The Tree at the Center of the World: Yggdrasil




From Northern Antiquities, an English translation of the Prose Edda from 1847. Painted by an Oluf Olufsen Bagge


The last posts have been about symbols and stories of climbing into the heavens… This is a theme found in all cultures…


In Norse Mythology, Yggdrasil is the immense ash tree that stands at the center of the world.


Mircea Eliade has written extensively about the “Axis-Mundi“, the sacred center of the psychological world…


It is not that much of a stretch to suggest that this concept is closely equivalent to Jung’s concept of the Self…


Every Microcosm, every inhabited region, has a centre; that is to say, a place that is sacred above all.



Mircea Eliade

Symbolism of the Centre in Images and Symbols; Princeton, 1991. p.39

Wikipedia: Yggdrasil

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