The map
The Four Altars
Four doors, four prayers, and the four seasons of a life they hold between them.
We open these doors so that everything we are related to can be brought inside the prayer, from the people beside us to the generations standing at our back.
What an altar is
A door, and a place to aim
Cloth on the ground. The staff and the rattle laid across it, tobacco and cedar lit, feathers and crystals in their places. Everything the prayer will pass through, gathered close enough to hold in the eye at once.
An altar is what gives a prayer its aim. The four together are also a map: each holds a stretch of a life, and laid end to end they run from the day a person is born to the day they die.
The four
Four doors, opened in order
Every altar carries a direction, an element, an animal and a season of life. Each one keeps opening into the next.
East. Fire. The puma.
The first altar
From birth until around thirteen, and the prayer turns inward. The puma is presence, the animal entirely where it is. Its prayer is Gratitude.
West. Water. The eagle.
The second altar
Youth: no longer a child and not yet fully grown. The prayer is still turned inward. The eagle opens the view and teaches surrender. Its prayer is Clarity.
North. Wind. The deer.
The third altar
Adulthood, and the turn outward. Here we stand among the generations, seven behind us and seven ahead, carried in the blood both ways. Its prayer is Unity.
South. Earth. Snake and spider.
The fourth altar
The elders. The snake grounds, crawling before anything walks; the spider weaves, and goes back for the thread that came loose. Its prayer is Love.
Which altar is nearest
People usually find one of the four standing closer to them than the other three, and it is often the one holding the season of life they are in. That is a good place to begin.
The other three will keep.
Children are in the circle from the beginning. They play, they carry things, they move around the fire, and nothing is asked of them.
Next
Walk with them
The altars are opened out on the land, on prayer walks and prayer circles.