September 11, 2020August 30, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 9) The Blending of Bön, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture by Krista Rodin

An Uncertain Future One of the ways the legends have been popularized and coopted is in the public murals that grace the wall outside the Yongling Tourist Office. In keeping Read More …

September 10, 2020July 6, 2023 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Music) Harp in the Time of Plague by Jillian Burnett

Harp in the Time of Plague is a serious toned work that considers the compassion for being that suffer in this time. This piece uses tone to find strength through hardship, and Read More …

September 9, 2020August 25, 2020 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 5) What It’s Like to Live on Wimmin’s Land by Hearth Moon Rising

These essays don’t have to be read in order, but previous ones are here, here, here, and here. Thus far, I’ve confined my series on wimin’s land mainly to the hardships. It is Read More …

September 8, 2020September 8, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Speech 1) A Crucial Time of Choice by Anne Baring

[Author’s Note: This and the next sequel are from my talk for Humanity Rising, delivered on August 11th, 2020]. I would like to offer an archetypal overview of why the Read More …

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

Goddess as Religion by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from chapter 2 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. The Female Metaphor/Goddess is often stated as (given the status of) Read More …

September 5, 2020September 4, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Anne Baring

Anne Baring b. 1931. MA Oxon. Ph.D. (honorary) in Wisdom Studies Ubiquity University 2018. Jungian Analyst, author and co-author of 7 books including, with Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Read More …

September 4, 2020September 5, 2020 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Poem) Forest by Susan Hawthorne

I have been thinking about climate grief recently and the effect that climate catastrophe is having on so many parts of the world, so many animals and the natural environment. Read More …

September 3, 2020August 30, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 15) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Read More …

September 2, 2020August 31, 2020 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Prose) Ritual in These Times by Arlene Bailey

It’s a beautiful day and Mother Nature looks gorgeous in all her summer fullness. It is also a day where the energies are erratic and challenging and one of those Read More …

September 1, 2020September 3, 2020 Kaalii Cargill2 Comments

(Essay) Eternity by Kaalii Cargill

“Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. it is a third self, occasional in some of us, Read More …

(Essay) The Magic Comb by Hearth Moon Rising

One of the first things I do upon rising in the morning is to comb my hair. In my mind, detangling my hair is a way of sorting out my thoughts, helping me to think clearly. Some readers of this blog are old enough to remember being given a comb, brush and mirror set for a special “big girl” birthday. It would be the finest set a family could afford — expected to be used the girl’s entire life. Ivory, tortoiseshell and silver were the most fashionable materials, valued as much for their dearness as their utility. Today, a comb is not an item of conspicuous consumption, and wooden combs are preferred because they detangle without leaving a static charge. Still, a comb is a very personal object, and most women value one with size, shape and tooth-spacing conducive to her particular hair. Not surprisingly, women (and sometimes men) were once buried with their combs, and the quality and workmanship of the comb provides information about the status of the individual. The oldest extant combs are carved of bone, ivory or antler, although very rarely, a wooden comb survives the passage of time. A few mucky-mucks went to the other world with a gold comb. Since some mummies have been discovered with lice, it’s a good thing the ancient Egyptians included nit-combs in their burial goods, although I personally prefer to envision an afterlife without head lice. Despite the importance and ubiquity of the implement, little has been noted about the comb and its symbolism. Marija Gimbutas has identified a comb symbol going back to the painted vultures at Catal Huyuk (6,000 bce). She finds the comb symbol on a variety of pottery and goddess figures from Neolithic and Iron Age Europe. Combs from the Switzerland area portray stylized feminine forms with breasts or vulvas. Gimbutas adds that: To this day, European peasants use the comb for protection against diseases and other evils and for healing purposes. Children and women after childbirth wear comb pendants on their front or back, a custom inherited from prehistory when it was considered necessary to appease the Vulture (Death) Goddess during the period of her rule in order to secure a safe and healthy life. The comb as women’s symbol refers not just to hair combs but combs associated with processing textiles, once exclusively women’s work. The goddess Athena murders her rival Arachne with a loom comb. The comb symbol often appears on spindle whorls. Hittite tablets record a rite for newborns performed by the midwife involving a sheep’s wool comb. There is a strong connection between hair combing and water. Sea goddesses like Venus are pictured with combs. In folklore, rain can be caused by combing hair. Sometimes pearls, which come from the ocean, are combed out of hair—although a witch can also cause hideous things to be combed. Pre-Christian and medieval symbol stones from Scotland, called “Pictish Stones,” frequently show a comb-and-mirror combination. It is not known exactly what the comb-and-mirror signifies, except that it is believed to be a feminine symbol. In Scottish lore, seductive mermaids are famous for sitting on rocks combing their hair, a special magic they perform to lure sailors to their death. The Irish goddess Medb, with her legendary sexual appetite, has a comb as her symbol. Sexuality, particularly women’s sexuality, has been considered a malevolent force by Christianity, but the mermaid with her comb and mirror is carved on many Irish churches, indicating the symbol may once have had a more benign interpretation. Perhaps the power of the mermaid combing her hair symbolized the fertility of the sea, offering a bounty of food. In Germanic folklore, mythic creatures with combs also perform mischief. If a man chances upon a water nymph combing her hair, he must assume she has called him there with her magic and marry her within three days, or he will die. Sprites come out at night to comb the manes of horses or the beards of goats, presumably to gain power from these animals. In a Russian fairytale, a cat with a magic comb appears, and this comb is like no other. Drawing on the contrary nature of the domestic cat, this comb tangles instead of detangles. The heroine uses the cat’s comb to create a tangled forest behind her as she escapes her pursuer. The Christian church at one time recognized the ritual power of the comb. Liturgical combs were widespread in the early Middle Ages, although their exact symbolism and function is unknown. There are obscure references to ritual hair-combing of priests that may still occur in some Christian churches but details are not available. A comb spell for Halloween surfaced in colonial America that probably has older precedents. A woman (always a woman) would light a candle and sit before a mirror, combing her hair while looking for her future lover behind her shoulder. This form of divination remained a popular Halloween game to the early twentieth century. Comb spells are surprisingly scarce in books about modern witchcraft, and the comb is not listed as one of the core magical tools in any book I have run across. Ed Fitch, in Magical Rites from the Crystal Well, has offered a comb-and-mirror spell for women that is somewhat well-known. The comb is a powerful magical tool, almost exclusively a woman’s magical tool, and we should make better use of it. Comb-and-mirror spells are simple and need little elaboration. Though I’ve combed only a limited geographic region for this article, I have no doubt that women’s magical traditions around the comb could be found in West Africa, China, India, and probably many other places as well. Though combs have gotten some attention as art history, the comb as a shamanic tool has not been adequately explored. Sources Answers.com “Liturgical Comb.” http://www.answers.com/topic/liturgical-comb-1 The British Museum, “Liturgical Comb Made of Ivory.” http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/i/liturgical_comb_made_of_ivory.aspx. Edwardian Promenade. Hallowe’en in the Guilded Age. http://edwardianpromenade.com/amusements/halloween-in-the-gilded-age/ Fitch, Ed. Magical Rites from the Crystal Well. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, …
(Poem) Women of my Surroundings by Alshaad Kara

Image from Unplash No shame, no shyness,They fed me with strength.Despite the world being harsh,They did their best to bear everythingIn order for me to survive.My anger towards this worldWas their puissance to voice out.Life was never easy for them.It was a game of circumstances.But the blood I have in my body,Is their contribution making meA feminist of perspectives. https://www.magoism.net/2023/12/meet-mago-contributor-alshaad-kara/
(Pandemic Poem 6) The New Ones by Jyoti Wind

Golden Rose, Photo by Jyoti Wind The New Ones The old Gods tumble like huge mountains, tumbling backwards on themselves. The land and seas take them back, bury them with love, as their time is over. The new Ones rise, hearts ablaze with love, light radiating from their brow, to illuminate the path they will walk with the people, partners in the new earth, come from far off finally to blaze forth the new time, the future Golden Age we were all born to initiate. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Goddess Writing 5) Notes by Kaalii Cargill

Life size image of Lilith by Kaalii Cargill, 1992. Acrylic and pencil. Author’s note: We can question the validity of differentiating between masculine and feminine principles or, indeed, the validity of perpetuating any dualisms. However, back in 1999 when I was writing my doctoral thesis, I found the following useful in sorting my understanding of the forces at work within myself and in the World. Edited excerpt from Don’t Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess – Just as the elements of the feminine principle emerge from archetypal reality, so do the elements of the masculine principle. We can see this in the patriarchal myths that still underlie the modern worldview. These myths have, however, become unconsciously accepted as absolute truth, determining beliefs, social values, and the current religious attitude to science.[i] The basic character of the archetypal masculine has been described as rationalising, abstracting, and controlling, as in the myths of one supreme male God: the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, Allah in the Islamic world, and Zeus in ancient Greece, a king-like energy also personified in ancient and modern heroes. Psychologically, the masculine principle represents an emphasis on individual focus, rational intentionality and personal will; a sense of personal identity that rests in a separate self answerable to the law of the Father as God or King. The archetypal masculine has been described as focused, divisive, and assertive, while the archetypal feminine has been described as diffuse, connective, and receptive. Obviously both men and women can embody these qualities. Understanding and experiencing the differences can allow us to develop choice about which principle we call on in our lives. Since the advent of Sky God religions, patriarchal consciousness is in the territory of eternal spirit, that which always was and always will be, a position fundamentally opposed to the genetic principle, the principle of creativity and generativity that underlies aspects of feminine consciousness.[ii] This reflects the philosophical stance of Socrates, Plato and Descartes in which all that is pure and constant is incorporeal, not of the body, with little place for subjective embodied experience. I have often wondered if the strong attraction to Eastern spirituality arises in part from this philosophical idea of eternal spirit. It is as if two generations of disillusioned Westerners have turned to Eastern spirituality without fully realising that they may still caught within a transcendent philosophy. It is, however, a confusing task to sort this particular pile of beans and seeds. There is a fundamental paradox in patriarchal consciousness – it cannot avoid the use of nature symbols except in abstract conceptualisations such as mathematics.[iii] As symbols of the feminine principle, life-giving nature symbols do not belong in patriarchal consciousness. Even while it attempts to distort and degrade the nature symbols, patriarchal consciousness wants to take over the creativity of the life-giving power of the feminine. This can be seen in ordinary English language. The following sentences show words relating to the life-giving aspect of the feminine being applied to activities or projects of ‘masculine” creation; Our nation was born out of a desire for freedom. His writings are products of his fertile imagination. His experiments spawned a host of new theories. Your actions will only breed violence. He hatched a clever scheme. He conceived a brilliant theory of molecular motion. Universities are incubators for new ideas. The theory of relativity first saw the light of day in 1905. The University of Chicago was the birthplace of the nuclear bomb.[iv] A more recent addition might be: I create my own reality. The root metaphor for creativity in the English-speaking world is procreation, predominantly the function of women. What patriarchal consciousness does, however, is translate the feminine function of creativity into activities and projects characterised by masculine principles, leaving the feminine principle without the pride of creation. And leaving many of us confused about the philosophies and spiritual paths we adopt. One of the strongest links we still have to Goddess is through the life-giving power of the feminine. Women still give life through their bodies. This is so obvious that we forget the magic of it. Life does not come through men’s bodies, test tubes, or incubators; life still comes into being through women’s bodies. Despite contraceptive chemicals and more than two thousand years of negative conditioning, women’s bodies continue to respond to the cycles of the moon, to the rhythms of Nature. The ancient magic of the life-giving power of women is still with us. Take a moment to consider the extraordinary fact that women have always been able to do something that men cannot do: grow and bring forth new life from their bodies. That we take this for granted (and even see it as a burden women must bear) represents a terrible loss of power. Women are the life-givers, and this is a sacred task. Today we are on the threshold of losing this completely. To science and technology. To the misinformation of a patriarchal culture that denigrates Nature. (Meet Mago Contributor) Kaalii Cargill. [i] EC Whitmont, 1982, Return of the Goddess, Guernsey, Great Britain, The Guernsey Press, p 78. [ii] E Neumann, 1991, The Great Mother, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press., p. 58. [iii] ibid. p. 50. [iv] G Lakoff & M Johnson, 1981, The metaphorical structure of the human conceptual system, in DA Norman, ed., Perspectives on Cognitive Science. First Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Logola, CA, Ablex Publishing Corp., pp. 74-75.
(Poem) spirit by Jhilimil Breckenridge

i know when spirit stills it is when the eagle perches, tearing flesh held in one claw the crow patiently waiting i know when spirit stills it is when clouds are mottled cream painted onto the blue mulmul kurta that is the sky
(Prose) Starting the Garden by Francesca Tronetti

Wikimedia Common’s image Spring is still many weeks away, but for the gardener, the process of life has already begun. While the compost pile thaws, breaks down, then freezes with the new snow. Starting and stopping over and over again. Until one day, the sun stays out and warm. Birds have started to return from their winter roosts. The buzzards are back, searching for the carrion frozen in the snow. It is the middle of March, and the seeds for the garden have been planted. Sage and basil fill one starter tray. Canterbury bells, delphinium, lupine, cosmos, perennial flowers, fill a few more. After spending eight weeks in the fridge, a large tray of lavender seeds sits in the sun, waiting for its warmth to coax them to grow. They will be started in the gentle sun, but once they break the surface, they will be under the care of grow lights, giving them the eight hours of growth they need to thrive. Another tray is filled with vegetable seeds, and five types of peppers are waiting to sprout. Three are hot peppers, bound for the community garden. Two are sweet peppers, some for the community, some for me. My mini peppers have such a high germination rate that I will be giving away seedlings to my coworkers this year, I hate to let them go to waste, so the sprouting seeds will have to go into the soil soon. Eggplant, beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and kale, are planted and sitting under the sun. It is the time to watch and wait, to check the moisture in the soil while the first greens poke their heads above the starting mix. For the first few weeks, they don’t need anything from us aside from water. Nature has provided them with the nutrients they need to start on their way. But, they are not in nature; they are in a sterile mix with minimal nutrition. After a time, the gardener must provide what nature normally would. Carefully measured amounts of liquid fertilizer must be added each week, half of what would be used for full-size plants. After that, the seedlings will be transplanted every few weeks to larger pots, giving the roots room to grow; until late May or early June when they are placed in the sun-warmed soil of the garden. Those seeds which do not like to be started and moved will also be planted into this soil. Squashes and sunflowers, lettuce and spinach, beet and carrots, flowers and herbs. They can be bought in pots at a garden center, but they prefer to start, live, and flower in one place. So much activity occupies the gardener inside and outdoors in the next few months. Growing and tending tender seedlings, digging up rocks and raking in compost, and setting up beds and supports, which will soon be used. Then there are the little things, the bird feeder, roosts, and water sources for pollinators. Laying out a plan to mix flowers and vegetables in a manner pleasing to the eye. Wikimedia Common’s image If Persephone was returning to her mother’s arms today, she would see the earth still barren and covered with snow. But her siblings, the daughters and sons of other goddesses and gods are helping to make her return joyous. When we finally step out, there will be instant explosions of color which will last until the snow again covers the ground. Beginning with the first flowers, there are continuous blooms from the fruiting trees as they entice bees to visit them, from the tall flowers planted for the butterflies, from the vegetables as they ripen and fill the eyes with shades of yellow, orange, red, and purples. The color will continue into the fall, when the warm colors take over from the sunflowers, pumpkins, corn, and winter squash. This entire life cycle of the summer is dependent on the now. When it is too cold to work outside; when the blowing winds will kill the tender spouts. It starts now, with a few seeds placed in small pots, covered, and set out to warm in the weak sun. https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/
(S/HE V3 N1 Book Review) Barbara A. Mann & Kaarina Kailo’s The Woman Who Married the Bear, Goddesses, Reviewed by Vivien Gibbons

[This is from S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (V3 N1, 2023) Its Ebook edition and paperback are available at Mago Bookstore.] This book includes photos and drawings that illustrate and support the research and arguments contained within thereby making the content more accessible. In the book, The Woman Who Married the Bear, Barbara A. Mann and Kaarina Kailo, do an excellent job exploring Bear spirituality across cultures in Indigenous North America, Indigenous Eurasia, and the European North identifying clues that Bear traditions can be dated as far back as 80,000–120,000 BP. Studying tales of Bear and the Woman Who Married the Bear they can correlate the changes in Bear spirituality with the shift from ancient matriarchy and its life-oriented values that include gifting, regeneration, and eco-balance to patriarchal values of power, killing, and subjugation. The authors propose that a return to the Original Instructions that Bear had given has the potential to offer modern-day humans “ecological salvation” derived from an emphasis on humans living in balance with nature, other animals, and each other. The authors have long-standing careers in the academic community and together their experience culminates in decades of research, writing, and teaching. They draw upon traditional academic research, Indigenous wisdom and stories, and archaeomythology. By using archaeological, ethnological, mythological, and literary sources they are better able to compare and discern the implications of Bear spirituality and The Woman Who Married the Bear making thisa very rich book with much to teach and contribute to the field of Goddess Studies. In the book Barbara A. Mann and Kaarina Kailo reveal the ancient origins of Bear spirituality and its intimate connection with women. Due to archaeological evidence of Bear practices dating as early as 80,000–120,000 BP, the authors propose that Bear spirituality is possibly the oldest – and first – religion. Stories throughout Northern cultures say that Bear came from the sky to the earth and gave humans the Original Instructions. Bear teaches how to live in harmony with all beings thereby ensuring everyone receives nourishment through modeling “honor, respect, self-sacrifice, kindness, renewal, and spiritual potency.” (41) After arriving on earth an intimate relationship develops between Bear and woman. People noticed similarities between the Bear’s cave and women’s wombs; they were both dark, and protective, and life emerged from them – in the case of bears when they arose from hibernation it appeared as though they were returning from death. Both Bear and women share the powers of life, death, and regeneration. Bear not only had an affinity with women but also married a woman becoming a Bear husband who would care for and protect her and their children, even willingly sacrificing himself for them. The motif of women marrying bears creates a bond between species and between the cosmos, from where Bear originates, and the Earth where women originate—reminding humans that we are a part of the ecosystem not separate from it. The woman-bear marriage formed a serious symbol announcing the kind of spirituality that results from respecting nature and treating it as a partner, as kin, rather than as a mere resource for human consumption and abuse…..Hieros gamos [sacred marriage] provides the key to the message of these tales and their fragments. A woman’s marriage to Bear might have likewise constituted a hieros gamos between Heaven and Earth, as is the case in some Eurasian plots. (99) Gradually, the Woman Who Married the Bear stories changed from women marrying the bear and creating harmony between species to men becoming the protagonists of the story rescuing a woman – usually their sister – from the “bad” bear and then killing it and feasting upon it joyfully. “This story, once about female fertility, re/birth, and continuance, is now about violence, patrilineage, and male squabbles over inheritance.” (Mann, Barbara A., Kaarina Kailo. The Woman Who Married the Bear. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 138). These changes track the takeover by patriarchy as the Bear stories shift from female-centered celebrating life to male-centered celebrating death. Barbara A. Mann and Kaarina Kailo hypothesize that cultures replaced matriarchial values with patriarchal ones as a way to cope with the massive ecological changes happening across the planet during the Younger Dryas. This epoch was triggered by a meteorite hitting the earth 12,900 years ago. Invasion by roaming raiders moving east into the Americas and west into Eurasia combined with sky-born calamity to summon the switchover in Bear messages. The false suns rose and the stars fell; nature died, as nuclear winter set in. The humans who survived the drastic thinning of their numbers between 12,900 and 11,700 BP were numb with cold and anger, at the winter that would not end, and at the old ways of matriarchy for betraying them. Patriarchal domination became the new lifeway, with killing and control the new set points. (180) The authors conclude that the current condition of the planet and our societies is dire and a return to the values and practices of When Woman Married the Bear holds the chance for global salvation before it is too late. Barbara A. Mann and Kaarina Kailo reveal an ancient spiritual tradition grounded in Bear teachings with a deep connection to women. Uncovering the original stories and lessons of northern Bear spirituality reveals another face of the ancient goddess, “At Neolithic sites dating back to 7,000–6,000 bce in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, researchers have found hundreds of clay figurines representing the bear, suggesting her as epiphanic of the ancient mother goddess.” (Mann, Barbara A., Kaarina Kailo. The Woman Who Married the Bear. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 85) The incorporation of this goddess and Bear spirituality brings new depth and an ancient lineage that adds to the growing field of Goddess Studies. I enjoyed this book and appreciate how much I have learned. By using archaeological, ethnological, mythological, and literary sources the authors create a far more comprehensive study and understanding of the Bear path. They highlight how Western bias in the collection and …
(Poetry & Photography) Lady of the Canyon by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wight And the canyon held her Like a mother holds a grieving child who lost her holy place to slaughter. The trees wept. Today, she gathered pinion pine, fir, and spruce to acknowledge the sanctity of trees in this dark season of golden winter light. She gathers in the greening. The scent of pitch sticks to hands tipping branches In Love. Giving thanks. She imagines beloved black bears dancing behind boulders, feels a powerful beary presence nearby… She has been offered another gift in this place where clear spring waters tumble down steep mountain cliffs and watercress grows… (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Essay 8) From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt by Krista Rodin

[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time and culture, remain relevant today.] Beautiful Maiden to Dangerous Magician Isis is most often depicted as a beautiful young woman, hence the relation to Aphrodite. By the New Kingdom, however, she took on attributes of the joy-giving Hathor with her bovine horns as well as feline characteristics. Once the two merged, Isis also became associated with large and small feline goddesses. Bastet became a form of Isis. Witt remarks: In Graeco-Roman times the functions of the cat divinity were taken over by Isis. In the temple of Edfu the mythological list explains that the soul of Isis is present as Bastet and in a well-known Greek Hymn to Isis the introductory epiclesis are ‘goddess of Bubastis, bearer of the sistrum.’ On the sistra found in the Iseum at Pompeii the figure of the she-cat is frequent. As the lioness divinity Tefnut merged into Bastet, so Bastet herself in course of time was identified with Isis …33 Isis as Hathor is clearly seen in this passage as is her relationship to Bastet. The sistrum was Hathor’s instrument. It was always identified with her worship as the sistrum and rattle were part of her rituals and dances. The sistrum’s bangles jangle to produce repeatable sound patterns and, therefore, music. As Bastet was a form of Hathor, it was not uncommon to have the sistrum with Bastet’s face as well as the more popular cow visage. Plutarch mentions that he was familiar with what he calls the Isiac rattle, a sistrum, that had “a cat with a human face and below it, under the sound-producing part, on one side the face of Isis and on the other that of Nephthys, the former meaning birth or creation, the latter death or the end. We are also informed that the cat symbolizes the moon.”34 By the Graeco-Roman period, Isis the loving virgin mother, protector of people in this life and beyond, healer of the sick, and overseer of resurrection, was also the goddess of joy, dance, music, and the magic arts. This Apollonian/Dionysian combination made it easy for her to be identified with so many other non-Egyptian deities, which ultimately helped to popularize her presence throughout the Empire. For Plutarch, ‘wise and wisdom-loving’ Isis was a ‘philosophic’ divinity, sharing in the love of the Good and Beautiful and imbued with the purest principles. She taught her followers to pursue penitence, pardon and peace. Elsewhere she is characterized as being the inventress of all, as having divided earth from heaven, as making the universe spin round and as being triumphant over Fate, Fortune and the Stars. … On the whole human race she could be thought to bestow her love, being its never-absent redeemer and its haven of rest and safety, the Holy One –sancta et humani generis sospitatrix perpetua.35 Isis, Classical Period, Kunsthistorisches Museum,Vienna. Photo, K. Rodin Once the Christian Fathers ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, the deities associated with those temples were abandoned. In ancient times, a deity was thought to reside in the temple and sacrifices to the deity kept them involved in people’s lives. Without the temple, there would be little occasion for the appropriate rites, rituals and sacrifices to be made. This was what made the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem so particularly d devastating for the ancient Israelites36 and led to the concept of a deity who had no need of a particular site for worship as the god could be worshipped all over. Even the earlier Egyptian Aten, perhaps the first monotheistic god, was worshipped through the pharaoh, Akhenaten, and not directly. The Judean patriarchs, who along with their wives and children and others of the community, were forced to march to Babylon in 587 BCE after that nation’s conquest of Judah, needed to find a way to keep their community and their faith together while in exile in a pagan metropolis filled vibrant cultural exchanges and numerous temptations where the goddess Ishtar reigned. Like Isis, Ishtar was seen as both wise and wanton, depending on place and era. Ishtar was demonized by the ancient Hebrews, while, after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, Isis, was split into images of the Virgin Mother of God, who incorporates elements from a variety of mother goddesses from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and the magic-wielding witch. In North America and England, popular culture portrays witches as having a few common traits: they use magic, they fly though the air, they are associated with the moon and the dead, they have cats as familiars, use frogs in their spells, and they often have ravens or birds of prey. Isis is the goddess of magic, she is a lunar sky goddess while she is equally at home in the Underworld, she is Bastet, the cat, she is assisted by Heqet the frog goddess in the birthing chambers, and she is the falcon god Horus’ mother, while she also oversees a person’s ba, which is depicted as a ravenesque bird in the Underworld. Eye of Horus, Hathor figures, Isis-Ba and Maat in the center, wall in Kom Ombo. Photo, K. Rodin The ecstatic hedonistic part of Hathor/Isis became a witch. A Pyramid Text ‘Hymn to Hathor’ invokes her with: Come, oh Golden One, who eats of praise because the food of her desire is dancing, who shines on the festival at the time of lighting (lamps), who is content with the dancing at night. Come! The procession is in the place of inebriation, That hall of travelling through the marshes, Its performance is set, Its order is in effect, Without anything lacking in it.37 Hathor dances at night with a feast complete with inebriating drink, i.e., she is the ecstatic side of the goddess. A similar transformation from heavenly goddess to witch occurred to Hecate.38 While Hecate’s transformation took place prior to Christianity, Isis’ split seems to have occurred afterwards. Prior to the Inquisition, witches were often non-conformist women and men; they were not considered evil or associated with Satan until the Inquisition’s purges. From the 15th to the 18th century, anyone who spoke against the order of the day, i.e., the church, or religious order, or those who used non-conformist medicines to heal, or those who were simply different could be burned at the stake as witches. There are no exact figures on the number so tortured, but generally agreed upon estimates are that well over 40,000 people suffered death …

(Review) Journey into Dreamtime by Munya Andrews, reviewed by Glenys Livingstone

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion or spirituality of Indigenous Australians, Munya Andrews of the Bardi people from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, acknowledges this and chooses to name her recently published book with it, explaining that: “I love the term … For me, it conjures up a magical and mysterious world.”, and she feels that the term aligns perfectly with the common global religious concept that Diety is beyond words and human understanding. For me, as Munya Andrews describes “Dreamtime”, it seems resonant with the sense of “ever-present Origins”[1]; that is, original space and time that is omnipresent. This is a space/place that I understand to be referred to as “between the worlds” and “beyond the bounds of space and time”, by Indigenous Europeans (Pagans), a tradition with which I am familiar. I understand it to be a sentient world in which we are immersed actually, and which may be revealed to the observant person in synchronous moments. With practice one may live with clearer everyday connections with this world, and Munya’s book is an important contribution to making those connections from within the cosmology of her people; and for “all beautiful souls to keep the Dreamtime alive”, as she says in the book’s dedication. This book provides informative story that should be part of every Australian’s education at various levels: it lays a groundwork and also elicits deepening understandings. The teachings offered in Journey into Dreamtime should be considered essential knowledge for living on this land named Australia, whereas heretofore most present occupants have often not had easy access to such learning. This very readable and small book provides some basic facts: for example, that there are “250 or so Indigenous nations, each having their own language, their own names and ‘country’ or tribal lands.”; and that terms such as Koori, Nunga or Murri are “pan-Aboriginal” names taken on since colonisation, for the sake of asserting a distinct Indigenous identity, in the face of forced removal from families and land. In the course of the seven chapters Munya develops understanding of Dreamtime, and also understandings of Indigenous Law, Songlines, sacred sites, bush doctors/bush medicine, Rainbow Snake, and Kindredness. I found all of this really helpful, an invitation into a world of being and relationship; and it is told with frequent analogies from Western science and academic and spiritual texts, with which the reader may be more familiar, enabling the bridge into Indigenous science and worldview. There is a list of suggested readings offered, along with links and details for further connection and learning. At the conclusion of each chapter of Journey into Dreamtime there are “Dreamtime Reflections”, posing questions for personal consideration, inviting personal participation and pathways into some actual sense of an alive self in relationship with the alive world described. This book needs to be in spaces/places where everyday people can read it, like waiting rooms of all kinds (where there are frequently Bibles); as well as in every library, and especially Australian libraries. I highly recommend Journey into Dreamtime as an educational resource, for your self, for educational programs, and/or for any group that you may gather. Aunty Munya, as she names herself, has an impressive track record of speaking engagements, mentioned at the conclusion of the book, and invites you to have her speak to your organisation. She describes her life purpose as “to create better understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal people and to leave behind a legacy of Dreamtime wisdom for generations to come.” May it be so, as readers of Journey into Dreamtime absorb its teaching and resources. To order a copy of Journey into Dreamtime visit Evolve Communities NOTES: [1]“ever-present origin” is the English translation of Jean Gebser’s Ursprung und Gegenwart, Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag, 1966.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 1) 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 I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in […]
(Special Post) Discussion on Mother-Daughter Wound by Mago Circle Members

[Mago Circle members discussed and answered the question, “What do you think of this (the topic article below)? If you are a feminist, it is something that you would promote? If so, why? If not, why not?” The discussion took place on May 15, 2017 and shortly thereafter in The Mago Circle.] Topic Article: “For The Daughters Who Don’t Love Their Mothers – Screw Mother’s Day” by Sade Andria Zabala Everyone talks about a mother’s unconditional love. But what if it doesn’t exist? Daughters are socially expected to be close with their mothers. But are you one of the women who aren’t? Mother’s Day isn’t just for celebrating moms. It’s a day some of us dread because we are reminded we grew up (or are still) unloved, not good enough. (Read the whole article here.)

A Southern Hemisphere Perspective on Place by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the Introduction to the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which was an outcome of her doctoral research/thesis entitled The Female Metaphor – Virgin, Mother, Crone – of the Dynamic Cosmological Unfolding: Her Embodiment in Seasonal Ritual as Catalyst for Personal and Cultural Change. This doctoral work was in turn a documentation and deeper research of the Seasonal ceremonial celebrations that the author was already engaged in for over a decade. The whole of the process is here named as her “Search”. photo credit: David Widdowson, Astrovisuals. The site of seasonal ceremonial celebrations will always be significant. In my case, the place in which I have created them has been notably in the Southern Hemisphere of out Planet Earth. The fact of my context being thus – the Southern Hemisphere – had contributed in the past to my deep internalized sense of being “other”, and dissociated from my senses, since almost all stories told were based in Northern Hemisphere perspective. Yet at the same time this context of inhabiting the Southern Hemisphere contributed to my deep awareness of Gaia’s Northern Hemisphere and Her reciprocal Seasonal Moment: thus, awareness of the whole Planet. My initial confusion about the sensed Cosmos – as a Place, became a clarity about the actual Cosmos – which remained inclusive of my sensed Cosmos. PaGaian reality – the reality of our Gaian “country” – is that the whole Creative Dynamic happens all the time, all at once. The “other”, the opposite, is always present – underneath and within the Moment. This has affected my comprehension of each Sabbat/Seasonal Moment, its particular beauty but also a fullness of its transitory nature. Many in the Northern Hemisphere – even today – have no idea that the Southern Hemisphere has a ‘different’ lunar, diurnal, seasonal perspective; and because of this there often is a rigidity of frame of reference for place, language, metaphor and hence cosmology[i]. Indeed over the years of industrialized culture it has appeared to matter less to many of both hemispheres, including the ‘author-ities’, the writers of culture and cosmos. And such ‘author-ity’ and northern-hemispheric rigidity is also assumed by many more Earth-oriented writers as well[ii]. There has been consistent failure to take into account a whole Earth perspective: for example, the North Star does not need to be the point of sacred reference – there is great Poetry to be made of the void of the South Celestial Pole. Nor need the North be rigidly associated with the Earth element and darkness, nor is there really an “up” and a “down” cosmologically speaking. A sense and accountof the Southern Hemisphere perspective with all that that implies metaphorically as well as sens-ibly, seems vitally important to comprehending and sensing a whole perspective and globe – a flexibility of mind, and coming to inhabit the real Cosmos, hence enabling what I have named as a ‘PaGaian’ cosmological perspective, a whole Earth perspective. It has also been of particular significance that my Search has been birthed in the ancient continent of Australia. It is the age of the exposed rock in this Land, present to her inhabitants in an untarnished, primal mode that is significant. This Land Herself has for millennia been largely untouched by human war, conquest and concentrated human agriculture and disturbance. The inhabitants of this Land dwelt here in a manner that was largely peaceful and harmonious, for tens of thousands of years. Therefore the Land Herself may speak more clearly I feel; one may be the recipient of direct transmission of Earth in one of her most primordial modes. Her knowledge may be felt more clearly – one may be taught by Her. I think that the purity of this transmission is a significant factor in the development of the formal research I undertook – in my chosen methodology and in what I perceived in the process, and documented; from my beginnings as a country girl, albeit below my conscious mind in the subtle realms of which I knew little, to the more conscious times of entering into the process of the Search. In this Land that birthed me, ‘spirit’ is not remote and abstract, it is felt in Her red earth[iii]. Aboriginal elder David Mowaljarlai described, “This is a spirit country”[iv], and all of Her inhabitants, including non-Indigenous, may be affected by the strength of Her organic communication. It took me until the later stages of my research to realize the need to state the importance of this particular place for the advent of the research: the significance of both the land of Australia, and the specific region of the Blue Mountains in which I was now dwelling, as well as the community of this particular region, which all lent itself to the whole process. The lateness of this perception on my part, has to do with the extent of my previous alienation; but the fact that it did occur, is perhaps at least in part attributable to the unfolding awakening to my habitat that was part of the project/process. The specific region of the “Blue Mountains” – as Europeans have named them – is significant in that I don’t think that this project/process could have happened as it did in just any region. David Abram says, “The singular magic of a place is evident from what happens there, from what befalls oneself or others when in its vicinity. To tell of such events is implicitly to tell of the particular power of that site, and indeed to participate in its expressive potency[v]”. Blue Mountains, Australia: Dharug and Gundungurra Country The Blue Mountains are impressive ancient rock formations, an uplifted ancient seabed, whose “range of rock types and topographical situations has given rise to distinct plant communities”[vi]; and the presence of this great variation of plant communities, “especially the swamps, offer an abundance and variety of food sources, as well as habitats for varied fauna”[vii]. I feel that this is the case for …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 3) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. MAPPING THE MAGOIST CALENDAR According to the Budoji, the Magoist Calendar was fully implemented and advocated during the period of Old Joseon (ca. 2333 BCE-ca. 232 BCE) whose civilization is known as Budo (Emblem City). Indeed, the Magoist Calendar is referred to as the Budo Calendar in the Budoji. Budo was founded to succeed Sinsi and reignited Sinsi’s innovations including the numerological and musicological thealogy of the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji expounds on the Magoist Calendar as follows: The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a cyclic period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds up to 365 days. At the half point after the third Sa, there is a Pan of the big Sak (the year of the great dark moon). A pan comes at a half point of Sa. This is of Beopsu (Lawful Number) 2, 5, 8. A Pan is equal to a day. Therefore, the fourth Sa has 366 days. At the half point after the tenth Sa, there is a Gu of the big Hoe (Eve of the first day of the month). Gu is the root of time. Three hundred Gu makes one Myo. With Myo, we can sense Gu. A lapse of 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si makes one day. This is of Chesu (Physical Number), 3, 6, 9. By and by, the encircling time charts Medium Calendar and Large Calendar to evince the principle of numerology.[12] KEY TERMS Calendric Cycles Jongsi (終是 Ending and Beginning): Cyclic periods Soryeok (小曆 Little Calendar): One year Jungryeok (中曆 Medium Calendar): Two years Daeryeok (大曆 Large Calendar): Four years Names of Year, Month, Day, Week Sa (祀 Rituals, year): One year refers to the time that takes to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month): One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day): One day refers to the sun’s movement due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week): Each weekday is dedicated to seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the Celestial Bodies, completion of a week): One week refers to the veneration of the seven celestial bodies. Names of Monthly Transition Days Hoe (晦 Eve of the first day of the month, 28th) Sak (朔 First day of the month, 1st, the dark moon) Names of Intercalation Days Dan (旦 Morning): Leap day for New Year Pan (昄 Big): Leap day for every fourth year Names of Time Units Gu (晷 sun’s shadow): Time measure, 1/300 Myo Myo (眇 minuscule): Time measure, a total of 300 Gu Myo-Gak-Bun-Si (眇刻分時 minuscule, possibly 15-minutes, minute, hour): Time measure, 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si is equal to a day Names of Three Types of Numbers in Nine Numerology Seongsu (性數Natural Number): 1, 4, 7 in the digital root Beopsu (法數 Lawful Number): 2, 5, 8 in the digital root Chesu (體數 Physical Number): 3, 6, 9 in the digital root THREE SUB-CALENDARS The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). The universe is infinite without beginning and ending. Everything runs the course of self-equilibration in relation to everything else. The Way of Heaven or the Way of the Creatrix circles and makes possible the infinite time/space to be measured and calculated. As the Way of Heaven circles, we are able to perceive Our Universe in finite measures of time/space. Time becomes measurable, as space is stabilized. Seasons and days-nights are demarcated in cyclic patterns, as the Earth makes the three cyclic movements of rotation, revolution, and precession. Calendar, born out of the inter-cosmic time, synchronizes human culture with the song/dance of the universe. The term Jongsi, which means an ending and a beginning, is equivalent to “a cyclic period” that is marked by the beginning and the end. Time (a day, a month, and a year) circles, as space (the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun) spirals. The Magoist Calendar has three sub-calendars: The period of one yearly cycle is called Little Calendar, whereas the period of two yearly cycles is called Medium Calendar and the period of four yearly cycles, Large Calendar. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang) Notes [12] Budoji, Chapter 23. See Bak Jesang, the Budoji, Bak Geum scrib., Eunsu Kim, trans. (Seoul: Gana Chulpansa, 1986).
(Essay) The Emergence celebrated at Spring Equinox by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Spring Equinox Moment occurs September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere, March 21-23 Northern Hemisphere. The full story of Spring Equinox is expressed in the full flower connected to the seed fresh from the earth; that is, it is a story of emergence from the dark, from a journey, perhaps long, perhaps short, through challenging places. The joy of the blossoming is rooted in the journey through the dark, and an acknowledgement of the dark’s fertile gift, as well as of great achievement in having made it, of having returned. Both Equinoxes, Spring and Autumn, celebrate this sacred balance of grief and joy, light and dark, and they are both celebrations of the mystery of the seed. The seed is essentially the deep Creativity within – that manifests in the Spring as flower, or green emerged One. the full story: the root and the flower As the new young light continues to grow at this time of Spring, it comes into balance with the dark at Spring Equinox, or ‘Eostar’ as it may be named; about to tip further into light when light will dominate the day. The trend at this Equinox is toward increasing hours of light: and thus it is about the power of being – life is stepping into it. Earth in this region is tilting further toward the Sun. Traditionally it may be storied as the joyful celebration of a Lost Beloved One, who may be represented by the Persephone story: She is a shamanic figure who is known for Her journey to the Underworld, and who at this time of Spring Equinox returns. Her Mother Demeter who has waited and longed for Her in deep grief, rejoices and so do all: warmth and growth return to the land. Persephone, the Beloved Daughter, the Seed, has navigated the darkness successfully, has enriched it with Her presence and also gained its riches. Eostar/Spring Equinox is the magic of the unexpected, yet long awaited, green emergence from under the ground, and then the flower: this emergence is especially profound as it is from a seed that has lain dormant for months or longer – much like the magic of desert blooms after long periods of drought. The name of “Eostar” comes from the Saxon Goddess Eostre/Ostara, the northern form of the Sumerian Astarte[i]. The Christian festival in the Spring, was named “Easter” as of the Middle Ages, appropriating Goddess/Earth tradition. The date of Easter, which is set for Northern Hemispheric seasons, is still based on the lunar/menstrual calendar; that is, the 1st Sunday after the first full Moon after Spring Equinox. In Australia where I am, “Easter” is celebrated in Autumn (!) by mainstream culture, so we have the spectacle of fluffy chickens, chocolate eggs and rabbits in the shops at that time. There are other names for “Eostar” in other places …the Welsh name for the Spring Equinox celebration is Eilir, meaning ‘regeneration’ or ‘spring’ – or ‘earth’[ii]. In my own PaGaian tradition, the Spring Equinox celebration is based on the Demeter and Persephone story, the version that is understand as pre-patriarchal, from Old Europe. In the oldest stories, Persephone has agency in Her descent: She descends to the underworld voluntarily as a courageous seeker of wisdom, and a compassionate receiver of the dead. She represents, and IS, the Seed of Life that never fades away. Spring Equinox is a celebration of Her return, Life’s continual return, and thus also our personal and collective emergences/returns.We may contemplate the collective emergence/returns especially in our times. I describe Persephone as a “hera”, which of old was a term for any courageous One. “Hera” was a pre-Hellenic name for the Goddess in general[iii]. “Hera” was the indigenous Queen Goddess of pre-Olympic Greece, before She was married off to Zeus. “Hero” was a term for the brave male Heracles who carried out tasks for his Goddess Hera: “The derivative form ‘heroine’ is therefore completely unnecessary”[iv]. “Hera” may be used as a term for any courageous individual: and participants in PaGaian Spring Equinox ceremony have named themselves this way. The pre-“Olympic” games of Greece were Hera’s games, held at Her Heraion/temple[v]. The winners were “heras” – gaining the status of being like Her[vi]. At the time of Spring Equinox, we may celebrate the Persephone, the Hera, the Courageous One, who steps with new wisdom, into power of being: the organic power that all beings must have, Gaian power, the power of the Cosmos. This Seasonal ceremony may be a rejoicing in how we have made it through great challenges and loss, faced our fears and our demise (in its various forms), had ‘close shaves’ – perhaps physically as well as psychicly and emotionally. It is a time to welcome back that which was lost, and step into the strength of being. Spring Equinox/Eostar is the time for enjoying the fruits of the descent, of the journey taken into the darkness: return is now certain, not tentative as it was in the Early Spring/Imbolc. Demeter, the Mother, receives the Persephones, Lost Beloved Ones, joyously. This may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the sixty-five million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. They describe the Ecozoic Era as a time when “the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation”[vii]. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning” of our times[viii]. Collectively we have been away from the Mother for some time and there is a lot of pain. At this time we may contemplate not only our own individual lost wanderings, but also that of the human species. We are part of a much bigger Return that is happening. The Beloved One may be understood as returning on a collective level: …
(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Autumnal Equinox occurs each year in the range of March 20-23 in the Southern Hemisphere, and in the range of September 20 -23 in the Northern Hemisphere. Autumn Equinox is a point of sacred balance: it is the point of balance in the dark part of Earth’s annual cycle. Sun is equidistant between North and South as it was/is at Spring Equinox, but in this dark phase of the cycle, the trend is toward increasing dark. Henceforth the dark part of the day will exceed the light part: thus it is a Moment of certain descent … and a sacred Moment for feeling and contemplating the grief and power of loss, for ceremoniously joining personal and collective grief and loss with the larger Self in whom we are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZflKLkvP8 Below is the text of the video. It is based on the traditional poetry for PaGaian Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony[i]. This is the Moment of the Autumnal Equinox in our Hemisphere – the moment of balance of light and dark in the dark part of the cycle. The light and dark parts of the day in the South and in the North of our planet, are of equal length at this time. We feel for the balance in this moment – Earth as She is poised in relationship with the Sun … breathing in the light, swelling with it, letting our breath go to the dark, staying with it. In our part of Earth, the balance is tipping into the dark. We remember the coolness of it. This is the time when we give thanks for our harvests – all that we have gained. And we remember too the sorrows, losses involved. The story of Old tells us that Persephone, Beloved Daughter, is given the wheat from Her Mother – the Mystery, knowledge of life and death. She receives it graciously. But she sets forth into the darkness – both Mother and Daughter grieve that it is so. Demeter, the Mother, says: “You are offered the wheat in every moment … I let you go as Child, most loved of Mine: you descend to Wisdom, to Sovereignty. You will return as Mother, co-Creator with me. You are the Seed in the Fruit, becoming the Fruit in the Seed. Inner Wisdom guides your path.” We give thanks for our harvests – our lives they are blessed. We are Daughters and Sons of the Mother. Yet we take our Wisdom and all that we have gained, and remember the sorrows – the losses involved. We remember the grief of the Mother, of mothers and lovers everywhere, our grief. Persephone descends. The Beloved One is lost. Persephone goes forth into the darkness to become Queen of that world. She tends the sorrows. The Seed represents our Persephones, who tends the sorrows – we are the Persephones, who may tend the sorrows. We go out into the night with Her and plant our seeds. Persephone blesses us with her fertile promise: “You have waxed into the fullness of life, And waned into darkness; May you be renewed in tranquility and wisdom[ii].” These represent our hope. The Seed of life never fades away. She is always present. Blessed be the Mother of all life. Blessed be the life that comes from Her and returns to Her. We tie red threads on each other: we participate in the Vision of the Seed – of the continuity of Life, that continues beneath the visible. The Mother knowledge grows within us. Our hope is in the Sacred Balance of the Cosmos – the Thread of Life, the Seed that never fades away: it is the Balance of Grief and Joy, the Care that we may feel in our Hearts. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, p. 239-247. [ii] Charlene Spretrnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, p. 116. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: a Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992/1978.
(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Sekhmet by Katlyn Each year between December 20-23 Sun reaches Her peak in the Southern Hemisphere: it is the Summer Solstice Moment. Poetry of the Season may be expressed in this way: This is the time when the light part of day is longest. You are invited to celebrate SUMMER SOLSTICE Light reaches Her fullness, and yet… She turns, and the seed of Darkness is born. This is the Season of blossom and thorn – for pouring forth the Gift of Being. The story of Old tells that on this day Beloved and Lover dissolve into the single Song of ecstasy – that moves the worlds. Self expands in the bliss of creativity. Sun ripens in us: we are the Bread of Life. We celebrate Her deep Communion and Reciprocity. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express Her fullness of being, Her relational essence and Her Gateway quality at this time. And also for consideration, is the fact that 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 Summer Solstice. As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable, that which can only be known in body, below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syTBjWpw3XU Shalako Mana Hopi 1900C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess), Corn Mother. Food is a miracle, food is sacred. She IS the corn, the corn IS Her. She gives Herself to feed all. The food/She is essential to survival, hospitality and ceremony … and all of this is transmuted in our beings. Sekhmet Contemporary image by Katlyn. Egyptian Sun Goddess. Katlyn says: Her story includes the compassionate nature of destruction. The fierce protection of the Mother is sometimes called to destroy in order to preserve well being. And Anne Key expresses: She represents “the awesome and awe-full power of the Sun. This power spans the destructive acts of creation and the creative acts of destruction.”- (p.135 Desert Priestess: a memoir).A chant in Her praise by Abigail Spinner McBride: Sheila-na-gig 900C.E. British Isles. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). From Elinor Gadon The Once and Future Goddess (p.338): “She is remembered in Ireland as the Old Woman who gave birth to all races of human…. In churches her function was to ward off evil”, or to attract the Pagan peoples to the church. From Adele Getty Goddess (p.66): “The first rite of passage of all human beings begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. In India, the vulva “known as the yoni, is also called cunti or kunda, the root word of cunning, cunt and kin … (the yoni) was worshipped as an object of great mystery … the place of birth and the place where the dead are laid to rest were often one and the same.” Getty says her message here in this image “is double-edged: the opening of her vulva and the smile on her face elicit both awe and terror; one might venture too far inside her and never return to the light of day …” as with all caves and gates of initiation. In the Christian mind the yoni clearly became the “gates of hell”. And as Helene Cixous said in her famous feminist article “The Laugh of the Medusa”: “Let the priests tremble, we’re going to show them our sexts!” (SIGNS Summer 1976) Kunapipi (Australia) “the Aboriginal mother of all living things, came from a land across the sea to establish her clan in Northern Australia, where She is found in both fresh and salt water. In the Northern Territory She is known as Warramurrungundgi. She may also manifest Herself as Julunggul, the rainbow snake goddess of initiations who threatens to swallow children and then regurgitate them, thereby reinforcing the cycle of death and rebirth. In Arnhem Land She is Ngaljod …” (Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller – thanks to Lydia Ruyle). More information: re Kunapipi. NOTE the similarity to Gobekli Tepe Sheela Turkey 9600B.C.E., thanks Lydia Ruyle.Lydia Ruyle’s Gobekli Tepe banner. Inanna/Ishtar Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E. (Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature) She holds Her breasts displaying her potency. She is a superpower who feeds the world, nourishes it with Her being. We all desire to feel this potency of being: Swimme and Berry express: “the infinite striving of the sentient being”. Adele Getty calls this offering of breasts to the world “a timeless sacred gesture”. Mary Mother of God 1400 C.E. Europe (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A recognition, even in the patriarchal context that She contains it all. Wisdom and Compassion Tibetan Goddess and God in Union. This is Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle). Sri Yantra Hindu meditation diagram of union of Goddess and God. 1500 C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, p.75). “Goddess and God” is the common metaphor, but it could be “Beloved and Lover”, and so it is in the mind of many mystics and poets: that is, the sacred union is of small self with larger Self. Prajnaparamita the Mother of all Buddhas. (The Great Mother Erich Neumann, pl 183). She is the Wisdom to whom Buddha aspired, Whom he attained. Medusa Contemporary, artist unknown. She is a Sun Goddess: this is one reason why it was difficult to look Her in the eye. See Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! REFERENCES: Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1990. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess.Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Katlyn, artist https://www.mermadearts.com/b/altar-images-art-by-katlyn Key, Anne. Desert Priestess: a memoir. NV: Goddess Ink, 2011. Mann A.T. and …
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.

(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Species, comprised of the divine, demigods, and humans.” [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.] Magoist Origin of Immortals: All in the Mago Species are given the original nature of immortality or transcendence. Readers are advised to set aside the literal meaning in the English language of the words immortals or transcendents. Immortals is a translation of the East Asian term seon (仙, xian in Chinese). I choose the translation immortals over transcendents not because it is a better translation but because it is the most commonly used term by Western Daoist translators.[i] Although it is known as a Daoist term, I hold that it is pre-Daoist, namely Magoist, in origin. Primarily, it refers to the Mago Species (Mago and Her descendants) who dwelt in Mago Castle, the primordial home, to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Likewise, historical figures known as Immortals are Magoist rather than Daoist.
(Goma Article Excerpt 2) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books]. Background Discussions Hanung (Her Title) and Sindansu (Divine Goma Tree) We will peel off the layers of patriarchal and Sinocentric devices that conceal her unparalleled supreme manifestations. In a conventional interpretation, we are told that Goma and Hanung are two different persons as the mother and the father of Dangun. This proves to be an androcentric invention to divest Goma of supremacy. Goma is not the consort of Hanung. Nor Hanung the male counterpart of Goma. Goma and Hanung refer to the same figure, not a heterosexual couple. It is her title (Hanung 桓雄) that is split from her (Goma) and made into a male ruler. Androcentric interpreters have noted the two homonyms “Ung (熊 bear)” and “Ung (雄 hero)” but made them two different figures. Thus, they deem that the former “Ung” refers to Ungnyeo, the bear-woman, whereas the latter “Ung” to Hanung, the male ruler. However, the latter “Ung” does not mean a male. It is true that logographic characters are characteristically polysemic. And Ung is no exception as it means “a hero,” “a great person,” or “a male bird.” When it is used to mean a male, it refers to a male bird or animal. The literal meaning of Hanung should be the heroic ruler (Sovereign) of Han (the People of the Creatrix). In short, the character “Ung (Hero),” as is in Cheonung (天雄 Heavenly Hero) and Sinung (神雄 Divine Hero), refers to Goma, the heroic founding ruler (Sovereign) of Danguk. The idea that Hanung is the male ruler remains unsupported. First of all, the present myth is rife with female symbols and images including the cave initiation, the divine tree, conception, and procreation. Indeed, the Goma myth is a completely pacific or rather pacifying story, void of conquering, killing or raping. Secondly, the idea of Hanung as a male founder is left without a direct connection with the bear clan (Ungjok) and the Goma words, a topic to be explicated in detail at a later section. Most critically, if Hanung were the male ruler, his association with Sindansu would be too superficial to give due meaning to the Korean foundation myth. The present myth ascertains that the protagonist of the Sindansu (Divine Goma Tree) motif is a female. Sindansu, the tree of life or the world tree, to be explicated at a later section, is credited with one of the most pivotal mythemes, if not the most, of the Korean foundation myth. It is the cosmic tree, which Goma envisioned for the common origin of all beings from the Triad Creatrix and prayed for conception without a male partner. The syllable, “dan (檀)” in “Sindansu,” refers to the divine tree in Mount Taebaek. It is the eponymous root of the terms that indicate the Goma people. It is used in such words as Danguk (Goma State), Dangun (Head of the Goma State), and Danmok (Goma Tree), to name a few. Note that “Danguk was the strongest among the states of the bear clan,” headed by queens,[1] indicating that Danguk was the the confederal mother state that led the nine daughter states. Put differently, Danguk represents the matriarchal (magocratic, referring to a society ruled by a Magoist shaman queen) confederacy of the bear clan states.[2] Goma’s alternative epithets including “Ungssi-ja (Decendant of the Goma Clan), “Ungssi-wang” (Ruler of the Goma Clan), and “Ungssi-gun” (Head of the Goma Clan) substantiate that she is the ruler and head of the bear clan.[3] Also note that Dangun, Goma’s dynastic successor, “was enthroned as the Descendant of Heavenly Sovereign, as she established the capital in Danmok, Asadal, succeeding Danguk.”[4] Danmok is another word for Sindansu. Its alternative meaning “the birch” comes from the sound of “bakdal (박달).” Prominent Koreanists tend to agree that the character “dan” is related to “barkdal (밝달),” “baekdal (백달),” and “baedal (배달),” all of which indicate the Korean people.[5] However, they do not seem to see the multi-connection among Sindansu, Danmok, Baedal and Goma (Ungnyeo). Thus, they fail to see the Magoist context of the Goma myth. The Goma myth is about Danmok and Sindansu, Goma’s tree in Mount Taeback (Great Resplendence). The Divine Tree of Mount Taebaek is wherein Hanung Goma descended to rule the world. Goma has been commemorated as Ungsang (熊常Eternal Tree) and Dangmok (堂木 Shrine Tree) throughout history. The Goma tree sheds light on the origin of the tree worship in Korea and beyond. According to the Handan Gogi, the veneration of Ungsang originated from the time of Danguk and revived throughout the period of Dangun Joseon.[6] In traditional Korea, it is enshrined as Dangmok (Shrine Tree) in village shrines, Seonhwang-dang. It is not haphazard that Korean women are noted for their prayers of conception under the shrine tree. Splitting Goma into Ungnyeo and Hanung has resulted in awkward phraseology especially concerning her procreation in the story. Ultimately, it proves to be an androcentric device to dismiss the mytheme of her parthenogenetic birth to a child, the virgin birth, a contradictory concept to the patriarchal mindset. She, the shaman queen of the bear clan, was enthroned as Hanung, the dynastic founder Hanung of Danguk. Also, her offspring, Dangun, is the new queen-founder of Joseon who succeeded Danguk, rather than her biological son. The Goma myth is the story of a polity not a family. I maintain that the shaman rulers in Old Magoism (Hanguk, Danguk, and Joseon) are predominantly women.[7] In addition to “Hanung,” other titles of Goma include “Cheongwang (天王 Heavenly Ruler),” “Cheonung (天雄Heavenly Sovereign),” “Sinung (神雄 Divine Sovereign),” “Cheonhwang (天皇 Heavenly Empress),” “Seonhwang (仙皇Immortal Empress), and “Daeung (大雄Great Hero).” The Goma worship in Korean culture remains too pervasive to be recognized. As suggested in these alternative epithets, it has shaped the landscape of Korean popular religions, in particular Shamanism and Buddhism. Most prominently, the Goma worship manifests in the form of revering the Shrine Tree (Dangmok) in Seonhwang-dang (Seonghwang-dang or …
(Video) Gurang (Nine Goddesses), Gaeyang Halmi (Grandma Gaeyang), and Goddess Gom: Exploring Old Magoism in Korea by Helen Hwang

Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. Read (Photo Essay 5) Gaeyang Halmi, Sea Goddess of Korea.

Month: September 2020

(Essay 9) The Blending of Bön, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture by Krista Rodin

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(Music) Harp in the Time of Plague by Jillian Burnett

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(Essay 5) What It’s Like to Live on Wimmin’s Land by Hearth Moon Rising

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(Speech 1) A Crucial Time of Choice by Anne Baring

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Goddess as Religion by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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(Meet Mago Contributor) Anne Baring

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(Poem) Forest by Susan Hawthorne

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(Essay 15) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

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(Prose) Ritual in These Times by Arlene Bailey

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(Essay) Eternity by Kaalii Cargill

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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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