October 29, 2026September 21, 2026 RTM Co-Editor M SaracinoLeave a comment

(Nine Poets Speak) Sacred Dancer by Louisa Calio

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.] Photo of Louisa Calio dancing I do not smile this is a sacred Read More …

(Poem) Autumn Leaves by Andrea Nicki

This tree has completely lost its pride and joy, now lying across the wet ground, an intricate, golden mat for others to step on. Things that you do that are undignified but unavoidable. Bills need to be paid. There is no hearth to return to, no heirlooms to sell. You had hoped for something better than this, but, in truth, not in childhood, too depressed to think beyond the next year. The glistening leaves remind me of leaf collages I made as a girl, and of how I liked to iron and preserve leaves between wax paper. The barren tree like my girl’s body dancing in the wind in the backyard to my own songs, odes to autumn trees. Joys you rediscover later in life when others are taken away. Meet Mago Contributor Andrea Nicki
(Photo Essay 2) We Remember by Kaalii Cargill

There are places in the world that recognize you and can call you by name, even if you’ve never been there. Our ancestors live in the land, and are the land. Their voices speak to us when we remember and we ask to hear. Robyn Philippa, “Animism of the British Isles”, sacredearthgrove.com In my pilgrimages to visit with the Grandmothers at ancient Goddess sites, there have been moments when the extraordinary is present in the ordinary, a reminder that it is not just the sites themselves but also the land I’m standing on, the air I’m breathing, the sounds I’m hearing, the sights that stay with me. Here are some of those moments in my journeys to sacred places, moments that call me to remember . . . Cobbled path leading up to the summit of Cumae Archaeological Park, Pozzuoli, Italy. Walking in the footsteps of those who came before. This worn path has wound in a spiral around the hill past temples to the summit overlooking the coast of Naples for millennia. Lake Avernus, a volcanic crater lake near the Cumae Archaeological Park. Standing on the shore of Lake Avernus with the Tyrrhenian Sea in the background I could feel the ancient stories of gods, goddesses and oracles. “Mater becomes inspirited; it breathes divinity. Earth comes alive and sacred.” Sue Monk Kidd. Stones from the temple of Artemis, Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. Built on an existing sacred site, the temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (c 550 BCE). Now there are only scattered stones. Yet the land hums with memory and She still speaks through the frogs and cicadas, and the leaves whispering secrets . . . The ancient well at Byblos, Lebanon, in use from Neolithic times to the 1950s. The walls were added around 2500-3000 BCE. One of the oldest cities in the world, Byblos has been continuously inhabited since c5000 BCE. Ancient Egyptian mythology tells of the sacred well at Byblos. It is here that Isis meets the Queen of Byblos and recovers the body of Osiris. The land remembers . . . Meet Mago contributor KAALII CARGILL
(Art) Doumu, Mother of the Seven Stars, by Lydia Ruyle

Doumu is the Dipper Mother of the group of stars in Ursa Major, the constellation of the Great Bear. Her sixteen arms hold ritual items including both the sun and the moon in the top two arms. She sits on a lotus throne. Snakes of energy fall from her shoulders. Offerings of rice are given to Doumu as the Mother of Measure to ensure longevity and affluence. Source: Dehua porcelain sculpture, 18th Century, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
(Tribute 3) In Loving Memory of Eve Helene Wilkowitz by Jack Dempsey, Ph.D.

From there, through the next 42 years of travail—Why is this my culture’s “norm”?—there’s not a day or step or book of mine that isn’t hers. I have curled my strength around her sleep. She led me to the earliest art-history I could find, and there were the stunning “unknown” Minoans of ancient Crete: a woman-centered, joyful, dynamically creative and peaceful people without predatory “kings,” and they revel in life at the root of Western civilization for centuries longer than Rome or any period since. Such is the genesis of every work in these pages of Ancientlights.org today: a life’s work to document that we have other teachers, smarter ancestors, better choices—that The Garden is remembering we’re in it. For the record (see for yourself with Links below), this Minoan world—a dynamically creative well-being in Nature’s eternal present, bound together by trade and intermarriage (and protected by strict limits on executive power)—was still going strong when natural disaster and war-loving, self-wrecking clowns (the mainland’s Mycenaeans) combined to take them down. This was the historical emergence of patriarchy, the rule of autocratic men, whose rape for profit and rage for power they sell to us with gods and goods as normal: “Homeric glory.” He cannot control himself, and rather than learning, wallows in degenerate all-controlling fear of anything more powerful. So it is She who must cover herself, numb herself, be invisible, silent, obedient, pure yet alluring, please him in all things and, “ideally,” die. Books, bricks and walls of “his-story” bear down to bury our original Minoan success in nihilism, desperate to convince us that we’re cursed and trapped, while a toxic edifice from blood-exploiting media to crime-fiction and movies gives the lie—as a blossoming young woman who “must” be repeatedly cruelly killed. After an age when our brilliance sang the sanctity of women (hence, of Life), this is daily eucharist, central sacrament in the ritual murder of the best in us. Try counting how many times per day we fakely face the “tragedy” of her annihilation. The last 42 years of this faded Eve’s murder into one among thousands and thousands of Cold Cases round the world that men wish for and pretend to rule. Always a fresh “compelling” scenario round the same murder takes us worse than nowhere. Pornographic culture (turning Life into dead commodity) soaks the nervous system in erotic indulgence, but leaves us not with deeper more miraculous perception: instead, dis-spirited, de-moralized, numb and ever-more hungry for true ecstatic consummation. That is, to live and evolve our souls in this living flesh in a living world and universe. Hollow grifters rob us daily of real eternal life. It seems erotically urgent that we accept this. Publishers and agents “don’t even want to look at it” if you’re going to make people feel something, while farming out millions to any who can “entertain” with the sick aesthetic of an Edgar Allan Poe—who declared “the death of a beautiful woman” as “the most poetical topic in the world.” Love’s deep disturbance is the sham values of patriarchy built on the profits and rewards of psychotic dysfuntion: ignorance, fear and hatred of Earth, of women and peace. Of Life, in a word. If this seems too polemical, look around: Earth dying faster than ever, rights and human institutions crumbling, and the greatest investments by far in soldiers, weapons, and destruction on a planet still with plenty for everyone. The verdict of 2022 is that we’ve learned nothing, and fake necessity prevents it under the rule of men who lack only the courage to feel, question, control themselves, find another smarter way. Yet, there are ways out. Consider the “logic” shared between Eve’s murderer and the global gangsters stumbling toward suicide, anatomized by Susan Griffin’s brilliant Pornography and Silence. For all that we refuse to feel, change and evolve, Life (the Erotic) just keeps coming back to demolish adolescent wishes. The psychotic spiral accelerates, for the rituals of fear increase it: “the mind that believes in delusion must still face reality.” So comes a choice: come to terms with reality, or force the world to resemble the delusion. And where can we look for the quintessential expressions of our choice so far? The daily murder, conquest, exclusionary walls and never-enough-weapons of Zionist apartheid Israel are its failing monuments, maintained by a senile Zero-Sum American Empire, in whose (wishful) world only more death-machines can bring peace, and there can be only one all-controlling power. What can we positively do? Peace is not the absence of war, nor does a practical problem-solving global family happen by default. Those long-gone Minoans actively fostered both with their heterarchia, a nature-based cyclic round of festivals promoting the sharing of power across differences. (The elements of this in Calendar House.) This was so fundamental to their long success that we find it inscribed 1,000 years after them on the wheels of the world’s first computer, the Antikythera Mechanism. The answers are behind and before us. Pornographic patriarchy ends when each of us feeds it no more of our daily life-sustaining labor—and learns to share the world again. *** I cried every day for the first two wretched years of losing Eve (for as Dante said in La Vita Nuova, “how she has been among us, and is not”). It ate me alive that I hadn’t ignored Eve’s wishes and seen her safely home; and that her gentle soft-spoken father let me ride with his shattered family from funeral-home to the grave, while holding me rightly responsible. At last one day I broke open as wide as the morning when we shared that luminous breakfast. This is how much I can love, and now I cannot lose, because this feeling is to win. Another desperate day, Dante’s Comedy cracked open to the very page (Canto V, Inferno) where it seemed Eve was speaking to me still: Love, that in gentle heart so quickly wakes, took him with this fair body, which …
The Spiraled Lens of She Who Sees by Jsabél B Venerári

she found her self in the seventh dimension Photo by Tooth and Toad on Unsplash Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman by the name of Yemaya, who looked into the waters of the ocean and there she saw her own reflection. And she said, ‘Who is that beautiful woman!? I thought that I was the prettiest thing that the world had ever seen!’. There came that rumbling in her belly and it grew and it grew…and it grew until it exploded. And before her stood thousands of beautiful women. ‘Who are you beautiful women!? I thought that I was the loveliest thing that the world had ever seen!’ And the women lookeddeep into the eyes of Yemayaand there they saw their own reflections. And they said to her: ‘You are! We’re just you.’1 Self occupation, being full of one’s self. Fully occupying oneself. Perhaps Narcissus baptized himself when he fell in love with what he saw? Mirror mirror on the wall, the vainest hold the most depths of all. She sees in kaleidoscope, she extends a hand to herself, makes herself more available for conversation. And her flowers grew. “A woman consenting to be all of herself brings into the world a quality of consciousness and spirit we all need very much.” — Ann Belford Ulanov She found herself before the eyes of Lady Sphinx, a mirrored gate. Those who did not think highly of themselves did not pass through. ‘I confronted my true self and now the Empress needs a new name!’ From what she saw, she birthed herself. Upon declaring and loving what she sees in her own reflection, she begins the gestation process of herself. And as she saw, she bore witness to Herself. She saw her own depths and called them beautiful. And she loved what she saw,and she began to know the ways.2 https://www.magoism.net/2026/03/meet-mago-contributor-jsabel-bilqis/
(Mago Stronghold Essay 1) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part I Multivalent Meaning of Mago Stronghold Mago Stronghold (麻姑城, Mago-seong) refers to the center of the world (axis mundi) in the Magoist Cosmogony. It is a metaphor for the Source/Origin/Womb of Life for terrestrial beings. Mago Stronghold represents the forgotten paradise of the Great Goddess in patriarchy. In patriarchal times, it has become a code to unlock the hidden S/HE Reality. As one’s life in the body and mind is the very proof for the first mother, “Mago,” from whom one comes, the existence of Mago Stronghold in toponym and meaning is the very token to prove vital for the primordial home of terrestrial beings, also called the Earth. The Mago Stronghold talk, upon being fully deciphered, merits the bird’s eye view of human history from the cosmogonic beginning of the Great Goddess to this day. Its message is, among others, we are NOT locked out from the blissful time of S/HE beginning. We are NOT disconnected from our ancestors and deities. And we are NOT substantively different from our non-human sojourns. All in WE are found in Mago Stronghold. I present my investigation of Mago Stronghold, rather than a new theory, as an alternative mode of perceiving reality. The Mago Stronghold talk answers the ultimate question of “who I am” as a person and why we are here in our life journey. It is meant to engender metamorphosis, the process of awakening and navigating in S/HE Reality, for both an individual and the collective. We realize that no one is bound to patriarchal reality except those who create it. WE are HERE/NOW. However, the full-fledged implication of Mago Stronghold can’t be unveiled without naming the systemic working of mental blocks and lifting the limit. Official (read patriarchal) historiography is not the place where we nest our conversation. Linear thinking can’t help us arrive at the Scene. Thinking within ethnocentric and nationalist grids is among the mental blocks. We are invited to explore a whole new/old/original way of seeing and knowing matters. You and I across cultures, nationalities, and geographies have a lot in common to talk and think about. Precisely, the Mago Stronghold talk bridges the gap among moderns. Its implication is NOT confined to Korea or East Asia. One may wonder how it is so? The concept of Mago Stronghold, remembered by East Asian Magoists, concerns the common origin of all beings on Earth. Discourse on the Great Goddess/Primordial Mother/Creatrix can’t be parochial by nature. It maps out the gynocentric consciousness of WE, which redefines national/cultural identities as consanguineous. The Mago Stronghold talk works at multi-dimensions crisscrossing and connecting the personal and the collective, the local and the universal, and the physical and the symbolic. Mago Stronghold found across Korea and China is no ordinary cultural or historical landmark. It is also equated with Mago Mountain or Triad Mountain. The extant toponym of Mago Stronghold is a door to the Other Realm of the Great Goddess. Precisely, it signifies the Primordial/Perennial Home for not only the Mago Clan (Mago and HER divine and human descendants) but also all terrestrial beings, according to the Magoist Cosmogony. “Mago Stronghold” is an eponym for such socio-natural-architectural variations as castles, citadels, mountain villages, fortresses, stone walls, earthen walls, and ultimately the Earth. It is etiological, explaining the gynocentric origin of the axis mundi and the sacred mountain reverence known in many ancient worlds. Macrocosmically, Mago Stronghold refers to the Earth, the Splendid Land of the Primordial Mother. Residing in the Big Dipper (Seven Stars),[1] Mago governs the solar system and chooses the Earth as HER Garden.[2] S/HE delegates HER divine and human offspring to cultivate sonic resonance in harmony with cosmic music. In that sense, Earth IS HER Civilization. Its literal meaning, the Stronghold of the Great Goddess, conveys that all Earth’s civilizations are born of the Great Goddess. The Mago Civilization of Earth is aligned with the Law of Nature established by the marvelous working of the Great Goddess. Nature reflects HER Majestic Work. When the Creatrix (Cosmogonic Matrix) is made unthinkable, if not erased, in the course of patriarchal mytho-history, Mago Stronghold stands as an enigmatic cultural icon. It comes to us as a code to decipher. Much is to be unveiled for HER Paradise to be reinstated in the collective mind of humanity. Euphemisms that are severed from the Magoist implication in the course of history are linked back to the original Magoist words. The Mago Stronghold Code enchants us to the holistic view of the Great Goddess, the WE consciousness in S/HE, that is tabooed in patriarchy. Reminding people of the common origin from the Primordial Mother, Mago Stronghold opens a new horizon of the gynocentric reality, WE/HERE/NOW. We have been part of the Grand Plan of the Great Goddess. When it comes to the female, official historiography, which is after all a product of the patriarchal dominant group, offers little to, if not obstructs, the researcher. The history it calls is nothing other than a self-aggrandizing distorted view of the past events, or rather an imposed false view of the past by patriarchal colonizers. Patriarchal history should be called pseudo-history. It concerns not truth but domination and self-expansion. The history of self-sharers/altruists/Magoists never dies for it is about re-membering of all in WE. What happened is never left unanimated, according to the Law of Nature. It can’t be erased, for truth is the language of Life. As such, the collective memory that ancient (read pre-patriarchal) Magoists were the bearers of the Magoist royal lineage has survived official East Asian (read Sinocentric) historiography. It is imbued in such socio-cultural data as lore, literature, art, and place-names, as well as the so-called apocryphal texts. My task here is to decode the meaning of Mago Stronghold, unearthing non-official data and reading them between the lines of written records. (To be continued) See Meet Mago Contributor Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. [1] The Big Dipper (Seven Stars) is favored by Koreans. Triad Deity (Samsin), another name for Mago, is …
(Essay 3) Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Reversing the Reversed of the Buddhist Textual Erasure (Part 2) Single-horned Jicheongsu (Acoustic animal of the Earth)http://www.whim.tw/gate?mod=article&id=20100826134013 Sillan Magoists saw that whales governed the whole world by their sonic capacities, which conditioned the aquatic environment of the Earth. Note that the expression of “the whole world” refers to no romantic abstract. Led by whales, Sillan rulers saw themselves as a governing delegate of the Whole World, which is the Reign of Mago, the Creatrix. They were consciously going against an ethnocentric or imperialist perspective. A supra-nationalist perspective constituted the very vision of Sillan Magoist Cetanceanism. Precisely, Sillan rulers acted upon no other goal than restoring the original meaning of the State of Old Magoist Koreans, known as the Confederacy of Nine Hans (Danguk) or the Confederacy of Three Hans (Budo Joseon), who represented the One People of the Mago Decent. Silla was no patriarchal or ethnocentric state. She was the light of ancient Magoist Cetaceanism for the whole world in the post-Budo period. Note the brief mytho-history of Magoism in six periods:[1] The Mythic Period: The Beiginning of Mago Stronghold, the Primoridal Paradise, and Mu (Shaman) Elders The Golden Period: Pre-Chinese (read pre-patriarchal) Old Magoist confederacies (Hanguk and Danguk) The Budo Period: Budo Joseon, the proto-Chinese confederacy of Three Hans The Post-Budo Period: Ancient Korean States (Buyeo, Silla, Goguryeo, Baekje, Gaya, Balhae) and Goryeo and Early Joseon The Dark Period: After 1592 Japanese Invasion in Joseon and modern Koreas The Revival Period: After 1980s when the Budoji was reappeared in public The story delineates the event that the protagonist, King Sinmun, is initiated to Magoism Cetaceanism, as he succeeds the throne of his deceased father, King Munmu, an ardent devotee of Magoist Cetaceanism, in leading the state, Silla (57 BCE-935 BCE). The fact that the story of the pacifying flute involves the three generations of Sillan rulers, King Munmu, King Sinmun, and King Hyoso (son of King Sinmun), indicates a state-sponsored revival of Magoist Cetaceanism. And that they mark the first three rulers of United Silla (668-935 CE) is no coincidence. Shouldered with the task of opening and laying the foundation for the new era, United Silla, these Sillan rulers aimed at the flowering of Magoist Cetaceanism. Sillans brought to fruition the collective aspiration of ancient Koreans shared with their sisterly states of Gaya, Baekje, Goguryeo, and beyond in the Post-Budo Period. They established a magocratic confederacy of nine states once again under the banner of Magoist Cetaceanism. Here the nine states refer to the nine neighboring peoples of Silla. Broadly, “the nine states” means the peoples of the whole world. In the context of Magoism, the number nine refers to the perfected, all entities of the kind. And the governance of these Sillan rulers was in the continuum of their predecessors and successors. The very purpose of Sillan foundation and early Sillan politics aimed to actualize the legacy of the Magoist Mandate, the self-defining ethos of Koreans. Early Sillans called themselves the People of Little Budo after Budo Joseon (2333 BCE-232 BCE), the third and last three-state confederacy of Old Magoist Korea, better known as Old Joseon. The political achievement of United Silla in seventh century as a whole meant a flowering of Old Korean Magoist Cetaceanism. Magoist Cetaceanism demarcates ancient Koreans from the Chinese in the Post-Budo Period, that is, in the wake of Budo Joseon’s decline in 233 BCE. Amidst the complex political situation of East Asia wherein the newly established dynasties of Imperial China rose to threaten the neighboring peoples, Sillan rulers resorted to Magoist Cetaceanism not only for the self-protection of the Sillan State but also for the self-realization of a magocratic confederacy. Evidence shows that Sillan rulers espoused the domain of patriarchal religions, Buddhism in particular, from the privileged perspective of Magoist Cetaceanism. Sillan Esoteric Buddhism was a brainchild of Sillan Magoist Cetacean rulers. Born with the teaching of Magoist Cetaceanism at the core, Sillan Esoteric Buddhism, much misconstrued and misrepresented today, was no local practice. Nor did it reflect a low-level consciousness that is discriminative in nature. Seen in the cetacean code of the Sillan temple bell, early Sillan Buddhism was autochthonous and prompted the arrival of innovative Buddhist schools of East Asia and beyond. The Chinese admiration of Sillan Buddhism in the seventh century is well addressed in the account of Mangulsan (Mountain of Ten Thousands Buddhas), a situational religious art engineered by King Gyeongdeok the Great of Silla, to be discussed in a later section. In the course of time, Sillan rulers migrated from the office of Mu (Shamans or Officiated Magoists) but held onto the role of Seon (Lay Magoists). This Sillan legacy, although unadmitted publicly, ran deep in the royal houses of Korean states throughout the forthcoming history. (Ruler Bodhisattva Jijang Rides the Auspicious Jicheong) 地藏王菩薩騎瑞獸地聽http://www.foshanshuan.com.tw/design_130.html#.Xh0-y1NKjSY In traditional East Asia, the narwhal is not utterly unknown. In fact, the following anecdote of Gim Gyogak, a mid-seventh century Sillan royalty and a Buddhist monk, insinuates that Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism was spread to China under the patronage of Buddhism. Put differently, Sillan Buddhism took the form of a syncretic religion amalgamated with Magoist Cetacenism. While Silan rulers actively pursued the policies that support Magoist Cetaceanism, some Buddhist monks were known for their esoteric practices. To be mentioned later, Monk Myeongrang was widely noted for his esoteric practices related with the Ruler of Dragons. Gim Gyogak was another one. Venerated as a reincarnated Bodhisattva Jijang (地藏 Ksitigarbha), Gim Gyogak is told to have crossed the West Sea of the Korean Peninsula to Tang China (618-907) by riding the back of a mythical animal, Jicheongsu or (地聽獸 the terrestrial animal who hears or an acoustic animal of the Earth). White in color, Jicheongsu is told to have had one horn. In iconography, Jicheongsu is depicted as a single-horned dragon-like beast (see the image). The one-horned leviathan who carried Gim Gyogak over to mainland China is evocative of a narwhal with a tusk. Its name, Jicheongsu, which literally means “The terrestrial animal who …
(Prose) Language makes us by Susan Hawthorne

Artwork by Suzanne Bellamy, Road Map, © 2004 Language makes us. But we too remake language. And ourselves. If we listen, imagine, invent. Listen to me. Listen to my language. Once upon a time it was the language of the birds. Did you listen then? Are you listening now? I’m a person out of place. Perhaps a person without a place. But that cannot be. Surely, everyone has a place? But is the place in this time? Let me begin again. Once upon a time … it was a very long time ago. More generations than you can count on your hands and your toes. It was in the time when the first stirrings of language were in our throats. A time of gurgling and burbling, of whistling and of singing. It was the singing that began language. We imitated the birds. And slowly, so very slowly, words began to take shape. Words formed from the electrical charges in our brains. Concepts arising with each new song. And so, in a way, we sang ourselves, our communities into being. This is an extract from my novel, Dark Matters. Note When I was finishing my novel Dark Matters, I asked Suzanne Bellamy if I could use this work of art on the cover. It reminds me of labyrinths. She responded and said she thought it was like brain pathways and then discovering that it was based on mitochondria made me even more excited to use it. Suzanne and I have worked together on many occasions, including working on the book Unsettling the Land with art by Suzanne and poetry by me. You can find some of her work here http://suzannebellamy.com/ Artwork by Suzanne Bellamy, Road Map, © 2004. All Rights Reserved. Etched embossed monoprint on Fabriano paper. The image interprets a photograph of Mitochondria, the Motherline DNA, from an old Scientific American photograph. This art was used on the cover of Dark Matters: A Novel by Susan Hawthorne, 2017. https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
(Prose) Commerce takes us away from happiness by Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.

Woman suffers from Burnout, Wikimedia Commons Commerce, capitalism, and the economy, this is the driving force behind the stress in our lives. We must work to live, but we are told we should live to work. We should show devotion to a company, a corporation, and feel honored to work there. We shouldn’t ask for a raise. That means we are only in it for the money, not the joy of work. But we need the money to buy the products our jobs produce. Even our free time has been coopted by commerce. It does not matter if you enjoy a hobby or craft. You must be good at it. You must be great. You must be so good that you can market your skill and sell it. You must also learn to blog and use social media to become an influencer selling your brand. You must sell advertising space on your blog to bring in revenue. If you like making videos for YouTube, you need a Patreon and sponsors to pay your bills so you can devote yourself to what you enjoy. Post(ish)-Covid, the goal seems to be to turn our side hustles, hobbies, and passions into our full-time job. If we write poems or essays for a blog or magazine, we should write more. A lot more. And we shouldn’t make these available for everyone to find and read. Instead, they should go into a book that can be published and sold. It is the same with our art, patterns for knitting. A hobby quilter should have an Esty shop and sell their quilts for hundreds of dollars. Our hobbies are supposed to be our me time. A time to sit quietly and reflect on the day. To focus on one task and let everything else fall away. Or they should be where we let loose, where paint flies from our brushes, and words pour out of our fingers onto the page. We have put a price on everything; even our free time should not be free. Our time of peace should be filled with thoughts on how to market ourselves and our product. The market price we place on our creation makes it impossible to trade and barter with each other. Two bottles of honey are not worth as much as a handmade quilt. Even our spirituality has a price put on it. We must charge others to hear us talk, to let us teach them, to share a ritual or meditation. Everything has a price, even our health. As long as we are in that mindset that says I must be paid for everything I do and thus must pay others for everything I enjoy, we cannot be happy. We must always be thinking of how to improve our skills quickly and profit from them. We can never learn at a slow pace through trial and error. Our happiness in discovery and creativity is sacrificed for the expediency of churning out one marketable item after another. https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/

(Special Post 7) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Kaalii Cargill: Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess. When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.
(Special Post) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE FOR EL PASO ARTIST MARIO COLÍN by Donna Snyder

Born in Juárez in 1959, Mario Colín lived his entire life in the Five Points area of Central El Paso, where he attended Houston Elementary and Austin High School. From the age of fifteen, he worked as a construction worker, building silos and other large construction projects across the U.S.A., at some point hitch hiking from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic shores. In his late twenties, he began to focus all his attention and energy on art, which had been an interest since early childhood, working as a muralist and portrait painter. Much of his art is of a religious nature, although he also painted secular art, portraits, and historical scenes. Colín painted his first mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe in collaboration with deceased artist Chuck Zavala in 1987 at Esparza’s Grocery, a small store in Central El Paso. It has now become a shrine, with community members building a stone arch and bringing flowers and candles, and has been pronounced a religious site by the parish church. Since that first mural, Colín has painted over 40 pieces of public art, many of which have become landmarks. Many of those murals are in that same Central El Paso neighborhood, on or near Piedras, including the House of Pizza, Los Alamos Grocery, The Elbo Room bar, the former Sanitary Plumbing at Piedras and Fort Boulevard. Colín twice painted a 25 foot mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, at Alameda and Zaragoza, across from the Ysleta mission. The first version, painted in 1997, became decayed, but was a popular landmark. That mural has appeared in periodicals, art books, calendars, many newspaper articles, and in photographs exhibited in the El Paso Art Museum and galleries. In 2004, Señor José Villalobos donated and members of the community contributed money to pay laborers to replaster the wall of the century-old adobe building where it is located, and Colín repainted the entire mural for donations from passers-by and community members. Colín’s work has also been featured on the International History Channel and Canal 44, XHUI TV, in a Ford television commercial, and numerous times in the El Paso Times and the defunct El Paso Herald-Post, as well as in periodicals such as Texas Monthly, Dallas Morning News, Texas Observer, Austin American Statesman, Stanton Street magazine; literary journals such as Mezcla and GypsyMag.com; in documentaries including Walls that Speak: El Paso’s Murals, directed by Jim Klaes; in art books such as Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso and Texas 24:7, and in various editions of Chicano Studies: Survey and Analysis, a text book used throughout the country.
(Special post) Interweaving Mago Threads by Mago Circle Members

“Mago” tradition Magoism is a new word to the modern Western vocabulary, yet it has its linguistic roots in many parts of the globe and in an ancient knowledge and know-how almost lost. Dr Helen Hwang determinedly and methodically is excavating the little-understood historical Mother-Goddess knowledge of Korea, and its traditions, the Mago, and Magoism, and in doing so is unlocking another previously invisible door, and replacing another ripped-off corner of the global map of significant, almost-lost tradition and forgotten knowledge. This is a most welcomed prospect. The newness of this discovery for those who learn of it fills them with excitement because every step to remember the ancient ways, particularly the lost Goddess ways, and those ways that hint of Source, are crucial to humanity remembering itself. Moderns have become accustomed to modes of mind that strip the soul and psyche of finer attunement to earth, sea, stars and each other. This renders most adrift on a sea of seeming limitless freedoms, to be picked up by any technological hook that would substitute for inner knowing. The map becomes the new computer wiring, insurance policy or bank regulation to follow. But once we scrape from our psyches the encrustation of mind most moderns have settled with (which calcifies the innate senses and finer antennae of knowing, emboldening technologically driven modes of mind and being to take their place), then we are on our way to a vivifying recollection. Here is an earlier presentation of the “mago” root word in “imago” or image. Not coincidentally, perhaps, it is connected to maps. (Mary Ann Ghaffurian, culled from Through a Darkened Door—Light, Part 2 by Mary Ann Ghaffurian PhD [http://magoism.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/through-a-darkened-door-light-part-2-by-mary-ann-ghaffurian-phd/]) A very special online, global group Dearest X, …Which brings to mind the “other” reason why I wanted to write to you … Other than just saying “hello” and letting you know that you are very much missed, I also wanted to share with you about a very special online, global group that I have had the honor of being a part of. This group is called Mago Circle and it was founded by my dear friend, “sister” and colleague, Helen Hwang. Helen’s work and commitment to restoring Mago, Ancestral Mother Goddess, to her rightful place as progenitor and creatrix of the Korean people, has not only been admirable but truly critical during a time when we are in real need for inspiration from thought leaders and scholars with a solid foundation in the arts and research of the sacred feminine. As you know, with the roots of Korean shamanism in the realm of women, it makes perfect sense that Korean spirituality must also have sprung within the womb of Woman … the great cosmic goddess, Mago. While Helen’s work is very much grounded in meticulous research — showcasing Korea to the rest of the world in all of Her depth, herstory, and vibrance — it is more importantly, founded in genuine intentions of love, transparency, and humility. I know that Helen can explain the depth, breadth, and height of her work much better than me so I think it will be better to have her directly share more of herself with you; what I simply hope to do through this letter is perhaps help serve as a familiar hand …. reaching out to you and letting you know that your presence and blessings as a well-regarded and much-admired Korean female shaman and scholar would be much appreciated in Mago Circle. Do you remember, X, … you once told me … about 20 years ago: “Sanity is insanity with a focus.” These words I still remember and hold true … they have helped me through times that were truly dismal and chaotic in my life, and with this reassuring and transformational way of looking at myself, looking at my life, looking at the world, I have made it through. My life continues to have its share of insanity, but I know that with focus, all sanity is restored. I know that my letter to you today may feel unexpected and random (especially after not having seen each other for so, so long), but as you know, somehow, life brings us through twists and turns that may seem awkward and strange at first, but upon retrospect, all makes complete sense. In closing, may I have the honor and pleasure of introducing Helen Hwang and the Mago Circle to you … I realize that you must be very busy, but it is my sincere hope that you will find a little time to acquaint yourself with Helen and this wonderful group of women (and men) who are very much dedicated to restoring the balance and peace of Korea and the world via Mago and her goddess sisters of many names… (Wennifer Lin, culled from her letter to her old friend) I share your call for staying connected with each other at a time of cultural and religious tensions. I too believe that all tensions arise from a patriarchal system of hegemony or domination. In the absence of patriarchal hegemony, there would be little or no tension among human beings. The belief in the Mother Goddess would remove the necessity for aggression and hence domination of other human beings or animals. In the eyes of the Mother, every living being is her creature. Hence love, kindness, nurturing and all that is beautiful would prevail everywhere. Am I sounding too idealistic or am I pining for a utopian society that is just not possible? But in theory, it is possible to return to the spirit of Mother, manifest in everything in nature and in our thoughts and actions. With admiration and preservation of Mother we can change the world for a better place. So with this in mind, I submit to all women (who are the living image of the Great Mother Goddess) and goddess lovers in the world to unite in our efforts to bring back the ideals of the Great Goddess. As an academic, I […]

A PaGaian Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The Triplicity of Cosmogenesis at the centre of the PaGaian Wheel Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution (as expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago, and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago.[i] Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever-changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence (as of this writing) to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found,[ii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iii] The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. The triple spiral motif, Brú na Bóinne, Ireland. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as anyone’s ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change.[iv] In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done, but it will continue to evolve as all language must. For more on this image, including Southern Hemisphere version: See https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make every day around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming …
(Video) A Samhain Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRoK2XNeqw The purpose of the video is for ceremony and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have some past photos of yourself, an altar with ancestor photos, a gingerbread snake, some apples sliced up, and some apple juice. The script for this Samhain ceremony is offered in Chapter 4 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. However I want to acknowledge here the inspiration and some text of Robin Morgan’s poem “The Network of the Imaginary Mother” in her book Lady of the Beasts, for which I was given permission in my book. I also acknowledge here the paraphrase of some words by Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance, used in the rite of Sailing to a New World. I also use a line from the poem Song of Hecate by Bridget McKern. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I mention the direction (which I do minimally). For the rite of the Transformation Journey (remembering old selves) I use an adaptation of a children’s game “In and Out the Windows”, where each participant travels in and out of upraised and linked arms of the circle, and when ‘in’ may speak and /or show photos of themselves from the past. Some may choose to remember any self from the entire evolutionary story, with whom they would like to identify. The game seems appropriate to what each being does existentially in so many ways, over the eons as well as in our personal lives. The chant can be found on YouTube. The photos used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Samhain ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Samhain ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. Music credit: All music used in this video is by Tim Wheater, which has previously generously allowed me to use in my work. The pieces used are from Tim’s CD Fish Nite Moon: they are Ancient Footsteps, Fish Nite Moon, Spiritbirth, and Conception. I thank my partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne for his participation in the creation of the video.
(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

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

Day of the Dead altar, via Wikimedia Commons According to Celtic tradition, on Samhain (October 31 for those in the north and April 30 for those in the south) the doors between the human and spirit worlds open. Faeries, demons, and spirits of the dead pour out of the Otherworld to walk the Earth. In the past, some would try to hurry ghosts past their houses or ward off evil spirits by setting jack o’lanterns in their windows. They avoided going outside, especially past cemeteries, lest they be snatched away to the Otherworld. In ancient times, some offered sacrifices to propitiate deities. However, others have invited in the souls of friends and family who have passed away. In Brittany, according to W.Y. Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, people would provide “a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white tablecloth, and to supply music” which “the dead come to enjoy with their friends” (p. 218). Other cultures also have such welcoming traditions. In Korea, as so beautifully described by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in her posts about her family’s mourning for her father (Part I and Part II), in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, and elsewhere, food and flowers are brought to cemeteries to honor those no longer in the realm of the living. Many of us live in a society where death is pushed out of sight and Samhain’s sacred traditions have devolved into Halloween, a commercialized children’s holiday. Still, it seems to me that the pandemic, climate catastrophes, and war have made death much more present in our everyday thoughts over the past couple of years than before, so perhaps this year’s Samhain offers us the opportunity to re-examine Celtic and other practices of the past and present to see what insights and meaning they may have for us. Jack o lanterns: By Mihaela Bodlovic, via Wikimedia Commons All these ancient practices respect the spirit world and its power. Whether you believe that the Otherworld can wreak havoc on us at Samhain or not, the realm where spirits dwell clearly has power. Its allure can take us away from focusing on mundane, daily challenges or, more positively, open our eyes to the value of relating to forces that can give richness and meaning to our lives. At the same time, we must remember that each domain has its own power. We can use our physical bodies in beneficial ways that those in the Otherworld cannot. We must respect the power of the Otherworld as well as our own. Some kinds of healing are only possible when we welcome those from the Otherworld into our lives in a healthy way, whether through holiday visits or every day through remembrance, meditation, prayer, or other means. I’m of an age when many of my beloveds are in the Otherworld and so I am beginning to find that the idea of being able to sit with someone I have lost is cause not for fear, but rather joy and comfort. Perhaps those who have longstanding wounds from the past can heal by remembering those we have lost at Samhain and forgiving them or ourselves or realizing that we are no longer bound to those who have hurt us and are now gone. Samhain can also reassure us of the truth of our intuitive sense that our beloveds who we grieve are with us still, in some way, on this night and throughout the year. When we participate in the celebration of Samhain’s opening of doors to the Otherworld, if only for a day, we are honoring our own participation into the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are expanding our vision of ourselves to be more than our bodies on the Earth and experiencing ourselves as connected to many realms, seen and unseen, spirit and human. We are accepting that at some time we will also become ancestors, with all the responsibility that entails and the fulfillment of taking our place in the complex matrix of being that is our universe. When we interact with the souls of those we have lost in ways that are healthy for us, however we may choose and believe that happens, we can also better celebrate the realm of the living. Just as we may listen in various ways for positive messages from those whom we have lost, we can ensure that we are expressing important guidance to those who will come after us by who we are and how we live our lives. We can express that life is worth living, even with all its traumas, and that we respect both the boundaries and the doors between the worlds so that we may continue living fully in our physical bodies on our beautiful, awe-inspiring Earth. I hope my message to my descendants will be: Love your lives. Build on what we have done and do better. Leave behind what we left you that no longer serves. If you feel alone, remember that you have thousands of generations of mothers sending you unconditional love and also generations of women coming after you eager to pick up where you left off. According to Mary Condren in The Serpent and the Goddess, in the most ancient times, “Samhain had been primarily a harvest feast celebrating the successful growth and gathering of the fruits of the past year” (p. 36). While we in the north are coming into the season of death, those in the south are experiencing Beltane, the first moments of spring when the doors between the worlds are also open. The eternal cycle of life, death, and regeneration turns again. Whether you are celebrating Samhain or Beltane, know that this holy time offers us all a chance to enter into the task of maintaining harmony with those we have loved before and for bringing balance between life and death, winter and summer, and the realm of the living and …

(Bell Essay 8) The Magoist Whale Bell: Decoding the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This and ensuing sequels are excerpts of a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Singing Humpback Whales, wikimedia commons Whales as the Cosmic Music Maker That whales (Gorae in Korean) are foundational to the Korean temple bell remains subliminal to this day. How do we assess the cetacean code of the Korean temple bell? What is the relationship between these two seemingly unrelated objects? We are given the whale-shaped mallet of the bell to begin with. Intriguingly, two Buddhist temples are noted today for the wooden whale-carved mallet of their bells: Sudeok-sa in Yesan, South Chungcheong, and Seonam-sa in Suncheon, South Jeolla.[1] Other temple bells reportedly have the whale mallet as well, although not as much distinctly carved as the two. The Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great is known as such. What is the significance of the Korean temple bell that has a whale as its striker? However, the whale-shaped wooden mallet is only a visible symbol of Sillan cetacean veneration. The whale motif is not just physically present in the mallet but also signified in its name or title. Among many alternative names of the Korean temple bell are cetacean names; Janggyeong (長鯨 Eternal Whale), Gyeongjong (鯨鐘 Whale Bell), Hwagyeong (華鯨 Splendid Whale), and Geogyeong (巨鯨 Gigantic Whale). Here the character “gyeong 鯨” means a whale.[2] These whale names suggest that the bell itself is conceived as a whale. Korean temple bells are the code of Magoist cetaceanism. By the very nature of a temple bell that is to awaken all beings to put it bluntly, we can establish that the sound of a whale is elevated to the purpose of a temple bell. Or vice versa. The sound of a temple bell is identified as that of a whale. At the outset, suffice it to say that whales are admired and revered for their vocal behaviors so much so that they are represented in Sillan temple bells. The cetacean representation of the Korean temple bell comes unexpected to us. Why is the song of a whale not the song of a bird or another animal? And what does it mean that the Korean temple bell employs cetacean names? These are no small questions. Answering them requires digging into the deepest layer of what has gone under the surface about Magoist Korean whale culture. I have discussed elsewhere in detail about how Korean cetaceanism is steeped in linguistics, myths, place-names, and custom.[3] For the immensity and complexity of the topic, this essay leaves out the discussion of such salient features of whales as their pre-human origin, evolution from land to sea, sizes and trans-oceanic migratory journeys. Summarily, whales connect and bridge the human mind beyond anthropocentrism. Here we will focus on how cetacean veneration is encoded in the Korean temple bell, in particular the sound tube. Ancient Korean Magoists deemed whales as the cosmic music makers. The cetacean names of Korean temple bells redefine the bell as the acoustic instrument that conveys the music of whales. Note the plural in bells and whales. Korean temple bells are meant to be recognized as a chorus, like whales in the sea, to respond to the sonic property of all beings. In fact, the Korean temple bell is never an isolated single sound wave, to be discussed below. What is emitted from both is harmonized music. It is noted that the music of whales can travel hundreds of kilometers underwater.[4] That the song of whales travel as far as hundreds of kilometers underwater is juxtaposed with the sound of the Korean temple bells that travel far. The former is transmitted through water waves, while the latter is transmitted through air waves. Humpback Whales Whales compose music. Among cetacean species, known for their vocalizations are the blue whale, the fin whale, the humpback whale, the minke whale, and the killer whale.[5] In particular, such baleen whales as humpback whales and blue whales have been relatively well studied for their vocalizing behaviors. The range of humpback whales’ sound frequencies is known as follows: The range of frequencies that whales use are [sic] from 30 Hertz (Hz) to about 8,000 Hz, (8 kHZ). Humans can only hear part of the whales’s songs. We aren’t able to hear the lowest of the whale frequencies. Humans hear low frequency sounds starting at about 100 Hz.[6] In comparisons, the vocalizations of blue whales are known to range from 10 to 40 Hz at a fundamental frequency (the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform). It is also noted that blue whales off the coast of Sri Lanka make music of “four notes duration lasting about two minutes each, reminiscent of the well-known humpback whale songs.”[7] To be discussed below, the frequencies of the two most noted Korean temple bells range from 65 Hz to 103.02 Hz, which fall within the range of these whales’ vocalizations. A significant volume of scientific research has been harvested on the music of humpback whales. Katy and Roger Payne are, according to an article by Bill McQuay and Alison Richards, the first scientists who identified the calls of male humpback whales as songs.[8] They report that humpback whales do not merely sing but compose music. McQuay and Richards describe the song of humpback whales as follows: Surprisingly researchers have noted that at any given moment all males in a group will sing the same version of a song, even when separated over large distances, while whales in another region or hemisphere will sing a completely different song, but in unison with other whales in their area. These sounds are loud, deep and low-frequency (20Hz – 10 kHz). They can be heard many miles away and may go on for hours or even days. Individual songs can last anywhere from a few minutes up to a half hour at which point they may then be repeated again. …
(Goma Article Excerpt 4) 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.] Sample Narratives of the Goma Myth Narratives Narrative A (Source Group 1) The Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), written by Iryon (1206–1289): The Gogi (Old Records) reads: Long ago, Hanin[1] had an heir, Hanung, who was from Seoja. Hanung was interested in the human world and willed to save it. Hanin, learning about her will,[2] peered into Mount Samwi (Trinity) and Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence) to benefit the human world widely. She gave Hanung the Heavenly Emblem of Three Seals and sent her down to govern people. Leading the three thousand people, Hanung descended to Divine Goma Tree (神壇樹 Sindansu) atop Mount Taebaek. The place was called Sinsi (神市 Divine City). And she was called Heavenly Ruler Hanung. She appointed Wind Minister, Rain Master, and Cloud Master and administrated over grains, life, disease, judiciary, and the-good-and-the-evil. Directing about 360 human affairs, she governed the created world to run its own course according to the principle. At the time, the tiger clan and the bear clan lived in the same cave. They ceaselessly prayed to Sinung (神雄) to attain human nature. The Divine gave them a bundle of mugwort and twenty pieces of wild garlic and said, “Eat these and stay without seeing the sunlight for one hundred days. And you will acquire the human nature.” The bear and the tiger received and ate them. In three seven days, the bear gained the female body. The tiger was unable to endure and therefore did not attain the human body. The queen of the bear clan had no one to marry. Thus, she came to the Divine Tree daily and prayed for conception. Ung was tentatively transformed and married. She conceived and begot a child who was known as Dangun Wanggeom.[3] Narratives B and C (Source Group 2) The Handan Gogi, “Sinsi Bongi (Prime Chronicle of Sinsi)” in Taebaek Ilsa, written by Maek Yi (1455-1528): According to the Samseong Milgi (Esoteric Records of the Three Sages), at the end of the Hanguk period, there rose a recalcitrant tribe. Concerning this, Hanung established the teaching of the Triad Divine. And she gathered people and had them vow to observe the covenant. This was her secret plan to remove this unruly clan in the end. At that time, clan names grew indifferent and their customs drifted apart from each other. The indigenous was the tiger clan (the Ho) and the immigrant was the bear clan (the Ung). The Ho was greedy and cruel. They made a living by raiding and plundering others. The Ung were single-minded and did not mingle with others. They were too proud to reconcile. The two clans lived in the same cave. However, they grew ever apart. Neither they lent things to each other. Nor they married. They opposed every single matter and never walked on the same road. Facing such conflict, the queen of the bear clan learned about Hanung’s divine virtue. She, leading her people, came to visit Hanung and said, “May you grant us a cave hall (穴廛 Hyeoljeon) and allow us to become the people of the divine covenant.” Ung granted it [a cave hall] and had herself decide the administrative territory. She conceived and gave birth to a child. The Ho did not change until the end and was expelled to the land outside Four Seas (the territory of Old Magoist East Asia). Thereupon, the Han clan began to prosper from this time on. The Jodaegi (Book of the Early Period) reads: There were many people but not enough resources, which made livelihood difficult. Hanung, the great person of Seojabu (Branch of Seoja), was concerned about this. She listened to the affairs of the world widely and determined herself to descend the Heavenly Realm and open the one world of resplendent luminescence. Thereupon, Anpagyeon [Hanin] peered down Mount Geumak (Metal Mountain), Mount Samwi (Trinity), and Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence) and deemed Mount Taebaek a suitable place to benefit the human world widely. She commanded Hanung and said to her, “Now humans and all things are brought to stability. Take lead of people and descend to the world. Open the will of Heaven and teach people. Administer rituals to the Heavenly Deity. Establish the right of fathers, support the elderly, and guide children. Bring peace among them. Instate the way of teaching to govern the created world to run its own course by the principle. Set it as an exemplar for the generations to come.” And she gave her the Heavenly Emblem of Three Seals and sent her to the world to govern. Leading the three thousand people, Hanung descended to the Divine Tree. This is called Sinsi (Divine City). Assisted by Wind Minister, Rain Master, and Cloud Master, she had grains, life, judiciary, disease, and the-good-and-the-evil administered. She administered about 360 affairs and benefited the human world widely by governing the created world to run its own course according to the principle. She was named Heavenly Ruler Hanung. At that time, the tiger clan and the bear clan lived in close proximity. They went to pray at the Divine Tree and requested of Hanung, “Grant us to become the people of the divine covenant.” Hanung transformed them by reciting holy mantras to have them attain the divine power. Giving them a bundle of mugwort and twenty pieces of chive,[4] she said warningly, “Eat these and pray for one hundred days in a place where there is no sunlight. And you will become a great human being who realizes the self and save all beings.” Both the tiger clan and the bear clan ate them and trained themselves refraining from the sunlight for three seven days. The Ung endured the pain of hunger and coldness and observed the heavenly covenant. They kept the vow of Hanung and attained the female feature. The Ho, deceptive and neglectful, broke the heavenly covenant. They were not …
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]