March 21, 2026March 13, 2026 Mago Work1 Comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Jsabél Bilqís

Jsabél writes for women living deeply with the Goddess. From the spiraled lens of body, myth, symbol, and archetype; she stirs the cauldron where ecomythology meets theacentric psychology. Though credentialed Read More …

(Meet Mago Contributor) Amy Barron Smolinski

Amy Barron Smolinski holds an MA from Union Institute and University, where she focused on Sacred Feminine Studies under the late Patricia Monaghan. Amy’s thesis explored re-emerging Sacred Feminine manifestations in the lives of contemporary women. She is also a Certified Lactation Counselor and community activist for breastfeeding mothers and babies. She is an actress, director, and audio book narrator, and she teaches theatre classes to children in the U.S. Military community in Germany, where she resides with her husband and four sons.
(Poem) Each Day, I Howl by Mary Saracino

Photo by Mary Saracino My heart is heavy sorrow is rooted in my cells I weep, remembering what they did to my great, great, great grandmothers burned them at the stake of dogma to silence their voices erase their uterine knowledge control their lives, eliminate their sovereignty over body, mind, spirit. And now, this, in the 21st century, the inquisition returns to eviscerate us again. I howl at the moon, at the stars, the sky, the astonished faces of my sisters. We weep together. A dirge erupts from our open, wailing mouths, our eyes burn bright with rage, with grief. The trees offer solace, the birds sing bearing gifts for my weary soul, providing guidance in these troubling times. They console us, telling us to remember our power; they cannot kill us all, they affirm, even though they will try. There is strength in resistance there is power in our numbers. In sisterhood, we must never forget that we have a right to love, to live, to thrive to overthrow all that oppresses us. Together. Forever. We must trouble the troubled waters and wade through the roiling storm Meet Mago Contributor, Mary Saracino – Return to Mago E*Magazine
Paganism and American Folk Magic Traditions by Francesca Tronetti

Wikimedia Commons Pagans are people seeking spirituality. Not always religion, but true spiritual growth and freedom. Due to this desire, many seek out and learn from older cultural traditions, viewing these practices as purer and more in tune with the universe. This has led to multiple clashes between pagans and those whose cultures they seek to draw from. This is called cultural or spiritual appropriation, and there are dozens of articles, and probably a book or two, on the subject already. To avoid this conflict, many white spiritual seekers have begun looking to older European traditions such as those of the Celts and the Norse. However, worship of the ancient Norse deities has been linked to white supremacy in the last decade, so understandably many avoid the label. In the United States, there has been a steady resurgence of interest in American Folk Magic Traditions, especially those of the Appalachians, known as hoodoo, conjure, and rootwork. However, pagan interest in this folk magic is not always welcome and can bring them into conflict with practitioners of the craft. Until the 1960s, there were few studies of the lifestyles and traditions of Appalachian people. Then in 1966, the magazine Foxfire was first published. Proposed as a writing project by teacher Elliot Wigginton at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in Georgia, students collected stories from relatives and neighbors about how people had lived in their area. The magazine published these stories about the crafts, skills, and lifestyles of the people in their area, everything from lessons on raising and butchering hogs to how to build a spinning wheel. The magazine was an immediate success, partially owing to the interest in communes, the back to the land movement, and organic farms developing in the United States. Today for $15 a year, you can subscribe to the magazine, which has been in publication since 1966, and in 1972 the first of the Foxfire books was published. These books remain popular and are still sought after by collectors and enthusiasts today; I have six of the original books and one of the more recent publications in my library. Foxfire is also a museum of Appalachian history whose members continue to record the area’s oral history. It also serves as a classroom where people come to learn homesteading and traditional medicine using herbs. The work of the Foxfire group inspired others to take an in-depth look at the culture and traditions of the mountain people, rather than labeling them simple backwoods folk who need to be taught, not learn from. Because of the work of the Foxfire group and other dedicated researchers, we now have a better understanding of the folk magic traditions of the area. Hoodoo, conjure, rootwork, mountain magic, and granny magic are African-inspired religious practices that are sometimes called mountain magic. Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created and concealed from slaveholders by enslaved Africans in North America. Many of these enslaved people attempted to escape, and some, unwilling to risk the long trek north, headed deep into the Appalachian mountains. In this area, already established groups of Native Americans and small settlements of formerly enslaved people began to take shape. The Native Americans, having no love for the white man who also enslaved them, lived in relative peace alongside their neighbors and taught them the herbs of the land. Eventually, European immigrants settled in the area and soon discovered that the promised land was not a fertile plain where life came easy. Mountain life is tough, and you need to depend on your neighbors to survive, especially if you have never lived in an area before and do not know which herbs and roots you can eat, which will heal, and which will kill. When members of the Pennsylvania Dutch arrived, they had their own folk magic traditions, already influenced by their interactions with the Native American groups who lived in PA. The formerly enslaved people and their descendants incorporated some of these traditions into their belief practices and created what we today call hoodoo. Still, this knowledge was shared with their neighbors, which is why you will find white people who claim their families have practiced hoodoo for generations. Because they probably have. Hoodoo and conjure are uniquely American magical traditions, born out of the intersection of at least three, and possibly more, cultures who all wished to live their lives and remain free. The spells and incantations are in English, the herbs used are those which grow locally, and practitioners for centuries have been white. For those seeking a spiritual path linked to herbalism and one in which a charge of cultural appropriation cannot be made against Appalachian folk magic would seem to solve their problems. However, they would be mistaken in thinking this type of magic is open to everyone regardless of background. Hoodoo and conjure are not pagan, and many practitioners are Christian. While there is a belief in spells, curses, and evil spirits, the people have a solid Christian belief as their bedrock. The spells are based on Psalms and Bible passages, and invocations are made to Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, and the Saints. Appalachian folk magic is a branch of Christianity for all intents and purposes. Perhaps not one which many Christians outside of the geographic area would acknowledge, but it is still deeply rooted in the Christian faith. This has led to some online conflict between those who see this tradition as one which can be incorporated into the umbrella term pagan and those who resist their beliefs being placed alongside those of admitted witches. American folk magic occupies a unique place, being at the interception of Christianity and magic, but this does not mean that their beliefs and practices are open for anyone to use. To claim it as one’s own could be a type of cultural appropriation, on par with claiming the spiritual traditions of Native Americas or Afro Caribbean practices without understanding the deep cultural …
(Commemorating Mary Daly 6) My Memoirs of Mary Daly (1928-2010) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: My personal encounter with Mary Daly, a U.S. post-Christian feminist thinker, goes back to 1994, if not earlier. I stayed in Korea from 1994-1997 during which I translated two of Mary Daly’s early books, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation 하나님 아버지를 넘어서 (Seoul: Ewha Women’s University Press, 1996) and Church and the Second Sex 교회와 제 2의 성 (Seoul: Women’s News Press, 1997) in Korean. I carried with me to the U.S.A. our correspondences in the form of letters and documents mostly faxed to each other for the period of more than two decades. Later at one point I digitized them in images. Through these memoir series, I share some highlights of my memories with Mary Daly, her influence on my feminist thinking, and my own radical feminist journey to Magoist Cetaceanism.] My translation of Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father was completed and published early in 1996. Because my plan to enroll in the graduate program in the U.S. was delayed to the following year, I had one more year to stay in Korea. No sooner had I submitted my final manuscript of BGTF than I began to translate another book of Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex. I had asked Mary about it and gotten her approval. I made full use of my time. My intention was to support Beyond God the Father by translating the older sister book whose readership was aimed for Christians. And The Church and the Second Sex was published by Women’s Newspaper Press (Seoul, Korea) in 1997 (see Part 2). In retrospect, my translation of Daly’s books was the manifesto of myself as a radical feminist, a statement of the ecstacy of being alive as a Korean Woman. It was a high and formative time for the course of my life to evolve from. I was in my early thirties. The vision or call that I had been compelled to in my late teens and the twenties, which led me to join Maryknoll Sisters, a U.S.-based Catholic missionary organization, was real. It was not a misguided dream. That was the best option for me at that time and I meant to detour. The same vision was guiding me to a new horizon. I was fed up with the illusory nature of patriarchal identities, which was a necessary and important lesson that I had to learn. The thought of leaving behind patriarchal religions as well as Christianity freed me. I was undamaged at the core. Contrarily, my core shook off the old skin. I escaped patriarchy literally and figuratively! I was not drawn to my old connections; I was uninterested in making myself available to established figures and fields. I was a butterfly who dreamt of being a person or a person who dreamt of being a butterfly, the mystical musing of Zhuangzi. Reality was my dreamy vision. When one’s vision swallows the person, it brings out liberation. I had not been deceived or betrayed by my own dream. I was just in the wrong place, striving in vain to make it work for myself and the world. Now I was ready to embark on a new journey to Life by relying on my life’s lead. Daly’s radical feminist thought was the torch that I reached out to. She was the fire burning bright, with which I was able to take my first steps onto my original path to the Other World, the unknown and the potential. At that time and until 2000, I was not revealed to the matriversal consciousness of Magoism. I was under the spotlight and could not see far down the road. The road was curving drastically. I was saying good-byes to my old identity, the female trapped in the patriarchal machine factory. I was determined to find out who and what I was. It was a qualitative leap of a Radical Feminist, to borrow Mary Daly’s words. She was there to welcome me. Her recommendation letter that I share below shows that Mary knew what my translation of her books meant to me. Meanwhile I was seeking another graduate school to apply for admission. Now Mary knew that I was in need of finding a graduate school to apply to. I needed her help. And she helped me. Her help was not the band aid-like assistance. She was a woman propelled by her own destiny. No unreal gestures were involved. She wanted me to enter the right program in the right school. At the end, I was admitted to the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Claremont Graduate University. Mary began recommending a few women academics that she knew in person for me to contact. I did not miss any of these suggestions to follow up but received no definite responses from them. During this time, Mary also recommended me the book, Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, published by Spinifex. I purchased the book from Australia and kept it as one of my few belongings to bring with me to the U.S. the following year. That book helped me clear my way out throughout the forthcoming graduate years during which postmodern and post-structuralist trends swept the academic ground. Mary had mailed to me the booklet that listed all graduate programs offering women’s studies or feminist theology in the U.S. By 1996, there were a lot of universities, which offered courses on women’s studies and feminist theology. I ended up with two graduate programs to apply to: The first was the Theological Studies Program at Harvard Divinity School and the second was Women’s Studies in Religion at Claremont Graduate University. As I applied to those two schools, I needed 2 or 3 recommendations as part of the required documents. I got one letter from Sr. Patricia Conroy, Maryknoll Sister, who was supportive of me throughout the years even after I left the order. She did not hesitate to write a letter for which I was ever grateful. Mary Daly wrote her recommendation letter to both schools. Below is her letter to the former, dated on January 24, 1997: Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3506 Department of …
(Essay) Ecogynocentrism: Worshiping the Goddess Means Honoring the Land by Moses Seenarine, Ph.D.

[Excerpt from Cyborgs Versus the Earth Goddess: Men’s Domestication of Women and Animals and Female Resistance by Moses Seenarine] Long before male ‘civilization’ began, humans lived in female-centered, sustainable clans for thousands of years. Self-sufficient, gynocentric communities honored the Earth in all of her forms – as nature, animals, plants, water, soil, and so on. Sustainability was ensured by humans adherence to holistic, gynecological laws for long-term, land management. The Earth, her forms, and her laws were all inter-related and worshiped as various Goddess figures. Reclaiming the Goddess means putting the interest of women and girls first. Further, it connotes a reclaiming of love for the Goddess and all of her forms – flora, fauna, land, water, and ice. Affirming the Goddess implies a profound concern for long-term female survival and well-being of the seventh generation of females. Sustainable gynocentrism, or ecogynocentrism, was accomplished in the past, and it can be achieved again in the future. For millennia, the so-called ‘pre-agrarians’ were deliberately organizing communities of plants to make them more abundant, convenient, and predictable. Across the world, prehistoric female-centered communities altered the landscape and surrounding flora for their own benefit, for instance, through fire-farming and forest gardening. The Stone Age practice of forest gardening focused on fostering the growth of low-input, but productive and sustainable units of highly diversified trees, palms, bushes, and vines. Prehistoric women were experts at extracting vegetative matter for food, and using different flora for medicine, tools, ritual, and art. Living in harmony with nature was part of women’s inner orientation. Plant food and other flora were integral parts of the gynocentric gift economy as well. With long-term, land management techniques, early humans created vast plains through controlled and periodic ‘patch burning.’ This practice was called ‘bushfire’ in Australia and Africa, ‘wildland fire’ in North America, and ‘jungle fire’ in India. The Bantu of Africa have a detailed vocabulary to describe different stages of grass growth in relation to fire. And the nomadic Bushmen of South Africa burn old grass at the end of the dry season, in order to promote the growth of roots and bulbs in the coming rainy season. Using fire, Aborigines increased the amount and diversity of food available in Australia. They managed clearings, shrubs, forests, undergrowth, tree corridors, and other forms of vegetation with periodic burnings. Aborigines maintained habitats for valuable plant species, for example, grassland for tubers, wetlands for reeds and rushes, and so on. Tubers like yam daisy were an essential staple, and they require areas of open country, so fire-farming was used widely to encourage their growth. Sustainable land management was practiced for millennia in the Stone Age by women in different regions of the globe. Female clan leaders adhered to ecological laws and sanctions passed down by their gynocentric ancestors. These laws demanded the continuance of every form of life, and they helped prehistoric women and men to remain sustainable over long periods of time. Females were at the forefront of experiments related to plant domestication and females’ plant technology allowed New Stone Age communities to feed rapidly increasing populations. Most gatherers could not easily store food for long due to their migratory lifestyle, whereas those with a sedentary dwelling could store their surplus grain. Farming required more long-term planning, tools, and facilities and women invented and shared these technologies as part of their gift economy. Amazingly, aspects of gynocentric cultures exist in the present-day to some extent. Women have preserved bits and pieces of their gynocentric past, which can provide answers to our Global social and economic crises. Across the Earth, female-centered societies worshiping Earth goddesses, evolved peacefully, cooperatively, and in harmony with nature. Females not only have the solutions to end male violence, they have practiced equality for a very long-time. Women-led hominid clans survived many extreme climate changes, and they were thriving at the end of the last ice-age. However, the vast scale of female creativity, invention, technology, and accomplishment during the Stone Age have been entirely erased. Yet, it was ecogynocentrism that made the modern era possible and may prove essential for our future survival. (Meet Mago Contributor) Dr. Moses Seenarine
(Meet Mago Contributor) Judy Grahn, Ph.D.

Judy Grahn, Ph.D. is an internationally known poet, writer, and cultural theorist. An early (1965) LGBT activist, she is also a foremother of women’s spirituality, and a retired women’s spirituality professor. In her long career, she has published seventeen books and received many awards, including a Fred Cody Award for literature and social activism, a Pen Oakland award for excellence in literary criticism, two American Book awards, and two awards from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, among others. Judy’s work from the 1960s on has fueled LGBT, Feminist, and Women’s Spirituality movements. Metaformic Theory is her embodied philosophy, result of research into menstrual ritual practices, resulting in her idea that menstrual rituals created the basics of uniquely human culture, outlined in her 1993 bookBlood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World. Her Ph.D. dissertation was anapplication of the theory in a comparison of contemporary and recent menstrual rituals andgoddess rituals in Kerala, south India. Most recently she has published Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender and Erotic Power which explores eight stories of Inanna-Ishtar; a 2023 revision of her 1985 lit-crit The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition; and close encounters with nonhuman consciousness Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit: Living in a Sentient World. She is currently completing her third book-length poem, “The Queen of Cups”, an ecopoetic drama set as a Conference of Changes calling on four elemental goddesses plus Mary Magdalen to tell us about their stories, philosophies, loves, and practices.
(Photography & Prose) La Llorona by Sara Wright

The legend of La Llorona has been a part of Hispanic culture in the Southwest since the days of the conquistadores. Though the tales vary from source to source, the one common thread is that La Llorona is a woman named Maria who is always dressed in a white gown, the spirit of a young Mexican mother who drowned her children in the river in a moment of rage or abandonment by her lover and then took her own life in her deep shame and sorrow. La Llorona’s disembodied spirit is said to haunt the rivers at night – especially the Rio Grande – where she can be heard weeping in remorse for her dead children. Children are cautioned not to go out after dark because La Llorona might murder or drown them too. Because the tale of the Weeping Woman originated with the Patriarchal Spanish conquest I have always been suspicious of the various versions of this story believing that its meaning has been distorted. Immediately what comes to mind is the Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows, or Mother of Sorrows. All refer to the Virgin Mary, the only goddess left in Christianity. Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows is another name used to refer to this goddess. The Mater Dolorosa is also a key subject for Marian art in the Catholic Church. In common religious Catholic imagery, the Virgin Mary is portrayed with seven long knives or daggers piercing her heart, often bleeding. Devotional prayers that consist of elaborate meditations on her Seven Sorrows are based on the prophecy of Simeon: “And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary Jesus’s mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and a sign shall be spoken… a sword shall pierce through thy own soul so the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (my italics – if this isn’t an expression of an archetype I don’t know what is – an archetype is above all a container and paradoxically an empty pattern waiting to be filled) La Llorona and Mary seem to have a lot in common. They even share the same name! Both lost children or a child that was ‘the son of god’. Both became an archetype for all women embodying the agony of “mother loss.” This archetype from a Jungian standpoint is both a force of energy, an empty form that embodies information that any woman suffering the loss of a child may be drawn towards, often against her will. Archetypes need to be lived through. Another way of expressing this notion is to state that an archetype is a pattern of energy that pulls a person who is experiencing the effects of a particular ‘field’ (like that of loss) into alignment with that field in either a positive or negative way. The sorrowful mother is one aspect of this negative field, and the “good mother” is the positive side of the archetype or field. Both comprise one whole. I think the Spanish conquistadors (who were an unspeakably cruel people to those they oppressed) chose to put this dark twist on a heartbreaking story that does not originate with Christianity but stretches back to ancient goddess worship where goddesses include, but are not limited to, the weeping woman-mother. I also think La Llorona is an aspect of the goddess that sorrowing women might find comforting in times of intolerable loss. Just why the Spanish would turn this weeping woman into a seductress and killer of children forcing her to suffer for all eternity is also one way to destroy the power of women by blaming and shaming all imperfect mothers, making them evil, and teaching children and adults to fear (and hate?) women, the spirit world, the Powers of Nature as rivers and bodies of water, especially at Night. Water has everything to do with the Power of the Feminine, and the Powers of Night are traditionally associated with “witch women.” It is particularly sad that La Llarona is portrayed as a very young mother because it is often these child- women make the worst mistakes and end up paying for them over a lifetime. I certainly fall into this category having become a mother at 20, two decades before I developed into a person. Recently, a young Mexican poet and performer, Israel Francisco Haros Lopez (I have written about him elsewhere) put a new twist on the La Llorona legend that moved me and explicated the potential power of La Llorona. What follows is his poem: “ la llorona found her wail song along the rivers of full moons remembering she was born to sing and breathe the songs of all the forgotten women la llorona found refuge in knowing soon many warrior women would remember to sing cry to the full luna the waters of the women would become balanced again la llorona was full of broken mirrors, drenched in her throat drenched alongside her chest. Drenched along side her bloodied white dress drinking the blackened hearts of Spanish conquistadores la llorona was full of broken light. Ripped through her chest the glowing white of coyoxauhqui’s* fullness. Dripping through her body. wailing the light of her children, and all her grandmothers all the way back to the first light. *In Aztec mythology, Coyolxauhqui “Face painted with Bells” was a daughter of Coatlicue (Earth Goddess) and Mixcoatl and is the reigning goddess of the (southern) stars. She killed her own earth mother, Coatlicue. It seems to me that this young man has tapped into La Llorona in a most creative way. Here La Llorona finds her voice helping women to witness forgotten sorrowful mothers with compassion. By doing so women can once again support other women redressing imbalances and the woman hatred endemic to patriarchy. In this poem La Llorona is also finally able to integrate the cruelty of those who harmed her (drinking the black hearts). Lopez reminds us that La Llorona is full of broken …
(Poem) Matriverse by Mary Saracino

The image is from my personal archives. It is of a street sculpture in Lafayette, Colorado. I took the photo when I lived there in 2009. If you listen closely you can hear Her beating heart. Her uterine blood bathes the cosmos in possibilities. We are of Her and from Her, the great womb of life for every being, every breath, every blessed connection. We are One in Her infinite wisdom. Together we fly through the night sky, soar past dazzling stars and blazing suns. Anointed with stardust, we sing with the whales dance with the planets, embrace the moon, burn bright with the comets, recognize and celebrate our kinship with all plants and animals great and small. We are all birthed from the soul of the Matriverse, born into the unfathomable love She exudes. We will return to Her embrace when we die, coming home to dwell in the cave of Her generous heart at long, long last, the All in the We perfectly whole, united and free. © 2024 Mary Saracino https://www.magoism.net/2013/05/meet-mago-contributor-mary-saracino
(Music) Fire of Hope by Alison Newvine

Spiral Muse. Copyrighted by Alison Newvine https://open.spotify.com/album/0AQRN4EORgPCL1KFvA6ClE This year on Imbolc, Spiral Muse is releasing our forth album, “Fire of Hope.” Spiral Muse is a feminist folk rock band dedicated to the Goddess. This project reflects our journey as a band over the past several years, beginning with our pandemic-era hibernation phase. During that time, our band went through a death process with the relocation of one band member to the east coast. We thought that meant our days of making music together were over, but the Divine Mother had other plans for us. Over the past year we’ve been rebirthed as a “bicoastal band,” creating and recording music long distance. The album story begins in the deep past. The voices of our Indigenous European ancestors rise from the ashes of the witch burnings through the haunting, unaccompanied piece “We Are.” From the deep past, we move into the energy of “Deep Winter,” a drum and voice invocation. We hear the sounds of wind, ancestors, animals and other-worldly beings calling out from the coldest, darkest moment of midwinter. Next, we summon Celtic Fire Goddess Brigid who begins rebirthing us into spring. By the forth track our energy is growing as we dance and drum to shed layers of patriarchal conditioning. Playfully, yet determinedly, we begin to “Conjure” and reconnect to our inner magic. The fifth track is our title piece, in which we re-light our “Fire of Hope,” stepping out of the winter of oppression and into the returning spring. During the second phase of the album, we are both integrating loss and celebrating creative rebirthing. “Muse” tells the story of disconnection from the creative fire and learning how to enter the void and allow the past to die in order for the muse to be reborn. “Beloved” is both a lullaby to the inner child and an anthem proclaiming the power of music to engender freedom and healing. “She Believes” brings the voice of the Goddess directly to survivors of sexual and other forms of violence who have experienced silencing and outright denial of their experiences. This song is very gentle, invoking the natural elements to bring comfort and allyship to survivors. In “Walk this Path Anew,” we hear a prayer for inner peace, consolidating an understanding of the presence of the Divine Mother to comfort and guide us in our healing. The end of the album celebrates the all-pervasive nature of the sacred and of the power of Her love moving through us all. “The One,” holds the energy of completion and feels like a finale. It is followed by an instrumental piece, “Melody of the Road,” that reminds us the journey is ongoing. We included a live version of our title song, “Fire of Hope,” at the very end of the album. All of the previous songs were recorded one track at a time, with Kathleen recording on the East Coast and Dionne, Lana and myself recording one at a time on the west coast. We wanted to include one track that was recorded live, with all of us in the same room singing and playing together during a recent visit. “Fire of Hope” is available for free on Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, Apple Music and other electronic platforms. While the album is very personal to us, we believe the themes will resonate with everyone. Death and Rebirth cycles weave through all of our lives and through our collective experience. The Fire of Hope is a flame we all continue to tend as we work in our myriad realms to bring Her consciousness to our suffering world. We hope these songs will comfort, nourish and sustain you through this long patriarchal winter as we pray together for Her rebirth in spring. https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/

(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 2) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

Artwork, “The-great-mother” by Julie Stewart Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Magi/Magus, from Magi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest. Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic, to include astronomy/astrology, alchemy and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for (Pseudo‑)Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words “magic” and “magician”. In the Gospel of Matthew, “μάγοι” (magoi) from the east do homage to the newborn Jesus, and the transliterated plural “magi” entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as “kings” and more often in recent times as “wise men”).[1] The singular “magus” appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician. … An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival magavan meaning “possessing maga-“, was once the premise that Avestan maga- and Median (i.e. Old Persian) magu- were co-eval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit magha-). While “in the Gathas the word seems to mean both the teaching of Zoroaster and the community that accepted that teaching”, and it seems that Avestan maga- is related to Sanskrit magha-, “there is no reason to suppose that the western Iranian form magu (Magus) has exactly the same meaning”[4] as well. But it “may be, however”, that Avestan moghu (which is not the same as Avestan maga-) “and Medean magu were the same word in origin, a common Iranian term for ‘member of the tribe’ having developed among the Medes the special sense of ‘member of the (priestly) tribe’, hence a priest.”[2]cf[3] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gaia, from Gaia (mythology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In Greek mythology, Gaia (/ˈɡaɪə, ˈɡeɪə/ GHY-ə, GAY-ə;[1] from Ancient Greek Γαῖα, a poetical form of Γῆ Gē, “land” or “earth”),[2] also spelled Gaea (/ˈdʒiːə/ JEE-ə),[1] is the personification of the Earth[3] and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess. She is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods) and the Giants, and of Pontus (the sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.[4] … The Greek name Γαῖα (Gaĩa)[5] is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic Γῆ[6] (Gê), Doric Γᾶ (Gã, perhaps identical to Δᾶ Dã)[7] meaning “Earth”, a word of uncertain origin.[8] Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin.[9] In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (transliterated as Ma-ga, “Mother Gaia”) also contains the root ga-.[9][10] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Greek mythology of Gaia’s family tree is remotely evocative of the Magoist genealogy written in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principale text of Magoism. In Korean, “Mama” is also an honorary title referring to the royal family including ruler, ruler’s mother, father, grandmother and so on. This suggests that “ma” means “mother,” “ruler,” and “Goddess” all at once in gynocentric/gynocratic (Magoist/Magocratic) societies, pre-patriarchal in origin. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I came to search the etymology of “montgomery” in relation to Mt. Mago or Mt. Goya and am led to such related terms as Gomer, Gog, Magog. Montgomery (name) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Montgomery or Montgomerie is a surname from a place name in Normandy.[1] Although there are many stories of its origin,[2][3][4][5] An old theory explains that the name is a corruption of “Gomer’s Mount” or “Gomer’s Hill” (Latin: Mons Gomeris), any of a number of hills in Europe named in attribution to the biblical patriarch Gomer,[2] but it does not explain the final -y or -ie (the phonetical evolution would have been *Montgomers) and it does not correspond to the old mentions of the place name Montgommery in Normandie : Monte Gomeri in 1032 – 1035, de Monte Gomerico in 1040 and de Monte Gumbri in 1046 – 1048.[6] More relevant is the explanation by the Germanic first name Gumarik,[7] a compound of guma “man” (see bridegroom) and rik “powerful”, that regularly gives the final -ry (-ri) in the French first names and surnames (Thierry, Amaury, Henry, etc.). Moreover, the name is still used as a surname in France as Gommery,[8] from the older first name Gomeri.[9] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gomer below from Wikipedia. Gomer (גֹּמֶר, Standard Hebrew Gómer, Tiberian Hebrew Gōmer, pronounced [ɡoˈmeʁ]) was the eldest son of Japheth (and of the Japhetic line), and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah, according to the “Table of Nations” in the Hebrew Bible, (Genesis 10). The eponymous Gomer, “standing for the whole family,” as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia expressed it,[1] is also mentioned in Book of Ezekiel 38:6 as the ally of Gog, the chief of the land of Magog. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gog and Magog from Wikipedia. Gog and Magog: They are depicted as monsters and barbarians from the East/Eurasia. Gog and Magog (/ɡɒɡ/; /ˈmeɪɡɒɡ/; Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג Gog u-Magog; Arabic: يَأْجُوج وَمَأْجُوج Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) are names that appear in the Hebrew bible (Old Testament), the Book of Revelation and the Qur’an, sometimes indicating individuals and sometimes lands and peoples. Sometimes, but not always, they are connected with the “end times”, and the passages from the book of Ezekiel and Revelation in particular have attracted attention for this reason. From ancient times to the late Middle Ages Gog and Magog were identified with Eurasian nomads such as the Khazars, Huns and Mongols (this was true also for Islam, where they were identified first with Turkic tribes of Central Asia and later with the Mongols). Throughout this period they were conflated with various other legends, notably those concerning Alexander the Great, the Amazons, Red Jews, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and became the subject of much fanciful literature. In modern times they remain associated with apocalyptic thinking, especially in the United States and the Muslim world. Helen […]
(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.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRoK2XNeqw The purpose of the 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. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have some past photos of yourself, an altar with ancestor photos, a gingerbread snake, some apples sliced up, and some apple juice. The script for this Samhain ceremony is offered in Chapter 4 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. However I want to acknowledge here the inspiration and some text of Robin Morgan’s poem “The Network of the Imaginary Mother” in her book Lady of the Beasts, for which I was given permission in my book. I also acknowledge here the paraphrase of some words by Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance, used in the rite of Sailing to a New World. I also use a line from the poem Song of Hecate by Bridget McKern. 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). For the rite of the Transformation Journey (remembering old selves) I use an adaptation of a children’s game “In and Out the Windows”, where each participant travels in and out of upraised and linked arms of the circle, and when ‘in’ may speak and /or show photos of themselves from the past. Some may choose to remember any self from the entire evolutionary story, with whom they would like to identify. The game seems appropriate to what each being does existentially in so many ways, over the eons as well as in our personal lives. The chant can be found on YouTube. The photos used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Samhain ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Samhain ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. Music credit: All music used in this video is by Tim Wheater, which has previously generously allowed me to use in my work. The pieces used are from Tim’s CD Fish Nite Moon: they are Ancient Footsteps, Fish Nite Moon, Spiritbirth, and Conception. I thank my partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne for his participation in the creation of the video.
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

The Spring Equinox Moment occurs September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere, March 21-23 Northern Hemisphere. The full story of Spring Equinox is expressed in the full flower connected to the seed fresh from the earth; that is, it is a story of emergence from the dark, from a journey, perhaps long, perhaps short, through challenging places. The joy of the blossoming is rooted in the journey through the dark, and an acknowledgement of the dark’s fertile gift, as well as of great achievement in having made it, of having returned. Both Equinoxes, Spring and Autumn, celebrate this sacred balance of grief and joy, light and dark, and they are both celebrations of the mystery of the seed. The seed is essentially the deep Creativity within – that manifests in the Spring as flower, or green emerged One. the full story: the root and the flower As the new young light continues to grow at this time of Spring, it comes into balance with the dark at Spring Equinox, or ‘Eostar’ as it may be named; about to tip further into light when light will dominate the day. The trend at this Equinox is toward increasing hours of light: and thus it is about the power of being – life is stepping into it. Earth in this region is tilting further toward the Sun. Traditionally it may be storied as the joyful celebration of a Lost Beloved One, who may be represented by the Persephone story: She is a shamanic figure who is known for Her journey to the Underworld, and who at this time of Spring Equinox returns. Her Mother Demeter who has waited and longed for Her in deep grief, rejoices and so do all: warmth and growth return to the land. Persephone, the Beloved Daughter, the Seed, has navigated the darkness successfully, has enriched it with Her presence and also gained its riches. Eostar/Spring Equinox is the magic of the unexpected, yet long awaited, green emergence from under the ground, and then the flower: this emergence is especially profound as it is from a seed that has lain dormant for months or longer – much like the magic of desert blooms after long periods of drought. The name of “Eostar” comes from the Saxon Goddess Eostre/Ostara, the northern form of the Sumerian Astarte[i]. The Christian festival in the Spring, was named “Easter” as of the Middle Ages, appropriating Goddess/Earth tradition. The date of Easter, which is set for Northern Hemispheric seasons, is still based on the lunar/menstrual calendar; that is, the 1st Sunday after the first full Moon after Spring Equinox. In Australia where I am, “Easter” is celebrated in Autumn (!) by mainstream culture, so we have the spectacle of fluffy chickens, chocolate eggs and rabbits in the shops at that time. There are other names for “Eostar” in other places …the Welsh name for the Spring Equinox celebration is Eilir, meaning ‘regeneration’ or ‘spring’ – or ‘earth’[ii]. In my own PaGaian tradition, the Spring Equinox celebration is based on the Demeter and Persephone story, the version that is understand as pre-patriarchal, from Old Europe. In the oldest stories, Persephone has agency in Her descent: She descends to the underworld voluntarily as a courageous seeker of wisdom, and a compassionate receiver of the dead. She represents, and IS, the Seed of Life that never fades away. Spring Equinox is a celebration of Her return, Life’s continual return, and thus also our personal and collective emergences/returns.We may contemplate the collective emergence/returns especially in our times. I describe Persephone as a “hera”, which of old was a term for any courageous One. “Hera” was a pre-Hellenic name for the Goddess in general[iii]. “Hera” was the indigenous Queen Goddess of pre-Olympic Greece, before She was married off to Zeus. “Hero” was a term for the brave male Heracles who carried out tasks for his Goddess Hera: “The derivative form ‘heroine’ is therefore completely unnecessary”[iv]. “Hera” may be used as a term for any courageous individual: and participants in PaGaian Spring Equinox ceremony have named themselves this way. The pre-“Olympic” games of Greece were Hera’s games, held at Her Heraion/temple[v]. The winners were “heras” – gaining the status of being like Her[vi]. At the time of Spring Equinox, we may celebrate the Persephone, the Hera, the Courageous One, who steps with new wisdom, into power of being: the organic power that all beings must have, Gaian power, the power of the Cosmos. This Seasonal ceremony may be a rejoicing in how we have made it through great challenges and loss, faced our fears and our demise (in its various forms), had ‘close shaves’ – perhaps physically as well as psychicly and emotionally. It is a time to welcome back that which was lost, and step into the strength of being. Spring Equinox/Eostar is the time for enjoying the fruits of the descent, of the journey taken into the darkness: return is now certain, not tentative as it was in the Early Spring/Imbolc. Demeter, the Mother, receives the Persephones, Lost Beloved Ones, joyously. This may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the sixty-five million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. They describe the Ecozoic Era as a time when “the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation”[vii]. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning” of our times[viii]. Collectively we have been away from the Mother for some time and there is a lot of pain. At this time we may contemplate not only our own individual lost wanderings, but also that of the human species. We are part of a much bigger Return that is happening. The Beloved One may be understood as returning on a collective level: …
(Essay) Conceiving, Imagining the New at Samhain by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

It is the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. In the PaGaian version of Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony participants journey to the “Luminous World Egg” … a term taken from Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance[i], where she also names that place as the “Shining Isle”, which is of course, the Seed of conception, a metaphor for the origins of all and/or the female egg: it is the place for rebirth. Artist: Bundeluk, Blue Mountains, Australia. The “luminous world egg” is a numinous place within, the MotherStar of conception: that is, a place of unfolding/becoming. The journey to this numinous place within requires first a journey back, through some of each one’s transformations, however each may wish to name those transformations at this time. The transformations for each and every being are infinite in their number, for there is “nothing we have not been” as has been told by Celts and others of Old, and also by Western science in the evolutionary story (a story told so well by evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, particularly in her video Journey of a Silica Atom.) Ceremonial participants may choose selves from biological, present historical self, or may choose selves from the mythic with whom they feel connection; from any lineage – biological or otherwise. Selves may also be chosen from Gaia’s evolutionary story – earlier creatures, winged or scaled ones … with whom one wishes to identify at this time. Each participant is praised for their “becoming” for each self they share. When all have completed these journeys/stories of transformation, the circle is lauded dramatically by the celebrant for their courage to transform; and she likens them all to Gaia Herself who has made such transitions for eons. The celebrant awards each with a gingerbread snake, “Gaian totems of life renewed”[ii]. gingerbread snakes Participants sit and consume these gingerbread snakes in three parts: (i) as all the “old shapes” of self that were named; and (ii) remembering the ancestors, those whose lives have been harvested, whose lives have fed our own, remembering that we too are the ancestors, that we will be consumed; and (iii) remembering and consuming the stories of our world that they desire to change, the stories that fire their wrath or sympathy: in the consuming, absorbing them (as we do), each may transform them by thoughts and actions – “in our own bodyminds”. When all that is consumed “wasting no part”, it is said that “we are then free to radiate whatever we conceive”, to “exclaim the strongest natural fibre known” – our creative selves, “into such art, such architecture, as can house a world made sacred” by our building[iii]. This “natural fibre” is a reference to the spider’s thread from within her own body, with which she weaves her web, her home; and Spider has frequently been felt in indigenous cultures around the globe as Weaver and Creator of the Cosmos. Spider the Creatrix, North America, C. 1300 C.E., Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.13 In the ceremony, participants linked with a thread that they weave around the circle, may sail together for a new world “across the vast sunless sea between endings and beginnings, across the Womb of magic and transformation, to the “Not-Yet” who beckons”[iv]: to the Luminous World Egg whereupon the new may be conceived and dreamed up. Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony is an excellent place for co-creating ourselves, for imaginingthe More that we may become, and wish to become. This is where creation and co-creation happens … in the Womb of Space[v], in which we are immersed – at all times: and Samhain is a good season for feeling it. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005 Sahtouris, Elisabet. Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution. Lincoln NE:iUniversity Press, 2000. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. NY: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. The Earth’s Imagination.DVD series 1998. NOTES: [i]p.210 [ii]a version of this Samhain script is offered in Chapter 7 PaGaian Cosmology [iii]These quoted phrases are from Robin Morgan, “The Network of the Imaginary Mother”, in Lady of the Beasts, p.84. This poem is a core inspiration of the ceremony. [iv]“Not-Yet” is a term used by Brian Swimme, The Earth’s Imagination, video 8 “The Surprise of Cosmogenesis”. [v]note that creation does not happen at the point of some god’s index finger, as imagined in the Sistine Chapel – what a takeover that is!
(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: …
(Video) An Autumn Equinox Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

We posthumously honor Lydia Ruyle (August 5, 1935-March 26, 2016) as Patron of Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality. Mago Circle Members on June 11, 2016. Glenys Livingstone I feel blessed to have known Lydia and to have been in occasional personal communication with her for several years … initially via the Goddess Scholars list. Lydia sent me great information of some of her journeys, was always encouraging and generously supported my CD crowdfunding project in 2015. I feel honoured to have carried her Goddess banners to Australia in 2014.
(Book Excerpt 4) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] This chapter,[i] interweaving the personal (how I came to study Mago) and the political (why I advocate Magoism), informs the general and particular tenets of Magoism. My study of Mago was, although it took the form of a doctoral dissertation, ultimately motivated by my self-searching quest as a Korean-born radical feminist. I came to encounter the Great Goddess known as Mago in East Asia by way of several detours on my life’s journey. Like my non-Western and
(Bell Essay 8) The Magoist Whale Bell: Decoding the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This and ensuing sequels are excerpts of a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Singing Humpback Whales, wikimedia commons Whales as the Cosmic Music Maker That whales (Gorae in Korean) are foundational to the Korean temple bell remains subliminal to this day. How do we assess the cetacean code of the Korean temple bell? What is the relationship between these two seemingly unrelated objects? We are given the whale-shaped mallet of the bell to begin with. Intriguingly, two Buddhist temples are noted today for the wooden whale-carved mallet of their bells: Sudeok-sa in Yesan, South Chungcheong, and Seonam-sa in Suncheon, South Jeolla.[1] Other temple bells reportedly have the whale mallet as well, although not as much distinctly carved as the two. The Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great is known as such. What is the significance of the Korean temple bell that has a whale as its striker? However, the whale-shaped wooden mallet is only a visible symbol of Sillan cetacean veneration. The whale motif is not just physically present in the mallet but also signified in its name or title. Among many alternative names of the Korean temple bell are cetacean names; Janggyeong (長鯨 Eternal Whale), Gyeongjong (鯨鐘 Whale Bell), Hwagyeong (華鯨 Splendid Whale), and Geogyeong (巨鯨 Gigantic Whale). Here the character “gyeong 鯨” means a whale.[2] These whale names suggest that the bell itself is conceived as a whale. Korean temple bells are the code of Magoist cetaceanism. By the very nature of a temple bell that is to awaken all beings to put it bluntly, we can establish that the sound of a whale is elevated to the purpose of a temple bell. Or vice versa. The sound of a temple bell is identified as that of a whale. At the outset, suffice it to say that whales are admired and revered for their vocal behaviors so much so that they are represented in Sillan temple bells. The cetacean representation of the Korean temple bell comes unexpected to us. Why is the song of a whale not the song of a bird or another animal? And what does it mean that the Korean temple bell employs cetacean names? These are no small questions. Answering them requires digging into the deepest layer of what has gone under the surface about Magoist Korean whale culture. I have discussed elsewhere in detail about how Korean cetaceanism is steeped in linguistics, myths, place-names, and custom.[3] For the immensity and complexity of the topic, this essay leaves out the discussion of such salient features of whales as their pre-human origin, evolution from land to sea, sizes and trans-oceanic migratory journeys. Summarily, whales connect and bridge the human mind beyond anthropocentrism. Here we will focus on how cetacean veneration is encoded in the Korean temple bell, in particular the sound tube. Ancient Korean Magoists deemed whales as the cosmic music makers. The cetacean names of Korean temple bells redefine the bell as the acoustic instrument that conveys the music of whales. Note the plural in bells and whales. Korean temple bells are meant to be recognized as a chorus, like whales in the sea, to respond to the sonic property of all beings. In fact, the Korean temple bell is never an isolated single sound wave, to be discussed below. What is emitted from both is harmonized music. It is noted that the music of whales can travel hundreds of kilometers underwater.[4] That the song of whales travel as far as hundreds of kilometers underwater is juxtaposed with the sound of the Korean temple bells that travel far. The former is transmitted through water waves, while the latter is transmitted through air waves. Humpback Whales Whales compose music. Among cetacean species, known for their vocalizations are the blue whale, the fin whale, the humpback whale, the minke whale, and the killer whale.[5] In particular, such baleen whales as humpback whales and blue whales have been relatively well studied for their vocalizing behaviors. The range of humpback whales’ sound frequencies is known as follows: The range of frequencies that whales use are [sic] from 30 Hertz (Hz) to about 8,000 Hz, (8 kHZ). Humans can only hear part of the whales’s songs. We aren’t able to hear the lowest of the whale frequencies. Humans hear low frequency sounds starting at about 100 Hz.[6] In comparisons, the vocalizations of blue whales are known to range from 10 to 40 Hz at a fundamental frequency (the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform). It is also noted that blue whales off the coast of Sri Lanka make music of “four notes duration lasting about two minutes each, reminiscent of the well-known humpback whale songs.”[7] To be discussed below, the frequencies of the two most noted Korean temple bells range from 65 Hz to 103.02 Hz, which fall within the range of these whales’ vocalizations. A significant volume of scientific research has been harvested on the music of humpback whales. Katy and Roger Payne are, according to an article by Bill McQuay and Alison Richards, the first scientists who identified the calls of male humpback whales as songs.[8] They report that humpback whales do not merely sing but compose music. McQuay and Richards describe the song of humpback whales as follows: Surprisingly researchers have noted that at any given moment all males in a group will sing the same version of a song, even when separated over large distances, while whales in another region or hemisphere will sing a completely different song, but in unison with other whales in their area. These sounds are loud, deep and low-frequency (20Hz – 10 kHz). They can be heard many miles away and may go on for hours or even days. Individual songs can last anywhere from a few minutes up to a half hour at which point they may then be repeated again. …