Practice | Finding the Axis Mundi in Rome

In this particularly unsettling time, I am trying to find a center; being in Rome, the city where I was born and raised, brings focus even when collective histories are woven within my personal memories.
The phenomenological axis mundi of my existing intersects with the celebrated places in Rome, where the "navel of the world", can be found in many different locations.One of the most remarkable axis mundi is the obelisk in Piazza San Pietro. Located at the center of the elliptical square the obelisk function as a sundial, with the faces aligned to the four cardinal points.

practice | Finding the Axis Mundi in the Desert

(yoga) on the beach

It is almost a summer day, 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and Torquay beach offers a few hours of solace. I forget about the PhD and other usual problems; even the pain in my leg seems to disappear. A yoga practice by the ocean is for one of the blissed moments in life; the clear calm (cold) waters of the Southern Ocean are quite attractive, especially after getting used to the cold and grey Atlantic. Returning to the car, my left leg was hurting again and the ankle became very swollen.

My "Axis Mundi" sequence: tadasana, backbend, sirsasana and variation, adho mukha svanasana

Point Danger: Earth and Water

An energizing swim in cold waters

The last backbend on the beach: chakrasana

Vernissages | The Axis Mundi of Ektoras Binikos

The Spencertown Academy of Columbia County (NY) offered an unexpected encounter with the Axis Mundi of Ektoras Binikos: a compelling exhibition of video, drawings and performance from the multi-media Greek born artist, currently living in New York.

The exhibition is, emphatically yes, titled “Axis Mundi”; the opening night ended with one-hour performance where music played by the violinist Eva Ingolf intersected with light projections by Binikos.

The artist says:
“I am interested in the circuitous route but nevertheless limited paths of time.
I see the present as a distorted component of time where memories are not devalued, nor are they fully understood, and the future as a state of quivering anticipation.
I am trying to resist specific locations and determinations or full narrative, whether temporal, geographical or psychological."

Not to be missed —for more information visit the Spencertown Academy or Ektoras Binikos site.

events | Shift of the Axis Mundi

A week has passed from the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami which hit Japan on March 11.
The terrible tragedy which has shaken and taken away so many lives seems to have repercussions also at an astronomical level. According to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (California), the earthquake powerful temblor has accelerated Earth's spin and shortened the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds. Gross also stated that the earthquake also shifted Earth's figure axis by about 6 1/2 inches (17 centimeters):

"This shift in the position of the figure axis will cause the Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but will not cause a shift of the Earth's axis in space – only external forces like the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon, and planets can do that"

More information can be found in the JPL NASA site
That the axis mundi is shifting is sadly becoming not only metaphorical but also literal. Human chaos of this decade part of a cosmic chaos?

Thoughts | Why Axes Mundi

"axes" is the plural of the latin "axis"

I used “axes” instead of “axis” because "axes" is more appropriate for the plurality of the concept, beyond "antropocentric". The axis mundi is not a unique concept in my usage of the term: the axis mundis is the ritualization of the link between the perceiving self and the perceived universe, which makes a place sacred. It can be unique for each perceiving self at that time of that perception and ritualization. For instance the axis mundi for sun farm (my sacred place) is the center of East Spiral, which is marked with an orange buoy ---orange is the complementary color to the ideal blu of the water.

Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane deals extensively with axis mundi:

The cry of the Kwakiutl neophyte "I am the center of the world!" at once reveals one of the deepest meanings of sacred space. Where the break-through from plane to plane has been modified by a hierophany, there too an opening has been made, either upward (the divine world) or downward (the underworld, the world of the dead). The three cosmic levels ---earth, heaven, underworld--- have been put in communication. As we just saw this communication is sometimes expressed through the image of a universal pillar, axis mundi, which at once connects and supports heaven and earth...

Places of Memory | Castel Sant'Angelo and Borgo

Rome, was my first axis mundi and during every visit in the past ten years I go through a ritual of revisiting places of my childhood or adolescence, experiencing a deja vu of perceptions, memories and transformed feelings. I realize how my personal history here ---and when I was living here I was totally unaware of it --- was interwoven with historical and architectural places. My childhood and adolescence experiences are connected with all these magical places. If only I could write perhaps I could sell best sellers and screenplays for Hollywood blockbuster movies :-)
This time my ritual was on Castel Sant'Angelo, where I remember riding a trycycle and then several years later with many different experiences. See below how my childhood memories of strolls and tricycle rides happened right in the “angel and demons” places…

An angelic Water Fountain

Photographs and text are excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project
“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture”