March 12, 2025March 12, 2025 ANewvineLeave a comment

Spirit Salve for Stormy Times – Eris by Alison Newvine

Eris, Merciful One Eris has awakenedShe’ll not go back to sleepthe charcoal chaos of this precipicehas roused HerNo longer just sleep waking amongst the giantsShe is Fully Awakeand Her consciousness Read More …

March 6, 2025January 10, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art Essay 2) We Need to Talk: Patriarchal Language V Our Mother’s Tongue by Claire Dorey

The threat of rape is part of patriarchal language. Renaissance revival art immortalizing and normalizing Greco-Roman rape culture wraps rape in a cloak of silence: Images of rape are there Read More …

February 28, 2025February 21, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) The Crone of Gethsemane by Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

She is made from countless years of defying patriarchy, Strengthened by grief, Made wiser by betrayal. Injustice, bullying, rape, plunder, gaslighting, lying, manipulation of truth. These are tools of colonialists, Read More …

February 27, 2025January 2, 2026 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(S/HE V3 N2 Book Review) Philip C. Almond’s Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History by Mary Ann Beavis

[Editor’s Note: This was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 2, 2024).] The cover description of this book describes it as “the first major Read More …

February 25, 2025February 25, 2025 ANewvineLeave a comment

Divesting from Our Oppressors – Economic Boycotts as Feminist Resistance by Alison Newvine

This past month in the United States has been a chaotic, ungrounding, tsunami of assaults on human rights, privacy, common sense, truth and dignity. What the FUCK do we do?!?!? Read More …

February 20, 2025February 21, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 4) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Death is an Old Woman Jude Lally Read More …

February 19, 2025February 19, 2025 Mago Work1 Comment

We’ve Seen This Playbook Before by Janet Rudolph

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has been doing mass round-ups of anyone who looks like “the other.” The people cheered. “This is my country,” they shouted to the deportees. “Go Read More …

February 17, 2025February 11, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 3) Mago Halmi (Great Mother) Shapes Topographies with Her Skirt: An Introductory Discussion by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 1, 2024). Footnotes numbers here differ from those of the original Read More …

February 13, 2025January 15, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(S/HE V3N2 Book Review) Joanna Kujawa’s The Other Goddess: Mary Magdalene and the Goddesses of Eros and Secret Knowledge by Susanna de Chenonceau

[Editor’s Note: This poem was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 2, 2024).] Dr. Joanna Kujawa is a scholar, spiritual travel author, and self-described Read More …

February 12, 2025February 12, 2025 ANewvineLeave a comment

(Music) Mountain Mother

Since the beginning she has been here, etched in stone across every inch of the archeological record, her portal of life appearing a thousand times over in thousands of caves. Read More …

February 6, 2025February 7, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 3) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Grief for the Mothers Who Lost the Read More …

February 5, 2025February 5, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) To My Cousin by Helen Benigni, Ph.D.

[Editor’s Note: This poem was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 2, 2024).] When you cross over, your sister will be there waiting for Read More …

February 3, 2025October 30, 2024 RTMeditorsKGLeave a comment

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

Lammas/Late Summer: the traditional dates are Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd. The actual astronomical date varies, and it is the meridian point or cross-quarter day Read More …

(Essay) Integrating the Co-essential Darkness by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

We live in times wherein beings the world over are witnessing global transformation. Such a scale of planetary change has happened before, but humans are integral to this one – not only as witnesses and participants, but also as primary agent/cause. These times have apparently been expressed and foretold by different religious traditions: in the Celtic tradition, as the Age of Cailleach – the Old Woman whose song heralds changing tides; in Hindu tradition, as the Age of Kali – the awesome Goddess whose capacities embrace the process of destroying for the purposes of Creativity … it is her passion for Being, for birthing the New. She, like many of Her Dark Sisters around the globe, embodies the truth (an ultimate Truth) that this life is built on the passing or transformation of all that went before: that we are here by the grace of the Space, and the knowledge of the eons that is passed on.
(Video) Autumn Equinox Goddess Slideshow by Glenys Livingstone

On March 20th at 16:15 “Universal Time” (as it is named) EarthGaia our Planet crosses the midpoint of Her orbit between the last Solstices – Summer (in the South) and Winter (in the North). It is a moment of balance of dark and light for the whole Planet. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Season of Autumn Equinox with the balance about to tip into increasing dark after the dominance of light for six months. This balance moment in the dark part of the annual cycle is associated poetically with receiving of the harvest and with the descent to wisdom and to the power of the dark: the grief and power of loss. It is a journey that all beings take, mirrored in sacred stories of descent; and it may be an initiation into the vision and knowledge of the eternal cycle of being and dying … it was celebrated in this way in the ancient rites of the Mother-Daughter (Demeter-Persephone) Mysteries in Greece for thousands of years.
(Prose) The Mago Work and Magoist Cetaceanism in the time of the Covid19 by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Oceanic Pumping by Whales. Wikimedia Commons. If we can make the pandemic a time of opportunity to nail patriarchy in the head once and for all, we may be able to say that the Covid19 is worthy of it in the end. The Covid19 can’t stop what we are meant to do! And we are ever freshly charged to undertake the task of helping Life right HERE/NOW! That is the driving force under the Mago Work’s ongoing and new ventures. Lately, we have launched a new project, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, an academic peer reviewed journal on Goddess-related topics. All beings including non-human species, if we can survive, endure this time of the pandemic ordeal. And we are unsure what is coming at the end of this tunnel. Nonetheless, I am thankful for what we still have and can do. We are flexible, open-minded, and creative. We grin in tears longing for love and connection. And we have the spirit of making an ever new start. That is our power, we live fully. In fact, the Mago Work founded in 2012 was designed in order to survive and thrive during the time of crises on all levels. On one level, schools and educational institutes now go by online, which puts Mago Academy one of them, a pioneering survivor! That said, is it possible to confront patriarchy at the dead-end? How do we do that? I suggest that we restore Magoist Cetaceanism today among us. Magoist Cetaceanism is about the bond between Magoists (followers of the Great Mother) and the natural world administered by whales. Why whales? Why not just women or mothers? To expose the bare face of patriarchy, we need to unveil the hidden/suppressed dimension of the cetacean divine, Whale Ruler the Great (Daewang Gorae), emulated by Magoist “Rulers” (Mother Queens and their descendant kings). How relevant are whales in our assessment of the Mother World? While whales manifest most unexpectedly in cultural and thematic expressions across time and space, it is rarely known that dragons are the cetacean symbolism. Traditional Korea is imbued with the cetacean totemism, a topic that requires a book to write about. I have noticed that dragons (the personification of the cetacean divine) are associated with ancient Goddesses including the Inanna group of Goddesses, far more vividly than we would expect.As I am preparing for the upcoming Magoist Studies Salon on whales (for the rest four months of 2020), these thoughts are on my mind. Patriarchy must have hated the natural world represented by whales more than women/mothers. One may question if hate has a degree. It does! The natural world has been deprived of its existential status wholesale in patriarchy. Animals, birds, trees and plants are allowed no right of existence on their own. The following is the topic statement on Magoist Cetaceanism for the Salon: The bond between Magoists and whales is made invisible in patriarchy. Both the female principle and the cetacean totemism remain esoteric at best. In Magoism, whales are venerated as the paragon of Magoist Queen Mothers who administer the human world on behalf of Mago, the Great Mother. Magoist Cetaceanism, restored, tells us that Magoism, the Way of the Great Mother, has been subjected to the process of matricide, mystification, and oblivion in the course of history due not only to its uncompromising female principle but also to its espousal with the cetacean totemism. Truth is that the cetacean totemism held by ancient Magoists is antithetical to patriarchal premises. Put differently, Magoist Cetaceanism cannot be admitted in patriarchy. For the seamless unity of humans and the natural world represented by whales undermines the very proposition of patriarchy. Pre-patriarchal sons may have come to set themselves against whales (dragons) out of jealousy, as the latter were worshipped as the terrestrial divine by their Shaman Queen mothers. Our message is that we humans are here to know the nurturing power of whales and collaborate with them. In fact, I hold that whales comprise one of the three divine realms, the terrestrial divine (Nine Dragons) together with the heavenly divine (Nine Magos) and the human divine (Nine Gomas). In the three-fold reality of WE/HERE/NOW, better known as the thought of Heaven-Earth-Human, cetaceans come as the second agent who represents the earthly realm. We will discuss whales as the terrestrial divine in light of the Magoist Cosmogony and Magoist Shaman Queens. The very establishment of Magoism, the teaching of the Great Mother, Mago, may have been possible due to a consummate degree of progress or revelation on maternal cetology (study of whales by Magoist Mothers) circa 3898 BCE by Goma, the Magoist Shaman Queen founder of the nine-state Danguk confederacy. Put differently, the discourse of the mother divine (Nine Magos) has to do with the cetacean worship. At this point of a pre-patriarchal time, human mothers came to perceive the universe in the language of Sonic Numerology. The conscious promotion of Goddesses (the Great Mother and HER human daughters known as Heavenly Queen or Heavenly Mother) rose (that was still in pre-patriarchal times) and because of that, we today get to know them. This is all thanks to whales! In a pre-patriarchal world, the concern of Magoists was to overcome the problem of eating living beings for food. This is not a small issue. In fact, the Budoji calls it the first catastrophe (Christians call it the first disobedience, according to John Milton in Paradise Lost). Pre-patriarchal mothers faced to overcome the problem of food, which resulted in the change of human biology/psychology/consciousness once and for all. Magoists in the cradle of Mago Stronghold drank “the terrestrial milk” springing from the ground, the mineral water. And later, they ventured out to take arrow roots, pine needles, pine nuts, and the like for food. Later, they were likely to eat a dead whale, washed ashore. I am reaching the thought that humans can take organic materials that are freely given by the natural world/lifeforms not by killing them. Nobody wants to share? …
(Art) Caoránach, Irish Mother Goddess by Andrea Redmond

Irish Goddess Caoránach by Andrea Redmond. Acrylic on paper. Caoránach is a dragon serpent, an Oillipheist, from Lough Derg, Donegal, Ireland. The Druids called her Caorthannach, Caoránach, or Corra. She is said to have been brought here by the Tuatha Dé Dannan, others that she may have been the Great Serpent Goddess of Ireland and Scotland. There are stories of these creatures in Ireland, referred to as dragons, included sea serpents and a dragon-like giant worm. These creatures were believed to inhabit many marshes, lakes and rivers. Both the serpent and the dragon were ancient symbols of life, fertility, rebirth, healing, immortality and the Goddess. The Druids believed that these primordial beings had ancient knowledge and wisdom of the earth. Dragons and great serpents are common across the world, and their connection often, to the Great Goddess is quite clear. They represent personifications of the Older Pagan belief systems and specific connections with bodies of water and the Other/Under world. In European mythology the Mother Goddess Danu appeared as the dragon Vrta blocking rivers. While the presence of serpentine motifs can be found in much pre-Christian art in Ireland, they truly became part of popular Irish culture with the coming of Christianity, and the heroic efforts of male saints or heroes in their defeat. Caoránach was the mother of all of the great dragon worms of Ireland; Patrick refers to her as the Mother of demons, therefore, a matrilineal Goddess. She is even referred to in some tales as the Cailleach. A number of stories relate to her demise at the hands of Patrick and earlier heroes. Mary Condren in her excellent book The Serpent and the Goddess, documents the suppression of these early Irish matricentrific goddesses, including those of the serpent/dragon ilk,by the Christian male patriarchial religion. But patriarchial endeavours to undermine the Goddess is evident even in pre-Christian times. According to early legends, Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of Fianna are asked to slay a hag or witch- and from her body come a worm that metamorphoses into Caoránach who begins to eat the cattle in the land. Lough Derg, and the several islands in this lake, gets its name from the blood of Caoránach, which dyed the lake and rocks red after her defeat(s). Patrick is also said, in one account, to have banished her to a cave in Lough Derg, where she lives today. The irony, not lost on many followers of the Goddess, is that the site of her demise (?) is located at a place of pilgrimage, St. Patrick’s Purgatory. It has been a pilgrimage site for Christians since the 5th Century. However, a prehistoric mound visible today, where a basilica and retreat sanctuary are located, indicate that it was, also, an important pre-Christian site for devotion to the Goddess Caoránach .   https://www.magoism.net/2023/09/meet-mago-contributor-andrea-redmond/
(Poem) The Remembering by Arlene Bailey

I remember you sister Whale Remember when I had a tail and fins Sister Dolphin Remember when we would swim for hours plunging the depths and traversing the breath of the primordial waters Then I changed Shedding fins and tail for Feet and legs, lungs instead of gills and I could no longer join you in the Waters of the Mother They said I had evolved That I could now climb trees and mountains, walk upright and become the dominant species over everything else Oh Sister, how I miss our times in those emerald green and azure blue waters, those places of birthing and She who held those in the leaving Oh how I wish I could once again swim the depths splashing and cavorting with you and the others, protecting each other Alas, I cannot. But I tell you, I am NOT part of their dominant species I DO NOT think I am the pinnacle of creation Rather, I think this human body massively inferior to you my beloved cetaceans Jump and cavort sweet dolphin family Spy-hop and BreachSister Whale, then dive deep and allow me one more view of your incredible fluke Perhaps one day humans will return to the Mother Waters and we shall all dance in the mist in blissful, sweet harmony Until then… I walk on the dry seas with legs with feet and arms with hands, but now with the eyes of Savage Woman as I reclaim my wildness and free spirit known so well to the children of the waters Now I tell stories and speak with the voice of Savage Woman raised in protection of your life and the primordial waters that birthed us all Raising my voice, I sing with you those soul-full melodies of the deep as I feel the water on my skin and… Remember… Remember… Remember. _________________________________ The Remembering, Arlene Bailey ©2021 Orca and Dolphin Photos by Bob Talbot Humpback Photos by Mike Rae Authors Note: I wrote this poem for a prompt in a class I participated in a few months ago. It’s based on my lifetime of love for Cetaceans that began as a child growing up on the Louisiana Gulf of Mexico coast watching Porpoises and Dolphins… a love that grew even deeper when I lived in the Pacific Northwest and spent hours kayaking with orcas in Robson Bight, BC and off of Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington state along with watching Humpbacks in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. All images except Dolphins taken in Robson Bight Ecological Preserve in Johnstone Straight, BC. (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(Meet Mago Contributor) Noris Binet

A native of the Dominican Republic, Ms. Binet is an artist, author and spiritual teacher. Her background is as a sociologist and she holds an honorary doctorate in counseling and philosophy from the IIHS in Montreal, Canada. She offers retreats, workshops and Satsangs, wherein she facilitates meditation and self-inquiry through her dharma poetry and the sound of the zither. She founded Women on the Inner Journey Foundation dedicated to providing a safe space for reclaiming the sacred feminine through art, movement and silence. Based upon her work of healing racial wounds in Nashville, TN, she published Women on the Inner Journey. A member of the Sonoma Writers Alliance (http://sonomawriters.blogspot.com), she lives in Sonoma, CA and Ajijic, Mexico. Selected artwork can be seen at www.norisbinet.org.
(Essay 6) blackbird and a pear tree by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum

A family story told in art, names, places, denied cultures, black and sensual madonnas, diversity of beliefs, visionary and healing Santa Lucia of Sicily After a week on the top coast of Sicily, Adam and Josie had to go back to school; their mother Sabrina had to go back to her job caring for an East Bay town as city manager, their father Peter had to go back to his job, caring for the earth as an environmental lawyer. Their kids, my great grandkids, had to go back to school. One of their genetic branches is Celt. Josie, who looks like a little French school girl, kept a journal while on the trip. Adam, whose middle name is Murphy, said very seriously, “Sicily is very historic!” Marc and Nancy went off to France where they honeymooned in Paris in the 1970s . . . this time as parents of Matt , Nicolas and Nicki, and grandparents of new baby, Charlotte Kimura Birnbaum Bald.
(Budoji Essay 1) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Great Goddess Myth is the first and last revelation to humankind. Where the Primordial Mother is, there is Home!” Part 1 Introduction When I first read the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principal text of Magoism, my life journey took an unexpected turn. The power of the Magoist cosmogony began to work on me, and suddenly I was returning Home with/to/in Mago, the Great Goddess! Before, “Home” had seemed an unreal destination, a mirage that lured voyagers to its abyss of nowhere. I had been stripped of “Home.” The Magoist cosmogony gifted me with a vision of what I had been seeking as a feminist voyager. I meant to return Home. In Mago, I felt no longer free-floating, but this was not without its price. My radical feminist searches brought me no material benefits; rather, to become Myself was the reward. Layer after layer of patriarchal deception had to be peeled off. And for women who, like me, came from the non-Western, formerly colonized world, reversing the reversals required a deeper analysis of racism, ethnocentrism, and colonialism. I underwent the process of becoming Me, a process which also led me to WE. Personally, Homecoming means an integration of myself within the mytho-historical-cultural context of Magoism. However, Homecoming in the Great Goddess can never be an isolated individual act. Magoism unfolds the Primordial Home wherein all beings are kindred. The Primordial Home is for everyone. Everyone is destined to return Home in the Great Goddess because She is Here for us all. She will be Here for as long as humanity survives. Homecoming is a harbinger; it signals the arrival of WE, a very old concept that was misconstrued if not tabooed in patriarchy. The nature of my life has changed. “I” is no longer in the way of “WE.” “I” and “WE” do not stand against each other. Furthermore, “I” is transformed by “WE,” just as are all things in the universe. Scalar turns to vector. Chaos yields to order. The labyrinth leads to the Source. My feminism is rewarded with gynocentrism, the Goddess Matrix in which the female principle by far surpasses patriarchy. As many admit, Myth, the story of the divine, is etiological, meaning it explains the origin of things. I hold that only the gynocentric cosmogonic myth can be fully etiological, shedding light on the primal beginning. Myth is inherently gynocentric, for it is derived from the perception of the Primordial Mother, the oldest divine in human history. Put differently, Myth tells us that the Divine is She, that Female is the original divine. Myth is ultimately inseparable from the Great Goddess. The Primordial Mother is the macrocosmic translation of a mother. She is the Metaphor for life-giver and life-raiser. Divinity issues from Her. In Her, everything, including the God, is endowed with divinity. The etiological and metaphoric nature of Myth is fully illumined only in the story of the female beginning. The Goddess Myth told to/by us testifies to what patriarchy can’t or doesn’t tell. It is a language distinguished from that of patriarchy, dominating if not violent. The nature of Its language is persuasive and pacific. The truth It tells awakens one to Home. It is intrinsically soteriological, and herein lies the urgency of Myth: It shows the Way that humanity needs to know and follow in order to survive and flourish. The Great Goddess Myth is the first and last revelation to humankind. Where the Primordial Mother is, there is Home! Mago is not necessarily the “creator” of things. In the Magoist cosmogony, there is no one who created or creates anything alone. (I have used the term “cosmogony” in place of “creation” to avoid the conflation of Magoist thought with the origin-stories of patriarchal religions.) Instead, all things are interdependent and the power of auto-genesis is embedded within the universe itself. In explaining that, the Magoist cosmogony does not employ a magical or a logical jump. In the time of beginning, cosmic rays dance in accordance with the law of nature. Mago and primordial matter are self-born through the movement of cosmic music. Mago is, above all, the Cause of human existence. All things on Earth are indebted to Mago for She initiated the process auto-genesis of the Earth itself. In short, She is the Source of Life on Earth. Without Her, nothing is possible for us.
(Book Excerpt) Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Just arrived INTRODUCTION This reader includes my articles published in my book, anthologies, and journals from 2015 to present. The majority of chapters were written within the last five years. My research concerning Mago, the Great Mother, began in 2000 for my doctoral dissertation. For the first fourteen years, it was extremely difficult for me to produce articles or a book treating Magoism directly due mainly to the overwhelmingly immense, complex, and slippery nature of the topic. In the course of time, my research focus evolved from Magoism to Magoist Cetaceanism. I learned that Magoist women and mothers were not alone in shaping the destiny of pre- and proto-patriarchal worlds. Contrarily, they were guided by the natural world headed by cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). They discovered cetaceans divine. Whales, surpassing the human standard (in planetary origin, lifespan, biological magnitude, aquatic residence, meteorological influence, sonic communications, and communal social behaviors, to name a few), had been the guardian of the Planet, Earth. Their planetary presence was the model for the divine. In alliance with whales, Shaman Queens of the ancient world cultivated the consciousness of the matriverse (maternally perceived universe). What was feared by patriarchs was not just women but cetaceans whom women revered and bonded with. My encounter with Magoist Cetaceanism enabled me to transform my feminist consciousness into the matriversal consciousness. Feminism is an antidote against patriarchy. Where patriarchy is dispelled, feminism undergoes transformation. Our historical consciousness is not linear. Our view of the past shapes the future. My study of pre-patriarchal confederacies of Old Korea/East Asia shows that patriarchy is a short-living unreality. Patriarchy has proved repeatedly that it is incapable of leading the world in harmony with the universe. That is because it is built on the partial, distorted view that the male is supreme above ALL else. Where the male self is deemed outside the web of interdependence, his rule is there only to be subverted by the rebel force from within. In the matricentric world, women and mothers share agency with ALL else. In the case of Magoist Korea, they revere cetaceans as the terrestrial divine. My research on Magoist Cetaceanism shows the way for humans to restore peace and harmony within the matriverse. I have not shaped Magoism. I have shaped how to write about Magoism. Thus, Magoism is not my invention, although the term “Magoism” is coined by me. And I have been led by my research topic, Mago and Magoism. Mago refers to the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix, and Magoism the Way of the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix. The maternal vision is neither microscopic nor anthropocentric. It is the door to the sublime and bedazzling reality. Magoism unfolds the reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Creation is ever-happening and omnipresent, taking place HERE and NOW in WE. Magoism concerns matriversal soteriology. It releases matriversal consciousness, which saves ALL. Reality is seen as tripartite. The principle of triad (3×3) is an epitome of Sonic Numerology or the Cosmic Music, the cosmogenic force of the matriverse. Referring to a ceaseless interplay of musically charged nine numbers, Sonic Numerology organizes the matriverse. Mago in tune with the Cosmic Music supervises the cycle of birthing, growing, and transforming for ALL. Charting the matriversal kinship of ALL, S/HE enables calendar-clock-atlas to be measured. In short, the triad symbol signifies the organizing force of the matriverse, Sonic Numerology. The three or the nine is the code of the matriversal consciousness in which one perceives the Magoma Divine (the merged divine of Mago the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix and Goma the Shaman Queen Teacher who taught us the former), the supreme divine. From the perspective of ancient Magoists, ALL are the embodiments of Sonic Numerology. The matriversal consciousness cultivated by them is imbued in the sky (heaven), lands, waters, and their surroundings as the ninefold. Thus comes nona nomenclature: Nine heavens, nine dragons, nine deities, nine maidens, nine peoples, nine states, nine waterfalls, nine mountains, nine villages, and nine lands, and so forth. These nona names are epiphanic to the Creatrix, Mago in tune with the Cosmic Music! The Utopian vision has never left the human mind insofar as these nona names are remembered. Human history has run degeneratively. Humankind has sharply drifted away from the path to the Creatrix in the course of the last two millennia. Magoism, the Teaching of the Creatrix, owes to Goma for its foundation. It provides humanity with soteriological kits under patriarchal rules. Magoist nona symbolism or triadism is there to remind people throughout generations of the all-embracing reality of WE/HERE/NOW. This summary is the core teaching of Goma who stands as the greatest deity born of a woman (see “Myogyeon” in this reader). That triadism subverts dualism, which is coopted to enforce the principle of hierarchy in patriarchal unrealities, is only an anachronistic understatement. Triadism averts hierarchical dualism. Concerning the Title “Toward Magoist Cetaceanism” I have entitled this reader “Toward Magoist Cetaceanism.” What about whales/cetaceans? The topic of Magoist Cetaceanism, the veneration of cetaceans as one of the Triad Divine together with Mago (the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix) and Goma (Shaman Queen Mother), did not dawn on me for many years of my research in the beginning. It was meant to arrive in its own time. I was not ready to see it until I became fully conscious of Sonic Numerology, a central theme of the Magoist Cosmogony. My construction of the Mago Almanac, a modern version of the Magoist Calendar, the 13 month 28 day calendar, which marked December 18, 2017 as an onset of the new time counting, was my proclamation of Sonic Numerology as the organizing principle of the matriversal reality (see “Introducing the Magoist Calendar” in this reader). What do Sonic Numerology and the Magoist Cosmogony have to do with Magoist Cetaceanism? (1) In light of the Magoist Cosmogony, the “singing” of whales in bodies of water is seen as cosmogenic. Supervising the task of planetary water, cetaceans raise all earthlings. Cetaceans are the exemplary governor of the planet, Earth, for humans. The true terrestrial ruler governs the world by way of generating the resonance to the …

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

Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), in recognition of the ill-treatment and misunderstanding of Aboriginal people that was set in train when, in 1788, white people first settled in the land now known as Australia.
(Special Post 2) 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 has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is another image of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra slain by Herakles. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(mythology)… Glenys Livingstone: Yes, the Hercules story is more documentation of the Old Battle, of the rise of the “hero” to slay the Mother, when in the earliest of times he served with his beauty and labours. It is so interesting to see the analogies in other cultures/places as you are doing Helen, especially in Asia – it seems important work. Your perseverance is paying off, and will. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Glenys, I am re-reading a book on Chinese mythology and found a lot more on the nine Magoist symbolism. Someday, I hope to write about the topic in its own right. Glenys Livingstone: This chapter’s work is good re the Old Battle in Greek mythology: Valaoritis, Nanos. “The Cosmic Conflict of Male and Female in Greek Mythology”, in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Joan Marler (ed). Manchester CT: Knowledge, Ideas and Trends Inc., 1997, p.247 – 261. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Now back to the female divine who is depicted with the nine heads. See the nine-headed Guanyin/Kannon/Gwaneum. Also note that her icon comes in eleven-headed (the 8 Daughters and the Triad Creatrix, which makes eleven). http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: The symbol of nine dragons was adopted by imperial China. See the Nine Dragon Wall China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We connect the dots. When Guanyin is depicted with nine dragons, it conveys that the nine symbolism was/is once deemed sacred. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/17/b3/4a17b33d9a4ae53bad6466a0eaf11722.jpg How popular the Guanyin icon, three headed and eight armed, to this day! Simply Google “eight armed Guanyin.” Below is from the Late Ming Dynasty, China. https://www.google.com/search?q=eight%20armed%20guanyin… She comes in a different name, Ushnishavijaya, in Tibetan Buddhism. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65445 Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We can draw that the female deity such as Guanyin and Ushnishavijaya, just to name two, is venerated in association with the nine symbolism. Within the mytho-history of Magoism, I infer that Guanyin or Ma Guanyin is a persona embodying Goma, the Magoist Shaman ruler of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE), the head of Nine Hans (Magoist Koreans). Note that Magoist shamans or priestesses are called “Mago.” See my essay, “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology,” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 2018. The insight that the major Goddesses in East Asia and beyond point to the same and old divine persona is NOT farfetched, considering that the nine-headed snake or dragon representing the female sovereignty of pre-patriarchal times is slain by male heroes across cultures. Judy E Foster: I’d have to agree with you here. As usual, interesting information! Patty Kay: My meditation this morning was on a history of mysticism. While I’m in the midst of appropriating all of the wonderful beliefs I find here, I also have found a strand in my own tradition that helps me understand why all the Divine Feminine stuff makes so much sense to me. I’ve been trying to determine when the patriarchal world view took over. According to this history, mysticism began to emerge in about 800 to 500 BCE. Could it be that mysticism kept alive the ancient understanding of the cosmos? This is just speculation, but in it I’m answering my own questions. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.
(Review) Journey into Dreamtime by Munya Andrews, reviewed by Glenys Livingstone

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

(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …
(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 …
(Book Excerpt) Imbolc/Early Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Imbolc/Early Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – February 1st/2nd though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, thus actually a little later in early August for S.H., and early February for N.H., respectively. Some Imbolc Motifs In this cosmology Imbolc/Early Spring is the quintessential celebration of She Who is the Urge to Be. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the differentiation quality of Cosmogenesis,[i] and with the Virgin/Young One aspect of the Triple Goddess, who is ever-new, unique, and singular in Her beauty – as each being is. This Seasonal Moment celebrates an identification with the Virgin/Young One – the rest of the light part of the cycle celebrates Her processes. At this Moment She is the Promise of Life, a spiritual warrior, determined to Be. Her purity is Her singularity of purpose. Her inviolability is Her determination to be … nothing to do with unbroken hymens of the dualistic and patriarchal mind. The Virgin quality is the essential “yes” to Being – not the “no” She was turned into. In the poietic process of the Seasonal Moments of Samhain/Deep Autumn, Winter Solstice and Imbolc/Early Spring, one may get a sense of these three in a movement towards manifest form – syntropy: from the autopoietic fertile sentient space of Samhain, through the gateway and communion of Winter Solstice to differentiated being, constant novelty, infinite particularity of Imbolc/Early Spring. The three are a kaleidoscope, seamlessly connected. The ceremonial breath meditations for all three of these Seasonal Moments focus attention on the Space between the breaths – each with slightly different emphasis: it is from this manifesting Space that form/manifestation arises. If one may observe Sun’s position on the horizon as She rises, the connection of the three can be noted there also: that is, Sun at Samhain/Deep Autumn and Imbolc/Early Spring rises at the same position, halfway between Winter Solstice and Equinox, but the movement is just different in direction.[ii] And these three Seasonal Moments are not clearly distinguishable – they are “fuzzy,”[iii] not simply linear and all three are in each other … this is something recognised of Old, thus the Nine Muses, or the numinosity of any multiple of three. Some Imbolc/early Spring Story This is the Season of the new waxing light. Earth’s tilt has begun taking us in this region back towards the Sun. Traditionally this Seasonal Point has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself – around us in flora and fauna, and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and to inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may celebrate the new young Cosmos – that time in our Cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming, as well as the new that is ever coming forth. This first Seasonal transition of the light part of the cycle has been named “Imbolc” – Imbolc is thought to mean “ewe’s milk” from the word “Oimelc,” as it is the time when lambs were/are born, and milk was in plentiful supply. It is also known as “the Feast of Brigid,” Brigid being the Great Goddess of the Celtic (and likely pre-Celtic) peoples, who in Christian times was made into a saint. The Great Goddess Brigid is classically associated with early Spring since the earliest of times, but her symbology has evolved with the changing eras – sea, grain, cow. In our times we could associate Her also with the Milky Way, our own galaxy that nurtures our life – Brigid’s jurisdiction has been extended. Some sources say that Imbolc means “in the belly of the Mother.” In either case of its meaning, this celebration is in direct relation to, and an extension of, the Winter Solstice – when the Birth of all is celebrated. Imbolc may be a dwelling upon the “originating power,” and that it is in us: a celebration of each being’s particular participation in this power that permeates the Universe, and is present in the condition of every moment.[iv] This Seasonal Moment focuses on the Urge to Be, the One/Energy deeply resolute about Being. She is wilful in that way – and Self-centred. In the ancient Celtic tradition Great Goddess Brigid has been identified with the role of tending the Flame of Being, and with the Flame itself. Brigid has been described as: “… Great Moon Mother, patroness (sic … why not “matron”) of poetry and of all ‘making’ and of the arts of healing.”[v] Brigid’s name means “the Great or Sublime One,” from the root brig, “power, strength, vigor, force, efficiency, substance, essence, and meaning.”[vi] She is poet, physician/healer, smith-artisan: qualities that resonate with the virgin-mother-crone but are not chronologically or biologically bound – thus are clearly ever present Creative Dynamic. Brigid’s priestesses in Kildare tended a flame, which was extinguished by Papal edict in 1100 C.E., and was re-lit in 1998 C.E.. In the Christian era, these Early Spring/Imbolc celebrations of the Virgin quality, the New Young One – became “Candlemas,” a time for purifying the “polluted” mother – forty days after Solstice birthing. Many nuns took their vows of celibacy at this time, invoking the asexual virgin bride.[vii] This is in contrast to its original meaning, and a great example of what happened to this Earth-based tradition in the period of colonization of indigenous peoples. An Imbolc/Early Spring Ceremonial Altar The flame of being within is to be protected and nurtured: the new Being requires dedication and attention. At this early stage of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: there may be uncertainties of various kinds. So there is traditionally a “dedication” in the ceremonies, which may be considered a “Brigid-ine” dedication, or known as a “Bridal” dedication, since “Bride” is a derivative of …
The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[ix] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This article is an edited excerpt from Chapter 7 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. I always wore a special headpiece for the Seasonal ceremonies when I facilitated them over the years, and I feel that any participant may do so, not just the main celebrant. My ceremonial headpiece with its changing and continuous Seasonal decoration took on increasing significance over the years; it became a personal central representation of the year-long ceremonial art process of creating, destroying and re-creating. For the research period of my doctoral studies particularly, when I was documenting the process, I realised that this headpiece came to represent for me the essence of “She” – as Changing One, yet ever as Presence – as I was coming to know Her. In my journal for the Mabon/Autumn Equinox process notes one year I wrote: As I pace the circle with the Mabon headpiece in the centre, I see “Her” as She has been through the Seasons … the black and gold of Samhain, the deep red, white and evergreen of Winter, the white and blue of Imbolc, the flowers of Eostar, the rainbow ribbons of Beltane, the roses of Summer, the seed pods and wheat of Lammas, and now the Autumn leaves. I see in my mind’s eye, and feel, Her changes. I am learning … The Mother knowledge grows within me. The headpiece, the wreath, the altar, the house decorations, all participate in the ceremony: they are part of the learning, the method, the relationship – similar to how one might bring flowers and gifts of significance to a loved one at special moments. Then further, the removal and re-creation of the decorations are part of the learning – an active witness to transformation through time.
(Video) An Autumn Equinox Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(Tribute) In Loving Memory of Lydia Ruyle (1935-2016) by Mago Circle Members

We posthumously honor Lydia Ruyle (August 5, 1935-March 26, 2016) as Patron of Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality. Mago Circle Members on June 11, 2016. Glenys Livingstone I feel blessed to have known Lydia and to have been in occasional personal communication with her for several years … initially via the Goddess Scholars list. Lydia sent me great information of some of her journeys, was always encouraging and generously supported my CD crowdfunding project in 2015. I feel honoured to have carried her Goddess banners to Australia in 2014.
(Special post) Interweaving Mago Threads by Mago Circle Members

“Mago” tradition Magoism is a new word to the modern Western vocabulary, yet it has its linguistic roots in many parts of the globe and in an ancient knowledge and know-how almost lost. Dr Helen Hwang determinedly and methodically is excavating the little-understood historical Mother-Goddess knowledge of Korea, and its traditions, the Mago, and Magoism, and in doing so is unlocking another previously invisible door, and replacing another ripped-off corner of the global map of significant, almost-lost tradition and forgotten knowledge. This is a most welcomed prospect. The newness of this discovery for those who learn of it fills them with excitement because every step to remember the ancient ways, particularly the lost Goddess ways, and those ways that hint of Source, are crucial to humanity remembering itself. Moderns have become accustomed to modes of mind that strip the soul and psyche of finer attunement to earth, sea, stars and each other. This renders most adrift on a sea of seeming limitless freedoms, to be picked up by any technological hook that would substitute for inner knowing. The map becomes the new computer wiring, insurance policy or bank regulation to follow. But once we scrape from our psyches the encrustation of mind most moderns have settled with (which calcifies the innate senses and finer antennae of knowing, emboldening technologically driven modes of mind and being to take their place), then we are on our way to a vivifying recollection. Here is an earlier presentation of the “mago” root word in “imago” or image. Not coincidentally, perhaps, it is connected to maps. (Mary Ann Ghaffurian, culled from Through a Darkened Door—Light, Part 2 by Mary Ann Ghaffurian PhD [http://magoism.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/through-a-darkened-door-light-part-2-by-mary-ann-ghaffurian-phd/]) A very special online, global group Dearest X, …Which brings to mind the “other” reason why I wanted to write to you … Other than just saying “hello” and letting you know that you are very much missed, I also wanted to share with you about a very special online, global group that I have had the honor of being a part of. This group is called Mago Circle and it was founded by my dear friend, “sister” and colleague, Helen Hwang. Helen’s work and commitment to restoring Mago, Ancestral Mother Goddess, to her rightful place as progenitor and creatrix of the Korean people, has not only been admirable but truly critical during a time when we are in real need for inspiration from thought leaders and scholars with a solid foundation in the arts and research of the sacred feminine. As you know, with the roots of Korean shamanism in the realm of women, it makes perfect sense that Korean spirituality must also have sprung within the womb of Woman … the great cosmic goddess, Mago. While Helen’s work is very much grounded in meticulous research — showcasing Korea to the rest of the world in all of Her depth, herstory, and vibrance — it is more importantly, founded in genuine intentions of love, transparency, and humility. I know that Helen can explain the depth, breadth, and height of her work much better than me so I think it will be better to have her directly share more of herself with you; what I simply hope to do through this letter is perhaps help serve as a familiar hand …. reaching out to you and letting you know that your presence and blessings as a well-regarded and much-admired Korean female shaman and scholar would be much appreciated in Mago Circle. Do you remember, X, … you once told me … about 20 years ago: “Sanity is insanity with a focus.” These words I still remember and hold true … they have helped me through times that were truly dismal and chaotic in my life, and with this reassuring and transformational way of looking at myself, looking at my life, looking at the world, I have made it through. My life continues to have its share of insanity, but I know that with focus, all sanity is restored. I know that my letter to you today may feel unexpected and random (especially after not having seen each other for so, so long), but as you know, somehow, life brings us through twists and turns that may seem awkward and strange at first, but upon retrospect, all makes complete sense. In closing, may I have the honor and pleasure of introducing Helen Hwang and the Mago Circle to you … I realize that you must be very busy, but it is my sincere hope that you will find a little time to acquaint yourself with Helen and this wonderful group of women (and men) who are very much dedicated to restoring the balance and peace of Korea and the world via Mago and her goddess sisters of many names… (Wennifer Lin, culled from her letter to her old friend) I share your call for staying connected with each other at a time of cultural and religious tensions. I too believe that all tensions arise from a patriarchal system of hegemony or domination. In the absence of patriarchal hegemony, there would be little or no tension among human beings. The belief in the Mother Goddess would remove the necessity for aggression and hence domination of other human beings or animals. In the eyes of the Mother, every living being is her creature. Hence love, kindness, nurturing and all that is beautiful would prevail everywhere. Am I sounding too idealistic or am I pining for a utopian society that is just not possible? But in theory, it is possible to return to the spirit of Mother, manifest in everything in nature and in our thoughts and actions. With admiration and preservation of Mother we can change the world for a better place. So with this in mind, I submit to all women (who are the living image of the Great Mother Goddess) and goddess lovers in the world to unite in our efforts to bring back the ideals of the Great Goddess. As an academic, I …
(2014 Mago Pilgrimage Report 1) Sweat Lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Islands by Helen Hwang

[Author’s Note: Revised verison of this report is published in Celebrating the Seasons of the Goddess (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books, 2017). 2014 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea (Oct. 7-Oct. 20) was participated by a culturally mixed group of pilgrims from the U.S. Australia, and Korea. Among non-Koreans were Dr. Glenys Livingstone (co-facilitator), Mr. Robert (Taffy) Seaborne, and Ms. Rosemary Mattingly. For details, read 2014 Mago Pilgrimage. View the video on our visit to Ganghwa Islands by Robert (Taffy) Seaborne.] 2014 Mago Pilgrimage granted me ever unfolding revelations. The first of them that I would like to mention concerned the sweat lodge called Hanjeung-mak (汗蒸幕, Chamber of chill and steam).[1] Until we visited the traditional sweat lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Island, it did not occur to me that the origin of its modern variations[2] has to do with the rebirthing experience in the Womb of Mago. (Here Mago means the Great Goddess or the Primordial Mother.)

Category: Goddess feminist activism

Spirit Salve for Stormy Times – Eris by Alison Newvine

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(Art Essay 2) We Need to Talk: Patriarchal Language V Our Mother’s Tongue by Claire Dorey

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(Poem) The Crone of Gethsemane by Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

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(S/HE V3 N2 Book Review) Philip C. Almond’s Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History by Mary Ann Beavis

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Divesting from Our Oppressors – Economic Boycotts as Feminist Resistance by Alison Newvine

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(Book Excerpt 4) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

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We’ve Seen This Playbook Before by Janet Rudolph

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(Essay 3) Mago Halmi (Great Mother) Shapes Topographies with Her Skirt: An Introductory Discussion by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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(S/HE V3N2 Book Review) Joanna Kujawa’s The Other Goddess: Mary Magdalene and the Goddesses of Eros and Secret Knowledge by Susanna de Chenonceau

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(Music) Mountain Mother

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(Book Excerpt 3) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

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(Poem) To My Cousin by Helen Benigni, Ph.D.

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

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Mago Almanac Year 9 Monthly Wheels

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

Mago Almanac Year 8 (for 2025)

Program Booklets

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