---
title: "The Four Altars | Church of Yachay Apus"
description: "Four doors opened East, West, North and South, each with an element, a spirit animal, a season of a life, and a prayer of its own."
url: https://coyason.org/four-altars/
updated: 2026-11-01
language: en
format: a Markdown copy of the page at the url above
---

The Four Altars | Church of Yachay Apus

![A river running green below red canyon walls, a sandy shore in the foreground.](https://coyason.org/media/openings/the-green-river-desktop.jpg)

East West North South

# The Four Altars

Four doors, four prayers, and the four seasons of a life they hold between them.

[Our Practice](https://coyason.org/practice/) [How we gather](https://coyason.org/gatherings/)

What an altar is

## A door, and a place to aim

We open these doors so that everything we are related to can be brought inside the circle, from the people beside us to the generations standing at our back.

A cloth is laid on the ground, with the staff and the rattle across it, tobacco and cedar to send the prayers, and feathers and crystals in their places. Everything the prayer will pass through is gathered there.

An altar here is not what the word usually means. It is more like a door, and the direction it faces is where the prayer goes. 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.

![A cloth laid on the ground with a staff, a rattle, feathers and small stones arranged across it.](https://coyason.org/media/photographs/altar-laid-out-1024x1024.jpg)

The four

## Four doors, opened in order

Every altar carries a direction, an element, an animal, a season of life, and a prayer of its own. Each one keeps opening into the next.

![A ring of carved mountains seen from above, with an opening at East, West, North and South, and one line passing through the openings in that order, crossing at a small sun in the middle.](https://coyason.org/media/art/four-doors.svg)

*North* **Unity**

*West* **Clarity**

*East* **Gratitude**

*South* **Love**

1. The first altar

   ## Gratitude

   East

   - Fire
   - The puma
   - Birth to thirteen

   From birth until around thirteen, and the attention turns inward. The puma is presence, the animal entirely where it is.
2. The second altar

   ## Clarity

   West

   - Water
   - The eagle
   - Youth

   Youth: no longer a child and not yet fully grown. The attention is still turned inward. The eagle opens the view and teaches surrender.
3. The third altar

   ## Unity

   North

   - Wind
   - The deer
   - Adulthood

   Adulthood, and the turn outward. Here we stand among the generations, seven behind us and seven ahead, carried in the blood both ways.
4. The fourth altar

   ## Love

   South

   - Earth
   - Snake and spider
   - The elders

   The elders. The snake grounds, crawling before anything walks; the spider weaves, and goes back for the thread that came loose.

Which altar is nearest

## Begin with the one standing closest

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 altars do not tell anybody what their experience has to be. Each one opens a doorway into what it could be for them.

![A strand of prayer beads hanging on a cactus.](https://coyason.org/media/photographs/prayer-beads-on-the-column-768x1024.jpg)

Next

## Walk with them

The altars are opened out on the land, on Spirit Walks and Spirit Circles.

[How we gather](https://coyason.org/gatherings/)