A Chairde, Friends,
Today, I have a new card for you from Celtic Dream Oracle: Ancient Symbols to Guide Your Modern Life. I have been refining my visual design and how the guidebook might work, so here goes… with some symbology of the number five.
Five
Keywords:
Axis Mundi, Navel, Sacred Centre
Suit:
Numbers
Symbol:
The sacred centre and four directions create the number five. The eclipse at the centre is a portal from where what is lost, forgotten, or unconscious resurfaces. The four prisms amplify what was hidden, transforming the white light of the sacred centre into the colours of new possibilities.
Lore:
Three is the number we most associate with the Celtic imagination, but five is an equally reverent number. Akin to Yggdrasil, the cosmic ash or yew tree in Scandinavian tradition, in ancient Ireland, there were five trees considered sacred above all others: three were ash, one was yew, and one was oak. These trees grew from berries that fell from a branch carried by Trefuilngid, a supernatural druid-ancestor who describes himself as coming from the land of the setting sun, travelling into its rising - from death to rebirth.
The divine tree is a symbol of the Axis Mundi, the ‘World’s Axis’, an invisible throughline that connects cosmos (branches), Earth (trunk), and the Otherworld (roots). One of these five trees, an ash, grew at the Hill of Uisneach in the centre of Ireland. It has been suggested that the other four trees formed an orbit around this sacred centre from their varying locations.
Uisneach is, or rather was, located in a lost province called Mide, meaning ‘middle’ or ‘centre’. The Irish word for a province is cúige, meaning ‘fifth’. Today, four provinces remain: Ulster to the north of the centre, Leinster to the east, Munster to the south, and Connacht to the west. These four provinces and directions once orbited the sacred centre, the fifth province of Mide. The royal citadel, the Hill of Tara, is also located in Mide. Its court was said to have mirrored the cúige with four halls for each of the provinces and directions, surrounding a central hall where sat the high king and sovereignty goddess, a microcosm of the macrocosm.
Uisneach and Tara were honoured as the two sacred centres of Mide, with Uisneach revered as the Umbilicus Hiberniae, the ‘Navel of Ireland’. Like the Axis Mundi, the navel or omphalos is another concept of the ancients that speaks to a centre point where all of existence, all realms, all possibilities converge. From the navel flows the umbilical cord that connects us to the Otherworld, a fifth dimension that opens at the sacred centre. Tara and Uisneach unite the energies of Mide, of the number five, of the sacred centre. Tara embodies sovereignty, the conscious, and the seen. Uisneach embodies wisdom, the unconscious, and the unseen.
When this card appears:
The first great fire at Uisneach was lit by Mide, the druid after whom the province was named. Embers from its sacred flames were then used to light the fire at Tara, moving from the wisdom of the unconscious to the sovereignty of consciousness. Fire is what fuels the navel.
Today, as the world awakens, we are remembering what has been lost: the sacred centre of Ireland. This card calls you to reclaim your sacred centre, the centre point from where your world emerges. Where are you forgetting your centre? Where in your life are you letting your personal power leak out in all directions? How might you return inwards and centre yourself in the cúige, in the fifth dimension, so you can move outwards, strengthened by your inner fire?
Invocation:
Light a candle, a sacred fire.
Place your hand on your navel without judgement, remembering that any conditioning you’ve received about what your navel should look like is meant to obscure your power. Claim your power.
Invoke:
‘I return to my sacred centre. I ignite my inner-fire. I was born wise. I was born sovereign. I remember.’
From my sacred centre, to yours.
Croí isteach,
Jen x
Sources:
Celtic Heritage by Alwyn and Brinley Rees
Ireland’s Trees: Myths, Legends and Folklore by Niall Mac Coitir
The Settling of the Manor of Tara (primary source)
A New Elucidation of Colours by James Sowerby
Love this. I’m definitely curious about the mentorships.
I also love the invocation! It's so soothing and empowering.