An axis mundi is a real place in nature, in this world, where the veil between this world and the shamanic worlds is thin, so that it is easy to step between them. It is where a journey begins, and it is often pictured as the World Tree, with roots in the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer, trunk in the middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer and branches in the Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer. It has to be a real place, because its whole point is to connect the worlds, this physical one included, and it has to be in nature.
What is an axis mundi? #
The place where a journey starts. ‘Axis’ means centre and ‘mundi’ means world, so the world’s centre, or more accurately a place where the different worlds come together. More fully, “The axis mundi is a place in this reality where the veil that separates this world and the shamanic worlds is thin, and so it is a place where it is easy to step between the worlds.”1 It is a place where all the worlds connect, and so a place that can be used to travel between them.2
Why is the axis mundi pictured as a tree? #
Because trees span the realms. They reach down into the earth and up towards the sky, connecting Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this and Father Sky, and so they help us move between the realms. For this reason the axis mundi is often pictured as a great tree, the World Tree, with its roots in the Lower-World, its trunk in the middle-world and its branches in the Upper-World.3 A favourite tree is a good choice of axis mundi, alongside woodland, a beach, hills or a lake. See What is the World Tree?
Where can I find an axis mundi? #
Close to home, most likely. “You may be surprised to know that axis mundi are in fact very common. They are all over the place. You will have already noticed them yourself, probably without realising or knowing that is what they are.”4 All that is needed is a place in nature that you know and feel good about: “It might be some woodland where you walk the dog. Or a favourite tree. Or a beach or some mountains, some hills, or a lake that you know and love. It might even be in a park.”
You do not need to be there in person to journey from it. You can try journeying there outdoors and see, but being physically at your axis mundi is not necessary, and being out in the open can in fact be distracting whilst journeying. In the journey, you travel to it.
Why does the axis mundi need to be a real place? #
Because it joins the worlds together, and that includes this one. An axis mundi must be real, “not imaginary, as the whole point of an axis mundi is that it is a place that connects the worlds together, including this physical one.”5 In the journey, you imagine yourself at this real place, and then look at it anew. The place you choose matters.
Why does the axis mundi need to be in nature? #
It needs to be somewhere in nature, and so does the way in: something natural, not made by humans.6 The reason is Soul. Things humans create have middle-world souls, whereas the things created by Mother Earth are full of Soul.7
How do I get from the axis mundi to the Lower-World? #
Through a natural opening and a tunnelTunnel. The descent at the start of a journey. Still middle-world territory, all the way down: the Lower-World begins only where you emerge. More about this. Looking again at the place with “shamanic eyes”, the journeyer notices an entrance: “It may be under the roots of some trees, a small cave entrance, an animal hole, or even a pool of water that seems to have no bottom.”8 The tunnel slopes gently down and opens into the Lower-World. The Lower-World is pristine nature. If the journeyer comes out among cars, roads or fields, they are still in the middle-world, and need to go back into the tunnel and travel further down. See What is the Lower-World?
What happens at the axis mundi before a journey? #
It is where the middle-world is set down: “go to your Axis Mundi and before setting off to the Lower-World, deliberately spend some time there preparing yourself.”9 This is where hollowing-outHollowing-out. The core, lifelong discipline of setting aside the middle-world self, its stories, agendas and preconceptions, so the Guides can work through us. The image: the shaman as hollow bone. Read the full answer happens, a deliberate stepping out of our middle-world identity. See What are hollowing-out and stalking our stories?
Should I trust beings I meet at the axis mundi? #
Not straight away. Because the axis mundi is where the realms meet, a being that turns up there could be from any of them. “The Axis Mundi is a place where all three realmsThree realms. The Upper-World, the middle-world and the Lower-World: the cosmological map of shamanic reality. Rooted first in the Lower-World, then the Upper-World, and only then the middle-world. Read the full answer come together, and so a being appearing there could be from anywhere.”10 So a Human Lower-World GuideHuman Lower-World Guide. A face put on the human Oversoul: the Ancestors met through an individual form, genuinely other than us, chosen from pre-Fall hunter-gatherer humanity. Related to as a teacher, never a master. Read the full answer, for example, should first be met in the Lower-World itself, not at the axis mundi.
Why does place matter in shamanism? #
Because places are not neutral. Places in this world have their own feel, good or bad, natural or human-made: “we may feel that particular places in the middle-world have an ‘energy’ or vibe.”11 And landscapes are beings in their own right. The environment itself is alive, with its own Soul. Within a journey too, the setting matters: where something happens tells you as much as what happens.
The humanistic geographer J. Douglas Porteous, in Landscapes of the Mind (1990), holds that people in the modern West have come to meet places mainly through the eye. Vision is the most detached of the senses, and its result is ‘landscape’, “something we stand back to view”, which in his view distances us, and in the end alienates us, from our surroundings. Against this he sets what he calls ‘intimate sensing’, a warmer, more involved way of knowing a place, and he gives whole chapters to its smells and its sounds.12
