The navel of the universe

Often when this expression is used the picture that emerges is that it is about the center of our lives. Perhaps even about the center of the area in which we live our lives, the environment. And while that environment may have been small in the past when travel wasn’t as widely available to us, the navel of our universe would have been in the center of that area where most of our life would play out. Nowadays it is so much easier to travel that the expression may not refer as much to an actual area, but more to a priority we have in our lives.

This then would make ‘the navel of the universe’ in years gone by pretty much our homes, while in the present we may be able to relate to it more as ‘family’, ‘work’, ‘adventure’, or things of that nature.

Our navel, or bellybutton, is that spot that is related to gaining insight into ourselves. Located close to our solar plexus it is said to show us who we are in reality when we take time contemplating our navel.
The universe… Well, in literal sense it is the ‘All Around’; and bigger than we can imagine.
So putting the two together in one sentence may seem like a little bit of a contradiction in terms. After all, when we cannot truly imagine how big the universe truly is, then how would we determine where its center might be found?

However, there is a way in which the navel of the universe can come both close at home as well as neatly fitting. And that is when we consider the possibility that we ourselves are the center of our universe; the creators of our lives.
In that case our navel, that point related to whom we are in reality, would turn out the center from which we create our universe…

It is a perspective that has lots of ramifications…
First and foremost, it assumes that we do create our lives. Not just a little bit, or just the parts that we are happy with or that turn out well, but all of it. And with that come this tiny caveat that says that if we have created it, we are responsible for it. Nowhere else to look but at ourselves if we have created something that we don’t like quite as much as we had thought…

On the other hand, if we are the center ~ the creator ~ of our universe; it is up to us to change it into the best place we can imagine (!) simply by cultivating all the good things in life inside ourselves…

And perhaps contemplating our navel to see where we are at is a good place to start!
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