Axis of the World

The concept of an "axis mundi" is an important one in religion and politics. It's a thing or geographic place that unites symbolic, metaphorical, poetic reality with physical existence. A tree, for example, can serve the purpose. The physical tree anchors a web of metaphorical associations in the world of the senses. The physical tree can represent the spine of a man, or the pole star of the world, or the connection between the earth and the sky, the sun, moon and stars.

Yggdrasil

In the Middle Ages, the Germanic sacred groves, their axis mundi, were literally chopped down and their myths were paved over with Christianity. (Our contemporary knowledge of Norse mythology is only known through a handful of works that survived in Iceland.) Rome and Jerusalem became the centers of their mental geography.

The purpose of this blog is to churn up that pavement and erase that map. Central power, central authority can't exist without central myths. If you don't have a catholic church, you have tribes. If you have an imagination that is directly connected with nature, you have freedom.