The World Tree and the Axis Mundi

From the Lesson

Why study this?

Almost every culture imagines a central pillar joining heaven, earth and the underworld. Understanding this single image unlocks shamanism, temple architecture, the Tree of Life and the spine of the yogi at once.

The image across cultures

- Norse: Yggdrasil, the ash whose roots reach Hel, the frost giants and the gods, with the eagle above and the serpent Níðhöggr gnawing below, and the squirrel Ratatoskr carrying messages between them. - Maya: the great ceiba, Wakah Chan, the "raised-up sky," marking the centre and the Milky Way itself; the Palenque sarcophagus lid shows the king descending along it. - Hebrew Qabalah: the Etz Chaim, ten sefirot on three pillars, from Keter (crown) to Malkuth (kingdom). - Indian: the inverted ashvattha of the Bhagavad Gita, roots above in Brahman; and Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain. - Siberian and Central Asian shamanism: the birch with notched steps the shaman climbs in trance, as Mircea Eliade described. - Buddhist: the Bodhi tree beneath which the Buddha awoke. - Mesopotamian: the kiskanu and the sacred tree tended by winged apkallu.

What the axis does

Eliade called it the axis mundi: the place where "a break in plane" allows passage between worlds. Temples, stupas, maypoles, tent-poles and minarets are all local copies. The Hermetic Principle of Correspondence is its law: the centre of the cosmos is repeated in the centre of the village, the temple and the body.

The inner tree

In the body the tree is the spine. Kundalini yoga describes the serpent rising along the sushumna; the Qabalist rises through the sefirot; the Norse seeker hangs on the tree. In each case the vertical axis is a path of consciousness.

Orthodox view

Anthropologists caution that Eliade sometimes generalized too broadly from Siberian material. The pattern is real and widespread, but each culture's tree has its own meaning and should be met on its own terms.

Practice

Stand still with feet rooted. Breathe down into imagined roots for four breaths, hold at the heart for four, breathe up through the crown for four. Do this for seven days at the same place, making it your personal centre.

Reflection

Where is the centre of your world, and what does it connect?

Sources

- Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy and The Sacred and the Profane - Linda Schele and David Freidel, A Forest of Kings - Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda - Roger Cook, The Tree of Life: Image for the Cosmos