September 6, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Poetry) Magic for Big Kids by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

We were born for this, to work with the strands of ancient knowledge woven into our DNA, gifts from a long lineage stored in the 90 percent of our brain Read More …

September 3, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

(Book excerpt) A Journey with Inanna by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

An essay from the anthology Inanna’s Ascent: Reclaiming Female Power edited by Trista Hendren, Tamara Albanna, and Pat Daly. Forty years ago (1978) I signed a letter to an editor “in Read More …

August 29, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Tribute 3) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

Meanwhile on May 3rd, 1992, Barbara dug into what little she had to send the expensive Tibetan-style card below. She spent the money just to congratulate me on acceptance to Read More …

August 28, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art 7) Inanna, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

Birth-Decline-Reanimation, Every birth carries it’s imprinted death and every death carries it’s imprinted birth Infancy – the very beginning of Remember the earliest part of your life, when you were Read More …

August 27, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt) Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, Introduction by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

INTRODUCTION Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Mago Books, 2018) Mago Books is a labour of love. Our overarching mission is “to remind everyone of the innate power Read More …

August 26, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Dr. Adrian Cooper

Dr Adrian Cooper was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in September 1999. He has worked as a Consultant to the BBC TV Natural History Unit, and Read More …

July 20, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Video Essay) Medusa-The Gaze that Kills and Heals: The Collaboration of Maya Deren and Jean Erdman by Dr. Lila Moore

In 1949 the film-maker Maya Deren and the dancer-choreographer Jean Erdman began working together on a filmed version of Erdman’s solo piece The Transformations of Medusa, first performed in 1942. Read More …

July 19, 2018October 2, 2019 Kaalii CargillLeave a comment

(Photo Essay 12) Goddess Pilgrimage 2017 by Kaalii Cargill

[Author’s Note: In July 2017, I set out on a 4 month pilgrimage to the Unites States, Italy, France, Spain, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. I name it a “pilgrimage” because Read More …

July 18, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art 6) Hearted, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

She is the one who moves you closer to your heart – reminds you that the mind has it’s own purpose but we pave through with the heart Infancy – Read More …

July 17, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Tribute 2) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

Here below is, to me, the core statement of what Barbara was hoping to help us recover in “GCM” and her poetry, the very center of Human Being which was Read More …

July 13, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Tribute 1) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

…& who is jesus what else does he do can he sing can he plant corn i saw a picture of him once on the dome of the sky Read More …

July 10, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Book Excerpt 1) Discovering the Gift Paradigm by Genevieve Vaughan

Homo Donans: For a Maternal Economy by Genevieve Vaughan How I got started The circumstances of my life brought me to begin thinking about communication as based on gift Read More …

July 9, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 5) Re-visioning Medusa Eds. by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren, et. al.

The Medusa Imaginal Pegi Eyers WHEN I PUT ON MY PAPER MEDUSA MASK,154 my serpent jewelry and snakeskin robes, I embody an ancient feminine force of resistance, seeking to shut Read More …

(Nine Sister Networks E-interview) Leslene della-Madre’s Winged Women Return by Mary Saracino

[Editor’s Note: Return to Mago E-Magazine (RTME) introduces Sister Organizations under the banner of the Nine Sister Networks as a way of consolidating Matriversal Feminism previously known as Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality. If you are interested in interviewing or being interviewed for this project, please see here.] Leslene della-madre photo from Leslene’s personal collection. Mary Saracino: I met Leslene della-Madre in 2004 when we were part of the Dark Mother Study tour of Sardegna, led by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum. I know Leslene to be a compassionate feminist who has a deep understanding of the Sacred Female. Her commitment to the Divine She and to empowering women is inspiring. She is a mother, grandmother, shamanic feminist practitioner, feminist philosopher, and teacher of a feminist shamanic path, author, independent researcher, poet, artist, singer, ritualist, death midwife and Earth lover, and the founder of Winged Women Return, based in Sebastopol, CA. Her website is: www.leslenedellamadre.com. Mary: Why and when did you launch Winged Women Return? Leslene: I was inspired to create Winged Women Return nearly 40 years ago for women to come together to find healing as well as to learn about women’s culture that has been nearly erased by patriarchal “culture.” I had attended some retreats and weekend events studying shamanism that ignited my own need for a female-based spiritual practice in women’s mysteries. I studied with various teachers of shamanism and First Nations spirituality (with permission) and was initiated as a pipe carrier in the tradition of medicine woman Evelyn Eaton, Grandmother Mahad’yuni. I pursued teachings in Buddhism with female teachers, looking for the Sacred Female presence and was initiated into a sacred female path of a Tibetan goddess protectress of women and children by a living dakini/goddess in Kathmandu. I could see a huge need for women-only space that would feel safe for women to gather, to learn from each other in collaborative ways, to do ritual together, celebrate seasonal changes and honor sacred passages in our lives. Women’s spirituality was blossoming and I was inspired to find non-patriarchal ways of healing for women. Synchronistically, my new neighbor at the time was a first editor of Marija Gimbutas’ book, Language of the Goddess, and we became good friends. I learned a lot from her and felt that the Goddess had moved in next door for a reason! It is a center based in feminist shamanism, helping women to reconnect with the magic of Nature and ancestral wisdom. Mary: What is the mission/vision of Winged Women Return? Leslene: The mission and vision are the same—to shed patriarchal conditioning and to find sisterhood in healing, learning and re-membering together. I feel it’s important to expand into as many areas as possible to reclaim women’s wisdom by finding ways to create women’s community where we share our talents and skills with each other. Putting vision into action, I’ve been committed to learning and teaching women’s history not only to women who come to gather in circle, but also in community outreach by going into elementary and high schools with slideshows about early women-centered cultures so that children can hear that before there were wars, people lived peacefully. I’ve also created community gatherings for women around seasonal cycles, like a Spiral Dance for the community and weekend retreats on goddess spirituality, and have provided end-of-life death midwifing services. Mary: What services or programs does Winged Women Return offer, and who do you serve? Your website indicates that you offer shamanic based healing: soul retrieval, extraction, depossession, mandala medicine wheel work, life passage rituals from birth to death, death midwifing. Can you say a bit more about each of these and how they are associated with feminist activist spirituality? Leslene: I offer a wide range of healing modalities that serve mostly women and girls, but I also work with couples that have included men and same sex. Included in my services I offer what I call a “shamanic psychological approach,” “inquiry,” oracle consultation, and some energy body work, instruction in the shamanic journey technique for trauma healing as well as helping people access spiritual realms that all people have the capacity to experience. Soul retrieval is a cross-cultural shamanic process that restores lost parts of someone’s soul which “left” the person during some type of traumatic experience. I have developed a specific practice of Soul Retrieval of the Female Soul because women have been traumatized by patriarchy for millennia. Women’s more recent lineages are wounded and oppressed and this practice restores wholeness to a woman’s motherline. Extraction is a shamanic method of removing harmful energies in a person’s energy field that might be causing illness and or mental confusion. Depossession is similar in that it is also a process of removing unwanted “entities” from a person’s energy field, often related to addiction and trauma. The mandala medicine wheel work, which I also call “The Four Shields Empowerment”, is a committed process in which the woman is taught the shamanic journey technique and works with a teacher and power animal in the “unseen” realms. The focus is on personal archimages (archetypes) —the word is from Mary Daly— that correspond to one of each of the four directions of the medicine wheel resulting in the experience of wholeness and sovereignty. This practice offers an alternative to therapy and engages the client in her own discovery from within. I have used it in working with trauma. Honoring life passages with ritual is a way to honor the sacredness of them. I have attended home births, including my own, and now in my later years I attend another kind of birth—the dying process. I like to say that one can learn to midwife oneself in one’s own death and see birth and death as the revolving door of life. As a death doula, I help the dying and their families. I also have created menarche rituals for girls, and crone rituals for women becoming elders. For many years I offered women’s sweat lodge work (the lodge was blessed by elders in …
(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.)
(Essay) Winter Solstice – Celebrating Birthing New Being by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice is the time in our annual orbit around Sun when the dark part of the day is longest. Traditionally it has been celebrated by our Gaian ancestors in many regions of our planet as the birth of light, the birth of form. The stories of many cultures tell of the Great Mother giving birth to the Divine Child on this night. It is this Seasonal Moment for which the ancient pre-Celtic indigenous Europeans apparently built Newgrange (Bru na Boinne is its indigenous name), completing the major structures there between 3200 and 3700 B.C.E.[1]. The inner chamber wall of this mound is carved with the Triple Spiral motif, and at the Winter Solstice it is illuminated for seventeen minutes by the rising sun. This was confirmed by modern academia only in 1969[2] with minds that at that time had little comprehension of what its significance might be. Few accounts really understand the significance of the triple spiral at this stage: a Goddess frame of mind may be helpful, as mythographers have not been prepared to allow Goddess any cosmic function and “her possible role among the people of the Celtic realms”.[3] Marija Gimbutas notes the link of the triple spiral and other triplicities to Goddess as “the triple source of life energy necessary for the renewal of life”[4], and Michael Dames associates the triple spiral there with the triple goddess, known as Eriu-Fodla-Banba in that local place.[5]
(Nine Poets Speak) Sisters by Mary Saracino

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.] Demeter and Persephone Roman Forum photo by Mary Saracino Some sisters are bound by blood familial ties, heart songs harmonized by umbilical memories. Other sisters enrich our lives as friends, lovers, classmates, coworkers in-laws, artists, scholars, truth-tellers. Each sister-bond sustains us through hard times, celebrates with us in joyful times. Sisters provide safe harbor in times of peril and sorrow. We dance, laugh, and sing reveling in our happiness We share our life stories, discovering our limitless possibilities. United we stand, steadfast and true, sisters-in-arms, heart-to-heart, shoulder-to-shoulder in circles of equals no one up, no one down, moving forward together powered by uterine strength blessed by the blood of our ancient wombs Meet Mago Contributor, Mary Saracino – Return to Mago E*Magazine
(Book Review) She Who Spins the Coils of Creation: Sacred Female Cosmology in the Electric PlasMA Universe by Leslene Della-Madre, Reviewed by Glenys Livingstone

There’s a lot that I initially love about this book: it is very clearly coming from a female perspective, which is always so refreshing and nurturant … how I love to be held in Her womb, experience and name the creativity of the Cosmos from within Her/her: that too is my chosen perspective and priority. The bibliography is impressive, including a good range of feminist Goddess people, and some female scientists. The Preface is good, the position explained well. I love the introduction of new words, which comes when the story is told from a female view, and portals may open, after millennia of her/our exclusion from naming phenomena: for example, “evolution” may become “vulvalution”, and our origins are described as an ova/vulva/lution, rather than a “big bang”. I myself have described those mysterious parthenogenic origins as an Original Ovulation, or a big O (orgasm). This is women seeing and expressing/naming our knowings and observations of the world/cosmos from within our own skins, from within our valued experience. In the Introduction there is a good analysis of the traumatic childhoods of Western icons such as Descartes and Newton, how that affected their methods and conclusions: this is so rarely taken into account in the acceptance of their work. They are assumed to be “objective”, which many are aware is actually never the case. Later in Part II, there is further good critique of the often flagrant misogynist perspective of Euro-Western icons such as Plato, Aristotle, Freud, Einstein and more: and Leslene tells it with some humour at times (well there are those of us who would find it so).There are many who remain unaware of this hatred at the base of Euro-Western philosophy and sciences, and how it has affected the very structures and perceptions of our everyday lives. But the thing is, for me: while Leslene often found mainstream science boring, as she states on p. xxii, it was never boring for me, it was indeed a passion for me, fired me up, and for the last few decades, with the help of science, I have understood that the universe is alive, sentient, and connected; without naming it as “Electric.” While Leslene wants to push aside or diminish the theory/concept of gravity, I personally love it, understanding it as I do, as a primordial alluring power of the Cosmos. I feel it as a power with which Earth holds me, and with this same power Earth is held in orbit around Sun, Moon around Earth … and I can feel it! It is a power that cosmologist Brian Thomas Swimme names as Allurement, and he speaks about it as love “in its cosmic dimension,” as “the basic binding energy found everywhere in reality”, and as “the primary allurement that all galaxies experience for all other galaxies”.[i] He says: “Allurement evokes being and life”, and “love is a word that points to this alluring activity in the cosmos. This primary dynamism awakens the communities of atoms, galaxies, stars, families, nations, persons, ecosystems, oceans, and stellar systems … Think of the power of this alluring activity – its immensity.”[ii] I do however appreciate the attention given in this book to the “Electric Universe”: we can and do have both, I am sure. Leslene supposes that only an electric universe is about “connection and reciprocity”, “synonymous with femaleness”,[iii] whereas I find gravity to be all of that. I refer to the work of philosopher Linda Holler who describes the sensual, embodied effect of gravity on thinking: how 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.”[iv] Leslene loses me a little early on in the book, in some places where there is much conjecture: for example, on p.xxxviii where she refers to Talbot and Thornhill’s ideas about the origins of the ubiquitous cross-cultural presence of snakes and dragons in numerous mythologies. I do not think there is any need to postulate about cataclysmic events visible in the solar system as the source for such images though they may well have occurred, and I do not think it is productive for an argument for a female cosmology. I much prefer a more organic explanation, which seems so obvious to me: that is, all humans across the globe dwell on this earth, and most with reptiles, birds and many animals in common. All humans across the globe dwell within very similar bodies, sharing very similar fundamental needs and desires – elemental, emotional, and social. There is no necessity to look outside the everyday experience of being/becoming in a human body on this Planet, to understand the cross-cultural sharing of ubiquitous images, metaphor, stories and rituals. Joseph Campbell speaks to this specifically in his book The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, the Prologue title being “Myth and the Body”, and the title of the first chapter being “Cosmology and the Mythic Imagination”. Much has been expressed in common across the Planet with the power of the poetic mind. I argue with the premise “that most myths are born of celestial events that have shaped culture.” This is not to deny the influence of celestial events and archaeoastronomy, and that it has often been neglected, and needs to be recognised and included as a source; but there is so much in the human embodied sensual and social experience that is organically formative. Let’s not deny the body again in the haste to admit the significance of our interactions with celestial events. Celestial events may have re-iterated realities and prejudices that were already present for more organic reasons, and been interpreted accordingly: for example, on page 13 Leslene refers to celestial events that are said to have “caused women to lose status in Mesopotamia and Egypt.” To my mind this is far too simplistic, and seems to deny the primacy of the organic and social experience and unfolding. We do not have to rely on celestial …
(Art Essay 1) We Need to Talk: Patriarchal Language V Our Mother’s Tongue by Claire Dorey

Art by Claire Dorey “Take the chain off your brain” – You Gotta Believe, Rose Royce. Throw open the windows. Let the wind shred the curtains. Let the wind tear this house off her foundations and blow her into the sky so she can soar with the birds. Spoons in the kitchen drawer, rattling a rhythm, breaking free. Kettle, on the hob, screeching an invocation, “Take me to the river in the sky Float my mind to an alternate space Release my words from the chains of patriarchal language Un-house my mind” My ongoing search for meaning within the language of cosmic and Goddess symbolism has highlighted a separation of consciousness that I think defines the “patriarchal language” we speak in today. I believe the interweaving of humanity with the divine, including the belief spirit resides in all things, was severed when organized religion built its hierarchies, creating a situation where divine connection was only for the “ones at the top,” deemed closer to god. The language of ancient symbolism represents big ideas. Many marks and patterns on Goddess figurines are more than decorative. They describe a matrix of human consciousness merging with, and inseparable from, a cosmos in motion and the heartbeat of the Earth. Both were seen as female. As Marija Gimbutas says, “There is no trace of a father figure in any of the Paleolithic periods.” Can we conclude the origins of language were once shamanic and matriarchal? Many images of the Goddess, including the Burney Relief [shown here], are polysemic. A cornucopia of familiars including stars, animals, trees, crops, rivers and even boundaries, both the animate and seemingly inanimate [hold onto these words I’m revisiting them later], merge with divine female consciousness. Goddess language is abundant, fertile, nurturing, creative and seasonal. It is not without wrath, but it is not the language of dominance. Modern Romance languages (French, Spanish etc) assign gender to nouns, which defines and polarizes, creating sex-based divisions, enforcing stereotypes with every word / thought / breath, even if we are unaware of it. To break gender stereotyping it’s hardly surprising many self-identify as “they.” Assigning gender to nouns shapes our spiritual thinking. In Spanish, he “sun,” el sol is masculine and the “moon,” la luna is feminine, which may be why polarized images of the moon Goddess and sun gods endure today. Despite there being many sun Goddesses and moon gods, spanning time and culture, our patriarchal language almost eclipses these possibilities. Romance languages have their roots in colloquial Latin, the language of those expansionist colonizers, the Romans. It is worth noting: Hierarchal religious institutions (using Vulgate Latin), and various men throughout history, had a hand in shaping these languages, including, among others: Dante; Antonio de Nebrija; Racine; the Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne and Pope Damasus.[1] English is rooted in the Germanic languages. German nouns are either feminine, masculine or neuter. As Old English transitioned to Middle English (approx 1150CE) the feminine fell out of use. Only the masculine form endured. I think we can we assume that, in recent history, the language we speak and think in, was shaped my men. As English speakers we might not talk “Roman” but we do have a vestigial mindset of “Roman” [empire builders]. The word “capitalism” stemmed from capitale, a Latin word for “head.” “Chattel” and “cattle” originated from capitale. Patriarchal language asserts purposeless capitalism and the vertical, so it is far more insidious than the grammatical gendering of nouns. Patriarchal language is the language of the colonizer, hierarchy and ownership. In her essay An Animist Primer for the English Language [2], Dana O’Driscoll claims “English” is shaped by, “Power, prestige, Western materialism, industrialism, scientific rationalism, capitalism, the biases of colonialism, monotheism, and anthropocentrism.” When people are conquered their language is conquered. Re-education could be brutal and institutionalized: boot camps for subservience. Since mind states have been assigned gender according to body parts: Womb / hysteria; male genitals / leadership skills, I’m adding misogyny and male supremacy to Dana’s list. The example of the Burney Relief, I referenced earlier, as an example of a polysemic Goddess, illustrates how ownership defines patriarchal language. Burney was an antique dealer who once “owned” the artifact (also known as the Queen of Heaven). The patriarch laid claim to language, artifacts, the Goddess and women’s bodies, using a hierarchal God as justification. In Genesis 1:28 God tells man to “fill the earth and subdue it.” Man has permission dominate, own, exploit and silence every living creature and Mother Earth. In her essay, There’s a Place for God and it’s in the Bedroom [3], Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. says, “The term “God” is a verbal wank, a literal dominance. “God” has become so embedded in our speaking, so essential to human expression that most feel left speechless without it.” I became acutely aware of the need to decolonize (unchain) my brain from patriarchal language when I started to question why, in historical accounts, women’s achievements are often presented in terms of her relationship to the father or husband, as if giving permission for his wife / daughter to learn WAS the achievement, rather than her ability to achieve DESPITE the patriarchal system keeping women down. Introducing women as daughter of, wife of, muse of, infers ownership and a deference to men. An example would be Dora Maar, described as Picasso’s muse [temporary plaything], despite being an artist in her own right. Taking on the husband’s surname eradicates traces of female lineage. As in symbolism, the dark spaces do the talking. Silencing and the conspiracy of silence is part of patriarchal language. In the extremist society that is Afghanistan under the Taliban, communication / expressing thoughts and ideas is seen as a male domain. Women speaking to women, speaking loudly, reciting poetry, or singing in public, has been banned, under Vice and Virtue laws, enshrouding women in a cloak of invisibility. In the past, the Catholic Church banned women from speaking in church. 1 Corinthians (14:34-35 NRSV) states, “As in all the churches of the saints, …
(Essay 13) 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 article.] Namu Wiki image Tales from South Chungcheong Province, Daejeon Metropolitan City, Sejong Metropolitan City (H) Of 3 tales, no tale mentions “Mago,” “Magu,” or “Magui.” Nogo Halmeoni is mentioned in one tale. Women are depicted as the cosmogonic agent in two tales. Silk skirt is mentioned in one tale. Toponyms concern mountain peaks, rocks, strongholds, and ponds. Such placenames Halmi-bong (Peak Halmi), Mt. Nogo (Ancient Great Mother), Mt. Nogo Stronghold, and Dragon Pond are the indication of these stories to be of Magoist Cetaceanism. Also ninety-nine peaks, a numeric code to the Magoist Cosmogony, are addressed in one tale. H S-83Daejeon, Ninety-nine peaks, Halmi-bong (Peak Halmi)Woman GeneralSkirtH S-84Daejeon, Mt. Nogo, Mt. Nogo Stronghold, Halmi Rock (Nogo Rock)Nogo Halmeoni Silk skirt H S-85Hongseong, Mt. Stone Stronghold, Mt. Crane Stronghold, Dragon PondNasojo (Little Ancestor of Silla), daughter and sonChoe Chiwon, skirt, red bean porridge, 3 burial cairns, sword rock Tale H S-83: Ninety-nine peaks built by a woman warrior H S-83Daejeon M.C.Region/OriginDaedeokToponym/MotifNinety-nine peaks, Halmi-bong (Peak Halmi)Divine/AgentWoman WarriorLore/InformationLegend has it that, a long time ago a woman warrior built ninety-nine peaks by carrying a peak in her skirt one by one. She began from the front of Banga Village and continued to build Peak Munpil and Peak Halmi in the back of Jinyang.Related themesSkirtNotes Mago Halmi is replaced with the woman warrior. The phrase of ninety-nine peaks indicates the Cosmic Music, the sonically charged nine numbers. Storytellers perceive the surrounding mountains of their village as ninety-nine peaks, which were formed one by one by the Mago Halmi figure. Tales from North Chungcheong Province (I) Of 7 tales, “Mago” is mentioned twice, whereas “Magui” is mentioned only once. The strong brother and sister duo is mentioned in three tales. One tale mentions the strong sole-mother, her eight daughters and one son. I have translated hol-eomeoni (홀어머니) as a sole-mother rather than a widow. Kkokkki Halmae is a peculiar epithet. I S-86Jecheon, Standing RockMagui Halmeoni, two Mago HalmeonisApron, conceptionI S-87Jecheon, Peak EggMago HalmiSkirt wrap, Soet HillI S-88Jincheon Gugok-ri Mt. Nine Village, Standing RockStrong brother and sister duoApron, son-daughter of General Im YeonI S-89Jincheon Gugok-ri Mt. Nine Village, Bridge CairnStrong brother and sister duo, motherApron, daughter’s wining, crying bridgeI S-90Cheongju Mt. Nine Women (Mt. Nine Women Stronghold)Strong sole-mother, nine daughters, one sonApron, red bean porridge, old monk, wellI S-91Cheongju Dragon-well Village, Standing RockKkokkki HalmaeSkirt, Mt. Geumgang, Omok BridgeI S-92Chungju, Mago Stronhold (Mt. Chungju Stronghold)Mother, strong son and daughter duoSkirt wrap, comb Tale I S-87: Cheongneodeol Cairn formed by Mago Halmi I S-87North ChungcheongRegion/OriginJecheon Jeokseong-myeon Sangcheon-ri/Seong-ri AlbongToponym/MotifCheongneodeol CairnDivine/AgentMago HalmiLore/InformationLong ago, Mago Halmi packed her skirt wrap with stones and went up to Soetgogae (Iron Hill). Upon running into another errand on the way, she left the stones here.Related themesSkirt wrapNotes Mago Halmi packed her skirt with stones and went up to Soetgogae (Iron Hill). Upon running into another errand on the way, she left the stones here. CONCLUDING REMARKS As an oral text, the skirt-motif Mago Halmi folktales unravel the Magoist Cosmogony, a written account on the matriversal origin of Mago, the Creatrix, recounted in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City). In a rich and fluid folk language, they provide rich data on Magoist Thealogy, the Magoma Divine, Magoist Cetaceanism as well as the Magoist Cosmogony, all of which are interlinked to support Magoist Soteriology. These stories tell that Mago Halmi, the Cosmogonist, uses her skirt in shaping the local topographies in the current place wherein storytellers reside. 93 stories that this essay examines vary in describing the details of the skirt creation story. On one level, the skirt motif is there to indicate Mago Halmi as the cosmic womb. There is a deeper dynamic that the skirt metaphor intimates, however. On another level, her skirt is a modal prop to illustrate what it means that Mago Halmi shapes local topographies by her skirt. The skirt an ingenious device that explain what the principle of causal becoming to people. Those stories are didactic as well as entertaining. Mago Halmi takes a series of action. She goes to a place where she gets the landmass to put it in her skirt and carries it to the place where she wants to build it. Usually, she is partaking the construction project. Thus, when she hears that the construction is completed, she leaves the landmass in the current place. While doing this, she runs into situations. Sometimes, she is too tired, too angry, too frustrated to complete her creation. Other times, lumps of soil, for example, leak from the holes of her skirt. Or, the skirt load is getting too heavy, so she drops it there. Or she runs into an errand and gets distracted. These scenarios indicate that her creation act is contingent upon the situation. She is open for unfolding possibilities. And she changes the course of her cosmogonic action. The skirt modality is useful in addressing the principle of causal becoming. Mago Halmi did not create topographies from nothing. Nothing can’t be the reality insofar as S/HE is. She cycles landmasses from one place to the other. And she did NOT complete her creation in the beginning. When All is interlinked with all else, there is no one beginning but there are ever-present beginnings. The beginning is happening HERE and NOW in ALL, Mago and HER progeny. ALL are in the process of becoming. Skirt-motif Mago Halmi stories awakens one to the matriversal reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Appendixes I and II as well as References, see the original article in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 1, 2024). (End of the Essay). https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang
(Music) Gentle Rebel ~ Songs for the Resistance by Alison Newvine

Recently, I’ve been finding refuge and inspiration in the protest songs of the 60s, 70s and beyond. The spirit of resistance and the impassioned prayers for justice and kindness that live in this music serve as reminder that we have always been reaching for the good in the midst of atrocities and overpowering systems of harm. Music as a form of protest weaves together a gentleness of spirit with a refusal to accept cruelty as the norm. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5p7DDYSHuFrY9KWE25fDlC?si=a61188d3750e47fa Headlining this collection of songs are Holly Near, Joanne Shenandoah, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell and, my personal heroine and patron saint of gentle rebellion, Sinead O’Connor. This playlist centers the voices of women while also including the music of gentle rebels such as Bob Marley, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder and John Denver. Also featured are more contemporary voices such as Alanis Morissette, Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls, Black Eyed Peas, Anohni and Sara Bareilles. Reaching even further back in time we have Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie and Big Mama Thorton. May this collection of songs support your spirit during this time of rapidly increasing chaos, oppression and the utter madness of patriarchy. This songlist is a living document and I’d love to add to it if there are songs/artists you recommend. https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
(Essay 3) I Must Call Her Awe/stralia By Leslene della-Madre

After a welcoming stay with Glenys, and being able to visit sacred places in the Blue Mountains with her like “The Three Sisters” in what I saw as Awe/stralia’s version of the Grand Canyon, I traveled on to Brisbane to Susan’s lovely home in the bush. The birds, landscape and lushness all nourished my soul! The fact that Awe/stralia’s population is only 22 million people invites one into a spacious, grounded and heart-warming experience of the land. I felt this everywhere I went. I went barefoot as often as I could. (In fact, when I first arrived at Jane’s in the beginning of my adventure, I immediately removed my shoes and grounded into the earth. I believe it is this practice of “Earthing” that kept me from being jet-lagged. I never experienced it after a fifteen-hour plane trip and travel from the past to the future through a time change. Nor did I experience it upon my return.) I spent another lovely time gathering with kindred sisters in the Friday night talk and workshop. The workshop was particularly a-mazing because a beautiful Sri Lankan woman, a cancer survivor, brought the ashes of her recently deceased sister who also suffered from cancer and placed her ashes on our altar. It was one of those things that could not have been put in a schedule. It was the first time she had brought out her sister’s ashes in the presence of others beyond her family, blessing all of us with her sacred presence. With her ashes on our altar we had twelve women in physical form and one in spirit — a perfect circle of thirteen. We opened our circle sharing a grieving process with her that I felt was held by the ancestors. We bonded immediately in sacred sisterhood — as the circle of women acting as shaman. This particular workshop allowed some women, who had been unsure about coming due to feeling not quite ready because of recent transitions of loved ones in their lives, to feel held by the collective of women and to be witnessed in safe loving space. This is the tribal way of women I feel we are all longing for. Women just know how to love each other. And allow what needs to emerge in the moment. This is the experience that I like to honor as being dreamed together where any agendas of doing are surrendered.

(Special Post Isis 2) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

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

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld is one of the most fascinating myths ever told. Not just because it is profound and enlightening, although it is certainly that. It’s an exciting journey that ignites the imagination, and female characters are at the hub of the action. This is a tale of power: power that is demanded, power that is won, power that is appropriated, and power that cannot be escaped. The story follows the fertility goddess Inanna, who brought civilization to Mesopotamia, as she seeks to expand her realm by venturing into the world below. Inanna’s experiences in the great below, her escape, and the wild events that unfold as a result of her caper are the focus of the tale.
(Special Post 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.

(Video) Imbolc/Early Spring Goddess Slideshow by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

On February 3rd at 19:45 “Universal Time” (as it is named), Earth our Planet crosses the midpoint of Her orbit between Solstice and Equinox, though the exact time varies each year. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the Season of Imbolc – the welcoming of the Light, post-Winter Solstice, after the fullness of the dark of Winter. Imbolc, and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin/Maiden aspect of Goddess – or Urge to Be as I have named this aspect. Imbolc may be understood as the quintessential celebration of the Virgin/Young One quality for the year – the rest of the light part of the cycle celebrates Her processes, but this Seasonal Moment is a celebration of Her … identifying with Her. She is the New Young One, the Promise of Life, the Urge to Be. Her purity is Her singularity of purpose. She is spiritual warrior. Her inviolability is Her determination to Be … nothing to do with unbroken hymens of the dualistic and patriarchal mind. The Virgin is the essential “yes” to Being – not the “no” She was turned into. This is some Poetry of the Season: This is the season of the waxing Light … the feast of the Young One – who is the Urge To Be within All. The New One born at the Winter Solstice now grows. This is the time of celebrating the small self – each one’s Gaian uniqueness and beauty. We meet to share the light of inspiration, to be midwifed, by She who tends the Flame of Being, deeply committed to Self, and Who is True. The choice of images is arbitrary … there are so many more, and also, most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Imbolc/Early Spring. Remember that image communicates the unspeakable – that which can only be known in body – below rational mind. You may regard it as a transmission of Herself, insofar as you wish – and particular to you. I offer you these images for you to receive in your own way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUPTKMork9s Artemis 4th Century B.C.E. Greece. (p.52 Austen) – a classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent”: that is, in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted, and deep reverence. Aphrodite (p.132 Austen) 300 B.C.E. – often diminished to a sex Goddess in patriarchal narrative, but in more ancient times, praised as She who holds all things in form, which may be comprehended as embodying cosmic power of allurement, which may be identified with what has been named as “gravity”. Re-storied as one who admires her own Beauty, and the Beauty of All. Aphrodite (plate 137 Neumann) an earlier image 600 B.C.E. Brigid/Brigantia (p. 38 Durdin-Robertson) 300 C.E. – Her spear may be understood as the spear of Goddess: that is, as spiritual warrior, or Boadicea-like. Brigid – a later image of Christian times … dressed nun-like. Eurynome (Austen p.8) 4000 B.C.E. Africa. This image is named as Bird-Headed Snake Goddess. Austen stories Her as an image of Eurynome, Goddess of All Things who danced upon the waves in the beginning and laid the Universal Egg. She appears very self-expressive: perhaps a great image of a self-expressive Universe. She integrates animal and human, earth and sky, before dualism existed. I choose her as a Virgin image because of this integrity, and her ecstatic expression. Diana (Neumann Plate 161) Rome. She carries the Flame – is classically Her own person. … not so much “independent” as it may be thought of culturally, as “self-knowing”. She came to be associated with the Greek Artemis: they are sister Goddesses. The Horned Goddess (p. 138 Austen) 6000 B.C.E. Africa – associated with dance and healthy life-force – rain and fertility. She is of the ancient Amazon tribes of what is now known as Algeria. Even today amongst these people, Austen says: “the Tauregs, the women are independent, while the men only appear in public veiled”. Vajravarahi (p.124 Austen) 1600’s C.E. Vajravarahi, show me how to be powerful and compassionate at the same time – let me know that these qualities are one force. Teach me to feel the beauty, power and eroticism of my own being. Show me that I am an exquisite part of the life force, dancing with all other forms of life. and OM! Veneration to you, noble Vajravarahi! OM! Veneration to you, noble and unconquered! Mother of the three worlds! Mistress of knowledge!… OM! Veneration to you, Vajravarahi! Great yogini! Mistress of love! She who moves through the air! TIBETAN TEXT Radha (in my ritual space) … seeing Who She really is. REFERENCES: Austen, Hallie Iglehart. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley:Wingbow, 1990. Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Bergen: Girl God Books, 2023. Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. The music is “Boadicea” by Enya.
Imbolc/Early Spring – a Season of Uncertainty by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 9 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The dates for Summer Solstice/Litha are: Southern Hemisphere – December 20-23 Northern Hemisphere – June 20-23 A Summer Solstice altar The ‘moment of grace’[i] that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its ‘decline’: that is, its movement back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere, and back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere. This Seasonal Moment is polar opposite Winter Solstice when it is light that is “born,” as it may be expressed. At the peak of Summer, in the bliss of expansion, it is the dark that is “born.” Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, that may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios. Summer Solstice is a time for celebrating our realized Creativity, whose birth we celebrated at Winter Solstice, whose tenderness we dedicated ourselves to at Imbolc/Early Spring, whose certain presence and power we rejoiced in at Spring Equinox, whose fertile passion we danced for at Beltaine/High Spring. Now, at this seasonal point, as we celebrate light’s fullness, we celebrate our own ripening – like that of the wheat, and the fruit. And like the wheat and the fruit, it is the Sun that is in us, that has ripened: the Sun is the Source of our every thought and action. The analogy is complete in that our everyday creativity – our everyday actions, and we, ultimately, are also “Food for the Universe”[ii] … it is all how we feed the Universe. flowers to flames – everyday creativity consumed Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames.[iii] We, and our everyday creativity, are the “Bread of Life,” as it may be expressed; just as many other indigenous traditions recognize everyday acts as evoking “the ongoing creation of the cosmos,”[iv] so in this tradition, Summer is the time for particularly celebrating that. Our everyday lives, moment to moment, are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of the ancestors and ancient creatures that went before us; and so the future is built on ours. We are constantly consuming the work and creativity of others and we are constantly being consumed. The question may be asked: “Who are you feeding?,”[v] and consideration given to whether you are happy with the answer. It is the Sun that is in you. See how you shine. Summer Solstice is a celebration of the Fullness of the Mother – in ourselves, in Earth, in the Cosmos. We are the Sun, coming to fullness in its creative engagement with Earth. We affirm this in ceremony with: “It is the Sun that is in you, see how you shine.” It is the ripening of Her manifestation, which fulfills itself in the awesome act of dissolution. This is the mystery of the Moment. Brian Swimme has described this mystery of radiance as a Power of the Universe, as Radiance: the shining forth of the self is at the same time a give-away, a decline of the self – just as the Sun is constantly giving itself away. This Solstice Moment of Summer is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. Summer and Winter Solstices are Gateways – between the manifest and the manifesting, and Summer Solstice is a Union/Re-Union of these, a kind of meeting with the deeper self. Winter Solstice may be more of a separation, though it is usually experienced as joyful, because it is also a meeting, as the new is being brought forth. The interchange of Summer Solstice may be experienced as an entry into loss – the Cosmological Dynamic of Loss, as manifestation passes. Beltaine, Summer Solstice and Lammas – the next Seasonal Moment, may be felt as the three faces of Cosmogenesis in the movement towards entropy.[vi] The light part of the annual cycle of Earth around Sun is a celebration of the Young One/Virgin quality of Cosmogenesis, with Her face gradually changing to the Mother/Communion quality; and through the Autumn, the dark part of the annual cycle, it is a celebration of the Old One/Crone quality, whose face will gradually change also, back to the Mother/Communion. They are never separate.In this cosmology, desire for full creativity has been celebrated as the allurement of the Cosmos, and being experienced as gravity, as relationship with Earth, our place of being, how She holds us. At both Solstices there is celebration of deep engagement, communion. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series. CA: Tides Foundation, 1990. NOTES: [i] As Thomas Berry named the Seasonal transitions. [ii] Swimme uses this expression in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.” [iii] This is based on the traditional Litha (Summer Solstice) rite described by Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 206. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 95. [v] As Swimme asks in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.” [vi] Just as Samhain, Winter Solstice and Imbolc may be felt as the three faces of Cosmogenesis in the movement towards toward form – syntropy.

(Essay 2) Why Reenact the Nine-Mago Movement? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: The sequel of this essay is released in preparation for 2015 Nine-Day Solstice Celebration Project.] Part 2 Goddess Goma, the Magoist Shaman Ruler, and Her Nona-Mago Tradition Not until the autumn of 2012 did the pervasive manifestation of the number nine symbolism in Magoism surface in my consciousness. The information that the shrine of Gaeyang Halmi (Gaeyang Grandmother/Goddess), the Sea Goddess of Korea, was once called the Temple of Gurang (Nine Goddesses 九嫏祠) awakened a deep memory in me. It was a revelation to me and I began to connect the dots! That summer, I had joined the field research team of Konkuk University’s Korean Oral Literature graduate program. With them I visited the Shrine of the Sea Saint (Suseong-dang 水聖堂) in Buan, North Jeolla, S. Korea to collect folklore from the locals. Only when I was processing the data that the team gathered to write a report, did I come across the original name of the shrine, the Temple of the Nine Goddesses. And the Nine Goddesses refer to Gaeyang Halmi and her eight daughters. It is unknown how and when it was replaced by the current name, the Shrine of the Sea Saint. It is evident, however, that a linguistic femicide took place; the female-connoted term, the Nine Goddesses, was replaced by the sex/gender neutral term, the Sea Saint.
(Essay 2) 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.] CALENDARICS AND THE MAGOIST COSMOGONY Calendar is the harmonic numerological chart that indicates specifics of the terrestrial time/space relative to the extrasolar universe. As a cosmic almanac of our terrestrial home, calendar teaches the human world to do the right thing at the right timing, determined by the song/dance of the universe. We humans, part of the calendar, are the guardian of the calendar. Calendar is not and should not be an arbitrary arrangement invented to serve the purpose of a particular group of people, the Budoji says. It is
(Mago Essay 2) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hwang

Part 2 Gynocentric Study of Mago’s Visual Representations [The following sequels including this one are a modified version of my paper presented to Daoist Studies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2010.] Mago [麻姑, also known as Magu or Mako] remains underrepresented if treated in modern scholarship. Little attention has been given to the topic of Magu in its own right. In the West a handful of scholars have mentioned Mago within the context of Daoism. Her transnational and trans-temporal manifestations in Korea, China, and Japan are largely unrecognized. That Magu is known as multiple identities throughout history in East Asia has gone unnoticed. In my study of Mago, that Mago’s supreme divinity as the Great Goddess has been rendered unintelligible over time under the rule of patriarchy offers a crucial insight leading to a befitting method. First of all, the perception of Her as the Great Goddess enables one to recognize a large volume of primary sources, otherwise left unattended, from across national, regional, temporal, and typological boundaries. Secondly, the primary materials in turn allow one to assess the supreme nature of the Great Goddess, Mago, apart from the theological framework of the monotheistic male god. By being a non-Western and non-patriarchal tradition, Magoism warrants a distinctive thealogy characterized by self-equilibrium and interdependence of components, part of which was discussed in Part I. Thirdly, a trans-disciplinary method is corollary in processing a variety of multi-genre materials that would not be neatly categorized in a mono-disciplinary data-pool. To say the least, it liberates itself from the tyranny of monolithic methodology, which dissects to take only a portion of data from the whole and treat it as if it is a single independent entity. In short, methodology and thealogy, being mutually supportive, lead the researcher to a rather unexplored conceptual territory, which I call gynocentrism. Gynocentrism takes the female principle as an operating system. Its system has been thwarted within the discourse of androcentric perspectives. Gynocentrism is a submerged mode of thinking in the patriarchically indoctrinated psyche. Made to be subliminal, the gynocentric mode of thinking elicits the Mago (Great Goddess) consciousness. Consequently, Mago consciousness upholds the infrastructures of gynocentric thinking. What distinguishes gynocentrism from feminism is that it redefines the male as a derivative of the Female. Gynocentrism reflects the principle of all mothers of living beings. In that sense, my study of Mago is a gynocentric endeavor to chart an alternative paradigm of doing thealogy within the context of East Asian history, mythology, and culture. It is a misunderstanding that Magoist thealogy or Magology (the study of the Great Goddess) concerns the divine only. Gynocentric thealogy is not locked into a separate domain apart from humanity, nature, and the universe. Put differently, Magology is not a mere conceptual tool that explains the divine. It summons gynocentric histories, myths, and cultures that are to be restored and rewritten. It calls for rethinking everything in a fresh light. In the sequels to follow, I bring to light a series of Mago’s visual representations expressed in paintings, ceramics, embroideries, woodprints, sculptures, and topographies, and examine Her multivalent identities in light of the large corpus of Magoist written and oral texts. Mago’s visual icons are beyond one’s documentation. They, especially those from China, are still a favored item in modern day’s auction markets. Several hundred images that I have documented are simply incomplete. Some sample images are chosen to show an array of historical/cultural/social productions, once honored and valued highly by many. Through the economy of commodification, these images have carried the cultural memory of the Great Goddess. While a number of her visual icons are undated, many are from the Yuan (1271 to 1368), Ming (1368 to 1644), and Qing (1644 to 1912) dynasties of China, the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) of Korea, and certain historical periods of Japan. Also, many are from modern times. In them, Mago/Magu/Mako is depicted as: (1) An immortal/transcendant (仙 xian or seon, immortal or transcendant). (2) A mendicant. (3) A sea goddess. (4) A mountain goddess. (5) A crone. (6) The ancestor of shamans. And (7) A non-anthropomorphic identity or giantess as the nature-shaper or cosmogonist of local topographies such as mountains, rocks, caves, and seas. The notion of a giantess is employed to describe Her transcendental nature. In this case, Mago-named topographies alongside folk stories describe Her feature/identity of immeasurability. Needless to say, these identities overlap and merge, making up an overall picture of Mago as the Great Goddess. That is, She is each and all. These visual icons, stylized with symbolic objects, respectively demonstrate specific Magoist cultural memes once prevailing and favored among East Asians. A throng of objects such as medicinal herbs, especially lingzhi mushrooms, flowers, hoes, baskets, vessels, and animals, forms the coded syntaxes of the arcane language. In particular, a troupe of animals including deer, crane, dog, and monkey highlights the drama. Also, colophons carry not only the cultural meme but also prestige and authority for its producers and possessors. (To be continued.) [i] I have discussed this in detail in Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Seeking Mago, the Great Goddess: A Mytho-Historic-Thealogical Reconstruction of Magoism, an Archaically Originated Gynocentric Tradition of East Asia, Ph.D. dissertation (Claremont: Claremont Graduate University, 2005), 335-342; 353-361.

Category: Goddess feminist activism

(Poetry) Magic for Big Kids by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

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(Tribute 3) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

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(Art 7) Inanna, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

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(Book Excerpt) Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, Introduction by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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(Meet Mago Contributor) Dr. Adrian Cooper

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(Photo Essay 12) Goddess Pilgrimage 2017 by Kaalii Cargill

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(Art 6) Hearted, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

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(Tribute 2) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

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(Tribute 1) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

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(Book Excerpt 1) Discovering the Gift Paradigm by Genevieve Vaughan

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(Book Excerpt 5) Re-visioning Medusa Eds. by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren, et. al.

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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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