September 8, 2021September 1, 2021 Mago WorkLeave a comment

The Friendship Spell by Hearth Moon Rising

In the mid-80s, in San Francisco, I was having roommate problems. I don’t remember what sparked the issues, exactly, and I’m not sure I ever knew. The only thing clear Read More …

(She Summons Excerpt) It Matters What Stories Tell Stories by Annukina Warda

[Editor’s Note: This essay was included in She Summons: Why Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality? Volume 1, coedited by Kaalii Cargill and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Mago Books, 2021).] It matters what stories tell stories. It matters what thoughts think thoughts. It matters what worlds world worlds. Donna Haraway What if Nature does more than speak… – what if it also reads and writes, calculates and creates, copulates with itself in the most perverse, creative and also destructive ways? What if it is political through and through? Vicki Kirby Multiculturalism is about including stories of difference. Se trata de otras narrativas. It is about alter-narratives. The stories of multiculturalism are stories of identity, and narratives of identity are stories of location. A story is always a retelling of an older story. This is my retelling. Gloria Anzaldua I have always understood myself through story. The importance of language and finding just the right words is a point I often consider. I grew up loving picture books and thesauruses and asking my tri- lingual mother “What’s the word for…” and “How do you say…” Sometimes I find myself not being able to find the right words. Other times I take the liberty of creating new ones. Finding alternative ways of saying things that seem closer to the truth as I understand them is critical intellectual labour. Words are powerful. They write us into being. I am a person who grew up in-between worlds – worlds of culture, of class, of legitimate and invisible identities. The borderlands, Chicana feminist-poet and scholar Gloria Anzaldua called this location. Finding my own voice to articulate an answer to the ubiquitous “Who are you and where do you come from?” has been an ever-shifting, challenging and often-painful residence in the borderlands. Anzaldua says we overcome this marginalisation by code-switching, by crossing borders. I have mumbled my way through the codes of the different spaces I have occupied in my life as a body in a world that privileges mouths and voices as speakers. I have screeched with rage within that same world that privileges certain mouths and particular kinds of voices that get to speak, and when spoken in particular tones. I grew up as a Syriac-speaking person, a guest on the unceded ancestral territories of the Darug nation. I spent my childhood in the working-class-meets-welfare communities of Fairfield. And I was told, over and again by the old people in my community ‘Loup leshana’ – learn language. I say Syriac-speaking, and not Assyrian, because my ancestral community, the ancient tribes of the Land of Two Rivers (Beth-Nahr-Ain), have been trying to find just the right words, just the right stories, to explain who we are and where we fit into someone else’s code. Before British anthropologist Layard began to research us in the mid1800’s to discover we were speaking a very old language, we understood ourselves by our tribal affiliations in a world prior to nations and borders and flags. In the new world, we are still arguing over just the right name that could represent us to those who demand it. Through the new lens of nationhood, for a people with no land-rights, my community has been re-articulating our stories ever since. Cultural identity was the first narrative to code my experience. For me, land (and what country you are from) constructed one of the most crucial parts of my identity. For Assyrians, like many Indigenous folk around the world, ‘your country’ is not a border or a flag or a government, it is a piece of earth, or river or sky. In my language, we call this country Atra. And so by the time I went to primary school I already knew that what I was named and what we name ourselves reflects not only our dignity and our sovereignty but might determine the conditions of our lives. I already knew that colonial notions of sovereign states did not represent my understanding of who I was, but there was no space for that language then, under 1980’s multicultural policy which fixated on flag waving and food fairs. As I grew I learnt that life in the body of a woman – and its subsequent re-presentations – is a complex entanglement of agency, injustice, creativity and destruction. Contrary to the Cartesian binary split between mind and body, I understood my earth story as a very concrete, and sometimes ineffable materiality. It is the materiality of our body-as-existence that I wish to expand upon within this provocation. I want to rethink the ways that the stories we tell about our material world and our place within it author that world. Our bodies have a power and an agency that functions not merely as a resource for the brain that commands it into being the way colonial Europe imagined it. Elizabeth A. Wilson explored the gut as more minded than the brain in her work Gut Feminism. Inspired by her, and a school of thinking called ‘new materialist feminism,’ I am going to uncover how the material world shapes and writes us. I want to do this to blur the boundaries between who (or what) gets to ‘author the text’ about our lives. I want to disrupt the understanding that the mind or thought is more ‘reasoned’ than the rest of my body and for the sake of this publication, the lives and bodies of young people. We often hear that young people are under-represented in public life, that their voices ‘need to be heard’ in the context of social policy making and institution-building. Some work is done in this arena, not nearly enough. Critics abound about whose voices even get to be heard in community consultations. That only certain articulations are ‘heard’ – think translated – because the one asking has programmed a code that young people must decipher in order for dialogue. This highly sophisticated skill of code-translation is wielded by many Aboriginal, Indigenous, Black and Peoples of Colour. In the land of youth services …
(Art) Womb of the Earth by Susan Clare

In searching for spiritual meaning, the spiral path that Woman walks may lead toa small, quiet, central place within her consciousness, safe within the nurturing womb of our Mother Earth, protected by layers upon layers of sharp crystal shards of thought – our armor in the modern world. This calm and steady epicenter provides a retreat to rest or heal, whenever we need to go there. Meet Mago Contibutor Susan Clare
Meet Mago Contributor, Max Dashú

Max Dashú teaches global women’s history and heritages through images. In 1970 she founded the Suppressed Histories Archives to research mother-right, female spheres of power, goddess veneration and shamanic arts, as well as patriarchy and the history of domination. Drawing on a legendary collection of some 30,000 images, she has created 130 slide talks, which she has presented at universities, women’s centers and bookstores, conferences, festivals, libraries, prisons, museums, and schools. (http://www.suppressedhistories.net) She also presents them online as webcasts. Dashú has keynoted at conferences such as the Association for Women in Mythology and the Pagan Studies Conference, and presented at international conferences in Germany, Bulgaria, Mexico, Britain, and the US. Her articles have appeared in Goddesses in World Culture (Praeger, 2010), Feminist Theology, and other anthologies and journals. “Breastpots” is the latest in her series of posters on female heritages. Dashu has just released a new double dvd Woman Shaman: the Ancients (2013), following up on her acclaimed video Women’s Power in Global Perspective (2008).
(Book Excerpt 5) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Shapeshifting Mythic Griefscapes Through the Divine Wisdom of the SealwomanDr. Fee Mozeley I belong nowhere and everywhere. A particular kind of grief grows from my sense of place-based estrangement. As a sixth-generation white Australian woman, I live and have always lived on stolen lands. I was born overseas but have no memory of that place. We moved a lot throughout my childhood, and as a teenager I experienced violence in the place we lived making returning difficult. And yet, anytime I am outdoors whether in forests or cities, anywhere I can see the sky and feel the Earth, I feel a sense of belonging. These deeply felt tensions are hard to reconcile. It is in these moments that I turn to women’s stories to ground my place-based sorrow. In this chapter, I explore my Earth-felt longing and belonging through inhabiting the mythic landscapes of a Selkie folktale. There are many versions of this story told across the cold-cold lands of the north. In these frigid places, Clarissa Pinkola Estés (1992, 257) reminds us that “words freeze in the open air, and whole sentences must be broken from the speaker’s lips and thawed at the fire so people can see what has been said”. This Selkie story, retold by eco-mythologist Sharon Blackie (2016, 71–80), comes from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, home of my mother’s people. The divine feminine does not always present as a goddess figure, sometimes she is embodied through strong female characters, like the Sealwoman and her daughter, her eleven sisters, the Cailleach and the Old Woman of the World. Their stories help make sense of my longing and belonging as a woman living in Australia’s colonially informed patriarchal present. And so, I invite you to journey with me to my ancestral mythic lands: There is an island to the far west of these lands, close to the end of the world—somewhere in your dreams you’ve seen it. Long white beaches, rocky coves, stormy seas. From the clifftops on its westernmost shores, you might sometimes catch a glimpse of the Isle of Woman way out on the horizon. When the sky is blue, and the air is still—which happens rarely enough in those parts. Here, the wind blows hard and long through the dark days of winter, and summer is precious and fleeting. Somewhere along the stormiest section of that westernmost coast is a high, inaccessible cave where they say the Old Woman of the World lives still, with her companion Trickster Crow—but no one I’ve met has ever found that cave, though many have searched, and many have drowned in the process. Maybe she’s still there, stirring the soup which contains all of the seeds and all of the herbs and the essence of all the growing and living things in the world. Maybe she’s still there, working on the most beautiful weaving in the world, with its fringe of sea-urchin quills. The story goes on to explain that: The island’s beaches are haunted by seals. Neither common nor grey seals; But then they’re not ordinary seals: they’re Selkies. And for one night every month, on the night of the full moon, they take on human form, slipping off their sealskins to dance on the beach in the moonlight. The story that unfolds is a tale of patriarchal and colonial violence as a lonely fisherman steals the skin of one of the Selkie sisters trapping her in human form and on land,exiling her, from“her home beneath the waves”. He confesses to the Sealwoman he has stolen her skin, and he pleads with her to be his wife, for seven years. ‘Seven years’, he whispered to her. ‘Give me seven years, and then I’ll give you back your skin. After that, I’ll let you decide. If you still want to leave, then I’ll let you go’. And at that moment the first light of dawn crept into the sky, and the glow of the moon began to fade. Reluctantly, then, the woman went with him, understanding that without her skin she could do nothing. She had no choice. What follows, of course, is that when the seven years pass the man does not return her skin. Mara, the Sealwoman’s daughter, finds her mother’s skin but it disintegrates in her small hands. Skinless and alone, the Sealwoman must now journey to the cave of the Old Woman of the World to find a way back home, to the sea, where she belongs. But the journey is not straight forward, as mythic journeys rarely are. She headed north. She walked in the rain, with the wind so strong in her face that every step took twice as long as it ought. She clambered over rocks so slippery she fell constantly. Her boots were cold and wet and heavy, and her heart was heavier still. It was hard, and she was weak. But still she found the Old Woman of the World’s cave and the Old Woman greeted her: “You’ve done well to make it this far, Daughter. But there’s more for you to do before you’re done”. And she told the Selkie what must be done. And so, her journey continued… Soon the Sealwoman found the cave that the Old Woman told her she would find. And as she entered, she saw what she had been told she would see. There in the centre were the skeletons and skins of eleven dead seals. These were no ordinary seals—neither common nor grey; they were Selkies. They were her sisters… So, she did as the Old Woman had told her. She lit a fire in the darkening cave, and she sat vigil over the skins and the bones. And as night fell, she began to sing over the bodies. And she sang, and she sang, over and over, singing her sisters home. Slowly, slowly, the flesh began to …
(Poem) Burning by Maya Daniel

Hearts are indeed, burning, Some with blazing torches Others with burning explosives Some with burning candles Others with fiery tongues Some with burning pens Flaming papers in red– There are songs in the fields The songs of the night. (Meet Mago Contributor) Maya Daniel.
(Book Excerpt 5) Discovering the Gift Paradigm by Genevieve Vaughan

Hitting The escalation towards dominance through competition can be done not just economically of course but also physically, psychologically, linguistically and institutionally, at the level of individuals and at the level of groups. One of the first non-nurturing interactions that boys learn is hitting. In fact hitting may be seen as a transposed gift in that one person reaches out and touches the other, transmitting physical energy, not to nurture but to hurt and to dominate. The fact that this is a transposed gift can be glimpsed in such linguistic expressions as “Take that!” and “You asked for it!” Such physical competition permits the one who can ‘give the most’ harmful blows, to dominate. As many women have noticed, there is continuity in kind between the backyard brawl and war. The same principles seem to apply in both. The technology is different though symbolically concomitant. Since the penis is the identifying property of those in the non nurturing social category, ‘male’, it is not surprising that the individuals and the groups that are competing for dominance provide themselves with ever larger and more dangerous category markers, from sticks to swords and from guns to missiles. Moreover, competition between sons and fathers for dominance pits those with the smaller phallic properties against those with the larger. Thus in an attempt to achieve the position of the exemplar (the dominant father), groups supply themselves with ever larger instruments of death, which can destroy ever more people and goods. The aspect of size can then be substituted by the aspect of effect, in that WMDs whether biological or nuclear become the mark of the dominant male ‘exemplar’ nation. This collective striving to achieve the dominant male position can have the effect of confirming the masculine identity for the men who fight and even for those who are just members of the nation. Women can fight or give support to those who fight or participate in other ways, also just as members of the nation. Society thus provides a way for groups to achieve a collective male identity that is independent from individual biological gender in that both men and women can participate in it. Male dominance is then read as neuter objective power over others and both women and men can achieve it as can, at a collective level, nations or corporate entities. Both women and men can also of course participate in a collective male dominant identity of their nation (or corporation) even if individually they are subservient or powerless. Such is the content of patriotism (or company loyalty). Racism is the participation in the collective male dominant identity of the supposed ‘exemplar’ race. Classism is the participation in the collective male dominant identity of a supposed ‘exemplar’ class. (To be continued) Meet Mago Contributor, Genevieve Vaughan
(Essay Part 1) Restoring Her as Creative Triplicity: the Urge to Be by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is the first part in a series of edited excerpts from the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Author’s note: In this three part series I continue to use the terms “Virgin, Mother, and Crone” as names for the qualities of the Triple Goddess, whom many have loved in Her different forms throughout the ages. In my opinion, the re-storying of these terms is still a useful exercise – to expand the reduced notions that have evolved over millennia of androcentric thinking and culture. In the last few decades, I sat with many women in circle and we told stories of our lives within the frame of “virgin/young one, mother/creator, crone/old one”; and found it to be a means of reconstituting a larger, deeper and freer sense of being, as we recognised ultimate and omnipresent Creative Cosmic qualities within us. I have also created new names for this Creative Cosmic Triplicity: “Urge to Be/She Who Will Be”, “Place of Being/She Who Is”, and “She Who Creates the Space to Be/She Who Returns All”. As qualities/themes of Cosmogenesis, She is multivalent.[1] She may be understood poetically.
(Book Excerpt 5) For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan

[Editor’s Note: The following sequels are from For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan. Footnotes may differ from the original text.] Words as Gifts A question arises here about the materiality of the verbal gift. Although we can identify a word as a repeatable sound unit, and it shares this character with other words, it can only be used for satisfying communicative needs, not for satisfying material needs directly. The word ‘bread’ does not satisfy the need to eat. However, communicative needs can sometimes be indirectly functional to the satisfaction of material needs. For example, ‘There is bread in the cupboard’ can be seen as a service that helps someone to satisfy her material need for bread. Saying the word ‘bread!’ as a request satisfies the listener’s need to know what we want. We could consider the lexicon as a collection of gifts satisfying different communicative needs. Each word is a sequence of phonemes, a program of vocal behaviors which may be identified by the communicative need, or needs, it satisfies. Boiling an egg is a sequence of behaviors having to do with various material objects, which satisfies the need to eat a cooked egg. Saying the word ‘egg’ is a series of vocal behaviors which satisfies a communicative need, establishing a relation with others regarding an egg or eggs. The ability to give information derives from the specification of experience through the use of these word-gifts, because the relation established is not only to the words themselves, but to things on other levels of reality, as well. The ability to receive information based on the use of words gives those words a value in the satisfaction of material needs, as well as in the satisfaction of communicative needs. Whether we should consider word-gifts as goods or as services is something like the question whether light is made up of particles or waves. The kinds of communicative needs the word-gifts satisfy have proliferated to make use of them, much as the eye and the visual cortex have developed on our planet to make use of the light. It is useful also to consider the materiality of words as somewhere between goods and services, because the gifts on the nonverbal plane which they re-present, may also be of varying degrees of materiality. From loving to the color green, from the moon to capitalism, all kinds of nonverbal things are re-presented by verbal things, creating verbal co-munication, and the formation of linguistic, and sometimes of material co-munities.[1] Just as material giftgiving-and-receiving of goods forms the physical bodies of the people in the community, verbal giftgiving-and-receiving contributes to their formation as social subjects, with psychological identities. [1] The O.E.D says that the word ‘thing’ derives from the old Norwegian word for ‘court’ which to me implies a collective judgement about the value of cultural items. I feel justified in thinking of both words and nonverbal things of varying degrees and kinds of materiality, in terms of a collective judgement about their value. (To be Continued) Meet Mago Contributor, Genevieve Vaughan
(Book Excerpt 1) Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma by Trista Hendren

https://thegirlgod.com/re-membering.php Re-Membering with Goddess: Trauma, Patriarchy and the Sacred Feminine Kay Louise Aldred For the first 42 years of my life, I pinballed from one traumatic experience to another. It is understandable that I was initially relieved that there was a ‘label’ – Complex Trauma or C-PTSD – to explain my chaotic existence. In addition, it was liberating to learn that the plethora of symptoms I had previously or continued to experience – a long list which included shame, guilt and dissociation, chronic pain, fatigue and migraine, attachment issues, co-dependency, and self-destructive thoughts and behaviours – were not personal faults, weaknesses, or indeed punishments from ‘God’ for not being ‘holy’ or ‘spiritual’ or ‘good enough,’ but were instead by-products of nervous system dysregulation. Further understanding that the nervous system dysregulation was the result of the combination of generational dysfunction and patterns, in-utero and developmental trauma, adverse childhood experiences (known as ACE) and a catalogue of traumatic events and abusive relationships in adolescence and adulthood – was the catalyst for my journey out of victimhood. I have experienced most categories of trauma and abuse, including familial suicide and alcoholism, parental emotional abuse and neglect, severe bullying, and physical assault at school, grooming and sexual assault, boundary violation and inappropriate conduct from a priest, financial and psychological abuse following divorce, and gaslighting and stonewalling by close family members. Now that I am aware of being born into a trauma landscape, I am able to forgive and be compassionate with myself. Acceptance has supported me to begin to forgive others. The predestined path of generational trauma is simultaneously no one’s fault and everyone’s responsibility to heal it. The deeper I commit to recovery and journey ever further down the trauma rabbit hole, the more clearly I see the role patriarchy, religion and spirituality – ‘ungrounded and inhumane ‘spiritual’ models that have been fostered by emotionally armoured, self- avoidant men’ (Jeff Brown) – play in both causing, and perpetuating, the subsequent recurrence of it. A hierarchical, vertical structure of ‘power over’ – the ‘perfect,’ ascended, all powerful and all-knowing, enlightened God-Deity- Guru to whom we silently pray-worship-venerate, putting our bodies into a controlled, paralysed genuflection or lotus position pose, hanging our heads in shame or awe, atoning for our ‘humanness’ and bodily based imperfections, begging to have our illusionary, sinful ‘feelings’ and emotions erased, undertaking practices to trigger ‘transcendent’ and ‘blissful’ i.e., dissociated states – are all the exact opposite of what needs to be cultivated to move on from trauma. Spiritual bypassing – ‘avoidance in holy drag’ (Robert Augustus Masters) – is an addictive behaviour, and one I still must keep in check myself. It can keep us netted in the search to be ‘saved’ by a means, power, or person external to ourselves and it was a compulsion which perpetuated my disempowerment, victimhood, and avoidance of self- responsibility, blocking the resolution of the trauma in my nervous system for so long. The traumatic experience of societal decencies and cultural conditioning (Irene Lyon) which we have little collective awareness of, manifests as ‘good, quiet and proper’ behaviour. Twinned with patriarchal abuse, women are traumatised and then blamed both for it – and the symptoms they exhibit because of the unresolved trauma responses in their system. This is the ultimate toxic double bind and here are just some examples from my own life: ‘Be good’ My soul-led, creative, and intuitive little girl was tamed into a good, compliant, high-achieving academic, who ‘controlled’ the urges and desire to ‘break free’ with an eating disorder. Consequence: blamed and labelled mentally ill. ‘Be quiet’ As a separated woman I was told by my soon-to- be ex-husband not to ‘rock the boat’ or dispute his request for shared care of our children, which he made for his own financial benefit. My instinct was that if I did not agree to his demand, he would take me to court, and put our children through a custody battle. I agreed to his wishes even though my intuition (later proven to be correct), was that this was not in the best interests of our children. The event triggered the symptoms of chronic migraine and pain. Consequence: blamed and told symptoms were psychosomatic, ‘all in the mind’ and ‘of the ego.’ ‘Be proper’ As a young woman, recently graduated from university, I was ‘punished’ (her words) by my mother, who took a deliberate overdose and self-harmed because I spent time caring for my suicidal father when he was on weekend leave from a mental health unit. My mother told me in the hospital emergency department she had done it because I had chosen ‘him over her’ that afternoon. This incident fanned the flames of social phobia and chronic anxiety, and further obliterated my already fragile self- confidence. The event elicited terror of my own voice, boundaries, and choices but also further amplified the lack of safety I felt in my family of origin, and with other women. Consequence: blamed and told I needed to toughen up, that my mother was suffering, and that my recollection of events was false. As I write this and reflect, I now acknowledge that the final scenario is the ‘worst’ traumatic injury and attachment rupture I have sustained. This narrative demonstrates the ongoing frequent occurrence amongst individuals and groups of women – mothers and daughters included – who are both ensnared within and perpetuating the toxic historical patterns of patriarchy – traumatising and abusing each other. I doubt I am alone in experiencing and recognising this and I wonder if all women right now were to commit fully to breaking down these toxic inter- generational feminine energetics and dynamics – the patriarchy would finally crumble. When I became conscious of my own internal misogyny and patriarchy, I set the intention to do inner work and restore the healthy feminine within myself. This has been painful, but for me was an essential part of resolving trauma. Thankfully, this has facilitated some beautiful connections in my life with …

(Special Post Isis 3) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 3 Isis, Arab Women Revolution, and Black Goddesses Naa Ayele Kumari Going back to the original topic of the post…. Some quotes ” Women are in half the society… How come there are only 7 in the Assembly… and they are all Islamist! ” I can’t beat up my wife and almost kill her and call it discipline… this is not discipline… this is abuse and insanity” http://youtu.be/y4umifTLSII 12-Year Old Explains Egyptian Revolution in Under 3 Minutes www.youtube.com Max Dashu It is tremendously heartening to see these insights being expressed, and spread. The Salafis have made such inroads, and now the pushback is happening. Harita Meenee Dear Naa Ayele Kumari, thank you actually reading my post and commenting something relevant to it. It’s refreshing when someone does hear what we have to say instead of projecting their own notions. Building a solidarity movement with those who are oppressed but fighting is very important during these critical times! Harita Meenee See also: https://www.facebook.co/intifadat.almar2a?fref=ts The uprising of women in the Arab world انتفاضة المرأة في العالم العربي حرية الفكر ، حرية التعبير ، حرية الاعتقاد ، حرية التنقل ، حرية الجسد ، حرية اللب…See More Glenys Livingstone … as you say Max …” way too much of it going on” – amongst people who should know better (I would have thought): “Dark goddess as terrifying, challenging, white goddess as benign; “black magic” as harmful; I see way, way too much of this going on out there.” And related to that in my mind is all the “love and light” business that is so common: the Ground of Being is Dark … it seems to me that mystics have always understood the quintessential darkness of Love/Deity. Max Dashu Sure. I would just like to add that the critique raised here addressed issues much broader than the substance of the article, which made some good points. But once the choice of graphics flagged the issue of representation, people had much more to say about that old yet still very fresh wound which is constantly reopened by the cultural habit of whitening Egypt, or interpreting Africa through a eurocentric lens. It is not on any one person to carry the weight of that; we all have a responsibility to address the issues, but especially those of us of European heritage need to familiarize ourselves with how this plays out over and over. Just as men have a responsibility to speak up in support of women when patriarchal assumptions are on board. We all can learn something from each other, along all the various axes of domination, and overthrow them in coalition. Naa Ayele Kumari I have often considered where the roots of this psychology comes from. It is dualistic thinking that causes us to compare and contrast, then sum up judgement of good or bad and place a value on each. It extends into competition and justification for war. It also doesn’t escape me that often this came with certain civilizations who systematically destroyed others. It didn’t just happen with blacks in Africa… but blacks in Asia and the Indus Valley as well. With the Aryan invasions of India, came the eventual introduction to lighter divinities and more emphasis on male divinities. Southern Indians, Sri Lankans are very dark… even more so than many African Blacks. The caste systems implemented by the Aryan invaders did the same thing to them casting them as “untouchables”. With that came the marginalization of their black female divinities such as Kali. Kali actually has 10-16 forms… from compassionate mother, the fountain of wisdom, to she of great beauty but she is minimized as just destructive and terrifying… especially as Brhaman, Vishnuu, and Shiva grow in popularity. One of Kali’s statues has her black self standing on top of Shiva because she conquered him. Later there is a discussion in on of the Hindu text explaining Kali (as Parvati) after being subdued by Shiva she becomes lighter. Further they have stories about him rejecting her and calling her blackie which made her do austerities to rid herself of her black skin. Naa Ayele Kumari It should not be overlooked that in the Story of Alice in Wonderland… a story intended to keep Goddess elements for future generations, has the Elder sister ( the Queen of Hearts) portrayed as man, ego, and power driven who cuts off heads and has a fierce dragon…a clear reference to Kali. The White goddess as the younger sister is her opponent… and her mission is to usurp the throne of the Queen of Hearts even though she was the rightful heir as the oldest … or primordial. Stories like these also reinforce the stereotypes and negative iconography. Max Dashu Yes, it is pervasive in many cultures of domination. Demons are portrayed as black not only in Europe, which we know well, but also in China and in a lot of Buddhist iconography. In modern India, the sweet goddesses are shown as pink, the wrathful as black; and Krishna (name means “dark”) is turned powder blue. (Another of his titles, s’yam, also meaning dark, is the word translated as “green” in Green Tara.) The countercurrents (Black Mazu, loving Kali – esp in Bengal and south India, Black Madonna) bubbled up from the common people, who knew and longed for something other than the dominant racialized hierarchy. Naa Ayele Kumari I am just discovering Mazu ( Matzu/LuShui) in China today! Never knew about her. This discussion has led me to look deeper for black goddesses in Asia. Max Dashu Taoist spiritual tradition often refers to Xüan Nü, which can be translated in several ways. You’ll usually see it rendered as “the Mysterious Female,” a phrase that occurs in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), and this is a valid translation; but what is less emphasized is that it also means “the Dark Woman.” In […]
(Special Post 1) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

“Ma” in “Mago” and “Ma-Gaia” Mother Goddess, ca.7250-6700 BCE, Catal Huyuk Turkey [Conversation between Carol P. Christ, Ph.D. and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.] Carol P. Christ (CPC): Below is culled from “Gaia” in Wikipedia: The Greek word γαῖα (transliterated as gaia) is a collateral form of γῆ (gē, Doric γᾶ ga and probably δᾶ da) meaning Earth, a word of uncertain origin. R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (trans. as Ma-ga, “Mother Gaia”) also contains the root ga-. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (HHH): “Mago” and “Goma” are closely linked. Gom or Goma means the bear and Magoist shaman queen of the late fourth millennium BCE. She is also related with the Big Bear constellation. “Go” is used as a modifier referring to Mago or the Goddess in various texts of East Asia. “Mago” is related with “magi,” whose singular form is “magus” or “magos.” Will have to check for more details and the source. CPC: My intuition is that “ma” and “na” are baby talk for mother. In other words, preceding any language. Mycenean is IE language, “Pre-Greek” is not IE. CPC: Below is “Mother” from Wikipedia: Synonyms and translations The proverbial “first word” of an infant often sounds like “ma” or “mama”. This strong association of that sound with “mother” has persisted in nearly every language on earth, countering the natural localization of language. Familiar or colloquial terms for mother in English are: Aama, Mata used in Nepal Mom and mommy are used in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, India and parts of the West Midlands including Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Mum and mummy are used in the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong and Ireland. Charles, Prince of Wales publicly addressed his mother Queen Elizabeth II as “Mummy” on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. Ma, mam, and mammy are used in Netherlands, Ireland, the Northern areas of the United Kingdom, and Wales; it is also used in some areas of the United States. In many other languages, similar pronunciations apply: Maa, aai, amma, and mata are used in languages of India like Assamese, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu etc. Mamá, mama, ma, and mami in Spanish Mama in Polish, German, Russian and Slovak Māma (妈妈/媽媽) in Chinese Máma in Czech and in Ukrainian Maman in French and Persian Ma, mama in Indonesian Mamaí, mam in Irish Mamma in Italian, Icelandic, Latvian and Swedish Māman or mādar in Persian Mamãe or mãe in Portuguese Mā̃ (ਮਾਂ) in Punjabi Mama in Swahili Em (אם) in Hebrew A’ma (ܐܡܐ) in Aramaic Má or mẹ in Vietnamese Mam in Welsh Eomma (엄마, pronounced [ʌmma]) in Korean In many south Asian cultures and the Middle East, the mother is known as amma, oma, ammi or “ummi”, or variations thereof. Many times, these terms denote affection or a maternal role in a child’s life. HHH: The name for Goddess seems as ancient as the language itself. [“Ma” being the first intentional word to be spoken by a baby.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Scholars and mythologists agree that “ma” means both one’s mother and the Goddess, I quoted it in my dissertation written in 2004. Judy E Foster: Brilliant discussion, Helen and Carol! So many revelations… hard to keep up! But do continue, its fascinating – makes so much sense. (To be continued)Join the discussion of this and other topics in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group.
(Special Post Isis 2) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 2 The Color Talk in Goddesses Kahena Dorothea Athena was also whitened which is sad. However the statues were worshiped by many women to whom they brought comfort. And their origins were later remembered by the abundance of Black Virgins that became important in Italy and other parts of Europe. I don’t see Dark Goddesses as shadows but as having depths of Creativity and Knowledge. My main Goddess is Kirke and the bast relief I have of her is a chocolate brown. Diane Horton The worship of Isis broadened from Egypt to all the countries bordering the Mediterranean, as well as the Middle East and the isles called now the British Isles. She and Her worship were virtually everywhere in the westernly known world of the time! She IS the Goddess of 10,000 Names! And as such she was adapted to each culture’s vision of Her. She was the basis of all the” Black Madonnas”. I do not think of this as Isis/Auset representing the “dark” Goddess as something somehow bad or to be dealt with, but rather that ancient darkness represents infinite potential, eternal creativity/fertility, the beginning and ending of all things, and the always deepening knowledge of magick. Max Dashu However, there is a politics of representation that we all need to be aware of, that pushes original African iconography down and away, and fronts Europeanized images. There is no possibility of “colorblindness” in such a system; a restoration of the original must be actively striven toward. This is incumbent on all of us not of (recent) African descent. Otherwise we perpetuate the injurious status quo, instead of overturning it. Harita Meenee I agree with those who say that race is largely a social construct. Its roots seem to lie in colonialism and the slave trade. I would also like to add that racism is used to oppress people of different nationalities and colors. Ηere in Greece the IMF neo-liberal policies are destroying our economy (and lives); they go hand in hand with a vicious racist campaign against immigrants, along with the rise of a neo-Nazi party. This is part of an effort to redirect people’s anger away from the government and bankers, towards those who are poor and foreign and often have a different color or religion. Fortunately, many grassroots activists are responding to this by building a strong anti-racist, antifascist movement. You can see our Facebook page below. It’s in Greek but the photos are quite revealing. If anyone is interested in learning more about the situation here, please message me and I’ll try to find some articles in English for you. https://www.facebook.co/19JanuaryATHENSvsFASCISM?fref=ts 19 Γεναρη – ΑΘΗΝΑ ΠΟΛΗ Αντιφασιστικη Μπροστά στη κλιμάκωση της φασιστικής απειλής και της ρατσιστικής βίας, στη εμφάν…See More Naa Ayele Kumari Let me put this in the context of something you might understand. This is a goddess group that honors the feminine and the power it represents. People in this group understand the oppression and misrepresentation of women. We understand the implications of misogynistic patriarchal thinking. We understand the implications of stealing the information, rites, and traditions from goddess centered cultures and rephrasing them into male dominated themes… especially those that then went on to oppress women today. This is the same thing that has happened as it related to race and our cultures. It infuriates us when a man may say… why do we have to focus on the goddess? Let us just accept that we are all human and no special consideration should be given to anyone because of their gender. Or, this is just a distraction or social construct and it really doesn’t matter. We understand the blatant disregard and ignorance of those statements. Yet, the same is true for race and people of other races. Your attitude and casual disregard perpetuates a lie that you are comfortable with and don’t wish to move from that comfort zone. It means you don’t have to be accountable for the injustices or oppression it continues to perpetuate in the larger culture toward people who do not look like you. As far as I am concerned, I truly believe that the dark goddess for many with white skin IS their shadow… It is the part of themselves that they deny and fear. That you may have come from black people may scare you… even when the science proves it. That deep down… you fear what you don’t understand. To even confront it is frightening… something that you would rather ignore and deny… Yet… here we are. Black, Yellow, Red… people.. women… who have been oppressed for thousands of year because of this… and are asking… to be seen in their true likeness… not as you wish them to be… or fear them to be. Naa Ayele Kumari Thank you Max Dashu, I so appreciate your scholarship and dedication to the truth where ever you find it… and Helen Hwang for staying open to it as well. [Someone withdrew the threads.] Rick Williams No, you can’t passively aggressively slither your way out of this, reread your own statements and that last post contradicts most of your ascertains. I can’t believe that you honestly say fire away at you like you’re some sort of martyr and VICTIM of being misunderstood, not at all, I understand you very well. I don’t think you understand yourSELF. That’s the real tragedy. Rick Williams “The Lips of Wisdom are Closed except to the Ears of Understanding.” It is in quotes, and it’s part of Ancient Wisdom, of Tehuti, DJehuti, or Hermes Trimegitus… The Great Scribe of KMT.. they have alot of pretty pictures of him all over KMT(Egypt).. still have no idea what you are saying have the time. Max Dashu Thank you Naa Ayele for taking the time to make the extremely apt analogy of women’s oppression to clarify the politics of race oppression […]

Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/
(Prose) Halcyon for the Season by Deanne Quarrie

A bird for this season is the Kingfisher, also known as the Halcyon. The Kingfisher is associated in Greek myth with the Winter Solstice. There were fourteen “halcyon days” in every year, seven of which fell before the winter solstice, seven after; peaceful days when the sea was smooth as a pond and the hen-halcyon built a floating nest and hatched out her young. She also had another habit, that of carrying her dead mate on her back over the sea and mourning him with a plaintive cry. Pliny reported that the halcyon was rarely seen and then only at the winter and summer solstices and at the setting of the Pleiades. She was therefore, a manifestation of the Moon-Goddess who was worshiped at the two solstices as the Goddess of Life in Death and Death in Life and, when the Pleiades set, she sent the sacred king his summons for death. Kingfishers are typically stocky, short-legged birds with large heads and large, heron-like beaks. They feed primarily on fish, hovering over the water or watching intently from perches and they plunge headlong into the water to catch their prey. Their name, Alcedinidae, stems from classical Greek mythology. Alcyone, Daughter of the Wind, was so distraught when her husband perished in a shipwreck that she threw herself into the sea. Both were then transformed into kingfishers and roamed the waves together. When they nested on the open sea, the winds remained calm and the weather balmy. Still another Alcyone, Queen of Sailing, was the mystical leader of the seven Pleiades. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades in May marked the beginning of the navigational year and their setting marked the end. Alcyone, as Sea Goddess protected sailors from rocks and rough weather. The bird, halcyon continued for centuries to be credited with the magical power of allaying storms. Shakespeare refers to this legend in this passage from Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. Hamlet, I, i 157 When I was a young mother, and my children were little, we lived in a house that had a creek in the back yard. There were small trees along the far bank of this creek and every day, a kingfisher would sit in the branches overlooking the creek. Sometimes he sat there very quietly for a very long time. Suddenly he would dive from his perch straight into the creek. Every time he did he came out and up into the air with a fish. It gave me great pleasure to watch him from my kitchen window. I love birds. I love learning about their habits because it teaches me ways of being that are closer to nature. I love drawing birds as well. When I was a young and more able, I was an avid bird watcher, out with my friends hoping for a sight never seen before. I love the story of the kingfisher and her connection to the Halcyon Days of the Winter Solstice. It is for most of us the busiest time of year. Whether it is for the Solstice or Christmas (often both) we are in a frenzy to get things done, making sure everything is just right and perfect. I celebrate the Winter Solstice. As a priestess, my days right now are very busy creating ritual. It is at the Solstice that many passage rites are happening with the women I work with. And of course, I celebrate with my family with our magical Yule Log each year. But I try to honor those seven days before and the seven days after by trying to have the frantic moments before the Halcyon Days begin and then even when busy, hold the peace and calm of that beautiful smooth sea in my mind. Peace and love and joy surrounding the Winter Solstice make it perfect. May the Peace of a Halcyon Sea be yours in this Solstice Season. Do hold the image of that little kingfisher in mind! Meet Mago Contributor, Deanne Quarrie
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Spring At the highest point on the tree, you stretch, reaching for the sun. Your pink petals elegant in their grace, you stand alone. Bravest of all, for leaves have yet to come to offer shade Branches bare except for furry buds that will soon follow in imitation of your daring first move. Intrepid flower of Spring, I feel like you in my yearning for the Sun!
(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 …
Lammas/Late Summer within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(Essay 2 Part 3) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova

Part 3 UNIVERSAL APPEAL The worldwide success of Korean historical drama began in 2004, when Dae Jang Geum (대장금), “The Great Jang Geum”, or “Jewel in the Palace”—a Sageuk relating a compelling story about the life of the legendary first woman who became a supreme royal physician in 16th century Joseon—was aired in over 60 countries around the world. Since then, the number is much higher, not taking into consideration DVD sales, pirated DVDs, plus the millions who have seen the drama globally via the Internet. In Iran, Dae Jang Geum was so popular that reports claim Iranians began organizing their mealtimes so as not to interfere with the show’s broadcast. In India, after seeing the series one prisoner wrote an open letter to the broadcast company in Korea saying, “This serial has been of great influence in my personal life, as well adding a lot to my positive approach towards life. I dare say it is not a motivation for only people like me, but for everyone.”[i] In Zimbabwe, the audience protested to a TV station and requested the airing of Dae Jang Geum instead of the Olympic Games when the two timetables clashed.[ii] To me, “Jewel in the Palace” is not just a very beautiful and inspirational piece of art. Seeing it from a personal angle, it is a great reminder of all that is wrong with our medical science, health care, and industrialized food production. How science needs to be as much cerebral as cordis. All the good that can come of turning our eyes and respect back to Mother Earth and all her sentient beings. The importance of not only quality food, but also the way the ingredients are grown, nurtured, collected and stored; the way food is prepared; the thoughts and feelings food is infused with, and how it affects not only the taste, but also the health of those who would consume it. The true holistic approach to health and well-being, as well as how titles and following institutional protocols, doesn’t secure quality of care. The natural curve in the onset and development of every disease, and how its abrupt interruption leads to dire consequences in the long run. The compassion and inner qualities of character a true healer should pursue and cultivate. Korean historical drama offers layers of meaning and understanding. The viewers are not only gently guided to open their hearts and feel, but also to think. Stories are not only well told; internalization by the audience is encouraged. Thus, the experience becomes very personal, and a deep connection between the creators and the spectators is established. Hwang Seongbin quotes a science and technology researcher who shared his opinion on Korean period drama when they met at an international conference reception: “I like Korean historical drama, because the story is told from the perspective of the people, rather than from that of those in power.”[iii] The transnational issues we all face, such as greed, corruption, deceit, conspiracies, abuse, and war, are depicted in their cruelty as shared experiences. Through that and the exploration of universal themes like love, kindness, loss, yearning, overcoming adversities, following one’s passion, achieving one’s dream, and many more, our global communality is fortified. Another trait worth noting is the depiction of traditionally oppressed women. It is a growing tendency in Sageuk to give center stage to heroines. Even when they are not the protagonist, they play significant roles supporting or guiding the protagonist’s efforts: creating nurturing environments, serving as examples of right action, and assisting the protagonist in his growth. There is a fascination, respect, honor, and affection that female leads are surrounded by or treated by the hero. Women in Korean historical drama are strong in a graceful way, using skill and genuine power as opposed to aggression and brutal force. They are persistent in their efforts and courageous in their actions. Despite being sidetracked by hindrances, they never lose focus on their goals. Ultimately, they are never deterred from accomplishing their dreams, transforming or inspiring everyone else in the process. In that regards, women in Sageuk serve as great initiators of change. They embody the most pliable element of all—water—nourishing, never stagnant, unstoppable, constantly adaptable, following its course through and around obstacles, cleansing, reshaping, and renewing. In the words of Clair Webber: “Undoubtedly, there is something inexplicable about K-pop and K-dramas. Whether it is the courage of civil disobedience in North Korea, peace in the Middle East, or female empowerment in Pakistan—South Korean cultural imports have the uncanny ability to foster hope in some of the most seemingly hopeless situations.”[iv] This is what “soft power”, a term coined in 1990 by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye[v], truly is. “They fight with arms, but we—with our hearts,” states Empress Ki in the Sageuk with the same name. I’d love for humanity to hear this message and finally learn how to avoid or deal with conflicts. I am not going to quote or start analyzing different dramas one-by-one. I will leave you to find your own point of view and preferences. Signing up for Mago Academy’s Korean Historical Drama course would be a good place to start. I hope you will consider joining and experiencing first-hand everything I mentioned above, and much more. Korean culture has a specific flavor that distinguishes it from other Asian cultures. It is humble, but resilient. It is charming, heart-centered, perceptive, thoughtful, and caring. It has a lot to offer. Give it a try. But I have to warn you, it might be addicting. (Read Essay 1, Essay 2 Part 1, Essay 2 Part 2) Notes: [i] Busis, Hillary, Korean Dramas: A Beginner’s Guide, Entertainment Weekly, (April 11, 2014) [ii] Gowman, Philip, The Redemptive Power of Lee Young-ae, London Korean Links, (January 13, 2008) [iii] Voluntary Agency Network of Korea blog, Hallyu Report III – Korean Drama, Friendly Korea, My Friend’s Country, (01/09/2013) http://korea.prkorea.com/wordpress/english/2013/01/09/hallyu-report-ii-korean-drama/ [iv] Weber, Clair, K-Pop, K-Dramas, Hallyu – South Korean Culture Around the Globe, About Education, (2015) [v] …
(Essay 2) Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first published in Trivia, Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007. Also to be included in the forthcoming anthology She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?] An Introduction to Magoism Mago is the Great Goddess of East Asia. Nonetheless, she remains barely known to the world. Her equals, Xiwangmu (the Supreme Goddess of Daoism) and Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess of the Japanese imperial family), are said to comprise the pantheon of East Asian cosmic goddesses. Considering that these goddesses are often aligned with the ancient culture of China or Japan, one notices that the pantheon of East Asian Great Goddesses thus omits both Mago and “Korean culture.”
(Book Excerpt 6) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] Magoism, East Asian Religions, and Magoist Mudangs As mentioned above, Magoism refers to the totality of human civilization that is ultimately gynocentric. Speaking from a narrow perspective, Magoism is the primordial matrix from which such East Asian religions as Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were derived. In the light of Magoism, a patriarchal religion is redefined as a pseudo-Magoism that which has co-opted the Way of the Great Goddess (Magoism) with the androcentric reversal of the female