December 17, 2016November 15, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Special Post) Why I choose to be an RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone

The contribution of my writing to Return to Mago E-Magazine has evolved since it began four years ago, into a deeply mutually enhancing relationship. The time and effort taken to Read More …

December 16, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Anna Tzanova

View all posts by Anna Tzanova. Anna Tzanova, M.A. E-mail: imim@sbcglobal.net Residence: Northern California Born and raised in Bulgaria; lived for almost a decade in Toronto, Canada and close to Read More …

December 15, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Yia Alias

View all posts by Yia Alias. Yia Alias is a Transpersonal Counsellor, Artist, Writer, Ceremonial Facilitator and Women’s Mystery Mentor specialising in healing through ritual. She has diplomas in Transpersonal Read More …

December 14, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Phibby Venable

View all posts by Phibby Venable. Phibby Venable lives on the line separating the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains. She has authored six books of poetry, a book of short Read More …

December 13, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Jude Lally

View all posts by Jude Lally. Jude Lally is an artist, a writer and holder of sacred space. She grew up a few miles from Loch Lomond, where the river Read More …

December 12, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Deanne Quarrie

View all posts by Deanne Quarrie. Deanne Quarrie. D. Min. is a Priestess of the Goddess, and author of five books. She is the founder of The Apple Branch where she Read More …

December 11, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kerryn Coombs-Valeontis

Kerryn Coombs-Valeontis is an art and horticultural therapist working in mental health in Australia.. She is just emerging as a poet and is studying poetry therapy. Her poems and art Read More …

December 10, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Rhyannan

Pashta MaryMoon (Rhyannan) is the elder priestess of the Kairosean Kithentradition; and has spent over 20 years being the Pagan visiting clergy/chaplain in hospitals, hospices, and prisons — as well Read More …

December 9, 2016October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

Deborah Jane Milton, Ph.D.

View all posts by Deborah Jane Milton. I moved from Pennsylvania USA to Montana in 1980. Buried beneath my Eastern intellect and conformity, the juicy, risk-taking adventurer burst forth inspired Read More …

December 8, 2016October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

Sudie Rakusin

View all posts by Sudie Rakusin. Sudie Rakusin is an American visual artist, sculptor, author, illustrator and publisher. She was born and raised in Washington, DC, and currently resides in Read More …

December 7, 2016October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

Lucy Pierce

Read all posts by Lucy Pierce. Lucy Pierce trained in Fine Art, majoring in Ceramics at RMIT, Melbourne, Australia. I now live in the beautiful Yarra Valley, not far from Read More …

December 6, 2016October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

Hearth Moon Rising

Read all posts by Hearth Moon Rising. Hearth Moon Rising is a Dianic Priestess living in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. She blends goddess magic and folklore in Read More …

December 5, 2016October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

Mary Petiet

Read all posts by Mary Petiet. Mary Petiet is a reporter, writer and storyteller. She has been actively locally for many years in the growing local farm to table movement Read More …

(Meet Mago Contributor) Carol P. Christ (1945-2021)

[Editor’s Note: We are informed this morning that “our beloved Carol passed peacefully in her sleep last night, at 12.11 am on July 14th” by Laura Shannon.] Carol P. Christ is author or editor of eight books in Women and Religion and is one of the Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement. She leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in Spring and Fall: Early Bird Special until June 15. Follow Carol on Twitter @CarolP.Christ, Facebook Goddess Pilgrimage, and Facebook Carol P. Christ. A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess was published by Far Press in 2016. A journey from despair to the joy of life. Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology with Judith Plaskow was published by Fortress Press in 2016. Exploring the connections of theology and autobiography and alternatives to the transcendent, omnipotent male god.
(Art Exhibition 2) Immortal Diamond Exhibition: The Trickster Figure in Art and Alchemy by Frances Guerin

[Author’s Note: “Immortal Diamond Exhibition: The trickster figure in art and alchemy” will be hosted in Assembly Point: Assembly Point: Guild 152 Sturt St Melbourne during the period of 30th Jan-26th Feb2023.] The bird theme evolved into drawings and new ceramics after hearing a concert composed and performed by Lisa Gerrard and Paul Grabowski at Hamer Hall in Melbourne in October 2022. This extraordinary Australian artist, born to Irish Sean Nos singers in the inner suburbs of Melbourne and rose to international fame in a post punk band Dead Can Dance, and later as the ethereal voice in many Hollywood films. The dream on the night before the concert, was of a person dressed in a turban, Hebrew letters of fire hung in the air and on the wall was an old painting I did sometime in the 80’s a feminist take on overwriting early childhood indoctrination of patriarchy. The dream on the night before the concert, was of a person dressed in a turban, firery Hebrew letters hung in the air and on the wall was an old painting from the 80’s, a feminist take on overwriting the early childhood indoctrination of patriarchy. Becoming a conscious or lucid dreamer requires practice. I studied both Tibetan dream yoga and Western depth psychology and some contact with Australian First Nations People. When a mandala appeared this year, it was a unifying experience of the self, accompanied the sensation of touching a smooth round stone. The alchemists wrote of squaring the circle as the philosopher’s stone and Jung named it is one of four main archetypes of the unconscious with the Child, the Mother and Wise Old Man. Divided into quarters to create a centre, it has many forms and various meanings ascribed to it across cultures. The Tibetan practise of creating sand mandalas accompanies initiation into Tantric deity practice of the Kalachakra which includes dream yoga, a potent experience where HH Dalai Lama enters dreams to remove obstacles to enlightenment. The development of Ceramics and Alchemy go hand in hand, for in firing clay with various minerals produces a surface of glass with lustrous colours: for the alchemists, the transformation of base substances into gold accompanied transformation of oneself. Immortal Diamond 2022white earthenware, underglaze and glaze fired to 1100 degrees 1m x .5m x .40 The ceramic plate in the work is accompanied by a ceramic book with mediaeval symbols that arose in the following weeks: a dragon Great Mother swallowing Jesus Christ – a union of opposites, something akin to the Taoist Yin/Yang. Dragon swallowing Christ, white earthenware clay 2022 40cm x 20cmx 40cm underglazes fired 1100 degrees. This also reminded me that the pattern of dream symbols occurs in ‘circulatio’, that is, one of the stages of alchemical transformation. This dragon is a form of the feminine and reminiscent of a terrifying encounter early on in the study of depth psychology, when the dark feminine first arose, She is masked with bird feathers, clothed in dark robes and carry’s an orb. She walks slowly through a tunnel that has been prepared by people who are on ladders, and hurls the orb into the sky. Christ appears before her and she cuts off his head and hurls it into the sky where it Becomes the sun and stars. Sylvia Brinton Perera’s books, Descent to the Goddess, a study of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna/ Ereshkigal and Queen Maeve and her Lovers, were invaluable resources. She then transforms into a youthful figure of Eleanor of Aquitaine who walks briskly towards a furnace which she spins to create a delicious plate of food and hands it to me. Sometime later I find an image Gerhard Dorn’s Alchemical furnace in Carl Jung’s book on Alchemy and Psychology. This was the major turning point where I felt sure that the work had at last broken through the personal unconscious into the collective and these books became the map to check the symbols as they emerged. The historical Queen Eleanor of both France and England, was famous for many reasons; for the musical tradition of the troubadours, for the gallantry of her court and for going on the Crusade to the Holy land. She is both mother and lover but also brave and strong in the world of men, a model of an earthly Queenly Self contrasted with the Virgin Mary. In alchemical images of the furnace, both male and female must play a role in the transformation of the base substances. The alchemical furnace inspired the study of ceramics. On the morning my application was accepted at Federation University Campus the constellation that encompasses Polaris, the north pole star, arose. The interaction between dream and relative world continued; as I made the symbols into clay form, the unconscious would send another image of a clay vessel. The constellation of Ursa Minor was used to decorate pots and it grew in significance over the years – guiding star so to speak. and the word Living Water symbolized by the ceramic distillation vessel and the word Bethal, the biblical dream of angels ascending and descending as the dreamer rested on a stone. (To be continued) https://www.magoism.net/2014/03/meet-mago-contributor-frances-guerin/
(Poem) The Magoist Calendar of the 13 Months 28 Days by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This poem was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 2, 2024). The video version narrated by Dr. Glenys Livingstone is available here.] https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang
(Book Excerpt 6) For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan

[Editor’s Note: The following sequels are from For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange by Genevieve Vaughan. Footnotes may differ from the original text.] Relationship Giving and receiving word-gifts organized in sentences and discourses creates a human relation among people with regard to things in the world. Communicative need is the need for the relation to others with regard to something. We cannot ourselves make the other person relate herself to something. However, we can interpret her lack of a relation as a need for a means to that relation, and we can satisfy that need–with a word-gift. The need arises from the circumstances in which people find themselves, to talk about something. One person gives to the other word-gifts which re-present (give again) the pertinent parts of the world. We are social beings, and language allows us to include others in experiencing the world with us. If I say, ‘Look at the sunset,’ I satisfy the need of the listener to know the sunset is happening, and to know that I think it is something worth looking at. By providing her with these words (which she already knows) in the present, I satisfy her need for a momentary relation to me and to the sunset, which is the same as my need for a relation to her and the sunset. Presumably, I would already be perceiving the sunset, so the motivation of my speech would be to include the other person in that experience, satisfying what I understand as her need to be put in that relation. The word ‘sunset’ has been supplied by the society in general to everyone, as a word-gift which can be used to satisfy communicative needs about sunsets. The listener’s creative reception of that word-gift places her in an inclusive human relation with me and, at the same time, draws her attention to the sunset, so that we can include each other, not only with regard to the words, but by relating ourselves in similar ways through our attention to a shared nonverbal experience. The relation to the nonverbal experience is also to some extent a gift, which we usually call ‘information.’ While looking at a sunset together can be a positive experience for both participants and, therefore, a need-satisfying aesthetic experience, there are many pieces of information which seem decidedly negative. For example, ‘I hate you’ creates a common relation between us to my negative emotion towards you. This emotion is certainly not itself a gift to you, but it is useful to you to know that I have it and, thus, my phrase could be considered a gift or service in spite of its negativity. I believe there are many levels of gifts in life, as in language, but they have been hidden from us, because we have not been looking at them. We can say positive things to each other and nurture each other in that way, but even when we say things that are negative or neutral, the listener has many ways of receiving what has been given to her, transforming them into gifts by her creative use of them. The phrase by Karl Marx that I have used on the frontispiece of this book, “language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men and for that reason alone it really exists personally for me as well,” identifies a logic of other-orientation as the logic of communication. It also brings up the second grail question, “Whom does the Grail serve?” or in simpler terms, “Who is it for?” This question, always pertinent to giftgiving, often remains unasked and unanswered in our profit-based society. (To be Continued) Meet Mago Contributor, Genevieve Vaughan
(Essay) The Air We Breathe by Kaalii Cargill

Kaalii Cargill, Ph.D. The polytheistic worldview does not compare to the monotheistic one. They are not compatible worldviews; there is no harmony possible between them, no way to fit them together philosophically or metaphysically, no way for them to co-exist. Robin Artisson These words got me thinking about how we engage Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality. Do we approach Goddess as a female version of the Abrahamic God? Is Goddess immanent or transcendent? Can She be both? For me Goddess is not a female version of the Abrahamic God. She is the air we breathe, the fire that warms us, the water that flows through us, the earth that is our bodies. Goddess is not ideal or omnipotent or a transcendent mystery. She is not beyond Nature. Goddess is Nature. Nature is Goddess/Great Mother. Engaging Goddess this way informs my feminism, activism, and spirituality. How do you sort the elements of your engagement with Goddess? Do you see Goddess as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent? Theologians use these characteristics to describe the nature of the Abrahamic God. What happens if we apply them to Goddess? Omnipotence means God can do what he wants. He has power over wind, water, fire, earth gravity etc. Power over an element is very different from inherently being (within) an element. Omniscience means all-knowing, aware of the past, present, and future with total knowledge. That suggests a sort of over-seeing that is very different from being present within an element or a season or a moment in time. Omnipresence means all-present, capable of being everywhere at the same time. The Abrahamic religions interpret God as transcending the physical, a sort of over-arching everywhere presence. This is different from being the substance of creation/life. When we let go of these transcendent principles, we can engage Goddess through relationship, mindfulness, attention, lived experience, meaning, honouring, enchantment, and the sacred. Relationship is a living thing, a ‘third body’ that forms between elements or beings. We also have relationship with ourselves. We can work to develop a more vital and aware relationship between our everyday sense of self and the other layers of consciousness that we might call the unconscious or intuition or imagination. We can become more aware of the internal dynamics that determine our thoughts, moods and behaviours and become more able to live consciously in relationship with self, others, and the world. Mindfulness is a state of being fully present in the moment with attention available for whatever is happening. Mindfulness allows us to hear the wind whispering in the leaves, to notice when the moon is full, to feel the changing of the seasons. Embodied experience is authentic, connected, and immediate. Being present in our bodies supports connections between mind and body, thoughts and feelings, memories and current life events, and between ourselves and the world around us. We experience all the sights, sounds, smells, sensations, and emotions of life. The energetic or relational field is the invisible web of connection that surrounds each engagement in our lives. This is the way we can sense when someone is upset or when someone is bursting with excitement. By sensing the energetic field we become a living part of the world soul, the interactive web or field connecting us to ourselves, each other, and the world. Meaning involves a sense of value and importance that is subjective rather than objective or collective. The central question is ‘What does this mean to me?’ so that rather than conditioned ideas of ‘wrongdoing’ and ‘rightdoing’ we are engaging deepest value and meaning. This is closely related to the idea of honouring whatever emerges in our lives. This can take the form of drawing or painting an image, sculpting a form in clay, writing in a journal, moving to music etc. This creative expression of images, symbols, memories, sensations, sounds etc. is a way of valuing the elements of our lives. ‘Enchantment is a spell that comes over us, an aura of fantasy and emotion that can settle on the heart’ (Thomas Moore: The Reenchantment of Everyday Life). This involves a sense of mystery in which we find value, love, and union with the world around us by attending to the rhythms and cycles of nature, the moon, the seasons, and our own mindbody systems. Experience of the sacred follows from meaning, honouring, and enchantment. We may be informed by some of the great myths of human herstory in the form of story, images, and enactment. We may develop and enact rituals that develop spontaneously or are planned to honour specific times or elements. https://www.magoism.net/2014/05/meet-mago-contributor-kaalii-cargill/ https://www.magoism.net/donate/
(Mago Academy) Gaia and Mago, Rekindling Old Gynocentric Unity

Go directly to: http://magoism.net/mago-academy/gaia-and-mago/
(Poem) I Am My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams by Mary Saracino

Vergamini Clan from Author’s personal archives of old family photos. I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams realized,a woman unafraid to speak her mindlive out loudunabashedly love who I choosewithout hesitationor shameI honor their passage in steeragecrossing an ocean to embracea different life than what was given themthey dreamed of freedomliving life unfettered by theboot heels of tyrannythey dreamed of days and nightsbrimming with ease, laughter, pride,inviolable sovereigntymy grandmothers no longer shackled to traditionsthat entombed their spirits, constrained their giftsmy grandfathers no longer imprisonedby the limitations of class and ethnicityI am their dream actualized at long, long lastnot perfect, but perfectingnot finished, but ever evolvingleaping to conjure the hopes they heldin their hearts, dance with the possibilitiesthey envisionedsing the songs they left unsungno longer silenced by omertano longer afraid to breatheto say I amI amI am https://www.magoism.net/2013/05/meet-mago-contributor-mary-saracino/
(Meet Mago Contributor) Maya Daniel

Maya Daniel is a pen name, living in the Philippines, in my 50s, and i am dishing out rebel poetry.
(Prose) Metamorphosis by Deanne Quarrie

Sometime between the ages of 35 and 55, give or take, a woman enters a phase in her life that can only be described as metamorphosis. Yes, most call it peri-menopausal or menopausal, but truly such changes occur in each woman’s life at this time and it truly is a metamorphosis. It is that time in her life when she stops producing as much estrogen but the production is often haphazard, sporadic and certainly unpredictable. This affects every aspect of her life. She might notice her eyes being dry in the morning, feeling like grating sand when she tries to open them. Her bleeding times may come on at different intervals or not at all. She may bleed more – she may bleed less. She may experience hot flashes – you ask, “What does that feel like?” Imagine a wave of hot air hitting you in the back of your neck and head – instantly causing you to break out in a sweat. You might even get red in the face! All of this, of course, is without warning, and happening at the most inconvenient times. You will often exclaim, “Is it hot in here?” Night sweats – now these are fun! You will find yourself waking up in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes able to go back to sleep but often not. It may take awhile for you to notice that along with this wakefulness come the drenched bed covers and sleepwear! Ye gads! This, my sisters, is the best of it. There is more you ask? Oh my, yes! Let’s talk about the mood swings! Imagine PMS every day – now, not all day – but all of the emotional expressions of PMS become your regular friends. Bitchiness, bad temper, impatience, foul moods, unexpected tears, and a general “leave me the heck alone” feeling! Your friends and family will wonder what is happening to the sweet, levelheaded woman who used to be in their lives. Actually, this is a very beneficial process of pushing aside all of the garbage we load ourselves down with and the phony fronts we feel we have to put on to be what is expected instead of who we really are. This process is truly a shedding – you are the Sacred Snake of Becoming! My whole world as I knew it, my relationships with friends and co-workers – everything changed for me when peri-menopause set in. I had spent my entire life up to that point controlling every emotion, making sure that what surfaced for others to see was “acceptable” to others. Having been raised in a very “British” home, emotions were something not displayed in front of others. Not silly laughter, not anger, and certainly not tears. I had a hysterectomy (uterus only) when I was 43. Because I had healthy ovaries, I knew that one day I would experience menopause as does every woman. But somehow, because I no longer had a period each month, it took me awhile to figure out who this new woman was that I was becoming. Everyone had always known me as steady, level, un-flappable. Never seen before were the sudden eruptions of temper or the instant fits of weeping. Even more important was the fact that I also, did not know this new woman emerging. It was frightening, to say the least. Fortunately, I had just recently found the Goddess and so when I figured out what was going on with my emotions, I decided to accept this new me and ride the ups and downs, the ever turbulent roller coaster of my life. I also decided to do it without hormone help and was far too new at this to even consider herbal assistance. It did not take me long to figure out that my anger would not kill me or anyone else. I also learned that I did not die from my flowing tears. I am not sure why I thought I would. Perhaps I had transferred my earlier fear of parental wrath into fear of the emotions themselves. One thing I did know, I was free of that paralyzing fear – free of embarrassment and free to fully experience the “feeling” me, the emotional woman I had buried deep inside. Gone were the muscle spasms of pent up tension. Gone were the headaches I had suffered for years. Gone too, were those I thought to be friends but who were not accepting enough to accompany me with love on this ride. Surprise, surprise, I have never missed them! If your friends wonder – share that with them. Tell them that you are the Sacred Snake shedding Her skin! You may even feel like “hissing.” This is your time of metamorphosis and in the end, a magnificent Crone will appear. Guaranteed! Oh, did I tell you that your hair will mysteriously disappear from all over your body as well? Ye gads, someone ought to tell you that pubic hair is not forever! Nor are thick eyelashes or shapely eyebrows. Those will suddenly grow in every direction imaginable. You might even get nose hair! The good news is you won’t have to shave your legs near as often and if you are like me – you will just quit shaving altogether! All of this is your practice zone for the Crone that is coming. The Crone who won’t give a darn what people think. This is your training ground for letting go of all of those “people pleasing” ideas. This transitioning time will allow you to test the waters for being outrageous and of course, will give your friends and family a taste of what is yet to come! This is your time to shed all the cumbersome clothing and the clinging trappings of a sedate life and learn to fly – even if one day you might need a cane! My advice for you is to accept this as a normal part of your life. Welcome the surging emotions for …

(Special Post 2) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Harriet Ann Ellenberger I got involved with women’s liberation in the early 1970s, so involved that it became my life for many years. During those beginnings of what is now called “the second wave of feminism,” everything was new to us and everything was mushed together — the political, the economic, the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual. I liked that a lot; it felt as if all the parts of myself were coming together. During that time, I learned something crucial the imagery and concepts of patriarchal religion justify and are embedded in the material structures of oppression. I don’t know which came first, institutionalized oppression (of everyone; I’m not speaking here only of women) or the religious expression of that oppression. All I’m certain of is that patriarchal religion permeates, for example, the Oxford English Dictionary, which I use all the time, in conjunction with Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, conjured by Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi.
(Special Post) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE FOR EL PASO ARTIST MARIO COLÍN by Donna Snyder

Born in Juárez in 1959, Mario Colín lived his entire life in the Five Points area of Central El Paso, where he attended Houston Elementary and Austin High School. From the age of fifteen, he worked as a construction worker, building silos and other large construction projects across the U.S.A., at some point hitch hiking from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic shores. In his late twenties, he began to focus all his attention and energy on art, which had been an interest since early childhood, working as a muralist and portrait painter. Much of his art is of a religious nature, although he also painted secular art, portraits, and historical scenes. Colín painted his first mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe in collaboration with deceased artist Chuck Zavala in 1987 at Esparza’s Grocery, a small store in Central El Paso. It has now become a shrine, with community members building a stone arch and bringing flowers and candles, and has been pronounced a religious site by the parish church. Since that first mural, Colín has painted over 40 pieces of public art, many of which have become landmarks. Many of those murals are in that same Central El Paso neighborhood, on or near Piedras, including the House of Pizza, Los Alamos Grocery, The Elbo Room bar, the former Sanitary Plumbing at Piedras and Fort Boulevard. Colín twice painted a 25 foot mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, at Alameda and Zaragoza, across from the Ysleta mission. The first version, painted in 1997, became decayed, but was a popular landmark. That mural has appeared in periodicals, art books, calendars, many newspaper articles, and in photographs exhibited in the El Paso Art Museum and galleries. In 2004, Señor José Villalobos donated and members of the community contributed money to pay laborers to replaster the wall of the century-old adobe building where it is located, and Colín repainted the entire mural for donations from passers-by and community members. Colín’s work has also been featured on the International History Channel and Canal 44, XHUI TV, in a Ford television commercial, and numerous times in the El Paso Times and the defunct El Paso Herald-Post, as well as in periodicals such as Texas Monthly, Dallas Morning News, Texas Observer, Austin American Statesman, Stanton Street magazine; literary journals such as Mezcla and GypsyMag.com; in documentaries including Walls that Speak: El Paso’s Murals, directed by Jim Klaes; in art books such as Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso and Texas 24:7, and in various editions of Chicano Studies: Survey and Analysis, a text book used throughout the country.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.

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

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

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

[Author’s Note: Year 4’s Mago Almanac celebrates the birth of Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey. The Magoist 13 month 28 day calendric movement has grown steadily and we welcome the public as well!] PREFACE: What Mago Almanac Planner Offers The Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey enchants people and our societies to live with a sense of the natural timespace patterned by the luni-menstrual rhythm in company with the earth’s song and dance. This is not a statement of poetic fancy unsupported by science or mathematics. We are invited to walk through the matrix of Sonic Numerology, the organizing force of Life. The 13 month 28 day Magoist Calendar returns calendric regularity to us. Calendric regularity is the very vision that unfolds the metamorphic reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Unlike the 12 month irregular day calendar that modifies the natural rhythm to serve the purpose of controlling people, the Magoist Calendar guides human activities within the natural rhythm to harmonize the human world with the natural world. The Mago Almanac Planner is built to provide flesh to the bones of the Mago Almanac. Taking the latter as foundation, Mago Almanac Planner partitions a year into the units of weeks and days. The regularity of 28 days makes it possible to lay out 52 weeks and 364 days with one or two extra days seamlessly. The rhythm of nine numbers becomes transparent. Each day of a year is named accumulatively in order i.e. the first to 364th. Likewise, each week of a year is named accumulatively in order i.e. Week 1 to Week 52. Each day is given the daily number, the moon phase, and/or 24 Seasonal Marks. Special days include such double dates as New Year (1st Moon 1st Day), double second (2nd Moon 2nd Day), double third (3rd Moon 3rd Day), and so forth. By writing the Mago Almanac Planner, I have observed that Double Ninth (9th Moon 9th day) overlaps with the 16th mark of 24 Seasonal Marks, Ipchu (立秋 Entering Fall) or Lammas in the Northern Hemisphere. The day of Double Ninth is indeed the center point of a year! Also the interval of 24 Seasonal Marks is about every 15 days, whereas that of 8 Seasonal Marks is about every 45 days. In three Appendixes, I have provided a traditional style of one year calendar, Year 4’s 364 Days (52 Weeks) with 2 Extra Days and their Gregorian Dates or the conversion chart, Large Calendar 1 (Years 1-4) marked in Gregorian C. Dates, and Year 4 Lunar-Menstrual Chart in which one can add their menstrual dates in relation to the moon phases and seasonal marks. As a whole, the Mago Almanac Planner is designed to personalize one’s own celebratory or commemorative days in tune with nature’s rhythm. This Planner marks the 4th year (Volume 4) of the revived Magoist Calendar, Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar. We are about to complete the first Large Calendar, which refers to the first four years (Years 1-4). We set the new moon date (December 18) before Winter Solstice in 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere as the first lunation of the revived Magoist Calendar. If we count the year from the onset of the nine-state Danguk confederacy (3898 BCE-2333 BCE) founded by Goma, Magoist Shaman Queen Mother, our Year 1 would be 5916 ME (Magoma Era). Technically speaking, the Magoist Calendar formed at the time of our beginning came to be reincarnated on December 18, 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere (hereafter it implies the Northern Hemisphere otherwise indicated.) The year 2018 for the rebirth of the revived Magoist Calendar was arbitrary in that it could have been in 2017 or 2019. In retrospect, I must say that we are lucky to set the time of our first lunation on December 18 2018 because it makes the calendric migration process the smoothest. This means that our Magoist Calendar runs as less as 13 days behind the Gregorian Calendar. If we had begun in 2017, our New Year would have been December 17. Only one day difference. However, if we had begun in 2016, our New Year would have been on November 29. Likewise, if we had begun in 2019, our New Year would have been on November 26. These dates are the new moon date before Winter Solstice, the New Year day. The Magoist Calendar charts the human world into the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW. The Magoist Calendar needs to be in use today, which means that it has to be translated into the language of the Gregorian Calendar. For we have lost the actual counting of the Magoist Calendar into our days in the course of patriarchal history. Mago Almanac serves the purpose of making our calendric migration possible from the 12 month Gregorian Calendar to the 13 month Magoist Calendar. It guides our collective journey in the Mother TimeSpace interwoven by the cosmogonic force of Sonic Numerology, the musical interplay of nine numbers, which gives birth, nurtures, and transforms all beings in the cosmos. Intriguingly, I have realized only last year that the Magoist Calendar is identical with “the 13 Moon Turtle Calendar,” the calendar of North American indigenous peoples, which adopts the turtle shell that has 13 inner sections and 28 outer sections for the calendar of 13 moons and 28 days (see figure). This speaks volumes that the 13 month 28 day calendar was once widely known among peoples of the ancient world. The Magoist Calendar restores the link between lunation and menstruation as a 28 day monthly cycle, a topic that I have discussed in my essay, “Introducing the Magoist Calendar: Original Blessing of the Womb Time,” included in this planner. Why do we need to reinstate the calendar that is based on the luni-menstruation rhythm? That is because the Magoist Calendar is in accordance with Sonic Numerology. Put differently, the moon-women duet inscribed in the 13 month 28 day calendar is given by the Natural World. In fact, the Magoist Calendar is the first and …

Category: Goddess

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