"Ooooooohhhhhmmm"

The most interesting thing I've learned in this class so far is about "omphalos", which translates to "navel".
This is where we get "om", that murmuring sound of meditation. This meditation, navel gazing, represents going back to the center of all things ("finding your center", being "centered"). At a pilates class I attended, the instructor told us to keep our eyes on our belly button. Also, a few running friends told me to keep eye contact with my belly button in order to get the most out of my crunches. Hmmm...
Lets divulge into this a bit further.
This act of going back to the center of things refers to a connection to the mother. To return to the mother is to find a more simple state of mind. Perhaps this is why unconsciousness is feminine, while consciousness is dubbed masculine.
In my architecture class, we've recently been assigned to design a yoga hut. According to this mythology class, a good yoga hut should give one a strong connection to maternal things and allow for a simple state of mind. Maybe I should just line the walls with squishy material and crank up the heat. Instant womb!


Class Notes:
Rocks and Lakes:
Axis mundi - meetin place between divine and mortal world (the mundane). e.g. Lake in King Arthur, beyond human abilities to produce sword.
Lake - feminine (womb ness), unconscious
Rocks - marker for axis mundi
- churches, piles of stone, bobcat statue
- the want to mark an axis mundi
- "sacred site (sight)"
Mountains - easy to recognize as axis mundi, just a large rock.
- piling of rocks is immitation of a mountain
- many cities bult around mountains (Jerusalem, Babylon)
Cities - become new center of the world, new 'rocks'
- e.g. Babylon, literally translates to "door of the gods"
Omphalos: literally "navel"
- "om" - navel gazing, meditation, going back to the center of all things
- connection to mother
- to return to that state of connection to the mother, you go to the navel, find a more simple state of mind.
Vine Deloria: author of God is Red
- classifies sacred spaces
- spectrum:   
                  gettysburg     burning bush
      human ----^-----_-----------^------------------------_----------divine
                       Jordan River                          New Revelation

Theophany: visible manifestation of god.
Stone as pillow: dreams of latter to heaven, angels, got at top
- God tells him the land he's sleeping on is now his
- Bethel "house of god"
- rock is marker for where God came down
- continuous axis mundi