2026 Black Rock City Plan

The storied landing spot of Noah’s Ark in the Old Testament version of the global flood myth, Mount Ararat is located in present-day Turkey near the Armenian border. It is Armenia’s national symbol, and prior to its association with Noah’s Ark by 11th century Christian scholars, it was central to pre-Christian pagan traditions of the region, revered as the home of the gods.

Central to the Buddhist tradition is the Bodhi Tree, a ficus in India where the Gautama Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment while meditating beneath its branches. After 2,500 years, the original tree is long gone, but the grove remains on the grounds of the Mahabodhi Temple. Saplings from the Bodhi Tree and its descendants have been sent over the years to sprout in sacred gardens as far away as Hawai’i.

The highest point on Earth, rising 8,849 meters above sea level, Mount Everest is known in Tibetan as Qomolangma, and if any spot on the planet can be said to connect with the heavens, this is the one. The Sherpa people hold that it is highly charged with spiritual energy, a place where the karmic effects of one’s actions are magnified, and that one should show reverence when passing through its sacred landscape.

The ancient Greeks considered the center of the world to be at Delphi on the flanks of Mount Parnassus, a spot marked by a stone monument known as the Omphalos, the navel of the world. It was also, of course, the location of the fabled Oracle of Delphi, the Sybyl with a private line to the god Apollo that allowed her to tell pilgrims of their fate.

Science may be divided on the matter of eternity, as it is on infinity, but in many traditions there is an abiding belief in the eternal, and the possibility that time is either circular or illusory. In that sense, the axis mundi was always there, waiting to be identified, and always will be there, long after we are gone.

One interpretation of the axis mundi is that it is a pivot point or fulcrum between the planes of existence, uniting and balancing the realms of the eternal, the physical, and the infernal.

In many European traditions, including Slavic, Germanic, and Celtic, the sacred tree uniting the planes of existence may be known as the Great Oak. As a meeting point between earth and sky, councils and sacred gatherings were often convened under old oak trees.

The Heiau is a ritual platform built of stone, central to spiritual life in pre-contact Hawai’i. Often sited in locations deemed to have innate spiritual power, it was a form of ritual architecture that provided a focal point for religious life, a place for worship, ritual, and communication with the gods.

In the Yoruba tradition of West Africa, the Iroko tree is both a cosmic pillar and the home of a powerful spirit. It serves as a reminder that the natural world has a life of its own, not subject to human control, and that the boundary between worlds is both real and dangerous to cross.

In the Mande-speaking cultures of West Africa, the Jiba is the inner spiritual center of a being, a sort of personal axis mundi where the life force or nyama is concentrated.

In Indian spiritual traditions, kundalini is a spiritual energy that, when activated by practices such as meditation or yoga, spreads up through the chakras to connect one’s earthly body to higher consciousness, a personal pathway to the divine.