element of water from which all life emerges,
Come be with us, the great feminine principle.
Wrap your coils of light around us and help us to
Shed the past the way you shed your skin.
Teach us to walk soft belly upon the earth,
To touch all that we touch with beauty.
Help us to understand that we never left the garden.
Ho!
To the winds of the West, the element of earth,
Mother, sister jaguar, you who knows the seasons and cycles
Of life and death and renewal,
Come be with us.
Help us to see into the shadows
That we may give back to the earth that which no longer serves us,
So the earth grows more and more abundant,
As we take our place as rainbow warriors, peaceful warriors,
With no need of enemies in this world or the next.
Teach us the way of peace, the way beyond fear and death.
Protect our medicine space.
Ho!
To the winds of the North, the element of air,
Hummingbird, take us under your tiny wing
As we take another step upon our journey of growth and evolution.
Teach us where to find the nectar, the joy
And sweetness of life; teach us how to make the impossible possible.
Grandmothers and grandfathers, ancestors, ancient ones,
Come and warm your hands by the fires in our hearts.
Whisper to us on the wind.
We honour all those who have come before us
And you who come after us, our children’s children.
Ho!
To the winds of the East, the element of fire,
Great eagle, great condor.
Come, fly to us from the place of the rising sun
Let us fly wing tip to wing tip with you to Great Spirit.
Be with us, as from that place above the mountains we dream a new world into being,
Based on our visions for the future, not the wounds of our past.
Ho!
Mother earth, we come in deepest honouring for all our relations,
For the stone people, the plant people, the trees,
The finned, the furred and the feathered,
The four legged, the two legged and the many legged.
For all our relations, hold us sweetly mother,
Allow us to feel the deep support you have for us
And all the ways you nourish and nurture us every day of our lives.
Ho!
Father sun, grandmother moon, brothers and sisters of the great star nations.
Over-light our space today, hold that cosmic order of all things for us,
Show us how we may shine like bright stars in the night sky and still form part of a constellation,
As above so below.
And Great Spirit, you who are known by a thousand names and you who are the unnameable one,
Thank you for bringing us together this day,
That we may sing this song of life, of love, of joy, of freedom; one more day.
Ho!