February 25, 2017 – Return to Mago E-Magazine (RTME)

(Prose) Answering a Call by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Answering a Call “Shamans bridge the night flow…” the first lines from a poem I wrote long ago keep coming into my mind. Frustrated because I can no longer access the poem, I accept that the first line is what I need… ‘bridging the night flow’ of intrusive negative feelings/actions on the part of others (as well as myself) is precisely the edge I am on. Even smoke – filled rooms remind me that I need personal protection. An Indigenous healer and impeccable scientist and naturalist friend of mine reminds me of what I know, spiritual forces are moving. When I told him of my dream his response was to focus on protection, create the intention, and let it go… I tried to do this in my mind with limited success but apparently our discussion around this subject opened a door for me or we both did as I remembered how important it is for me to ground my intentions in something concrete. How had I forgotten? I have a terrarium that I created from plants and debris from a beloved forest, and it occurred to me to put my need for protection into this square container allowing nature to take the lead. My friend and I are both aware that this is a dangerous time of year – a time when Shadow is on the move. What’s critical is to acknowledge the danger but not to get caught by either extreme (fear or aggression), allowing these forces to dissipate over time. Winter solstice is over, but fire lingers on; the bridge to a new year is in the making, but new year’s eve is still caught in dark revelry – the kind that hides violence under fun… again, a continuation of this dangerous time ( a personal example : last year I broke my foot on new year’s eve shoveling ice away from my door, and that turned out to be the beginning of a negatively charged year, the details of which no longer matter ). Taking an active stance is necessary. As is staying with the process. After making the necessary offerings, the identity of one of which came to me directly from a plant, the other from a plant scientist’s remark, I continue to hold this awareness of the need for protection close. The child nudged me too and I brought down our spirit animals putting one bear and a frog in my terrarium as she requested, and the rest she directed me, needed to circle my crisped balsam wreath. I recalled the Pueblo Animal Dances beginning on or after the 1st of the year extending into spring. She was right again! Having specific animal protection is necessity. Animals ground us in our bodies. I peer deeply into the shadows gathered around me with the eyes of the mystic turned realist, a person who seeks solid ground within her own little forest, self and in nature. I heed the warnings of smoke; the fire is not yet out. I make a promise to nature to remember that I am part of earth and sky, and both are always present in me along with humans and their non – human relatives. When bad things happen it is a challenge to keep this door open, but I commit to doing my best not to turn away. And most importantly, I get on with my life… I will digress into natural history to use as my example: I spied a tangle of Usnea lying on snow I couldn’t reach. The lichen kept calling, so out the door I went on a quest to gather this lichen that is called “the lungs of the forest”. Indigenous peoples have used the herb for respiratory issues for millennia. Usnea is also useful for wounds helping them to heal faster. Walking up a dirt road near my house I was impressed by the amount of Usnea present on the ground even though it is only December. Usually, I collect this lichen in the spring on those first rainy days that turn the clusters bright green. Every piece I pick up reminds me that this organism, composed of an alga, a fungus and cyanobacteria (sometimes) was the first to inhabit dry land perhaps more than 400 million years ago (there is an ongoing debate on this issue of the oldest land plants). The alga photosynthesizes feeding the fungus, and in return the fungus attaches itself to rock and breaks it down creating the first soil. Imagine. Today, neither can live without the other. Out of twenty thousand lichen possibilities I found hirta, a branched version and glabrescens, one that looks like hair. It wasn’t too long before I had a whole bag full. I deliberately took some from each fallen branch but left some tufts for the deer. Many animals need these lichens for winter food. I was pleased to see that the heavy winds had also deposited plenty of birch seeds on the snow so birds would not go hungry, at least until the next storm. There are so many trees down so early into the winter season that I cannot imagine what the woods will look by spring. The forests as whole are under so much stress from abrupt weather changes, wind, insects, drought, flooding that they are more vulnerable now than ever before. Broken branches lay everywhere. Usnea likes high places, and not surprisingly I picked most of my bounty from fallen topmost branches – many from pines. Returning to the house I cleaned my lichens while thanking them and tinctured the whole with alcohol – Within a few weeks I will have yet another useful medicine on hand. This helpful diversion helped me deal with my general unease. I believe that having adequate protection from dark forces within and without becomes a priority during the times when our Cultural Shadow is on the increase. Indigenous and countryfolk historically dressed in masks to protect their identity from …
(Essay 2) Red Poppies Among the Ruins by Mary Saracino

[Author’s Note: Originally published in TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007, www.triviavoices.net.] Red Poppies Tharros, Sardinia in 2004, photo by MarySaracino Inland, beyond the coastline, among the islands numerous hills and woodlands, rise remnants of nearly 8,000 round stone buildings. The Nuraghi crafted these structures from basalt quarried miles from their villages, carried to each site by mule or by human labor. They burdened themselves with one-thousand-pound rocks to construct their sanctuaries near the springs that beckoned, the springs that would ease their thirst, quench their souls, bless their meals, invigorate and sustain their lives. An egalitarian, matrilineal society, the Nuraghi used these massive rocks, as well, to build round stone huts for meeting rooms. Inside these hollowed centers were encircled with basalt benches, resting places for the men and women who gathered to discuss the needs of the villagers, decide on how best to proceed for the good of the many. Crafted by hand and with communal effort, Nuraghi men worked side by side with intention, creating homes, shelters, sacred spaces. Through their matrifocal culture, the women carried the memory of the Mother, the Divine Dea, Giver of Life, Midwife of Death. They instilled Her lineage in the blood of their children, their children’s children, the daughters and sons who would, century after century, carry the light forward. Back further in time, down the meandering byways of memory, before the impulse to haul rocks and shape environment compelled the building of villages, hillside caves opened their stony mouths to cradle the island’s Neolithic people, protecting them from the rains, the fierce winds, the scorching sun. In these times, before written words marked their stories, the wild, untamed soul of humans mirrored nature. All that was necessary was taught by heart, etched upon dank cave walls, recited by tongues familiar with survival, accustomed to the sacred litany of cultural continuation. Many such cave-repositories can be found throughout the island of Sardegna. At the necropolis of Montessu, in the southwestern region of the island, I spiraled into the Neolithic ages and sensed the echoes of prehistoric voices. Montessu is one of the largest of many ancient necropolis, dating from 3,500 BCE, carved out of stone by pre-Nuraghic Sardegnans. This massive site spans two square kilometers and contains more than 40 inter-linked tombs. Peoples of the Ozieri culture settled the area to farm and hunt. To bury their dead, they built hypogeums, “cities of the dead”. The entryways of these monumental sanctuaries stand two meters high and two meters wide, diametrically facing a natural rock amphitheater. Renowned for their typology, size and the intricate ways they replicate houses, these graveyards of prehistory incorporated windows, doors, and rooms uniting interior and exterior ritual spaces. The Ozieri placed foodstuffs inside, in tribute to their dead, seeking to feed their souls as they made their way to the world beyond this one. Domus de janas, the locals now call Montessu and other ancient burial places like it, the tombs of the fairies. Tiny female creatures are said to inhabit these ‘houses’, many of which are adorned with bas-reliefs petroglyphs, potent symbols that archeologists associate with veneration of the Feminine Divine: the spiral, the ochre-red pubic “V”, the sacred horns, meandering lines, concentric circles. Inside the domus de janas, the air is chilly, yet vibrant with energy. Carved out of rock, these tombs of the fairies were places where Neolithic men and women buried their dead, returning those whom they loved most dearly to the womb of the Earth. Ochre red spirals etched with prehistoric tools tattoo the coarse walls of now-silent tombs to mark the spot, the cave-place where human form returned to spirit. Into the exterior arch of the cave’s entryway was carved an embossed female figure, round-bellied, full-breasted, red “V”s pointing, like uterine arrows, toward home. In these rock tomb-womb portals, the lamentation of loved ones hovers, still, wailing loss, heaving sorrow into the echoes of time and space. At Montessu, the dead walk among the living and the Sardegna air is perfumed with rosemary, juniper, and honeysuckle, awakening an urge in me to inhale deeply. I borrowed breath from the sky and filled my lungs, exhaling what was false, releasing it into the abyss of forgetfulness. I want to remember everything. We humans have strayed far from our homeland, have long wandered alone in the desert of our amnesia. Have we learned nothing? Vivo and morto. The circle of life embraces the round mouth of the cave, the red O of the uterus. It births mysteries that can save and sustain us, if we will heed its call to silence. Where there is tyranny, how can there be love? Or peace? Aggression reigns unchecked throughout the world, most recently in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but other places as well. Not too long ago, in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans, supposed people of freedom, enforced liberty with the barrel of a gun. Prisoners beaten and humiliated in the name of truth-telling. We say we bring democracy, but our might and muscle are used to empty the heart of a proud people, long oppressed. Instead of freeing them we denigrate their spirit. How can they recognize an enemy from a friend when our arms come laden with bullets instead of open, welcoming hands? For more than 7,000 years humankind has borne the scars of violence. That legacy began around 4,500 BCE when the early Indo-European, nomadic Kurgans emerged from the Russian steppes and launched incursions throughout northern Europe. Eventually these warrior people broadened their territory, invading the Aegean and Adriatic regions as well. Scholars, including the renowned Marija Gimbutas, tell us the Kurgans rode horse-drawn chariots and worshipped storm gods of vengeance and battle. Peaceful Neolithic peoples, whom the Kurgans encountered along the way, were ill equipped to combat such aggression. Even during the early Bronze Age the heirs of nonviolent Neolithic societies, such as the Nuraghi of Sardegna, fashioned metal and stone into tools and utensils, not weaponry. Jewelry, cooking vessels, …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Camelia Elias

Camelia Elias, PhD, Dr.Phil., is a professor, writer, and cartomancer. Her research interests are in esoteric movements, occult, and the folk practices of reading and producing spiritual texts. She blogs at Taroflexions and has recently published a book on divination with the Marseille cards: Marseille Tarot: Towards the Art of Reading.
(Prose) Liminal Time and Space by Deanne Quarrie

The word liminal comes from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold.” The word threshold has several definitions. It can be the sill of a doorway or the entrance of a building. Ultimately, it means any place of point of entering or beginning. In psychology the term limen means the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to begin to produce an effect. Liminal time therefore, is that moment when something changes from one state to another. Examples would be dawn, when the morning sun rises high enough in the sky to bring daylight. Another is dusk, when the evening sun sinks into the horizon bringing nightfall. Another is that moment when we move from a clearing into a deep fog which shrouds us in mist and for a moment, we stop all thinking. There is that moment when we first wake from a deep sleep, not fully awake but no longer asleep. Plus there is that state when we move from wakeful consciousness into sleep. The scientific terms for these states are hypnogogic (toward sleep) and hypnapompic (from sleep). There are also those moments of transitions between life and death and from an unborn fetus to a living, breathing infant. Liminal Spaces are thin places occurring on boundaries between spaces. This includes places like the boundaries between properties where fences or trees mark them. Also edges between water and land or even between plains and mountains, highways and grass, etc. These are all edges where changes occur. Imagine the cliffs and boulders on the Pacific Coast and the massive waves hitting and then retreating, that moment of contact before withdrawal – a liminal moment. As the Earth travels around the Sun, we may view the year as divided into two halves, the bright half and the dark half. The liminal times for these events fall around the first of May and again at the first of November. The liminal time for the beginning of the dark half of the year is when many cultures honor their ancestors. We call this Samhain, which comes from sam fuinn meaning “summer’s end.” It marks the Celtic New Year, the day when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest, making it easier for us to establish communication with our ancestors. Also, our ancestors lit fires on sacred hills on this night. It was customary to extinguish the household fires, symbolizing the end of summer, and then relight them from the ceremonial fire marking the beginning of the new season, winter, the Season of Sleep. The other time of year honors the bright half and the beginning of summer which we call Beltane. It is a time of bursting forth with an abundant fertility. It was time to release the cattle from winter quarters and then they drove them between two fires in a ritual cleansing ceremony which certainly had practical purposes for the health of the animals. It was a time for many celebrations and for the mating of animals as well as human lovers. In Celtic mythology, two historical invasions involved in the settling of Ireland occurred at the liminal moment at the beginning of the bright half of the year. It is when the Tuatha de Danann arrived in great ships high above the clouds surrounded by a great mist. It is also when the sons of Mil arrived. At first, the Tuatha de Danann surrounded them in a great mist causing them to fall back behind the ninth wave. When the time was right, the great Druid Amergin, claimed the powers of Land, Sea and Sky and stepped ashore, claiming the land for the Gaels. No doubt we could find similar events in other cultures. A shaman (modern term applied to spirit walkers of many traditions) works in liminal time and space. She is an edge walker, one who walks between the worlds. Her work is on the edge as she has one foot in this world and one foot in the other. She travels between them walking this edge. She connects those of the spirit world with those of this one. Her work is to serve her tribe, to heal, to honor the gods of the people, to talk with the spirits, keeping life in balance and harmony with all. For those of us who live a magical life, liminal times and liminal spaces are where our magical work is done. Liminal times and liminal spaces are when and where the veil between this world and the Otherworld thins. Travel between them becomes easier for us (as well as spirits and deities). As we deepen in our work we come to recognize these liminal times and spaces, eager to understand them and work with them and finally to use them for the great work of the soul. We may choose liminal places to do our work and certainly we may choose a liminal time, moon wise, seasonally or in choosing the time of day. We also have liminal times not of our choosing. We can learn to recognize and use them for the best outcome. Many of them occur in our lives. Often we fail to see what they are until they are behind us. At other times we are able to see and understand and work with the changes so that what is coming is of the best quality for us. They are threshold moments and we will step through, whether willing or not. We are fortunate when we can see these moments for what they are and embrace them, knowing that a birth of some sort is about to happen. We have many liminal moments that we share. As women – our first bloods – our first sexual experience – our wedding day – the birth of a child – the death of a loved one – a divorce and an ending of what once was – our first job – the birth of a wonderful creative project – the ending of a …
(Music) ‘Eagle Song’ by Sabrina Montanaro

Sabrina Montanaro (Click above to listen to the music.) I was born and brought up in London in an Italo-Swedish Family. I trained as a vocal-composer in Florence with Gabriella Bartolomei. I’m now resident in Roma. Once upon a time I sat over a valley of Temples and asked God for a sign… after a long silence… a bee hit my drum and flew off. This was the sign. I discovered that the bee was a messenger of all the Goddesses that had been silenced on the planet; and that the drum was the primordial heart-beat, the Law and pulse of ecstasy, of fusing the mystical and physical in creation. I became a-kin to the bee in my musical and spiritual research collecting nectar in India, Afro-Colombia and Indigenous Colombia and Ireland . When the time was ripe the Universe gave me a twin-soul to give birth musically with: Eugenio Chabaneau from Argentina, composer, poet and Master-guitarist… and a bee hit the drum ! was born. Now working on 2nd CD all instrumental a bit ‘ Andino ‘ dedicated to ‘Angels in time of war’.
(Art) Gaia #8: Constancy: S/he Who Tends the Forest by Deborah Jane Milton, Ph.D.

Mycelia, microbes, moss and moths, oxygen, phosphorous and CO2 Photosynthesis and respiration The forest makes all else possible… Shouldn’t we be busting our butts to nourish it? (Meet Mago Contributor) Deborah Jane Milton, Ph.D. This art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017).
(Equinox poem) I Thought The Morning Crowed by Phibby Venable with art by Maria Arias

I thought the morning crowed a long sad repetition from behind the hills but it later became a rooster – so much smaller than his sound I was born in the Spring A small, brown radio played on a corner shelf – my mother danced her way through breakfast
‘Logbook of a Mother Who Strives for the Mother Earth Sanctuary’ by Wennifer A. Lin

For the past 20 years, I’ve been rather obsessed with the vision of creating a sustainable, matristic eco-sanctuary for birthing consciously, balancing body/mind/spirit wholistically, growing food biodynamically, and living communally. I had such a “calling” before I became a mother and had kids, and the irony of it is that now that I have three, I see the importance and urgency of it more than ever, but I struggle with having enough time, resources, energy to start one up when my plate is already so full with just being a “mom” and trying to do it all as best as I can, and yet, feeling like I never do it good enough, or fast enough, or thoroughly enough. I’ve always been a perfectionist and I thrive on working myself to the bone (not necessarily a healthy thing), but I must say, motherhood is the toughest, most humbling, unpaid, and undervalued job ever, where the workload simply seems never ending. Don’t even talk about working “over-time” because it’s a daily occurrence … you just never get paid for it … sometimes not even in gratitude, and yet, there’s a sweetness and a pricelessness to it all. So this is a rather huge dilemma I’ve been wrestling with for quite some time now. In matriarchal/native societies, families lived and worked together communally …. women (and men) shared the joys and burdens of raising kids, making food, keeping the household, the clan, running smoothly. Now, each woman in nuclear family households is expected to do everything on her own (as well as be a wife, a daughter, a sister, an auntie, a school volunteer, a girl scout leader, and a working professional … and even with the best of husbands who do help out, it’s still endless work in and out of the house). Add to that the time-consuming, labor-intensive approaches to living organically, wholistically, wholesomely [ie, conscious conception = conscious birthing = conscious raising of kids (ie, baby-wearing, co-sleeping, on-demand nursing, elimination communication, aka diaper-free method, something native people have done rather universally and very successfully until the disposable diaper companies started brainwashing everyone and polluting the landfills in the process, etc) = conscious preparation of foods and not relying on pre-packaged, preservative-laden “fast” foods, etc.]. Basically, and this is the crux of my recent talk this summer at the East-West Center at UH Manoa in Hawaii where my cohort and I gave a joint lecture on food and community …. while it is ultra important to preserve food sovereignty and squash out biopiracy (Vandana Shiva – love her work), we forget that just as quickly as our rights to clean soil, clean water, clean foods (ie, non-GMO seeds) are being corrupted and/or taken away by hegemonic governmental and corporate greed, our societal structure, one that really nurtures the community as a whole …. one that I would see as matristic or matriarchal … is quickly becoming extinct, leaving the mothers and the children, as well as the fathers, with very little support and all too much work to do single-handedly. So for instance, even when we succeed in procuring nutrient-rich, organically-grown veggies and store them in our fridge, who is going to then take out these ingredients, prepare them in a “slow food” manner and give these ingredients the love and attention they demand to make a truly well-balanced, tasty, homecooked meal? WHO?!?! The mother who is rushing all day from point A to point B, driving the kids to and from school, to and from extra-curricular activities, volunteering, working, coming home at dinner-time feeling starved, dehydrated, and fatigued and wishing she had 3 of herself so a decent meal could have been prepared in a timely manner? So she throws up her hands and caves in to buying “fast food” to get by at least one more meal, hoping that perhaps, tomorrow will be less hectic and she can finally make good use of those organic veggies in the fridge before they spoil. The modern, Western ethic to be “independent” (rather than “inter-dependent”) at all costs to prove one’s worth is sought after at a very high price, and essentially, no one wins. It’s a lonely, isolating, and disconnecting process, where kids, like the organic veggies, are coveted and cherished, but often more in thought than in action simply because it’s impossible to do everything and do it all in a timely manner when there’s just one of you. Recently, I was advised by a Waldorf kindergarten teacher that the little kids need to be kept away from TV and not be allowed to watch more than one hour per week, if that. I told her that I wholeheartedly agree, but that it’s easier said than done, especially in a nuclear family household. I shared with her that when I was raised in an extended-family, quasi-matriarchal (I say “quasi” because our family was also influenced by Confucian patriarchal values) household in Taiwan, and later, even here in the US, we all lived together, under one roof, in community, where we had not only our siblings and cousins to play with, but also had multiple uncles and aunties and grandparents to watch after us, so we NEVER felt this “need” to zone out in front of TVs because our household was big, connected, and always bustling with life and interaction. TV shows and their dramas faded in comparison to our own. So I asked this Waldorf teacher, do you realize that while all parents would LIKE to entertain and instruct and dote over their kids 24/7, there simply isn’t “enough” of them to do so? And that our problem with kids watching too much TV isn’t even the TV (or computer) itself, but our screwed up societal structure? She was rather stumped by my rebuttal. Within these past couple of years, I have been more proactively searching for others to potentially collaborate with to create this (for lack of a better title) Mother Earth Sanctuary …. “a webwork of sustainable, …
(Poem) Poem to a Plant Goddess by Sara Wright

Her name is Datura. Delicate fluted deep-throated trumpets open to humming honey bees and summer rains. She communicates through scent. In the fall I collect her sharp-needled pods. They rattle like dry bones. I chill them. In the spring I coax seeds to sprout wrapping each in papery white cloth, sing love songs – siren calls to rouse each root from winter’s sleep. I am patient… a woman in waiting for the heat of the sun to unfurl the mystery of becoming that is re-acted in spring. Only seeds know when to swell and burst. Wooly hairs branch out from a single root. Curling themselves into screw like shapes, They leave it to me to untangle head from foot! I hear the Old Ones call her Sacred West wind whips red sand into my face, as I place each sprout in well dampened soil. Within a week green wings unfold twin leafed plantlets lean into the fierce light of a golden eye. Each seedling seeks its own form. DNA meets the pattern of becoming held by cosmic forces in a spiral round. I imagine a bush of sensuous pearl white trumpets – lacey lavender tipped edges unfurling at dusk. Datura converses with the Hawk moth under a blossoming moon. An ancient plant with unknown origins Datura bridges continents, passed on by Indigenous story and feet. A Muse full of secrets she is known by those (who have been initiated into her ways) as “Grandmother,” whose poison is deadly. She is also a visionary and healer. She comes to some through dreams. The un-initiated fear her. They call her devil, thorn apple, witches wildflower, in woeful ignorance of the breadth of her power. “Dementia!” they sling arrows of ignorance, accuse her as one who would kill or maim. As well she might. To those who would use her without respect or care, she mutters a warning: Beware. [Background Information: Datura flowers are startling, huge, trumpet shaped – pearl white and luminous, tinted with pale to deep lavender around the edges – and in northern Mexico, intensely fragrant after rain. Last summer, like the bees that hummed around the flowers from dawn to dusk, I too couldn’t get enough of the sweet scent of literally hundreds of undulating lace edged trumpets that opened each morning or evening after a rain. These wild plants are also known as devil’s trumpet, moonflowers, devil’s weed and thorn apple. Late last fall I collected prickly seed pods and stored them over the winter. This spring I coaxed seeds to sprout, planting them here and there, imagining a summer desert filled with clumps of fragrant blossoms. Datura has the ability to shapeshift – literally. Depending upon growing conditions this plant can develop into a large four or five foot bush, or spread its small umbrella of pointed leaves and flowers over a dry desert wash, barely reaching twelve inches in height. The plant can change its shape as well as the amount of its toxicity which confused botanists for years! In service to Life Datura removes lead from the soil and stores it in her roots and leaves. While the plant provides nectar for bees and other insectivores it has formed an intimate partnership (mutualism) with the Hawk moth, an insect almost as large as the human hand. Datura furnishes the moth with nectar and shelters its eggs (newly hatched larvae are served a tasty leafy meal by this mothering plant). But in return pollen is transferred from moth to flower enabling fertilization to take place. With the help of the moth, Datura can then produce fruit and seeds for another year. Datura belongs to the classic “witches weeds” according to Wikipedia, along with deadly nightshade, henbane, mandrake, hemlock and other plants. “It was well known as an essential ingredient of potions and witches brews,” according to this academic source. Indigenous peoples across the globe have been using this plant for millennia to seek spirit helpers through visioning. All parts of this plant are lethal and only those that are initiated through the (secret) oral traditions know how to neutralize the poison.] (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.

(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.
(Special Post 3) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Xiang Yao or Xiangliu is the Chinese equivalent to Hydra in Greek mythology. And Hercules is to Yu, the Great, founder of the Xia dynasty. We will see in the course of this discussion that the myth of Yu, the founding ruler of Xia, the oldest dynasty of China, who slains the nine-headed snake, is only a variation of its older prototype, the myth of Huangdi who fought Chiu, the alliance of the Nine Han Giants (East Asian/Korean Magoists). “According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Xiangliu was a minister of the snake-like water deity Gonggong. Xiangliu devastated the ecology everywhere he went, leaving nothing but gullies and marshes devoid of animal life. Eventually, Xiangliu was killed by Yu the Great, whose other labors included ending the Great Flood of China. In other versions of the story, Xiangliu was killed by Nüwa, after being defeated by Zhurong, but his blood was so virulently poisonous that the soil which it soaked could no longer grow grain.[1] An oral version of the Xiangliu myth was collected as late from Sichuan as 1983, in which Xiangliu is depicted as a nine-headed dragon, responsible for floods and other harm.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangliu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Ancient China had to demonize the pre-Han myth of the nona Mago because it bespeaks the matriarchal/gynocentric history that it overthrew… the past that had to be severed in order to fake patriarchal originality. With this in mind, we have a better look on patriarchal mythopoeia, which appears to be complex but, nonetheless, transparent in its motive to hide/hijack pre-patriarchal gynocentric histories. “One of the most harrowing myths from ancient China is the story of Gonggong’s rebellion. You can revisit the whole story here, but the quick version is that the evil water god Gonggong attempted to drown the world and was only prevented from doing so by the heroic last resort actions of the beneficent creator goddess Nüwa, who cut the legs off the cosmic turtle in order to set things to rights. In the chaos of the climactic battle, however Gongong’s chief minister and partner in crime Xiangliu the nine-headed snake monster completely escaped. Filled with bitterness about Gonggong’s failure, Xiangliu crawled away across the soggy lands of Szechuan (which were water-logged after the nearly world-ending floods). Wherever he went, the snake monster left permanent fens and swamps which were toxic to life. His very being had become steeped in poison, and his progress through the damp and moldy world had to be stopped. Yu the hero, the third of the three sage kings, finally caught up with the nine-headed monster and killed him in a pitched battle. Yet still there was a problem: Xiangliu’s pestiferous blood has poisoned the whole region, which now stank of rot. Crops would not grow and civilization began to falter. Yu dug up the blood soaked soil again and again, but the corrupted blood of the monster just sank deeper into the ground. Finally, Yu excavated a deep valley by Kunlun mountain and rid the world of Xiangliu’s toxins. With all of the land he had excavated he built a great terraced mountain for the gods. Yu then went forth to found the kingdom of Xia, the first civilized state in Chinese history. Of course some people say that Yu did none of this, that, it was the goddess Nüwa who once again came forth to battle the monster and undo the damage he had caused. Then, with accustomed modesty she let Yu take the credit and begin his kingdom (for Nüwa cared not for empty praise and hollow glory but only for the well-being of her children).” https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/xiangliu-the-nine-headed-snake/ Max Dashu: These patriarchal heroes! Nova Scheller: What a fascinating thread…that the nine headed hydra correlates to the nine headed dragon as a linkage to patriarchy or gynocentric/ matriarchal beginnings…the root being in Korea! Dropping into your work of so many years…a privilege as well as informing some of my personal awareness. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nova Scheller, indeed! The myth of slaining the nine-headed snake/dragon across cultures shows; (1) The onset of patriarchy did not come naturally but forcefully, which proves that patriarchy is not original. It was a reaction to what had been before, its matrix. Patriarchy faked its originality by inventing the myth of demonizing and killing the female principle. (2) Patriarchal rules established across cultures adopted the mythic motif of slaining the nine-headed snake or dragon, which appears to be of Chinese origin. (3) The Nine Mago mythic system preserved in Korean Magoism testifies to gynocentric/matriarchal beginnings, which were remembered by peoples of the ancient world. (4) Furthermore, Korean Magoist mythology explains the origin/meaning of the nona Goddess symbol. Let’s explore how the Nine Mago pantheon was remembered in East Asian myths and religions. For this, we need to unravel the patriarchal mythopoeia of Goma, the Shaman ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: In principle, we can tell if an ancient rule/culture was patriarchal or gynocentric by the myth of the nine-headed snake/dragon. In the case of ancient China whose heroes are told to have killed the opponent, the nine-headed snake. Nonetheless, the people’s memory of pre-patriarchal gynocentric history never dies. The nine symbolism is still described as auspicious. It revives time and time again throughout history. In other words, ancient China was a small regional power, only modern scholarship seals it all mighty China. Find out what other ancient myths concern about the nine female symbolism. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.
(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is another image of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra slain by Herakles. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(mythology)… Glenys Livingstone: Yes, the Hercules story is more documentation of the Old Battle, of the rise of the “hero” to slay the Mother, when in the earliest of times he served with his beauty and labours. It is so interesting to see the analogies in other cultures/places as you are doing Helen, especially in Asia – it seems important work. Your perseverance is paying off, and will. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Glenys, I am re-reading a book on Chinese mythology and found a lot more on the nine Magoist symbolism. Someday, I hope to write about the topic in its own right. Glenys Livingstone: This chapter’s work is good re the Old Battle in Greek mythology: Valaoritis, Nanos. “The Cosmic Conflict of Male and Female in Greek Mythology”, in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Joan Marler (ed). Manchester CT: Knowledge, Ideas and Trends Inc., 1997, p.247 – 261. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Now back to the female divine who is depicted with the nine heads. See the nine-headed Guanyin/Kannon/Gwaneum. Also note that her icon comes in eleven-headed (the 8 Daughters and the Triad Creatrix, which makes eleven). http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: The symbol of nine dragons was adopted by imperial China. See the Nine Dragon Wall China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We connect the dots. When Guanyin is depicted with nine dragons, it conveys that the nine symbolism was/is once deemed sacred. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/17/b3/4a17b33d9a4ae53bad6466a0eaf11722.jpg How popular the Guanyin icon, three headed and eight armed, to this day! Simply Google “eight armed Guanyin.” Below is from the Late Ming Dynasty, China. https://www.google.com/search?q=eight%20armed%20guanyin… She comes in a different name, Ushnishavijaya, in Tibetan Buddhism. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65445 Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We can draw that the female deity such as Guanyin and Ushnishavijaya, just to name two, is venerated in association with the nine symbolism. Within the mytho-history of Magoism, I infer that Guanyin or Ma Guanyin is a persona embodying Goma, the Magoist Shaman ruler of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE), the head of Nine Hans (Magoist Koreans). Note that Magoist shamans or priestesses are called “Mago.” See my essay, “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology,” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 2018. The insight that the major Goddesses in East Asia and beyond point to the same and old divine persona is NOT farfetched, considering that the nine-headed snake or dragon representing the female sovereignty of pre-patriarchal times is slain by male heroes across cultures. Judy E Foster: I’d have to agree with you here. As usual, interesting information! Patty Kay: My meditation this morning was on a history of mysticism. While I’m in the midst of appropriating all of the wonderful beliefs I find here, I also have found a strand in my own tradition that helps me understand why all the Divine Feminine stuff makes so much sense to me. I’ve been trying to determine when the patriarchal world view took over. According to this history, mysticism began to emerge in about 800 to 500 BCE. Could it be that mysticism kept alive the ancient understanding of the cosmos? This is just speculation, but in it I’m answering my own questions. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.

(Video) Imbolc/Early Spring Goddess Slideshow by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

On February 3rd at 19:45 “Universal Time” (as it is named), Earth our Planet crosses the midpoint of Her orbit between Solstice and Equinox, though the exact time varies each year. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the Season of Imbolc – the welcoming of the Light, post-Winter Solstice, after the fullness of the dark of Winter. Imbolc, and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin/Maiden aspect of Goddess – or Urge to Be as I have named this aspect. Imbolc may be understood as the quintessential celebration of the Virgin/Young One quality for the year – the rest of the light part of the cycle celebrates Her processes, but this Seasonal Moment is a celebration of Her … identifying with Her. She is the New Young One, the Promise of Life, the Urge to Be. Her purity is Her singularity of purpose. She is spiritual warrior. Her inviolability is Her determination to Be … nothing to do with unbroken hymens of the dualistic and patriarchal mind. The Virgin is the essential “yes” to Being – not the “no” She was turned into. This is some Poetry of the Season: This is the season of the waxing Light … the feast of the Young One – who is the Urge To Be within All. The New One born at the Winter Solstice now grows. This is the time of celebrating the small self – each one’s Gaian uniqueness and beauty. We meet to share the light of inspiration, to be midwifed, by She who tends the Flame of Being, deeply committed to Self, and Who is True. The choice of images is arbitrary … there are so many more, and also, most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Imbolc/Early Spring. Remember that image communicates the unspeakable – that which can only be known in body – below rational mind. You may regard it as a transmission of Herself, insofar as you wish – and particular to you. I offer you these images for you to receive in your own way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUPTKMork9s Artemis 4th Century B.C.E. Greece. (p.52 Austen) – a classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent”: that is, in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted, and deep reverence. Aphrodite (p.132 Austen) 300 B.C.E. – often diminished to a sex Goddess in patriarchal narrative, but in more ancient times, praised as She who holds all things in form, which may be comprehended as embodying cosmic power of allurement, which may be identified with what has been named as “gravity”. Re-storied as one who admires her own Beauty, and the Beauty of All. Aphrodite (plate 137 Neumann) an earlier image 600 B.C.E. Brigid/Brigantia (p. 38 Durdin-Robertson) 300 C.E. – Her spear may be understood as the spear of Goddess: that is, as spiritual warrior, or Boadicea-like. Brigid – a later image of Christian times … dressed nun-like. Eurynome (Austen p.8) 4000 B.C.E. Africa. This image is named as Bird-Headed Snake Goddess. Austen stories Her as an image of Eurynome, Goddess of All Things who danced upon the waves in the beginning and laid the Universal Egg. She appears very self-expressive: perhaps a great image of a self-expressive Universe. She integrates animal and human, earth and sky, before dualism existed. I choose her as a Virgin image because of this integrity, and her ecstatic expression. Diana (Neumann Plate 161) Rome. She carries the Flame – is classically Her own person. … not so much “independent” as it may be thought of culturally, as “self-knowing”. She came to be associated with the Greek Artemis: they are sister Goddesses. The Horned Goddess (p. 138 Austen) 6000 B.C.E. Africa – associated with dance and healthy life-force – rain and fertility. She is of the ancient Amazon tribes of what is now known as Algeria. Even today amongst these people, Austen says: “the Tauregs, the women are independent, while the men only appear in public veiled”. Vajravarahi (p.124 Austen) 1600’s C.E. Vajravarahi, show me how to be powerful and compassionate at the same time – let me know that these qualities are one force. Teach me to feel the beauty, power and eroticism of my own being. Show me that I am an exquisite part of the life force, dancing with all other forms of life. and OM! Veneration to you, noble Vajravarahi! OM! Veneration to you, noble and unconquered! Mother of the three worlds! Mistress of knowledge!… OM! Veneration to you, Vajravarahi! Great yogini! Mistress of love! She who moves through the air! TIBETAN TEXT Radha (in my ritual space) … seeing Who She really is. REFERENCES: Austen, Hallie Iglehart. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley:Wingbow, 1990. Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Bergen: Girl God Books, 2023. Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. The music is “Boadicea” by Enya.
Lammas/Late Summer within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 10 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd These dates are traditional, though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox, thus actually a little later in early February for S.H., and early August for N.H., respectively. a Lammas/Late Summer table The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again, to celebrate She Who creates the Space to Be. Lammas is a welcoming of the Dark in all its complexity: and as with any funerary moment, there is celebration of the life lived (enjoyment of the harvest) – a “wake,” and there is grieving for the loss. One may fear it, which is good reason to make ceremony, to go deeper, to commit to the Mother, who is the Deep; to “make sacred” this emotion, as much as one may celebrate the hope and wonder of Spring, its opposite. If Imbolc/Early Spring is a nurturing of new young life, Lammas may be a nurturing/midwifing of death or dying to small self, the assent to larger self, an expansion or dissipation – further to the radiance of Summer Solstice. Whereas Imbolc is a Bridal commitment to being and form, where we are the Promise of Life; Lammas may be felt as a commitment marriage to the Dark within, as we accept the Harvest of that Promise, the cutting of it. We remember that the Promise is returned to Source. “The forces which began to rise out of the Earth at the festival of Bride now return at Lammas.”[i] Creativity is called forth when an end (or impasse) is reached: we can no longer rely on our small self to carry it off. We may call Her forth, this Creative Wise Dark One – of the Ages, when our ways no longer work. We are not individuals, though we often think we are. We are Larger Self, subjects within theSubject.[ii] And this is a joyful thing. We do experience ourselves as individuals and we celebrate that creativity at Imbolc. Lammas is the time for celebrating the fact that we are part of, in the context of, a Larger Organism, and expanding into that. Death will teach us that, but we don’t have to wait – it is happening around us all the time, we are constantly immersed in the process, and everyday creativity is sourced in this subjectivity. As it is said, She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire:”[iii] the same Desire we celebrated at Beltaine, has peaked at Summer and is now dissolving form, returning to Source to nourish the Plenum, the manifesting – as all form does. This Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Late Summer celebrates the beginning of dismantling, de-structuring. Gaia-Universe has done a lot of this de-structuring – it is in Her nature to return all to the “Sentient Soup” … nothing is wasted. We recall the Dark Sentience, the “All-Nourishing Abyss”[iv] at the base of being, as we enter this dark part of the cycle of the year. This Dark/Deep at the base of being, to whom we are returned, may be understood as the Sentience within all – within the entire Universe. The dictionary definition of sentience is: “intelligence,” “feeling,” “the readiness to receive sensation, idea or image; unstructured available consciousness,” “a state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness.”[v] The Old Wise One is the aspect of the Cosmic Triplicity/Triple Goddess that returns us to this sentience, the Great Subject out of whom we arise. We are subjects within the Great Subject – the sentient Universe; we are not a collection of objects, as Thomas Berry has said.[vi] This sentience within, this “readiness-to-receive,” is a dark space, as all places of ending and beginning are. Mystics of all religious traditions have understood the quintessential darkness of the Divinity, known often as the Abyss. Goddesses such as Nammu and Tiamat, Aditi and Kali, are the anthropomorphic forms of this Abyss/Sea of Darkness that existed before creation. She is really the Matrix of the Universe. This sentience is ever present and dynamic. It could be understood as the dark matter that is now recognized to form most of the Universe. This may be recognized as Her “Cauldron of Creativity” and celebrated at this Lammas Moment. Her Cauldron of Creativity is the constant flux of all form in the Universe – all matter is constantly transforming. We are constantly transforming on every level. a Lammas/Late Summer altar These times that we find ourselves in have been storied as the Age of Kali, the Age of Caillaech – the Age of the Crone. There is much that is being turned over, much that will be dismantled. We are in the midst of the revealing of compost, and transformation – social, cultural, and geophysical. Kali is not a pretty one – but we trust She is transformer, and creative in the long term. She has a good track record. Our main problem is that we tend to take it personally. The Crone – the Old Phase of the cycle, creates the Space to Be. Lammas is the particular celebration of the beauty of this awesome One. She is symbolized and expressed in the image of the waning moon, which is filling with darkness. She is the nurturant darkness that may fill your being, comfort the sentience in you, that will eventually allow new constellations to gestate in you, renew you. So the focus in ceremony may be to contemplate opening to Her, noticing our fears and our hopes involved in that. She is the Great Receiver – receives all, and as such She is the Great Compassionate One. Her Darkness may be understood as a Depth of Love. And She is Compassionate because of …
Imbolc: Through Goddess Eyes by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Photo by Carolyn Lee Boyd In times past, Creation’s Winter cupped me in her icy hand of sanctuary Gathered in, I sucked dormant life, and slumbered Till Earth’s rebirthing groans awakened my new body Now, older and full of life’s weeping and wondering awe At all that has happened in my decades on Earth I must shake myself into consciousness My seed’s opaque, blinding hull disintegrates and Bodyless, at last I can see through Goddess eyes I ache as my blood paints each flower petal I spin the whirlwind that cannot stop creating abundance I push the seasons through the year that mortals believe revolve of their own accord. Through Goddess eyes I can see me, I inhabit Winter’s hand as my own. I make the cold to slow creation of outside of me To gather the seed into fertile stillness within. That burgeons in my own time. https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
(Video) A Beltaine Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Beltaine/High Spring: the traditional dates are Southern Hemisphere – October 31st or 1st November Northern Hemisphere – April 30th (May Eve) or 1st May The actual astronomical date varies, and it is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, thus actually a little later in early November for S.H., and early May for N.H., respectively. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pODpbkzfrIU The purpose of the video is for ceremony and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion, music, and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it may be paused. The script for this Beltaine ceremony is offered in Chapter 8 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I name the direction, which I only do at the beginning. The images used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Beltaine ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Beltaine ceremonies that I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space, in Gundungurra and Darug country, Blue Mountains Australia. To enhance participation in the ceremony, you may like to have the following: the element of Water flavoured with rose water. the element of Earth in a large dinner plate and card paper large enough for handprints, along with a bowl of water for washing hands after. a small bouquet of scented flowers and/or herbs for the element of Air. a firepot for the element of Fire. This may be a clay pot of sand into which a small amount of methylated spirits will be poured and lit: it produces a soft flame that will not set off fire alarms, though care should still be taken. a larger firepot or two – either near the altar or located where suitable, for either leaping the flames, or simply passing your hand over flames. This firepot may be a larger version of the one for the element of Fire. coloured ribbons, ideally attached to a pole/tree, but it is possible to manage this rite in another creative manner. a pink ring cake, topped with rose water and honey and petals, sliced ready for serving, but whole. sweet pink wine/juice and glasses for serving. Dance Instructions: Celebrant as #1, person next on right as #2. All 1’s face right, all 2’s face left. All 1’s go in & under first, all 2’s go out & over first. The chant for the dance around the tree (a “Novapole” in the Southern Hemipshere, a “Maypole” in the Northern Hemisphere): “We are the Dance of the Earth, Moon and Sun We are the Life that’s in everyone We are the Life that loves to live We are the Love that lives to love.” (Note: This is a slight variation of the chant written and taught to me by thea Gaia. Music credits: A few clips from Coral Sea Dreaming by Tania Rose: https://www.taniarose.net A clip from Benediction Moon by Pia from her album by that name, New World Music, 1998. A clip from “Shedville 28th Nov 05” by Nick Alias, who has generously shared his music, and given permission for me to use it. Image credits: Ishtar (Middle East, 1000 BCE), Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.131. Aphrodite (Europe, 300 BCE), Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.133. Xochiquetzal (Mayan, 8th century CE), Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.135. Inanna/Ishtar (Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E.), Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature, p.39. Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, plate 155. Milky Way photo: Akira Fujii, David Malin images. Beau Ravn’s “Goddess” and “God” artworks (2000). Sri Yantra (1500 CE.), A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, Sacred Sexuality, p.75.
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This article is an edited excerpt from Chapter 7 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. I always wore a special headpiece for the Seasonal ceremonies when I facilitated them over the years, and I feel that any participant may do so, not just the main celebrant. My ceremonial headpiece with its changing and continuous Seasonal decoration took on increasing significance over the years; it became a personal central representation of the year-long ceremonial art process of creating, destroying and re-creating. For the research period of my doctoral studies particularly, when I was documenting the process, I realised that this headpiece came to represent for me the essence of “She” – as Changing One, yet ever as Presence – as I was coming to know Her. In my journal for the Mabon/Autumn Equinox process notes one year I wrote: As I pace the circle with the Mabon headpiece in the centre, I see “Her” as She has been through the Seasons … the black and gold of Samhain, the deep red, white and evergreen of Winter, the white and blue of Imbolc, the flowers of Eostar, the rainbow ribbons of Beltane, the roses of Summer, the seed pods and wheat of Lammas, and now the Autumn leaves. I see in my mind’s eye, and feel, Her changes. I am learning … The Mother knowledge grows within me. The headpiece, the wreath, the altar, the house decorations, all participate in the ceremony: they are part of the learning, the method, the relationship – similar to how one might bring flowers and gifts of significance to a loved one at special moments. Then further, the removal and re-creation of the decorations are part of the learning – an active witness to transformation through time.
A PaGaian Wheel of the Year and Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution (as expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago,[i] and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago.[ii] Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever-changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence (as of this writing) to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as anyone’s ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change.[v]In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done, but it will continue to evolve as all language must. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …

(Budoji Essay 3) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“Reintroducing the concept of the Mago Species has a profound implication, compelling one’s vocabularies to be changed to the Mother’s Tongue.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] There were Four Heavenly Persons at the four corners of the castle. They built pillars and sounded music. Four Heavenly Persons are the four clan leaders who reside in the four corners of Mago Castle, Primordial Paradise. They are entrusted by Mago to cultivate the acoustical effect of the universe (the original music). While the translation of “pillars” is provisional, it may mean a musical instrument of some primordial sort. Given the importance of stone, a theme reiterated in later chapters of the Budoji, the pillars may refer to the stone structure that supports a musical instrument. Or they may indicate stone chimes or an acoustical rock structure.
(Mago Almanac Basics) What is the Magoist Calendar? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: I have created 13 basics of Mago Almanac, which are included in Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Volume 6), Year 6 or 5920 MAGOMA ERA (Equivalent to 2023 CE). These 13 basics constitute the backbone of Magoist Cetaceanism as well.] It is a 13 month 28 day luni-menstrual-solar calendar of Old Magoist Korea. Insofar as one year marks about 365.25 days, a time taken for the earth to revolve around the sun, it is a solar calendar. The fact that both the moon and the female menstruation cycle mark 28 days, which makes 13 months or 364 days for one year. This makes approximately 1.25 a surplus. Thus, we have days outside the calendar grid. Each year has one extra day on the day before the New Year’s day. The New Year of Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era was set on the new moon date before Winter Solstice in 2018 by the Gregorian Calendar. With one extra day, the year makes 365 days. Given that the actual period of the Earth’s revolution is approximately 365.25 days, we have the second extra day every fourth year. Setting aside the extra days, we have 364 days for one year. 364 days divided by 28 days is 13. That is how we have 13 months in a year. The Magoist Calendar championing the matricentric worldview is the very indication that our Mother Earth is stabilized in her own voyages. https://www.magobooks.com/update-on-mago-books/mago-almanac-13-month-28-day-calendar-book-a https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(2014 Mago Pilgrimage Report 1) Sweat Lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Islands by Helen Hwang

[Author’s Note: Revised verison of this report is published in Celebrating the Seasons of the Goddess (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books, 2017). 2014 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea (Oct. 7-Oct. 20) was participated by a culturally mixed group of pilgrims from the U.S. Australia, and Korea. Among non-Koreans were Dr. Glenys Livingstone (co-facilitator), Mr. Robert (Taffy) Seaborne, and Ms. Rosemary Mattingly. For details, read 2014 Mago Pilgrimage. View the video on our visit to Ganghwa Islands by Robert (Taffy) Seaborne.] 2014 Mago Pilgrimage granted me ever unfolding revelations. The first of them that I would like to mention concerned the sweat lodge called Hanjeung-mak (汗蒸幕, Chamber of chill and steam).[1] Until we visited the traditional sweat lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Island, it did not occur to me that the origin of its modern variations[2] has to do with the rebirthing experience in the Womb of Mago. (Here Mago means the Great Goddess or the Primordial Mother.)

Day: February 25, 2017

Mago Almanac Year 9 Monthly Wheels

S/HE: IJGS V4 N1-2 2025 (B/W Paperback)

Mago Almanac Year 8 (for 2025)

Program Booklets

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