September 13, 2023September 9, 2023 Mago Work

(Poem) I Bow by Arlene Bailey

(Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey

Leave a response to the main post, entitled atop this page.Cancel reply

(Book Excerpt 1) Finnish Goddess Mythology and the Golden Woman: Climate Change, Earth-based Indigenous knowledge and the Gift By Kaarina Kailo

Finnish Goddess Mythology and the Golden Woman: Climate Change, Earth-based Indigenous knowledge and the Gift Kaarina Kailo 2018 Introduction Literature and the stereotyping of culture establish complete control over truth and knowledge. It finally replaces troops and guns as the relevant tool of colonization. (Ward Churchill 1992, 2) The creative arts play a crucial role in this expression of Earth Love. Ecofeminst arts … [are] essential catalysts of change that (re)connect us with nature and spirit. (Diamond & Orenstein 1989, 279) For the worst toxins are not those of external pollution but those generated by humanity’s wrong thinking. (Forest 2008, 237) Since time immemorial myths have been used to unite and mobilize people. They have served to create “imaginary communities” and to help create a sense of ethnocultural identity. Most importantly, mythic tales have served to transmit Traditional Ecological Knowledge and ecosocially sustainable lifeways.[1] Myths are often rooted in rituals and have a core of historical truth although they have a way of blurring the distinctions between fact and fiction. Terra Feminarum, the mysterious Northern Land of Women, has intrigued scholars for centuries; after the Roman historian Tacitus (98 CE), the Roman historian, Ohthere of Hålogaland (a Viking Age Norwegian seafarer living about (890 CE), and Adam von Bremen (a German medieval chronicler) mentioned a land east of Sweden that was not just ruled by women, as in having an occasional queen, but very vividly run by women. They referred to such a geographical site of powerful woman leaders, perhaps even Amazons, living in what is now Finland and maybe Estonia with its Naissaar (Island of Women). In the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot also refers to Pohjola, the North Land or farm, as the “man-eating village.” He pits the Kalevala heroes of the South against the “Harlot of the North”, Louhi, the matriarch who is the epic’s strong female leader and shaman.While going deeply into the mystery of this Land of Women is the topic of my next book, in this context I look upon the Terra Feminarum as the hypothetical matrix of Northern pre-Christian–and likely more woman-positive–cultures. I see this Land as a convergence zone extending across Scandinavia, Finland, Samiland and the lands of Russian Finno-Ugric people. The traces in legends and myths, toponyms and folk art of Great Mothers or Goddesses of the North from Gullveig and Freyja to the Golden Woman (Zolataja Baba) suggest that the matriarchal cultures of Old Europe, researched by Lithuanian archeologist Marija Gimbutas and her followers need not be limited to the South-Eastern borders of Europe. The evidence I have gathered so far regarding the more egalitarian and woman-friendly North is, however, not as such the focus of this book. Because Finnish Guardian Spirits and other female figures of the pagan folk beliefs and worldview have not received the attention they deserve, in this book I focus on making them visible, introducing the many Great Mothers and Spirits that have been neglected, even censored by Christian patriarchy. However, the focus is not alone on the figures themselves but on the traces of a Finnish Traditional Ecological Knowledge system and culture that they can be associated with. Today no serious scholar, activist, politician or citizen dares to question the reality of climate change. More and more evidence has been amassed regarding its dramatic impact. The South is shivering while the North is experiencing heat waves. Exceptional storms, weather constellations and natural phenomena are beginning to convince even the staunchest resisters of global warming that the ecological crisis is a tangible reality. The World Tree is shaking and some fear that the mythic acopalypse, the biblical flood, the Ragnarök of Norse sagas is actually about to come true. While all cultures have known myths of impending end-of-the-world catastrophies, today’s planetary situation is undeniably more serious than that of any other generation. Is an ancient mythical prophecy of the apocalypse in the making? In another book project, I focus on the causes of the climate change of which Canadian Woman Studies/cahiers de la femme also published a special issue (2017). The newsletter of the Planetary Movement For Mother Earth sent the following up-date on the less recognized roots of climate change: “The moment of truth has come! Weakened ozone layer lets cosmic radiation through. The earthly life dies. Proof provided, reasons clarified.” Von Werlhof sums up the recent findings in the report as follows: “There is no possibility of mistakes since April 4th, 2018. Beyond all official claims and speculation about increasing CO2 emissions as a threat to earth´s life, there is now proof to the contrary … a part of the atmosphere, the famous and unique Blue of the planet Earth … is in the process of dissolution. The atmosphere thus no longer offers the protection for which it was created in the course of earthly life…. Already … 250 million years ago nearly all life on earth became extinct, because nothing grew any more. The so-called ’Great Dying’ had then probably the same reason (Gabbattis 2018) (Von Werlhof April 13th, 2018). Today, Wehrlhof continues, ”the problem consists not only in the existence of the infamous ozone holes over the Antarctic and over the Arctic, too, but also in that, contrary to expectations, they make no attempt to close themselves (Titze 2018). The ozone layer as such has in the meantime generally become very weak (Dönges 2017). This means that it lets the cosmic radiation pass also far from the ozone holes themselves. That this is possible, has always been denied“.[2] It may seem absurd, after such news, to move on to discussing the role of stories in bringing about a change of heart regarding the future of the planet. I believe, however, that we need to act simultaneously on many levels of consciousness-raising and of ecopolitical action. I have personally decided to do just that, seek outreach on different levels and in ways that touch different readers or target groups differently. This is the method of both/and, not either/or. Colonial and imperial powers …
(Video) The Mago Work by Mago Sisters by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL-hbgxa5v1IfUM6h6PvOTpLe8fLv5ExRG&v=HUM6EQ7sEaQ
(Poem) Signifyin’ Woman by Louisa Calio

Louisa Calio reading at Shirley Foundation, New Haven Rumor has it she was born a gypsy on the streets of Palermo, Sicily Then again, some say it was on the bay of Naples While others claim she was made in New Orleans under one of those giant trees with roots that go down so deep they reach into the earth’s center. Trees with arms so long, high and wide they come out and grab you like the Great Mama. The dark bark betrays our true origins Straight from the core she’s come with silvery lips, wide hips, menstrual blood and Oracular Visions Part witch and bewitching she refuses to be from one place or one race. SHE travels… in any skins, many skins, spotted like the leopard, black as the panther white as the milk in her mama’s rosy-red breasts. She is red tongues licking fire a bold soul, an old soul, backyard worshipper and gypsy wanderer. Sicilian queen, a dew’s drop on mint green pure, liquid, mercury the sharp in turns the quick in glances, a grain of sand in the Sahara & between cracks of concrete. She is the wavelength Green, a fish-bellied, crab-crawling, moon-child secret reptile, Virgin & Mean…the final curtain the call before the Great Silencing…. a Global-eye, spy the rhythm and the drumbeat of eternity the curse of blessedness all female feminine woman Madonna- puttana, the funneling that germinates Seeeeedzzzz. The veiling revealed! unsettling, rumbling, pulsating speech earthquaking, rumbling and shaking like she when she walks and sways her hips. YOU got to admit she is Bee-loved by everything and everyone. Life’ssssssssssssss final, exhausting, suffering moment when the word is made flesh. I hate to admit it, but I’m one of her devotees this Evocateur of Haitian lore a day’s last ray of sun the light, a fright, forbidden fruit, Jew and jewel. A pure love that instructs, rising from the cavity of womb instinctual patterning, dancer prototype woman/ goddess- be damned and man-made manifest …sting…… Earthworm creeper, digger of holes, deeper The Holiest One, collector of insects and pets the source of intrigue, the rage in rivers and all that flows… is Oh, soooo BEAUTY –Filled an instrument of divine… “mercy, mercy, mercy /me /” mus i cal gal, pal, Louis Prima’s sista signifying woman! (Winner first prize International Competition Canicatti Sicily 2017) https://www.magoism.net/2015/06/meet-mago-contributor-louisa-calio/
(Poem) giri by Susan Hawthorne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hindu_representation_of_the_earth_02.jpg a tortoise swallowed a mountain having thought that the mountain was slow and steady like her good self the tortoise was shocked to discover that many hidden things go on in mountains this particular mountain was in eight parts it seemed to the tortoise who was learned in mathematics that it was an infinity of mountain because on every slope in every ravine on peaks and in the deepest caves there were multitudes of mountains inside mountains each of these contained yet more mountains in fractal form not only that but each of these multitudinous mountains hosted different kinds of creatures in one a small girl played with a ball in another a man curled like a ball his eyes blinded by some unknown disease in yet another a mouse crawled up the rocky slope a rope climber without a rope a cloud hung over another mountain in conversation with trees and there was more much more but by now the venerable tortoise was getting bored and regurgitated the lot she deposited this ball on the peak of the nearest mountain and let it roll Note The word giri in Sanskrit has many meanings – among them a hill, a rock, a mouse, a cloud and a chain or mountains – and these meanings are the source of this poem. The dictionary is a marvelous source of associative thinking. https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
(Essay) Be-ing in the Church by Xochitl Alvizo

Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of the peculiar paths our religious lives take, much more so to make sense of one another’s paths which can be so different from our own. I was raised in a Mexican American family and grew up in Los Angeles, California (my parents say I was “made in Mexico, assembled in the U.S.”). And I grew up going to Spanish-speaking Catholic mass. I have often said that the God I know in Spanish is so different from the God I came to know in English when I began to roam Protestant circles in undergrad. Growing up, the Spanish speaking God I knew was as assumed and as basic as the air that kept us alive: always available and always with us in the good, the bad, and the ugly. God was a constant without which we could not exist. But in undergrad, my Protestant friends seemed to have a completely different understanding of God than the one I had grown up with. Theirs was a God that required obedience, a God of very specific expectations, and a jealous God at that! It was a very confusing time for me and my engagement with Christianity wavered. Then in graduate school, eight years after undergrad, something happened that revolutionized my life – I discovered radical feminists! As ironic as this might seem, radical feminists provided me with a way to make sense of Christianity. They gave me a language and the tools to both critique and engage Christianity and the church. I have often said that if it wasn’t for Mary Daly, I wouldn’t be able to call myself a Christian(!). I got to work with Mary Daly the last two years of her life, me and three other friends from grad school; Mary called us the hedge hags. We were part of Mary’s local community that shared in her day to day life, and ironically, we were all Christian identified women. Mary Daly grumbled about this of course, asking how we could continue to stay involved, and so we told her. Each of us gave Mary Daly our own account of the different and complicated reasons for staying involved in the church – not all of it making sense to her of course. But, we also share one common reason for staying that did make sense to Mary. We, adult, feminist, critically reflective women, have stayed involved in Christianity because there was something from deep within our be-ing that compelled us to do so, and be-ing was something Mary Daly did understand. Mary Daly taught me to participate in Be-ing, in Ultimate Intimate Reality. [1] What Mary wanted for me, and what she wanted for all women, was that I do that which awakens me, that which ignites my Elemental Passion [2] and connects me with the Divine. And for me, that meant I stayed; I stayed to continue my participation, critique, and engagement in the tradition that has been passed down to me and that continues to be a part of who I am (and a part of so many others whom I love and with whom I share my life). But I do so differently now. I participate and engage on the Boundary, the “Time and Space created by women Surviving and Spinning on the boundaries of patriarchal institutions.” [3] I live on the Boundary of Christianity and find my life’s passion there. It is there that I Rage, taking the “transformative focusing force that awakens transcendent E-motion,” [4] and it is there that my be-ing [5] takes place. Even though Mary first grumbled at the fact that these four feminist friends of hers were all women who “stayed,” she also knew we were women with the Courage to See, the Courage to Live, and the Courage to Sin. [6] Our path was not the one she envisioned for women, and she certainly would not have recommend our path to anyone else, but Mary Daly knew it was the right one for us (at least for the time being anyway), and she enCouraged us to Rage on! One of the reasons I appreciate this blog so much is because it helps keep me responsible; it reminds me of the many things of which I must be mindful as I participate in a religious tradition that has been the cause of so much harm. I am grateful that so many people participate in this blog with the Courage [7] to Con-Question. [8] Because of it, I continue to think deeply and critically about the Christian tradition I claim and I aim to participate in it in such a way that honors the insights and experiences of those who challenge me. I won’t always get it right, but I will always be making the effort. It can indeed be difficult to make sense of the peculiar paths our religious lives take, but maybe looking to make sense of it is beside the point. As I have commented on this blog before, the human spirit and lived reality do not fit nicely into simple or clear cut categories or explanations. But I do believe it is a beautiful and necessary practice to continue to engage one another across our different paths, Spinning and Weaving new creations as we do. ~~~~ Spinning: “Gyn/Ecological creation; Discovering the lost thread of connectedness within the cosmos and repairing this thread in the process,” Wickedary, p. 96. Weaving: “Original activities of Websters: creating tapestries of Crone-centered creation; constructing a context which sustains Sisters on the Otherworld Journey,” Wickedary, p. 99. [1] Be-ing: “Ultimate/Intimate Reality, the constantly unfolding Verb of Verbs which is intransitive, having no object that limits its dynamism,” as defined in Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, conjured by Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi, p. 64. [2] That is to say, it ignites our E-motion: “Elemental Passion which moves women out/away from the fixed/framed State of Stagnation; Pyrogenetic Passion that fires deep knowing and willing, stirring Metamemory, propelling Wild Women on the Otherworld Journey,” from Mary Daly’s Wickedary, p. 74. [3] Wickedary, p. 67. [4] Wickedary, p. 91. [5] be-ing: v: actual participation …
(Book Excerpt 2) For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan

[Editor’s Note: The following sequels are from For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan. Footnotes may differ from the original text.] The Gift Paradigm There is a fundamental paradigm, with widespread and far reaching effects, which is not being noticed. It may seem strange, in the time of space travel, computers and genetic engineering, that anything really important could be ignored. However, we may remember the idea of the “elephant in the living room” talked about by Alcoholics Anonymous. People who are in denial of someone’s alcoholism do not mention it. In order to maintain the status quo, they turn their attention to other things. I believe there is a large part of life that is being denied and ignored. Unlike alcoholism, it is the healthy normal way of being, but we are indeed turning our attention away from it in order to maintain a false reality, the patriarchal status quo. I call this unseen part of life ‘the gift paradigm.’ It is a way of constructing and interpreting reality that derives from mothering and is therefore woman-based (at least as long as women are the ones who are doing most of the mothering). The gift paradigm emphasizes the importance of giving to satisfy needs. It is need- oriented rather than profit-oriented. Free giftgiving to needs–what in mothering we would call nurturing or caring work–is often not counted and may remain invisible in our society or seem uninformative because it is qualitatively rather than quantitatively based. However, giving to needs creates bonds between givers and receivers. Recognizing someone’s need, and acting to satisfy it, convinces the giver of the existence of the other, while receiving something from someone else that satisfies a need proves the existence of the other to the receiver. Needs change and are modified by the ways they are satisfied, tastes develop, new needs arise. As they grow, children need to become independent, and mothers can also satisfy that need by refraining from satisfying some of the children’s other needs. Opposed to giftgiving is exchange, which is giving in order to receive. Here calculation and measurement are necessary, and an equation must be established between the products. In exchange there is a logical movement which is ego-oriented rather than other-oriented. The giver uses the satisfaction of the other’s need as a means to the satisfaction of her own need. Ironically, what we call ‘economics’ is based on exchange, while giftgiving is relegated to the home–though the word ‘economics’ itself originally meant ‘care of the household.’ In capitalism, the exchange paradigm reigns unquestioned and is the mainstay of patriarchal reality. Even many of those who wish to challenge capitalism envision only an economy without money–a barter economy–which is of course still based on exchange. I believe they misplace the dividing line between the paradigms, making money the responsible factor rather than exchange, so they cannot clearly see the alternative that giftgiving presents. Aiding the maintenance of the status quo and the exchange economy is a view of ‘human nature’ as egotistical and competitive qualities which are required and enhanced by capitalism. The qualities required and enhanced by mothering are other-orientation, kindness and creativity. Though they are necessary for bringing up young children, these qualities are made difficult, even self-sacrificial, by the scarcity for the many which is often the consequence of the exchange economy. They are considered not ‘human nature,’ not part of reality. I believe that the gift paradigm is present everywhere in our lives, though we have become used to not seeing it. Exchange, with its requirement for measurement, is much more visible. However, even our greeting “How are you?” is a way of asking “What are your needs?” ‘Co-muni-cation’ is giving gifts (from the Latin munus–gift) together. It is how we form the ‘co-muni-ty.’ By satisfying the needs of the infants who are dependent upon them, mothers actually form the bodies of the people who are, and live together in, the community. They also care for and maintain the implements, houses and locations where the community interactions take place. We communicate with each other through our gifts of goods, through co-munication. Each gift carries with it something of the thought process and values of the giver and affirms the value of the receiver. In fact, goods and services that are given freely to satisfy needs give value to the receiver by implication.[1] [1] It would be interesting to look at anorexia as a refusal not only of food but of the value that would have been transmitted to the receiver through the reception of nurturing. Perhaps the anorexic takes on the exchange paradigm too profoundly or too soon. [Editor’s Note: The following sequels are from For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan. Footnotes may differ from the original text.] (To be Continued) Meet Mago Contributor, Genevieve Vaughan
(Call for Contributions) Special Topics & Four Categories of Contributors

RTM Editorial Circle is pleased to announce the following: Call for Contributions for Special Topics Four Categories of Contributors Have you check out the new look in our website? We have several new features on the sidebar widgests. Look forward to our creativities to bloom despite the devastating signs around us and globally. It is the time that WE shine and guide the mind/heart/soul in an ever more visible way! May the Mago Work connect and empower each of us in a special way!
(Speech 2) A Crucial Time of Choice by Anne Baring

[Author’s Note: This and the previous sequel are from my talk for Humanity Rising, delivered on August 11th, 2020]. Amazon in Brazil Deforestation, Getty Image taken by Paul Luoman There is one further factor that needs to be included in this story. This was the deliberate decision by the Roman Church to wipe out all trace of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene and create the vicious calumny of Mary as a penitent whore.[1] Think what it would have meant for the development of Western civilization if the union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene had been celebrated by the Church founded in his name. Had their marriage been recognized and Jesus not turned into the celibate Son of God, Christianity would have had a totally different history without a celibate male priesthood and without the terrifying persecution of women in the witch trials that scarred Europe for five centuries. We might have been spared the disastrous association of sexuality with sin and the misogyny and mistrust of women that affects our culture to this day. The monotheistic cosmology of the three Patriarchal religions has led to the situation where the Earth is no longer viewed as sacred and we are confronted with the catastrophic effects of the loss of the Divine Feminine. They did not teach reverence and respect for a sacred Earth. They supported endless wars, conquests and brutal conversions in the name of their God. They treated other races as inferior and subject to the white race and the God they worshipped. They put their emphasis on faith, belief and belonging to an institution, not on deepening our relationship with and service of life. Because of this history, we have been on the wrong path for more than two thousand years, out of alignment with the Earth and the Cosmos. It has led us to this time of crisis and awakening and to the need for a new yet very old story, a story that tells us that we are the life and breath of the Divine in human form and that all life is infused with Divinity.[2] The primary experience of human consciousness from 2,500 BC until the present day has been one of increasing alienation from nature, culminating in the ideology of technological progress and limitless growth that is unrelated to the needs of the planet and our utter dependence on the viability of its life. Our current worldview, whether West or East, rests on the premise of our mastery of nature, where the diminishing resources of the planet are unthinkingly plundered to serve the ever-growing numbers and needs of our species alone. Materialist or reductionist science built on the flawed foundation bequeathed to it by patriarchal religion and has dispensed with both God and the soul. It tells us that the universe is without life, purpose or meaning. When the physical brain dies, that is the end of us. The highest authority is the rational mind. We are separate from the world around us. The Master Story is technological progress. I think this explains why, in a worldwide culture influenced by the secular philosophy of science, we have we come to believe that it doesn’t matter what we do to matter – that nature and matter are not sacred, that we are not part of that sacredness. This is why there is no foundation for morality in our relationship with the Earth. What we think we need, we take. The psychiatrist C.G. Jung could see the dangers of this materialist philosophy and commented: “As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos, because he is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional “unconscious identity” with natural phenomena… No voices now speak to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature has gone.”[3] In another passage, he describes how, as the conscious mind gained more and more autonomy and independence from the deeper matrix of the psyche, the whole super-structure of consciousness became disengaged from the age-old instinctive ground out of which it has developed. “Consciousness thus torn from its roots…”, he said, “possesses a Promethean freedom but it also partakes of the nature of a godless hybris.”[4] Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll. Aerial view of the Able test, a 23 kt (96 TJ) device detonated on July 1, 1946 at an altitude of 520 ft (160 m). Wikimedia Commons. Once, long ago, the world was experienced as alive with spirit. Nature was part of a sacred cosmic whole. In spite of horrendous persecution, the Indigenous peoples of the world have kept alive this awareness of the sacredness of nature and the idea of our kinship with all creation. The New Story emerging in quantum physics tells us that the whole universe is a unified field. Our lives are part of a cosmic web of life which connects all life forms in the universe and on our planet. Every atom of life interacts with every other atom, no matter how distant. We are not only connected through the Internet but through the infinitesimal particles of sub-atomic matter. We are part of an immense Field of Consciousness which sustains not only our world, but the entire universe. This restores the original cosmology of the Great Mother at a new level of understanding. A new vision is struggling to be born; a new vision of our profound relationship with an intelligent, living and interconnected universe. The realization is dawning that we are participants in a Cosmic Consciousness or Intelligence which is present in every atom of our being and every particle of matter. We are called to a profound process of transformation that is manifesting as a new planetary consciousness: a consciousness which recognizes that we are part of a Sacred Web of Life. We are part of the life of the Earth as well as the Cosmos. Thousands, even millions of us, are joining groups like Humanity Rising,[5] working together to …
Trees Scent and Sing for Life by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright On November 6th, the day after the election in the middle of writing through my own anger/grief I suddenly stopped and got up – heeding that inner voice that often interrupted my train of thought. Picking up the lights I opened the door to adorn my young cedar for the very first time ever. I planted this twelve-inch-tall seedling in 2020 to replace my original Cedar Guardian Tree that had been decimated by deer during a year-long absence. To my astonishment in four years, this seedling had become a seven-foot-high Guardian Tree. Of course, in the interim I have carefully tended this cedar, watering her, talking with her, touching her, loving her, calling her ‘my guardian’ but this species is very slow growing so even as I began to festoon the tree with lights, I experienced a sense of awe. I was of course talking with this tree as I adorned her… I told her that I would be lighting her as a Tree for Life. When the air around the tree suddenly exploded with the scent of cedar, I experienced a powerful sense of relatedness with this cedar, and with all nature that is impossible to describe. That she was communicating with me using her own words moved me deeply. Although I have had these experiences before each one remains a revelation, especially when I have one during times of deep distress. When I plugged in the lights, I saw the unintentional spiral that I had created when I wound the strings so carefully around and across her delicate fronds. Just perfect I thought as a breeze rustled through her branches making the lights twinkle for a moment. I went back to my writing but throughout the day I periodically stopped, got up, and gazed out at my tree, still marveling, feeling deeply comforted by this Presence. I remembered another winter long ago when her predecessor lit up the night as I took my little puppy out to pee. Hope always gravitated to that tree, and when I shoveled on dark and snowy nights the tree acted as a beacon… Early that evening, exhausted by the day’s writing I soaked in the vision of my tree that was now literally lighting up the night. Then I checked my email. I discovered that scientist and friend Rupert Sheldrake had posted a piece about his two sons, Merlin a scientist, and Cosmo a musician, who are in Ecuador. Together. Merlin is doing mycological research on fungi and mycelial networks, and Cosmo has co -written a song with two Native musicians/scholars, and writer Robert Macfarlane about the Ecuadorian cloud forest. The song contains melodies of echo-locating bats, howler monkeys, rustling leaves and even a subterranean recording of the soil taken from the spot where a new species of fungus was collected and described. “It wasn’t written within the forest, it was written with the forest,” said Macfarlane. “This was absolutely and inextricably an act of co-authorship with the set of processes and relations and beings that the forest and its rivers comprise…the forest wrote it with us”. The More than Human Life project (Moth) is an interdisciplinary initiative advancing rights and well-being for humans, non -humans, and the web of life that sustains us all. Moth has submitted a legal petition to Ecuador’s copyright office to recognize the Los Cedros (cedar) cloud forest as the co – creator of this composition called: “Song of the Cedars”. This is the first legal attempt to recognize an ecosystem’s moral authorship of a work of art. I immediately listened to the extraordinary song that uplifted me just as the above paragraphs did. Life will go on. And I had only this day lit a cedar tree for life. What is happening in the United States is only a blip on the earth’s radar I thought after reading the words of the song out loud and singing along with the melody. Life Will Go On. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/

(Special post) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), in recognition of the ill-treatment and misunderstanding of Aboriginal people that was set in train when, in 1788, white people first settled in the land now known as Australia.
(Special Post) To Contributors: Strengthening Our Roots by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Dear Contributors, Do you know that Return to Mago (RTM) E*Magazine is entering its fifth year this fall? And, thanks to our collective effort, we are still growing! As of today, our contributors have grown to more than 130 in number and our readership is from about 140 countries around the world. We have some hundred email followers as well as Wordpress blog followers. We draw 3000-4000 clicks per month on average; that is no small accomplishment for a Goddess blog that is named after a yet-to-be heard word, Mago (the Great Goddess), and that began from scratch.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] [C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments: To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do. [C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented! [Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope. I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system? Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there. Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be. [C]: On this […]

Samhain/Deep Autumn within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

On February 3rd at 19:45 “Universal Time” (as it is named), Earth our Planet crosses the midpoint of Her orbit between Solstice and Equinox, though the exact time varies each year. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the Season of Imbolc – the welcoming of the Light, post-Winter Solstice, after the fullness of the dark of Winter. Imbolc, and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin/Maiden aspect of Goddess – or Urge to Be as I have named this aspect. Imbolc may be understood as the quintessential celebration of the Virgin/Young One quality for the year – the rest of the light part of the cycle celebrates Her processes, but this Seasonal Moment is a celebration of Her … identifying with Her. She is the New Young One, the Promise of Life, the Urge to Be. Her purity is Her singularity of purpose. She is spiritual warrior. Her inviolability is Her determination to Be … nothing to do with unbroken hymens of the dualistic and patriarchal mind. The Virgin is the essential “yes” to Being – not the “no” She was turned into. This is some Poetry of the Season: This is the season of the waxing Light … the feast of the Young One – who is the Urge To Be within All. The New One born at the Winter Solstice now grows. This is the time of celebrating the small self – each one’s Gaian uniqueness and beauty. We meet to share the light of inspiration, to be midwifed, by She who tends the Flame of Being, deeply committed to Self, and Who is True. The choice of images is arbitrary … there are so many more, and also, most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Imbolc/Early Spring. Remember that image communicates the unspeakable – that which can only be known in body – below rational mind. You may regard it as a transmission of Herself, insofar as you wish – and particular to you. I offer you these images for you to receive in your own way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUPTKMork9s Artemis 4th Century B.C.E. Greece. (p.52 Austen) – a classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent”: that is, in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted, and deep reverence. Aphrodite (p.132 Austen) 300 B.C.E. – often diminished to a sex Goddess in patriarchal narrative, but in more ancient times, praised as She who holds all things in form, which may be comprehended as embodying cosmic power of allurement, which may be identified with what has been named as “gravity”. Re-storied as one who admires her own Beauty, and the Beauty of All. Aphrodite (plate 137 Neumann) an earlier image 600 B.C.E. Brigid/Brigantia (p. 38 Durdin-Robertson) 300 C.E. – Her spear may be understood as the spear of Goddess: that is, as spiritual warrior, or Boadicea-like. Brigid – a later image of Christian times … dressed nun-like. Eurynome (Austen p.8) 4000 B.C.E. Africa. This image is named as Bird-Headed Snake Goddess. Austen stories Her as an image of Eurynome, Goddess of All Things who danced upon the waves in the beginning and laid the Universal Egg. She appears very self-expressive: perhaps a great image of a self-expressive Universe. She integrates animal and human, earth and sky, before dualism existed. I choose her as a Virgin image because of this integrity, and her ecstatic expression. Diana (Neumann Plate 161) Rome. She carries the Flame – is classically Her own person. … not so much “independent” as it may be thought of culturally, as “self-knowing”. She came to be associated with the Greek Artemis: they are sister Goddesses. The Horned Goddess (p. 138 Austen) 6000 B.C.E. Africa – associated with dance and healthy life-force – rain and fertility. She is of the ancient Amazon tribes of what is now known as Algeria. Even today amongst these people, Austen says: “the Tauregs, the women are independent, while the men only appear in public veiled”. Vajravarahi (p.124 Austen) 1600’s C.E. Vajravarahi, show me how to be powerful and compassionate at the same time – let me know that these qualities are one force. Teach me to feel the beauty, power and eroticism of my own being. Show me that I am an exquisite part of the life force, dancing with all other forms of life. and OM! Veneration to you, noble Vajravarahi! OM! Veneration to you, noble and unconquered! Mother of the three worlds! Mistress of knowledge!… OM! Veneration to you, Vajravarahi! Great yogini! Mistress of love! She who moves through the air! TIBETAN TEXT Radha (in my ritual space) … seeing Who She really is. REFERENCES: Austen, Hallie Iglehart. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley:Wingbow, 1990. Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Bergen: Girl God Books, 2023. Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. The music is “Boadicea” by Enya.
(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: …
The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ as is experienced and contemplated in the Season of Deep Autumn/Samhain, may be a metaphor for the passing of all/any that has come to fullness of being, or that has had a fullness, a blossoming of some kind, and borne fruit; and in the passing it has been received, and thus transforms. The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ may be in hearts and minds, an event or events, a period of time, or an era, that was a deep communion, now passed and dissolved into receptive hearts and minds, where it/they reside for reconstitution, within each unique being. Samhain is traditionally understood as ‘Summer’s end’: indeed that is what the word ‘Samhain’ means. In terms of the seasonal transitions in indigenous Old European traditions, Summer is understood as over when the Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Lughnasad comes around; it is the first marked transition after the fullness of Summer Solstice. The passing and losses may have been grieved, the bounty received, thanksgiving felt and expressed, perhaps ceremonially at Autumn Equinox/Mabon; yet now in this Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn it composts, clearly falls, as darkness and cooler/cold weather sets in, change is clearer. In the places where this Earth-based tradition arose, Winter could be sensed setting in at this time, and changes to everyday activity had to be made. In our times and in our personal lives, we may sense this kind of ending, when change becomes necessary, no longer arbitrary: and the Seasonal Moment of Samhain may be an excellent moment for expressing these deep truths, telling the deep story, and making meaning of the ending, as we witness such passing. What new shapes will emerge from the infinite well of creativity? And we may wonder what will return from the dissolution? What re-solution will be found? We may wonder what new shapes will emerge. In the compost of what has been, what new syntheses, new synergies, may come forth? Now is the time for dreaming, for drawing on the richness within, trusting the sentience, within which we are immersed, and which we are: and then awaiting the arrival, being patient with the fermentation and gestation. Seize the moment, this Moment – and converse with the depths within your own bodymind, wherein She is. Make space for the sacred conversation, the Conversing with your root and source of being, and take comfort in this presence. We may ponder what yet unkown beauty and wellness may emerge from this infinite well of creativity. The Samhain Moment in the Northern Hemisphere is 17:14 UT 7thNovember this year. Wishing you a sense of the deep communion present in the sacred space you make for this holy transition.

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

[Author’s Note: The following is from Chapter 8, The Consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW.] The Budoji stories the primordial drama of Mago’s beginning. It furnishes a yet-to-be-heard story of the beginning of the Great Goddess, the taboo story in patriarchy. It is the story of the Creatrix that patriarchy has attempted to erase. It can be temporarily forgotten but can never die because it is the story that is at the root of patriarchy. Ultimately, it is The Story that is happening HERE and NOW. The merit of the Magoist Cosmogony lies in the fact that it, through storying, restores the view of the whole, the macrocosmic view of the All. The holistic view necessarily involves the Great Goddess or the First Mother in that S/HE is the Creatrix. Time is not a linear concept, flowing from one end to the other. Time is the unified Present, happening NOW. It may be said that time is circular or cyclic, as all beings are constantly in motion to enhance the process of self-creation, which causes the whole to change ceaselessly. The Present hosts an infinite number of stories that take place in the undividable One Space HERE. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still happening and we are invited to re-cognize HER STORY in the HERE and NOW. The beginning is a process, not a single isolated event that took place in the remote past.[i] All things exist in the process of becoming HERE and NOW as part of WE. Put differently, the beginning of the Great Goddess is the LIVE SCENE/DRAMA/STORY. We are part of HER STORY. Mago’s beginning is the heart that pumps fresh blood to the body of the terrestrial becoming. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still taking place HERE/NOW. The terrestrial beginning is attributed to the Great Goddess who is self-born through the sonic movement of cosmic light. The beginning story of the Great Goddess is no ordinary one. It is of power and truth, that is, metamorphic. It provides the original text to the meaning of “salvation.” HER Beginning that is happening HERE/NOW holds all from falling into cacophony. For one thing, it delivers us from the patriarchal misconception of ultimate reality that does away with the Creatrix. The holistic view of the Creatrix is capable of saving us from misconceptions and misconduct. Ultimately, it guides us to live our life in harmony with the whole, HERE/NOW. The Magoist Cosmogony engenders the consciousness that WE ARE HERE/NOW. The universe is existent without beginning or end. In one ever-existing reality, things ceaselessly appear and disappear in relation to one another on all levels. All things are in the constant movement of autogenesis striving to arrive at a new position of balance. S/HE IS HERE/NOW telling us the STORY of WE. That is the source of our metamorphosis. Notes: [i] Process thought founded by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John B. Cobb shares a common premise on that regard, although it does not associate ultimate reality with the Creatrix. (See Book Excerpt 1 and Book Excerpt 2. Available in Mago Bookstore.) Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
(Essay 1) How Did I Fall In Love with Korean Historical Drama? by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

Go to online class, Korean Historical Dramas. “To become a kairomancer¹, you need to learn to trust your feelings as you walk the roads of this world, to develop your personal science of shivers, to recognize in your gut and your skin and in free-floating impressions that you know far more than you hold on the surface of consciousness. You need to take care of your poetic health, reading what rhymes in a day or a season. You want to expect the unexpected, to make friends with surprises, and never miss that special moment.” ~ Robert Moss² After a year and a half of work without a day off; driving 100-150 miles every other day; writing past midnight every night; at the end of July 2011, overwhelmed by fatigue, I finally decided to take a weekend off. Little did I know, that time off would last over seven months, during which I would not only change my job, but also acquire a new passion.

(Poem) I Bow by Arlene Bailey

Like this:

Related

Leave a response to the main post, entitled atop this page.Cancel reply

Mago Almanac Year 9 Monthly Wheels

S/HE: IJGS V4 N1-2 2025 (B/W Paperback)

Mago Almanac Year 8 (for 2025)

Program Booklets

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Leave a response to the main post, entitled atop this page.Cancel reply