The word umbilicus is Latin for  “navel” and the term umbilicus mundi originates from a Greek idea that referred to “the center of the world,” which they believed was in Delphi. Today, some might say that Jerusalem, Mecca, or Washington, D.C., is the umbilicus mundi—the center of the world.

Most significantly for anyone, the umbilicus mundi is where they are. From the perspective of any person, they can survey their world in all four directions. It surrounds them, confirming that they are at the center of it.

The umbilicus mundi is not in the past or the future. It is right now. The world surrounding anyone is here right now. And so are they, observing it.

We might have reports that there was once an umbilicus mundi in the past. But while someone in the past might have had an experience of it, we can only know it for ourselves now.

Sometimes people imagine that there is some past glory that we should return to. Those people are sometimes called conservatives. You find them in many fields—in politics, religion, families, and more. The problem is that this is not how time works. It doesn’t go backwards.

You can’t really visit a past glory. But this is what you can do. You can be fully present now. And if you are, and if you are open to it, what is supportive and relevant from out of your past will come rushing to meet you. If you let it, what is irrelevant will decompose on the compost heap of history, and the aspect of your legacy that serves the purposes of today will be drawn into the present moment to support Creation now.

Likewise, you cannot live in the future. You can dream up how you think the future should be, and then attempt to live in it. This is sometimes called progressivism. It is disillusioning to be a progressive in this sense. The dream falters. It isn’t reality now.

Here is what we can do if you live in the now. We can face what is coming to us out of our future and bring the full power of Creation to it. This will shape the unformed future as it lands in the present, allowing it to become our destiny. Darkness is on the face of the deep of our future. But it can be illuminated as it lands in the now, at the center point of our lineage, with our legacy behind us and our destiny in front of us.

We are here in this present moment. It has always been thus. And right here in this present moment, there is something to be known and discovered. It’s not about going back to something or to a visionary, lofty future, and trying to live into that future. That is not how time works. We are planted here and now.

In the here and now is the umbilicus mundi, the center of things. Time works right for us when we discover this. And lineage works right for us. It serves us, and we play our part in our lineage. Being present here and now, all that is from the past that could serve what is happening in the present comes rushing to greet us, not because we’re chasing after it but because we are here and it has come to meet us.

All the vision, all the leadership, all the heroism come rushing to meet us. All the truth that’s been revealed over the ages greets us here and now in this moment if we will just be open to it and receive it.

This is, perhaps, an interesting existential philosophy. And yet, in what I’m talking about are vital factors related to our own lives and how this world is working. We have a world that’s fooled into this kind of conservatism or progressivism, instead of standing in the power of being here now. And so, people are disempowered. They are deceived into believing that the power is in Washington, Hollywood, Jerusalem, or someplace else. Or in some historical time and place. It isn’t. It’s here and now.

Where a person is in the here and now is the umbilicus mundi for them. Intersecting that point is the axis mundi—the axis of the world. For Planet Earth, the axis mundi is the invisible line through the center of the earth, from the North Pole to the South Pole. For a human being, it is an invisible line from the heavens above through the individual to the earth beneath. It is sometimes symbolized as a ladder, a Maypole, or a tree.

The axis mundi intersects lineage in the here and now at the umbilicus mundi. So you might call that the crossover point—the point at which the invisible power of Creation enters the world.

B. Yeats wrote the apocalyptic poem The Second Coming. Here is the first stanza:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats paints the picture of what happens when there is no axis mundi in human experience. The world has no center around which to orbit. So the human world careens through space, and anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Humanity is made to live at the crossover point, allowing axis mundi to enter the world, holding all Creation revolving around it.

As a human being, we are not made to be keepers of the past or the future. We are not keepers of heaven above, and we are not made to live a life embedded in the earth below. We are keepers of the here and now. Into this space, we invite Divine Presence from above. We welcome the creative powers of a Higher Love, a Higher Truth, and Eternal Life. We welcome all that comes rushing to support us from our legacy. We welcome the unformed future into this time and place, so that it may take shape as Living Creation. And we receive what ascends into this space from the earth below.

At this crossover point, we become veritas mundi— the light of the world.

There are physical embodiments of the axis mundi. For Emissaries of Divine Light, Sunrise Ranch is that. To the degree that the center of things truly is embodied here, Sunrise Ranch has meaning. It doesn’t have meaning just because we say so, or because we think it’s true. It has meaning because people who live at Sunrise Ranch are living at the center of things. Beyond that, because what is central for Emissaries of Divine Light is known by people around the world, the center of Emissaries of Divine Light is present. The axis mundi is functional for this global community.

Where is that axis? If you’re in Cape Town, is it in Colorado? Not really. In some outer embodied way, it is, and that’s to be honored. But most essentially, if you’re in Cape Town, it’s right there, or wherever you may be around the world. Anyone who knows the truth of this can say, The center of Emissaries of Divine Light is right here.

No person, as such, is the axis mundi. No place, of itself, is the axis mundi. The center of things is a transcendent reality. The reality of it has meaning in the human world when it is known and embodied by people.

It’s an act of love to know that for yourself relative to whatever universe you’re participating in. It’s an act of courage when you don’t skirt around on the periphery of things, hoping that somebody else will stand at the center.

Perhaps you will join me in saying, I’m at the center of this universe. I am a keeper of the here and now.

That’s an act of courage, an act of responsibility, and an act of love.