Hydra is a simple multicellular organism with extraordinary regenerative abilities: even a small tissue fragment can regenerate into a fully functional organism. During this process, the actin fibers that make up the muscular system spontaneously align along a common direction, which, over the course of approximately 48 hours, matures into the organism's body axis. In this talk, I will present our recent efforts to model this self-organization process using the framework of active nematic elastomers — solid materials composed of anisotropic building blocks that can autonomously generate uniaxial active stresses. I will demonstrate how the interplay between Hookean elasticity, active nematodynamics, and the spherical topology of regenerating Hydra leads to a condensation of active forces along an apolar axis, ultimately setting the stage for body axis formation. I will conclude by speculating on the potential role of cell signalling pathways in guiding or stabilizing this mechanically driven symmetry breaking.