(IE University, 2019-04-14) Valdivieso, José Félix; https://ror.org/00c5kmy11
Within the unfathomable solitude of the world, humanity is incapable of escaping the magical power wielded by the symbolism of the center. From the moment we each realize we don’t know exactly where it is we come from, it’s only logical we try desperately to connect with an afterlife that justifies our existence. Mircea Eliade summed up the architectural symbolism of the Center by pointing out that all cultures search for the Mountain or Sacred Temple that serves as Axis Mundi, the point where heaven, earth, and hell converge. The prevailing idea seems to be that if we can locate ourselves in the center, we can connect with the divine and will be saved, or at the very least we can mitigate our loneliness. This idea has manifested itself in various ways. In the West, there was a time when the Christian temple was a representation of the universe (imago mundi). In the East, the example of China is perhaps the best known: in Mandarin it is known as the Country of the Center ( 中国 the first character, zhōng (中) means “center”, and guó (国) means “country”)
