July 2, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. Livingstone5 Comments

Goddess Pilgrimage Central Queensland Australia by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Her vulval images are in abundance in this place, Carnarvon Gorge, Central Queensland Australia; however, in a cultural milieu that can barely say the word ”vulva”, let alone understand the Read More …

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

(Poetry and Photography) Midsummer Eve by Sara Wright

It sounds so appealing a time of revelry, crackling bonfires, staying up all night to witness the dawn. Why do we celebrate this longest day of the year as Read More …

June 26, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Art 5) Grace, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

At the center of Life, She dwells From the center of Life, She leads She who embodies darkness and light She Eternal Grace Infancy – the very beginning of Remember Read More …

June 22, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. Livingstone1 Comment

(Essay and Video) Cosmogenesis Dance: Celebrating Her Unfolding by Glenys Livingstone

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. Read More …

June 13, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work2 Comments

(Art) The beginning of Wisdom by Susan Abbott

Much of my art attempts to be in a space of beginning, the imagined consciousness of creation, the religious imagination of reconnecting with the place/being from which I came. In Read More …

June 9, 2018November 15, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 3) Re-visioning Medusa Eds. by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren et. al.

Medusa: Wisdom of the Crone Moon Theresa Curtis, Ph.D. ALL MYTH IS AN UNFOLDING of both being and becoming. Hence, Medusa equally was—as Herself, precisely—and is—brewing Her story as circumstances Read More …

June 4, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. Livingstone1 Comment

(Essay part 3) Language for Goddess: Divine Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is part 3 of an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Joseph Campbell has said that the best things Read More …

May 30, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Art) Maryam on the Mesa by Susan Abbott

How the work is born: It started out as a simple landscape sunrise painting. We have spectacular sunrises out on Copper Mountain Mesa where I was living in Joshua Tree Read More …

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

(Art) Palmistry by Liz Darling

(Meet Mago Contributor) Liz Darling.

May 24, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Prose) Motherlines by Nane Jordan

Yesterday, I was looking for an old file in my computer. Instead, I re-found my pregnancy journal of 2001-2002. I wrote this journal, in part, to contribute to my MA Read More …

May 14, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poetry and Photography) Dying into Life by Sara Wright

May is a month of dying into the flaming fire, the white heat of spring. You circle overhead as the Hawk does in my dreams… Broad russet wings and Read More …

May 11, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Poetry) Crow Lesson on Abundance by Andrea Nicki

The crow neighbours received a windfall today. A stranger in the area passed through on her bike and released a small bag of shelled peanuts in the middle of the Read More …

May 7, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. Livingstone3 Comments

(Essay 2) Language for Goddess: Divine Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is part 2 of an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. It has often seemed generally clearer for me Read More …

(Essay 9) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] FRÖJA – The Vanir Maiden, Guardian of Growth and Sejd Fröja is the most important goddess in the Asir pantheon, familiar from the world-famous Eddas. Older translations of the Eddas have maintained the apparently original Fröja or Fröa/Fröe, but the modern trend, to let the Icelandic language act as a representative for all the old northern cultures, made translators favor the Icelandic spellings of her name, Freja, Freyia, Freyja, instead.[1] But whereas the Icelandic word, freyja/freja/freya has no meaning in Scandinavian languages, Fröja/Fröa/Fröe from frö (seed) is perfectly understandable in both Old Norse as in all the modern continental languages. As carrier of all future seeds (frö) in her cosmic womb, Fröjapersonifies the abstract and ultimate feminine principle, the life-giving (rather than the creating).[2] If to judge solely from the innumerable geographical place-names all over Denmark, Norway and Sweden, like Fröabjär, Frövi, Fröadalen, Fröagölen, Frölunda, many of which are known as old shrines and holy places, there would be no doubt left to her original name being Fröja or Fröa (same pronunciation) – but no old Freja-names found.[3] Old expressions have: “Fröa is out to see if rye is ripe” or “Fröa makes fire with steel and flint.”[4] The earliest ON word for mature womanwas frö/fru (seed-carrier). In the patriarchal, medieval Icelandic language it got a twist, and became a title, signifying only married women, fróvur.[5] As such, it matches the modern Scandinavian words Fru (Mrs), Fröken (Miss) and Jungfru (Virgin, maiden). Interestingly, besides being a title of a married woman, the German word Frau and the Dutch Vrouw managed to keep its original meaning, a woman. And for sure, the VanirFröja was never wife of, or second to, any man, by free will. She owns herself. She owns her own life-giving ability. The door to her private chamber was locked – unless she wished to open it, the Eddas inform.[6] In Asgård, goddesses are portrayed still to own relative autonomy and independence, probably a reflection the situation of women in contemporary time, still enjoying a certain, though limited, amount of freedom, lingering on from their sovereignty in days-gone-by. The Bride of Spring Fröja, and Her Twin Brother Fröj Fig. 24. BRAIDO (from right to left), BRIDE Östergötlands runes KJ54, Himmelstalund Fröja is growth, the power that awakens in the sleeping seeds when winter is over. Like the power of the life-giving potential is awakened in the young maiden, Fröja is therefore the symbol of maturity, and the universal Bride of Spring.[7] In Scandinavia she was once also known as BRAIDO (bride). Into the holy mountain at Himmelstalund, Norrköping covered with Bronze Age rock art figures (1800-500 BCE), her runes were carved into the rock as late as 200-400CE (Fig. 24).[8] The Braido-runes are the oldest rune letters known to be carved on the face of bedrock. They witness still that “Bride was here.” Fröja personifies the colorful, blooming beauty of spring and youth, and the sexually mature and independent, young woman at the peak of her procreating power – not yet having birthed children. She is the symbol and guardian of all new life sprouting, ranging from physical life to abstract ideas and projects to be launched. Her power lies within every menstruating or pregnant female being, woman and animal, as well in the seed and fruit of all female plants. She is not a creatrix goddess, if creatrix means modelling out creation based on imagination (as known from male creators); rather she personifies the feminine life-giving potential, meaning to give birth to new individuals. She is the power itself to grow and re-new. She is connected to the birth-giving, breastfeeding, and to the care of the newborn.[9] Her twin brother, Frö or Fröj mirrors the masculine life-giving potential and fertility (not a creator either).[10] Like their sibling parents, this twin couple, Fröja and Fröj also makes a sibling-based parental pair. Contrary to what the Eddas says in Lokesenna 32; “Foulest of witches (völva), you lay in the arms of your brother. Here the bright gods caught you,” they are not lovers. Their beloved respectively, with whom they beget children, is another matter to which we will return. The brother Fröj is identified by his over-sized phallus in Viking iconography; once in earlier societies the phallus was seen as the un-perverted symbol of blessing, health and happiness of life (Fig. 25, 26).[11] As Nor (oceans), also Fröj (rain) is linked to water. Fröj is rain and raindrops, sustaining life. He will shower and sustain Fröja with fresh drops of water during her summer-season of pregnancy, life-giving, and growth. But as Nor’s salty waters cannot mate with the fertile earth, neither does Fröj’s falling rain automatically spark new life to grow. For sure, it rains all year round, but pouring autumn and winter rain will not lure any seeds to start growing. Both Fröja and Fröj personify metaphorically the abstracts: growth and fertility. The Vanir greeting, Till Árs ok Frid (For Good Harvest, Harmony and Peace) is connected to Fröja and Fröj.[12] Among the many Fröja and Fröj fertility symbols, the sow and boar are well-known. Fröj rides a golden boar, Gyllenborste/Hildisvin. And as the only mammal to give birth to 25-30 piglets, even twice a year, the sow is the self-evident fertility symbol of Fröja. Syr (sow)[13] is another name for Fröja; and at geographical Fröa/Fröja-sites, oral legends will sometimes tell that these places are guarded by a Drottning Tryne (Queen Snout/Sow).[14] In a common legend tied to such Fröja-Sow-places, a priest from the new religion (Christianity) has been called for to give an old lady her last communion before dying. Suspecting the old place …
(Nine Poets Speak) Place of the Next Light by Arlene Bailey

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.] Art, Meraylah Allwood, InANutshellArt, https://www.etsy.com/shop/InANutshellArt I’ve held it all in,all the hopes and dreams,the cries of despair…held it all in until today.Until today when I felt this net of despairfall over me choking me, strangling me,blocking the air so I couldn’t breathe.I saw her tears as we locked eyes andand knew in our hearts that the soul,my soul, is now on the auction block.I keened for hours in the woods.Keened for what has already been lost…what is currently being lost…what is potentially still to come.I made altars and offered ritual.Screamed guttural prayersto the Mother of Allthat enough is enough!Still the tears came, but thekeening vocals grew quieteras I had no more to give.Even the crows and hawks went silentsensing a pause of sacred reverence.Where to now I asked?Where do you want to go, She replied?I don’t know.I’m tired and disillusionedand want to crawl into my caveand have the Old Ones- the recent ancestors andthe bone ancestors – wraptheir arms around me.Then that is what you do.But before you go, you offer…One last prayer to the dreamtime.One last offering of hope plantedin these darkening times.One last ritual of rebirth that even nowgestates in the womb of the Mother,that gestates in the womb and heart of you.One last offering given with all the fight ofthe Warrioress that lives within you.Then you rest and wait and trust theAncient Ones and more recent Ancestorsto guide you through to theplace of the next light.What if there is no more light I ask?Only darkness and evil?Evil has and will always exist,but so does the light.Find that place and knowthe light always returns.Perhaps dimmed,Perhaps brightly illuminative,but the light always returns.Until that time…Rest so you are able to still buildaltars to new possibilities andkeen over the bones of what is lost.Rest until that time you cangive voice to the both/and.Until that time, vision and dream andallow the Ancestors to wrap you inancient wisdom, ancient knowingas you embrace the sacred dark.Until such time, the light rises likethe woman you are, blazing andempowered and screaming like theBanshee taking no prisoners, as youbuild altars to the sacred new.As you remember you are aDaughter of the Cosmic Mother.Daughter of the As Above, So Belowwho aspires to the heights andplunges the depths as Shewalks between the worlds.So scream like the Bansheeand keen over the bones.Light the fires of ritualand offer prayers to theAncient and Future ones.Though the world may change andperhaps not in the way you desire,while grief and trauma shift and morph,you will survive and even prosperIF you remember who you areand the power you hold.Remember…She who is the Great Mother Goddess,Warrioress and Ancestor and more.She who is the Ancient Bone Woman.She who is the Ancient Deer Mother,the Memory Keeper, along withShe who is yet to be re-born.Remember…She who will always hold and inform you.Remember…You are your own Way-Shower and needonly look for the Place of the Next Light.Remember.Remember.Remember. Place of the Next Light, Arlene Bailey ©2025 (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey – Return to Mago E*Magazine
Goddess as Religion by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from chapter 2 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Great Goddess of Laussel 20,000 BCE,Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess The Female Metaphor/Goddess is often stated as (given the status of) “cult”, as opposed to “religion”; that is, as opposed to having the status of any other “World Religion”, which is how all the current patriarchal, “historical” religions are known and understood. Goddess “religion” has for the past few millennia generally been referred to as “fertility cult”, and this has been understood to mean a more lowly status, because matter itself had been reduced to insignificance or backdrop. The reproduction of matter has been considered a trivial thing by most patriarchal religions themselves, and certainly by most Western philosophy (and we may note here that the word “trivial” itself is a term whose original meaning has been diminished: that is, once a “tri-via” was a common meeting place, a Goddess thing in my opinion, a 3 way possibility. It has been characteristic of the patriarchal mind to divorce itself from its embeddness in material reality. “Fertility” itself is a term that needs to be re-valued. There is no reason to assume that the ancients did not comprehend the multivalence – the depth dimensions, of “fertility”. It is the Creativity of Earth, of the Cosmos, and it is concerned with the Life in which we are immersed. The modern mind frequently assumes that “primitive fertility rituals” came from an insecurity about survival. This may in fact be a massive projection. Frequently, our ancestors of earliest times partook in the abundance of nature, so perhaps the “fertility rituals” were as much a celebration of regenerative cosmic power, as they were an invoking of it. Heide Göttner-Abendroth, scholar of matriarchal cultures, uses the term “faith of rebirth” rather than “fertility cult” to speak of Goddess centred faith/religiosity[i]. That does express the essence of Goddess religiosity, however I like to stick with a re-valuation of fertility. This re-evaluation may be developed in the restorying of the three faces of the Female Metaphor, such as I have done in PaGaian Cosmology, particularly in the re-storying of the Old One, that is, the post-menopausal elder. If the ancients were simply concerned with physical fertility (of which only a dualistic mind can conceive), why celebrate this “useless” phase? The “fertility cults” seemed to have some understanding of the integrity of life – birth and death; certainly they seem to hold more than the “primitive”, “unconscious” veneer they have been dealt by researchers of recent centuries, and by their conquerors of old. The word “religion” itself is problematic, as it tends to imply a rigid system of belief. Its roots are in the word religio which may be interpreted as “binding” in a negative sense, or as a connectedness in a positive sense of relatedness and bonding. There is argument for the case that Goddess imagery and language is not another religion, since She underlies and is threaded through all of them; She is a Metaphor, but so is “God”[ii]. It would seem more accurate to speak of “Goddess spirituality”, since that seems to indicate a fluidity and aliveness. Heide Göttner-Abendroth uses “matriarchal spirituality” for this reason[iii]. Göttner-Abendroth re-defines “matriarchal” as meaning “in the beginning was the mothers”, contending that ‘arche’ did not mean ‘dominance’ until later[iv]. However, I am keen to have Her understood with the dignity of an in-depth spiritual practice, a coherent worldview; and the word “religion” does that. There are many different varieties of ritual and form within Goddess religiosity it is true, but so there are in God religions. She does deserve to be listed as a “World Religion”, given that She was the main metaphor for Deity for so long and so pervasively, and still is revered in some form by millions of humans. Most minds on the planet, at this time in the human story, are so used to reducing the Female Metaphor/Goddess to cult, archetype, consort, wife of, that it seems necessary to dwell for a while on this issue. Most minds are non-plussed as to who else She might be, if not in relationship to, or secondary to, or even a danger to, a male “major player”. Was She ever anything else? At this point in time many scholars, artists and more have addressed who else She might be, both from past evidence and from present experience of cosmological dynamics. In my own work I have not directly addressed the “why” question – that is, if She was once something other than Her present reduced state, why did that change? I have preferred to focus on the present – who She is now, and, on what use that might be. What might be the consequences of changing our minds sufficiently, so that Medusa for instance, can be comprehended as metaphor for Divine Wisdom? Many scholars contend She once was understood this way. What might it mean for our minds to welcome Her back? Would that alter the way we relate to Earth, to Being? A “Home-ly” Religion My partner put forward the perception of Goddess religion being a “homely” religion, and he meant that with all the status that “homely” may have. It may be written as “Home-ly” to emphasize that it is connective to Home – as Earth, Self, Cosmos. Such a description as “Home-ly religion”, perhaps as a counter to “World religion”(!), is based on evidence of the ancient practice of every home being a shrine, a sanctuary to Her; when there was no separation between the secular and the sacred, when “religion was life, and life was religion”. This is described by Riane Eisler in The Chalice and the Blade[v], referring to the archeological work of Marija Gimbutas. A “home-ly” religion then is a “domestic” religion – one that may be known in the familiarity of one’s dwelling – bodymind, home, backyard, region, “country”, Earth, Solar System, Universe. NOTES: [i] Heide Göttner-Abendroth, The …
(Poem) Ancient Mother by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright On the path through the pines I see clumps of moss scattered, an old tree trunk is raked as if with claws; clumps of downed bark food for the earth. My heart soars. Wild hope pours through me like honey. Guns split the air with with fiery blasts – machines scream. Trickery abounds. Acting out their man Hatred and Rage, supported by ‘their’ women, (betrayers of our kind) so many have lost access to being human. Power and Ego are all. Never wrong, or accountable Apology is an anathema – Compassion a quality without meaning. Always “right” no matter how ignorant, He spews directives – incapable of honest exchange. Resorting to boring platitudes – repetitive lies, He imagines his nose doesn’t give him away. A woman is only an appendage to be used. A social secretary a cook – or selfless mother she’s supposed to remember his birthday when he forgets hers. These are the jobs of women. But the worst lies Under The Covers – “Put out” he says with disgusting distain. And if she refuses she pays…. Ah, the stupid tantrums of men who throw spewing dog cans across the airport floor. There are exceptions. Both men and boys who are wise in the ways of Nature. Having lived in the Forest, they learned the art of listening. She taught them how to be men. The word integrity has meaning – Compassion is strength. “Protect the old people, the innocent,” they demonstrate with their actions. “Are you all right?” “I’m worried about your breathing…” Women of all ages rank high on their scale. Questions like this bring me to tears. Oh, I see Her now hiding in the tree, casting an ancient and powerful spell to protect them, – these men whose humility stands before them. These men who know how to love. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright
(Art) Santa Florés—Spanish Saint of Flowers by Sudie Rakusin

Santa Florés inspires us to remember that from seed to blossom there are many stages before the brillance of full flower. Be patient, as we are always where we need to be. All flowers originate from tiny beginnings. The journey from seed to blossom follows a natural and necessary order. The unformed flower begins life inside its protective shell, roots creeping into the ground to seek sustenance, quietly garnering energy before burgeoning forth into the light of day. Only after a patient season of germination does the triumphant bud bloom, trumpeting its arrival. There are many species of flowers, and all require different care to coax their unique brilliance into being. A blooming desert cactus and the daffodil may not flourish in the same conditions or place, but reach full flower when and where their majesty is richest. Artist’s Note: The natural flow in my Feminist practice and Spiritual belief was to become an ardent and dedicated spokeswoman for animals and the environment. I am a vegan. My decision to stop eating meat was always an ethical and spiritual one. I cannot take another life for my subsistence. I believe animals have their own reason for being and they have the right to live out their purpose, not one we impose upon them. My art reflects my passion and love for animals as well as my respect and appreciation for the Earth. I paint, draw, and sculpt the world I dream of inhabiting. A place where the natural world is treated with deference and there is no hierarchy among humans and animals. In my world, we all walk the Earth in harmony. My art is the best way I know to express these feelings. www.sudierakusin.com (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin.
(Poem) Wisdom Home by Vajra Ma

the supreme wisdom bringer the unsurpassed fount of wisdom bliss portal ocean of compassion resides within
(Video) Embodiment of Crone/Old Dark One Quality of Goddess/Dea by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This contemplation was originally part of a Re-Storying Goddess class series that I facilitated throughout the 1990’s, and then some until 2011. These classes were originally offered over 6 weeks, often at a Women’s Health Centre, sometimes over a weekend, sometimes at university Continuing Education programs, or at my home. This class series formed the basis of much of my subsequent writing, my doctoral work, and eventually the authoring of PaGaian Cosmology. Our bodies hold memory of the entire evolutionary history just as Earth holds the memory … seen most obviously in fossils. And just as Earth’s movements have uncovered some of her memories, so our movements and body posture can release some of our memories … or awaken us to something new. This is an exercise in imagination – extending our imaginations – something very human and powerful. I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add or extend your own processing and participation. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. You may like to have your journal and pen, and/or art paper and crayons/paints handy for writing and/or drawing at the end. Use my words as a guide, taking the journey, but interpreting and enjoying yourself as you need. NOTE: the image of the Old Moon curves to the right in this video, since that is the way it presents in the Southern Hemisphere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RyY1L1ptf4 Below is the text which is in the video. Standing to begin if you are able, feet slightly apart, soft at the back of the knees, eyes gently closed if you like. As we progress through this meditation allow your body the freedom to move/posture, as and if you feel you’d like. Take a deep breath … let it go, relax your jaw and your body. Feel for your breath, noticing as it rises and falls. Enjoy it … as you might an ocean. Feel this power within you – the Breath that breathes you. Notice your body sensations, and respond as you feel – a wriggle, a stretch, a movement, a sound, whatever … exploring this bodymind. Imagine roots coming out of your feet deep into the Earth – all the way to Her core. This is the truth of where you come from. So imagine these roots – all the way to Her core. With each breath, imagine drawing Earth’s energy up into you through your feet. Feel it as whatever you desire – pride, creativity, nurturance, wisdom, integrity. Draw it again and let it fill all your cells of your bodymind. Let Her nurture you, enliven you. Imagine yourself a tree drawing up water and nutrition from Earth to fill and enliven your wilting parts. Feeling this energy as it peaks, feeling its fullness … then the need to let go, … feeling the ebb … trusting it, knowing there is always more. Again letting it fill all the cells of your bodymind with each breath, from deep in her core – Earth’s energy, however you imagine it for yourself in this moment. Then needing the emptiness, so you can be filled again. Feeling this cycle – filling up, emptying out … thankful for the emptiness, the Space that may be filled again, as you desire. Thankful for the Unknowing. Imagine yourself the moon itself, waxing into fullness, waning into darkness, then re-appearing again … imagine that. Imagine yourself the ocean itself … ebbing and flowing, coming in, going out … filling up, emptying out, feeling the Space … en-joying it all. Visualize now a waning crescent Moon, in the dark Eastern sky of the morning: She may be curving to the right in your hemisphere, or the left. See Her there in your mind’s eye … Her light decreasing, Her darkness waxing. Feel the comfort of Her darkness as it grows, beckoning rest, beckoning deeper Knowledge. Feel Her growing darkness entering into you through your eyes. Be comforted by Her Dark Sentience as it grows. She is the Old Woman, the Crone who knows the power of ending. She receives all. Let Her Receive you, as you receive Her. Feel Her Compassion as She receives you this moment, each moment. All things return to the Mystery whence it comes. Feel this Return happening in you always – ever present. This is a Native Place. Feel this Native Place. Like the grain, you-we are all Food … constantly being consumed, and also finally consumed in this form, changing physical form. In this knowledge lies Wisdom. The Crone/Old Dark One in you is wise, infinitely old. Feel your own age, the age of the elements that form you … they have been around since the beginning – all the way back. You go all the way back. The wisdom of evolution, the Transformation of the Ages – the Cosmic Unfolding – is stored in every cell of your body-mind. This is the Old One. You are She – dark and ancient Wise One. You are Old, so old – your bodymind infinitely wise. Know your own power to end, to let go as well as to draw in; to de-struct what is stagnant and decaying, to preserve what is useful for life. See/feel the Wise One, cloaked in darkness … know the fertility of Her dark realm within you, understand the necessity of the journey into Her inner terrain, for knowledge, connection and renewal. Name Her if you like, and feel her strength within you – it may be wisdom, age, creativity, compassion, anger, forgiveness … She may be many things. Be with Her. Perhaps feel her embrace if you like and comprehend her love … trust her compassion – for this moment. Stay in your own space for a while, take some paper and draw what comes to you, if you like. Or write or spend the time reflecting. …oOo… Image credits: – Bird-Headed Snake Goddess (Eurynome) 4000B.C.E. Africa. Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess. (Berkeley: Wingbow Press, 1990). – Milky Way, Akira Fujii, …
(Art Essay) Girls On Top by Claire Dorey

Nut and Four Faces of Hathor and Womb as Pyramid by Claire Dorey Follows Understanding Tanit through Felt Experience and Visualising the Energy in Hathor’s Temple (click to read). In these minimalist times we accept the sky as being the domain of one male god. The Goddess Nut, in her star-spangled unitard, arching over humanity in pyramid pose, turns sky father doctrine on it’s head. Girls On Top aligns much better with astrophysics, after all the womb and cosmos are both creative cauldrons. “God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there’s no turning back.” – Gloria Steinem. My journey into decoding the triangle, through an artist’s eye, leads me to ask the following questions. Why the premise that up-pointing triangles represent male / air energy and down-pointing triangles represent female / earth energy? Why would an inverted vulva symbol, a container for female creative energy, represent male energy? Which came first, the vulva or alchemy? Was the triangle subject to patriarchal reversal to claim female power as male power? Can we use the triangle to track the rise and fall of Girl Power? If the triangle is the building block of the universe then Goddess Nut, as a great cosmic arc, is the Golden Spiral. Nut, ‘nw’ , the water pot and infinite consciousness and nothingness, holds space and IS space. She rises from Earth to the amniotic waters of the Milky Way, birthing souls, birthing stars, her body as vessel for the entire cosmos, whilst the negative space beneath Her holds structure for humanity. Understanding Nut and ancient Egyptian’s elaborate mechanics of the universe is to go to the place where the edges are blurred, to felt experience, to tantra. It’s why I’m searching for answers in the artwork in Hathor’s temple. There are parallels with science and tantra but perhaps science trips itself up because quantifying consciousness is not necessary to understanding it. To unravel the complex world of ancient Egyptian deities is to see beyond the ordinary and step into the vibrational fields of mirroring, twinning, pairing, polarity (deities in female / male pairs – Isis / Osiris); omnipotence (particles and deities can be everywhere at once – the four faces of Hathor); interconnectivity (complex, often incestuous, relationships – Shu / Tefnut); quantum entanglement (deities link together even though in space they are far apart – Nut / Geb); parallel universes and alternate dimensions (the afterlife). Nut swallows the sun at dusk and births it at dawn. Meanwhile sky Goddess Hathor who is vibration, the Eye of Ra and mother, sister, consort and daughter of the sun god Ra, births him through her iris. The mythology of the omnipotent, energetic mother intertwines, forming and reforming, moving through itself like a Torus energy field (click to view). Mirrors were Hathor’s votives and in Her temple mirror images hint at divine reflections of ourselves and mirror universes – afterlife in ancient Egypt was a replica of life on Earth. One of Her avatars, as the sun’s heat, drawn as rays, when mirrored, forms a pyramid facade. It seems logical the up-pointing triangle is a reflection of the down-pointing triangle, both vulva symbols, both female. ‘As above, so below…” Hermes Trismegistus. ‘As above’ Nut arches over the ceiling of the Hypostyle hall in Hathor’s temple. Meanwhile ‘so below’ in the crypt there are pairs of bulb shaped containers, known as the Dendera Lightbulbs, with serpent filaments and Blue Lotus cords, the negative space beneath forming a triangle. Nut Dendera Lightbulbs with Icons by Claire Dorey Perhaps these lotus bulbs are Nut’s ‘mirror’ wombs, rising up in a pyramid pose from the Earth god Geb – the first act of creation. Perhaps this scene represents Nut’s own birth as She simultaneously births the twins Osiris and Isis, as Isis simultaneously births Horus – birth within births, infinitely folding back in on itself like the Torus. One coffin text says Isis was impregnated by a flash of lightning so perhaps the lightbulb theorists aren’t so far off! “You stirred in the belly of your mother in the name of Nut,You are indeed a daughter more powerful than her mother, Great One who has become the sky!” – Geb to Nut – Pyramid texts. So what of the pyramids, the ultimate triangle? As a pentahedron, does the square base represent Nut’s hands and feet marking the four cardinal directions? Or perhaps it represents the ‘four faces of Hathor’, the seeing-all eye. ‘Hwt-hor’ means House of Horus, so perhaps She is the pyramid. If the pyramid is the pharaoh’s tomb, the final stage of rebirth happening in another dimension, then surely it makes sense to think of the pyramid as a womb. “To reach the afterlife the dead pharaoh had to be rejuvenated into the womb of various goddesses, in particular, the great mother and sky goddess Nut.” – Birth and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt – Cathie Spieser – Asor. Overlaying an image of Khafre’s pyramid with an image of the uterus is not definitive but the dimensions do correlate. The lower and upper burial chamber passageways resemble fallopian tubes. Is this the coincidence of divine proportion or by design? The insidious rise of patriarchal conditioning and gender stereotyping erased from consciousness the harmonious and ancient pairing of rising female energy and grounding male energy – Shu supporting Nut rising from Geb. In ancient Egypt there were male uprisings. Ra forbade Nut to give birth on certain days, limiting her power. Pharaoh Akhenaten replaced polytheism with Atenism – the worship of one single sun god – possibly the first doomed attempt to limit the power of the sky Goddess. Of course there is such a thing as female and male energy however, as many now intuitively identify beyond the binary ’she’ and ‘he’, I question why gender is used to describe ascending and grounding energy. Gender stereotyping opens a portal for discrimination and exploitation. I’m sure cross dressing Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, 1479 – 1458 BC, would agree, …
(Art & Poem) Spring Equinox by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

A SEED FOR SPRING EQUINOX . . . till I feel the earth around the place my head has lain under winter’s touch, and it crumbles. Slanted weight of clouds. Reaching with my head and shoulders past the open crust dried by spring wind. Sun. Tucking through the ground that has planted cold inside me, made its waiting be my food. Now I watch the watching dark my light’s long-grown dark makes known. Art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch

(Review) Journey into Dreamtime by Munya Andrews, reviewed by Glenys Livingstone

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion or spirituality of Indigenous Australians, Munya Andrews of the Bardi people from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, acknowledges this and chooses to name her recently published book with it, explaining that: “I love the term … For me, it conjures up a magical and mysterious world.”, and she feels that the term aligns perfectly with the common global religious concept that Diety is beyond words and human understanding. For me, as Munya Andrews describes “Dreamtime”, it seems resonant with the sense of “ever-present Origins”[1]; that is, original space and time that is omnipresent. This is a space/place that I understand to be referred to as “between the worlds” and “beyond the bounds of space and time”, by Indigenous Europeans (Pagans), a tradition with which I am familiar. I understand it to be a sentient world in which we are immersed actually, and which may be revealed to the observant person in synchronous moments. With practice one may live with clearer everyday connections with this world, and Munya’s book is an important contribution to making those connections from within the cosmology of her people; and for “all beautiful souls to keep the Dreamtime alive”, as she says in the book’s dedication. This book provides informative story that should be part of every Australian’s education at various levels: it lays a groundwork and also elicits deepening understandings. The teachings offered in Journey into Dreamtime should be considered essential knowledge for living on this land named Australia, whereas heretofore most present occupants have often not had easy access to such learning. This very readable and small book provides some basic facts: for example, that there are “250 or so Indigenous nations, each having their own language, their own names and ‘country’ or tribal lands.”; and that terms such as Koori, Nunga or Murri are “pan-Aboriginal” names taken on since colonisation, for the sake of asserting a distinct Indigenous identity, in the face of forced removal from families and land. In the course of the seven chapters Munya develops understanding of Dreamtime, and also understandings of Indigenous Law, Songlines, sacred sites, bush doctors/bush medicine, Rainbow Snake, and Kindredness. I found all of this really helpful, an invitation into a world of being and relationship; and it is told with frequent analogies from Western science and academic and spiritual texts, with which the reader may be more familiar, enabling the bridge into Indigenous science and worldview. There is a list of suggested readings offered, along with links and details for further connection and learning. At the conclusion of each chapter of Journey into Dreamtime there are “Dreamtime Reflections”, posing questions for personal consideration, inviting personal participation and pathways into some actual sense of an alive self in relationship with the alive world described. This book needs to be in spaces/places where everyday people can read it, like waiting rooms of all kinds (where there are frequently Bibles); as well as in every library, and especially Australian libraries. I highly recommend Journey into Dreamtime as an educational resource, for your self, for educational programs, and/or for any group that you may gather. Aunty Munya, as she names herself, has an impressive track record of speaking engagements, mentioned at the conclusion of the book, and invites you to have her speak to your organisation. She describes her life purpose as “to create better understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal people and to leave behind a legacy of Dreamtime wisdom for generations to come.” May it be so, as readers of Journey into Dreamtime absorb its teaching and resources. To order a copy of Journey into Dreamtime visit Evolve Communities NOTES: [1]“ever-present origin” is the English translation of Jean Gebser’s Ursprung und Gegenwart, Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag, 1966.
(Special Post 1) 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.] Introduction by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Wennifer Lin-Haver Helen Hye-Sook Hwang I am asking each of us to consider writing a sentence or paragraph on “Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality?” This idea is prompted by Wennifer Lin-Haver, Founder of Mother Tree Sanctuary, and I agree that we need to and can create a sort of collective writing on the topic. What we write below will be included and published in The Girl God, Mother Tree Sanctuary, and Return to Mago. As a subaltern minority as we seem at the current point of time, Goddessians/Magoists [the term Mago means the Great Goddess] need to make extra efforts to make our voices and presences exposed to the public and inner circles. Length and style are open. Please also include your name, region/state/country, title, and/or website URL. We strongly encourage you if you are located in a place where Goddessians are rarely around. We intend to make a collective testimonial tapestry of WE as Goddessians/Magoists! Please keep this in your mind and join us in this collective effort. Thank you in advance. March 6, 2014 AF (Archaic Future)! Wennifer Lin-Haver Our “call” started as a conversation between Helen and me where I was expressing to her the real need for Mother Tree Sanctuary to be more articulate with exploring the significance and importance of Goddess in our lives. I was prompted to give such a response, when asked “why” we had to differentiate God and Goddess. “Isn’t everything God?” She asked. And “Isn’t Goddess also God?” “Isn’t it all the same as long was we’re all coming from our ‘higher’ self?” she asked. So I saw this warranted a longer and much deeper discussion. I initially thought I should formulate a response and post it as a Page or Tab in our website, but after some reflection with Helen, I saw how much better it would be if we replied to this question as a diverse and creative collective. I surely do not have all the answers as an individual but perhaps together, we can come up with something more whole, colorful and satisfying. I do hope you will contribute a little something! We are always grateful for all that you have to share.
(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.

(Essay and Video) Cosmogenesis Dance: Celebrating Her Unfolding by Glenys Livingstone

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.
A Southern Hemisphere Perspective on Place by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the Introduction to the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which was an outcome of her doctoral research/thesis entitled The Female Metaphor – Virgin, Mother, Crone – of the Dynamic Cosmological Unfolding: Her Embodiment in Seasonal Ritual as Catalyst for Personal and Cultural Change. This doctoral work was in turn a documentation and deeper research of the Seasonal ceremonial celebrations that the author was already engaged in for over a decade. The whole of the process is here named as her “Search”. photo credit: David Widdowson, Astrovisuals. The site of seasonal ceremonial celebrations will always be significant. In my case, the place in which I have created them has been notably in the Southern Hemisphere of out Planet Earth. The fact of my context being thus – the Southern Hemisphere – had contributed in the past to my deep internalized sense of being “other”, and dissociated from my senses, since almost all stories told were based in Northern Hemisphere perspective. Yet at the same time this context of inhabiting the Southern Hemisphere contributed to my deep awareness of Gaia’s Northern Hemisphere and Her reciprocal Seasonal Moment: thus, awareness of the whole Planet. My initial confusion about the sensed Cosmos – as a Place, became a clarity about the actual Cosmos – which remained inclusive of my sensed Cosmos. PaGaian reality – the reality of our Gaian “country” – is that the whole Creative Dynamic happens all the time, all at once. The “other”, the opposite, is always present – underneath and within the Moment. This has affected my comprehension of each Sabbat/Seasonal Moment, its particular beauty but also a fullness of its transitory nature. Many in the Northern Hemisphere – even today – have no idea that the Southern Hemisphere has a ‘different’ lunar, diurnal, seasonal perspective; and because of this there often is a rigidity of frame of reference for place, language, metaphor and hence cosmology[i]. Indeed over the years of industrialized culture it has appeared to matter less to many of both hemispheres, including the ‘author-ities’, the writers of culture and cosmos. And such ‘author-ity’ and northern-hemispheric rigidity is also assumed by many more Earth-oriented writers as well[ii]. There has been consistent failure to take into account a whole Earth perspective: for example, the North Star does not need to be the point of sacred reference – there is great Poetry to be made of the void of the South Celestial Pole. Nor need the North be rigidly associated with the Earth element and darkness, nor is there really an “up” and a “down” cosmologically speaking. A sense and accountof the Southern Hemisphere perspective with all that that implies metaphorically as well as sens-ibly, seems vitally important to comprehending and sensing a whole perspective and globe – a flexibility of mind, and coming to inhabit the real Cosmos, hence enabling what I have named as a ‘PaGaian’ cosmological perspective, a whole Earth perspective. It has also been of particular significance that my Search has been birthed in the ancient continent of Australia. It is the age of the exposed rock in this Land, present to her inhabitants in an untarnished, primal mode that is significant. This Land Herself has for millennia been largely untouched by human war, conquest and concentrated human agriculture and disturbance. The inhabitants of this Land dwelt here in a manner that was largely peaceful and harmonious, for tens of thousands of years. Therefore the Land Herself may speak more clearly I feel; one may be the recipient of direct transmission of Earth in one of her most primordial modes. Her knowledge may be felt more clearly – one may be taught by Her. I think that the purity of this transmission is a significant factor in the development of the formal research I undertook – in my chosen methodology and in what I perceived in the process, and documented; from my beginnings as a country girl, albeit below my conscious mind in the subtle realms of which I knew little, to the more conscious times of entering into the process of the Search. In this Land that birthed me, ‘spirit’ is not remote and abstract, it is felt in Her red earth[iii]. Aboriginal elder David Mowaljarlai described, “This is a spirit country”[iv], and all of Her inhabitants, including non-Indigenous, may be affected by the strength of Her organic communication. It took me until the later stages of my research to realize the need to state the importance of this particular place for the advent of the research: the significance of both the land of Australia, and the specific region of the Blue Mountains in which I was now dwelling, as well as the community of this particular region, which all lent itself to the whole process. The lateness of this perception on my part, has to do with the extent of my previous alienation; but the fact that it did occur, is perhaps at least in part attributable to the unfolding awakening to my habitat that was part of the project/process. The specific region of the “Blue Mountains” – as Europeans have named them – is significant in that I don’t think that this project/process could have happened as it did in just any region. David Abram says, “The singular magic of a place is evident from what happens there, from what befalls oneself or others when in its vicinity. To tell of such events is implicitly to tell of the particular power of that site, and indeed to participate in its expressive potency[v]”. Blue Mountains, Australia: Dharug and Gundungurra Country The Blue Mountains are impressive ancient rock formations, an uplifted ancient seabed, whose “range of rock types and topographical situations has given rise to distinct plant communities”[vi]; and the presence of this great variation of plant communities, “especially the swamps, offer an abundance and variety of food sources, as well as habitats for varied fauna”[vii]. I feel that this is the case for …
Imbolc/Early Spring – a Season of Uncertainty by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

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

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

(Essay 2 Part 2) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

Part 2 ENGAGING THE MIND It makes me cringe every time someone calls Korean drama, especially the historical genre, a soap opera. The fact that they are TV series doesn’t necessarily make them foamy. Quite the contrary, they are full of substance. They don’t go on and on for years, season after season. On average, most of them are 24 to 60, one-hour-long episodes. Some have fewer episodes, some have more episodes, but after they are done—we move on. It’s a good way to learn non-attachment. Korean historical drama is thought provoking. It is multidimensional in the way it presents characters and stories. Plots are well developed, intelligent, intriguing, and entertaining. Yes, there are some predictable outcomes, but there is also a lot of substance and artistic craftiness, as well as clever twists and fascinating surprises. Sageuk (Korean Historical Drama) can teach about history and culture, and also about mythology, philosophy, and spirituality. It reminds us of the values that are fading or have vanished in Western culture in the 21st century. The importance of subtleties in life is shown through plot development, rhythm, and acting. Reoccurring themes convey lessons like patience, acceptance, forgiveness, trust, integrity, perseverance, and courage… That is, the true meaning and practice of those. There is depth in the understanding of the writers, as well as in the corresponding depiction by actors. There is profundity, which evokes a reciprocal reaction in the viewers’ mind. The characters are likable—and their outlook on life and their behavior are admirable. They evolve and influence each other and their environment. There is this definitive sophistication in expression of emotion. Something akin to meditation. In Sageuk, “silence speaks”. Thus, the experience is not only pleasant, relaxing and/or exciting, but many times healing and enlightening. Confucian ideas mixed with Buddhist and Daoist ideals motivate the protagonists’ kind and considerate actions. A particularly valued quality in Korea is “착하다/착한 [chakhada/chakhan]”. I first heard it mentioned in an interview[i]/book[ii] presentation of Euny Hong. The translation in the dictionary reads, “good, nice, good-natured, kind-hearted, meek, obedient, docile, gentle, quiet.” Actually, it is all this and much more. It is a trait that when faced with, being cynical—as we often are in the 21st century—we can easily dismiss as being naive, gullible, submissive, and even foolish. However, in the words of Rumi, “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: at the first, you ask yourself, ‘Is it true?’ At the second gate ask, ‘Is it necessary?’ At the third gate ask, ‘Is it kind?’”. The heroines and heroes in Korean historical drama follow this teaching in words and action. Most epitomize pure heartedness. There is a child-like sweetness about many of them—come to think of it, by losing innocence, has humanity really gained wisdom? In the online edition of Entertainment Weekly, I encountered a quote by Jacqueline Sia, Director of Video Operations of New York based DramaFever—one of the largest databases of subtitled Asian films and TV programs. In speaking about Korean drama she states: “Portrayal of love is a little more PG,”[iii] an observation that strikes any novice in the genre. We have become used to quick climaxes, crash-and-burn liaisons, as well as media glorified dysfunctional relationships. The predominant understanding of sex (and certainly the one staring at us from the TV and cinema screens) is hurried, flat, and linear. There is a disconnect between sex and love. Profanity and violence pour daily from everywhere. Exhibiting symptoms of an empath can easily be diagnosed as a psychiatric condition, and yet we are conditioned to be less and less sensitive. In this background, complex and refined emotional states, longing, embodied sacredness, and the act of leaving much to the viewers’ imagination, seem to be suitable only for children. Are we awake and mature enough to realize that all the psychological and social implications of the well-manipulated programming we are subjugated to is already bearing fruit in ‘real life’? (Read Essay 2 Part 1. To be continued in Essay 2 Part 3.) Notes: [i] The Korean Society, “Euny Hong discusses with WSJ columnist Jeffrey Yang her first nonfictional book,” YouTube (November 6, 2014). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxHv2gT539o [ii] Euny Hong, “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture,” Simon and Shuster (2014). [iii] Hillary Busis, “Korean Dramas: A Beginner’s Guide,” Entertainment Weekly (April 11, 2014). Description of Korean Historical Dramas: This course offers a series of Korean Historical TV-dramas or Sageug (사극) and discusses the traits of female characters as well as general features of Korean history, culture, art, aesthetics, thought, customs, and people. What makes Korean drama so unique? What is the “secret recipe” that makes it so popular internationally? Why is it that, after a few episodes, one can‘t wait to see the next one or the next new drama? Those questions have made many wonder, from audiences to journalists and critics. Participants are invited to explore answers to these questions and more. Our emphasis is on woman’s place in history, as well as her role as creator, healer and leader; her strife to discover and reinvent herself, her inherent wisdom, her abilities to surrender, without giving up, and her potential to adapt, thrive, and ultimately transform the world she is in. Our selection of dramas qualifies high criteria in story content, character development, actor portrayal, multiplicity of ideas and values, and abilities to educate, while engaging and entertaining the viewer. Facilitators (Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Ms. Anna Tzanova) will provide articles and audio-video materials concerning salient themes. (For more, see here) Info on online class, Korean Historical Dramas. See Meet Mago Contributor Anna Tzanova.
(Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part I The bell as both a percussion instrument and an idiophone is one of the most pacific, sublime, and ingenious human inventions. It appears cross-culturally from the remote past. Its artistic and ritualistic aspects are fairly well recognized by many. However, many overlook that the bell is a female icon with functionality. Put differently, the bell symbolizes the Goddess, the female who has the purpose. This essay, to be written in parts hereafter, will examine the symbology of ancient Korean bells and explore its implications with regard to Magoist history, cosmogony, and soteriology. At the outset, I posit that ancient Korean bells cast in the form of a woman’s body are there to awaken humanity to the arcane reality of the Female, that is Mago. In East Asia, bell connotes two distinct types, the open ended and the enclosed. In Korean, the open ended bell is called jong (鐘, Chinese zhong), whereas the enclosed one is called bang-ul or ryeong (鈴, Chinese ling). Jong and bang-ul are also distinguished by size. While the former tends to be larger, the latter are commonly used by a shaman or diviner to hold and shake (a group of bang-uls) to invoke the spirit. However, these differences are not unbridgeable. Some bang-uls are open-ended, like jong. By definition, jong is a bell made of metal not stone. (The character jong 鐘 has the radical (basic element) of geum 金, metal or gold. The stone bell is called gyeong.) When jong is used in music, in particular as a musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, it is called pyeon-jong (編鍾, Chinese bianzhong). Perhaps the invention of pyeon-jong follows pyeon-gyeong (編磬, Chinese bianqing), a stone musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped stone chimes. Discussing the differences between the two instruments goes beyond the purpose of this essay. Suffice it to say that jong was likely a metallic replica of gyeong presumably first introduced in the Bronze Age. (See the images below for comparison.) My primary focus in this essay is on jong, in particular the Korean bells cast in the 8th century CE and thereafter. The beauty and significance of ancient Korean bells shed a new light on ancient Korea to be re-dis-covered in relation to Magoism. Both scholars and the public appear to be unaware that the ancient bells of Korea symbolize the female principle as well as woman’s body. It is my hope that this essay allows the ancient bells of Korea to reverberate through time and call people to return to the female origin. Ancient Greek Bells as Woman’s Body A variety of jong from the ancient world appears across cultures. The most explicitly rendered bells which mirror the female form are the terracotta bell figurines of Greece (Thebes) dated circa the 8th century BCE. Both are housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Protruded breasts are placed on the upper part of the bell. The body of the bell is sculpted to resemble the skirt that she is wearing. Two arms annexed from her shoulders appear to be aesthetic rather than functional. The elongated neck is made as a handle to be held. Her neck is adorned with elaborate necklaces. Geometrical designs and swastikas are compelling in both figurines — rife with arcane meanings. The legs are made as mallets. Imagine, then, where the sound comes from upon being shaken! It is her belly, more precisely the vulva from which the sound originates. In the first, above, icon of the Greek bell, women are drawn on the bell’s body in a simplified and exaggerated manner. They are connected with each other hand in hand forming a circle, perhaps dancing a circle dance. As a whole, the bell depicts a dancing woman with her arms raised, standing on her toes. The women painting befits the spirited nature of the bell. In the second, above, icon of the Greek bell, 39.5 cm in height, her breasts are highlighted, encircled by the drawing of two circles. Thus, they appear to be more nipples than breasts. Her arms are laid downward as if pointing to the birds standing below on each side. Each bird is holding an elongated earthworm-like swirling thing at the tip of its beak. Geometric designs in the center of her body are catchily inviting to interpretations. The symmetrical balance is heightened. She appears to stand firmly or be ready to walk. As shown below, one leg when placed out to the side conveys to its viewer that the legs are mallets and at once creates a look that she is real, in motion. In my documentation, the Greek bell idols and ancient Korean bells are the only two groups that are explicitly made in the shape of a woman’s body. Yet, as to be shown shortly, these Greek bell idols, far smaller in size, date about a thousand years earlier than the ancient Korean bells. Furthermore, there is a vast geographical distance between the two bell icons. In comparing them, however, I have no intention to assume that the ancient Greek bell figurines are the earliest of their kind. (It is difficult to discuss the origin of bell as a woman’s body due to the nature of the task, too complex and daunting. It suffices to say that the Chinese bells, dated older than the Thebes bell figurines, have relevance to ancient Korean bells, a point to be discussed at a later part.) Ancient worlds appear not too heterogeneous to say the least, as moderns tend to think. Sillan Bells Let me begin with introducing some ancient Korean bells from the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE) and their major features that are also uniquely ancient Korean (read Magoist). They sound beautifully and deeply when struck. Sounding waves are calculated in the structure of the bell upon being cast. It is known that there are eleven jongs extant from the United Silla period. Only five of them are currently located in Korea, whereas the rest are in Japan. These bells are known as beomjong, a term referring to a bell in Buddhist temples used for Buddhist …
Mago, the First Mother from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Excerpts from “Mago, the First Mother from East Asia,” Creatrix Media Live (CML) Roundtable Radio Talk with Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. May 23, 2011] Jayne DeMente: Welcome Helen, I was fortunate to read some of your research and I applaud you because, we in the Western WSE movement have long needed to hear more from Asian women spiritual leaders and feminists and your reference to the Neolithic timeline… For our listeners and participants online, let’s lead with the question of who is Mago, was she a mother figure, what is Magoism, does any other deity pre-date her? Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: *Mago is the great goddess known to East Asians throughout history. She is the first mother of all, cosmogonist, and ultimate sovereign/ruler. She has many names. Among them are Triad Deity (Samsin), Grandmother (halmi), Auspicious Goddess (Seogo), Evil (Magui), and Old Goddess (Nogo). She is also known as the Giantess who shaped the natural and cultural landscape. Her manifestations are so multivalent that one may think they do not refer to the same goddess. She was well loved, given high esteem, celebrated by East Asians in the past. She was almost completely forgotten, however in modern times, up until the 1980s in Korea, when the principle text of Magoism, the Budoji, re-emerged. *Mago is a mother figure in the sense that she bore two daughters, Kunghee and Sohee, and managed her household called the Castle of Mago, the primordial paradise of humanity. She is the ancestor of all races. She takes care of everything on earth via the equilibrium of cosmic music/sound/vibration. *Magoism is the term that refers to the totality of culture/civilization venerating Mago as the great goddess. It is a tradition largely unnoted but co-opted and distorted in major East Asian religions. The concept of Magoism helps one identify and understand Mago’s multivalent manifestations that are found trans-nationally. It also makes possible to name the female-centered original/primal civilization that gave birth to the forthcoming East Asian civilizations and religions. *Whether Mago is the earliest deity known to East Asia is unknown. In fact, there are goddesses unearthed from “pre-historic” archaeological sites without their names. The life-sized goddess statue was unearthed in the site of Hongshan Culture, northeastern region of present China dating from 4,700 to 2,900 BCE. The heavy use of jade along with the partly bear-figured female icon is congruent with the account of Magoism in the Budoji. Also, of course, there are numerous female figurines called dogu excavated in Japan’s “pre-historic” times. The ancient origin of Mago or Magoism has a merit to explain some facts that remain a mystery, so to speak. Korea is also known as the land of dolmens. Half of the world megaliths are populated in the Korean peninsula. There are numerous pyramids found in mainland China. There is a documentary film about the sunken temple beneath the sea of Okinawa Japan, etc. dating to 10,000 years ago. *Then, how early does Mago date to? It is difficult to date the earliest evidence of Mago or Magoism simply because written history does not exist in pre-patriarchal times. As you see here, when we talk about the earliest of something, everyone assumes it is of Chinese. So let me follow this line of thought: Ge Hong’s record on Magu from China dates to the early fourth century CE (Ge Hong 283—343 CE). However, Daoist scholar Robert Ford Campany states that the cult of Mago dates back to the Stone Age. It is more difficult to date Mago in Korean records simply because ancient written records did not survive. Two books, the Budoji and the Handan Gogi, alleged to have been written in the late 4th or early 5th century and subsequent later times, which refer to Mago otherwise known as Samsin (Triad Deity) remain controversial. Considering that the name Mago is embedded in Korean language as in “gom,” “geum,” and “gam,” whose meaning indicates ruler, sovereign, and head, the origin of Mago is as old as these words. Likewise, most materials that recount Mago as cosmogonist are of folklore, place names, literature, arts, and debris of historical and religious records, most of which are difficult to date for its origin. Anniitra Ravenmoon: Thank you Helen, you have done much academic research and hold several degrees, can you explain to us how your education or experience informed you regarding Mago? Helen: *I would say that encountering Mago as a doctoral research topic is ultimately prompted by my intellectual quest as a Korean feminist. Following radical feminism of Mary Daly, I wanted to seek spirituality that is not only non-patriarchal but also East Asian and Korean. This made me study feminism and East Asian religions, histories, and cultures, etc. I end up with so much to study over the past decade and a half. I did not take up graduate studies as a means to develop an academic career. I loved reading and studies from youth. This kind of attitude is not that practical in the job market. However, I believe this is the right path for me. To look back, I did not follow the ready-made conventional path of life. I was a dreamer and idealist. I still value those qualities in myself and others. I used to think to myself, if I had remained a Christian, I would not have sought Mago. How could I? Likewise if I had resorted to Buddhism, I would not have encountered Mago. Because I wanted to carve out my own spiritual path as a Korean feminist, I was able to encounter Mago. Another factor at work in my study of Mago is the cultural or spiritual tradition of cultivating the Dao, the Way, in East Asia. I wanted to find out what the truth was, how I could make the most out of my life and etc. So I tried the shoes of a Catholic overseas missionary for a while. Leaving Christianity behind, however, helped me realize the cultural heritage that I have within. It was …

Category: Spirituality

Goddess Pilgrimage Central Queensland Australia by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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S/HE: IJGS V5 N1 2026 (B/W Paperback)

Mago Almanac Year 9 Monthly Wheels

Mago Pod Bulletin #85 August-September 2026

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