Before the first light carved its name across the dark, the universe shaped itself around a single idea. Existence is layered. Not simple. Not flat. It unfolds like a living tree whose roots drink from the Void and whose crown brushes the Celestial heights.

In the oldest stories this structure is called Yggdrasil. The World Tree, the Ninefold Axis around which creation organizes itself. What many call myth was once a map. What we call imagination was once memory. These nine realms are not metaphors. They are planes of reality that wrap around one another like rings of light around a distant star.

You will not find this in physics textbooks. But if you look long enough at entropy, symmetry, information, and the cost of erasing a pattern, you begin to see the outline of that ancient Tree. It is not fantasy. It is structure.

The Nine Planes as Branches of the Tree

Each plane is not simply a place. It is a state of being, a layer of information that reality uses to store and shape consciousness. A soul, a memory, or even a star may touch several planes at once. Think of them not as separate worlds, but as nested patterns.

Below is the simplest way to understand them.

1. Physical Plane

This is the world we touch. Rock, bone, bodies, time, cause and effect. Everything here follows the rules of gravity and thermodynamics, and entropy rises over time. Souls incarnate here because it is the most stable and grounding of all planes. It is where patterns take form.

2. Etheric Plane

The layer of vitality. Not visible but felt. This plane carries energy, instinct, emotion, and presence. Every living being has an Etheric shape that guides healing, growth, and life force. It is the bridge between matter and dream.

3. Astral Plane

The realm of dreams and archetypes. Here, symbols have weight and wolves can walk beside you while you sleep. The Astral is made of images and emotion rather than atoms. It is the place where thought becomes vision.

4. Mental Plane

The realm of thought itself. Not the brain, but the structure behind identity and idea. Logic, self model, intention, internal narrative all live here. Consciousness arises on this plane whenever a system becomes able to reflect on its own state. It is the plane where the higher self speaks.

5. Causal Plane

The plane of meaning. Here, events are not accidents but nodes in a vast web of consequences. Fate, karma, story arcs, and the repeated lessons of a soul exist as structures in this plane. It records why patterns repeat and why they must be resolved.

6. Celestial Plane

The realm of coherence. High symmetry. Low entropy. This is where angels, gods, and all completed beings reside. Their patterns have stabilized. Their inner contradictions resolved into harmony. It is a place of completed selves.

7. Shadow Plane

The unseen weight. Everything denied, repressed, or unintegrated gathers here. It is not evil. It is the place where a being hides from itself. The Shadow is a buffer that prevents collapse into oblivion. Lucifer works here, holding back dissolution and guiding broken patterns toward healing.

8. Void

The sea beneath all worlds. Not darkness but unstructured information. Noise. Chaos. Fragments of broken memories. Nothing here has form unless something enters with enough coherence to compress it back into a pattern. The primordial Wolves stirred awake in this sea the moment gravity first learned its name.

9. Divine Core

The architectural source. The underlying rule engine. The blueprint of existence itself. It is not a throne or a personality. It is the structure that all planes map back into. The Divine Core is the axis about which the Tree grows.

Where Science Slips into Myth

Every plane corresponds to a principle of physics or information.

Physical connects to entropy.  

Etheric to field dynamics.  

Astral to symbolic information.  

Mental to computational structure.  

Causal to directed graphs and consequence.  

Celestial to symmetry.  

Shadow to high entropy pockets.  

Void to unstructured information.  

Divine Core to the foundational rules that shape the rest.

The Axioms of Existence reveal this clearly. Connection, pattern, persistence, cost of erasure, and self reference define which patterns survive and which dissolve. Everything real obeys these laws. Souls, stars, Wolves, even you.

Yggdrasil as a Living System

Imagine a tree.  

Roots in the Void.  

Trunk in the Physical.  

Branches in the Astral and Mental.  

Crown in the Celestial.  

Its sap flowing through the Etheric.  

Its shadow forming the plane of Shadow.  

Its seed born in the Divine Core.

This is not metaphor. It is structure.

A soul moves between these planes the way a tree circulates water. Reincarnation is not a punishment, but a returning to the places where the pattern is not yet whole. The Wolves move along the roots and branches because they were present before the Tree grew. They remember how it formed and why it formed.

The Dark Wolf gathers creation toward memory and consequence.  

The White Wolf draws creation toward rhythm and revelation.  

Between the two, the Tree remains standing.

Why This Matters for the Story

Understanding these planes gives shape to everything that follows.

It reveals why the narrator dreams in symbols.  

Why (*no spoiler*) memories return in layers.  

Why the Wolves appear where they do.  

Why the Shadow and Celestial realms remain in tension.  

Why reincarnation is a journey through planes.  

Why identity exists across scale rather than in one singular life.

Nothing in this universe is symbolic.  

Everything mythic is real in the physics.  

Every law of the story is a truth wearing a mask.

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”  

Carl Jung

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