October 8, 2026August 24, 2026 RTM Co-Editor M Saracino

(Nine Poets Speak) Oh Beautiful Beings by Louisa Calio

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.]

Photo of Louisa Calio by Sylvin Nesbit

Oh, beautiful beings

beautiful of mind and of body

lovers of humanity

seekers of peace, kindness and unity

You alone hold the keys of my heart.

Go to my enchanted forests and walk

Then go into sea waters and walk

walk upon my skies,

walk and fearlessly, call them up

awaken the sleeping ones

that they might help you spread my seeds

Weep no more my beloved ones

I have come as promised

To circulate the light.

(Meet Mago Contributor) Louisa Calio – Return to Mago E-Magazine (RTME)

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(Prose) A Return of the Light by Deanne Quarrie

Long, long ago, before we had something called a calendar, the ancient people had only the seasons and cycles of the Sun, Moon and the Stars to help them track time. They did not know that our Earth traveled around the Sun, only that there were seasons when the days were shorter and much colder and that there were seasons when the days were long and the temperatures warm. They also knew that it was the warm, long-day season in which they could grow food and hunt for meat without the hardships of less Light and frigid temperatures. Those seasons of shorter days were perilous for them. They did not have the life-saving inventions we have today – the ways to keep warm, the sources of fresh food – there were so many things that kept them in fear of the darker days. Because of the importance of knowing these things, they learned ways in which to track the Light of the Sun and to know when the days would get shorter and when they would get longer. To this day, all over the world, there are giant rock formations and other structures that mark these important events. The time that marked the season when the days began to grow shorter were marked with celebrations showing gratitude and thankfulness for a plentiful harvest season. They wanted their gods to know how much they appreciated their gifts. When the days began to shorten and the cold set in, the people were afraid of what the winter cold might bring. They knew it would bring disease, hunger and frigid temperatures from which they might not survive. They knew there would be loss of life, for it was inevitable. To them, the return of Light meant a return of warmth, a return of green and the ability to once more produce food. The return of Light was a return to Life. The day that marks the return of Light is the Winter Solstice, for that is when we shift on our axis and our Earth once more turns toward the Sun for Light and warmth. Clearly it is a slow process. It is not an abrupt change but rather slow, but at the moment of the Winter Solstice, the change begins. As a result there was great joy among the people for it meant that warmth was returning. Soon they would be able to till the soil. Soon they would be able to grow food and their livestock would be able to graze on fresh new grass and they would soon no longer have to fear freezing to death should their shelter fail them. People all over the world celebrated this event. Each culture has its own mythology telling how and why all of this happens. It is a time filled with hope for all people, regardless of the religion they practice. A Return of the Light brings hope to all people everywhere. You can imagine the joy felt with the return of the Light. As individuals today, we might view this Return of Light as a tiny spark bursting from our hearts – the first spark of change – the first spark of creation. We can take this hope within and find it in our own hearts, see our own spark, we will see that this is a beautiful Light of Hope for All. I am the Source I dream the dreams I am the spark Creation lives in me Creation lives in me ~ Song by Jana Runnells~ Meet Mago Contributor, Deanne Quarrie
(Art) Thin Places by Liz Darling

“There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery.” Peter Gomes (Meet Mago Contributor) Liz Darling.
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]
(Poetry) When the Cranes Come by Sara Wright

When the Cranes Come I remember who I am – A woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I listen with rapt attention I am a woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I am pulled into a primordial field I am a woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I know I must fly with them I am a woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I remember that community is real I am a woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I believe hope can be restored I am a woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I lay down in frost – covered reeds In peace with Sand -hill Cranes. Working Notes “By paying attention to what is real and true and authentic we come home to ourselves.” I paraphrase Terry Tempest Williams words although I have used these very same words myself. Paying attention to Nature is just what I do. It is my primary survival tool. My joy is hidden here in experiences of the Now. Paying attention also forces me to witness heartrending Earth broken-ness, and this witnessing leaches the life force out of me. Whenever I am pulled into the “field” of Sandhill Cranes I undergo a mystical transformation. There is something about these most ancient birds that live together in peaceful community, who stay together, who migrate in family groups, who look after one another that “call” me to them in a way I can’t comprehend, but feels so familiar… like a dream I can’t quite remember. What I do know is that I must follow them. I must allow myself to believe that there may still be hope. These last years have been impossible because I am witnessing earth destruction daily through the loss of so many animals and plants, polluted air, water and soil. So much slaughter. The earth is going up in flames – Fires rage, destroying the forests that allow us to breathe, and drought cracks open the earth, withering the most resistant trees. Dust chokes desert air. I endure – waiting – no longer believing any action will be enough to stay the human greed, hatred, warmongering, lies, loss of decency, compassion, humility. That is, until I see the Sandhill Cranes flying overhead with their gray gracefully curved wings, their long legs floating behind them – during those precious moments I am filled with inexplicable hope and joy – I once again experience wholeness. The Cranes call me home. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Essay 2) Xi Wangmu, the shamanic great goddess of China by Max Dashu

Mirrors and Tombs Ancient art is rich in iconography of the goddess: bronzes, murals, painted lacquers, clay tiles, and stone reliefs. Much of this art is from funerary contexts, befitting the signification of the West. The goddess sits with hands tucked into voluminous sleeves, on a throne perched above an irregular stone pillar or a multi-tiered mountain. An ancient lacquer bowl from a tomb at Lelang depicts her thus, wearing a leopard hat and sitting on a leopard mat, with a jade maiden beside her and a canopy above. [Liu, 40] Sometimes she is enthroned in pavilions or halls. The goddess seated in pillared hall: sarcophagus from Sichuan In an important find near Tengzhou, Shandong, an incised stone depicts Xi Wangmu with a leopard’s body, tail, claws, teeth, and whiskers—and a woman’s face, wearing the sheng headdress. Votaries make offerings to her on both sides. The inscription salutes Tian Wangmu: Queen Mother of the Fields. [Lullo, 271] This alternate title reflects her control of the harvests, a tradition attested elsewhere. [Cahill, 13] At Suide in Shaanxi, a sheng-crowned Xi Wangmu receives leafy fronds from human and owl-headed votaries, while hares joyously pound exilir in a mortar (below). The magical fox, hare, frog, crow, and humans attend her in a tomb tile at Xinfan, Sichuan. The tomb art of this province shows the goddess of transcendence seated in majesty on a dragon and tiger throne. [Liu, 40-3] This magical pair goes back to the Banpo neolithic, circa 5000 BCE, where they flank a burial at Xishuipo, Henan. [Rawson, 244] Tiger and dragon represented yin and yang before the familiar Tai Ji symbol came into use during the middle ages. Tomb relief from Suide, Shaanxi The Western Grandmother presides at the summit of the intricate bronze “divine trees” that are unique to Sichuan.Their stylized tiers of branches represent the multiple shamanic planes of the world mountain. The ceramic bases for the trees also show people ascending Kunlun with its caverns. [Wu, 81-91] “Universal mountain” censers (boshanlu) also depict the sacred peak with swirling clouds, magical animals and immortals. [Little, 148] Xi Wangmu often appears on circular bronze mirrors whose backs are filled with concentric panels swirling with cloud patterns and thunder signs. She is flanked by the tiger and dragon, or the elixir-preparing rabbit, or sits opposite the Eastern King Sire, amidst mountains, meanders, “magic squares and compass rings inscribed with the signs of time.” [Schipper 1993: 172] Some mirrors are divided into three planes, with a looped motif at the base symbolizing the world tree. At the top a pillar rests on a tortoise—a motif recalling the mythical Tortoise Mountain of Xi Wangmu. [Wu, 87] Han dynasty people placed bronze mirrors in burials as blessings for the dead and the living, inscribed with requests for longevity, prosperity, progeny, protection, and immortality. Taoists also used these mystic mirrors in ritual and meditation and transmissions of potency. One mirror depicting Xi Wangmu bears a poem on the transcendents: When thirsty, they drink from the jade spring; when hungry, they eat jujubes. They go back and forth to the divine mountains, collecting mushrooms and grasses. Their longevity is superior to that of metal or stone. The Queen Mother of the West. [Cahill, 28-9] The Goddess in popular movements The Han Shu and other ancient histories indicate that the common people saw Xi Wangmu as a savior, protector, and healer in a time of severe drought and political disorder. A popular movement devoted to the goddess arose and spread rapidly. It reached its height in 3 BCE, as described as the Monograph on Strange Phenomena: “It happened that people were disturbed and running around, passing a stalk of grain or flax from one to another, and calling it ‘the tally for transmitting the edict.’” [Lulo, 278] The common people marched westward through various provinces, toward the Han capital. Many were barefoot and wild-haired (like their untamed goddess). People shouted and drummed and carried torches to the rooftops. Some crossed barrier gates and climbed over city walls by night, others rode swift carriages in relays “to pass on the message.” They gathered in village lanes and fields to make offerings. “They sang and danced in worship of the Queen Mother of the West.” [Lullo, 278-9] People passed around written talismans believed to protect from disease and death. Some played games of chance associated with the immortals. [Cahill, 21-3] There were torches, drums, shouting. Farming and normal routines broke down. This goddess movement alarmed the gentry, and the Confucian historian presented it in a negative light. He warned the danger of rising yin: females and the peasantry stepping outside their place. The people were moving west—opposite the direction of the great rivers—“which is like revolting against the court.” The writer tried to stir alarm with a story about a girl carrying a bow who entered the capital and walked through the inner palaces. Then he drew a connection between white-haired Xi Wangmu and the dowager queen Fu who controlled the court, accusing these old females of “weak reason.” His entire account aimed to overthrow the faction in power at court. [Lullo, 279-80] Change was in the air. Around the same time, the Taiping Jing(Scripture of Great Peace) described “a world where all would be equal.” As Kristofer Schipper observes, “a similar hope drove the masses in search of the great mother goddess.” [Schipper: 2000, 40] Their movement was put down within the year, but the dynasty fell soon afterward. Yet veneration of the goddess crossed class lines, reaching to the most elite levels of society, as it had since Shang times. Imperial authorities of the later Han dynasty set up altars to the goddess. But courtly ceremonies differed from rural festivals, and religious interpretations were contested. Unfortunately, the Hanshu is the only written account of folk religion, from a hostile Confucian perspective. [Cahill, 24; Lullo, 277-81] The literati did not value peasant religion, so it was not recorded: “what is certain is that the religion of the common people, with its worship of holy mountains and …
(S/HE V2 N1 Book Review) Max Dashu’s Witches and Pagans Reviewed by Carolyn Lee Boyd

[This content is from S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (V2 N1, 2023) Its online edition and paperback are available at Mago Bookstore.] Well into medieval times, women wielded spiritual power and authority across Europe as witches, diviners, healers, prophetesses, counselors, seeresses; and more. Everyday people prayed to and revered goddesses, while intertwining their lives with the faeries and other female spirits by propitiating them with gifts, asking for their blessings, and more. Over time, secular authorities aided by the church tried to destroy or assimilate the imagery, stories, beliefs, practices, and sacred places of holy women and goddesses, harshly punishing or killing women practitioners and their followers. Now, a millennium later, Max Dashu gathers up and reweaves the scattered and fragmented threads of women’s spiritual culture found primarily in the beliefs and traditions of the “folk,” past and present. These mostly rural people blended in their beliefs and practices the old religion and the new, reflecting, if sometimes imperfectly, the complexity and vibrancy of what had once been Europe’s dominant faith. In Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700 to 1100, Dashu uses deep dives into the etymology of words associated with female spiritual power; myths, written history, literature, and court and church documents; archeological finds in graves, buildings, and elsewhere; and more to give back to us our lost history. The book is well-illustrated by the author’s many drawings. As Dashu writes, “casting a wide net is the only way to get at the texture of culture, the weave of concepts people lived in, and their social realities” (iii). She offers us information previously available only to scholars and carefully explains not only what is known, but also what is unclear and debated among the experts, so readers can make up their own minds or at least know what is certain and what is still to be determined. All the voluminous information is carefully and comprehensively documented. Once readers have read through the book as a whole to gain an understanding of the breadth of women’s spiritual culture in Europe during this time, they will find the book an invaluable sourcebook to go back to time and time again for its detailed descriptions and analysis. While this review can only touch on a fraction of the fascinating information contained in Witches and Pagans, a survey of the major themes can offer a taste of the book’s contents and importance. First, Dashu demonstrates both the ubiquity and interconnectedness of women’s spiritual authority in the Early Medieval period by exploring the web of words and meanings associated with the proto-Indo-European root “Wert.” “Wert” denotes a circular motion, which led to the idea of “being and becoming.” This, in turn, metamorphosed into a symphony of words in various Indo-European languages, like the English words “wyrd” or “weird,” “worthy,” and “worship.” Deeply connected to “Wert” and its descendants is the original concept of female divinity as a force of “being and becoming,” that often manifested in trinities of goddesses, such as the fate goddesses found throughout Europe, Central Asia, and Eurasia. The concept of fate eventually evolved into “fae” and similar words associated with enchantment, the supernatural, and “faery.” The exact Indo-European etymology of the words “wicce” and “witch” is unclear, but they may have come from and been related to words denoting “give rise to,” prophecy, divination, magic wands, movement and vitality, and spinning and weaving. Etymologies related to words for witches, goddesses, and female spirit beings show the many layers and shades of meaning describing the realm of Medieval female spiritual authority. Dashu lists over 200 words from 43 languages ranging from Norse to Croatian to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish to Latin to Anglo-Saxon to Catalan and many more. These words reflect spheres of influence that include knower, wisewoman, prophetess, diviner, enchantress, healer, old woman, doer/maker, shapeshifter, fateful women, spirits or ancestors, and various others. Dashu has made the “Names of the Witch” chapter open access,[1] where anyone may read the chapter in its entirety. Having spread her linguistic net over all of Europe, Dashu then turns to individual regions where traces of the deepest roots can still be found in historical documents, myths, archeology and other sources. First are the Norse völur (singular is völva), “the best-documented tradition of female spiritual leadership in medieval Europe” (99). These prestigious and powerful women traveled to homes with an entourage of singers prophesying in ecstatic ceremonies known as seidr, provided food in famines, practiced weather magic, and shape-shifted, among other practices. Other Norse women were priestesses who oversaw sacrifices. Yet, even in these explorations of specific areas, we find themes that wind their way throughout Europe. The völur and Norse goddesses like the Norns illustrate the cross-cultural importance of spinning and weaving to women’s spiritual culture. “Weaving was associated with wisdom, prophecy, poetry, and blessing in Indo-European cultures” (36) from Ireland to India and elsewhere. It was especially connected with both foreseeing and shaping fate and destiny. Distaffs, staffs used in spinning, became the staffs of power that accompanied these goddesses and have been found in the graves of numerous völur and other women with spiritual prestige and power. Closely associated with fate and destiny were the divination practices found throughout the continent accomplished through interpretation of movement, direction, synchronicity, crystal balls, amulets, and the like. Runes were an alphabet that both spelled out and shaped fate as well as being associated with ancestors and ceremonies for the dead. They were also largely in the realm of female spiritual power across northern Europe. The underworld domain of the dead was also the home of faeries, elves and witches, all of which were sometimes interchangeable. Dashu then moves to primordial goddesses, ancestral deities associated with the Earth and nature as well as the spirit realms. We begin in the northwest rim of Europe — Ireland and Scotland, especially — where the late arrival of romanization and christianization ensured that the traditions …
(Essay) Blood & Honey Icons by Danica Anderson

“We are confronted with the slaughter of EVE, a systematic Gendercide of tragic proportions.” Theodor Winkler I am a world traveling Forensic psychotherapist, a Psycho-social Gender Victims Expert for the International Criminal Court since 2005 and founded a non-profit The Kolo: Women’s Cross Cultural Collaborations. As a result I have been in many countries abroad. This may sound exotic but my travels are never for vacations. I found myself squeezed in between the bombs, bullets, famine and rapes in the midst of catastrophic violence. In the raucousness of violence, I would face the survivors and their stories. According to Julie Mertus, 75% to 80% of worldwide refugees are women and I realized that if our world of violence was to be changed it would be through women, the major caregivers of children and the Moist Mother Earth.[1] I realized long ago through the narratives shared with me by those who survived what I never thought could be survived is how my trauma work begins where humanity ends. My trauma healing practices are steeped in oral memory traditions, a technology I take along on my journeys. What oral memory traditions are is a technology, wholly feminine in nature and origins, and lived as opposed to being scrutinized intellectually. Secondly, oral memory traditions are the past spoken in our personal memory passed down by words not written. Those folk round dances danced, ballads sung, and in textiles and threads or paints to clay expressed in diverse art forms to rituals manifested culture. [2] Although the places and particulars of every atrocity differ, the psychological damage done to its victims is much the same. Just surviving such horrific trauma would seem victory enough. Sadly, it is not. Without healing, the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome fester, deepening the emotional decay. Once the insidious seed is sown, time may reap another whirlwind. The radius of collateral damage knows no borders and can reach from one generation to the next. This is what I witness over and over, no matter the land I stand upon. Increasingly, in armed conflicts around the world, a new commerce in cruelty has emerged: Gendercide. Now the rule rather than the exception, the specific targeting of women and children to be murdered, mutilated, raped or recruited as combatants has been added to the brutal lexicon of warfare, not least governing entities with power over the masses. Following the demise of the Republic of Yugoslavia, between 1992 and 1995 over 100,000 people were slaughtered in a swirling triad of ethnic and religious violence. Hundreds of thousands were forced from their ancestral homes and villages. The ancient fault lines of the European continent had fractured yet again. I ask you, isn’t this the raging campaign against the Great Mother with the advancement of Patriarchy for the past 5,000 years? I almost walked away from Bosnia in March 1999 to never return. I was frozen by the utter reality that there was nothing I could do or help. Despite that reality that nothing could help, I asked myself, what if it was not about help but another four letter word – heal? In fact, in the archaeologies of memory of the Great Mother, the God/dess, are an intangible heritage and legacy of oral memory traditions that are millennia-old healing practices. I did return to Bosnia and continue to, for the past 13 years. I have written two books; one is published to preserve the oral memory traditions of the South Slavic women, simply due to the reality that it was all that they had left in terms of resources. I faced an abyss in the psychology field and the humanitarian organizations’ policies and mandates that did everything to erase the oral memory traditions. I was laughed at for my oral memory traditions efforts, scathed at psychology associations and conferences, but soon after my presentation in Edinburgh, Scotland at the International Trauma Society, my kolo trauma and treatment format was being couched in other intellectual terms of Somatic Psychology or Movement practices. I continue to witness the eradication of an incredible female humanities tool, oral memory traditions, in the form of lines such as the Sudanese women, who stood for hours and days to get food or treatment. I witnessed the money going to male hands or international workers while those in need, mostly women and children, went without. But in Bosnia, the women war crimes and war survivors showed me a ray of inspiration. The humble meals, often the result of hand foraging for nettles in the spring or chasing down of their chickens for sweet fresh eggs, were placed before me on a rustic wooden table and handmade chairs. I need to mention that I had to go with the women to forage for my meal. The women demanded that no one eats unless they gather the food together. Before I sat down on the hand-crafted gleaming chair I spied a meticulous embroidered cushion that would have made Marija Gimbutas kneel down to examine the Old Europe symbology woven by female hands that never opened her books. Joanna Hubbs in Mother Russia observes the spindle, mortar and pestle from the world of women as a feminine metaphysic. [3] I was certainly transfixed by the spiral pattern on the cushion that softens not just my derriere but the war crimes stories I heard at the table. Joan Marler wrote, “An embodied spirituality begins with the very food we eat”.[4] I think of the Russian Blini, the same as the South Slavic Palacinke, crepes; the cooking of these delicious crepes is a ritual performed according to the sun’s yearly movement through the skies. [5] Folklore tells us it is to heal sexual vitality, an oral memory tradition with cosmic order, where the sun is rebirthed each day, absorbed into the inky blackness at night, but blood red dawns mirrors the experience of giving birth. It took 13 years to write and publish my book Blood & Honey Icons: Biosemiotics & Bioculinary and the …
(Prose) Earth Stories by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Every day I send a FB post into what feels like a Great Void including nature photos that I took around the house or in the woods that morning or the day before. There is always Something. Coalescing early morning thoughts with recent images helps me orient myself to the day to come, reminding me to be Present to Now. Now is my only Refuge. In these posts I also hope to capture an audience through image if not through words, introducing or reinforcing people’s positive relationship to nature before it’s too late. My intention is twofold. Help others to see nature in all her wonder, and to encourage folks who read the text to think creatively, to question, to challenge what has been normalized. Does anyone pay attention to these efforts? The answer is probably that few do, and yet I persist. I recall what Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Powers states, namely that ‘hope is a willingness to engage with the future’. Outcomes are not the point. As a naturalist I am wed to the earth. That I am witnessing Earth’s sorrow, suffering and perhaps even her rage is reality. That we cannot separate the earth from our lives is also reality. Denial or not. That joy can still be felt sensed experienced by living in the present is a third reality. Sharing my little posts helps me to pass these ideas/feelings on. I include today’s post as an example. “WHAT IS THE EARTH ASKING OF US? Both author/scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer and scholar / author Amitav Ghosh ask the same question in different ways. Kimmerer answers that the earth asks to be thanked for the gifts that s/he brings us, and that Gratitude is key. Ghosh answers the question through the story of how one plant brought down a civilization and what this might be saying about the intelligence of nature that may be working under the radar -the fires the flood droughts colonization, wars, misogyny racism etc. cannot be separated and all are all telling us something… Both And. I wonder what would happen if every person queried this question to nature and then LISTENED to any answer that might materialize through a thought or an action – – – Do I hear thousands of responses? This is when I think that it might be possible to change the world. Yesterday when I stood under my beloved hydrangea whose pearl white blossoms rivel that of the moon’s blue light listening to the hum of bees, I heard the cosmos singing. The many and the one. There’s more to this story. Yesterday I also heard my almost 33 -year- old dove Lily b thrashing around his bathroom bower. Something had frightened him badly. Racing into his room – he is a free flying dove that has never been caged – I feared that he might have hurt himself accidently. Lily spends his days in a plant window that is open overhead. Although he is completely safe, he doesn’t feel that way if a predator is near. Hawks can see him from above and sometimes dive bomb the window sending him into a frenzy. After finding him huddled in a corner I picked him up, soothed him with words, and placed him on his protected night roosting perch to recover. Imagine my shock when I entered the living room, and a giant hawk was sitting in the nearby cherry tree. It took a second to identify the Red Tail before he flew directly at me, hovering in the air inches in front of the window tail feathered fanned out behind him. He repeated this behavior three times in all before flying away. Stunned almost senseless, my heart pounded involuntarily. I just stood there dumbly. This was personal and frightening; every cell was vibrating in my body. When a jumble of thoughts tumbled into awareness the hawk’s messenger aspect came first. Nature was communicating with me through one of her creatures, but what S/he was saying was not clear. Never in all these years had I witnessed this behavior in a hawk. Was this some kind of warning? It sure felt that way as my mind flew through all the times the hawk had come to me over the years… often in conjunction with family. Sometimes ‘his’ messages were benign; sometimes not (I only experienced hawk as male). But three times? This sounded mythical; in fairy tales happenings occur in threes. I have no answer to what this startling appearance might mean to me personally or even collectively, but I am on high alert because nature routinely communicates with me through plants, animals, and birds. Unfortunately, sometimes it is months, even years before I comprehend why a visitation occurred. The point of including this unfinished story is to demonstrate that developing an intimate relationship with nature in any of her aspects does weave a person into the uncanny tapestry of the whole if we are open to the reality that it is possible. In The Nutmeg’s Curse Amitav Ghosh suggests that human/animal communication is the oldest of our ‘animal’ traits, and that Nature was telling stories long before humans ever inhabited the earth. My life experiences indicate to me that he’s right. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/
(Meet Mago Contributor) Yuan Changming

Yuan Changming grew up in a remote village, started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at age 19 and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include ten Pushcart nominations, the 2018 Naji Naaman’s Literary (Honour) Prize, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1,449 others across 42 countries.

(Special Post 1) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

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

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion or spirituality of Indigenous Australians, Munya Andrews of the Bardi people from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, acknowledges this and chooses to name her recently published book with it, explaining that: “I love the term … For me, it conjures up a magical and mysterious world.”, and she feels that the term aligns perfectly with the common global religious concept that Diety is beyond words and human understanding. For me, as Munya Andrews describes “Dreamtime”, it seems resonant with the sense of “ever-present Origins”[1]; that is, original space and time that is omnipresent. This is a space/place that I understand to be referred to as “between the worlds” and “beyond the bounds of space and time”, by Indigenous Europeans (Pagans), a tradition with which I am familiar. I understand it to be a sentient world in which we are immersed actually, and which may be revealed to the observant person in synchronous moments. With practice one may live with clearer everyday connections with this world, and Munya’s book is an important contribution to making those connections from within the cosmology of her people; and for “all beautiful souls to keep the Dreamtime alive”, as she says in the book’s dedication. This book provides informative story that should be part of every Australian’s education at various levels: it lays a groundwork and also elicits deepening understandings. The teachings offered in Journey into Dreamtime should be considered essential knowledge for living on this land named Australia, whereas heretofore most present occupants have often not had easy access to such learning. This very readable and small book provides some basic facts: for example, that there are “250 or so Indigenous nations, each having their own language, their own names and ‘country’ or tribal lands.”; and that terms such as Koori, Nunga or Murri are “pan-Aboriginal” names taken on since colonisation, for the sake of asserting a distinct Indigenous identity, in the face of forced removal from families and land. In the course of the seven chapters Munya develops understanding of Dreamtime, and also understandings of Indigenous Law, Songlines, sacred sites, bush doctors/bush medicine, Rainbow Snake, and Kindredness. I found all of this really helpful, an invitation into a world of being and relationship; and it is told with frequent analogies from Western science and academic and spiritual texts, with which the reader may be more familiar, enabling the bridge into Indigenous science and worldview. There is a list of suggested readings offered, along with links and details for further connection and learning. At the conclusion of each chapter of Journey into Dreamtime there are “Dreamtime Reflections”, posing questions for personal consideration, inviting personal participation and pathways into some actual sense of an alive self in relationship with the alive world described. This book needs to be in spaces/places where everyday people can read it, like waiting rooms of all kinds (where there are frequently Bibles); as well as in every library, and especially Australian libraries. I highly recommend Journey into Dreamtime as an educational resource, for your self, for educational programs, and/or for any group that you may gather. Aunty Munya, as she names herself, has an impressive track record of speaking engagements, mentioned at the conclusion of the book, and invites you to have her speak to your organisation. She describes her life purpose as “to create better understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal people and to leave behind a legacy of Dreamtime wisdom for generations to come.” May it be so, as readers of Journey into Dreamtime absorb its teaching and resources. To order a copy of Journey into Dreamtime visit Evolve Communities NOTES: [1]“ever-present origin” is the English translation of Jean Gebser’s Ursprung und Gegenwart, Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag, 1966.
(Special Post Isis 2) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

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

(Video) A Beltaine Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Beltaine/High Spring: the traditional dates are Southern Hemisphere – October 31st or 1st November Northern Hemisphere – April 30th (May Eve) or 1st May The actual astronomical date varies, and it is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, thus actually a little later in early November for S.H., and early May for N.H., respectively. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pODpbkzfrIU 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, music, and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it may be paused. The script for this Beltaine ceremony is offered in Chapter 8 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. 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 name the direction, which I only do at the beginning. The images used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Beltaine ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Beltaine ceremonies that I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space, in Gundungurra and Darug country, Blue Mountains Australia. To enhance participation in the ceremony, you may like to have the following: the element of Water flavoured with rose water. the element of Earth in a large dinner plate and card paper large enough for handprints, along with a bowl of water for washing hands after. a small bouquet of scented flowers and/or herbs for the element of Air. a firepot for the element of Fire. This may be a clay pot of sand into which a small amount of methylated spirits will be poured and lit: it produces a soft flame that will not set off fire alarms, though care should still be taken. a larger firepot or two – either near the altar or located where suitable, for either leaping the flames, or simply passing your hand over flames. This firepot may be a larger version of the one for the element of Fire. coloured ribbons, ideally attached to a pole/tree, but it is possible to manage this rite in another creative manner. a pink ring cake, topped with rose water and honey and petals, sliced ready for serving, but whole. sweet pink wine/juice and glasses for serving. Dance Instructions: Celebrant as #1, person next on right as #2. All 1’s face right, all 2’s face left. All 1’s go in & under first, all 2’s go out & over first. The chant for the dance around the tree (a “Novapole” in the Southern Hemipshere, a “Maypole” in the Northern Hemisphere): “We are the Dance of the Earth, Moon and Sun We are the Life that’s in everyone We are the Life that loves to live We are the Love that lives to love.” (Note: This is a slight variation of the chant written and taught to me by thea Gaia. Music credits: A few clips from Coral Sea Dreaming by Tania Rose: https://www.taniarose.net A clip from Benediction Moon by Pia from her album by that name, New World Music, 1998. A clip from “Shedville 28th Nov 05” by Nick Alias, who has generously shared his music, and given permission for me to use it. Image credits: Ishtar (Middle East, 1000 BCE), Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.131. Aphrodite (Europe, 300 BCE), Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.133. Xochiquetzal (Mayan, 8th century CE), Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.135. Inanna/Ishtar (Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E.), Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature, p.39. Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, plate 155. Milky Way photo: Akira Fujii, David Malin images. Beau Ravn’s “Goddess” and “God” artworks (2000). Sri Yantra (1500 CE.), A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, Sacred Sexuality, p.75.
(Video) An Autumn Equinox Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Autumn Equinox/Mabon Northern Hemisphere – September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere – March 21-23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRJNY1LSvIs&t=1175s …oOo… The purpose of this 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. The script for this Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony is offered in Chapter 11 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. In particular I mention here, credit for the story of Demeter and Persephone as told by Charlene Spretnak in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have one or more stalks of wheat or native grain tied with a red thread/ribbon, a garden pot with soil, a small garden trowel, a flower bulb (daffodil type), food and drink, that may represent your “harvest” – ready for eating and drinking. 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). The images used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Autumn Equinox ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Autumn Equinox ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. My partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne who has participated in all the Seasonal ceremonies since Samhain 2000, adds his voice to this video. Image credits: Demeter and Persephone (500 B.C.E. Greece). Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.72. Art of Demeter and Persephone on MoonCourt wall: Cernak Herself Music credit: “Gentle Sorrow” by Sky: which he has previously allowed me to use in my work. This piece of music is also used in the Autumn Equinox meditation on my PaGaian Cosmology Meditations published 2015.
(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 …
(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 …
(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
(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: …

(Goma Article Excerpt 1) 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.] This essay may be called a Magoist study of the Korean foundation myth, also known as the Dangun myth. It reinstates Goma, better known as “Ungnyeo (Bear/Sovereign Woman),” the shaman ruler of pre-patriarchal Korea, who is the main character of the Korean foundation myth. Here “Mago” stands for the Creatrix and “Magoism” for pre-patriarchally originated indigenous tradition of East Asia that venerates the Creatrix.[1] Identifying Goma as the ruler Goddess of Old Korea/East Asia is by no means a new effort. She is, although few in number, alluded to the eponymous Goddess of ancient Korean States (Goma State, for example) in both historical sources and modern research. In fact, “Ungnyeo” is one of the most studied topics by Korean linguists, mythologists, and historians for it concerns the identity of the Korean people. Nonetheless, those studies tend to be monodisciplinary or androcentric in their approaches and consequently fail to assess her full-fledged supreme identity as the ancestor ruler of East Asian nations. This chapter engages in transdisciplinary, comparative, and feminist approaches to elucidating the Goma myth. At the outset, we will rename “the Korean foundation myth” “the Goma myth.” That is corollary in that she is the central figure of the story. Also it introduces Old Korea as the One People of the Creatrix, anciently known as Nine Hans (九桓 Guhan). The Goma myth restores the gynocentric multi-meaning of “Nine Hans” and “Magoist Koreans/East Asians,” which is non-ethnocentric and supra-nationalist in origin. The character, “Han (桓),” in “Nine Hans” and “Hanguk,” is complex in meaning as it connotes “one,” “whole, “great,” “good,” “same,” “bright,” “many,” “correct,” “middle,” “full” and the like. Thus, “Nine Hans” refer to the People of the Creatrix who have those qualities of the character “Han.” Koreanists have designated as Hanism (the Han thought) this inclusive and polysemic nature of the word “Han” characteristic of traditional Korean worldview.[2] Although naming it Hanism is insightful, it may be misleading without a full-fledged hermeneutics of Goma mythology. Goma, known as Ungnyeo or Gom, remains underestimated and misrepresented among modern Koreans. A common understanding of the Korean foundation myth goes that she was the bear who became a woman and married Hanung, the divine sage ruler of Old Korea, and gave birth to a son, Dangun, the founder of the proto-Chinese Joseon dynasty (2333 BCE-232 BCE). Goma is diminished to the role of a mother of an assumed male hero at best. Consequently, she is redacted from the mytho-historical context of Old Magoist Korea/East Asia (the pre-patriarchal gynocentric people of the Creartrix), and divested of her supreme identity as the dynastic founder of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE). Given the immensity and complexity of the topic and its data, it is admittedly impossible to treat them comprehensively within a chapter. While many salient themes are discussed, many others are not treated. Among the untreated are Nine Numerology and its cross-cultural manifestations beyond East Asia. This essay aims the following: (1) It provides some pivotal background discussions as well as overall characteristics of the Goma myth. (2) It introduces and delineates the four narratives of the Goma myth selectively chosen from various written texts. The fact that the topic of Goma has rarely been brought to light in its own right in the West adds to the difficulty. This has to do with the fact that pre-Chinese Korean/East Asian history is deemed heterodox, if recognized, in mainstream (read Sinocentric and patriarchal) East Asian Studies. Not only her supreme identity but also her Magoist mytho-historical context remains as non-data in the institutionalized practice of Korean Studies. Our task necessarily involves a controversial feminist methodology, debunking conventional interpretations as a product of Sinocentrism. Mainstream Koreanists have endorsed or internalized the Chinese ethnocentric worldview that is patriarchal and imperialist. Reversing the multiple reversals, the current work, as a result, exposes what is written out of the official East Asian mytho-historiography. Summary of the Goma Myth Goma had a great spirit from birth. Because of her vision of “benefiting the human world widely,” she was entrusted by the last shaman queen, Hanin of Hanguk (桓國 State of One People, c. 7199 BCE – 3898 BCE), with the task of restoring the Reign of the Creatrix. Toward the end of the Hanguk confederacy, clan names and their customs grew apart. And a belligerent tiger clan rose. They raided and plundered neighboring tribes. Goma conceived a will to pacify a social problem caused by this unruly patrilocal clan. Determined to constrain the tiger clan, she requested Hanin to send her to the troubled region. Hanin granted her wish and sent her to the region, Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence). Leading the royal bear clan of 3,000 people, Goma arrived at Mount Taebaek and settled adjacent to the tiger clan. Rather than a military solution, she proposed a covenant for both the bear clan and the tiger clan to observe. Both clans underwent a trial, which was to dwell in a cave hall and endure 100 days without seeing the sunlight, living on mugwort and chive. I call her proposal the cave initiation, a socio-spiritual pledge to undergo the ordeal of the cave environment in order to tap into one’s innate power of restoring true human nature. The cave is a physical and metaphorical place for the womb of the Primordial Mother, the sacred space/time of unity, wholeness, and rebirth, wherein everyone once dwelt. The cave initiation represents a returning to the knowing of the common origin of all beings, the Crearix. Goma proffered the tiger clan an option of changing their predatory behaviors but they could not endure the cave initiation. The bear clan endured for three seven days (21 days) and attained the female character, the true human nature. The tiger clan was expelled to a remote designated land outside Four Seas, the territory of Old Magoist East Asia, by verdict of the law that Goma legislated. …
(Bell Essay 5) The Ancient Korean Bell and Magoism by Helen Hwang

Part V: The Nine Nipples and Korean Magoist Identity Part V demonstrates the difference in bells of Korea, China, and Japan with regard to the relief of nine nipples. Chinese bells after the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) got away with the nipples wholesale, whereas Japanese bells inaccurately mimicked nine nipples. On the other hand, the nine nipples continued to be sculpted on Sillan Korean bells and throughout history. In fact, the nine nipples became the hallmark of Korean bells. Why did post-Han China discontinue the nine nipples, a legacy from Shang and Zhou times? What made Japan mimic the nipples on the bell? What does it mean that Korean bells kept the nine nipples intact throughout history? These questions remain unanswered without the framework of the mytho-history of Old Magoism that defines ancient Korea as the creator and defender of Magoism in pre- and proto-Chinese times. The fact that bells with the nine nipples re-emerged during 7th-8th century Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) is no accident. In fact, it supports the premise that Old Magoism during which Magoist female shamans ruled was revived by Sillan leaders. Silla Koreans took the role of witness to the legacy of Old Magoism before it vanished into the subliminal memory of history once and for all. Like other symbols of the number nine such as the nine dragons, nine-tailed fox, and nine maidens that I have shown in a series of preceding essays, the nine nipples are the cultural/conceptual relic from the bygone Magoist history underlying Sinocentric historiography of East Asia. On one level, the relief of nipples forged on the bells from Korea, China, and Japan in one way or another at some point of history substantiates the cultural influence of Old Magoism across the national boundaries of East Asia. On another level, the fact that the nine nipples characterize Korean bells throughout history suggests the primary association of ancient Koreans with Magoism. Korean bells have served the mission of carrying the cultural memory of Old Magoism. Let us backtrack a bit and ask: Is it possible to conclude that the Zhou bell was the original model of the Sillan bell? It is dubious to deem that the Sillan bell took the model of the Zhou bell solely. That is primarily because the Sillan bell is far more explicit than the Zhou bell in female symbology. The Zhou bell’s nipples are not even called nipples. Foremost, official history of ancient China has no explanation for the female principle embodied in the nine nipples of Zhou and Shang bells. It appears that the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) was the landmark that defined China without regard to its attitude toward Old Magoism. The umbilical cord was not only cut off but also used to matricide, marking the birth of full-fledged patriarchy. The bloody hand was washed in falsified historiography. The Han dynasty marks the period of transition from the pseudo-Magoist to the anti-Magoist for China. In other words, China as a political force began, or rather continued, to abandon the legacy of Old Magoism and forged a new identity of patriarchal rulership in writing. In about four centuries thereafter, we find the bells of the Dang dynasty (618-906) utterly non-traditional in style, showing no sign of female symbology. Bell, Chen Dynasty (575), China Jingyun Bell, Tang Dynasty (711), China Protruded knobs are expressed in Jingyun bell cast in 711 CE but hard to associate them with nipples. The number nine symbology is no longer included. Instead, the magnitude in size and weight (247 cm and 6,500 kg) was there to adumbrate what has gone into oblivion, the magical work of epiphany. Discontinuity between Zhou bells and Dang bells cannot be more overt. As seen in above images, Chinese bells of the post-Dang period are adorned in entirely new styles among which the convoluted end-lines are one of the most distinctive features. Creativity without harmony is no ingenuity but an expression of confusion. Power without harmony is only a disguise of fear and guilt. And harmony comes from the Great Goddess, Mago. The contrast of the Dang bell is heightened when it is juxtaposed with the contemporaneous Sillan counterpart. It is unequivocal that the Sillan Korean bell is closer to the Zhou bell in appearance than the Dang bell to the Zhou bell. Experts may deem this as a corollary that ancient Silla was under the influence of Zhou culture. However, I suggest that both Silla and Zhou took the footstep of the pre-Chinese tradition of Old Magoism. Put differently, there were older models that are not fully exposed at this time. Precisely, Sinocentric thinking is under investigation. On the part of proto-Chinese Korean history, according to mainstream historians, Joseon (2333 BCE-232 BCE) is rendered a myth lacking historicity. Silla not only duly inherited the heritage of Old Magoism but also sought to revive the rule of Old Magoism whose political stance strikingly differed from her contemporaneous neighboring state, Dang China. In fact, the Dang dynasty (618 CE-906 CE) coexisted with the united Silla period (668 CE-936 CE), shorter than the last third of the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE). What prevents one from thinking that Silla inherited the symbolism of nine nipples directly from pre-Chinese East Asian/Korean Magoist Culture? Interestingly, Japanese bells have nipples whose numbers are, nonetheless, inconsistent, more than nine. While showing no overt symbology of female sexuality, the Japanese bell displays the nipples in the four corners aligning with its predecessors. In comparison with Korean bells, nonetheless, they are evidently monotonous in artistry. Absent are the breast circumferences as well as the seats for nipples. Neither goddess images nor intricately designed rinceau designs are employed. However, a hue of mimicry is echoing. The lack of originality in Japanese bells seemed plainly noticed by the Japanese themselves upon encountering Korean bells. More than fifty Korean bells were taken to Japan during the colonial period (1910-1945) and even before then and still remain there. Among them, six bells are known from Silla, cast before the 10th century CE. In fact, the bell in Unjuji, Japan, is alleged …
(Photo Essay 3) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

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

(Nine Poets Speak) Oh Beautiful Beings by Louisa Calio

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