January 12, 2023December 28, 2022 Mago Work

(Pilgrimage 2) Eight Devi Temples in Kumaon, Uttarakhand, India by Krista Rodin

[Editor’s Note: This and forthcoming parts are the report of pilgrimage visits made during October 2022.]

Naini Devi

I arrived on the 8^th day of Navratri, a festival worshipping the nine forms of Shakti/Devi – the Divine Feminine. The streets in Nainital were full of cars and people; it was mass tourism at its height – all with domestic tourists as Nainital is home to the renown Naini Devi temple. Naini Devi is associated with Nanda Devi, who takes her name from the mountain (or vice versa), and also with Durga. Nainital is also a Shaktipeeth site. According to legend, Shiva’s first wife, alternately called Umma, Sati, or Parvati, (depending on legend/purana) was the daughter of the King of the Himalayas and her father was upset that she married someone who he didn’t find suitable for his daughter. She married him anyway, but when a major festival came around and all the relatives were supposed to be present, Shiva wasn’t invited. This upset his wife so much that she threw herself in the fire. Shiva was devastated and went into a rage, which allowed the demon Taraka to cause havoc in the world. Vishnu, the one responsible for maintaining proper working order in the cosmos, took it upon himself to jolt Shiva out of his psychosis and cut up the deceased’s body spreading the parts all over the Indian subcontinent, so that Shiva would once again fulfill his mission of creating constant change. Sati’s eyes landed in Nainital, so a temple was built to honor the Goddess. There are differing accounts of how many Shaktipeeths there are, some say 51, others 54, yet others over 70, and a few say 108. I have found that there are local Shaktipeeths that are not recognized as official sites but are considered to be the place where part of Sati’s body fell by the local populace. This is especially true in Nepal. Nothing in Hindu legends is simple, and I’ve had to learn that my Western way of wanting a succinct logical response to questions in regard to Indian mythology or history is an exercise in futility. There are multiple truths as there are multiple gods as there are multiple ways of approaching and responding to situations.

The Naini Devi Temple lies directly on the shore of the lake, with the Goddess watching over the waters and surrounding hills. Upon entering the site there is a large orange sculpture of Hanuman, which I found particularly odd as Nanda Devi kicked him off her mountain. When I asked whether I had mistaken the figure for someone or something else, I was assured that it was in fact Hanuman and that people in the region are partial to his worship, so he has his own temple at the entrance to the site. When one goes down a few steps to the temple grounds, Hanuman is directly in front to the right, the place to put one’s shoes to the left (shoes are not to be worn in any of the temples), and the lake lined with priests offering tikas (the red and yellow paste on the third eye) and blessings in front. There is an arch with bells hanging down. One is supposed to ring the bell to alert the deity of one’s presence, a temple form of knocking. Off to the left, is the main single temple for Naini/Nanda Devi, and then at the end the major temple with five Goddesses, with Durga in the middle and Sakand, Kusahmanda, Selputri and Parvati on the either side. While I was there, the priest was performing a fire purification puja which was wonderful to watch. At the end of the hall with the five deities and up a few steps are four rooms with idols. There were three rooms that were dedicated to Krishna and Radha and one to nine deities, including Lord Golu, a local demigod. I was fortunate to be able to take pictures and videos of the puja and site, except for inside the Naini Devi Temple. She is not to be photographed.

Nanda Devi

The last time I saw Nanda Devi in her mountain visage, she repeatedly played peekaboo in the clouds, but even then, I did get lucky and was able to get a good photo of her. She is a very impressive mountain. The story goes that Nanda was a beautiful princess of the early Chand Dynasty who ran away to escape a Rohilla prince who desperately wanted to marry her. Her father refused to accept him as his son-in-law, so Rohilla started a war and won. To save herself, Nanda climbed up the sacred mountain. The mountain became known by her name as she became one with it.[1] She is the patron goddess of the mountain and region and is recognized as a destroyer of evil. The mountain has two peaks along a ridgeline, the one that is higher is Nanda, and the lower eastern summit, not quite visible from Garhwal, is Sunanda, her sister. Nanda Devi is an angry goddess, which is understandable given her history, and is said to be an avatar of the Goddess Durga. There are no shrines to Hanuman on the mountain because when he was looking for herbs, he came across one in the Dunagiri Mountains that he couldn’t identify. He then broke off a piece of the mountain and carried it off with the herb to Sri Lanka without receiving permission from the Goddess. She took affront at his disrespect and announced that anyone uttering Hanuman’s name in her region would be punished. This story is the reason for my confusion in the Naini Devi Temple in Nainital. To get to the Nanda Devi temple in Almora one needs to wiggle through the motorized traffic on the Mall Road and then head to a pedestrian zone up a small hill that leads to the temple. The temple is on a platform high enough that one can see beyond the houses to the surrounding hills (and, I’m guessing, mountains if the clouds had cleared). The woman caretaker was quite nice and performed a special puja for both Nanda Devi in the main temple and for Shiva in the back. From the main shrine, one exits left to circumambulate the temple and there are images of Durga, Ganesha, Krishna and Radha along the way. At the back is the site dedicated to Lord Shiva, depicted through his Shivalinga. What is quite amazing about the Nanda Devi temple, is that it is an oasis of peace amidst the noise, dirt, dust, traffic, and mass of humanity that otherwise crowds the streets. All the reading I’ve done about Almora over the years suggested it was a beautiful serene hill town. What perhaps used to be is now long gone. It’s now a busy congested mess, which is why the atmosphere in the temple is so doubly striking.

[1] My article “Open, Please: Persian & Islamic Tales of Women Rescued by Mountains,” relates similar stories from Central Asia. https://www.academia.edu/87479656/Open_Please_Persian_and_Islamic_Tales_of_Women_Rescued_byMountains

(To be continued)

(Meet Mago Contributor) Krista Rodin, Ph.D.

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(Review) She Appears! Encounters with Kwan Yin, Goddess of Compassion by Sandy Boucher; reviewed by Mary Saracino

In She Appears! Encounters with Kwan Yin, Goddess of Compassion, Sandy Boucher has compiled a sustaining feast of personal stories and artwork about the beloved Asian Goddess, the Celestial Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kwan Yin. Like Boucher, many—but not all—of the contributors to this volume are Buddhists—meditators, Zen priests, nuns, teachers, students. All have been profoundly touched by the very real presence of Kwan Yin in their lives.
(Prose & Poetry) Eurydice by Susan Hawthrone

When you subsume yourself in mythic figures, they often return under different guises. In the early 1990s I wrote this poem. EURYDICE Orpheus sings as he returns from the dead. Eurydice cried out, Don’t leave me here like this. Eurydice’s eyes are dry with fear and anger As darkness closes in on her once again. This poem is from my collection Bird and Other Writings on Epilepsy (1993). In the poem I am trying to find a way to convey the experience of loss of consciousness. Orpheus, because of his talent for music, is told that Eurydice can accompany him out of the Underworld, but the condition is that he does not look back until they are both in the upper world. Yes, Orpheus looks back, thinking he has been tricked. And so Eurydice disappears once again. The figure of Eurydice is very dear to me. In one version of the story, she died when Aristaeus pursued her (I assume with intentions of raping her, as so many did). She stepped on a viper and died. Ovid, however, says that Aristaeus was not the cause, but rather that Eurydice was dancing with naiads on her wedding day when she trod on the snake. There are so many stories hidden in here about assault, about the power of music, about men’s fallibility, about the importance of snakes (sacred to Persephone, Queen of the Underworld) and perhaps about the patriarchal desire to eradicate the practice of women’s rituals passed down through the generations. In 2017, when my novel Dark Matters was published, I returned to the story of Eurydice. In this book, Eurydice is the great aunt of Kate (Ekaterina) and one of seven sisters in the generation of Kate’s grandmother, Maia. And finally, Aunt Eurydice, she was always disappearing with her girlfriends. Eventually she went so far away, her sisters never saw her again. There are three photos of her. In one she is standing alone. It is such a small photograph I can’t see the features of her face. In the second photo, because I don’t know her, I cannot pick her out in the one taken with so many of the sisters in Paris in the early 1920s. What were you doing there? Living it up? Finding love or a companion?The last photo is of Eudy standing on the moors or some other wind-blasted place with another woman. Who is she?Ruby. You are the mystery woman in the photo with Eurydice. I found your name in a letter which was signed, Eudy and Ruby. Here, the reference is twofold. The disappearance of lesbians from history and, in this case, from family history. Like many lesbians, Eudy, felt the need to go into exile, because remaining in one’s home country would bring too much shame. Eudy’s life period is that of the late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century and she goes into exile from Australia around 1919 to Britain. The other reference is to the disappearances of those who resisted the Pinochet regime in Chile, some of whom were lesbians. This is another narrative strand in the novel. Rewritings of our history in myth is a way of excavating the unknown and the erased. So much of women’s history has been disappeared and when you dig into the furrows, you can find those other disappearances that are due to disability, sexuality, race and ethnicity. Bird and Other Writings on Epilepsy is available here and from online retailers: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=48/ Dark Matters is available here and from online retailers: http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=297/ (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne.
(Prose) Asherah, Kali, Jesus? by Joanna Kujawa, Ph.D.

Let’s throw ourselves into the fascinating possibility of Christian Tantra, as described in James Hughes Reho’s (PhD) book Tantric Jesus: The Erotic Heart of Early Christianity. In his book, Reho makes a very brave attempt at proving (or suggesting?) the possibility of Christian Tantra. As someone who has studied Esoteric Hinduism and Tantra for years, I can vouch for Reho’s deep knowledge and understanding of Tantric principles and practices and for his attempt to apply them to Christian practices and teachings. To start with, the dance between Eastern and Western teachings is as ancient as the teachings themselves. I am a believer that spiritual traditions never develop in one particular cultural vacuum but have always informed each other for their mutual benefit. Also, I follow Joseph Campbell, in that the development of the human mythos is universal and only presents itself in different cultural disguises – but carries the same or a very similar message. By ‘mythos’ I mean here the primal individual and collective ‘knowledge’ of our place in the Universe which is somehow embedded in our Consciousness. From this standpoint, Reho’s research and attempt at unifying Tantric and Christian ideas makes perfect sense. First of all, in Tantric Jesus: The Erotic Heart of Early Christianity Reho looks for similarities between the Tantric teachings of Esoteric Hinduism and early Christianity. In this alone, he makes a big conceptual leap which one can only admire: he re-examines and re-defines the Christian understanding of Creation, and especially the Christian understanding of the human body. Reho believes that our current understanding of the body in Christianity is radically different from that of the understanding of early Christians. The Christianity that we know now, he says, was negatively influenced by ‘ascetic Neoplatonists’ which was not intended by the early Gospels or Jesus Himself. He says that he prefers to adhere to the mystical Christianity that ‘thrived largely outside the official institution’ of the Church. Between the second and fourth centuries, the Romanisation of Jesus’ teachings had occurred and he had merged with the Roman Sol Invictus – an all-powerful but remote figure of the Roman God. Jesus became ‘Christ the Conqueror’, and now we are faced with the ‘dogmatic baggage’ of that transformation not only of Jesus Himself but of His teachings as well. I have no argument with this part of the book, as it is historically true that the Roman Empire (Emperor Constantine especially) picked and chose from the early Christian tradition. Also, Reho accurately points to the complete loss of the Feminine Principle in Christianity as a significant part of the process of dogmatisation. In brief, for those of us who are familiar with the Hindu principle of Shakti as the feminine aspect of the Divine, Christianity became de-Shaktified. But, Reho argues, it was not always like this. In fact, he believes that the canonical Gospels, especially the Gospels of Mark and John, tried to bring the feminine back. Theprocess of de-Shaktification (or the removal of the Feminine) from Western tradition, Reho says after Biblical scholar Margaret Barker, started as the ‘Deuteronomic Reform’, of King Josiah of Judah and the high priest Hilkiah around 623 BCE, when they supposedly unearthed a mysterious scroll of the Law of Yahweh written by Moses himself. Josiah destroyed all the ancient temples and removed any traces of the Feminine from the Judaic scriptures. The face of the Feminine aspects banned from Judaic scriptures was that of the ancient Asherah, known also as the consort of Yahweh, in the same way as Shakti was the consort of Shiva in Esoteric Hinduism. Interestingly, Asherah was worshipped as the Queen of the Heavens – very much like the Sumerian Goddess Inanna or the Egyptian Goddess Isis. Indeed, in Egypt, the Jewish population worshipped Asherah (sometimes under the name of Anath) along with Yahweh. Asherah, like Shakti in Hinduism, was the active Power of God. Many representations of Asherah are very similar to representations of Inanna, and even those of the more ancient Ninmah, with poles, trees and serpents being used in relation to earlier interpretations of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Like the Gnostic Sophia, she is often represented as a dove. Reho notes here the biblical significance of the presence of the dove during Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. In this interpretation, the dove represents Asherah/Sophia, which makes Jesus a child and beloved’ of the Goddess. Reho quotes from the Gospel of Mark where, during Jesus’ baptism, ‘a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am pleased”’. The interpretation here is that the dove is the Goddess (Asherah/Sophia) and that Jesus is initiated by Her, rather than by the all masculine and not a particularly friendly God. Since then, attempts to restore the traces of the Divine Feminine were made in Rabbinic Judaism, by ‘the re-emergence’ of the presence of Shekinah – the divine feminine dwelling in ‘the divine presence … as the feminine aspect of God’. In his search for the Feminine Divine in the canonical Gospels, Reho also re-interprets the Prologue of the Gospel of John, translated as ‘In the beginning was the Word’. However, in Greek (the language of the Gospel of John), ‘Word’ is ‘Logos’ – meaning not simply a word but the ‘incarnate Word’ or ‘Wisdom Word’ reminiscent of the Gnostic Sophia (the Wisdom of God) or the creative presence of Shakti. It is worth noting that the same notion was brought up by a Jewish philosopher from the first century in Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria, who also defined ‘Logos’ as the ‘dynamic and creative power of God’ – the exact definition of Shakti in Hinduism. Also in the Gospel of John, the turning of water into wine, according to Reho, symbolises ‘a movement away’ from the ascetism of John the Baptist towards a more inclusive and Goddess-friendly tradition which has its roots in the ancient sacrifice of bread and wine to the Goddess Asherah. In Reho’s book all …
(Call for Contributions) Where are you? We'd like to see you!

Even if we can’t see you, seeing your work is the next best thing. Maybe even better, as it shows your essence. Why not consider submitting your work to this blog, Return to Mago? Since our inception just over two years ago, readers from 156 countries have viewed the blog, with about 50,000 views! To keep the blog flowing regularly, we are always happy to receive submissions of relevant poetry, art, essays, films, music, or any other genre that we haven’t thought of. It can be something new, or it can be something you’ve already published, stand-alone, part of a series, an extract. You don’t even need to have published previously. Why not start exploring your talents by submitting a contribution? Check through your drawers for that poem or drawing you thought wasn’t good enough or you set aside for lack of further inspiration; clean up your computer to find that lurking file with the brilliant seed idea. Don’t be shy, we’ve posted most submissions we’ve received. We’d genuinely like to hear from you, and we respond personally to submissions. Here’s a guide to what we’re broadly looking for: http://magoism.net/people/call-for-contribution/
(Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part I The bell as both a percussion instrument and an idiophone is one of the most pacific, sublime, and ingenious human inventions. It appears cross-culturally from the remote past. Its artistic and ritualistic aspects are fairly well recognized by many. However, many overlook that the bell is a female icon with functionality. Put differently, the bell symbolizes the Goddess, the female who has the purpose. This essay, to be written in parts hereafter, will examine the symbology of ancient Korean bells and explore its implications with regard to Magoist history, cosmogony, and soteriology. At the outset, I posit that ancient Korean bells cast in the form of a woman’s body are there to awaken humanity to the arcane reality of the Female, that is Mago. In East Asia, bell connotes two distinct types, the open ended and the enclosed. In Korean, the open ended bell is called jong (鐘, Chinese zhong), whereas the enclosed one is called bang-ul or ryeong (鈴, Chinese ling). Jong and bang-ul are also distinguished by size. While the former tends to be larger, the latter are commonly used by a shaman or diviner to hold and shake (a group of bang-uls) to invoke the spirit. However, these differences are not unbridgeable. Some bang-uls are open-ended, like jong. By definition, jong is a bell made of metal not stone. (The character jong 鐘 has the radical (basic element) of geum 金, metal or gold. The stone bell is called gyeong.) When jong is used in music, in particular as a musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, it is called pyeon-jong (編鍾, Chinese bianzhong). Perhaps the invention of pyeon-jong follows pyeon-gyeong (編磬, Chinese bianqing), a stone musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped stone chimes. Discussing the differences between the two instruments goes beyond the purpose of this essay. Suffice it to say that jong was likely a metallic replica of gyeong presumably first introduced in the Bronze Age. (See the images below for comparison.) My primary focus in this essay is on jong, in particular the Korean bells cast in the 8th century CE and thereafter. The beauty and significance of ancient Korean bells shed a new light on ancient Korea to be re-dis-covered in relation to Magoism. Both scholars and the public appear to be unaware that the ancient bells of Korea symbolize the female principle as well as woman’s body. It is my hope that this essay allows the ancient bells of Korea to reverberate through time and call people to return to the female origin. Ancient Greek Bells as Woman’s Body A variety of jong from the ancient world appears across cultures. The most explicitly rendered bells which mirror the female form are the terracotta bell figurines of Greece (Thebes) dated circa the 8th century BCE. Both are housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Protruded breasts are placed on the upper part of the bell. The body of the bell is sculpted to resemble the skirt that she is wearing. Two arms annexed from her shoulders appear to be aesthetic rather than functional. The elongated neck is made as a handle to be held. Her neck is adorned with elaborate necklaces. Geometrical designs and swastikas are compelling in both figurines — rife with arcane meanings. The legs are made as mallets. Imagine, then, where the sound comes from upon being shaken! It is her belly, more precisely the vulva from which the sound originates. In the first, above, icon of the Greek bell, women are drawn on the bell’s body in a simplified and exaggerated manner. They are connected with each other hand in hand forming a circle, perhaps dancing a circle dance. As a whole, the bell depicts a dancing woman with her arms raised, standing on her toes. The women painting befits the spirited nature of the bell. In the second, above, icon of the Greek bell, 39.5 cm in height, her breasts are highlighted, encircled by the drawing of two circles. Thus, they appear to be more nipples than breasts. Her arms are laid downward as if pointing to the birds standing below on each side. Each bird is holding an elongated earthworm-like swirling thing at the tip of its beak. Geometric designs in the center of her body are catchily inviting to interpretations. The symmetrical balance is heightened. She appears to stand firmly or be ready to walk. As shown below, one leg when placed out to the side conveys to its viewer that the legs are mallets and at once creates a look that she is real, in motion. In my documentation, the Greek bell idols and ancient Korean bells are the only two groups that are explicitly made in the shape of a woman’s body. Yet, as to be shown shortly, these Greek bell idols, far smaller in size, date about a thousand years earlier than the ancient Korean bells. Furthermore, there is a vast geographical distance between the two bell icons. In comparing them, however, I have no intention to assume that the ancient Greek bell figurines are the earliest of their kind. (It is difficult to discuss the origin of bell as a woman’s body due to the nature of the task, too complex and daunting. It suffices to say that the Chinese bells, dated older than the Thebes bell figurines, have relevance to ancient Korean bells, a point to be discussed at a later part.) Ancient worlds appear not too heterogeneous to say the least, as moderns tend to think. Sillan Bells Let me begin with introducing some ancient Korean bells from the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE) and their major features that are also uniquely ancient Korean (read Magoist). They sound beautifully and deeply when struck. Sounding waves are calculated in the structure of the bell upon being cast. It is known that there are eleven jongs extant from the United Silla period. Only five of them are currently located in Korea, whereas the rest are in Japan. These bells are known as beomjong, a term referring to a bell in Buddhist temples used for Buddhist …
Meet Mago Contributor, Elisabeth Slettnes

Elisabeth Slettnes is a renowned artist who lives in Lillehammer, Norway. She primarily works with oil and acrylic paintings on canvas. Her paintings have been included in several books, including The Girl God, Mother Earth, and Dreams and Divinities. You can see more of Elisabeth’s paintings at http://elisabethslettnes.net. Published posts from the recent:
(Essay 11) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] RAN, Mother of the Sea—and Her Nine Daughters Fig. 28. The Infinite Blue Ocean Mother Earth, När has a sister-friend, Ran. She is a Mater (Stella) Maris icon. She is called the Völva/Vala of the Sea and Mother Sea.[1] The number of two, the twin or double phenomenon, is an old symbol signifying abundance and wealth.[2] The Terra Mater (the classical Mother Earth icon) is portrayed nurturing two wild beasts at her breasts. The female on the När stone is spreading her two legs to the sides, her life-giving womb in the center (Fig. 29, 30, 31), and likewise does the classic two-tailed mer-mother hold out her two fish-tails to either side, one in each hand, allowing all creatures of the Oceans to be born from her holy watery womb.[3] Indeed, an image far away from today´s sterile, one-fish-tailed mer-maid of the fairytales. Also, like her Earth-sister När, Ran also has nine sea-daughters.[4] Their names identify nine different types of sea-surfaces and waves: Himingläva, (Mirroring-the-Clear-Sky, the totally calm surface of the sea), Duva (Gentle-Rippels), Blodughadda (Foamy-Waves, Tempered-Waves?),[5] Hefring (Heaving), Unn (Preferable wave for sailing?)[6], Rönn(“Rännil”, Running Wave), Bylgja (Big wave), Båra/Bára (Stormy-Waves), and Kolga (Uncontrollable Monster Waves).[7] The old fishermen in Kirsten’s family along the rough Danish west coast, life-long committed to Ran through daily observings of her and her daughters, would note, “Well, She is in a cranky mood today!”, and take their precautions, when leaving the harbor. They never wanted to learn to swim for the sake of falling overboard, for, as they said: “She gives us fishes and food every day of our life. When pay-back time comes, one should not hesitate to go!” Among fishermen, Ran was never understood as any kind of goddess, displaying willed and deliberate intentions. She could not be prayed to, nor be moved to fulfill wishes on condition. Rather, Mother Ran and her daughters may signal personifications of the natural forces that one has to learn to deal with. The fishermen never made sacrifices, but shared their gifts. Sharing went both ways. Ran or Rån correspond with rå and rådaren/rån, meaning the mother-guardian of the Sea – still known in Sweden as the sjö-rå, guardian of lakes. (To be Continued) (Meet Mago Contributor) Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen. [1] Johansson, (Skáldskaparmál), Cap. 61. [2] Vicki Noble, The Double Goddess, (Rochester/Vermont: Bear & Company, 2003). [3] Jean Adhemar, Influences Antiques dans l´art du Moyen Age Francais (London: The Warburg Institute, 1937), 197-98. [4] Johansson, (Skáldskaparmál), Cap. 25. [5] Blood = temperament. Projekt Runeberg. http://runeberg.org [6] Lone Mogensen, Himlasagor, 179 (unn, unna, ynnest) [7] Båra or Bára like the modern Danish bør, sharp wind (pronounced “bheur”) corresponding to the Gaelic icon, Cailleach Bheur/ Bheurr/ Bhearra (Mother of the Tempest). Johansson, (Skáldskparmál), Cap. 25, 61. Brunsgaard Clausen, Scandinavian Cailleach, 2. [8] Photo from book: Adhemar, J. 1937XIV. Images of Mare Mater, La Mere is familiar all over Europe.
(Prose Part 2) Sacred Engagement by Yia Alias

Art as Activism The Bride Stripped Bare I have had the opportunity to create large installations in warehouse galleries and it is here, in the public arena, that I have been able to bring together Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality as an act of social comment. The Bride Stripped Bare was the name of a piece that depicted Nature as Bride/Persephone. I created a large shop window. Within, and spilling out from this structure was a bridal gown, trapped in the hem and the train was rubbish, collected from the city streets. On the back wall, attached
(Tribute 6) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

And now, in grief approaching the end of my surviving collection of Barbara’s letters, I come to a gap of almost five years between 1997 above and the next below dated January 5th, 2002. What happened, and why does this collection end (March 2002) long before Barbara’s end? I know she and I were still in contact through that time, and I remember more exchanges after it—right through her last years’ works (copies of which she always shared) including Rad Victorian Radio (2000), Rapture and Sea of Hunger (written in 2001), Suicidal Girls (2002), Text/Context (2004), Oasis 1, 2 and 3 (2005, 2008, 2009), Hypatia (2007), The Blue Rental (first appearing in 2010), The Inquisitor, Theater of Cruelty, the works on her Blogspot web-page, About Writing About (2012), and her final The Victory of Sex and Metal (2014). This was more than what Barbara had called, above, people’s being something like “bumper cars” colliding and falling out of touch. In a sentence, we’d begun to go our separate but connected/parallel ways as serious writers. I want to show what happened to each and both of us. Most of all, I say first, in plain shame, that I now consider the intolerance, impatience, career-frustration and thoughtless haste by which I must have discarded Barbara’s late letters an inexcusable failure and a genuine crime against Letters and civilization. Period. Barbara never stopped evolving in the struggle to face, manifest and master what she’d called (above) the utter meltdown of language; striving to fulfill what her favorite editor Clayton Eshleman (in his Intro to the last edition of Sulfur) said what poetry “is really about: the extending of human consciousness, making conscious the unconscious, creating a symbolic consciousness that in its finest moments overcomes the dualities in which the human world is cruelly and eternally, it seems, enmeshed.” Drawing here upon Barbara’s own phrases above, her “genre” of “FemPolemoPoeticks,” as she kept evolving it, was “not supposed to be pretty.” But it was leading her down a path toward becoming in her own words “indigestible,” “unreadable.” In the face of her daily realities, she had decided that those were the convictions worth her courage, arriving at a place where (March 13th, 2002 below) “only males, generally Brits, or total anarchists…print me”—yet, half-believing that “one hundred years from now, that will be considered a compliment (?).” “I have the impression there is not much hope in my writing, except that Wit is a gesture of belief in something…whatever that might be.” And look, in Suicidal Girls (2002), at these hints of Barbara’s conditions through her last 15 years. After all, when artistic dedication consigns you to living hand-to-mouth, you find yourself trying to survive one brain-searing shit-hole after another, in this Wreck-of-the-Hesperus asylum-on-fire called the present American landscape, teeming with self-destructive faux-rebels dying of ignorance: scream in my walls 4sex in a 4plex their boys are crazy nightspliced wires dance&fightdance&fight bellybutton pliers glow in the dark live here numb in rental skull bang bang bang they move in redone stucco studio used to be a garage cars lived there leaked oil on the rug wall to wall rust atmosphere end of the world plus heat theyre not neat decorate w/fists purplebluegreenpink hair tattoos noserings amplifers huge ashtrays of noise on bad days it costs too much to live here we’re on a one way street wheels roll west 24/7 nothing stops no rest don’t mess w/our trucks… white&black scared persian kitty hides under porch as party rages at dawn new strange girl passed out on asphalt… 400 years but nothing changes a continent they came to pillage&pray… how did they cross the ocean how do i cross the street daily life… …who cooks anyway it takes too long i like things in cans and plastic packets… …they don’t eat they die in the street in fever chewing grass delirious like the Irish history repeats if you let it or forget humans not doomed by Nature but by DumbIdeas im starting to like these loud girls when they scream in the daytime it must be serious Barbara had counseled me to “get your valuable material across the river of ebullient words,” for “you are also writing to now, and that too is an obligation.” Hence, I had made one choice about our “obligations” and “writing to now,” and Barbara made another. While Barbara looked unblinking and “estranged” her own language in the face of what Acker called “the HORROR experienced in daily life,” I had angered Barbara in telling her that I’d walked out of a live Acker reading at Brown. For it seemed to me that Acker—too brilliant not to know—was working her pain and, while replicating (for example) the experience of rape for her enthralled Po-Mo-Privileged-hip Brown audience, in the end was inflicting yet more of its benumbed aftermath upon them—while Barbara, at times (for example in Hypatia, quoted below) could still also see and register not a “redeeming,” but at least a balancing, whole and still-enabling sense of life’s surviving and worthwhile—yes—beauty. This you can see even in those “loud girls” she smiled upon above; but as I saw it (incompletely) years ago, it seemed her style had turned its back on hope of reaching her world’s larger, soul-imprisoned audience of “now.” Disgusted with my own fortunes, I turned away from examples that promised more of same. Today, I think Barbara’s choice was her wisest gesture of hope—the hope that her uncompromising life’s and art’s examples against “DumbIdeas” might invite that audience to spit them out also, to rise back toward true living and true culture. Look for example into Hypatia (2007). Multi-dimensions of being interweave, speak and generate revelation, as a contemporary woman remembers earlier lives (Barbara’s life-project)—filled with horrors, and then suddenly becoming a vision of Life in the purest sense. I am convinced that this passage draws on one of young Barbara’s most ecstatic life-epiphanies. Too dense, too “difficult”? Just read this slowly out loud, and see where Barbara takes you: mid20th c. we went surf-fishing below Pt Dume Malibu not yet Dawn we drank red wine as dark erased,erase March fog,chill i caught the first fish,another then as light,warmth came i went to climb …
(Essay 5) Future of Identity: Reclaiming the Northern Pagan Tradition by Jillian Burnett

Art by Jillian Burnett Freedom of Thought Northern pagan values include independent thought. This is completely at odds with a traditional education system as it is found in the modern world. Part of the mechanics of a post-industrial capitalist society is training children to obey. They passively listen to authority and by rote learn things and then are tested. The method does not engage critical thinking or creativity; nor collaboration with peers and others—as is desperately needed in today’s society. Kids for the most part learn to sit and listen to lectures in school from childhood. Furthering they then study empirical data and repeat what they have been taught, and then follow up with rigorous exams.When polls such as happiness indices are self-reported, there is often a positive correlation that supports that an individual who has the capacity to fully express themselves and process emotions fully, and is creative—has a happier life outcome. Today in America at least every week there is a shooting. Unhappy children turn to violence to seek answers from a broken society. Gun laws are a hot topic on capitol hill. Politicians with an ever growing death toll wrangle voting blocks over the possibility of metal detectors in public places and schools. A solution could be to overhaul this post-industrial Christian system—that focuses on conformity and economic productivity rather than individual realization. Their focus is on obedience rather than ascension into the most creative consciousness and life. Parents have started turning away from what they now call ‘government schools’. The public schooling system has defectors—home school is the new way for pagans and parents who see the inherent flaws in the old education framework. Preparing the youth for the modern world and today’s global marketplace is challenging. The world is increasingly interconnected with semi-open borders and exceptional visas for competitive employment. With the current economy, rising inflation, and more automation stifling the job markets, things will only become more competitive. While vocational training is available in some places, in America that option is decades dead, and schooling is merely a funnel to jobs that soon will be outsourced, or automated. There is no focus on the individual learning and growth—beings are just a means to an end in producing value for the shareholder. Today we all have our place to consume income, provide taxation for the state, and to reflect the values we imbibe from media driven culture. Statistics in the United States also show fewer and fewer young men engaged in higher education; this tells us that the system has failed. We have no choice but to reboot. The northern pagan response to these phenomena is to truly unplug. Off-grid culture rejects endless consumerism which prioritizes economic output over environmental conservation and welfare of people or their culture. Living off the grid provides an opportunity to truly embraces the northern pagan values of self-reliance, harmony with nature, and silent time to reflect so as to offer meaningful and wisdomous communication when needed, along with a healthier and more natural lifestyle. Of course, as can be expected with migration demographics, as the majority of the populations live in cities, so access to rural plains forest and grasslands is extremely limited. Instead, gatherings tend to be at a single shrine. Pagans in New York City meet in great public parks. Others meet privately behind closed doors. Personal access to large swathes of untamed wilderness is outside of the reach of most folk. But few are those even in concrete metropolises who don’t have access to a public park. Tree removals in the greying of places have long since seen counter movements such as the 1 million trees project, which made efforts to bring green to urban slums. Pagans will always find a way to reach into their core consciousness states via nature, trance, and communication with the supernatural. The northern pagan mystical practice of seiðr utilizes the natural world, its elements and materials. The practitioners may know each herb and its association, they may also contemplate within the forests. The reverence for nature is seen in the activity of communicating with spirits and meditating. In today’s pagan community, the cultural continuity includes meditators or herbalists-intuitives, tree hugging naturalists, plant medicine practitioners, or simply folk with garden apothecaries or kitchen witcheries. The practice of incorporating nature as a partner in this shared and co-created experience of presence and consciousness—is at the heart of the practitioner’s path. The systems of sympathetic understanding or astrological associations with plants, berries, trees, shrubs and flowers is as ancient as mankind’s desire to understand cause and effect and action at a distance. The great Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer is one early scholar who spoke at length of this; where early tribes all knew the interdependence of phenomena. Their ritualistic efforts at what later was called sympathetic magic demonstrated belief that no one was an island—that all was connected. This interconnection at the clan and tribe level extended itself and evolved into the practice of exchange of goods as people moved from semi-nomadic to permanent and stable farming communities. While history teaches us that some ancient Germanic tribes were more nomadic than others, across Europe the agrarian lifestyle was adopted as time progressed. With cold winters, trade was a stable way to have access to things needed. Without currency, people exchanged things as they liked using their best judgement. Ports up and down all major river outlets of inland Europe and coastal Europe generally have northern place names or port names because of the heavy historical trading in the area. Looking to the past, the system of exchange of goods and services used by the northern pagans was trade through bartering. Kennings such as oath taker and ring giver tell us a little bit about the tradition of generosity and the cultural and social value of maintaining relationships within members of the clan and tribe through exchange. Marriage-promises, favors and gifts as well as wealth would be traded and locked into family …
The Empress’s New Clothes (an American Myth) by Freeda Cathcart

shutterstock image, subscriber’s use permitted Long, long ago and far away in the land of fantasy lived an Empress. She was a beautiful woman and had served her country well. She had borne four children and maintained a loving relationship with her life’s companion. Yet she still felt as though there was something that she was supposed to do, but she couldn’t think of what that may be. One day when she was out in her garden some guards dragged an old woman and laid her at the Empress’s feet. They insisted that the old woman must be a witch. Any good-fearing woman surely would have died long ago since good-fearing women died young in the service of the patriarch usually bearing children or working in the fields. The old woman explained that she was a simple seamstress and that she was blessed with a craft that had allowed her to live. The Empress was impressed with the old woman and wanted to see a sample of this craft that had allowed her to reach this age. She ordered the guards to release her. Her servants were summoned to take the woman to the palace and to gather all the necessary material for the old woman to demonstrate her craft. Once the old woman was settled in her quarters she insisted that she already had all that she needed to complete her life’s greatest work in honor of the Empress who had spared her life. Over the course of many hours that became days, that became months that stretched into years she worked on her masterpiece to honor the Empress. When the old woman was not working on her craft, she walked with the Empress through the palace’s gardens. There she heard of the things that were dear to the Empress’s heart. The love she felt for her children and the sadness of leaving her family to come and live in this kingdom. The frustrations she felt when she didn’t connect with her husband and the soaring joy that she felt when they did connect. There the Empress revealed how she wanted to serve her people more but how she felt so isolated from them. As the years passed, the old woman became even older and the people called out for some sign of justice that the old woman was indeed the master craftswoman that she claimed to be. So the Empress knocked on her door and asked to see the piece that the old woman had been working on. The old woman gleefully urged the Empress to strip off her clothes and insisted that this work was indeed the most truly beautiful work that she had done yet. Once the Empress was naked, the old woman stood the Empress before a mirror and stated simply that she was done. The Empress felt a little off balance. She examined her reflection. Spinning around, looking both up and down. “Are you sure that THIS is beautiful?” “Yes, indeed. Aren’t you?” After looking carefully in the mirror and thinking very hard the Empress declared, “Yes, I do believe that of all the crafts that have been designed for me that this one is by far the most beautiful. How will I be able to present this to the people so that they understand?” “You will stand before them in your rites and show the craft that I have lovingly passed on to you. Then you shall declare that they may join with you and celebrate their rites to experience this craft of liberation. Should any decline then banish them along with fantasy. The ones that are left will live in this kingdom of reality forever and ever with loving support knowing that it is finally safe to reveal their own true beautiful essence.” Inspired the Empress went and did as the old woman had told her to do. When she returned to the Palace, she was flushed with excitement and eager to report how well the craft was indeed received. There she found the old woman lying on her deathbed. As the Empress wept, the old woman whispered, “Always remember your most beautiful treasure you will ever possess is within your heart and its name is love.” Meet Mago Contributor Freeda Cathcart https://www.magoism.net/2022/06/meet-mago-contributor-freeda-cathcart/
(Essay) The August Moon and the Virgin Mary by Harita Meenee

To a Greek person, the word “August” brings two things to mind. One is the August moon. Captivating and erotic, we observe it with awe as it spreads its glow on the dark sea waters. It keeps on striking a chord. Strange? Not at all since the moon is a powerful archetypal symbol. Myths, which speak the language of the soul, adore it. Almost all peoples and cultures have created traditions and beliefs related to it. Though it might be easy to reject lunar lore as mere superstition, we cannot deny that the moon captures our imagination. My own relationship with it is deeply personal. My pseudonym, Meenee, is a variant of mene, an ancient Greek word for the moon. It is also another name for Selene, the Moon Goddess. “Taurokeros (Bull-horned) Mene” she is called in the Orphic Hymn 9, which sings her praises: “Mother of time, bringer of fruit … all-seeing … jewel of the night, leader of stars,with your long mantle you travel in spirals, all-wise maiden…” I’ve spent endless hours studying the symbolism of the moon, and yet it still seems to hide many secrets. Perhaps it’s because of its associations with the three greatest mysteries of life: birth, love and death. The moon “is born” and “dies” again each month, following a never-ending cycle: waxing, full moon, and waning. For a night it completely disappears from the sky and then it pops up again in the form of a thin crescent. One could hardly find a more apt symbol of rebirth. The earth’s satellite teaches something that we all too often forget: everything in life comes full circle and ends, but after that happens, something new arrives to takes the place of the old. Death is often followed by new birth. Maybe that’s why the moon became associated with goddesses who protect childbirth, like Artemis, as well as with figures connected to the Underworld, such as Hekate. Furthermore, lunar symbolism often accompanies Mother Goddesses, such as Isis and Artemis Ephesia. It’s not surprising if you think that the monthly journey of the moon lasts 29.5 days, approximately as much as a menstrual cycle. That’s why it was connected with the concepts of fertility and motherhood. Interestingly, anthropologists who travelled to remote places discovered that such beliefs had survived until recent years. For example, Greenlanders as well as some of the people in Nigeria attributed to the moon the power to cause pregnancy. The same was believed by the Buryats of Western Mongolia. Similarly, the Maori, natives of New Zealand, thought that the real husband of a woman is the moon. The Moon in Christianity and Islam Up to this day, the role of the moon remains alive in many traditions. For example, the crescent adorns Muslim mosques. Let’s not forget that this shape, often accompanied by a star, was a symbol of Hekate and of the ancient city of Byzantium, whose protectress she was. The Roman Emperor Constantine made Byzantium into his new capital, renaming it Constantinople, after himself. Thus, the symbol of the crescent moon was passed on to the Christianized empire that historians call Byzantine. We can see this symbol on coins, as well as in churches and on icons. Sometimes the accompanying star has been changed into a cross. Yet the crescent moon is a very ancient symbol, used not just by Greeks but also by many other peoples, such as the Babylonians, Persians and Phoenicians. The combination of crescent and star also appears on pre-Islamic coins of South Arabia. Moreover, it was used by Pre-Islamic Turkic nations such as the Göktürks, who lived in medieval Inner Asia. When the Ottoman Empire succeeded the Byzantine, the Turks made the crescent its central emblem. It didn’t take a big leap for it to become the symbol of Islam, which has been called “Religion of the Crescent Moon.” Christianity did not altogether abandon this age-old shape. In the biblical Book of Revelation we encounter a mysterious figure: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” (XII, I) The Catholic Church identifies this cosmic being with the Virgin Mary, the “Queen of Heaven,” who is sometimes depicted standing on a crescent. Interestingly, in 2011, Catholic residents of Goa in India claimed that they could see an apparition of hers with baby Jesus on the moon. That caused them to panic, thinking that the vision was a bad omen signaling the end of the world! The Church had to adopt Pagan symbols in order to become more palatable to the people it conquered. I was raised as a Christian Orthodox, yet I never felt much of an affinity for this religion. As a child and teenager, I kept turning my eyes towards the Hellenic goddesses and gods I saw in books and museums. As an adult, I was fascinated to discover the many ancient elements incorporated into what was supposed to be the “one and only true religion.” I saw how in Eastern Orthodoxy Mary had clearly become a Christianized version of the Divine Mother. Naturally, she had also taken on the mysterious glow of the moon. During the Great Saturday (Easter Eve) service, she is called tekousa selene, the moon that gave birth to the “Savior, the sun of justice.” Orthodox images associating her with the crescent are rare, but they do exist. One example is the Galaktotrophousa, the Nursing Madonna, painted by the Cretan artist Emmanuel Tzanfournaris in the 16th century. Painted in Byzantine style, it depicts Mary sitting on a large crescent. Another interesting icon, which has become very popular because it is considered miraculous, is Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn. The original image, also known as the Virgin Mary of Ostrobramska, is located in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. She appears to emerge from a large silver crescent; it was not a part of the original painting but …
Susan Hawthorne

Read all posts by Susan Hawthorne. Susan Hawthorne is the author of fourteen books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her poetry collection Cow (2011) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in the 2012 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and was also a finalist in the 2012 Publishing Triangle Awards for the Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Prize in the US. Earth’s Breath (2009) was shortlisted for the 2010 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in annual Best Australian Poems anthologies, been broadcast on National Radio, and been published in print and digital literary magazines in USA, Canada, India, Macau, Algeria, Germany, UK and Australia. In 2013 she was Literature Resident at the BR Whiting Studio in Rome where she wrote her most recent collection of poetry, Lupa and Lamb (2014) which focuses on the prehistory of the Mediterranean and ancient Rome. Her other collections of poetry include Valence: Considering War through Theory and Poetry (2011), Unsettling the Land (with Suzanne Bellamy, 2008), The Butterfly Effect (2005), and Bird and Other Writing on Epilepsy (1999). Her fiction includes a novel, The Falling Woman (1992), a verse novel Limen (2013) and she is currently working on a novel, Dark Matters which she hopes will be finished by 2017. She is Adjunct Professor in Writing at James Cook University, Director of Spinifex Press, and plays a leading role in independent publishing and eBook publishing. http//:www.spinifexpress.com.au She first began researching the ancient world in 1976. She enrolled to write a PhD on belief structures in the ancient world in 1979, but due to the institution’s incapacity to understand her project and active resistance to it, she left the university and instead wrote a novel, The Falling Woman (1992, reprinted 2004). She eventually completed a PhD in 2002, which forms the basis of her book Wild Politics: Feminism, globalisation and bio/diversity (2002, and published in India). Among her other non-fiction are The Spinifex Quiz Book (1993; translated into German and Spanish) and Bibliodiversity: A Manifesto for Independent Publishing (2004; translated into Arabic, French and Spanish, and to be published in German in 2017). She has also (co-)edited ten anthologies of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives (2002, with Bronwyn Winter), CyberFeminism (1999, with Renate Klein), several books on animals, and several lesbian anthologies. For more information go to the Spinifex Press website. After studying Ancient Greek for some years and receiving an MA (Prelim), in recent years she has studied Sanskrit and Latin. In 2009, she spent four months living in Chennai on an Asialink Residency and the result was her collection Cow. During 2016 she has participated in writing a poem a day, including several new sequences on rewriting mythology, among then a twenty-poem sequence on the Muses http://project365plus.blogspot.com.au/. She is a publisher at Spinifex Press which she co-founded with Renate Klein 25 years ago. In 2015, she received the George Robertson Award for her Services to the Publishing Industry.

(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that […]
(Review) Journey into Dreamtime by Munya Andrews, reviewed by Glenys Livingstone

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion […]
(Special post) Interweaving Mago Threads by Mago Circle Members

“Mago” tradition Magoism is a new word to the modern Western vocabulary, yet it has […]
(Special Post Isis 3) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. […]
(Special Post 2) "The Oldest Cilivization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by […]
(Special Post 5) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that […]

(Essay) The Emergence celebrated at Spring Equinox by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

A SEED FOR SPRING EQUINOX . . . till I feel the earth around the place my head has lain under winter’s touch, and it crumbles. Slanted weight of clouds. Reaching with my head and shoulders past the open crust dried by spring wind. Sun. Tucking through the ground that has planted cold inside me, made its waiting be my food. Now I watch the watching dark my light’s long-grown dark makes known. Art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos 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. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. 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”[ix] 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.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

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

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

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 7) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) at Mago Bookstore. YEARLY LEAP DAY AND EVERY FOURTH YEAR LEAP DAY Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds to 365 days. At the half point of the third Sa, there is a Pan of the big Sak (the year of the great dark moon). A Pan comes at a half point of Sa. This is of Beopsu (Lawful Number) 2, 5, 8. A Pan is equal to a day. Therefore, the fourth Sa has 366 days. Each year has a leap day (Dan), which makes a total of 365 days. Every fourth year is a leap year that has a leap day (Pan), which makes a total of 366 days. The Dan day comes before the New Year in the winter solstice month. And the Pan day comes before the first day of the summer solstice month in the fourth year. The above, however, does not indicate when the New Year comes. Logographic characters of Dan and Pan each suggest their meanings. While each year includes the Dan day (the morning), every fourth year has the Pan day. A unit of four years makes the Big Calendar. Dan (旦 Morning) Leap day for every first three years Pan (昄 Big) Leap day for every fourth year I have postulated that the year begins on the Dan day (one leap day), a day before New Year that comes in the month of Winter Solstice in the Norther Hemisphere. And the Pan day comes on the day before the first day of the 7th month that has Summer Solstice in the fourth year in the Norther Hemisphere. Years Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Months Dan Dan Dan Dan 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 Pan 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 13 Days 365 365 365 366 The Magoist Calendar’s intercalation involves one leap day every year and one leap day every four years. That is, each year has one extra day to make it 365 days. Every fourth year has an extra day to make it 366 days. Four years has a total of 1461 days (365×3+366), which makes the mean of 365.25 days. Considering that the month is following the sidereal period rather than the synodic period, it is inferred that the year also follows the sidereal year rather than the solar year. In fact, Magoist Calendar’s one year is very close to today’s 365.25636 days of the sidereal year compared to 365.24217 days of the solar year or the tropical year. Given that, as seen below, the Budoji mentions the tiniest discrepancy of one leap day for 31,788,900 years, the discrepancy between 365.25 and 365.25636 (0.00636 day) can be explained that the year was actually 365.25 days at the time of Budo circa 2333 BCE, 4440 years ago. In other words, there is a discrepancy of 0.12375936 seconds between 2017 CE and 2333 BCE. Regarding Lawful Numbers 2, 5, 8, it is involved as follows: 365 days (3+6+5=14, 1+4=5) Lawful Numbers 2, 5, 8 refers the unit of 365 days (364 days with one intercalary day). Further dynamics are unknown. The sidereal year refers to the time taken by the Earth to orbit the sun once with respect to the distant stars. In contrast, the solar or tropical year means the time taken by the Earth to orbit the sun once with respect to the sun. The sidereal year, 365.25636 days, is about 20 minutes and 24 seconds longer than the mean tropical year (365.24217 days) and about 19 minutes and 57 seconds longer than the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days. The difference occurs primarily because the solar system spins on its own axis and around the Milky Way galactic center making the solar year’s observed position relative. Time is no independent concept apart from space and the agent. The very concept of time is preceded by the agent bound in a space. It is always contextualized. In Magoism, both calendar and time are born out of the cosmogonic universe, the universe that is in self-creation. Like calendar, time is to be discovered or measured. It is a numinous concept. The very concept of time testifies to the reality of the Creatrix. Time proves the orderly movement of the universe into which we are born. Calendar patterns time, whereas time undergirds calendar. How can we measure time? We are given the time of the Earth that comes from its rotation, revolution, and precession in sync with the moon and the sun (and its planets). One type of time is the solar time. The solar time is a calculation of time based on the position of the sun. Traditionally, the solar time is measured by the sundial. The solar time is, however, specific to the Earth only. It is valid only for the-same-observed-location. It is not made to be used for the time of another celestial body. For example, Mars’ solar time has to be measured independently based on its own rotation and revolution rates. The solar time is an isolated time. It is static and exclusive, not made for the time of other celestial bodies. By nature, it is unfit for connection and communication across celestial bodies. The second type is the sidereal time. The sidereal time is a time scale based on the rate of Earth’s rotations measured relative to the distant stars.[29] Because the observed position is in the far distant stars beyond the solar system, the sidereal time may as well be called an extrasolar stellar time. We can think of the observer’s position of an imaginary cosmic bird far out there, infinitely far beyond not only the solar system and …
Lammas/Late Summer within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
Lammas/Late Summer in PaGaian tradition By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Traditionally the dates for this Seasonal Moment are: Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd however the actual astronomical date varies. See archaeoastronomy.com for the actual moment. Lammas table/altar Lammas, as it is often called[1], is the meridian point of the first dark quarter of the year, between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox; it is after the light phase has peaked and is complete, and as such, I choose it as a special celebration of the Crone/Old One. Within the Celtic tradition, it is the wake of Lugh, the Sun King, and it is the Crone that reaps him. But within earlier Goddess traditions, all the transformations were Hers[2]; and the community reflected on the reality that the Mother aspect of the Goddess, having come to fruition, from Lammas on would enter the Earth and slowly become transformed into the Old Woman-Hecate-Cailleach aspect …[3] I dedicate Lammas to the face of the Old One, just as Imbolc, its polar opposite on the Wheel in Old European tradition, is dedicated to the Virgin/Maiden face. The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again. I state the purpose of the seasonal gathering thus: This is the season of the waxing dark. The seed of darkness born at the Summer Solstice now grows … the dark part of the days grows visibly longer. Earth’s tilt is taking us back away from the Sun. This is the time when we celebrate dissolution; each unique self lets go, to the Darkness. It is the time of ending, when the grain, the fruit, is harvested. We meet to remember the Dark Sentience, the All-Nourishing Abyss, She from whom we arise, in whom we are immersed, and to whom we return. This is the time of the Crone, the Wise Dark One, who accepts and receives our harvest, who grinds the grain, who dismantles what has gone before. She is Hecate, Lillith, Medusa, Kali, Erishkagel,Chamunda, Coatlique – Divine Compassionate One, She Who Creates the Space to Be. We meet to accept Her transformative embrace, trusting Her knowing, which is beyond all knowledge. Lammas is the seasonal moment for recognizing that we dissolve into the “night” of the Larger Organism of whom we are part – Gaia. It is She who is immortal, from whom we arise, and into whom we dissolve. This celebration is a development of what was born in the transition of Summer Solstice; the dark sentient Source of Creativity is honoured. The autopoietic space in us recognizes Her, is comforted by Her, desires Her self-transcendence and self-dissolution; Lammas is an opportunity to be with our organism’s love of Larger Self – this Native Place. We have been taught to fear Her, but at this Seasonal Moment we may remember that She is the compassionate One, deeply committed to transformation, which is actually innate to us. Whereas at Imbolc/Early Spring, we shone forth as individual, multiforms of Her; at Lammas, we small individual selves remember that we are She and dissolve back into Her. We are the Promise of Lifeas was affirmed at Imbolc, but we are the Promise of Her- it is not ours to hold. We identify as the sacred Harvest at Lammas; our individual harvest isHer Harvest. We are the process itself – we are Gaia’s Process. Wedo not breathe (though of course we do), we borrow the breath, for a while. It is like a relay: we pick the breath up, create what we do during our time with it, and pass it on. The harvest we reap in our individual lives is important, andit is for us only short term; it belongs to the Cosmos in the long term. Lammas is a time for “making sacred” – as “sacrifice” may be understood; we may “make sacred” ourselves. As Imbolc was a time for dedication, so is Lammas. This is the wisdom of the phase of the Old One. She is the aspect that finds the “yes” to letting go, to loving the Larger Self, beyond all knowledge, and steps into the power of the Abyss; encouraged and nourished by the harvest, She will gradually move into the balance of Autumn Equinox/Mabon, the next Sesaonal Moment on the year’s cycle. References: Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess.Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Gray, Susan. The Woman’s Book of Runes.New York: Barnes and Noble, 1999. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. McLean, Adam. The Four Fire Festivals. Edinburgh: Megalithic Research Publications, 1979. Notes: [1]See note 3. [2]Susan Gray, The Woman’s Book of Runes,p. 18. This is also to say that the transformations are within each being, not elsewhere, that is the “sacrifice” is not carried out by another external to the self, as could be and have been interpreted from stories of Lugh or Jesus. [3]Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, The Year of the Goddess, p.143, quoting Adam McLean, Fire Festivals,p.20-22. Another indication of the earlier tradition beneath “Lughnasad” is the other name for it in Ireland of “Tailltean Games”. Taillte was said to be Lugh’s foster-mother, and it was her death that was being commemmorated (Mike Nichols, “The First Harvest”, Pagan Alliance Newsletter NSW Australia). The name “Tailtunasad” has been suggested for this Seasonal Moment, by Cheryl Straffon editor of Goddess Alive! I prefer the name of Lammas, although some think it is a Christian term: however some sources say that Lammas means “feast of the bread” which is how I have understood it, and surely such a feast pre-dates Christianity. It is my opinion that the incoming Christians preferred “Lammas” to “Lughnasad”: the term itself is not Christian in origin. The evolution of all these things is complex, and we may evolve them further with our careful thoughts and experience.
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 5) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion. The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period. When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe. Synodic Lunar Track (Patriarchal) Sidereal Lunar Track (Magoist) Focus Moon’s phases Moon’s motions Days of month 29 or 30 (irregular) 28 (regular) No. of months in a year 12 13 Women’s menstrual cycle Assumed sync Synced Luni-centric Astolonomy Unknown 28 Constellations Intercalations 11 days annually, a total of 44 days for 4 years 1 day annually & 1 day every 4 years, a total of 2 days for 4 years Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in …

(Book Excerpt 2) Mago Almanac Planner by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Details for Mago Almanac Planner are available here. [Author’s Note: This is Part 2 of the Preface. Read Part 1 of the Preface here.] PREFACE What Mago Almanac Planner Offers There is nothing more plainly indicative of the fallacy of patriarchal thinking, that is, the perspective of male-supremacy than the 12 month calendar. Considering that the calendar is the basic foundation for human activities, the standard 12 month calendar that the modern world is adapting functions to maintain patriarchy. According to the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Magoism, the 12 month calendar was first invented and introduced by Yao (ca. 2356-2255 BCE), the pre-dynastic ruler of ancient China to replace the 13 month Magoist Calendar. The newly risen patriarchal rule needed to amend the female-centered 13 month calendar, which would make the Mother-Nature bond invisible. First of all, the 12 month calendar has an irregular number of days (28, 29, 30, or 31). The inconsistent number of days is an indication that the 12 month calendar is out of tune with Nature’s rhythm, ultimately Sonic Numerology. Reality is distorted. Fundamentally based on the imposed or presumed balance within the scheme of dyads (the male and the female), the 12 month calendar propagates a hierarchical dualism. In the dyad, the two are viewed as independent single entities disconnected from each other so that it allows one to be superior to the other (A>B). The worldview it represents is reductionist; the evolutionary process of life is predetermined. On the other hand, the 13 month calendar has 28 days in a month. It is regular and rhythmic, a sign of a healthy living entity. In tune with Nature’s rhythm, the 13 month calendar guides us into an infinitely creative and open-ended worldview based on Sonic Numerology (musical interplay of nine numbers), the cosmogonic force of WE/HERE/NOW. Numerologically aligned, the 13 month 28 day calendar leads us to an ever-unfolding reality. The triadic principle, an epitome of Nine Numerology, stands for the web of spiral interconnection. One divided by three leads to the realm that never ends as it goes 0.3333… for example. That said, what is the better way to restore the lunar-female song and dance than women themselves by charting out the menstrual cycle in the 13 moon calendar? Mago Almanac Planner provides tools for menstruators to mark menstrual dates side by side with lunation dates. We want our modern-day maidens and mothers to see how their own menstrual cycles run in harmony with all other beings in the Natural World! Menstruation is a calendric indicator designed to guide human societies. Biology is not only social but also cosmic. Menstruation is never a separate biological phenomenon. For non-menstruators, Mago Almanac Planner opens the door to each day, week, and month of the cosmic song and dance. We are about to move the axis of our consciousness in tune with all else in the universe!Book information on Magoist Calendar Year 4 and Magoist Calendar Planner Year 4 here. (To be continued) https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/ [1] This is a topic that will be treated in detail in my forthcoming book, The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time Inscribed in Sonic Numerology.
(Goma Article Excerpt 2) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

Part III: Archaeology Bespeaks What Ideological Hetero-sexuality Can’t Do Our story-tellers informed us that Gaeyang Halmi is venerated and celebrated on January 14th annually on the lunar calendar. There are two separate rituals performed on that day. Villagers, both men and women, offer their ritual ceremony in the morning in Confucian style. The officiant must preserve the purification ritual, confining oneself to home to avoid ominous affairs for a week prior to the ceremony. After the ceremony of the villagers, Mudang groups come from outside the town and offer their Shaman rituals. A cleavage between two groups is still freshly detected in their narratives. While villagers conform to the Confucian style rituals with a despising but curious eye for the female-centered Shaman rituals, Mudangs are much more powerful in their capacities to command people, spirits, and materials. The Shamanic ritual celebration is fairly well-known domestically as well as overseas to the Chinese and the Japanese, according to our lore transmitters. People from China and Japan come to join the Mudang rituals, a vestige of the intercultural celebration that may have originated in ancient times, a point to be elaborated later. What caught my attention was the fact that the ritual celebration is known as the Ritual of Yongwang (the Dragon King) not the Ritual of Gaeyang Halmi. Our two narrators, Mr. Jeong Dong-Uk and Ms. Jeong Si-Geum, brother and sister, testified contradictorily vis-à-vis the Dragon King. Mr. Jeong mentioned that Gaeyang Halmi is the wife of Dragon King,[i] whereas Ms. Jeong spoke of Gaeyang Halmi as a solo deity without spouse. Ms. Jeong sternly said, “She was alone [without spouse]. She had eight daughters.” “It is said that there used to be a house wherein Gaeyang Halmi and her eight daughters lived together. I saw the cooking pots and household things in the ruin,” added Ms. Jeong. [Interestingly, the motif that she saw the cooking pots and other kitchen items in the ruin reminded me of other Mago folk stories from other regions. People seem to take such artifacts as pots and household things discovered in the ruin as an indication that the myth of Mago Halmi who is told to have lived in the place is plausible.] The topos of “the dragon king” was likely added later on to comply with Confucian ideology. In fact, none of our narrators mentioned the dragon king as the main deity of the Suseong Shrine. The fact that it is called the ritual of the dragon king suggests another layer of erosion/castration/dethronement done to the supreme divinity of Gaeyang Halmi.
How do you say what The Mago Work is? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang & Mago Circle Members

It took many years for me to pronounce the communal nature of the Mago Work. Defining the Mago Work necessarily endows us with the bird’s eye view of the Great Goddess, the primordial consciousness of WE in S/HE. Early this year, I asked people to define the Mago Work and their definitions are illuminating about what this book ultimately seeks to achieve.[1]
(Poem) Knowing Mago Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This poem was an offshoot of an essay on Magoist Calendar and Nine Numerology, to be included in the forthcoming anthology, Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). I thank Genevieve Vaughan, Danica Anderson, and Harriet Ann Ellenbeger who have given me feedback to the article and inspiration to this poem.] Mago Calendar is the umbilical cord of the Great Goddess, the umbilical cord that re-members the Beginning Story of us all terrestrial beings, that enables the one and many songs/dances of the Earth, and that nourishes the human world to sing the chorus to the cosmic lullaby. Mago Calendar is the grand wheel of the Great Mother, the grand wheel that spirals the inter-cosmic orbit of truth, goodness, and beauty, that carries all earthlings to the fullest becoming, and that builds bridges into the inter-protonic galaxies. Mago Calendar is the everlasting blessing of the Nine Mago Creatrix, the everlasting blessing that scripts the ecstasy of Heavenly Numerology, that charts the Earth’s metamorphosis from the infinite to the physical, and that unfolds the Reality of the Mago Time, WE/HERE/NOW. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.
(Essay 2 Part 2) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

Part 2 ENGAGING THE MIND It makes me cringe every time someone calls Korean drama, especially the historical genre, a soap opera. The fact that they are TV series doesn’t necessarily make them foamy. Quite the contrary, they are full of substance. They don’t go on and on for years, season after season. On average, most of them are 24 to 60, one-hour-long episodes. Some have fewer episodes, some have more episodes, but after they are done—we move on. It’s a good way to learn non-attachment. Korean historical drama is thought provoking. It is multidimensional in the way it presents characters and stories. Plots are well developed, intelligent, intriguing, and entertaining. Yes, there are some predictable outcomes, but there is also a lot of substance and artistic craftiness, as well as clever twists and fascinating surprises. Sageuk (Korean Historical Drama) can teach about history and culture, and also about mythology, philosophy, and spirituality. It reminds us of the values that are fading or have vanished in Western culture in the 21st century. The importance of subtleties in life is shown through plot development, rhythm, and acting. Reoccurring themes convey lessons like patience, acceptance, forgiveness, trust, integrity, perseverance, and courage… That is, the true meaning and practice of those. There is depth in the understanding of the writers, as well as in the corresponding depiction by actors. There is profundity, which evokes a reciprocal reaction in the viewers’ mind. The characters are likable—and their outlook on life and their behavior are admirable. They evolve and influence each other and their environment. There is this definitive sophistication in expression of emotion. Something akin to meditation. In Sageuk, “silence speaks”. Thus, the experience is not only pleasant, relaxing and/or exciting, but many times healing and enlightening. Confucian ideas mixed with Buddhist and Daoist ideals motivate the protagonists’ kind and considerate actions. A particularly valued quality in Korea is “착하다/착한 [chakhada/chakhan]”. I first heard it mentioned in an interview[i]/book[ii] presentation of Euny Hong. The translation in the dictionary reads, “good, nice, good-natured, kind-hearted, meek, obedient, docile, gentle, quiet.” Actually, it is all this and much more. It is a trait that when faced with, being cynical—as we often are in the 21st century—we can easily dismiss as being naive, gullible, submissive, and even foolish. However, in the words of Rumi, “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: at the first, you ask yourself, ‘Is it true?’ At the second gate ask, ‘Is it necessary?’ At the third gate ask, ‘Is it kind?’”. The heroines and heroes in Korean historical drama follow this teaching in words and action. Most epitomize pure heartedness. There is a child-like sweetness about many of them—come to think of it, by losing innocence, has humanity really gained wisdom? In the online edition of Entertainment Weekly, I encountered a quote by Jacqueline Sia, Director of Video Operations of New York based DramaFever—one of the largest databases of subtitled Asian films and TV programs. In speaking about Korean drama she states: “Portrayal of love is a little more PG,”[iii] an observation that strikes any novice in the genre. We have become used to quick climaxes, crash-and-burn liaisons, as well as media glorified dysfunctional relationships. The predominant understanding of sex (and certainly the one staring at us from the TV and cinema screens) is hurried, flat, and linear. There is a disconnect between sex and love. Profanity and violence pour daily from everywhere. Exhibiting symptoms of an empath can easily be diagnosed as a psychiatric condition, and yet we are conditioned to be less and less sensitive. In this background, complex and refined emotional states, longing, embodied sacredness, and the act of leaving much to the viewers’ imagination, seem to be suitable only for children. Are we awake and mature enough to realize that all the psychological and social implications of the well-manipulated programming we are subjugated to is already bearing fruit in ‘real life’? (Read Essay 2 Part 1. To be continued in Essay 2 Part 3.) Notes: [i] The Korean Society, “Euny Hong discusses with WSJ columnist Jeffrey Yang her first nonfictional book,” YouTube (November 6, 2014). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxHv2gT539o [ii] Euny Hong, “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture,” Simon and Shuster (2014). [iii] Hillary Busis, “Korean Dramas: A Beginner’s Guide,” Entertainment Weekly (April 11, 2014). Description of Korean Historical Dramas: This course offers a series of Korean Historical TV-dramas or Sageug (사극) and discusses the traits of female characters as well as general features of Korean history, culture, art, aesthetics, thought, customs, and people. What makes Korean drama so unique? What is the “secret recipe” that makes it so popular internationally? Why is it that, after a few episodes, one can‘t wait to see the next one or the next new drama? Those questions have made many wonder, from audiences to journalists and critics. Participants are invited to explore answers to these questions and more. Our emphasis is on woman’s place in history, as well as her role as creator, healer and leader; her strife to discover and reinvent herself, her inherent wisdom, her abilities to surrender, without giving up, and her potential to adapt, thrive, and ultimately transform the world she is in. Our selection of dramas qualifies high criteria in story content, character development, actor portrayal, multiplicity of ideas and values, and abilities to educate, while engaging and entertaining the viewer. Facilitators (Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Ms. Anna Tzanova) will provide articles and audio-video materials concerning salient themes. (For more, see here) Info on online class, Korean Historical Dramas. See Meet Mago Contributor Anna Tzanova.