Opening Sacred Space

The simplest definition of Sacred Space I can imagine is a time and space that we set aside or create to experience deeper meaning and connection than we might in our everyday fast-paced lives.  

And the best part is, we don’t have to wait for someone else to create it for us. We can each create sacred space whenever and wherever we want. 

My life has changed in more ways than I can express since I have learned to create sacred space. For me, it has opened the doorways to healing, insight, inspiration and a connection to the element of the divine.  Creating sacred space and receiving the gifts of it is a unique experience for each person, so I invite you create sacred space in a way that resonates for you and then see what happens, remembering that if you do it with an intentional heart, you can’t do it wrong.  

Here are some of my favorite ways to honor the divine, bring intentionality into a space or even create a feeling of re-set within a space if I’m feeling “off”.  

• Burn incense like sage, sweet grass, cedar, copal or palo santo 
• Sing a sacred song
• Pull an oracle card like a goddess or angel card
• Create an altar with items that help me connect to the divine or whatever my prayer or intention is 
• Bring in the blessing of the flowers! Either by sprinkling petals in or around a space, setting out bouquets of flowers or even by making a bowl of herbal/flower water and sprinkling the water into the space. 
• Say a prayer
• Call in the directions

Like most things, the more often you do it the easier and more natural it will become and the more clearly you will begin to see the benefits in your own life. Find a way (or multiple ways) that really resonate with you that bring you into alignment with yourself and the divine. 

Calling in the Directions

Many of the traditions around the world including those I work with – from shamans in the jungles of South America… to indigenous grandmothers in northern Canada… to Qoya – call in the directions to open sacred space. I have found this to be one of the most powerful and effective ways to create a container for spiritual transformation, in large part because when we call in that support, we are no longer alone — the help arrives. I have peronally found that as I deepen my relationship to the archetypal energies in the directions, the stronger I experience the resonance of that prayer in my being and the stronger the container becomes. 

The basic idea is that life operates based on these fundamental directions: North, South, East, West, the sky Above/the cosmos, the earth Below and the Center, the heart. Some call it the Medicine Wheel… the Sacred Hoop of Life. The directions are like a blueprint and each direction carries a certain energy of reverence for the cycles and mysteries of life.  In many traditions the directions also have guardian animals, colors and more that we can learn to work with.  While some traditions put the hummingbird in the north and others see the hummingbird in the south, for example, it matters less about the exact prayer and more about your relationship to these directions in your own heart and life. 

I love this example of a prayer to call in the directions by Qoya founder Rochelle Schieck:

To the winds of the South
Great Serpent
Please come wrap your coils of light around us
And teach us how to shed our past the way you shed your skin
Remind us of the pleasures of being embodied
And just like you have your belly on the ground
Let us feel our feet reconnect to the earth
And remind us to do everything we do with conscious beauty
Aho!

To the winds of the West
Mother Sister Jaguar
Please walk around this medicine space and keep us safe
Bring us into our highest integrity 
And teach us how to trust our instincts, our inner knowing
Just like you do
Help to cross the rainbow bridge from this tangible world
To the world of spirit and always know the essence of who we are
Help us to be fearless, courageous, and true
Please be with us
Aho! 

To the winds of the North
Sweet sweet hummingbird, and ancestors
Please be with us
Hummingbird, you who memorizes thousands and thousands of flowers
But only go to the ones that truly nourish you
Please illuminate where our nectar is
And give us the discipline to go there more often
Less tempted by false images
Hummingbird, you who travel from Canada to Brazil every year
This tiny bird on this big epic journey
Let us find strength for our own epic journey
Ancestors, those of you that have been here before
And those who will be here after us
Please help guide our way
Please come warm your hands by our fires, by our rituals
And help to keep our eyes, ears, hearts, minds open to your guidance
To the synchronicity, to the grace, to the ease
Help us to align with our souls path
And let it be sweet
Aho!

To the winds of the East
Great eagle, great condor
Please come down off your high mountain tops to be with us
And help us remember what it feels like to be wing tip to wing tip with Great Spirit
To soar, to fly, to know that if we come to the edge of the cliff and we jump
That our wings will flap and we will soar
To give us courage to dream bigger dreams
And to go beyond what we know
To source from a place of possibility instead of probability
Please help us expand and align with our highest destiny
Aho!

Sweet sweet sweet Mother Earth, Pachamama
Please hear our prayer
Forgive us for the times when we forget
And help us to be so full of gratitude
That we become better caretakers of your creations and causes
Thank you to all of your creations
The landscapes, the mountains, the oceans, the rivers
Thank you to the two-legged, the four-legged, 
The finned, the furred, the creepy crawlers.
Thank you to the Plant People and the Stone People
Thank you to the inner connected web of life that supports and nurtures us
Again, let us be so full of gratitude that we become better caretakers of it.
Please be with us on this journey.
Aho!

Father Sun, Grandmother Moon, Star Brothers, Star Sisters
Please hear our simple prayer to shine
To know our own light and have it reflected in yours
Like the radiance of the sun, The wisdom cycles of the moon, 
The unique luminesce of each star
That light, that thing that goes by thousands and thousands of names
But remains ultimately unnamable
Please hear our prayer to source back to that place
To shine that light in this world as we sing the song of life 
And dance this dance of life
One more day.
Aho!

When you open sacred space in this way be sure to also close the directions once your ritual is finished and thank the archetypical energies for showing up. Gratitude is a superpower and your gratitude for the support of the sacred space infuses its power. 

Oh, and since gratitude is a superpower – check out how to create a despacho ceremony, a powerful gratitude ceremony and one of my favorite rituals.