April 5, 2017October 17, 2023 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) As Above, So Below by Liz Darling

(Book Excerpt 1) The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia

[Author’s Note: This is the first of the two sequels of the forthcoming book.] INTRODUCTION Salvation for the terrestrial community depends on our ability to keep patriarchy in check. We CAN keep patriarchy in check by telling the gynocentric truth. The gynocentric truth mirrors what patriarchy is; it is none other than a dangerously deranged force of destruction. Because it is deceitful and threatening, we tend to see it bigger than it actually is. It has no power of giving or nurturing Life. Patriarchy is NOT winning but ever-dwindling and ever-dying. This book, The Mago Way, re-presents the ancient way of telling the gynocentric truth: to Re-member collectively the ORIGIN STORY of the CREATRIX. The Way of Mago unleashes the power of the almost forgotten story of HER Beginning from Old Korea. It is the one and only story of WE that takes place Everywhere and All the time. It is cosmic/galactic/solar/terrestrial/individual/personal/atomic in scope. The Mago Way summons the gynocentric reality of WE/HERE/NOW to raise our minds/hearts.
(Poem) Children of Our Dreams, We Are With You by Carolyn Lee Boyd

I often think of my ancestors and I sometimes wonder, “Did they ever think of me?” I think they did in their own way, doing what they thought would make the lives of those who would come after them better than their own, though I have never found anything directly addressed to their descendants. So here is my missive to my own descendants, meant to be read by them long after I am gone and to inspire me to make their future better with my actions now. Now I am of air and wishes, no longer flesh,bones, and blood, but you carry within youall that I once was. When you sleep, the air of your breathconnects you to all that ever existed, even me.Listen, do you hear my sighs in the moonlight?As you gather round the fire’s flames, do youfeel my kisses in the sparks that soar up to heaven?When you plunge your hands in the black soildo you know my DNA is there, beneath your fingernails?Do you ever feel the salt of my ancient tearsin your body water’s flow? My eyes are closed forever, but when yourub your eyes at sunrise and stand at the thresholdof your doorway, tell me, what do you see?Do you spy a billion stars fading, visible onlynow that our century’s overbearing night lights have dimmed?Are a million birds soaring, so many thatsometimes they obscure the sky’s pure lapis lazuli hue?Are the honeyed bees swarming in trees dripping in gold?I have to know, do your seas teem with salmon, dolphins,glowing coral, singing whales?Have our wastelands grown to old growth forests,now home to reindeer, cougars, beavers, buffalo, and wolves? We envisioned our best hopes for you to walk inimagined lands of peace and plenty whereyou would be free to be all you are,loved always and loving mightily every instant of your lives.Forgive us if our visions were too small,If we were too bound by our suffering, our terrors, our limiting ideashanded to us by our own ancestors.If your world is not the paradise we hoped for or you need,reach out across those veils of time and spaceso that we may hold your hand and offer youwhat wisdom we lacked when alive but know now,what love we could not give for we did not know your namesbut which we tender you in abundance now,what joy delighted us in the beauty that still remained in our own timeof our fragile and wounded world. It is your turn now to embrace what we dreamedand dream so much more for those who come after you,even knowing that no dream that is majestic, compassionate,radiant enough to pass to the future can happen in one lifetime.Our human dreaming is a constant movement,an ongoing rhythm, spanning generations,reaching out from time to time to time.Be kind to us who left you the world we made,Lovingly if not always perfectly,And know that you have our blessings always. Kmaidlow, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
The Girl God: A Divine Image Reflecting the Power of Girls by Trista Hendren

When I grew up, God was a man. I was a sinner, in need of his salvation for my many transgressions. I came out of a Fundamentalist Christian home, ultimately desiring a career as a Minister. After starting Religious Studies in College, I began to deeply question my faith. The doctrines I had been taught as “Gospel” were broken open to me in a way that I could not repair or reconcile once I began to look at the historical, cultural and linguistic roots of the Bible. I did not realize how deeply my upbringing in the Church had tainted and still suppressed my core being until I read Patricia Lynn Reilly’s book, A God Who Looks Like Me, several years ago. As I pondered this in my own life, I realized my daughter was about to enter the same dark hole that I had. When my daughter turned five, I already saw the way the world was beginning to taint her image of herself. We had disconnected the cable several years before, but the message was still seeping in from other places: you are not enough. I grew up with 3 sisters. I never realized how distinctively different the experience of boys and girls is until I raised my son and daughter, who are 3 years apart. I realized that although I had tried to give both my children the religious freedom I never had, it was not enough for my daughter. Ultimately, she is the one who connected me back to my spirituality in a way I never could have done for myself. In watching her grow, I began to value myself more. In recognizing how precious she was, I realized how precious I was. I began to understand that most religions de-value women in subtle ways. When we refer to God only as male, the message is that women are inferior. I saw this very clearly one day in talking with my daughter. She could not relate to a male image of God. But when I asked her about a “Girl God,” she lit up! Ultimately this shifted how I began to think about both myself and my faith. I began studying women’s history and the suppression of the Divine Feminine in all faith traditions. I wrote a children’s book called The Girl God which describes some of that journey with my daughter. I think as young girls, we begin to talk ourselves into a male image of God, when in reality it is completely unnatural to us. As Judy Chicago reminds us, “In the beginning, the feminine principle was seen as the fundamental cosmic force. All ancient peoples believed that the world was created by a female Deity.” The Girl God is a story about how I was able to relate spirituality back to my daughter in words she could understand. I wrote this book for children; however, many women and therapists have contacted me along the way to say that they thought the book would be helpful for women as well. My hope is that the book will be collectively healing for both mother and daughter, as they read through it together. The book is magically illustrated by Elisabeth Slettnes, whose paintings give you something new to discover every time. The book is also filled with poetry, quotes and spiritual texts. Carol P. Christ, Alice Walker, Sue Monk Kidd, bell hooks, Gandhi, Rumi and others add their timeless wisdom to the storyline. Spirit-Filled One,Your Grandma is God and so are your favorite star and rock. God has many names and many faces. God is Mother, Daughter, and Wise Old Crone. She is found in your mothers, in your daughters, and in you. God is the God of Sarah, and Hagar, of Leah and Rachel. She is Mother of all Living, and blessed are Her daughters. You are girl-woman made in Her image. You can run fast, play hard, and climb trees. You are Batwoman, firewoman, and Goddess. The spirit of the universe pulsates through you. Be full of yourself. You are good. You are very good. Patricia Lynn Reilly Ultimately, our hope is to translate this book into as many languages as possible so that women and girls around the world can begin to awaken to the Divine within them.
(Book Excerpt 6) Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree ed. by Trista Hendren Et Al

[Editor’s Note: This excerpt series is from Asherah: Roots of the Mother Tree ed by Claire Dorey, Janet Rudolph, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren (Girl God Books, 2025).] Asherah and Taghonia: A Moroccan Rain Ritual with Roots in Ancient Goddess Worship Laura Shannon The Great Mother Goddess was honoured throughout ancient North Africa and the Near East, with many different names. In and around Canaan, she was known as Asherah, Mother of Creation, Queen of Heaven, and consort of the male god El/Yahweh.[1] In Canaan, countless archaeological discoveries of ‘images of the Goddess, some dating back as far as 7000 BCE, offer silent testimony to the most ancient worship of the Queen of Heaven in the land that is today most often remembered as the birthplace of both Judaism and Christianity.'[2] Hebrews arrived in Canaan around 1250 BCE, and began a campaign of horrific violence to destroy the existing polytheistic religion (multiple female and male deities, the Goddess predominant) and replace it with their own newly monotheistic paradigm of one male god. The Old Testament reports how Jehovah ‘commanded’ his followers to destroy Asherah and those who worshipped her. People ignored these orders and continued to revere the Queen of Heaven, but in the end – after centuries of brutal violence – Asherah was vanquished, her followers were converted, and her rites were forgotten. At least, that is the standard narrative. However, traces of Asherah as the life-giving Goddess associated with trees and wooden poles still survive in women’s folk art and ceremonial customs throughout the region. These rituals and symbols may have survived since pre-patriarchal times through the agency of the Canaanite women who were captured, not killed, by the invading Hebrews. One possible example of surviving Asherah worship may be discerned in the rain-bringing ritual known in Morocco as Taghonja. Asherah The many names for the Near Eastern Goddess – Asherah, Ashtoreth, Astarte, Aset, Isis, Anat, Tanit, Elat, Baalat, Attoret, Athirat, Atiratu, Athtar, Ashertu, Ishtar – can all be understood as iterations of one Great Mother. In Syria and Palestine, Asherah was the most popular of these. Asherah is named in inscriptions and depicted in terracotta plaques and statues, identified with the Tree of Life along with other attributes. In clay pillar-figures, she is shown as a fertile goddess with generous breasts, and Ugaritic texts from Syria (ca. 1300 BCE) call her a wet nurse. In ancient Egypt and elsewhere, rain was seen as the life-giving milk of the Mother Goddess. Asherah was associated with water in her epithet as ‘bride of the sky’, whose lovemaking with her consort Baal, the storm god, brought rain to the people after the dry season or a time of drought. This is significant, when considering how the worship of Asherah may have survived in rain-bringing rituals in the Near East and North Africa. In Canaan, Asherah’s sacred places included high hills and mountaintops, ‘under every spreading tree and every leafy oak’.[3] Identified with the Tree of Life, Asherah was represented by wooden poles or pillars known as asherim. These were ‘cut and shaped from a tree’, ‘adorned with silver and gold’, and ‘had to be carried’.[4] Her rites were chiefly in the hands of the women, who honoured her with incense and liquid offerings, and baked sweet cakes for the Queen of Heaven.[5] Women also wove elaborate veils to dress the asherim, Asherah’s wooden pillars or poles.[6] Dozens of Old Testament references in the first millennium BCE report the violence with which Israelites attempted to suppress the worship of the Queen of Heaven. In Exodus 34:13, Jehovah exhorts Israelites to ‘destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves’. In Ezekiel 6:3-7 and elsewhere, Jehovah threatens all those who keep the old ways of Goddess worship with wholesale slaughter.[7] The people resisted. The book of Jeremiah describes a telling altercation which took place in a Hebrew colony in Egypt around 600 BCE, where the women assert: “We have no intention listening to this word you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name but intend to go on doing all that we have vowed to do, offering incense to the queen of heaven and pouring libations in her honor as we used to do, we and our fathers, our kings and our leaders in the town of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We had plenty of food then, we lived well, we suffered no disasters. But since we have given up offering incense to the queen of heaven and pouring libations in her honor we have been destitute and have perished either by sword or by famine.”[8] As Merlin Stone points out, this passage reveals that ‘the religion of the Goddess and the reverence paid to Her, even by the Hebrews of that time, was… not a new religion that they had recently adopted, but one that these Hebrews had followed before—in Jerusalem. It also strongly hints that this was a religion of women.'[9] Despite the resistance, after hundreds of years of brutal violence, the Israelites did eradicate the overt Goddess worship which had been part of women’s daily lives for millennia. Asherah’s sacred trees were cut down and the asherim were burned.[10] The Goddess religion was wiped out. Or was it? Again, the Old Testament describes how the besieging Hebrews killed the Canaanite men, boys, mothers and mature women, but captured virgin women for their own sexual use. (Numbers 31:17, 31:32–35, Deuteronomy 21:10–14). These young women, after witnessing the terrible slaughter of their families, were forced to become wives of the Hebrews. We can imagine their desperate need for comfort, connection and strength after this individual and collective trauma. Where else would they turn for succour if not to the Mother Goddess Asherah? Having been brought up in the worship of Asherah by their mothers and grandmothers, they would most likely have surreptitiously continued to honour her in the private spheres of their own homes, even though public offerings to asherim were now forbidden. These Canaanite women most likely ensured the continuing reverence of Asherah, albeit in disguise. For she was not uprooted, she did not disappear. Her …
(Essay) Ninhursaga and the Fox by Hearth Moon Rising

The fox enjoys a special affinity with women. Perhaps it’s the aesthetic appeal of this cat-like canine, with her soft thick fur that would have been appreciated when humans depended on skins for clothing. Perhaps it’s the red color of her fur. While the common Vulpes vulpes or Red Fox has the most striking color, most foxes have some red in their fur. Red is the women’s color by virtue of the blood of the womb, and it is often specifically associated with motherhood. Foxes are good mothers, or perhaps I should say good parents, since fathers and grown siblings assist in raising kits. The ferocity of the vixen defending her kits is legendary, and the fox makes a good totem of protection. The fox seems to enjoy a special relationship with the Sumerian goddess Ninhursaga, mother of all plants and animals (including people). Ninhursaga is possibly the oldest of Mesopotamian deities, measured in antiquity of worship. Her omega symbol is found in religious artifacts that date as early as 3000 BCE. Her name translates as “Queen of the Mountain” and this explains why she is also given the title “Mother of the Gods,” since the Mesopotamian deities reside in the mountain ranges that surround the Fertile Crescent. When Ninhursaga withdraws her life-giving force out of anger toward her consort Enki, it is only the fox who can sway her. Enki is the god of plant-nourishing moisture such as rain or dew, and if he dies all biological life is in jeopardy. But Ninhursaga is angry with Enki because he ate some of her vegetal grandchildren, and as she withholds her “life-giving eye” from her consort the other gods become alarmed at the increasingly dusty state of affairs. It is at this point that the opportunistic fox approaches the father sky-god Enlil and attempts to cut a deal. “What will you give me if I persuade Ninhursaga to withdraw her curse from Enki?” the fox asks. Enlil promises the cunning little canine not one but two shrines, where he will be perpetually worshiped. So the fox gets down to work. He carefully arranges his fur and applies the dark cosmetic kohl around his eyes. He anoints his body with perfume. He approaches Ninhursaga with an obsequious seductiveness, applying flattery and wheedling her into a softer stance on Enki’s transgressions. Because of the fox’s intervention, Enki’s life is spared and disaster is averted. Like so many other tales involving Ninhursaga, this one appears to be an attempt to explain practices and associations that stretch far back in prehistory, linked with forgotten matriarchal narratives. The story tells us that fox worship was once involved in the religion of the Great Mother in southern Mesopotamia. A fox cult evidently survived into historical times when its purpose and origin had become shrouded in mystery, hence the need to explain or justify the two shrines. What were those ancient hymns to the fox and what happened in those rituals? Who were those priestesses or priests who persevered in homage to the divine red canine after her worship had become anachronistic? And did the disparagement of the fox emerging in later Mediterranean cultures arise out of a need to discredit remnants of devotion to a powerful mother deity? Sources Gateways to Babylon. Ninhursag-Ki. http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/gods/ladies/ladyninhursag.html Guisepi, Robert E. The History of Ancient Sumeria. http://history-world.org/sumeria,%20Enki.htm Jordan, Michael. Encyclopedia of Gods: Over 2,500 Deities of the World. New York: Facts on File, 1993. Lariviere, Serge and Maria Pasitschniak-Arts. “Vulpes vulpes” in Mammalian Species. American Society of Mammalogists, ed., Dec. 1996. http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biology/VHAYSSEN/msi/pdf/i0076-3519-537-01-0001.pdf Littleton, C. Scott. Mythology. London: Duncan Baird, 2002.
(Art & Prose) The Soulcraft of Motherhood by Lucy Pierce

I want to say something about motherhood, about my children, about my journey of growing myself as a mother, through years of making that choice to be at odds with the world, through years of moving into discomfort and wounds and stories of lack in order to forge a deeper capacity to know myself and therefore to hold space for my children’s unique interface with life. It is my belief that the care of small humans is a mammoth, life-changing, unending magical mystery tour of world-building proportions, it is not a journey for the faint of heart or for those who require life to stay safe and clean and within one’s control. I want to talk, vulnerably, about a dawning realisation that I have never respected my children enough, that I have never respected enough their need for care and time and stillness and attention, for teaching and honesty, and the humble work of re-purposing energetic patterning., to serve rather than hinder their evolution, because I have been battling the stories that my formative years and my culture grew in me, of inadequacy and unworthiness, lack of advocacy and protection. It has taken so much for me to re write these stories and to discover within this new capacity to offer love and holding and infinitely tender compassion to my broken parts, that this is in fact the birthright of all those that are born unto life. Our survival and capacity to thrive and prosper is deeply dependant on the depth of our care givers capacity to love, care and protect. Even as a drug free, natural/water/home-birthing, breast feeding, co-sleeping mumma. I have always struggled to fully own the power and significance of the profound work I have been doing in raising these small humans, because I live in a culture that brutally minimises and subjugated the task of mothering. There have always been ways that I have berated myself for being too attached, too enmeshed, too unhinged from the ways of our world. There have always been times when I have turned my back on my children in order to seek succour from the dry breast of my culture, the hollow identity of something the world might validate as worthy, seeking to become less of the mother that I was unmistakably becoming, trying to make less of myself again, make my children’s needs less obtuse and ever present. Birthing a baby is an incredibly profound and arduous and transformational experience. Birthing oneself as mother is in one sense an aftermath of the experience of birth. On another level, birth is but the beginning of the altogether more complex experience of midwifing the emergence of the distinctive qualities and embodied presencing of “mother” into being. There is a far more subtle and prolonged process of reaching through the veils of time to retrieve our primitive maternal instincts, while simultaneously reaching forwards into our evolutionary pathways to bring through the capacities that the bloodlines of our future will demand of our grandchildren, correcting the overbearance of our ancestors, predicting the birthrights of our progeny. This is a much slower and less inevitable unfolding that requires our constant attention, formidable courage, gracious humility and evolutionary tenacity, especially in a world that is actually predicated on hindering this powerful movement towards awakening our full human potential through a path of radical self-determination. I have long felt frustration at the way our world is so ready to institutionalise “child care” as though it were something easily quantifiable and replicatable. For me as I have navigated the terrain of caring for my children it has stretched me to become a much more fierce and unruly creature. The unique needs of my children’s blueprints calling forth unfathomable strands from our ancestral lineage to be rewoven into new, less restrictive patterns. They have triggered to the profound depth of me, the particular misconfigurations of my own conditioning and I have been asked again and again to reform myself, surrender outdated beliefs and limiting perceptions, that have hindered my capacity to facilitate their own energetic evolutionary interface with life that I signed up to facilitate to the best of my ability when I opened my body to receive, gestate, and birth them earthside. I have come to realise that I am perfectly designed to endure this bone-crunching work, because I share blood and lineage with them, because their souls chose me as their mother and mine chose them. Because the universe had orchestrated these particular relationships to converge on this earth plain, at this time, to aid in the evolution of humanity as an embedded aspect of the co-creative universe. It is not easy work, growing one’s motherhood, it is a path of immense sacrifice and immeasurable joy, of gruelling labour and the most tender of becomings. In this work we are constantly birthing and growing love upon the earth, with the currency of our care, we are healing the wounded interface of the world with our kisses and our conversations, with our boundaries and our bodies. In our world those that care for children are always having to leave them behind to attend to the world, to work and to social engagement as so few social activities are designed to enrich and meet the needs of adults and children alike. We live in a very child unfriendly world, and I cannot help but wonder what the future of that world will look like. As I age and grow and endure the forging by fire of aspects of myself required to be fully available to the psycho spiritual tasks of life, I see how it is the very parts of my self that have been wounded by patriarchy that are the parts required for fierce, attuned parenting of my children. My fierce instinct, the subtlety of intuition, the strength and power to know and to act, to hold space, strong boundaries, powerful self respect and the capacity to serve the other with devotion and astute endurance. For …
(She Summons Excerpt) Cries of the World by Barbara C. Daughter

Acrylic by Barbara C. Daughter [Editor’s Note: This piece is included in She Summons: Why… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality?” Volume 1 (Mago Books, 2021).] (Meet Mago Contributor) Barbara C. Daughter https://www.magoism.net/2015/06/meet-mago-contributor-barbara-c-daughter/
(Poem & Photography) Seed Bearer by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Yesterday old eyes stung – fierce white heat – blurred vision. Singing love songs, I scattered seeds in furrows raked smooth, tucked tufts under stone… Imagining a Wildflower riot! Bittersweet orange, blue and gold winding through rice grass – sage scrub, vining over wave -like gopher mounds. I curb wild imaginings. High Desert discerns what springs to life – who will bear flowers or fruit – not me. I am Seed Bearer, Earth’s Daughter – a woman who honors her Mother by aligning herself with Her Will. Seedcasting opens the door to Ancient Story – Original Memory is restored. “Mother’s day” occurs just as the snow recedes, on the cusp of dark wings who flash crimson in the heat of the son. Working Notes I wrote this poem on March 25th 2019 without the conscious awareness that I was participating (for the first time this year) in the most ancient practice of seed sowing while honoring that first mother’s day with seed songs… Because women’s stories live through me it no longer matters what my conscious intention may or may not be. My mind – heart body knows what to do and just when to do it. Originally, ‘mother’s day’ was a celebration of the Earth Mother whose early spring stirrings begin in the northern hemisphere in late March. Thirty years ago when I first discovered this information in a book of women’s mythology I was struck by the feeling sense of discovering a profound truth that has been buried by Patriarchy. So it remains to this this day. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
Jude Lally

View all posts by Jude Lally. Jude Lally is an artist, a writer and holder of sacred space. She grew up a few miles from Loch Lomond, where the river Leven meets the mighty River Clyde, on the West Coast of Scotland. She gained her masters degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) with her thesis ‘Fire in the Head, Heart and Hand: A Study of the Goddess Brigit as Goddess Archetype and her Relevance to Cultural Activists in Contemporary Scotland’.

(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[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.] Part II: We Disagree! Stand up for what you believe but be open-minded! Naa Ayele Kumari: I am going to step away from the common responses and say this… Binary is only no in betweens if you choose sides and can’t see the whole. I have been a part of black consciousness movements and women’s movements and both have the capacity for progress as well as extreme viewpoints. Both have the capacity to become so hypercritical that the movement itself transcends common human compassion and understanding. Mother Teresa was a human being with flaws and goodness. She had a public image and private fears and insecurities.. l like all of us. She lived her life the best way she knew how.. Like all of us. She made mistakes.. misjudgments.. Like all of us. But she also DID help and inspire others to help too. It is this dualistic thinking that forces people to feel like they have to assign the label of good or bad and no in between. None of us are all good or all bad.. so it seems to me that to label her has an evil traitor who let people die is no better than labeling her an Angel of god who did no wrong. She was a woman who lived her life and managed to come to worldwide fame and inspire others to love at a time and in an institution that was highly patriarchal and women were not raised up at all. Mother Goddesses in Africa were known for great nurturing and care symbolized by carrying a baby and also carried a machete on the other side for justice. This was the fine balance of wholeness…she was the gentle rain and the storm.. This was binary, but not one or the other but both.. Opposite ends of the same pole. [H]: I’m having a powerful visceral effect from this conversation. I feel as if I’m going to vomit violently. Mother Teresa comes to me in dreams and meditations. Makes me wonder what kind of person I’m seen as if I attract her energy. I have always felt so much love for her. Naa Ayele Kumari: If she comes in your dreams and it has been healing for you… Allow it/ her to continue to be healing for you. Its all about love and anything that is not love… Leave it be.. Vomiting is rejecting something that doesn’t belong with you. Embrace love my sister. Antonia McGuire: I think we may all agree that all belief systems initially began to promote a sense of goodness or fairness to some degree, but over time they are corrupted and produce both advantages and disadvantages. Donna Snyder: Yes, Gandhi, too. Back in the 90’s when I was in a band/performance art troupe called Central Nervous System, I shocked all the guys in the band coming out with an improv in response to a melody played on a banjo tuned like a sitar, called exactly that-Yes, Gandhi. Now make no mistake, he is one of my heroes, devoid of the falsified sentimentality that clings to MT. Gandhi’s work was for the world, for the masses, not for the appropriately humbled. Yet I spoke out about his sexual practices, his use of female bodies. Telling the truth about a hero requires courage. Retreating into a blind defense of a myth is a form of ethical cowardice. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Strangely I had a discussion with someone about the “hero’s journey” moving from metaphorical to physical being part of the problem…..when the “demons” are human instead of our own flaws, there seems to be a tendency to point the finger (and gun barrel) elsewhere. [B]: Fascinating & thought-provoking conversation, all. I think the biggest stumbling block I have with MT is how her acceptance of the dogma of the Catholic church blinded her to seeing and then being moved by the suffering of others enough to do something to alleviate & not vicariously celebrate it. No wonder she “suffered a lack of connection with the Divine”. This crisis with her spirituality seems to have been divorced from her and others’ body wisdom. Self-abnegation (perhaps not the same as “sacrifice”) ultimately backfires because some small part of us insists, “I am worthy!” To which I say, “We are all worthy!” [H]: I do not see or feel that she vicariously celebrated the suffering of others. I feel that she devoted her life to deeply loving and serving the poorest of the poor. I have not been to Calcutta and I have also seen some unimaginable poverty in India that is not like anything that I’ve been exposed to before. I truly believe that she had a very deep way of working with suffering that is not necessarily visible to those more accustomed to modern medical intervention and the resources available for such. I have participated in a very small amount of poverty medicine and the resources that we take for granted are just not readily available to MANY. I learned very powerfully from my experience how blessed and fortunate and often very careless we really are with our precious resources. This discussion has been a learning experience for me. I am trying to not take the critical comments […]
(Special Post 4) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) 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 how Goma is known among the ancient Chinese. She is called The Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian xuannu). Nine Heavens refer to the confederacy of nine states, Danguk or Nine Hans. Statue of Jiutian Xuannü, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiutian_Xuann%C3%BC Another icon of Jiutian Xuannu below. https://www.tinyatdragon.com/blogs/spiritual/jiu-tian-xuan-nu-mysterious-lady-of-the-nine-heavens?fbclid=IwAR0n1Ld6tmxqTec23Pzg3DxRjEQ-DbjdGF1DU_Jjlt4eMbHdTOO9Jd7ePnc Lizzy Bluebell: Oh – now I see what the Buddha riding the deer was carrying; her Gourd. A very interesting link, thanks.”…these statues in Taoism are not for worshipping or praying. They are like a container, a magic tool, which is used to program the energies into profiles and be used for different things in Taoist magic. The outsiders cannot understand too much, and so these “Taoist secrets” are often hidden from the public in the old days or even today.” Lizzy Bluebell: Very informative passage on the power of the NINE:”Nine is the pattern of giving off power, or using up the energies of things to give off powers, just like a flashlight burning it’s battery up for the light. Sky is the pattern that relates to any pool of resources or elements that are considered the proactive party that is “starting” something or the giving side of a situation.Remember that we talk about patterns in Taoism, and it applies to everything including our FU talismans words and these special terms like Jiu Tian / Gau Tin.A practical example for this term can be used as in if you are trying to go to the kitchen and cook something for lunch. Your “sky” here is all the things in the kitchen, and ground is the kitchen itself where you put the food into “process” them. So the 9-sky stage is to have picked out the food you like and let them show themselves to let you know which one is the best to use, maybe some just smell better or some look fresher to you. Nothing has been done yet, but you are now able to “start” something because you can at least feel and sense the food’s potentials and power.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, Oh it is gourd. Yes, I forgot about the gourd symbol for Mago/Magu. It is a container for the elixir from which one drinks. It is a common pictographic/literary theme and I have images of Magu with the gourd. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, this is one heuristic analogy. Ancient Magoists depicted/perceived the universe as Nine Heavens, an equivalent to Nine States on earth for it is the lens of Nine Numerology through which they saw everything. Because ancient China removed the history of Goma, they spiritualized/philosophized the teaching of Nine Numerology. If we have Goma’s history (and the mytho-history of Old Magoism), we can perceive the meaning of Nine Heavenly directly (not through theories or analogies). Wherever and whenever the consciousness of Nine Numerology surfaces is a manifestation of Goma’s rule/civilization/religion. This will remain forever insofar as humanity continues because Nine Numerology is the principle of nature including humans. I would say that the teaching/principle of Nine Numerology is Goma’s self-redemptive soteriological gift. Insofar as we understand and honor the Nine Mago Creatrix/Nine Numerology (the female divine in general), we are endowed with the power of self-redemption. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, the character “Xuan or Hyeon 玄” refers to the quality of gynocentric spirituality, which has been made esoteric or mystic. It refers to the spirituality of the Great Goddess (Magoist spirituality). Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nine Hans or Nine Heavens manifests in such place-names as Kyūkoku (九国, Nine States). Kyushu (Nine Provinces) Island, Japan, seemingly a replica of Danguk (confederacy of nine states) representing the Nine Mago Creatrix, reflects the ancient glory of the Goma’s gynocentric rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyushu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Doumu (Mother of the Northern Dipper) also comes in the icon of eight arms. Doumu, Song Dynasty, Wikimedia Commons Domu, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doumu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: She is often conflated with Marici seated on a boar in her iconography (affine to Gemu of the Mosuo and Durga on a tiger/lion). Here Marici is depicted as four-headed and eight-armed. Marici, Wikimedia Commons Marici (Buddhism) – Wikipedia Judy E Foster: So similar to the Indian Goddess… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Indeed! I am afraid that we may not be able to feature some of the nine forms of Durga from “Hinduism”. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang There is more, Marici. Marici, Wikimedia Commons File:Marichi, Buddhist Goddess of Dawn, China, Qing dynasty, 18th… Marichi, Source below. Marichi (Buddhist Deity) – Kalpoktam (3 faces, 8 hands)… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: This is new info. on the nine tripod caldrons of ancient China. “The Nine Tripod Cauldrons (Chinese: 九鼎; pinyin: Jiǔ Dǐng) were ancient Chinese ritual cauldrons. They were ascribed to the foundation of the Xia (c. 2200 bce) by Yu the Great, using tribute metal presented by the governors of the Nine Provinces of ancient China.[1] At the time of the Shang Dynasty during the 2nd millennium bce, the tripod cauldrons came to symbolize the power and authority of the ruling dynasty with strict regulations imposed as to their use. Members of the scholarly gentry class were permitted to use one or three cauldrons; the ministers of state (大夫, dàfū) five; the vassal lords seven; and only the sovereign Son of Heaven was entitled to use nine.[2] The use of the nine tripod cauldrons to offer ritual sacrifices to the ancestors from heaven and earth was a major ceremonial occasion so that by natural progression the ding came to symbolize national political power[3] and later to be regarded as a National Treasure. Sources state that two years after the […]
(Special post) The Goddess Inanna: Her Allies and Opponents by Hearth Moon Rising

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld is one of the most fascinating myths ever told. Not just because it is profound and enlightening, although it is certainly that. It’s an exciting journey that ignites the imagination, and female characters are at the hub of the action. This is a tale of power: power that is demanded, power that is won, power that is appropriated, and power that cannot be escaped. The story follows the fertility goddess Inanna, who brought civilization to Mesopotamia, as she seeks to expand her realm by venturing into the world below. Inanna’s experiences in the great below, her escape, and the wild events that unfold as a result of her caper are the focus of the tale.

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 …
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 Winter Solstice is a celebration of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Triple Goddess in particular – as both Solstices may be, as dark or light come to fullness. Winter Solstice Moment celebrates the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb, and the gateway from that fullness back into new growing light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being, and Her birthing happens in every moment in the breath, and is seamlessly connected with all layers of being – of self, Earth and Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsVZzXtoyM The Text in the Meditation[i] Take a deep breath and let it go. Notice the Void at the bottom of emptying your breath … feeling it, and feeling the Urge to breathe as it arises. And again … feeling it over and over – this breath that arises out of the full emptiness in every moment, birthing you in every moment. – Recall some of the birthings in your life, your actual birth – see it there in your mind’s eye … you coming into being – your Nativity, your Nativity. Recall projects you have brought into being, new beings within yourself, perhaps children, new beings in others, how you have been Creator and Created – even at the same time … who was birthing who? Staying for a while with the many, many birthings in your life. – recalling now Earth-Gaia’s many birthings out of the Dark everyday … the dawn is constant as She turns. See Her in your mind’s eye – the constant dawning around the globe, the constant birthing. Recall Earth’s many births right now of all beings – as day breaks around the globe – the physical, emotional, spiritual births. Her many, many birthings everyday, and throughout the eons. recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. – recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. Come back to your breath – this wonder – none of it separate … the Origin Ever-Present, birthing you in every moment – out of Her Fertile Dark, in real time and space. Feeling this breath, Her breath. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, Winter Solstice ceremonial script, p. 195-196. Reference: Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology. Music: Fish Nite Moon by Tim Wheater, permission generously given Images: – Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pl. 155. See https://pagaian.org/book/cover-goddess-image/ – Winter Solstice window, MoonCourt Australia 2016 – some sources unknown
Summer Solstice Poiesis by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(Essay) The Wheel of the Year and Climate Change by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ The Wheel of the Year in a PaGaian cosmology essentially celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, in which Earth’s extant Creativity participates directly, as does each unique being. The Creativity of Cosmogenesis is expressed through Earth-Sun relationship as it may manifest and be experienced within any region of our Planet. In PaGaian tradition this is expressed with Triple Goddess Poetry, which is 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 it does in the Seasons, happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: and that is because this tilt 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, 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[i]. 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 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[ii], and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found[iii]. 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. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ 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 our 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[iv]. 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. At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make everyday around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming into being and passing away[v]. Our need for …

(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] Magoist Calendar is the inter-cosmic genealogical chart of the Creatrix in which all is found kindred. It unfolds the one standard unified time, which I call the Cosmic Mother’s Time or the Mago Time, wherein all beings in Our Universe from microcosmic quarts to macrocosmic celestial bodies are perceived in continuum. The Cosmic Mother’s Time is an inclusive time in which everyone is re-membered and celebrated. It is revelatory for its numinous nature, which some may call a mystery. The Mago Time is happening
(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/
(Pilgrimage Essay 1) Report of First Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen Hwang

[Author’s note: First Mago Pilgrimage to Korea took place in June 6-19, 2013. We visited Ganghwa Island, Seoul, Wonju, Mt. Jiri, Yeong Island (Busan), and Jeju Island.] Part 1 Magoist Alchemy and Consanguinity of All Peoples My study of Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, has hurled me into uncharted territory. (In fact, my life hurled me onto a labyrinthine path.) Mago is not a mere subject of my study. Or, study is not a mere brain activity for me. Mago has been the answer to my intellectual/spiritual quests. And I am to carve out my own destiny. Studying Magoism has become a way of life to me. Magoism is the term that I coined to name the mytho-historical-cultural context in which Mago is venerated. Assessing a large body of source materials that I documented, I learned that Magoism is one of the most comprehensive contexts that can explain East Asian civilizations as a whole. It feels right that reconstructing Magoism, the method that I employed in studying Mago, is the reason why I study Mago. Ever since I began to contemplate the topic of Mago for study in 2000, I have visited Korea, my native land, almost annually and undertook such activities as documentation, presentation, trips, and field research for the purpose of measuring the landscape of Magoism. In enacting those projects, I have worked with a variety of groups and individuals including feminists, scholars, friends, and the general public. For the last three years, I have organized various sizes of pilgrimages to near and far places with Koreans. Those experiences have gradually led me to the unfolding mystery of Magoist spiritual/intellectual reality. That said, it was my honor and privilege to organize and lead the very first intercontinental Mago Pilgrimage to Korea from June 6 to June 19 in 2013. This pilgrimage made a memorable landmark in Magoism. About a decade ago, Mago was hardly known among goddess people in the West. And the situation was not so far different from that in Korea. At that time, I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation on Mago from a multi-disciplinary perspective, not knowing what was forthcoming. The Mago Pilgrimage envisioned the remarkable change!