October 1, 2021September 26, 2021 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Prose) Wild Politics and Mother Trees by Susan Hawthorne

In 1994, I attended a conference in Bangladesh organised by Farida Akhter on People’s Perspectives on Population. Sixty-four women from around the world discussed the exploitative nature of Population Control Read More …

(Meet Mago Contributor) Victor Hernández

Victor Hernández is an artist from Socorro, Texas who recently returned to la frontera after spending several years in Austin and Houston working as a commercial artist. His painting, “Angel in Decline,” is the cover art for the poetry collection Poemas ante el Catafalco: Grief and Renewal, written by Donna Snyder. Victor’s work includes sculpture, portraits, video, collage, textile, multi-media, and other art forms. He has had solo shows at contemporary art venues such as the Super Happy Fun Place in Houston, and has also been a part of various group exhibitions, including with the JUNTOS Art Association in Houston. For the band Organ Failure, Victor created album cover art and a claymation music video which can be seen on various video and political action websites. He has presented creative writing workshops with the Tumblewords Project, a grassroots literary project that has presented workshops and performances in the border region since 1995.
(Poetry) A Cactus Made of Rainbows by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Raspberry spines prick my skin but do not harm me as I gently dislodge you from stones and soil, praying out loud for permission. You thrive here as the Bears do under tall red pines and lichened boulders. Aspens, Spruce, Juniper all murmur love songs on Changing Woman’s mountain. Is that why they call you a Rainbow cactus? Were you there when She was born under soft deerskin pulsing with a whole spectrum of Light? Did the Bears watch you From swaying tree tops offer generous blessings for the gift of your life? I step so carefully, so as not to crush your little village thriving under my feet. I gather you as a small family, believing you need to grow together to thrive. Your roots are shallow hugging jagged rocks at odd angles. I feel amazement – Such tenacity. I note your need for protection from merciless west wind and sun. Yet you thrive with so little – a blessing from the Cloud People and you burst miniscule roses from thorny skin. I imagine a waxing frog moon overflowing with pride. I found a bear paw not far from where you lay – White flint worked by those who once tread lightly on sacred ground, soul heart and body bound to each rock and tree. (Bears still leave their marks on smooth white aspen bark). The People spoke in tongues most can no longer hear. Oh, my grateful heart sings praises for this precious body that vibrates ancient strumming sound… Your collective Voices vie for my attention as I move effortlessly through the veil, bowing my head to acknowledge your Bountiful Grace. Time gathers herself around me False lines and boundaries disappear. I am so easily comforted by Now. If only I could stay here… When I wend my way down the mountain with a prickly clump of your people, I am filled with Light. Perhaps Changing Woman was right – Her children’s father was a round rainbow cactus after all. Working notes Yesterday I visited the mountain that once called me to this place, although I couldn’t name her then… three years later I am drawn back again and again to this Mesa forged in Light to gather stones made of the flint that was traded throughout the Americas by the pre – Puebloan peoples. The Powers of Place embrace me again and again as I climb, hearing voices, and I am filled with wonder… In Navajo mythology Changing Woman – she who grows old and young again but never dies – was born under a rainbow of light created by a myriad of colors – orange, gold, gray smoke, ebony, pink and burnt orange – of the stone called chert that is found in a single band that stretches around this mountain. This flint was worked into tools that were traded throughout the continent… Changing Woman (parthogentically) birthed two boys who left her. When they asked about who their father was she retorted that maybe he was a round cactus! (a tongue and cheek response?) Their grandmother later told them their father was the sun but my guess is that their real father was a prickly round rainbow cactus that grows close to the ground on the slopes of Changing Woman’s beloved mountain, the mountain where she was born. This “marriage” was one woven from Light, tenderness, thorns, and tenacity. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Book Excerpt 5) “Placental Thinking: The Gift of Maternal Roots” by Nane Jordan

[This and the previous sequels are from a Chapter from Placenta Wit: Mother Stories Rituals, and Research, edited by Nané Jordan, Demeter Press, 2017, pp. 142-155.] BIRTH GIFTING: MOTHERS AT THE CENTRE Through placental relations and placental thinking, we can imagine this gift economy as located in the heart of the primal mother-baby dyad. There, I would locate a specific embodied maternal order of the gift that flows from mother to child, and onward into the whole social milieu, as life goes on from this primal, primary relationship. As Genevieve Vaughan notes, there are many hidden ways of the gift that are not yet named. I thus name the placenta, with its gift morphology (growth, structure, and design), as an embodied gift economy that has always existed. The eventual maternal act and power of giving birth flow from placental relations.. Beyond the birth process, mother and child are released from their in-utero placental bonds and set off on the trajectory of new mother-child gifting relations. In the current market system and exchange economy, placentas are literally thrown out after birth. This is a striking action and metaphor for our social understandings of the maternal gift as being literally worthless. The notion of garbage itself is “refuse” or what is refused. Thus, the gift is refused and made invisible. Mothers know little about their babies’ placentas, often never seeing them in the hospital except for as a bloody lump in a metal side tray left aside after the birth. In the exchange economy, value is only apparent when the market assigns value to the placenta, as in its use for stem cell research or in the cosmetics industry. We could read this in newspapers and hardly connect stem cells to the placentas of our own early lives, born from our mothers’ bodies and blood. The association of birth blood with refuse also relates to long-time taboos, secrecy, and shame associated with menstrual blood in Western cultures (Grahn). Rather than socially upholding the sacred function of the female body’s life-gifting powers, the public prefers the death blood dominate in popular media culture, and the lived realities of violence and war. In contrast, the blood of life and birth receives silent attention. Further separation rituals, such as early cord cutting and taking the baby away from the mother at the moment of birth, disrupt mother-baby bonding, hormonal systems, and unity. These procedures ultimately interrupt the physiological peak of mothers’ experiences of relief, pleasure, and love in birth gifting, which are part of early bonding and begin the moment a mother becomes pregnant (Buckley). There is an intended dynamic of “safe” birth care at work in obstetrical practices in order to diminish the risks of birth giving. Ostensibly, doctors work in concert with medical protocols and interventions to ward off the risk and fear of death and feelings of pain—truisms of birth. Mothers and babies do walk along the edges of life and death in birth’s passage, in which giving birth is an overwhelming experience that can be painful or dangerous, and requires our whole sense of being. The life-saving capacities of modern medicine are important in this regard. Yet it appears that through fear of pain and death, dominant authoritative structures have become linked to the medicalization of birth and the overuse of interventions. Fear of entering an overwhelming experience such as birth, and often without support, education, understanding, or some attending human warmth and kindness, may also be keeping people tied to a system that loses sight of the maternal gift. Also lost are the positive experiential potentials for relief and even pleasure in giving birth through one’s own power and agency. As we continue to apply medical technologies and market-based, hierarchical attitudes of authority in birth care, can we shift birth practices toward more giftlike ways? Can we put mothers and babies at the centre of birth gifting through placental thinking? In midwifery, a “motherer,”as Genevieve Vaughan names it, is anyone who satisfies needs unilaterally, not expecting reward. Is this a missing or lost gift economy in birth? Of course, there are doctors who practice this gift, putting mothers and babies at the centre of birth, who view mothers kindly and lovingly with care. But directing the gift of compassionate attention is a more common philosophy for midwives and doulas, which includes the ability and commitment to support and empathize with the mother. In a diagrammatic perspective, this looks like a circle, with supportive caregivers holding space for the mother, who is at the centre. In this circle, the mother can retain and direct her own energies and agency for birth giving, both physical and psychic, toward herself and her baby. She is in trusting relations with her attendants, who direct their energy toward her (and not themselves) as needed, and have ability to step back if not needed. In authoritarian and hierarchical systems of care, the energy of birth is directed in straight lines up and away from the mother and baby and toward the attendants at the top. Attention tends to focus on the birth attendants as they dictate the directions for birth experience and implement their expertise, often without regard to the mothers’ wishes. Mothers may feel depleted or worse, traumatized from giving birth under systems that appropriate their birth-gifting power without regard for the centrality of their agency and experience. Obviously, there many nuances and complexities to this topic, and often more analysis is needed on a case-by-case basis. In this regard, birth giving inherently asks a mystery of us. It is older and wiser than our clocks and interventions, and unfolds uniquely for every mother and baby who enter its experience. I have witnessed home and hospital births with “motherer” attendants at hand, where those mothers and babies are held at the centre of a circle of care and love. Attendants keep a respectful watch, moving toward or away as asked or needed. A birthing mother, feeling safe to surrender into her own birth process—however …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch

Annie Finch is an American poet, author, and performer. She has published more than twenty books, including the epic abortion poem Among the Goddesses (Red Hen Press) and Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press). Educated at Yale University, University of Houston, and Stanford University, Annie also writes regularly for The Huffington Post on Goddesses, witchcraft, and women’s spirituality. She is currently completing a new book of poems as well as a prose book, The Witch in You: Five Directions to Your Inner Goddess. For more information and to sign up to receive Annie’s Spells, please visit poetrywitch.com.
(Essay) The Triple Goddess and Whitehead’s “Threefold Creative Composition” by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Triple Hecate, Rome 1st century C.E., holding a sword, an ear of corn, and a serpent – Her jurisdictions of sky, earth and underworld. Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, The Year of the Goddess, Figure 15. Process philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead perceived the Universe as including a composition of a “threefold creative act”. He describes these three as (i) the one infinite conceptual realization, (ii) the multiple solidarity of free physical realizations in the temporal world, (iii) the ultimate unity of the multiplicity of actual fact with the primordial conceptual fact[1]. I note some congruencies of this threefold composition with the Female Metaphor/Triple Goddess, as well as some points of departure. Whitehead conceives his first and the third aspects as having a unity, which is also true of the Virgin/Urge to Be and Crone/Space to Be qualities of the Female Metaphor/Triple Goddess wherein the beginning and the end are barely distinguishable in their felt proximity to Source: that is, the continuity of the “Urge to Return” and the “Urge to Be” with Source of Being may be more obvious than the continuity of “Place of Being”/Mother quality with Source of Being. We are always returning to the unity – it is integral with life; and we are always being regenerated – reconceived: our bodyminds are in a constant state of dissolution and renewal, expressed in both the Virgin and Crone qualities. We are part of a great cycle of returning and renewal; and the manifest reality, the web of life – the Mother, the “physical realization” as Whitehead describes his second aspect, is the place of communion. However Whitehead puts the first and third aspects “over against” the second aspect. He admits the power of the second aspect, as he describes that the “sheer force of things lies in the intermediate physical process: this is the energy of physical production”[2], but his “God” is merely “patient” with it. Whitehead says that “God’s role … lies in the patient operation of the overpowering rationality of his conceptual harmonization[3]”. Whitehead’s point was that “God” did not create the world, that “he” was the poet of the world – leading it with “tender patience”, but the language that he uses invokes and indicates more dualistic thinking, as does his splitting of the “three-fold creative act” into this oppositional situation. The cosmology of the Female Metaphor/Triple Goddess has resonances with Whitehead’s philosophy, however he still speaks of a Deity/“God” as an entity as if external to creation, albeit at times also Creature and of “consequent nature” – that is, partly created by the world[4]. Theologian Nancy Howell notes that Whitehead’s “philosophy of organism”, as she describes it, does provide a cosmology that radically differs from “dominant mechanistic and patriarchal worldviews”, thus providing support for the constructing of a promising feminist theory of relations, a feminist ecological cosmology[5]. She describes how Whitehead’s process philosophy has provided a “helpful conceptual framework” for the interpretation of women’s experiences based as it is in relational, organic thinking that is systemically inclusive of an infinite range of experience, and promotes a continuity of the human with the cosmos/nature. Howell notes that Whitehead’s philosophy promotes and reflects change, and enables the reinterpretation of many dualisms – subject/object, body/mind, reason/emotion, God/world[6]. Feminist theologians, for whom in general “God” remains an indelible metaphor, find the reinterpretation of the last mentioned dualism particularly hopeful. Howell describes that “the genius of Whitehead’s metaphysics” is that “God and the world” truly affect each other, create each other, receive from each other – are “truly in relation”[7]: Howell is thus confident that this metaphysics feeds “a feminist vision of mutuality”. The Power of Three, Neolithic,Thessaly. Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess, p.91 This helps me clarify then that the cosmology I am describing in PaGaian Cosmology goes further than a “feminist vision of mutuality”. Howell still speaks of this “God” as a separate entity: to my mind this is still a “meta”-physics, not the “intra”-physics of the cosmogenetic dynamics of which I speak, and which is a gynocentric cosmology. Howell comes closest in her language to this “intra”-physics where she notes Rita Nakashima Brock’s metaphor of “God/dess as Heart, the present divine erotic power”[8]. Brock appears to have made the connection, the transition to an integral cosmology, where Whitehead’s metaphysics comes up short. As mythologist Joseph Campbell points out, “ ‘God’ is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer to something that is known”; elaborating that “in religions where the god or creator is the mother, the whole world is her body. There is nowhere else[9]”. NOTES: [1] Alfred North Whitehead, “God and the World”, in Ewert H. Cousins (ed), Process Theology, p.91. [2] Alfred North Whitehead, “God and the World”, in Ewert H. Cousins (ed), Process Theology, p.91. [3] Alfred North Whitehead, “God and the World”, in Ewert H. Cousins (ed), Process Theology, p.91. [4] Charles Hartshorne, “The Development of Process Philosophy”, in Ewert H. Cousins (ed), Process Theology, p.53. [5] Nancy R. Howell, A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics, p. 13-14. [6] Nancy R. Howell, A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics, p. 22. [7] Nancy R. Howell, A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics, p. 31. [8] Nancy R. Howell, A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics, p. 32, quoting Rita Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power, p.46. [9] Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p.48-49. REFERENCES: Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. NY: Doubleday, 1988. Cousins, Ewert H. (ed). Process Theology. NY: Newman Press, 1971. Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. NY: HarperCollins, 1991. Howell, Nancy R. A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005.
(Book Review) Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, eds. Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture. Reviewed by Jenny Cameron

[Editor’s Note: This book review was first published in S/HE: An international Journal of Goddess Studies Vol 1 No 2, 2022.] This book is designed as a student and academic resource to those wishing to deepen their understanding of the origination and evolution of concepts of Goddess and related social systems in a range of cultures world-wide, from an evidence-based perspective. This is a collection of papers from a total of 21 authors, edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hwang, who are also contributors. Each of the writers has experience and qualifications that reflect their authority on the topics upon which they write. The overview authority lies with the editors. Mary Ann Beavis PhD, is currently the Professor of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan and an author. Helen Hwang holds an M.A. and Ph.D in Religion and would be the world expert on Magoism (an ancient East Asian faith system and culture, recognising Mago as the Great Goddess), certainly in the English language. She is author or editor of a number of books on Magoism or inclusive of this tradition. Each author is a researcher into a niche area of Goddess tradition and all chapters are extensively footnoted, indicative of the breadth of resources they have drawn upon, including, in some cases images of artworks under discussion. The authors and the chapter headings where images occur are as follows (the number of images or tables is listed in brackets): Helen Hye-Sook Hwang – Mago, the Creatrix from East Asia, and the Mytho-History of Magoism (8) Jody Foster – The Prehistoric Goddess Figurines of Old Europe (3) Joan M. Cichon – The Mother Goddess of Bronze Age Crete. (6) Krista Karen Rodin – From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt. (12) Mara Lynn Keller – The Myriad Faces, Marvellous Powers, and Thealogy of Greek Goddesses. (2) Marta-Lena Bergstedt & Kristin Brunsgaard Clausen – The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia – A Late Shamanistic Culture Rooted in Old European Civilisation. (28) Annette Williams – The Divine Feminine in Yoruba Cosmology. (2) Krista Rodin – The Blending of Bon, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture. (5) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang – Goma, the Shaman Ruler of old Magoist East Asia/Korea. (5) Mary Ann Beavis & Scott Daniel Dunbar – Goddesses in Hinduism: “All the Mothers are One.” (10) Justin Jaron Lewis – The Divine Feminine in Contemporary Judaism. (1) Mary Ann Beavis – Goddesses and the Divine Female in the Biblical Traditions. (3) Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture explores the key theme that humans originally conceived of the spiritual realm in terms of a female deity – a Mother Goddess to be precise – and that traces of this can be found even in the religions that now place a male God at the centre of their belief system. The book further illustrates that this was a world-wide phenomenon with regional and local expression of it. As the period of Goddess-centred cultures mostly occurred prior to written language, the writers are largely reliant on interpreting the archaeological record for support. However the writers also use linguistics to identify traces in languages today of the old languages that expressed the Goddess culture, lifestyle and spiritual context. We learn in this book that when patriarchy (as opposed to a Goddess centred ideology) came to dominate – usually through invasion – a common strategy was to incorporate the local Goddesses into the invader pantheon, and then, over time diminish their powers and importance. These authors have undertaken to untangle this web to bring to light the original Goddess and her attributes. The book is not just embedded in the past however and also relates how the Goddess tradition is expressed today. Four chapters explore both the practice and the belief system informing this emergent spirituality. This book is a major contribution to the field of Goddess Studies in that it makes readily available informed scholarship, in English, that could otherwise be hard to find. The material in each chapter expands on a specialty that that author has explored. Some interpretations could well be controversial because they shine light into some long-held (or long-assumed) beliefs about cultural origins. I was particularly struck in this regard by the work on the Mago tradition, the Norse Goddesses and Islam. The chapters are written on the basis of an academic approach by the writers, not as believers in a particular religion – although undoubtedly the authors have their own belief systems which in some cases would assist their understanding of the topic of their chapter. This saves the language from the feeling that the reader must make a leap of faith to understand the positions being put, but can assess for themselves how valid they find the arguments made. At points in the book typographical missteps can be identified though without damage to the content. I found the use of Korean/Chinese symbols important but sometimes difficult to fully understand in the translation – further editorial work would have helped here. While I was aware of Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s research that showed the movement of matriarchal peoples throughout Asia, I was particularly struck with the contributions of Helen Hwang with regard to Magoism in the book. She explores, even into historical times, the culture in coastal South-East Asia based on the Mother Goddess Mago and the social system that resulted. This would largely be hidden to the West if not for Helen Hwang’s work. Likewise the exploratory work by Bergstedt and Clausen provides an alternative understanding of the Norse Goddesses from that usually presented. As well, both Keller and Hawthorne in their separate pieces provide insights into the origins of Greek Goddesses, which too often are assumed known from the patriarchal presentation of them. There are many publications available relevant to Goddess Studies, starting with publications in the mid 1970s, which are still relevant today. This book …
(Book Excerpt 4) Rainbow Goddess: Celebrating Neurodiversity ed. by K. L. Aldred, P. Daly, T Albanna, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This anthology was published by Girl God Books (2022).] “Nourishing Giftedness: Neurodiversity and Niche Construction” by Stephanie Mines, Ph.D. WHAT IS Niche Construction? Niche construction is a concept derived from biology in which an organism makes adjustments to its own environment. It is a feedback response system because not only does the organism change but the environment also changes as a product of relational interaction. A clear example is when beavers change their environments by constructing dams or when earthworms change the soil they inhabit. In both cases the result is co-evolutionary. Proximal environmental modifications often spread out further, creating whole system shifts. If we apply this paradigm to sensory integration and human development, we see that when we create a contained environment of advocacy and individuated attunement the ramifications permeate into the home and family environment alongside the school and therapy environments. The examples in this compilation revolve around constructing a niche or arena in which a child has at close hand and ready access the supportive resources needed to become whole and integrated as he or she is. These resources are tailored to what the individual child needs to express herself optimally without the frustrations of burdensome sensory overload. How to Nourish Giftedness in Sensory Challenged Youth “My ideas come in streams and my only difficulty is to hold them fast.” ~Nikola Tesla Storms of imagination and inspiration, acute sensitivity to all sensory input, driving over-focus and inwardness are all common traits for people with sensory integration imbalances. Some of the most brilliant contributors to human culture and evolution have exhibited aspects of these characteristics. By investigating their lives, we can learn about parenting sensory needs children. In this chapter I convene a conference of models and mentors from biographies that become a cornucopia of limbic nourishment. This gathering identifies the key ingredients for nourishing giftedness in sensory challenged, autistic, and neurodiverse young people. The dominant characteristics we can identify for sensory abundant children include: -Heightened powers of observation; -Acute sensitivity to stimuli; -Receptivity to images and visual thinking; -A compelling, complex, unique and rich inner world; -Unique insight; -Creative and out-of-the box problem solving ideas; -Profound determination, sometimes seen as stubbornness; -Development that is out-of-sync; -Inwardness; and -Over-focus on certain chosen subjects, interests and/or activities. The three key gifts that adults can cultivate, alongside their love for the specialness of their unique child, to nourish giftedness in the children who have these traits are: Differentiating themselves from the children they care for by retracting projection; Advocating for the learning styles that are developmentally appropriate and encouraging for each child; and Finding the therapies and therapists that meet the child where he is for optimum enhancement, growth, and development. See the Resource Annex chapter for samples of how to find these options. I explore these ten characteristics and the three key gifts of the adults who serve them through the lives of people who have struggled with sensory integration and made their contributions, nevertheless. Their self-reported life experiences allow us to see what works and what doesn’t work to enhance and stabilize the rare brilliance of our sensory needs children and youth. The Recipe for Supporting Differentiation: Theory of Mind + Empathy Adults have a lot to learn from the lives of sensory-challenged children and youth. One of the characteristics of sensory abundance is heightened self-awareness. I have frequently been astounded by how my sensory-challenged and autistic patients reveal incredible insight into themselves and others. What they lack is perspective. Because adults have the cognitive capacity to find perspective and to reflect on their own development, they can create a theory of mind if they cultivate profound self-awareness. Once adults create a theory of mind for themselves then it is possible for them to cultivate a theory of mind for the children in their care. Theory of mind, differentiation and empathy are like the Three Muses for those who serve children with sensory overload. Theory of mind means that you have a developmental perspective and can temper your language, presence, educational and therapeutic interventions to meet that perspective for each child. You can, for instance, understand an autistic child in the context not only of their neurology but also their home life and the parenting they receive. When I was conducting my recent clinical trials, I encountered many autistic children whose parents were veterans of combat. The relationship between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), autism and the neurochemistry of fear has yet to be fully explored but it was evident in the lives of these children. The Autism National Committee notes that despite fairly abundant anecdotal evidence, knowledge of the nature, prevalence, and treatment of psychological trauma in the lives of neurodiverse people is lacking. (Autism National Committee 2007) For these autistic sons and daughters of veterans the presence of PTSD in their home environment was a significant component in the theory of mind I cultivated for them. Differentiation requires self-awareness and self-understanding. Adults need to bear witness to how they respond to children. If, for instance, you are threatened by the way in which your child stands out or does not fit in then it is up to you to explore what that means about you. Trace this reaction to its source and take responsibility for it so that you do not project your fears, shame, need to deny, suppress, blame, or compensate onto a child. Anything that prevents you from seeing a child’s experience from their perspective requires investigation. Copyright 2013, Originally published by the Dom Project. Shared with the permission of the author. https://www.magoism.net/2013/08/meet-mago-contributor-trista-hendren
(Slideshow) Beltaine Goddess by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

Tara, Hallie Iglehart Austen, p.122 On November 7th at 22:56 UTC EarthGaia crosses the midpoint in Her orbit between Equinox and Solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Season of Beltaine – a maturing of the Light, post-Spring Equinox. Beltaine and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin aspect of Goddess, even as She comes into relationship with Other: She remains Her own agent. Beltaine may be understood as the quintessential annual celebration of Light as it continues to wax towards fullness. It is understood to be the beginning of Summer. Here is some Poetry of the Season: Earth tilts us further towards Mother Sun, the Source of Her pleasure, life and ecstasy You are invited to celebrate BELTAINE the time when sweet Desire For Life is met – when the fruiting begins: the Promise of early Spring exalts in Passion. This is the celebration of Holy Lust, Allurement, Aphrodite … Who holds all things in form, Who unites the cosmos, Who brings forth all things, Who is the Essence of the Dance of Life. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express this quality of Hers. 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 Beltaine. 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=SKGRoVjQQHY Aphrodite 300 B.C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). This Greek Goddess is commonly associated with sexuality in a trivial kind of way, but She was said to be older than Time (Barbara Walker p.44). Aphrodite as humans once knew Her, was no mere sex goddess: Aphrodite was once a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity – the Creative Force itself. The Love that She embodied was a Love deep down in things, an allurement intrinsic to the nature of the Universe. Praised by the Orphics thus: For all things are from You Who unites the cosmos. You will the three-fold fates You bring forth all things Whatever is in the heavens And in the much fruitful earth And in the deep sea. Vajravarahi 1600C.E. Tibetan Tantric Buddhism (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A Dakini dancing with life energy – a unity of power, beauty, compassion and eroticism. Praised as Mistress of love and of knowledge at the same time. Tara Contemporary – Green Gulch California ,Tibetan Buddhist. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). “Her eroticism is an important part of her bodhisattvahood: the sweetpea represents the yoni, and she is surrounded by the sensual abundance of Nature. One of Tara’s human incarnations was as the Tibetan mystic Yeshe Tsogyal, “who helped many people to enlightenment through sacred sexual union with her”. – Ishtar 1000 B.C.E. Babylon (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Associated with passionate sexuality (and with Roman Goddess Venus) – which was not perceived as separate from integrity and intelligence … praised for Her beauty and brains! Her lips are sweet, Life is in Her mouth. When She appears, we are filled with rejoicing. She is glorious beneath Her robes. Her body is complete beauty. Her eyes are total brilliance. Who could be equal to Her greatness, for Her decrees are strong, exalted, perfect. MESOPOTAMIAN TEXT 1600 B.C.E. Artemis 4th Cent.B.C.E. Greece. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess) – classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent” – in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted. Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. Tibetan Goddess and God in Union: it could be any Lover and Beloved, of same sex. Image from Mann and Lyle, “Sacred Sexuality” p.74. Sacred Couple –Mesopotamia 2000-1600 BCE “Lovers Embracing on Bed”, Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth, Diane Wolkstein and Samuael Noah Kramer. Represents the sacred marriage mythic cycle – late 3rd and into 4th millennium B.C.E. (See Starhawk, Truth or Dare). This period is the time of Enheduanna – great poet and priestess of Inanna. Xochiquetzal 8th century C.E. Mayan (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Her name means “precious flower” – She is Goddess of pleasure, sexuality beauty and flowers. Sometimes represented by a butterfly who sips the nectar of the flower. “In ancient rituals honouring her, young people made a bower of roses, and, dressed as hummingbirds and butterflies they danced an image of the Goddess of flowers and love.” Her priestesses are depicted with ecstatic faces. (called “laughing Goddesses” !!) She and Her priestesses unashamedly celebrated joyful female sexuality – there is story of decorating pubic hairs to outshine the Goddess’ yoni. https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/meet-mago-contributor-glenys-livingstone/ REFERENCES: Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Mann A.T. and Lyle, Jane. Sacred Sexuality. ELEMENT BOOKS LTD, 1995. Starhawk. Truth or Dare. San Fransisco:Harper and Row, 1990. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983. Wolkstein,Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. NY: Harper and Rowe, 1983. The music for the slideshow is “”Coral Sea Dreaming” by Tania Rose.
(Poem) Lost texts: Linear A by Susan Hawthorne

“The project is about how history is told, how many stories are left out and how many texts are simply lost: sometimes by time and neglect, at other times because they were intentionally destroyed. One section of the poetic series is about ‘lost texts’. It includes translations and inventions.” Introduction I visited Crete in the winter of 1976 at the end of my undergraduate university studies. I had very little knowledge of ancient Greek history (perhaps an advantage in retrospect), but I had heard from other women living in the same squat in London as I was that Crete had at some time in the distant past been a matriarchy. I was overwhelmed by what I found, not only at Knossos and Phaestos and Haghia Triadha, but also in the tiny seal stones in the Museum in Heraklion. My mind spun as I moved from the oldest work, full of vitality, energy and some kind of woman-spirit, to the newer layers which struck me as tight, restricted, geometric and masculine. This was what I thought. It was an eye-opener, like coming to feminism the first time and the scales falling from one’s eyes. I returned to Australia and began to read about the ancient world. By 1979, I was enrolling in a PhD on ‘The structure of belief systems in the ancient world’. I studied Greek as a way of getting access to the original sources. My favourite subject was Historical Syntax. In this class we looked at the development of the Greek language, its Indo-European roots and how Greek words were transformed into other related words in Lithuanian, German, French, Italian and so forth. We also looked at Linear B and its connection to Ancient Greek. Linear B was deciphered in 1952. All the credit has gone to Michael Ventris, but in June 2013 the news emerged that American classicist Alice Kober did the painstaking work behind the decipherment, without which Ventris would not have had the information for the decoding. Unfortunately Alice Kober died in 1950. I didn’t ever finish that PhD, but my novel, The Falling Woman (1992), incorporates some of the ideas I was thinking about.

(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 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part II: We Disagree! Stand up for what you believe but be open-minded! Naa Ayele Kumari: I am going to step away from the common responses and say this… Binary is only no in betweens if you choose sides and can’t see the whole. I have been a part of black consciousness movements and women’s movements and both have the capacity for progress as well as extreme viewpoints. Both have the capacity to become so hypercritical that the movement itself transcends common human compassion and understanding. Mother Teresa was a human being with flaws and goodness. She had a public image and private fears and insecurities.. l like all of us. She lived her life the best way she knew how.. Like all of us. She made mistakes.. misjudgments.. Like all of us. But she also DID help and inspire others to help too. It is this dualistic thinking that forces people to feel like they have to assign the label of good or bad and no in between. None of us are all good or all bad.. so it seems to me that to label her has an evil traitor who let people die is no better than labeling her an Angel of god who did no wrong. She was a woman who lived her life and managed to come to worldwide fame and inspire others to love at a time and in an institution that was highly patriarchal and women were not raised up at all. Mother Goddesses in Africa were known for great nurturing and care symbolized by carrying a baby and also carried a machete on the other side for justice. This was the fine balance of wholeness…she was the gentle rain and the storm.. This was binary, but not one or the other but both.. Opposite ends of the same pole. [H]: I’m having a powerful visceral effect from this conversation. I feel as if I’m going to vomit violently. Mother Teresa comes to me in dreams and meditations. Makes me wonder what kind of person I’m seen as if I attract her energy. I have always felt so much love for her. Naa Ayele Kumari: If she comes in your dreams and it has been healing for you… Allow it/ her to continue to be healing for you. Its all about love and anything that is not love… Leave it be.. Vomiting is rejecting something that doesn’t belong with you. Embrace love my sister. Antonia McGuire: I think we may all agree that all belief systems initially began to promote a sense of goodness or fairness to some degree, but over time they are corrupted and produce both advantages and disadvantages. Donna Snyder: Yes, Gandhi, too. Back in the 90’s when I was in a band/performance art troupe called Central Nervous System, I shocked all the guys in the band coming out with an improv in response to a melody played on a banjo tuned like a sitar, called exactly that-Yes, Gandhi. Now make no mistake, he is one of my heroes, devoid of the falsified sentimentality that clings to MT. Gandhi’s work was for the world, for the masses, not for the appropriately humbled. Yet I spoke out about his sexual practices, his use of female bodies. Telling the truth about a hero requires courage. Retreating into a blind defense of a myth is a form of ethical cowardice. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Strangely I had a discussion with someone about the “hero’s journey” moving from metaphorical to physical being part of the problem…..when the “demons” are human instead of our own flaws, there seems to be a tendency to point the finger (and gun barrel) elsewhere. [B]: Fascinating & thought-provoking conversation, all. I think the biggest stumbling block I have with MT is how her acceptance of the dogma of the Catholic church blinded her to seeing and then being moved by the suffering of others enough to do something to alleviate & not vicariously celebrate it. No wonder she “suffered a lack of connection with the Divine”. This crisis with her spirituality seems to have been divorced from her and others’ body wisdom. Self-abnegation (perhaps not the same as “sacrifice”) ultimately backfires because some small part of us insists, “I am worthy!” To which I say, “We are all worthy!” [H]: I do not see or feel that she vicariously celebrated the suffering of others. I feel that she devoted her life to deeply loving and serving the poorest of the poor. I have not been to Calcutta and I have also seen some unimaginable poverty in India that is not like anything that I’ve been exposed to before. I truly believe that she had a very deep way of working with suffering that is not necessarily visible to those more accustomed to modern medical intervention and the resources available for such. I have participated in a very small amount of poverty medicine and the resources that we take for granted are just not readily available to MANY. I learned very powerfully from my experience how blessed and fortunate and often very careless we really are with our precious resources. This discussion has been a learning experience for me. I am trying to not take the critical comments […]

(Essay) Ceremony as “Prayer” or Sacred Awareness By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. MoonCourt Ceremonial Space set for Autumn Equinox ceremony, 2013 Ritual/ceremony is often described as “sacred space.” I understand that to mean “awareness of the space as sacred”: all space is sacred, what shifts is our awareness – awareness of the depth of spacetime, and of the depth of all things and all beings. I understand “sacred awareness” as an awareness of deep relationship and identity with the very cosmic dynamics that create and sustain the Universe; or an awareness of what is involved in the depth of each moment, each thing, each being. Ceremony is a space and time given to expression, contemplation and nurturance of that depth … at least to something of it. Ceremony may be both an expression of deep inner truths – perceived relationship to self, Earth and Cosmos, as well as being a mode of teaching and drawing forth deeper participation. Essentially, ceremony is a way of entering into the depth of the present moment … what is deeply present right here and now, a way of entering deep space and deep time, which is not somewhere else but is right here. Every-thing, and every moment, has Depth – more depth than we usually allow ourselves to contemplate, let alone comprehend. This book, this paper, this ink, the chair, the floor – each has a history and connections that go back, all the way back to Origins. This moment you experience now, in its particular configuration, place, people present, subtle feelings, thoughts, and propensity towards certain directions or outcomes, has a depth – many histories and choices that go back … ultimately all the way back to the beginning. Great Origin is present at every point of space and time – right here. In ceremony we are plugging our awareness into something of that. In this holy context then – in this mindframe of knowing connection, everything one does is a participation in the creation of the Cosmos: for the tribal indigenous woman, perhaps the weaving of a basket; for another, perhaps preparing a meal; for you, perhaps getting on the train to go to a workplace. It is possible to regain this sense, to come to feel that the way one breathes makes a difference – that with it, you co-create the present and the future, and you may even be a blessing on the past. In every moment we receive the co-creation, the work, of innumerable beings, of innumerable moments, and innumerable interactions of the elements, in everything we touch … and so are we touched by them. The local is our touchstone to the Cosmos – it is not separate. Ceremony may be a way into this awareness, into strengthening it. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[i] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[ii] Ceremony then is a form of social action. I have found it useful to describe ceremony using and extending words used by Ken Wilber to describe a “transpersonal practice,” which is needed for real change: he said it was a practice that discloses “a deeper self (I or Buddha) in a deeper community (We or Sangha) expressing a deeper truth (It or Dharma).”[iii] My extension of that is: ceremony may disclose a deeper beautiful self (the I/Virgin/Urge to Be/Buddha), in a deeper relational community (the We/Mother/Place of Being/Sangha), expressing a deeper transformative truth (the It/Old One/Space to Be/Dharma). This is the “unitive body,” the “microcosmos” that Charlene Spretnak refers to in States of Grace.[iv] Since ceremony is an opportunity to give voice to deeper places in ourselves, forms of communication are used that the dreamer, the emotional, the body, can comprehend, such as music, drama, simulation, dance, chanting, singing.[v] These forms enable the entering of a level of consciousness that is there all the time, but that is not usually expressed or acknowledged. We enter a realm that is ‘out of time,’ which is commonly said to be not the “real” world, but it is more organic/indigenous to all being and at least as real as the tick-tock world. It is a place “between the worlds,” wherein we may put our hands on the very core of our lives, touch whatever it is that we feel our existence is about, and thus touch the possibility of re-creating and renewing ourselves. NOTES: [i] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [ii] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation. [iii] Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996), 306-307. [iv] 145. [v] As Starhawk notes, The Spiral Dance, 45. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996.
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 …
Samhain/Deep Autumn within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the conclusion of chapter 5 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. It is a chapter on the process of the Wheel of the Year. for the Northern Hemisphere version: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems to me that the main agenda of the Cosmos is ongoing Creativity, “never-ending renewal” it may be termed, and that this is expressed in Earth’s Seasonal Wheel through the transitions of Autumn,Winter, Spring, Summer; and in the ubiquitous process of a Cosmic Triplicity of Space to Be, Urge to Be and this Place of Being, a dynamic that has often been imagined as the Triple Goddess. In the flow of the PaGaian Wheel of the Year, the Seasonal transitions of the Wheel and the Triplicity of the Cosmos come together. There are two celebrations of the Old One/Crone or the Cosmogenetic quality of autopoiesis creating the Space to Be; and they are Lammas/Late Summer and Samhain/Deep Autumn, which are the meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing dark phase. At Lammas, the first in the dark phase, we may identify with the dark and ancient Wise One – dissolve into Her; at Samhain, we may consciously participate in Her process of the transformation of death/the passing of all. The whole dark part of the cycle is about dissolving/dying/letting go of being – becoming – nurturing it (the midwifing of Lammas/Late Summer), stepping into the power of it (the certain departure of Autumn Equinox/Mabon), the fertility (of Samhain/Deep Autumn), the peaking of it (at Winter Solstice). The meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing light phase then are celebrations of the Young One/Virgin or the Cosmogenetic quality of differentiation, the new continually emerging, the Urge to Be; and they are Imbolc/Early Spring and Beltaine/High Spring. At Imbolc, the first in the light phase, we may identify with She who is shining and new – as we take her form; at Beltaine, we may consciously participate in Her process of the dance of life. The whole light part of the cycle is about coming into being: nurturing it (the midwifing of Imbolc/Early Spring), stepping into the power of it (the certain return of Spring Equinox/Eostar), the fertility (of Beltaine/High Spring), the peaking of it (at Summer Solstice). In the PaGaian wheel of ceremony there are two particular celebrations of the Mother, the Cosmogenetic quality of communion; and they are the Solstices. If one imagines the light part of the cycle as a celebration of the ‘Productions of Time’, and the dark part of the cycle as a celebration of ‘Eternity’, the Solstices then are meeting points, points of interchange, and are celebrations of the communion/relational field of Eternity with the Productions of Time. This is a relationship which does happen in this Place, in this Web. This Place of Being, this Web, is a Communion – it is the Mother; the Solstices mark Her birthings, Her gateways. The Equinoxes then – both Spring and Autumn – are two celebrations wherein the balance of all three Faces/Creative qualities is particularly present: in the PaGaian wheel, the Equinoxes have been special celebrations of Demeter and Persephone – echoing the ancient tradition of Mother-Daughter Mysteries that celebrate the awesomeness of the continuity of life, its creative tension/balance. Both Equinoxes then are celebrations and contemplations of empowerment through deep Wisdom – one contemplation during the dark phase and one during the light phase. The Autumn Equinox is a descent to Wisdom, the Spring Equinox is an emergence with Wisdom gained. I like to think of the Equinoxes, and of the ancient icons of Demeter and Persephone, as celebrations of the delicate ‘curvature of space-time’, the fertile balance of tensions which enables it all. Her Creative Place The Mother aspect then may be understood to be particularly present at four of the Seasonal Moments, which are also regarded traditionally as the Solar festivals; and in this cosmology Sun is felt as Mother. I recognize these four as points of interchange: at Autumn Equinox, Mother is present primarily as Giver – She is letting Persephone go, at Spring Equinox, She is present primarily as Receiver – welcoming the Daughter back, at Winter Solstice the Mother gives birth, creates form, at Summer Solstice, She opens again full of radiance, and disperses form. The Mother is Agent/Actor at the Solstices. She is Participant/Witness at the Equinoxes, where it is then really Persephone who is Agent/Actor, embodying an inseparable Young One and Old One. The Old One is often named as Hecate, who completes the Trio – all seamlessly within each other. Another possible way to visual it, or to tell the story, is this: The Mother – Demeter – is always there, at the Centre if you like. Persephone cycles around. She is the Daughter who returns in the Spring as flower, who will become fruit/grain of the Summer, who at Lammas assents to the dissolution – the consumption. At Autumn Equinox She returns to the underworld as seed – Her harvest is rejoiced in, Her loss is grieved, as She becomes Sovereign of the Underworld – Her face changes to the Dark One, Crone (Hecate). As the wheel turns into the light part of the cycle She becomes Young One/Virgin again. Persephone (as Seed) is that part of Demeter that can be all three aspects – can move through the complete cycle. The Mother and Daughter are really One, and embody the immortal process of creation and destruction. Demeter hands Persephone the wheat, the Mystery, and the thread of life is unbroken – it goes on forever. It is immortal, it is eternal. Even though it is true that all will be lost, and all is lost – Being always arises again: within this field of time there is never-ending renewal, eternity. This is what is revealed in the ubiquitous three faces of the Creative Dynamic/ She of Old, the Triplicity that runs through the Cosmos. The Seed of Life never …
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.
(Essay) Winter Solstice/Yule within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Dates for Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 This Seasonal Moment is the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb and it is a gateway between dark and light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being. Whereas Samhain/Deep Autumn is a dark conceiving Space, it flows into the Winter Solstice dark birthing Place – a dynamic Place of Being, a Sacred Interchange. This Seasonal Moment of Winter Solstice is the peaking of the dark space – the fullness of the dark, within which being and action arise. It is the peaking of emptiness, which is a fullness. As cosmologist Brian Swimme describes: the empty “ground of being … retains no thing.” It is “Ultimate Generosity.”[i] In Vajrayana Buddhism, Space is associated with Prajna/wisdom – out of which Upaya/compassionate action arises. Space is highly positive – something to be developed, so appropriate action may develop spontaneously and blissfully.[ii] In Old European Indigenous understandings, the dark and the night were valued at least as much as light, if not more so: time was counted by the number of nights, as in ‘fortnights,’ and a ‘day’ included both dark and light parts … it was ‘di-urnal’. I have been careful with my language about that inclusion in the ceremonial ‘Statement of Purpose’ for each Seasonal Moment. This awareness is resonant with modern Western scientific perceptions about the nature of the Universe: that it is seventy-three percent “dark energy,” twenty-three precent “dark matter,” four percent “ordinary matter.”[iii] The truth is that we live within this darkness: it is the Ground of all Being. In Pagan traditions since Celtic times, and in many other cultural traditions, Winter Solstice has been celebrated as the birth of the God; and in Christian tradition since about the fourth century C.E., as the birth of the saviour. But there are deeper ways of understanding what is being born: that is, who or what the “saviour” is. In the Gospel of Thomas, which was not selected for biblical canon, it says: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.”[iv] This then may be the Divine Child, the “Saviour”: it may be expressed as the new Being forming in the Cosmogonic Womb,[v] who will be born. We may celebrate the birth of the new Being, which /who is always beyond us, beyond our knowing … yet is within us, burgeoning within us – and within Gaia. What will save us is already present within – forming within us. The Winter Solstice story may emphasize that what is born, is within each one – the “Divine” is not “out there”: it may be said, and expressed ceremoniously, that we are each Creator and Created. We may imagine ourselves as the in-utero foetus – an image we might have access to these days from a sonar-scan during pregnancy. This image presents a truth about Being: we are this, and it is within us, within this moment. Every moment is pregnant with the new. It will be birthed when holy darkness is full. Part of what is required is having the eyes to see the “new bone forming in flesh,” scraping our eyes “clear of learned cataracts,”[vi] seeing with fresh eyes. That is what the fullness of the Dark offers – a freshening of our eyes to see the new. And the process of Creation is always reciprocal: we are Creator and Created simultaneously, in a “ngapartji-ngapartji”[vii] way. We are in-formed by that which we form. In Earth-based religious practice, the ubiquitous icon of Mother and Child – Creator and Created – expresses something essential about the Universe itself … the “motherhood” we are all born within. It expresses the essential communion experience that this Cosmos is, the innate and holy Care that it takes, and the reciprocal nature of it. We cannot touch without being touched at the same time.[viii] We may realize that Cosmogenesis – the entire Unfolding of the Cosmos – is essentially relational: our experience tells us this is so. The image of The Birth of the Goddess on the front cover of my book PaGaian Cosmology expresses that reciprocity for me, how we may birth each other and the healing/wholing in that exchange. It is a Sacred Interchange. And it is what this Event of existence seems to be about – deep communion, which both Solstices express. Babylonian Goddess, Ur 4000-3500 BCE. Adele Getty, Goddess, 33. Birthing is not often an easy process – for the birthgiver nor for the birthed one: it is a shamanic act requiring strength of bodymind, attention, courage, and focus of the mother, and resilience and courage to be of the new young one. Birthgiving is the original place of ‘heroics,’ which many cultures of the world have never forgotten, perhaps therefore better termed as “heraics.” Patriarchal adaptations of the story of this Seasonal Moment usually miss the Creative Act of birthgiving completely, usually being pre-occupied with the “virgin” nature of the Mother which is interpreted as having an “intact hymen.” The focus of the patriarchal adaptation of the Winter Solstice story is the Child as “saviour”: even the Mother gazes at the Child in most Christian icons, while in more ancient images Her eyes are direct and expressive of Her integrity as Creator. NOTES: [i] Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, 146. [ii] See Rita Gross, “The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 179-192. [iii] These figures as told by cosmologist Paul Davies with Macquarie University’s Centre for Astrobiology, Australia. [iv] Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas, saying number 70. See https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/thomas.html . [v] Melissa Raphael’s term, Thealogy and Embodiment, 262. [vi] The quotes come from a poem by Cynthia Cook, “Refractions,” Womanspirit (Oregan USA, issue 23, March 1980), 59. [vii] This is an Indigenous Australian term for reciprocity – giving and receiving at the same time. I explain it a bit further in PaGaian Cosmology, 256-257. [viii] An expression from Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, 68. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living …

(Book Excerpt 3) The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia

[Author’s Note: The following is from Chapter 8, The Consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW.] The Budoji stories the primordial drama of Mago’s beginning. It furnishes a yet-to-be-heard story of the beginning of the Great Goddess, the taboo story in patriarchy. It is the story of the Creatrix that patriarchy has attempted to erase. It can be temporarily forgotten but can never die because it is the story that is at the root of patriarchy. Ultimately, it is The Story that is happening HERE and NOW. The merit of the Magoist Cosmogony lies in the fact that it, through storying, restores the view of the whole, the macrocosmic view of the All. The holistic view necessarily involves the Great Goddess or the First Mother in that S/HE is the Creatrix. Time is not a linear concept, flowing from one end to the other. Time is the unified Present, happening NOW. It may be said that time is circular or cyclic, as all beings are constantly in motion to enhance the process of self-creation, which causes the whole to change ceaselessly. The Present hosts an infinite number of stories that take place in the undividable One Space HERE. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still happening and we are invited to re-cognize HER STORY in the HERE and NOW. The beginning is a process, not a single isolated event that took place in the remote past.[i] All things exist in the process of becoming HERE and NOW as part of WE. Put differently, the beginning of the Great Goddess is the LIVE SCENE/DRAMA/STORY. We are part of HER STORY. Mago’s beginning is the heart that pumps fresh blood to the body of the terrestrial becoming. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still taking place HERE/NOW. The terrestrial beginning is attributed to the Great Goddess who is self-born through the sonic movement of cosmic light. The beginning story of the Great Goddess is no ordinary one. It is of power and truth, that is, metamorphic. It provides the original text to the meaning of “salvation.” HER Beginning that is happening HERE/NOW holds all from falling into cacophony. For one thing, it delivers us from the patriarchal misconception of ultimate reality that does away with the Creatrix. The holistic view of the Creatrix is capable of saving us from misconceptions and misconduct. Ultimately, it guides us to live our life in harmony with the whole, HERE/NOW. The Magoist Cosmogony engenders the consciousness that WE ARE HERE/NOW. The universe is existent without beginning or end. In one ever-existing reality, things ceaselessly appear and disappear in relation to one another on all levels. All things are in the constant movement of autogenesis striving to arrive at a new position of balance. S/HE IS HERE/NOW telling us the STORY of WE. That is the source of our metamorphosis. Notes: [i] Process thought founded by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John B. Cobb shares a common premise on that regard, although it does not associate ultimate reality with the Creatrix. (See Book Excerpt 1 and Book Excerpt 2. Available in Mago Bookstore.) Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
(Goma Article Excerpt 3) 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 published in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books.] The Goma Words The Bear Goddess In the coventional interpretation of the Korean foundation myth, “Ungnyeo (熊女)” is the name given to the bear (Gom) who received a female body upon enduring the trial of the cave initiation, married Hanung, and gave birth to a son who later became the founder of the ancient Korean state, Joseon (2333 BCE – 232 BCE). As such, “Ungnyeo” and “Gom” are unequivocally identified as the same figure. Nonetheless, the notability of “Ungnyeo” remains secular to most modern Koreans. That Gom is also involved with the bear constellation, the Northern Dipper in particular, remains esoteric at best. The bear mytheme of the Goma myth offers an insight to the etymology of both words, “Mago” and “Goma.” Given the mythological evidence that associates both Goma and Mago with the bear constellation, we may establish that the syllable “Go (姑 Ancient Goddess)” in “Mago” and “Goma” is derived from “Gom,” which means the bear in Korean. Modified by “Ma,” a universal sound for “mother,” both “Goma” and “Mago” refer to the Bear Mother. This assessment merits, among others, an explanation for the bear mytheme in the Goma myth in which Goma is depicted as the head of the royal bear clan. The bear is one of the most prominent symbols of Goma and Mago together with the nine and the tree. Goma, as the bear Goddess, holds together the animal bear, the bear worshipping people, and the circumpolar constellation of the Bears (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) in the Northern Hemisphere. Indicating the bear totem and the bear constellation, the bear symbol runs through her myths and linguistics. In the story, the cave initiation that Goma proposed intimates the ancient bear worshippers associated with the bear’s cyclic behaviors including hibernation for the long winter months in a cave. The bear symbol is important in that it connects Goma (the queen of the bear clan), Mago (the Goddess of the bear constellation), and their devotees, “the royal bear clan,” broadly recognized across cultures. It is not surprising to note that Goma and Mago appear conflated in cultural and devotional practices. Doumu (斗母 Mother of the Northern Dipper) is a prominent example of the amalgamated divine, Magoma. Doumu is well noted for her conflating manifestations among kindred Goddesses in Daoism. Marnix Wells states that Doumu is alternatively identified as Taiyi Yuanjun (太一元君 Goddess of the Great One) and Jiuhuang Daji (九皇大帝 the Great Emperor of Nine Emperors). Doumu is considered as “Mother of Dipper” known as Doumu Yuanjun (斗母元君 “Goddess of the Chariot”) and conflated with Taiyi Yuanjun (太一元君 “Goddess of the Great One”), who is one of the Three Pure Ones. She is considered the mother of the seven stars of the Dipper and two not visible ones, the Jiuhuang Daji (九皇大帝 “Nine Great Divine Kings”).[1] Here Taiyi Yuanjun corresponds to Mago (or the Mago Triad) and Jiuhuwang Daji to Goma (or the Nine Mago Creatrix). As such, Doumu is also related to the number nine symbol, which connects Mago and Goma, a topic to be explained below. Suffice it to say that Doumu, representing Magoma, is a female personification of the inter-cosmic reality unfolded through the circumpolar constellation of the Bears in the Northern Hemisphere in sync with the eco-biotic behavior of bears, as such venerated by their devotees. Goma and the Korean Identity Goma’s alternative names include “Ungnyeo (Female Sovereign),” “Hanung (Han Sovereign),” “Cheonung (Heavenly Soverein),” “Daeung (Great Sovereign),” “Seonhwang (Immortal Emperess),” and “Daein (Great Person)” as well as “Ungssi-ja (Decendant of the Goma Clan), “Ungssi-wang” (Ruler of the Goma Clan), and “Ungssi-gun” (Head of the Goma Clan). The Goma words also include such modifiers as “Ung,” “Gom (Gam, Geum, Geom, Kami)” and “Baedal (Barkdal, Baekdal), “Dan.” Given that her worship is old in origin and non-ethnocentric in nature, the Goma epithets are not limited to the above. It is conjectured that she was revered by other names including the aforementioned Goddesses across cultures. In fact, the Magoist hermeneutic of the Goma myth enables us to reassess variant Halmi (Great Mother/Grandmother/Crone) stories in Korea that have the Magoma mytheme. Among them are Gaeyang Halmi, Seogu Halmi, Angadak Halmi, Dangsan Halmi, to name a few. In any case, the epithet “Goma” is by no means a modern invention. Intriguingly, they are found in place-names, state-names and clan-names, to be discussed shortly. The link between “Ung” and “Gom” is not something unfamiliar to most Koreans. Researchers note that “Goma-seong (Goma Stronghold)” better known “Ungjin-seong” was the capital of ancient Baekje Korea from 475 to 538 CE.[2] However, “Gom” as an alternative epithet of “Goma” remains unfamiliar to many modern Koreans. Furthermore, little known is that “Ungnyeo” is derived from “Goma,” the queen of the bear clan. Korean linguists infer that “Ungsim (熊心)” is an Idu word and should be read “Goma.”[3] Accoding to them, the second character “Sim (心)” meaning “Maeum (마음)” in “Ungsim” is an indicator of its phonetic sound, “Ma.” Following the first character “Go” in “Gom (곰), “Ungsim” should be read as “Goma.” A compound of “Ung (熊)” and “Nyeo (Woman),” “Ungnyeo” is a euphemism for “Ungsim (熊心).” Idu (吏讀 Official’s Script) is an ancient Korean writing system that uses logographic characters for the Korean spoken language. Its use is noted during the early three states (Silla, Goguryeo, Baekje) to Joseon (1392-1919) periods. That Goma is the Idu word for Ungsim offers no small insight. It holds key to unlock a broad range of the Goma words found trans-nationally in East Asia and elsewhere. The Idu word “Ungsim” for “Goma” holds the key to unlock the Goma words that permeate ancient Korean history, language, and culture. Ungsim-yeon (熊心淵 Goma Lake) and Ungsim-san (熊心山Goma Mountain) and Ungsim-guk (熊心國 Goma State) are the most prominent examples. These place-names show how Goma mythology has shaped the landscape of ancient Korean mytho-histories. Ungsim-yeon (Goma Lake) is associated with Yuhwa (Willow Tree …
(Bell Essay 7) The Magoist Whale Bell: Decoding the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This and ensuing sequels are excerpts of a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Whale Mallet, Temple Bell in Sudeok-sa, Chungnam Korea Sources and Methods of Studying the Magoist Whale Bell It is not possible to present the topic in any comprehensive manner due to its complex and outlandish nature. As a whole, its elusive manifestations makes some of this essay’s premises provisional, leaving room for definite conclusions. I suggest that this essay be read as a primer to the large topic, Korean Magoist cetaceanism. I have built this essay on my previously published essay sequels on the Korean temple bell as well as my book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering the Great Goddess Mago from East Asia, on the Magoist Cosmogony.[1] It also draws from my forthcoming essay on Korean Magoist cetacean culture. Importantly, I am indebted to the work of Sungkyu Kim, advocate of Korean cetaceanism, for his valuable insights on the Korean temple bell and Korean cetaceanism in general. While his cross-cultural assessments of ancient Korean cetacean customs are often compelling, his cetacean hermeneutic on the pacifying flute story is in particular indispensable in securing the evidence of Sillan cetacean worship by the generations of Sillan rulers. That said, however, what distinguishes this essay from his work lies in the recognition that Korean cetaceanism is not monolithic totem worship. I hold that Korean cetaceanism was born and flowered within the context of Old Magoism. Here Old Magoism refers to the pre-patriarchal (read pre-Chinese) tradition of East Asia that venerates the Great Goddess, Mago.[2] In turn, the cetacean consciousness of ancient East Asian Magoists enabled a revelation of the Magoist Cosmogony. Thus, Korean cetaceanism is inextricably intertwined with the mytho-history of Magoism. It went underground, as the symbolic power of women inscribed in Magoism was removed from the public space in the course of history. In this light, Kim’s cetacean thought remains revisionist rather than reconstructionist, meaning not radical enough, unable to ask such critical questions as how the Sinocentric mytho-history of Korea or the Buddhist historiography has rendered Korean cetaceanism invisible and what that means to Koreans and the world. Most critically, Kim’s discussion of the Sillan whale bell and the pacifying flute underestimates their musical (read cosmogonic) implications. They are not of a mere musical instrument to call the whale to dance. True that the concept of music is much underestimated outside the context of the Magoist Cosmogony as a whole. The whale bell as well as the pacifying flute represents the regalia of Sillan Magoist rulers who undertook the Magoist mandate of bringing the terrestrial sonic resonance to harmonize the cosmic music of Yulryeo. The whale bell marks a new watershed wherein Sillan rulers successfully reinvented the legacy of Magoist shaman rulers of Old Magoism from the ancient inland mountain culture into the maritime culture of Silla. Stories on the pacifying flute and Manbulsan (Mountain of Ten Thousand Buddhas), the two major myths directly concerning the cetacean code of Korean temple bells, are drawn from the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three States), the 13th century text that recounts myths, legends, and historical events of ancient Korean States including Silla (57 BCE-935), Goguryeo (37 BCE-668), Baekje (18 BCE-660), and Gaya (42-562) from an orthodox Buddhist perspective.[3] To be noted is that the Samguk Yusa (1281), together with another official historical text of Korea, the Samguk Sagi (1145), is a Sinocentric text that tailors ancient Korean history and territory to fit the historical framework of China. As a Sinocentric text, the Samguk Yusa takes a pro-Chinese perspective and presents ancient Korea as a humble little brother who owes Imperial China for his civilized culture. In it, Korean history and territory are curtailed to fit those of Imperial China. Put differently, the Samguk Yusa is a product of a Buddhist evangelist author, Ilyeon (1206-1289), whose interest was in establishing Buddhism of China and India at the cost of traditional Korean Magoism. Among modern Korean historians who are critical of Sinocentric Korean historiography is Sin Chaeho (1880-1936). As Sin’s advocacy of Korean ethnic historiography is largely aligned with the mytho-historical reconstruction of Magoism, I borrow his assessments of the Samguk Yusa and the Samguk Sagi here. Sin maintains that the loss of pre-Chinese Korean history primarily owes to the two survived Korean history books, the Samguk Yusa and the Samguk Sagi, that reduce and distort ancient Korean history. Precisely because of the Sinocentric (read patriarchal and imperialist) take, these two books have survived the persecution of pre-Chinese Korean Magoist historical books. Sin’s poignant criticism goes on to say that the Samguk Yusa employs the Sanskrit words for the names of people and places from the pre-Buddhist period of Wanggeom Joseon and that the Samguk Sagi ascribes Confucian phrases to the speech of Korean warriors who dismiss Confucius thought.[4] What Sin does not see is, however, that the authors of both books chose to be pro-Chinese or pro-Indian to subvert the female-centered tradition of Old Korea, Magoism. In short, they resort to Buddhism and Confucianism, the two major patriarchal religions of East Asia, respectively over against indigenous Magoism. The patriarchal time was waging a war against Magoists and life in general. I hold that both texts mark the milestones that escalated the process of patriarchalization in Korea, which took place much slowerly and later than in China. Damage is not done to Korean history only. A lie brings more lies. In the case of the Samguk Yusa, the portrayal of Sillan Buddhism is distorted. On the surface, the Samguk Yusa treats Esoteric Buddhism as a reservoir of miraculous legendary stories that fertilized orthodox Buddhism. On a deeper level, it dismantles a tie between Magoist cetacean worship and Esoteric Buddhism. The Samguk Yusa’s Buddhist perspective aligned with the Sinocentric historical framework is inherently inadequate in defining Sillan Esoteric …