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(Bell Essay 9) 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.] Acoustics of Korean Temple Bells The Korean temple bell is by no means a simple or monotonic sounding apparatus. Sillan temple bells are comparable with whales as music makers. Like a whale, the bell engenders complex notes. For example, the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great (the Divine Bell hereafter), according to a study, emits more than 50 single sound waves under 1000 Hz (1000 vibrations per second).[1] Put differently, more than 50 kinds of tremors are taking place in the body of the bell upon the strike. It is also known that the Divine Bell travels as far as 40 km. Sudeoksa Temple Bell and Whale Dangmok Sound of the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great Music of the Bell When the bell is struck, the kinetic energy created by striking the bell is transferred to the body of the bell, which causes vibration. The vibration of the bell is transmitted to the air and reaches our ear drums. As our auditory cells are stimulated, we recognize the sound. A specific vibration of the bell is determined by the combination of multiple variable factors including its size and shape as well as material and the striker. Its amplitude varies according to the location of the strike made on the body of the bell. In general, the sound increases in volume, when the bell is struck on the lower part of the body close to the opening. The sound decreases, the higher the body is struck.[2] According to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, “the good sound of the bell” is defined as (1) the clear sound, that is, one must hear a beautiful sound by one’s ear without noise, (2) the reverberation should last long, and (3) there should be a distinctive maengnori (맥놀이), a phenomenon of beat produced when the two different sound waves interfere. These three factors are closely related with the kind of metal alloy, the cooling speed of the iron liquid, the shape, the distribution of thickness, and the arrangement of designs.[3] Based on various sources on the sounding of the bell, we can summarize it as the sound of a bell as three sectional notes: The first sectional note is the roaring sound that diminishes within one second after the bell is struck. It includes a number of partial notes. The second sectional note is a far-reaching sound, also known as the normalized sound, that lasts 5 to 10 seconds after the bell is struck. It refers to the bell sound that travels far. And the third sectional note is called reverberation, which lasts 30 seconds to one minute after the bell is struck until it gradually diminishes. Reverberation refers to the basic original vibration that hears as sound. The good bell has a gentle and distinctive echo interplay (beat), that is, a prolonged maengnori. Because of the asymmetrical structure of the bell in the arrangement of the designs on the surface and the thickness and the shape determined in casting, the bell sound may comprise two different but similar frequencies, the high frequency and the low frequency. The frequency of reverberation is the difference between the high frequency and the low frequency. Maengnori is generated when the high frequency and the low frequency interact.[4] To be noted is the phenomenon of beat. It refers to the fact that, when the original sound wave meets the returning sound wave, the sound either becomes stronger (reinforcing interference) or weaker (cancelling interference). The reinforcing interference makes the sound bigger, whereas the cancelling interference makes the sound diminish.[5] In a comparative light, it is inferred that the Sillan temple bells were cast to mimic the “singing” of the whales by the irregular thickness and the distinctive shape of the body to cause two similar frequencies. It is the echo movement that characterizes them as the music of the bell. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture continues to characterize Korean temple bells as follows: Korean temple bells are characterized by a clear and pure timbre (tonal sprectrum), a prolonged reverberation, and a distinctive echo interplay (maengnori). The bell of Sangwonsa, the extant oldest of Sillan temple bells, has 102 Hz for the original frequency, which is known as the best sound. At the 4-0 vibration mode, the high frequency 103.02 Hz and the low frequency 101 Hz are conjoined to make the echo movment of 2.02 Hz frequency… The divne bell of the Great Seongdeok King has 65 Hz for the original frequency and its echo movement frequency is 0.35 Hz.[6] The frequencies of both the bells of Sangwonsa and the Great Seongdeok King, 65 Hz and 103.02 Hz, are within those of cetacean songs. When it comes to the music of the bell, Korean temple bells are distinguishably characterized by the sound tube (eumtong or yongtong) and the resonance cavity (myeongdong) from her Chinese and Japanese counterparts, to be discussed in detail below. Ancient Korean bell-makers were not only concerned about casting the good bell with the good sound but also enhancing its acoustic quality by engineering these two devices. The sound tube refers to the tube standing upright atop the bell, enveloped by the dragon, Poroe (Pulao). It has an open ended little pipe, with a few adorned bamboo-like nodules engraved on it. The resonance cavity is the recessed half-spherical area below the bell cacity, made on the ground or the floor. Acoustics of the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great Also known as the Bell of Bongdeoksa (奉德寺 Virtue Venerating Temple), the Divine Bell is the most favored bell of Korea by Koreans. Even today, its sound is noted for “playing the zither of one’s heart/mind (心琴).” The Korean expression, “sounding the musical instrument of one’s heart/mind,” …
(Tribute 1) In Loving Memory of Eve Helene Wilkowitz by Jack Dempsey, Ph.D.

born April 17, 1959:abducted and murdered in New York City, March 1980 She was not a document. She was not a number or a photograph. Not an abstract idea or a madman’s fantasy. She was flesh and blood. —Susan Griffin, Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge Against Nature, 1981 *** In the summer of 1979 a young writer moves to midtown New York, city of dreams. With 8 months of drinking in those electric, grimy-grand avenues, he breaks into freelance work for educational textbook publishers—but, come midwinter, he’s found the city both wildly alive and lonely. Early Monday February 11th, 1980: he walks up Third Avenue to his latest gig at Macmillan Publishing, where a raucous community of creative colleagues clack away on typewriters, sustaining the dreams they’re really after. The standard sterility of American textbooks ignites subversion in their constant banter: his morning’s plan is to share out copies of an historical romance parody, “Love’s Deep Disturbance.” And there alone before him, working the xerox-machines, is Eve. Her eyes are deep brown with an impish twinkle, her big ready smile tells the word-drunk writer her name, and he’s a goner. Eve: meaning Life, primeval, innocent and wayward, there seems no more beautiful name for a woman and a Muse. From their first lunch onward, the cosmos between them goes Click. (To be continued) https://www.magoism.net/2017/05/meet-mago-contributor-jack-dempsey-ph-d/
(Pandemic Poem 11) Dreaming the New Dream by Jyoti Wind

Colorado Sunset, Boulder CO. Photo by Jyoti Wind The coloring has come outside the lines. Those hard line definitions are blurring, softening, making more room for new possibilities, new terms, new words. New pictures are forming on the inside. As they emerge, engaging the emotions, not just the mind, we move closer to wholeness, dreaming the new dream. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Poem) The Daughter Line by Arlene Bailey

The Daughter of the Daughter of My Daughter,Art by Julie Dillon I am the daughter of a daughter. Who is the daughter of a daughter. Who is also the daughter of a daughter. Some of us are mothers but all of us are daughters, all birthed through lines that weave back to that First Mother. All connected from the very beginning. All connected in the now. Mothers, Daughters, Grandmothers, Great Grandmothers, Great Great Grandmothers. All daughters born from One. Original. Egg. from One. Original. Woman. So why the separation? Why the animosity toward each other? Why the arguing and fighting, back-stabbing and lack of support? The next time you see another woman, look in her eyes and see the Ancestral Lines – the lines of women – that lead back to you. Where are we going Mother? And how will we get there Sister? By staying connected Daughter and allowing for difference. For we are each one, after all, all Daughters of the One Mother. ______________________________________ The Daughter Line, Arlene Bailey ©2020 (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(Prose Part 2) Spiral Movements by Nané Jordan

Women’s spirituality spiral: Further reading and experience led me to pursue a Master of Arts degree in Women’s Spirituality in San Francisco, California. At the time, these unorthodox women- and Goddess- centred studies felt beyond me. I had young children and a low income. But, I was internally very pulled to go. Such intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually compelling studies answered a deep yearning within me. In San Francisco, goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality flowered and bloomed. This grew from a commitment to social gender justice and activism in the American women’s movement, transforming society through women’s spiritual leadership. Thus, I studied with “bona fide” foremothers of women’s and goddess spirituality. In this powerful women-centred curriculum, we read feminist scholarship as much as created rituals and art, all while conducting our own research. The scholars and activists included Vicki Noble, Chief Luisah Teish, Z. Budapest, Judy Grahn, Dianne Jenett, Elinor Gadon, and others. I needed and valued their wise mentorship, as they became my elders. And I met friends and colleagues who nourish me to this day. Studying in San Francisco became a touchstone for me. I began to write about birth politics and midwifery, finding my voice and continuing my art. I pursued my devotional leanings towards Goddess figures such as Mary, Tara, and Devi. I learned from all the threads of my sister scholars in their research, such as: Goddess Durga, Indigenous knowledge and cosmology, artivism, menstrual reclamation and ritual celebration, Yoruban traditions, and so much more—this was and is the juiciest scholarship and way of life I know! I now trust more in my sense of reaching out to feel held by strong female divine energies, symbols, and visions. I honour my female body in its knowing-ness and as a source of blessing. I especially honour my primary matrix as Mother Earth. Born in Canada, I always loved to be in wilderness and in nature. As a young adult, I was a tree-planter in the summers, working for my university studies. I cultivated my animist tendencies, feeling the sentience and sacredness of other beings through connection to the Earth through outdoor work, hiking, and wilderness camping. This is “biophilia,” being in-love with Earthy-life, in regenerative relationship with trees, plants, animals, rocks, and waterways of the land. I later pursued a PhD in Education at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I wrote my dissertation on the Women’s Spirituality, Goddess-centred Master’s degree that I had earned in San Francisco. Through faculty and alumni stories and practices of such, I documented that program as an innovative and transformative field of education that empowers women’s lives and contributes to social justice (https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/39810). The effect is especially one of authorization, or self-authorization, as women become the centre of their own lives, learning to navigate from an inner compass, claiming their voice and direction amongst challenges and injustice, while creating with others what we want to see and how we want to be in the world. Goddess as verb spiral: “Goddess” is more of a verb then a noun for me. The companionship of women, being in women’s space, sitting in rituals, classes or workshops, sharing in life, has given me the perspective and energy I have needed for life as lived in-love-with-life. Such companionship, in sisterhood and in mentoring and being mentored by other women, is vital to my experience of feeling whole and grounded on Earth and in life. Women’s circles are probably part of my DNA, meaning there is an ancestral and evolutionary aspect to gathering and taking care together. Vicki Noble frames this in terms of the love hormone “oxytocin,” the “tend and befriend” impulse that organizes such groups of women. Recently, I have felt called towards more focused devotional and contemplative work, through an almost “nun”-like order of spiritual women. I envision a kind of Hildegard von Bingen order of contemplative, creative women, living in the forest or on the mountain, but in a post-patriarchal, Goddess-centred way. Hildegard was a 12th century, German mystic and Abbess. I appreciate Hildegard for her prophetic voice and her visionary experience as much as for her brilliant music and herbalism. We can do more of this in Goddess feminism: bring forth the creative visions we need to do and be in these times. It can take a whole community to hold and develop the larger visions, and to put them into action. Art-making spiral: Art-making can be a sacred and spiritual practice, drawing from creative wells of wisdom. Through art-making, the body, psyche, and intuitive sensing all become sources for knowing and being in the world. As we creatively work with our hands, hearts, minds, and the wonderful materials of the Earth, we can make useful, beautiful objects, and express conceptual ideas. We also experience the inherently transformative process of art-making itself. We can gain insight into ourselves, others, and the world in which we live. Art-making is a fantastic, awe-some, use-full modality for expressing, healing, and liberating human life. My own art practice is based in photography, textile art, and performance creation. I document my family life through biographic photography. As an aesthetic-activist, I have drawn from my midwifery and women-centred birth work and research to create a textile installation series called “The Placenta Project” (http://galleries.lakeheadu.ca/featured-artist-researchers.html). I also especially live Goddess feminism through art-making with my women’s art collective, Gestare. The word “gestare” comes from the root word for “gestation,” and it means, “to carry in the womb” (http://www.gestareartcollective.com/). We are currently a group of five women who function a little bit like the “spiritual order of women” I just described. With Gestare, my art practice expands to include others through co-creative, process-based art methods. We meet in circle formats and share life stories. We live at long distances from each other, working online and in-person when we can. We decide upon a yearly cycle of artwork, rooted in Earth-consciousness and female-centred spirituality. We synchronize ourselves around a cosmic time frame like the full moon, or the equinoxes and solstices. …
(Book Review) Nané Jordan and Chandra Alexandre eds., Pagan, Goddess, Mother (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2021) Reviewed by Barbara Bickel

[Editor’s Note: This book review was first published in S/HE: An international Journal of Goddess Studies Vol 1 No 1, 2022.] Pagan, Goddess, Mother, opens with the “charge of the Goddess” by Doreen Valiente, as adapted by Starhawk. The charge or ‘call to deeply care’ for mothers and children captivatingly continues through the thirteen compelling chapters of this book. I read the full book in three sittings, and had difficulty putting the book down even as I drifted off to sleep during my second round of reading at the end of a long day. The stories of women committed to living life fully awake to the significance of Earth, Goddess and Mother are a balm for the wounded, yet awakening earthling, mother, child in all of us. The honouring and reverence of, for and with the Divine Mother and mothering acts of love is the catalytic thread bonding each chapter to the other. The co-editors, Jordan and Alexandre, as matricentric feminists, create a clear and encompassing matrix of thought for the many pathways travelled by the contributing authors. They generously include a chapter of their own stories of interconnecting yet distinct paths of coming to women’s spirituality, the Goddess, and mother-centred devotions. In a vulnerable heart held way, they open the reader to a matricentric life-focused and nesting worldview in high contrast to the death-focused nest destroying patricentric worldview that has been spiraling off center for centuries, wounding all; men, women and children, more-than-humans and our mother Earth in its path. The love of the mother, expressed in the vision of a contemporary Goddess spirituality, that “draw[s] from and legitimizes female-centred and material embodied social powers, with diverse expressions of the feminine being possible beyond gender norms” (Jordan & Alexandre, p. 20) pours out from the pages of this book. Section 1is entitled “Priestess, Witch, Artist, Midwife: Mother Stories”and opens with a call for the “Mamapriestess” in Molly Remer’s chapter as she brings the priestess, mother and Goddess to presence through poetry, autobiographic storytelling, and scholarly valuation of the divine mother and female body. Sarah Rosehill, in chapter two further deepens understandings of the passionate mama through her story of a difficult birth and single motherhood by sharing how the teachings of Anamanta and pagan spiritual practices helped her, as her title states, in “Finding my Footing as a Witch and a Mother.” An image of Mother Mary with her direct and attending gaze graces the cover of the book. This symbolic painting emerged from Asia Morgenthanler’s sacred art practice described in chapter three “Remothering and the Goddess,” where Morgenthanler through her making practice, explores the inner child and the inner mother. Through making she writes that we become aligned with all creation and can transform ourselves. Foremothers and minks slide with parallel ease into our imaginaries in the poetics of chapter four written by Elizabeth Cunningham entitled “Minks.”In this chapterwe witness the spontaneous presence of prayer in a sacred moment shared between mother and teenage daughter. Chapter five, the last in this first section, follows a life full of lessons learned by Alys Einion, a mother, priestess, and midwife in her chapter entitled “‘Call Unto They Soul’: Reflexive Authoethnography of a Pagan, Priestess,Goddess-Worshipper, and Mother.” Responding to the call of the Goddess she reflects upon a lifetime of trust in the Goddess in the midst of uncertainty in “birth, death, life, nurturing, abandonment, destruction, construction and communion” (87). Section II is entitled “Scholarship from Pagan Goddess Motherlines” and traverses challenging and conflicting aspects in Pagan practices, pre-Christian Goddess cultures and Christian influenced occult teachings. Christina Hoff Kraemer’s chapter six, entitled “Pagan Mothering, Body Sovereignty, and Consent Culture” launches this section with teachable and valuable approaches for understanding how children can be raised to know the manifestation of the divine life force in their bodies. The understanding that the divine manifests in bodies is honoured and supported through nurturing healthy body boundaries, encouraging sovereignty and empathetic beingness with all others. Chapter seven questions cultural and religious confines in India that continue to limit women’s sovereignty in Kusmita Muhkerjee Debnath’s critical and vulnerable dive into historical and present practices of the Hindu religion and culture. In her search for female agency in stories of goddesses she has grown up with, she instead finds the perpetuation of a god centered subserviency and thus rejects her cultural and religious teachings regarding the prescribed role of women. Critical reflections continue in chapter seven, Georgia van Raalte’s chapter eight, entitled “The Path of the Cold Hearth-Stone: Reflections on Sex, Saturn, and Solitary Working.” This chapter offers a critical scholarly overview of early occultist Dion Fortune’s teachings, which have and continue to have a significant impact on contemporary goddess, pagan and occult practices and communities. Of significance for this book is Fortune’s recognition of motherhood as a spiritual path alongside her consequent separation of motherhood from priestesshood. Van Raalte rejects Fortune’s elimination of an occult liberational “left-hand path of exuberant endurance” (130) for those without privilege and means to enter dedicated priestess practice. Van Raalte then offers a third “Path of the Cold-Hearth-Stone, which is the path of struggle and submission as a negative ecstatic liberation theology of motherhood” (132) as an essential addition to Fortunes’ two paths for women, that of the Adept and the Path of the Hearth-Fire. Section III is entitled Empowering Spirited Mother-Daughter Lineages. Chapter nine opens this section with Laura Zegel’s powerful and practical focus on mothering daughter’s groups and is entitled “The Spiritual Dimension of Mother-Daughter Groups: Healing with Artemis, Demeter, and Persephone.” Studies of mother-daughter groups and her personal experience in a long-term mother-daughter group inspires mother-ways to support the spiritual, emotional and relational growth of young and mothering women living in a patriarchal culture that has altered, for its own means, the goddess-centred understandings of Artemis, Demeter and Persephone. Chapter ten then, aptly and poetically walks us directly to a garden-planting-nurturing moment of a present day Persephone and Demeter in the rhythmic prayer-filled words of poet-mother Jennifer …
(Book Excerpt 1) Inanna’s Accent: Reclaiming Female Power, Edited by Trista Hendren, Tamara Albanna and Pat Daly

Introduction Tamara Albanna When we think of Inanna, she is usually envisioned as the descending Goddess—and often, it is her time spent in the Underworld that is most alluded to. While the Underworld, or the “shadow” is vital, it is equally important to remember what happens after the time spent in the darkness, the void, or the long dark tunnel. Something wonderful happens—the caterpillar emerging from the chrysalis, the child leaving the womb, the flower bursting through the soil to bloom. As you come out of that space, when things looked so utterly helpless at times, that’s the “miracle“ of the ascent, but it’s not really a miracle at all, it’s what comes next. We are very much focused on the shadow. This is valid, and incredibly warranted, because not all is “Love and Light,” all the time—that’s just not realistic. One only has to turn on the news and see the intense darkness of this planet of ours. Balance is so desperately needed, but that balance works both ways. Unfortunately, it seems as though the “shadow” has become somewhat commoditized, as with everything else that has a potential market in New Age circles. People realize the value, monetarily, of the shadow and shadow-work as it were. Everywhere you turn these days there seems to be an obsession with the descent, and the darkness, as though we are somehow meant to spend a lifetime or two, in that space. Even the title of this book, Inanna’s Ascent, drew questions from those who thought Inanna is only about the descent. Have we not earned the emergence from darkness? I descended from the Priestesses of Sumer—the keepers of Inanna’s temple, during a time when the divine feminine was honored, and the name of the Goddess was on the tongue of all the inhabitants of the land. When the murderous patriarchy swept through, the civilization slowly began its descent, along with the Goddess—and all things feminine. Slowly, the Goddess was forgotten, and Her name became a distant memory. The people of the land have suffered—particularly the women and girls—and although the Goddess is in their DNA, we are in need of a remembrance. Inanna descended, was killed, and re-emerged three days later—long before Jesus made that same journey. Inanna descended for us, she was cleansed of her sins—and she cleansed us all as well—so why do we continue to suffer? We descend our entire lives it seems—only coming up for brief moments of respite. Patriarchy pushes us down repeatedly—and sometimes, we just stay there. When Al-Qaeda came into towns and raped women and girls en masse, we descended. When Daesh swept through the land, raped and murdered women and girls—while the world watched—we descended further and further. Wars, and sanctions, starvation and hopelessness—all by the patriarchal machine—we descended. What is the response to this? In my view—and in the pages of this anthology as you will see—it is to remember. The beautiful women who have contributed to this work are all daughters of Inanna; they were all called home in one way or another. Inanna’s Ascent examines how women can rise from the underworld and reclaim their power, sovereignly expressed through poetry, prose and visual art. All contributors are extraordinary women in their own right, who have been through some difficult life lessons—and are brave enough to share their stories. Inanna is known as Queen of Heaven, but she really is a sexual Goddess. She is the very essence of woman—with divine spark in her womb: creation and destruction all at once. She chose her lovers, she did not allow a man to rule over her, and she knew her power. We are her daughters, and we have been silenced, made to feel unworthy, abused, hated, made to forget. It is time to remember. It is my hope that in the pages of this anthology, you too will remember, and begin your own journey—or continue the one you are currently on with renewed strength. My wish for you is to be the Goddess in your own life—to embody Her, and know your divinity. For the women and girls of my Motherland, Iraq—the home of the Goddess, the cradle of civilization—may we rise again. May we once again turn to Her, and within ourselves, and remember who we are. We have earned this ascent—all of us. It is our time now. (Meet Mago Contributor) Trista Hendren.
Shifting Landscapes by Sara Wright

2nd pond at the sunset, photo by Sara Wright Adjusting to earth changes is as much of a personal challenge as is my aging process… The earth and I are both struggling to survive the age of the Anthropocene. Hard times. It’s late October and the next turning of the wheel will soon be upon us. The Days of the Dead. Honoring the Ancestors, those who came before… I think of the Sandhill cranes flying south in loose family aggregations and believe some of my ancestors must be these birds… I missed seeing them this year due to an accident, but say earth prayers for their safety on the wing… I remember my Grandmother. Coming home to faded insect ridden leaves, many withered and brown covering the ground, I discovered that this year I expected what I witnessed, so genuine acceptance is creeping into my psyche as I sadly acknowledge an earth that is demonstrating her struggle on a visceral level. With so few brilliant fall leaves, I still take pleasure out of every single one regardless of color, the curling ochre ferns, and the brilliant yellow witch hazel bush by the brook. After dropping her oval leaves witch hazel will produce gorgeous yellow fingers- sparkling bursts of light – flowers at this time of year are scarce and each is a treasure. The birds are absent for the most part, feasting in the newly cut field. Acorns are plentiful keeping turkeys, squirrels, and jays in the forest. The chickadees are seeking the last of the insects on my fruit trees. Protein rich, these foods will help these little birds as well as the titmice, nuthatches, woodpeckers, juncos, and others survive the coming winter. My beloved little girls (dogs) are still living elsewhere lovingly cared for by my heroic Vet – the one person who came to see me during my incarceration. Because of him they finally let me go… Now I am doing my best to accept being a housebound person for the foreseeable future. I love the early mornings when I can step carefully out onto the porch perched on a walker to catch glimpses of the early morning light while listening to the chickadees animated conversation. I am grateful to be alive. I have one neighbor across the road that I asked to buy food for me, but her curt response to my query was “find someone else”. While in the house of horrors this woman said she would water my plants. For the first time in my life, thanks to her negligence mold is killing my indoor friends. Once I cared for this woman’s dog for 14 months. Now, when I so needed help the hidden ‘woman hater’ suddenly appeared. Why am I stunned? Cruelty and indifference are everywhere I remind myself. Just let go. Others, genuine caring people stepped in. Two women I barely know have been bringing me food though they live in neighboring towns, and yesterday they took me to a doctor’s appointment. Such a blessing to have found this level of kindness operating in some women I barely know. I do have friends out of state who have come to visit and help when they can. People I care for deeply; each visit is a gift. After too many deluges to count all summer, my little wooden cabin is saturated with moisture. The skies are changing. We rarely have a sunny day – almost always clouds of one kind or another, but at least the air quality improved for a while this month. I love listening to the brook at night through my open window… The occasional gray tree frogs are still singing here in the hollow. It continues to rain. High humidity is still the norm. I tell myself daily to expect anything in terms of weather as well as the loss of species. Geoengineering is no ‘conspiracy’ theory but the reality of the skies. If you pay close attention to the cloud ridden dome over our heads you will note the changes. Fog has been relentless. When this polluted blanket settles over the valleys and mountain hills it brings in what I call ‘dead air’ – the sweet scent of moisture is absent – completely. I noted this trend all summer long with cloud cover and heavy moisture coming from both the flooded and saturated ground and the lower atmosphere above. I am not a meteorologist, but it is obvious that there is a relationship between the strange low cloud cover and air pollution – every night I sleep with my windows open now that we are well into fall but last night the dead air woke me up. Checking the air quality monitor, I realized that we were almost up to a hundred, supposedly “not dangerous to most humans”. The air quality index does not measure the most threatening particles of all. Micro-plastics are entering our lungs, clogging our arteries with every breath we take; our bodies are riddled with plastic. Air pollution has become one of the worst threats all living beings face…the usual ruse is to remind people it’s worse elsewhere. Two nights ago a murderer who is still at large despite a frantic state-wide search killed 18 people and seriously wounded 13 others in a nearby city. Schools are closed, banks, restaurants etc. are still shut down two days later and people are afraid. The news tells us that this kind of mass murder just doesn’t seem possible here in Maine… and yet hear we are. Banning semi – automatic rifles is something the State of Maine WILL NOT DO. I do my best to stay as much in the present as possible. We are not only living the unknown but through breakdown, and yet there are fierce little firefly lights like the women who have come to my aid. As winter sets in I expect to have more challenges, but today I am waiting for my little dogs to visit, and soon they may …
(Video) The Pilgrim’s Account by Dr Lila Moore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWozDC2QxTs The Pilgrim’s Account videos were made as part of the Serpentine Love Field – Networked Rites which coincided with the annual ceremony of the Holy Snakes of Mary in the island of Kefalonia in Greece. The ceremony is a pilgrimage event and the videos depict the perspective of the pilgrim which is expressed through passages from her diary. The Pilgrim’s Account unfolds her journey as mediated by the serpents that open the gateways between the realm of the elements of Earth and the noetic realm of the cosmic deep mind or nous. The noetic realm is perceived as the mind that gives rise to visionary or revelatory consciousness. The encounter with the serpents during the pilgrimage opens up a three-fold trail including three stations on the way that stand for the states of mind of Ordeal, Liminality and Communitas, which gradually lead to the pilgrim’s Transformation. It is of relevance to add that the anthropologist Victor Turner links the altered state of communitas with the ritualistic structure and process of pilgrimage. The pilgrimage as a ritualistic practice is designed to end and transform an outdated situation or way of life. According to Turner, pilgrimage processes across cultures and religions always encompass liminal phenomena and a journey towards a source of communitas, a centre of healing and renewal. The three Pilgrim’s Account videos can be viewed here. More Info The artwork, Serpentine Love Field, including its associate concepts and works, was presented and exhibited at academic conferences, art centers and platforms in Greece, UK, Germany, China and Cyberspace. It is explained in the following academic articles: Moore, Lila. (2015), ‘Fields of networked mind: Ritual consciousness and the factor of communitas in networked rites of compassion’, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 13: 3, pp. 331–339 Moore, Lila. (2017), ‘Techno-spiritual horizons: Compassionate networked art forms and noetic fields of cyborg body and consciousness’, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 15:3, pp. 325–39 For more info, subscribe to Dr Lila Moore Cybernetic Futures Inst. monthly newsletter, here: http://www.cyberneticinstitute.com/online-courses-1 © Dr Lila Moore, All Rights Reserved (Meet Mago Contributor) Lila Moore, Ph.D.
(Prose part 1) African Initiation by Louisa Calio

Part One: Ghanaian Festival … Once again the Kwando family welcomed them. They had arrived auspiciously. “Tomorrow will be the most important Ga festival,” Kwame said. How privileged they felt when he spoke with the elders to get them permission to enter parts of the ritual normally excluded to outsiders.
(Art) Painting the Goddess: Working with Symbols by Elaine Drew

In a previous post I showed my earliest attempts to depict the divine feminine. While I agree with Tolstoy that the most important thing about a work of art is that it transmit the feeling of the artist to the viewer, that is not something I can measure or control; that part of the communication is in your hands. So I’m left to talk about what can be verbalized: the mechanics of putting a painting together. In this post I’ll limit myself to one of the mechanics of getting feeling across, and that is the use of symbols. Medieval painting has been a big influence in my work in terms of its content (religious), its technique (egg tempera, gold leaf), and its use of symbolism. In this group of paintings I combined the sorts of historiated (decorated) letters you might find in an illuminated manuscript with symbols of the particular goddess or divine process I was attempting to portray. The interesting thing about symbols is that they can function on several different levels at once. The letter forms create a space for the deity to inhabit and also echo something about the meaning of the painting – perhaps the name of the goddess, perhaps her function. In the painting D for Doris we see the goddess of the littoral, the place where the sea meets the land. The form of her letter, besides being her initial, reflects the spiral of the cosmos, and the shape of the d’s ascender echoes a fish tail. The d is bounded by an area of roiling sea, the primeval soup of life. Inside the d, Doris lives in her own universe of ocean, sand, and sparkling stars; she enables life and creativity. Her skirt is made of waves whose motion is the breathing of the sea. Her shirt is decorated with plankton, and she is surrounded by her creatures. A group of clams form a scepter in one hand, a seabird sits in the other. G for Goddess: This painting of the soul (anima) depicts our own interior divine force, the inner goddess. Bird symbolism is often associated with both the soul and the ancient goddess of life, death, and rebirth venerated in neolithic Europe. The vegetation symbolizes the life force, and the little celestial bodies on the periphery point us to an unknowable reality beyond ourselves. Circular forms point to the perfection our souls long to attain. The Egg and I contemplates our place, as women, in the cycle of creativity. An ancient bird goddess represents our ancestral mothers from time immemorial and observes us from the very center of the “I.” She lives in us at the core of our being. Life and fertility unfold around her. The egg that “I” hold is the symbol of my potential as a person and as a woman to pass forward the gifts of our mothers. The Portal: The life force is symbolized by the goddess appearing in both the vesica and the U. The U stands for the Uterus, the sacred place where life begins, and also for the Universe, a place of infinite potential. The goddess, surrounded by the richness and fertility of vegetation, offers life to those brave enough to accept the challenge. Her pale face hints that she rules both life and death, and that the two cannot be separated. She offers the women below a symbolic umbilical cord, and their nakedness emphasizes the vulnerability of those who accept life, in its beauty and terror. (See “How to Express the Feminine Divine?” and “Painting Taera, Goddess of the Earth.”)
Pondering My Deathday on the Day of My Birth by Jude Lally

Today is my celebration of being born into this world and in this life there is only one thing we can be truly certain of, and that is death. I watch the first fingers of light streak across the sky it is an old ritual of mine at my birthday to gather my younger selves. The 5 year old joins, the fierce 13 year old, the 19 year old with her hunger for depth and meaning. The rest of them arrive until we form a circle of ourselves. It’s an odd ritual, a council of sorts. We look across at each other, for the each other is the one. Sometimes, just sometimes the old crone shuffles in. The younger ones are fascinated by the spider who appears to live in her hair and the arrangement of twigs that makes her hair look somewhat like a nest. The teenagers recognize that wild look in her eyes, somewhat like a hares. When she shuffles around the circle, if you squint at her at just the right angle you can see her antlers. Things changed as I turned 50, giving me a different perspective – like reaching the top of a mountain broadens your perspective out towards the horizon. As the sun rises in the east it sets in the west, west being the direction of the soul after death on its final journey home. Fifty showed me the horizon, dawning that life really was finite. As we cycle through the solar year we mark and celebrate birthdays and all manner of anniversaries, yet unknowingly we also pass our death day. I often ponder to what day this might picturing a ball spinning around a roulette wheel. The Black Rabbit of Inlé from Watership Down We live in such a death phobic culture there doesn’t seem room to celebrate death, to mark that final journey home and take time to consider our own death which in turn helps us focus on our life. Yet a death day is another day to celebrate our ‘self’, to celebrate all those in our individual lineages who have made that great journey and now exist as ancestors – to look at our lives with fresh eyes and perhaps plan a detour here and a reflection of our place in the thick of things. How do I select my death date? Perhaps I count the number of crows in the tree, or the tines of the stags antlers…Whatever the date it is another invitation to sit with my past and future selves. Meet Mago Contributor Jude Lally
(Art) She meets herself by Lucy Pierce

There are places within where the treasure is buried, the key deep within the earth of our being. Beneath the facades and the defenses and the layers of pretense. There are places that we hide even from ourselves and fierce and hard is the work of uncovering the treasure, digging in the dark earth for the keys.

(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. […]
(Special Post 2) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

Artwork, “The-great-mother” by Julie Stewart Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Magi/Magus, from Magi – […]
(Special Post 6) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

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

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion […]
(Special Post 3) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, […]
(Special Post 2) "The Oldest Cilivization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by […]

Lammas/Late Summer within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Traditionally the Seasonal transition of Imbolc/Early Spring, celebrated in early February in the Northern Hemisphere, and in early August in the Southern Hemisphere, has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself, around us and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may include in our celebrations and contemplations of this Season the beginnings of the new young Cosmos as She was, that time in our cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming; and also the new which has continually emerged throughout the eons, and is ever coming forth. The flame of being, as it has been imagined by many cultures, within and around, is to be protected and nurtured: the new being requires dedication and attention. In the early stages of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: it may flicker and be vulnerable. There may be uncertainties of various kinds. There is risk and resistance to coming into being. The Universe itself knew resistance to its expansion when it encountered gravitation in our very beginnings, in the primordial Flaring Forth[i]. The unfolding of the Universe was never without creative tension. The Universe knows it daily, in every moment: and we participate in this creative tension of our place of being. Urge to Be budding forth Imbolc/Early Spring can be a time of remembering personal vulnerabilities, feeling them and accepting them, but remaining resolute in birthing and tending of the new, listening for and responding to the Urge to Be[ii]of the Creative Universe within. Brian Swimme has said (quoting cultural anthropologist A.L. Kroeber) that the destiny of the human is not “bovine placidity” but the highest degree of tension that can be creatively born[iii]. many flames of being, strengthening each other These times are filled with creative tension, collectively and for most, personally as well; there is much resistance, yet there is promise of so much good energy arising. We may be witness to both. This Season of Imbolc/Early Spring may encourage attention, intention and dedication to strengthening well-being: in self, and in the relational communal context, and opening to our direct immersion in the Well of Creativity. We may be strengthened with the joining of hands, as well as the listening within to the sacred depths, in ceremonial circle at this time. NOTES: [i]As our origins (popularly named as “the Big Bang”) are named by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme in The Universe Story. [ii]As I name this determined Virgin quality in PaGaian Cosmology. [iii]The Canticle to the Cosmos, DVD #8, “The Nature of the Human”. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series, 1990.
Lammas/Late Summer in PaGaian tradition By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 8 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Beltaine/High Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – October 31st or 1st November Northern Hemisphere – April 30th (May Eve) or 1st May though the actual astronomical date varies. 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. The twin fires lit in older times on hilltops in Ireland for Beltaine likely represented the two eyes of night and day.[i] With this vision, Goddess as Sun and Moon sees Her Land, and with the power of Her eyes (Sun and Moon) brings forth life and beauty. With the fire eyes, Goddess“reoccupied and saw her whole land…”[ii] The twin fires later came to be used to run cattle between as they headed out to Summer pasture, for the purpose of burning off the bugs and ticks of Winter; the fires may thus be understood to serve a cleansing effect and likely the origins of the tradition of the ceremonial leaping of flames by participants in Beltaine festivities. In PaGaian Cosmology this is poetically expressed as the Flame of Love that burns away the psyche’s “bugs and ticks,” and sees the Beauty present, and calls it forth. The Beltaine flames may be a celebration of Sun entering into the eye, into the whole bodymind: a powerful creative evocation upon which the Dance of Life depends, and as the cleansing power of love and pleasure. PaGaian focus for Beltaine is on the Holy Desire/Passion for life, and it may be accounted for on as many levels as possible … the complete holarchy/dimensions of the erotic power. On an elemental level, there is our desire for Air, Water, the warmth of Fire, and to be of use/service to Earth. There is an essential longing, sometimes nameless, sometimes constellated, experienced physically, that may be recognized as the Desire of the Universe Herself – desiring in us.[iii] We may remember that we are united in this desire with each other, with all who have gone before us, and with all who come after us – all who dance the Dance of Life. Beltaine is a time for dancing and weaving into our lives, our heart’s desires; traditionally the dance is done with participants holding ribbons attached to a pole or tree (a Maypole in the Northern Hemisphere, which may be renamed as a “Novapole” in the Southern Hemisphere), wrapping the pole with the ribbons. This is not simply the heterosexual metaphor as is thought in modern times (thanks largely to Freudian thinking) – it is deeper than that. As Caitlin and John Matthews point out: it is symbolic of a far greater exchange than that between men and women – in fact between the elements themselves. … the maypole, a comparatively recent manifestation in the history of mystery celebrations, can be seen as the linking of heaven and earth, binding those who dance around it … into a pattern of birth, life and death which lay at the heart of the maze of earth mysteries.[iv] Beltaine is a celebration of Desire on all levels – microcosm and on the macrocosm, the exoteric and the esoteric.[v] It brought you forth physically, and it brings forth all that you produce in your life, and it keeps the Cosmos spinning. It is felt in you as Desire, it urges you on. It is the deep awesome dynamic that pervades the Cosmos and brings forth all things – babies, meals, gardens, careers, books and solar systems. We have often been taught, certainly by religious traditions, to pay it as little attention as possible; whereas it should be the cause of much more meditation/attention, tracing it to its deepest place in us. What are our deepest desires beneath our surface desires. What if we enter more deeply into this feeling, this power? It may be a place where the Universe is a deep reciprocity – a receiving and giving that is One. Brian Swimme says, in a whole chapter on “Allurement”: You can examine your own self and your own life with this question: Do I desire to have this pleasure? Or rather, do I desire to become pleasure? The demand to ‘have,’ to possess, always reveals an element of immaturity. To keep, to hold, to control, to own; all of this is fundamentally a delusion, for our own truest desire is to be and to live. We have ripened and matured when we realize that our own deepest desire in erotic attractions is to become pleasure … to enter ecstatically into pleasure so that giving and receiving pleasure become one simple activity. Our most mature hope is to become pleasure’s source and pleasure’s home simultaneously. So it is with the allurements of life: we become beauty to ignite the beauty of others.[vi] Beltaine is a good time to contemplate this animal bodymind that you are: how it seeks real pleasure. What is your real pleasure? Be gracious with this bodymind and in awe of this form, this wonder. Beltaine is also a good time to contemplate light, and its affects on our bodyminds as it enters into us; how our animal bodyminds respond directly to the Sun’s light, which apparently may awaken physical desires. Light vibrates into us – different wavelengths as different colours – and shifts to pulse. It is felt most fully in Springtime (“spring fever”), as light courses down a direct neural line from retina to pineal gland. When the pineal gland receives the light pulse it releases “a cascade of hormones, drenching the body in hunger, thirst, or great desire.”[vii] We respond directly to Sun as an organism: it is primal. NOTES: [i] Michael Dames, Ireland, 195-199. [ii] Ibid., 196. [iii] I have been inspired and informed by Swimme’s articulations about desire, particularly in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 2 “The Primeval Fireball,” video 5 “Destruction and Loss,” and video 10 “The Timing of Creativity.” [iv] Matthews, The Western Way, 54. And for more, see “Creativity …
(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: …
(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 …
A PaGaian Wheel of the Year and Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ 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,[i] 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.[ii] 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,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] 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. 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.[v]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. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …
(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 …
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

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

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …
(Poetry & Photo Essay) Pongal by Susan Hawthorne

I am a secularist rather than a ritualist, but I can’t help but be drawn into the celebrations that people make when they honour the passing of the seasons. Even as a child I felt the disconnect between Christmas and the hot dusty days of summer. When Christians invaded and colonised Australia they brought their holidays but did not consider changing the dates to match the seasons. I was in India recently, invited as a speaker at the Hindu Lit For Life Festival in Chennai where I had lived ten years ago. The last day of the festival was the first day of Pongal. A friend, feminist economist Devaki Jain, who had grown up in Chennai eighty years earlier invited me to join her in a car ride to see Pongal celebrations in the streets. This is a Tamil festival dating back at least a thousand years, a sun festival, welcoming the next six months of the sun’s journey, also a harvest festival. During this time many women produce beautiful drawings, known as kolam. In my book Cow I wrote a poem about kolam which I think says more than I can explain here. what she says about kolam where they are drawn and when is all important early morning is auspicious it sets the shape of the day the hard ground is cleaned points of white grain sprinkled she works quickly she knows her design for the day runs the powdered grain from point to point it is a mandala a yantra a sign so the forces of the universe align themselves with her intentions Back to Pongal. The festival goes for four days. On the first day, which is called Bhogi, people are on the streets with the fruits of harvest, piles of tumeric and stacks of sugar cane tied in bunches. My friend, Devaki, bought flowers to take back to her room in the hotel. The second day, called Thai Pongal, I was invited to a harvest lunch at the house of my friend Mangai who is a playwright, theatre director and human rights activist. The word ‘pongal’ means ‘boiling over’ or’ overflow’ and I saw this in the cooking of the sweetened rice dish into which each of the twelve people present poured some water and milk as it almost overflowed the pot. This sweet rice dish was added to the collection of other dishes on the table. I cannot tell you what they were, but the meal was delicious. After lunch everyone relaxed, someone sang, we talked and caught up on news. The third day, is called Maatu Pongal, and cattle are at the centre of celebrations on that day. I don’t know if this line up of cattle had anything to do with the day’s celebration but there they were tied up alongside a very busy main road. These were not cows and I did not see any cows with decorated horns and flowers on their heads. on that day as I have on other occasions. On the fourth day, Kaanum Pongal, things begin to wind down. One of my co-speakers at the festival said she would be visiting family members on that day. The kolams are drawn again, sugar cane is consumed and people go back to their daily lives. What I liked about being in Tamil Nadu during the Pongal festival is that it felt absolutely right. The time of the year, the connection with harvest, so I did not feel the discomfort I so often feel in the midst of the out-of-season commercialised holidays as they are celebrated in Australia. Susan Hawthorne’s book Cow is available worldwide from distributors in USA, Canada, UK, from all the usual online retailers or from Spinifex Press. http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=215/ © Susan Hawthorne, 2019 (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne.

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

Details for Mago Almanac Planner are available here. [Author’s Note: This is Part 2 of the Preface. Read Part 1 of the Preface here.] PREFACE What Mago Almanac Planner Offers There is nothing more plainly indicative of the fallacy of patriarchal thinking, that is, the perspective of male-supremacy than the 12 month calendar. Considering that the calendar is the basic foundation for human activities, the standard 12 month calendar that the modern world is adapting functions to maintain patriarchy. According to the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Magoism, the 12 month calendar was first invented and introduced by Yao (ca. 2356-2255 BCE), the pre-dynastic ruler of ancient China to replace the 13 month Magoist Calendar. The newly risen patriarchal rule needed to amend the female-centered 13 month calendar, which would make the Mother-Nature bond invisible. First of all, the 12 month calendar has an irregular number of days (28, 29, 30, or 31). The inconsistent number of days is an indication that the 12 month calendar is out of tune with Nature’s rhythm, ultimately Sonic Numerology. Reality is distorted. Fundamentally based on the imposed or presumed balance within the scheme of dyads (the male and the female), the 12 month calendar propagates a hierarchical dualism. In the dyad, the two are viewed as independent single entities disconnected from each other so that it allows one to be superior to the other (A>B). The worldview it represents is reductionist; the evolutionary process of life is predetermined. On the other hand, the 13 month calendar has 28 days in a month. It is regular and rhythmic, a sign of a healthy living entity. In tune with Nature’s rhythm, the 13 month calendar guides us into an infinitely creative and open-ended worldview based on Sonic Numerology (musical interplay of nine numbers), the cosmogonic force of WE/HERE/NOW. Numerologically aligned, the 13 month 28 day calendar leads us to an ever-unfolding reality. The triadic principle, an epitome of Nine Numerology, stands for the web of spiral interconnection. One divided by three leads to the realm that never ends as it goes 0.3333… for example. That said, what is the better way to restore the lunar-female song and dance than women themselves by charting out the menstrual cycle in the 13 moon calendar? Mago Almanac Planner provides tools for menstruators to mark menstrual dates side by side with lunation dates. We want our modern-day maidens and mothers to see how their own menstrual cycles run in harmony with all other beings in the Natural World! Menstruation is a calendric indicator designed to guide human societies. Biology is not only social but also cosmic. Menstruation is never a separate biological phenomenon. For non-menstruators, Mago Almanac Planner opens the door to each day, week, and month of the cosmic song and dance. We are about to move the axis of our consciousness in tune with all else in the universe!Book information on Magoist Calendar Year 4 and Magoist Calendar Planner Year 4 here. (To be continued) https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/ [1] This is a topic that will be treated in detail in my forthcoming book, The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time Inscribed in Sonic Numerology.
(Mago Stronghold Essay 3) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part 3: Indelible Old Magoism Encrypted in China’s “Mago Stronghold” The Mago word “Mago Stronghold” has narrowly survived patriarchal linguistic censorships. Sometimes it is preferably or deliberately employed as a euphemism. Other times, it is replaced with random words. But it has never been completely wiped out from written and oral texts. The Mago term, constituting the very foundation of patriarchy, is indestructible. Having survived, the term “Mago Stronghold” debunks the plot intent to magna-matricide. It unearths the buried and re-members the severed. Extant Mago Strongholds in Korea and in China differ not only in number but also in implication. Just like Magoist data in general, Korea surpasses China by a large number of extant Mago Strongholds. It is a corollary that China does not have much to do with Mago words in that ancient China “entered the stage of the patriarchal society around 5,000 years ago”.[1] Magoist materials are systematically dismissed as dubious or apocryphal data, as pre-Chinese Old Magoist Korea remains uncharted in Sinocentric East Asian historiography. Readers are reminded of the meaning of Old Magoist Korea, the socio-political-religious conglomeration of the People of the Great Goddess originated from pre-Chinese times. It is by definition non-ethnocentric and pre-nationalist.[2] Magoism substantiates the derivative nature of ancient Chinese history from Old Magoist Korea. It unveils that Old Korea was there long before the establishment of the Chinese patriarchal rule. The Mago Stronghold talk debunks the fantasy of ancient China as the forerunner rule. It is unknown how many Mago Stronghold places may have existed before or survived today in present China. One I found is located in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, according to the Atlas of Heavenly Harbor Government (天津府總圖, Tianjinfuzongtu) published in 1805. The historical accuracy of this place is backed by an earlier account in the Records of the United Great Ming (Damingyitongzhi 大明一統志), a fifteenth century geography book from the Ming dynasty. Its brief record concerns the visit of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) to Mago Stronghold, as it reads: Mago Stronghold is located in Cangzhou on the border of old Qingchi-xian (Clear Lake County). Emperor Wu of Han took an administrative tour to this place and offered rites. Thus came the place-name, Mago Stronghold.[3] The Cangzhou Mago Stronghold, noted for the second century BCE anecdote, makes its history two millennia old at the least. When Magoism is made invisible, however, the long history or the royal association of Mago Stronghold is systematically censored as non-data in official historiography of China, which is the norm for East Asian historiographies. Given that Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) of Han is known as one of the most accomplished rulers in Chinese history, it may appear odd that he is associated with the Mago term, “Mago Stronghold.” Indeed, the account may seem to mismatch Emperor Wu of ancient China with Mago Stronghold. And Chinese scribes would not have fabricated the anecdote. It is indeed a rare case that the Mago term has survived in Chinese official documents. That said, we want to ask if the two terms, Emperor Wu of Han and Mago Stronghold, are irreconcilable per se? My answer is no. They appear to be at odds only to the modern Sinocentric mind. In fact, the above anecdote is highly evocative of the concept of Heaven (天 Tian) worshipped by ancient Chinese rulers. Emperor Wu’s visitation and officiation at Mago Stronghold, which may have been known as Heavenly Stronghold (天城 Tiancheng),[4] account for the ancient ruler’s worship of Heaven. It is of utmost importance for Chinese rulers to observe rites and customs that venerate Heaven, for it is deemed that Heaven selects rulers and endows them with the right to rule. Accordingly, ancient Chinese rulers are known to have taken the title of “the Son of Heaven 天子” and ruled with “the Mandate of Heaven 天命.” Nonetheless, the problem with the Chinese thought of Heaven lies in the fact that Heaven is equated with the supreme god (上帝, Supreme Emperor) or an impersonal quality of the divine. That Heaven is a euphemism for “Mago” was known to the populace. In various sources, Mago is referred to as “Heavenly Deity.”[5] S/HE and Magoism are sometimes equated with the impersonal term, “Heaven.” For example, Mago Lake (Maguji in Chinese) is also called Heavenly Lake (天池 Tianchi in Chinese) in oral tradition.[6] The fact that, according to the Budoji, Heavenly Mountain is known as the residence of the Hwanggung, the eldest clan community in the post-paradise world, is no accident. When its semantic tie to “Mago” is lost, “Heaven” is stripped of the Magoist implication. The surviving term, “Mago Stronghold,” however, debunks magna-matricide in the modern mind. It is inferred that Emperor Wu officiated the Magoist rite at Mago Stronghold as the Son of Heaven according to the Mandate of Heaven. The scheme of Old Magoism puts the above anecdote into a context: Emperor Wu emulated the royal tradition of ancient Magoist shaman queens, the representative of the Great Goddess who is the ultimate sovereign of the Earth, Mago Stronghold. Emperor Wu and Mago Stronghold were not at odds with each other in an earlier time of ancient Chinese history. Written together, they indicate that Magoism was acknowledged by Emperor Wu of Han. Put differently, magna-matricide was not committed or completed in the second century BCE China. Were ancient Chinese rulers including Emperor Wu of Han Magoist? This question is difficult to answer, for each ruler of ancient China may have taken an ambivalent attitude toward Magoism to a varying degree. Some may have been pseudo-Magoists. Ancient Chinese rulers, representing the establishment of Chinese monarchy, which marked the onset of patriarchal history in East Asia, are distinguished from traditional Magoist shaman queens who defended the Magoist confederal system of Old Korea. Nonetheless, they needed the Oracle of the Great Goddess to legitimize themselves as rulers. In pre-patriarchal East Asia, Old Magoist Korea was the source of power, technology, and civilization for any ruler to draw from. Evidence shows that …
(Essay 4) Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s note: This paper is published in the journal, the Gukhak yeonguronchong 국학연구론총 (Issue 14, December 2014). Here it will appear in five sequels including the response by Dr. Glenys Livingstone. Numbers of end notes differ from the original paper.] (Part 4) Parallels between Magos and Matrikas The numeric fluidity of a particular pantheon of Goddesses from three to nine is no isolated phenomenon in Western Muse tradition only. Laura K. Chamberlain’s research on the Hindu Goddess Matrika, one of the major manifestations of Durga, bears a close resemblance to the counterpart in Magoism.[1] In the story of Mago Halmi, Mago had eight daughters and dispatched seven daughters to seven regions/islands who respectively became the shaman progenitor of the region. She lived with the youngest daughter, whose region was the center of Magoism.[2] The Mago pantheon is also addressed as Gurang (Nine Goddesses) in the case of Gaeyang Halmi (Sea Goddess/Grandmother).[3] Among others, a parallel between Chamberlian’s delineation of the worship of the Asta Matrikas (Eight Mother Goddesses) and folk rituals concerning Mago is striking with regards to the aniconic rituals offered at “crossroads, rivers, the sea, and mountains” to Matrika. In the case of Magoism, the veneration of rocks and mountains that may be seen as “animistic beliefs” is widespread throughout the Korean peninsula. The linguistic resemblance is also present between Matrikas and Magos. According to Chamberlian, Mai (mother) and Ajima (grandmother) are the “two of the oldest names for the goddess in Nepal.” [4] They appear analogous with the Korean words Eomma 엄마 (Omai 오마이, Omasi 오마시, and etc. for mother) and Ajime (아지매, a female relative or aunt), a dialect from which the modern term Ajuma (아줌마, neighbor woman often pejoratively referring to a housewife) is derived. Chamberlain also notes the varied number of Matrikas and writes: The inconsistency in the number of Matrikas found in the valley [Indus] today (seven, eight, or nine) possibly reflects the localization of goddesses [ ] Although the Matrikas are mostly grouped as seven goddesses over the rest of the Indian Subcontinent, an eighth Matrikas has sometimes been added in Nepal to represent the eight cardinal direction. In Bhaktapur, a city in the Kathmandu Valley, a ninth Matrika is added to the set to represent the center.[5] On the one hand, it is true that the indeterminate number of Matrikas, as Chamberlain points out, explains localization of Hindu Goddesses in the Indian Subcontinent. On the other hand, it is equally possible to posit that there was a Goddess myth once shared by the members of mother community in a remote past. A daughter community, which resided in the mother community, came to migrate farther away from the mother community. She herself became a mother and was known as the mother community by her own daughter communities. From the perspective of the original mother community, the memory of the original myth by granddaughter communities would be fragmented and flavored with their own cultural, historical, and linguistic backgrounds. After many generations passed, granddaughter communities would lose the memory of the original myth and that they would not recognize kindred communities all over the world. However, the first mother was wise. She chose one daughter to carry on the legacy of the original myth. This is exactly what Mago stories tells us. When all is said and done, the numeric similarity of three, seven, eight, or nine and the inconsistency of the number are only some of the fragmented testimonies by granddaughter communities. Under such circumstances, Mago’s lineage, especially the first three generations, works as a blueprint of the family tree lost among granddaughter communities. (Read Part 3, to be continued in Part 5, Dr. Glenys Livingstone’s response to this essay.) References: Bak, Geum (Bak, Jesang). Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City). Eun-Soo Kim, translated and annotated. Seoul: Hanmunhwa, 2002, 1986c. Baring, Anne and Julies Cashford, eds. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Viking Arkana, 1991. Chamberlain, Laura K. “Durga and the Dashain Harvest Festival: From the Indus to Katmandu Valleys” in ReVision (vol. 25, no. 1, Summer 2002), 24-32. Chung, Yenkyu. Ancient Korea and the Dawn of History on the Pamirs. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2007. Daly, Mary. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1984. Davis, Elizabeth Gould. The First Sex. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971, 33. Hwang, Helen Hye-Sook. “Issues in Studying Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia: Primary Sources, Gynocentric History, and Nationalism,” in The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia, eds. Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis Herman (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008), 10-33. ____________________. “The Female Principle in the Magoist Cosmogony.” Ochre Journal of Women’s Spirituality, (Spring 2007) [http://www.ochrejournal.org/2007/scholarship/hwang1.html]. ____________________. Seeking Mago, the Great Goddess: A Mytho-Historic-Thealogical Reconstruction of Magoism, an Archaically Originated Gynocentric Tradition of East Asia. Ph.D. Dissertation: Claremont Graduate University, 2005. Kim, Busik. The Samguk Sagi (History of Three Kingdoms). Translated and annotated by ByongSu Lee. Seoul: Elyu Munhwasa, 1977. Lee, Ki-baik. A New History of Korea. Translated by E. Wagner and E. Shultz. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. Smith, Barbara. “Greece” in The Feminist Companion to Mythology. Carolyne Larrington ed. Hammersmith, London: Pandora Press, 1992. Yoon, Thomas. BuDoZhi: The Genesis of MaGo (Mother Earth) and The History of the City of Heavenly Ordinance. Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publications, 2003. Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983. [1] Levy 1990; Slusser 1982, cited in Laura K. Chamberlain, “Durga and the Dashain Harvest Festival: From the Indus to Katmandu Valleys” in ReVision (vol. 25, no. 1, Summer 2002), 24-32. [2] See Tales [9-1] and [5-3] in the Appendix, Hwang (2005), 391-8. [3] I was able to join a field research trip organized by the research team of Kunguk University’s Korean Literature Graduate Studies to collect the folk stories of Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess, in Buan-gun (Buan County), North Jeolla Province, South Korea July 10-12, 2012. Only after the trip, I realized Gaeyang Halmi with her eight daughters was …
(Goma Article Excerpt 3) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first published in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books.] The Goma Words The Bear Goddess In the coventional interpretation of the Korean foundation myth, “Ungnyeo (熊女)” is the name given to the bear (Gom) who received a female body upon enduring the trial of the cave initiation, married Hanung, and gave birth to a son who later became the founder of the ancient Korean state, Joseon (2333 BCE – 232 BCE). As such, “Ungnyeo” and “Gom” are unequivocally identified as the same figure. Nonetheless, the notability of “Ungnyeo” remains secular to most modern Koreans. That Gom is also involved with the bear constellation, the Northern Dipper in particular, remains esoteric at best. The bear mytheme of the Goma myth offers an insight to the etymology of both words, “Mago” and “Goma.” Given the mythological evidence that associates both Goma and Mago with the bear constellation, we may establish that the syllable “Go (姑 Ancient Goddess)” in “Mago” and “Goma” is derived from “Gom,” which means the bear in Korean. Modified by “Ma,” a universal sound for “mother,” both “Goma” and “Mago” refer to the Bear Mother. This assessment merits, among others, an explanation for the bear mytheme in the Goma myth in which Goma is depicted as the head of the royal bear clan. The bear is one of the most prominent symbols of Goma and Mago together with the nine and the tree. Goma, as the bear Goddess, holds together the animal bear, the bear worshipping people, and the circumpolar constellation of the Bears (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) in the Northern Hemisphere. Indicating the bear totem and the bear constellation, the bear symbol runs through her myths and linguistics. In the story, the cave initiation that Goma proposed intimates the ancient bear worshippers associated with the bear’s cyclic behaviors including hibernation for the long winter months in a cave. The bear symbol is important in that it connects Goma (the queen of the bear clan), Mago (the Goddess of the bear constellation), and their devotees, “the royal bear clan,” broadly recognized across cultures. It is not surprising to note that Goma and Mago appear conflated in cultural and devotional practices. Doumu (斗母 Mother of the Northern Dipper) is a prominent example of the amalgamated divine, Magoma. Doumu is well noted for her conflating manifestations among kindred Goddesses in Daoism. Marnix Wells states that Doumu is alternatively identified as Taiyi Yuanjun (太一元君 Goddess of the Great One) and Jiuhuang Daji (九皇大帝 the Great Emperor of Nine Emperors). Doumu is considered as “Mother of Dipper” known as Doumu Yuanjun (斗母元君 “Goddess of the Chariot”) and conflated with Taiyi Yuanjun (太一元君 “Goddess of the Great One”), who is one of the Three Pure Ones. She is considered the mother of the seven stars of the Dipper and two not visible ones, the Jiuhuang Daji (九皇大帝 “Nine Great Divine Kings”).[1] Here Taiyi Yuanjun corresponds to Mago (or the Mago Triad) and Jiuhuwang Daji to Goma (or the Nine Mago Creatrix). As such, Doumu is also related to the number nine symbol, which connects Mago and Goma, a topic to be explained below. Suffice it to say that Doumu, representing Magoma, is a female personification of the inter-cosmic reality unfolded through the circumpolar constellation of the Bears in the Northern Hemisphere in sync with the eco-biotic behavior of bears, as such venerated by their devotees. Goma and the Korean Identity Goma’s alternative names include “Ungnyeo (Female Sovereign),” “Hanung (Han Sovereign),” “Cheonung (Heavenly Soverein),” “Daeung (Great Sovereign),” “Seonhwang (Immortal Emperess),” and “Daein (Great Person)” as well as “Ungssi-ja (Decendant of the Goma Clan), “Ungssi-wang” (Ruler of the Goma Clan), and “Ungssi-gun” (Head of the Goma Clan). The Goma words also include such modifiers as “Ung,” “Gom (Gam, Geum, Geom, Kami)” and “Baedal (Barkdal, Baekdal), “Dan.” Given that her worship is old in origin and non-ethnocentric in nature, the Goma epithets are not limited to the above. It is conjectured that she was revered by other names including the aforementioned Goddesses across cultures. In fact, the Magoist hermeneutic of the Goma myth enables us to reassess variant Halmi (Great Mother/Grandmother/Crone) stories in Korea that have the Magoma mytheme. Among them are Gaeyang Halmi, Seogu Halmi, Angadak Halmi, Dangsan Halmi, to name a few. In any case, the epithet “Goma” is by no means a modern invention. Intriguingly, they are found in place-names, state-names and clan-names, to be discussed shortly. The link between “Ung” and “Gom” is not something unfamiliar to most Koreans. Researchers note that “Goma-seong (Goma Stronghold)” better known “Ungjin-seong” was the capital of ancient Baekje Korea from 475 to 538 CE.[2] However, “Gom” as an alternative epithet of “Goma” remains unfamiliar to many modern Koreans. Furthermore, little known is that “Ungnyeo” is derived from “Goma,” the queen of the bear clan. Korean linguists infer that “Ungsim (熊心)” is an Idu word and should be read “Goma.”[3] Accoding to them, the second character “Sim (心)” meaning “Maeum (마음)” in “Ungsim” is an indicator of its phonetic sound, “Ma.” Following the first character “Go” in “Gom (곰), “Ungsim” should be read as “Goma.” A compound of “Ung (熊)” and “Nyeo (Woman),” “Ungnyeo” is a euphemism for “Ungsim (熊心).” Idu (吏讀 Official’s Script) is an ancient Korean writing system that uses logographic characters for the Korean spoken language. Its use is noted during the early three states (Silla, Goguryeo, Baekje) to Joseon (1392-1919) periods. That Goma is the Idu word for Ungsim offers no small insight. It holds key to unlock a broad range of the Goma words found trans-nationally in East Asia and elsewhere. The Idu word “Ungsim” for “Goma” holds the key to unlock the Goma words that permeate ancient Korean history, language, and culture. Ungsim-yeon (熊心淵 Goma Lake) and Ungsim-san (熊心山Goma Mountain) and Ungsim-guk (熊心國 Goma State) are the most prominent examples. These place-names show how Goma mythology has shaped the landscape of ancient Korean mytho-histories. Ungsim-yeon (Goma Lake) is associated with Yuhwa (Willow Tree …
(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 2) Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and Her Tradition Magoism by Helen Hwang

[Editor’s note: Numbers of endnotes differ from the original ones in the article] Reconstructing Gynocentric Korean Identity Scholars in the West, upon assessing a religion or deity of the non-Western world, tend to pair the topic with a modern nation. Thus, they often project their modern knowledge of the nation or culture onto the indigenous religion or deity they study. Such a methodology betrays the assumption that the modern notion of national identities is time-proven and bias-free. In this process, one’s perception of other people’s cultural expression is molded by Western-made modern knowledge of that people. This kind of knowledge ceases to exist outside the Western mind. Some go further to point out that the religious expression of a non-Western country in point is colored by the air of nationalism that is culturally on the rise in that country. This kind of assessment suggests the idea that a cultural expression fostered by nationalist zeal is inauthentic or impure and therefore of less value for study. While such conclusions are not necessarily wrong, I find it misguided. Done so, it prepares the ground for Western scholars to wield the authority of Western hegemony over the non-Western world. Precisely, it is blind to the fact that no cultural expression in modern times is free from nationalist ethos. Modern life is inherently shaped by the shade of nationalism whether it is in a non-Western world or a Western world. In my view, the question to be asked is: How can we assess a religious expression of a people beyond the modern notion of national identities? Or how can we go beneath the modern notion of national identities in order to assess a religious expression of a people? I hold that the modern category of national identities in particular causes harm to the study of the goddess. Modern nationalities go hand in hand with the impetus of patriarchal religions that do away with the female principle. There is an unmistakable difference between the male divine and the female divine when their manifestations are found cross-nationally. It is generally assumed that exchange of cultures between nations allows the male divine to be disseminated from one people to another. It is true that patriarchal religions have traveled around the globe and disseminated their gods into other nations. When it comes to the goddess whose worship is widespread across nations, such as the case of Mary in the West, however, this kind of reasoning proves to be inadequate. Antithetical is the idea that patriarchal religions actively promote the transmission of the great goddess from one nation to the other. Thus, the very perception of the transnational goddess is systematically thwarted in the realm of patriarchal religions. Androcentric researchers may choose to either dismiss as anomalous the topic of the goddess whose manifestation is found cross-nationally or treat her as a local deity severing her from her transnational context. This has been done to the topic of Mago. While Mago’s manifestation exists across the national boundaries of Korea, China, and Japan, it differs in nature, density, and complexity in these countries. Likewise, primary sources also show different traits according to the country. Korean sources surpass her Chinese counterparts not only in number but also in density and complexity. Mago’s supreme divinity is essentially affirmed in Korean sources, whereas it is treated as unknown in Chinese and Japanese counterparts. More to the point, the Budoji, the principal text that re-emerged in Korea in 1986, asserts that Koreans were the defenders of Old Magoism (Magoism in pre-patriarchal times) against the pseudo-Magoist Chinese regime. How can we understand the primacy of Korean Magoism without resorting to the modern notion of nationalist identities?