June 16, 2023June 5, 2023 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) Setting the Stories Free, an INTUIT Card collage meditation by Cynthia Tom

In case of chronic heartache: Rx – sit quietly and ask who wants your attention. Your little self will metaphorically tap you on the shoulder. Let him/her/they spend time with Read More …

May 30, 2023May 30, 2023 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) The Sovereign Feminine, An INTUIT Card collage meditation by Cynthia Tom

Owning the “Self.” Take the time to remember the Soul purpose you came here to fulfill. Keep the lessons and the love, but shed the negative conditioning from your ancestral Read More …

March 17, 2023March 18, 2023 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Video) AWARENESS is Curative. The Origin and Ongoing Stories by Cynthia Tom

Oct 2022 PLACE Origin and Ongoing Artists’ Stories: AWARENESS is Curative A PLACE OF HER OWN artists illuminated their creative journeys. Learn the art based origins of the workshops and Read More …

January 20, 2023December 23, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) Maps of Consciousness, Metatron by Cynthia Tom

The shades of pink, fuschia, yellow and gold are healing protective nurturing colors for me. Metatron (sacred geometry) represents one of the archangels that protects and energizes our souls. While Read More …

October 21, 2022October 13, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Video 1) Cultural Heritage and Ancestral Healing as Art Mediums by Cynthia Tom

[Editor’s Note: This is the session 1 of the same title presented on August 10, 2022.] The de Young/Legion of Honor Museums of SF (Virtual Wednesdays on YouTube) presents: Cynthia Read More …

September 16, 2022July 8, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Video) 2019 Hungry Ghosts Artists’ Talk by Cynthia Tom

Cynthia Tom at Marin MOCA Cynthia shares the stories behind her art piece entitled: Flying Lessons Inquire Within. Her piece represents all the feminine voices that have been suppressed, repressed, Read More …

April 29, 2022April 13, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Video) Ways to walk with ancestral family patterns by Cynthia Tom

Cynthia walks us thru her Hungry Ghosts art installation for 2018 Dia de Los Muertos @SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco. Curated by RioYanez and Carolina Quintania, created by Rene Yanez. Read More …

February 18, 2022February 6, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Rootwork Series: The Arts as a Vehicle for Transformation: Moving from Trauma to Healing by Cynthia Tom

The Rootwork | Grounding Community Arts Education Beyond the Pandemic series is an online learning series about how to create programming informed by, and supportive of, the many, varied lived Read More …

January 21, 2022January 16, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Artistic journey through women’s ancestral patterns of trauma by Cynthia Tom

Timestamps Chapters 0:00 Start 9:38 Grounding 13:37 PLACE orientation 16:09 PHASE 1 – Exploring Your Hungry Ghosts: Belief Rocks and Ancestral Family Patterns 18:03 Basics of Chakras as support 19:25 Read More …

December 27, 2021January 16, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Artistic journey towards transformation, spirituality and feminist community healing by Cynthia Tom

30+ years of artistic exploration and curatorial/community productions/ programming. San Francisco based Cynthia Tom, shares her inspirations and healing journeys, including both personal and community ancestral trauma as teachers and Read More …

August 31, 2021January 24, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(She Summons Excerpt) Flying Lessons: Inquire Within for Hungry Ghosts by Cynthia Tom

Growing up with a Chinese culture that values the son, but negates the daughter, Cynthia Tom uses art to unravel and address embedded feelings of being invisible and unnecessary. In Read More …

July 17, 2021July 18, 2021 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Cynthia Tom

A San Francisco mixed-media artist, painter, and curator of 30+ years, Cynthia’s work is known as an inspiration for healing, empowerment, social change and fostering community. Coming from a Chinese culture that Read More …

(Essay 2) The Journey of the Goddess: Pandora Archetypes by Laura Newberry-Yokley

A Prayer We are the web,/ We find our center/ By coming closer./ The center is our truth. – Barbara Walker Furrow deeply within the cave of time when ideas were distinct from beliefs and belief were separate from thoughts. Forging the path of the truthful center, a radiant soul is found along time way, within each one of us. Carol Christ calls this a “compelling image of female power, a vision of deep connection of all beings in the web of life.” Each one of you, I invite you to invoke the divine feminine powers within you, as you call upon Her, O Beautiful One. The Goddess inspires us to re-evaluate our lives and reinvent our spiritual, human experience. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. As the web of ideas extends into a spiral of magical symbols, an authenticity of what it means to be a woman emerges from behind what shrouds our lives. Let these candid images tell the story of the woman, the real woman, and how her divine center is the place of the Goddess Within. Breathing, the warm air tickles her eyelids. The tall grass feels cool against her worn feet. Moving, stretching, and gazing up at the sky, she pulls her energy inward and rises with the sun. The red fingers tickle her cheeks with warm vibrancy, as the sky is filled with orange and red exclamations of radiance.
(Prose) Tlachtga by Deanne Quarrie

This is the story of Tlachtga. Her name means “earth spear.” Her story gives us the name for a famous place in Ireland where to this day, the rites of Samhain are held in her honor. This location is called the Hill of Ward and it is near Tara. At this gathering Druids would light the bonfire on Samhain, from which embers were carried far and wide and were used to light the new fires for the new year. The location of the celebration was critical because they believed it to the place where this world and the Otherworld were the closest together. Tlachtga is mentioned in two pieces of Irish literature, the Banshenchas, “the Lore of Women” and in the Dindsenchas, “the Lore of Places.” In translations by Christian monks, her story has been confused with biblical characters and Tlachtga has been all but forgotten. From all of these stories of Tlachtga the earliest we can find reveals her as a goddess (druid) who arrived with the Firbolgs, long before the Tuatha De Dannan and Milesians. She was the daughter of the Chief Druid, Mogh Ruith of Munster. His name means devotee of the wheel, which relates to the sun. Mogh Ruith, a blind man, taught his daughter Tlachtga all his skills. Together they worked with all the best masters of magical knowledge in Ireland and Scotland. In one story Moug Ruith and Tlachtga constructed a fabulous flying wheel named Roath Ramach, a machine they used for sailing through the air. It was said to be made from two pillars of stone. She made the Rolling Wheel for Trian, the Stone in Forcathu and the Pillar in Cnamchaill (Cnamchaill means bone damage). These devices were feared by all and stories were told that any who touched them died, any who saw them were blinded, and any who heard them were deafened. The pillars themselves, represent lightning, which does tie in with the meaning of her name, Earth Spear. Lightning certainly could be seen as a spear thrown to the ground and it could also kill, deafen and blind those touched by it. Tlachtga was most likely a goddess of death and rebirth as well as the sun and lightning. Hers is a tragic story, for as she gave birth to three boys, her subsequent death gave power to the land in the process. Her sons, Doirb, Cumma and Muach became the rulers of Munster, Leinster and Connaught. It was said that as long as they were remembered no one could claim the land. (spoken of in the poem below) However, as we know that did not last forever. And who knows, it may well be because they were all but forgotten. So, it is that Tlachtga is intimately linked with the symbolic death and rebirth of the land at Samhain. Tlachtga For Trian – no honour -Tlachtga Created the red mobile wheel, With the great Mogh, and Simon she brought Her wisdom, thus leaving the moving wheel. Finished stone of Forcarthus she left and pillar of Cnamchaill. Whoever sees it becomes blind. Whoever hears it becomes deaf. Anyone taking from the wheel will die. [Missing lines in text…] After the woman came from the east, She gave birth to three sons in hard labour. She died, the light & wise one. This urgent unconceivable news was to be heard by all. The son’s names were of great import… Muach and Cumma and Doirb Others [text missing again] As long as Banba remembers the names of the Three sons as the truthful story tells …………. No catastrophe will befall its inhabitants. The hill where Tlachtga is buried, Surpasses all other women, Remember the name it was given.. The Hill of Tlachtga. Irish Manuscript Text Translated by S. Geoghegan. Tlachtga’s story is tragic. It is possible that she was once a Sun Goddess, highly revered for her fertility and the land. Tragically her story changed and it is her tragic death that is remembered. For this reason, as a goddess of birth and death, “The Hill of Ward” has been regarded by Druids for eons as the “Temple of Tlachtga.” It is here where the old fires of the Celtic Year are ritually smothered out and a new pure flame is lit for the year ahead. May Tlachtga be remembered as brave, courageous, and wise, her brightness dimmed by the new patriarchal powers that invaded the land. May her light of the new year carry you bravely into the dark months ahead and may her light stay kindled until we great the rising sun at its new birth. Meet contributor, Deanne Quarrie
(Book Excerpt 2) “Placental Thinking: The Gift of Maternal Roots” by Nane Jordan

[This and the ensuing sequels are from a Chapter from Placenta Wit: Mother Stories Rituals, and Research, edited by Nané Jordan, Demeter Press, 2017, pp. 142-155.] RELATIONAL DESIGNS As a young midwives’ assistant, I became used to cleaning up and disposing of the blood naturally shed in birth. I was also learning how to handle and care for placentas during and after birth. I knew that the placenta had to be born in a timely way, that the umbilical cord was not cut until it had stopped pulsing, and that the placenta must appear whole without missing pieces. I especially remember the first time I was taught how to “read” a placenta up close. Learning with an experienced midwife, I peered curiously at the bright red placenta she brought from a recent birth in all its blood-red glory. Through close instruction, I began to see, to discern its shape. I was soon in awe of this seemingly sacred design and structure. There are two sides to a placenta: a mother side and a baby side. The mother side has groups of intersecting lobes that appear almost brainlike. The mother side attaches to the inside wall of her uterine muscle, connecting her life blood toward her baby’s nourishment. The baby side is full of roots, roots, roots—in networks of veins and arteries. They interconnect lacelike, fanning outwards in a circular pattern from the umbilical cord, which attaches itself near the centre of the placental mass. The baby side is smooth and cosseted by the amniotic sack, which rises from the edges of the placenta to surround the baby in utero. During pregnancy, the placenta is the key developmental link between mother and child. The umbilical cord transports blood from baby toward and away from the mother through the vascular root system of the placenta. Via placental interchange through capillary diffusion, nourishment and oxygen are drawn from the body of the mother while metabolic wastes are released from the baby for the mother to dispose of. The placenta is singular in its mission: it grows and is born to support and sustain the life of the new human in and from the body of the mother. It was not until after years of attending homebirths, working intimately with mothers and babies postbirth, and handling many placentas that I began to glean the morphological and spiritual wonders of this generative organ. Like a grand communicator, the placenta and umbilical cord define the paradox of the two bodies’ connection and separation. The placenta grows like an apparatus from the baby itself, facilitating a continual dialogue of blood with the mother. Our first language is truly one of maternal nourishment, which flows from mother to child in a heart-to-heart rhythm—an abundant mother stream that ensures the baby’s growth and survival. As a relational interface, this is not a fusion of bodies but a unilateral “gift” communication from mother to baby. Because of my studies and graduate research in women’s spirituality, I began to name the importance of the birth knowledge and wisdom that I had been privy to. I committed to writing and research that could transmit what I and others knew about birth, seeking to expand understandings of social philosophy from birth-based perspectives, which were missing from the Western philosophical tradition—dominated by male-centered thinking that did not take birth experience into account. In these traditions, birth and birth giving are devalued and accorded lower value than social, cultural, and spiritual production, as if mothers and birth are not connected to social and cultural life at its core (O’Brien). Birth mysteries have been invariably silenced, lost, or co-opted through socialized and patriarchal disconnections of our birth-based origins from actual mothers and women. As a foundational experience of human life, revisioning birth in mother-centred ways can provide socially transformative values. In this, I aim for a society that supports, values, and loves mothers, babies, and children at the centre of life rather than at the social and economic peripheries. I aim for this not to essentialize women only as birth givers but to liberate mothers toward the meaning and leadership that is theirs at the core of life. (To be continued) (Meet Mago Contributor) Nane Jordan.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Swami Pujananda Saraswati

Swami Pujananda Saraswati is a yogic mystic, scholar practitioner. She is also a spiritual activist and anti-imperialist radical feminist in the Goddess motherline and Vedic traditions. As an initiate nun in the sacred Order of Sannyasa–Samkhya and Vedanta (duality and nondualitly)–she teaches Yogic/Vedic psychology. The Swami lived with honorable mentors who embody the divine Mother in Her three forms: Kali-Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Since 1979 she immersed in intensive monastic disciplines at the Yoga Research Foundation Ashram with Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda Maharaj and more recently with Maha Mandaleshwara Ma YogaShakti at the Yoga Shakti Mission, Palm Bay, FL. With profound dedication to the beloved teachers, her heart overflows in sharing the perennial philosophy and Integral Yoga as a way of life towards the fulfillment of human existence. Swami Puiananda continues research on how the psychology of Patanjali and the Scriptures of India inform today´s spiritual activism for personal integration, expansion of consciousness leading to societal transformation. Previously Published Posts by Swami Pujananda Saraswati
(Special Post Mother Teresa 1) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in …
(Poem) Daffodils by Andrea Nicki

Their heads hang low from weeks of battering rain. They must find it hard to trust, meet the gaze of the new sun. Still, they hold their mouths open– a faithful chorus with perfect pitch yellow.
(Essay 2) Gaia as Universe-Earth-Self: a Unity of Being by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

[This essay is part 2 of an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion.] As participants in Gaia, we may understand ourselves as Gaia, holons of the Large Self, as a drop of the ocean participates in (the whole of) the ocean. I regard the concepts of holons and holarchy[i] to be a crucial model for understanding a participatory universe. In Biology Revisioned, Harman and Sahtouris define a holarchy as “the embeddedness of living entities within each other (e.g., cell, organ, body, family, community, ecosystem, bioregion, planet, star system, galaxy, etc.)”;[ii] and they define a holon as “a living entity or system.”[iii] They describe the entire Universe as a vast living entity or holon, and also as “a holarchy containing smaller holons in continual co-creation.”[iv] A most significant feature of a holarchy is that every layer/level has as much importance as any other, because they are embedded in each other – and actually the layers of simpler life forms are not dependent on the more complex, though the more complex are dependent on the simpler earlier layers. Within the context of holarchy, it may be possible to explain by physical principles how a quality of living systems “may apply all the way from the most simple single-cell life form to Gaia.”[v] Psychologist James Hillman recognizes that the cut between the self and the natural world is arbitrary, and wonders whether it can be made at all – “we can make it at the skin or we can take it as far out as you like – to the deep oceans and distant stars”.[vi] Lovelock refers to the human as Gaia – “She has seen the reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts … ”, and speaks of a “commonwealth of all creatures that constitutes Gaia.”[vii] In his early writings on Gaia, he did try to hold back from Her sentience:
(Special Post) If the Universe is So Abundant, Why are We So Cheap? by Beth Raps

From Wikimedia Commons We would all agree that the Universe is abundant. We love living here in this flow. We receive everything we need from the Universe and more. We extract endlessly from Her. But we don’t give back with our money. Why are we so cheap? Given all we receive, why don’t we participate actively in the Universe’s generous giving like the creatrixes we are created to be? After 40 years’ work with money flow for organizations and individuals, here’s what I see: Patriarchy: Yes, patriarchy is hugely to blame for the place we find ourselves. For more precision, let’s do, in the Euro-centric world, as bell hooks did and call it by its true name: white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. This monster has kept most of us down successfully for thousands of years, stealing from Nature and the Earth, women, Black people, Indigenous people, colonized people, poor people, working-class people, disabled people, queer people, and anyone else it could turn into fodder for its insatiable hunger for power-over. OK, so, what keeps patriarchy in place? Fear: Patriarchy’s ravaging keeps it blind to its own utter insecurity. We aid it when we behave like a resource it can colonize. When we abdicate our intrinsic, Universe-given, power and trim ourselves to bite-size, we get eaten. We actually learn to live bite-sized! We play small, live small, ask for little, and give even less. Why? Belief in a Zero-Sum Game: We believe there’s not enough to go around. Even though we espouse beautiful alternative beliefs, we don’t live them. We don’t let our deepest beliefs change our actions. Our actions with money betray our agreement that there’s not enough to go around. Our stinginess becomes our power: if we give, we have less, so we’d be fools to give. Where does this lead us? Internalized Poverty: Almost half of women across income and profession have “bag-lady syndrome.” We fear ending up homeless and penniless—no matter how much money we have. This leads many of us to hoard money, hoard things, not give philanthropically, not create wills, estates, and trusts, not pay attention to our monthly money flow, not plan for how to allocate what money we have, not look at how to increase our flow if we want more. Almost no one feels rich. The Financial Times’s Lucy Kellaway wrote that the only thing the three super-rich people she asked to interview had in common was that “all of them protested when I applied the term to them.” She pointed out that it didn’t “matter that they were among the 1,000 richest people in the country–none of them saw themselves that way.” They are not alone! When was the last time you affirmed, ‘I’m wealthy!” and meant it? I openly declare that I am wealthy. My baseline income is $749 per month. Wealth is my lived state of mind. What makes the difference between seeing ourselves as wealthy or poor? Learned Ignorance: We fear money. We fear talking about it and we fear thinking about it. Bag-lady syndrome wouldn’t have a chance if our high consciousness were applied to money. I’m not talking about becoming savvy investors; I’m simply talking about knowing our own financial flow intimately and in detail. This is what I called “becoming financially fierce.” We’ve learned our historic lessons all too well. In the US, we are starting to read about the generational impact of redlining by banks for decades on communities of color resulting in people of color and African-Americans especially not being able to get home loans and mortgages, which means not being able to build wealth generationally as white families have done, by buying houses. There is a multi-millennial history of women being iced out of wealthbuilding by men. Women have been forbidden to own property, make money, use money, and pass money or property on to our children. We still behave as though we are. We see money misogyny at work in the 2023 film, Inshallah A Boy in which, to quote IMDb’s film description, “A widow pretends to be pregnant with a son in order to save her daughter and home from a relative exploiting Jordan’s patriarchal inheritance laws.” Even though we don’t live under patriarchal laws like Jordan’s we act like we do. Our money ignorance, money squeamishness, and stinginess show that we have internalized our historic disempowerment. What to Do? Here are some quick and easy antidotes as well as some longer-term ones: Shake yourself out of scarcity: Become a conscious financial giver. Yes, volunteering and other forms of exchange are vital. And sometimes, money is what’s needed. Whatever you have, give some of it. The Mago Work brought you this post: what about giving back financially? Start with a gift of any size to the Mago Community’s first-ever fundraising campaign. There is no way you haven’t enough to give! Gifts of $5 to $500 are actively welcomed. Take my experiential session at the 2024 S/HE Divine Studies Online Conference. You’ll have the chance to heal money wounds and reclaim yourself as a budding money magician. Participants will benefit from my decades learning what sensitive, high-consciousness people need to align ourselves with money abundance specifically. Get educated. Browse my free blog posts on money, and subscribe if you like them. Or consider doing some money healing with me 1:1 or in a group. I share inspirational writing and affordable offerings weekly in my newsletter. A book that has changed my life and set me on the course of money abundance and financial fierceness is Money Magic, a workbook by the founder of moneycoaching Deborah L. Price that is full of clients’ personal stories and simple, kind, deep self-reflection exercises. Price was a financial advisor who couldn’t figure out why people made unhealthy choices with money when they had good information until the light went on for her: unhealthy money choices are a product of our emotions, not our rationality. Got another idea? Share it in the comments below! Questions? Likewise! …
(Essay) The Disease of Patriarchal Capitalism by Genevieve Vaughan

Women’s Worlds, Ottawa, July 6, 2011 We European/Americans have been infected by the disease of patriarchal capitalism and we have carried it to all the populations where we have settled. For many of them it has been fatal, others have adapted but some have succeeded in defending themselves and their traditions against all odds. This disease hurts us as well as everyone else. It is the cause of wars and oppresssions of all kinds. It magnifies racism, ageism, nationalism, religious prejudice. Let me try to say what I think it is.

(Special Post) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE FOR EL PASO ARTIST MARIO COLÍN by Donna Snyder

Born in Juárez in 1959, Mario Colín lived his entire life in the Five Points area of Central El Paso, where he attended Houston Elementary and Austin High School. From the age of fifteen, he worked as a construction worker, building silos and other large construction projects across the U.S.A., at some point hitch hiking from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic shores. In his late twenties, he began to focus all his attention and energy on art, which had been an interest since early childhood, working as a muralist and portrait painter. Much of his art is of a religious nature, although he also painted secular art, portraits, and historical scenes. Colín painted his first mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe in collaboration with deceased artist Chuck Zavala in 1987 at Esparza’s Grocery, a small store in Central El Paso. It has now become a shrine, with community members building a stone arch and bringing flowers and candles, and has been pronounced a religious site by the parish church. Since that first mural, Colín has painted over 40 pieces of public art, many of which have become landmarks. Many of those murals are in that same Central El Paso neighborhood, on or near Piedras, including the House of Pizza, Los Alamos Grocery, The Elbo Room bar, the former Sanitary Plumbing at Piedras and Fort Boulevard. Colín twice painted a 25 foot mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, at Alameda and Zaragoza, across from the Ysleta mission. The first version, painted in 1997, became decayed, but was a popular landmark. That mural has appeared in periodicals, art books, calendars, many newspaper articles, and in photographs exhibited in the El Paso Art Museum and galleries. In 2004, Señor José Villalobos donated and members of the community contributed money to pay laborers to replaster the wall of the century-old adobe building where it is located, and Colín repainted the entire mural for donations from passers-by and community members. Colín’s work has also been featured on the International History Channel and Canal 44, XHUI TV, in a Ford television commercial, and numerous times in the El Paso Times and the defunct El Paso Herald-Post, as well as in periodicals such as Texas Monthly, Dallas Morning News, Texas Observer, Austin American Statesman, Stanton Street magazine; literary journals such as Mezcla and GypsyMag.com; in documentaries including Walls that Speak: El Paso’s Murals, directed by Jim Klaes; in art books such as Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso and Texas 24:7, and in various editions of Chicano Studies: Survey and Analysis, a text book used throughout the country.
(Special Post 8) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Marija Krstic-Chin To remember who we really are (nature, cycles, network, creative force, one, infinite…) for the benefit of all of humanity and all living things; and to unite and unify as we broadcast, hand down, protect and defend this truth and each other against the oppressive intentions and actions of patriarchal perpetrators, puppets, and pawns who seek to enslave us by various old and new divide-and-conquer strategies.
(Special Post Isis 3) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 3 Isis, Arab Women Revolution, and Black Goddesses Naa Ayele Kumari Going back to the original topic of the post…. Some quotes ” Women are in half the society… How come there are only 7 in the Assembly… and they are all Islamist! ” I can’t beat up my wife and almost kill her and call it discipline… this is not discipline… this is abuse and insanity” http://youtu.be/y4umifTLSII 12-Year Old Explains Egyptian Revolution in Under 3 Minutes www.youtube.com Max Dashu It is tremendously heartening to see these insights being expressed, and spread. The Salafis have made such inroads, and now the pushback is happening. Harita Meenee Dear Naa Ayele Kumari, thank you actually reading my post and commenting something relevant to it. It’s refreshing when someone does hear what we have to say instead of projecting their own notions. Building a solidarity movement with those who are oppressed but fighting is very important during these critical times! Harita Meenee See also: https://www.facebook.co/intifadat.almar2a?fref=ts The uprising of women in the Arab world انتفاضة المرأة في العالم العربي حرية الفكر ، حرية التعبير ، حرية الاعتقاد ، حرية التنقل ، حرية الجسد ، حرية اللب…See More Glenys Livingstone … as you say Max …” way too much of it going on” – amongst people who should know better (I would have thought): “Dark goddess as terrifying, challenging, white goddess as benign; “black magic” as harmful; I see way, way too much of this going on out there.” And related to that in my mind is all the “love and light” business that is so common: the Ground of Being is Dark … it seems to me that mystics have always understood the quintessential darkness of Love/Deity. Max Dashu Sure. I would just like to add that the critique raised here addressed issues much broader than the substance of the article, which made some good points. But once the choice of graphics flagged the issue of representation, people had much more to say about that old yet still very fresh wound which is constantly reopened by the cultural habit of whitening Egypt, or interpreting Africa through a eurocentric lens. It is not on any one person to carry the weight of that; we all have a responsibility to address the issues, but especially those of us of European heritage need to familiarize ourselves with how this plays out over and over. Just as men have a responsibility to speak up in support of women when patriarchal assumptions are on board. We all can learn something from each other, along all the various axes of domination, and overthrow them in coalition. Naa Ayele Kumari I have often considered where the roots of this psychology comes from. It is dualistic thinking that causes us to compare and contrast, then sum up judgement of good or bad and place a value on each. It extends into competition and justification for war. It also doesn’t escape me that often this came with certain civilizations who systematically destroyed others. It didn’t just happen with blacks in Africa… but blacks in Asia and the Indus Valley as well. With the Aryan invasions of India, came the eventual introduction to lighter divinities and more emphasis on male divinities. Southern Indians, Sri Lankans are very dark… even more so than many African Blacks. The caste systems implemented by the Aryan invaders did the same thing to them casting them as “untouchables”. With that came the marginalization of their black female divinities such as Kali. Kali actually has 10-16 forms… from compassionate mother, the fountain of wisdom, to she of great beauty but she is minimized as just destructive and terrifying… especially as Brhaman, Vishnuu, and Shiva grow in popularity. One of Kali’s statues has her black self standing on top of Shiva because she conquered him. Later there is a discussion in on of the Hindu text explaining Kali (as Parvati) after being subdued by Shiva she becomes lighter. Further they have stories about him rejecting her and calling her blackie which made her do austerities to rid herself of her black skin. Naa Ayele Kumari It should not be overlooked that in the Story of Alice in Wonderland… a story intended to keep Goddess elements for future generations, has the Elder sister ( the Queen of Hearts) portrayed as man, ego, and power driven who cuts off heads and has a fierce dragon…a clear reference to Kali. The White goddess as the younger sister is her opponent… and her mission is to usurp the throne of the Queen of Hearts even though she was the rightful heir as the oldest … or primordial. Stories like these also reinforce the stereotypes and negative iconography. Max Dashu Yes, it is pervasive in many cultures of domination. Demons are portrayed as black not only in Europe, which we know well, but also in China and in a lot of Buddhist iconography. In modern India, the sweet goddesses are shown as pink, the wrathful as black; and Krishna (name means “dark”) is turned powder blue. (Another of his titles, s’yam, also meaning dark, is the word translated as “green” in Green Tara.) The countercurrents (Black Mazu, loving Kali – esp in Bengal and south India, Black Madonna) bubbled up from the common people, who knew and longed for something other than the dominant racialized hierarchy. Naa Ayele Kumari I am just discovering Mazu ( Matzu/LuShui) in China today! Never knew about her. This discussion has led me to look deeper for black goddesses in Asia. Max Dashu Taoist spiritual tradition often refers to Xüan Nü, which can be translated in several ways. You’ll usually see it rendered as “the Mysterious Female,” a phrase that occurs in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), and this is a valid translation; but what is less emphasized is that it also means “the Dark Woman.” In […]

(Essay) Walking with Bb by Sara Wright

Walking with Bb: a story exploring the psychic connection between one woman and her bear. Preface: The black bear – hunting season in Maine is brutal – four months of bear hell – five if one includes the month where hunters can track bears for “practice” with hounds – separate mothers and cubs, terrorize them, tree them and do anything but legally kill them. During the legal slaughter, Hunters bait bears with junk food by putting old donuts etc. in cans and shoot the bear while he or she is eating. Most bears (82 percent) are slaughtered in this manner, the rest are killed by hounding and trapping. The season begins in August and lasts through December. Trapping, by the way, is illegal in every state but Maine. Black bears are hated, and that hatred will, of course, eventually result in their extirpation. I had a shy (male) year old black bear visiting my house this past summer with whom I developed a friendship, and what follows is part of our story: Last Saturday I was walking down the road when I remembered that I had not done my daily “circle of protection” imaging for Bb (standing as he was the day he visited me at the window early in August). When I began to do this another picture of Bb moving on all four feet with his face turned towards mine super-imposed itself over his standing image. I could almost see his expression, but not quite. I didn’t know what this imaging meant beyond that we were communicating in some unknown way, and he was in the area (not a good thing on hunting Saturdays). He had not been coming in most nights and I was worried… That night he came. He is still making nightly visits five days later, the most sequentially consistent visits since September 15th, the day I believed that he had been shot. This experience prompted me to write about telepathy and precognition. It is close to All Hallows and the full Hunter’s moon (Nov 3). I keep listening to Charlie Russell’ story which reminds me that loving bears (especially male bears) is hard, almost a sure recipe for disaster, and that I was not alone in this deep concern for and fear of losing Bb. I can barely stand to remember my other bear losses and I can’t stand feeling them. Even after I wrote about the incident with Bb, the experience seemed to carry a charge that didn’t dissipate. Had I missed something? Next I wrote “Root Healer,” exploring the possibility that as I continued to act as Bb’s “little bear mother” now employing psychic techniques to keep him safe (in some desperation as it was the only means left open to me to protect this very vulnerable yearling), that Bb’s presence might also include a gift for me and that it might involve some kind of root healing for my body because Nature thrives on reciprocity. One idea I missed completely, for it was so obvious. Bb’s image was communicating to me that we were having a psychic conversation in that very moment. It was the first time in three months of imaging protective circles that moved with him that I had confirmation from him that we were communicating effectively in this unknown way. This rarely happens. Normally when I do this kind of work, I just do it. I don’t get direct confirmation that it’s working from the animal itself (except with Lily b). Knowing this helped me make another decision I might not have made so intentionally. The hunting season will last into mid December, and I will be traveling during that last month. I keep thinking that putting actual physical distance between Bb and I might pose more of a threat for his life and I have to remind myself that psychic phenomena are not distance dependent. I should be able to image that protective circle every day and feel that it is working. Bb has already shown me that it can but I fear adding distance because I don’t completely trust my own perceptions.* I suspect believing might be an additional dimension of ensuring success when it comes to psychic protection for this bear. But how do I incorporate belief into a picture that is so clouded with personal/cultural doubt? Half the time I don’t believe myself and virtually no one except Rupert Sheldrake, Iren and Harriet have ever taken my experiences seriously. I have to remind myself that I have done this work many times dealing with doubt and it worked anyway. The point of writing this reflection might be to put me on a new edge of increasing Bb’s odds of survival. If it’s possible that an attitude that embraces believing in what I do could help me protect Bb more effectively until hunting is over and its time for him to den in peace I want to claim it. The question I need to answer now is how to go about moving into a more trusting self as a woman who continues to walk with a bear at her side? The night after I wrote the above paragraph I dream of the doubters in the roles of my parents, and in a friend. I take these dreams seriously as doubters inside me and out. These dreams may be telling me that it is unreasonable to expect me to believe that what I do works when no one else does? The problem with this idea is that on some level I do believe. I feel as if I am walking with this bear, every single day. I think about him constantly. The only thing that got me out of the house yesterday was that he was out of chocolate donuts. Something is intensifying my relationship with Bb although I never see him. I am caught in a field of bear energy and information, perhaps through some version of beauty and the beast. That an archetype is …
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
(Art & Poem) Candelmas/Imbolc by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 3) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. MAPPING THE MAGOIST CALENDAR According to the Budoji, the Magoist Calendar was fully implemented and advocated during the period of Old Joseon (ca. 2333 BCE-ca. 232 BCE) whose civilization is known as Budo (Emblem City). Indeed, the Magoist Calendar is referred to as the Budo Calendar in the Budoji. Budo was founded to succeed Sinsi and reignited Sinsi’s innovations including the numerological and musicological thealogy of the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji expounds on the Magoist Calendar as follows: The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a cyclic period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds up to 365 days. At the half point after 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. At the half point after the tenth Sa, there is a Gu of the big Hoe (Eve of the first day of the month). Gu is the root of time. Three hundred Gu makes one Myo. With Myo, we can sense Gu. A lapse of 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si makes one day. This is of Chesu (Physical Number), 3, 6, 9. By and by, the encircling time charts Medium Calendar and Large Calendar to evince the principle of numerology.[12] KEY TERMS Calendric Cycles Jongsi (終是 Ending and Beginning): Cyclic periods Soryeok (小曆 Little Calendar): One year Jungryeok (中曆 Medium Calendar): Two years Daeryeok (大曆 Large Calendar): Four years Names of Year, Month, Day, Week Sa (祀 Rituals, year): One year refers to the time that takes to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month): One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day): One day refers to the sun’s movement due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week): Each weekday is dedicated to seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the Celestial Bodies, completion of a week): One week refers to the veneration of the seven celestial bodies. Names of Monthly Transition Days Hoe (晦 Eve of the first day of the month, 28th) Sak (朔 First day of the month, 1st, the dark moon) Names of Intercalation Days Dan (旦 Morning): Leap day for New Year Pan (昄 Big): Leap day for every fourth year Names of Time Units Gu (晷 sun’s shadow): Time measure, 1/300 Myo Myo (眇 minuscule): Time measure, a total of 300 Gu Myo-Gak-Bun-Si (眇刻分時 minuscule, possibly 15-minutes, minute, hour): Time measure, 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si is equal to a day Names of Three Types of Numbers in Nine Numerology Seongsu (性數Natural Number): 1, 4, 7 in the digital root Beopsu (法數 Lawful Number): 2, 5, 8 in the digital root Chesu (體數 Physical Number): 3, 6, 9 in the digital root THREE SUB-CALENDARS The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). The universe is infinite without beginning and ending. Everything runs the course of self-equilibration in relation to everything else. The Way of Heaven or the Way of the Creatrix circles and makes possible the infinite time/space to be measured and calculated. As the Way of Heaven circles, we are able to perceive Our Universe in finite measures of time/space. Time becomes measurable, as space is stabilized. Seasons and days-nights are demarcated in cyclic patterns, as the Earth makes the three cyclic movements of rotation, revolution, and precession. Calendar, born out of the inter-cosmic time, synchronizes human culture with the song/dance of the universe. The term Jongsi, which means an ending and a beginning, is equivalent to “a cyclic period” that is marked by the beginning and the end. Time (a day, a month, and a year) circles, as space (the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun) spirals. The Magoist Calendar has three sub-calendars: The period of one yearly cycle is called Little Calendar, whereas the period of two yearly cycles is called Medium Calendar and the period of four yearly cycles, Large Calendar. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang) Notes [12] Budoji, Chapter 23. See Bak Jesang, the Budoji, Bak Geum scrib., Eunsu Kim, trans. (Seoul: Gana Chulpansa, 1986).
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …

(Goma Article Excerpt 2) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] Magoist Calendar is the inter-cosmic genealogical chart of the Creatrix in which all is found kindred. It unfolds the one standard unified time, which I call the Cosmic Mother’s Time or the Mago Time, wherein all beings in Our Universe from microcosmic quarts to macrocosmic celestial bodies are perceived in continuum. The Cosmic Mother’s Time is an inclusive time in which everyone is re-membered and celebrated. It is revelatory for its numinous nature, which some may call a mystery. The Mago Time is happening
(Essay 2) Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first published in Trivia, Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007. Also to be included in the forthcoming anthology She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?] An Introduction to Magoism Mago is the Great Goddess of East Asia. Nonetheless, she remains barely known to the world. Her equals, Xiwangmu (the Supreme Goddess of Daoism) and Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess of the Japanese imperial family), are said to comprise the pantheon of East Asian cosmic goddesses. Considering that these goddesses are often aligned with the ancient culture of China or Japan, one notices that the pantheon of East Asian Great Goddesses thus omits both Mago and “Korean culture.”

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