The Book of Sassafras: The NINEFOLD SQUARE

A cosmogrammatic symbol, hidden, or overt in the

lore of many of the Indo-European cultures

which reveals the interpenetration

The Three Realms:

UPPER,

MIDDLE,
and
LOWER

"bestride"

the three temporal modalities:

PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE

( "From, Through and To" ).

In turn it can be seen as creating, or being created by,

the Sacred Center (“Being”)...

Also note that -

around its periphery we find twelve segments,

one for each month of the Sacred Year,

grouped in four seasonal sets of three months each...

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Again we have the Three Realms: LOWER, MIDDLE and UPPER with the three temporal modalities: PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE ( or: From, Through and To ). In this depiction we find them as the three Sisters of Destiny: Urdr, Verdandi, and Skuld, the NORNS, in their role as weavers of the Wyrd. Whereas the Asian view has the world and our lives made up of the dynamic interplay of a set of opposites, Yin and Yang, in the West a similar dynamic was seen in the meshing of the Weavers' threads. Consider the powerful old European metaphor of the Wyrd: the stuff of existence being like a woven fabric: an infinite number of fibers meshed at right angles to as many more opposing fibers; each single thread at some point touches and affects every single other opposing thread, a truly profound image for our contemplation.

A SUGGESTION for DIVINATION

Consider this pattern for use on a divination casting-cloth
(Runes, Oghams, Tarot, etc.) various books have suggested casting patterns with four peripheral sectors including a sacred center yet most of them have danced around, yet not settled on, our simple ninefold grid:

Perhaps the simpler one below may be clearer for some...

CLICK HERE for a sample of an Ogham reading

using the Ninefold Square as a casting pattern...

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The THREE COLUMNS of TIME

rising through the

THREE CAULDRONS*

The concept of the three cauldrons found within every person is from an ancient Irish text known as "The Cauldron of Poesy". Although you will find no references to the Ninefold Square therein, the two systems inform each other rather well.

• A very good introduction to this material by the Celtic Reconstructionist scholar Erynn Laurie can be found HERE...

• Download a PDF of my Cauldron of Poesy diagram here...
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USING THE NINEFOLD SQUARE FOR "MAPPING-OUT" an IDEA...

The example shown is for exploring the notion of one's Dharma as one's sacred Life's Work...

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All the content above this point has been the product of my original exegesis,

yet, if you think I'm just making it up completely, consider the following images of...

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NINESQUARE Artifacts
from the Ancient World...

Cave art from Lascaux... Yep, 17,300 Years old...

The Bush Barrow Lozenge, 4000 YBP (Stonehenge area, Wilts. England)

Handle of an Irish cup from a ship burial
(Miklbostad, Norway). IX century. Bergen Historical Museum.

Roman mosaic tilework showing the Four Seasons...

Another Roman Four Seasons ninefold, this with Gea at center...

From India: the PURUSHA or primordial being,

the body from whom the world was subdivided.

The Nine Worlds of Norse Mythology

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And, back to my stuff... with a final point.

You may dismiss this if you wish but I swear that I had never seen those two Roman mosaics, nor anything like them, until I did an image-search in late June 2014, yet, I had been producing the original design for the below and publishing it for nearly ten years now...