The World Tree, Axis Mundi

The term "Axis Mundi" comes from the study of Shamanism. It's the ritual center of the world in a shamanic ceremony, the world navel or the world tree were the shaman entenrs the upper or lower worlds of reality, seeking curses from spirits for ailments.
All shamans (and theurgis) know this center, for they call upon it every time they enter the Spirit World. All Lycans feel it when they step sideways, the sens that they are somehow at the center of everything, that the most important thing in the universe is happening right now, right here. When moving between worlds, they must start from the center.
The spiritual center is not a place, but state of being, a feeling deep within the spiritual traveler that she stands at the one point before the beginning of time and space, before the phenomena of the world unraveled to become the vast tapestry it is today. Each being carries this sense of primal oneness within themselves, regardless of how deeply it is burried beneath dualities and pluralities. Mages know this as the Correspondence Sphere; Lycan feel it instinctually and imagine it as a primal tree,Gaia's One Tree. The One Tree, a powerful image for all of the lycan, simbolizes lost unity and the Womb of Gaia. This is the axis of the world, upon which the wheel of the seasons turns.