October 7, 2019November 15, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

(Book Review) Danica Anderson’s Blood and Honey by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D

This book is an entrance into the grief and hope of the Mother (Earth/Cosmic Mother), in a particular region of Her stress (South Slavic countries); which is a place wherein Read More …

February 19, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt) Blood & Honey The Secret Herstory of Women: South Slavic Women’s Experiences in a World of Modern-day Territorial Warfare by Danica Anderson

[Author’s Note: The Kolo, the round dance, or to be in a circle is epigenetic and evolves the social collective via the sensorimotor venues. For decades the kolo in former Read More …

June 29, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Except) Blood and Honey The Secret Herstory of Women by Danica Anderson, Ph.D.

Mother’s Day- Invisibility & Transparency The girl child was barely five days old when I first saw her on the mountainside facing the town of Novi Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her mother, Read More …

March 7, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt) Blood and Honey by Danica Anderson, Ph.D.

In the aftermath of the bloody Balkan War in the 1990s, I asked many stari Babas (elder women) what was in their apron pockets. South Slavic storied aprons are the Read More …

December 28, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt) Bearing Witness Transmigration by Danica Anderson, Ph.D.

For seventeen years, I bore witness to the Bosnian women war crimes and war survivors. In my clinical informed Kolo (Slavic Folk Circle and/or Round Dance) Trauma practices I realized Read More …

July 20, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

(Essay) Commemorating Our Ancient Mothers by Danica Anderson

Memorial Day for me is commemorating our ancient mothers. These artifacts standing together remind me of the empowerment and great balancing of life with female solidarity lost to us today. This Read More …

April 27, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM Editors1 Comment

(Essay) The ‘G’ Word and ‘F’ Word: Death Consciousness by Danica Anderson PhD

The ‘G’ words, gender and the Goddess, are being rendered passé and many women prefer not to hear of or be associated with them. Recently, the media used the Goddess Read More …

August 9, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Review) Blood & Honey Icons: Biosemiotics & Bioculinary reviewed by Donna Snyder

A review of Blood & Honey Icons: Biosemiotics & Bioculinary by Danica Anderson I bought this book to support work with survivors of the Balkan conflicts of the late 20th Read More …

June 11, 2013May 25, 2023 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

Meet Mago Contributor, Danica Anderson

Dr. Danica Anderson is a US-based international social scientist, researcher, and forensic counselor (criminal justice specialist) with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Dr. Anderson is a member of the UNESCO Read More …

October 18, 2012October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Essay) Three-Fingered Fish Goddess- South Slavic Intangible Oral Memory Traditions by Danica Anderson

Lepenski Vir is a Mesolithic site on the banks of the Danube in Serbia, close to the Iron Gates. Dusan Boric and Preston Miracle’s work on the Mesolithic and Neolithic Read More …

(Art Poem) O fruitful like the olive tree by Yvonne M Lucia

O fruitful like the olive tree, you stand strong and resilient though gnarled from age and the ravages of merciless storms. Your face, a storied map, guides me to the truth of Wisdom’s price. In spite of all, your withered limbs bear fruit. May I be so rooted and grounded in the orchard of your generative love that my true worship is a harvest of justice, integrity, and compassion. Meet Mago Contributor Yvonne M Lucia
(Song) Mother Earth by Genevieve Vaughan

Mother Earth, Mother Earth We are grateful for our birth
(Art) Sanctus Cumulus—Latin Saint of Clouds by Sudie Rakusin

Sanctus Cumulus inspires us to honor our variegated moods, like the clouds that roll across the sky, changing shape and color. How often do we search the skies to predict the day’s weather? Study the shapes and shading of the clouds floating in a bright or darkening sky, to read their positions like tea leaves in a cup to forecast our own sunny days or storms? We watch cumulus clouds suspended in their puffy, innocent cotton ball shapes, until they gather to form the gray towering masses of thunderstorms. Clouds are water in the air—lower clouds are made entirely of water; higher in the sky, they become a mixture of water and ice, and even higher, long curls of ice. They reflect the dewy colors of sunrise, the rich oranges and reds of sunset. Their wooly wisps weave a blanket that retains heat at night. Clouds release excess water vapor that is the basis for rainbows and provide a natural umbrella that protects us from the harshness of the sun. 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 Raskusin.
Drowning in Woman’s Wisdom – A Birth in Reverse by Claire Dorey

[Extract from a work in progress.] Drowning in Woman’s Wisdom 1 / Claire Dorey Slipping into the lake intending to drown, a birth in reverse, she returns to source. She has no fear of the depths. It is the shallows that frighten her. She embraces the blackness, bitter cold lapping the nape of her neck. A cold kiss. Ice teeth snapping shut, sealing her into a liquid coffin of numb. Black is the warmest colour when you want to forget. Saw tooth pain of a lacerated back. Saw tooth wounding witnessing rape. The pain of ice water is a relief from all that. Below, slippery eels, the silt of the river bed and life ebbing away. Above, life and a slither of dawn reflecting on water. Surrender. Anguish. Time slowing down. She invites stagnation and decay to flow into her lungs. Hypothermia is red, blue and black. Red is a broken heart. Blue is a weak pulse. Black is consciousness slipping away. Near death experience opens the mind. Held by the water and dreaming of death she floats through the portal to connect with wild woman consciousness because this is where the wisdom and memory of drowned women are stored. Water is a sentient being. Water is a battery, a resonant library, an Akashic Record flowing with consciousness. Woman on land, seal in the sea, ancient tales of Selkies make sense to her now. “Be still,” whispers the Selkie, “I’ll stay with you a while.” On the way down she meets Ophelia. Haunting eyes staring upwards. Waterlogged dress weighing her down. Ophelia is dying an art establishment death…. a death in turquoise, encircled with water lilies! Our shero floats face down, arms out stretched, lake bed slipping away, sea weed hair flowing all around her. She is out of her depth and her screams are silent. It is very quiet and still down there! Part bird, part woman, part fish, the tug of love and loss as woeful melody unites all women, for this is where the Sirens are and they won’t let her drown. Where there is water there is life. “Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi. Down here the Sirens sing songs of love, loss and fear as emotion washes over them. The river’s soul melody resonates because when one woman is violated we all feel violated. Deep in our hearts all women know the patriarch has colonised our bodies and this is why we respond to the Siren’s sigh. The Siren’s sigh is death and darkness and time standing still, a place of reckoning, before a painful rebirth. It’s an amniotic blackness where ideas are born. It’s a portal to wisdom through a veil of mist. This precious water, the elixir of life, brings life to all it touches, awakening seeds. Seeds of consciousness. Seeds of resistance! Seeds of saying NO! Tales of Swan Maidens swirl at the surface. An ‘amorous voyeur’, let’s call him ‘sex pest’, has stolen the Swan Maiden’s wings and is hiding in the bushes watching her bathe. Trapped in the water, she urges us to strap our wings on and rise up in resistance. Head of a woman, tail of a fish, the Mermaid understands human emotion. “Trust the process,” she murmurs, “I know it has been hard for you.” Part woman, part dragonfly, water nymphs play in the water reeds, reminding us of our daughters. We cannot abandon them now. We must return to the surface and connect with the spirit of the rescued dragged onto land. Breath in. Breath out. Waterlogged lungs. Oxygen for the blood. Calm for the nervous system. Fear of life overcome! She connects to the spirit of menopausal women who have returned to the ocean. Women who embrace a cold north sea, anticipating skin against water, because they know it is the right place to be. Feeding on cold water endorphins they suffer bouts of extreme happiness. Buffeted by waves they enter the sea with a sense of of naughtiness. It’s a body reset. A cold water buzz. A cure all. Bliss. An antidote to flushing. A balance for the nervous system. We women are creatures of cycles. We belong to the great watery vastness, swaying with the tides, swelling with the moon and moving in waves. Returning to the sea, when our own cycles are over, feels like coming home. “Yes, we did many things, then – all Beautiful…” – Sappho, Come Close. When women unite, even in spirit, something beautiful happens. There is joy in sorrow. Power in vulnerability. Strength in unity. And freedom in acceptance! One day all women will return from the ponds to impart their wisdom. “Granddaughter we do hear you calling us.” So what became of the women who were murdered in the waters? The witches and healers? The crones and the brewers? The midwives and the pagans? The sick, the old and the ugly? The rich women whose land they seized? The women who spoke out? The cat owners? The women who annoyed their husbands? The Women whose intuition was turned against them? The women who were forced into the Swimming Test and ducking-stool? “Let’s strip them naked, shave their heads and strap them to the ‘stool of repentance’ with iron bands. Let’s dunk them in the pond so the watery womb of imagination turns on them.” Guilty if she rejects the baptismal water and floats. Innocent if she drowns. See how it works? They set impossible rules for games we could never win. No wonder trauma is still our default setting. No wonder the Siren’s sigh! I wonder how many of us ordinary women would have been ‘scolded as cuckolds’ and drowned by the mob if we’d been living then. The patriarch used holy water as a persecutory device. They turned water wisdom into a judge and used it to absolve themselves of their sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure of watching acts of social humiliation, torture and brutality. They watched women drown and blamed the women and the water, not themselves. The Siren’s sigh is a powerful lament, feared because it speaks the truth. Injustice flows …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Lise Weil

Photo by Sara Wright Lise Weil was founder and editor of the US feminist review Trivia: A Journal of Ideas (1982-1991) and of its online offshoot Trivia: Voices of Feminism (2004-2011). Her 2018 memoir, In Search of Pure Lust, is a long meditation on lesbian desire. In her memoir, Lise reflects on the ways in which the stumblings and failings of her personal life during those years mirrored those of the movement as a whole. She now edits Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, a journal devoted to healing our broken relationship with the earth. Until this year when the college closed, she taught in Goddard College’s Graduate Institute, where she helped found a concentration in Embodiment Studies.
(She Rises 2) Introduction by Trista Hendren

[Author’s Note: This is part of introduction to She Rises, Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?” forthcoming June Solstice, 2015] Goddess has been a guilty pleasure of mine for the last twenty years, although it wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I was able to fully embrace Her. She had been hidden and demonized throughout my childhood in a way that took me a long time to recover from. I was always the quiet and submissive daughter that I was supposed to be. Once she was fully unveiled, there as no turning back on the rage that I felt and the power that slowly returned to me. This awakening cost me the relationship with my father. It has been a painful realization that my continued silence and subordination was a mandatory requirement for some of my relationships. Despite the loss that I still feel, I cannot revert to the person I once was.
(Book Excerpt 5) “Placental Thinking: The Gift of Maternal Roots” by Nane Jordan

[This and the previous sequels are from a Chapter from Placenta Wit: Mother Stories Rituals, and Research, edited by Nané Jordan, Demeter Press, 2017, pp. 142-155.] BIRTH GIFTING: MOTHERS AT THE CENTRE Through placental relations and placental thinking, we can imagine this gift economy as located in the heart of the primal mother-baby dyad. There, I would locate a specific embodied maternal order of the gift that flows from mother to child, and onward into the whole social milieu, as life goes on from this primal, primary relationship. As Genevieve Vaughan notes, there are many hidden ways of the gift that are not yet named. I thus name the placenta, with its gift morphology (growth, structure, and design), as an embodied gift economy that has always existed. The eventual maternal act and power of giving birth flow from placental relations.. Beyond the birth process, mother and child are released from their in-utero placental bonds and set off on the trajectory of new mother-child gifting relations. In the current market system and exchange economy, placentas are literally thrown out after birth. This is a striking action and metaphor for our social understandings of the maternal gift as being literally worthless. The notion of garbage itself is “refuse” or what is refused. Thus, the gift is refused and made invisible. Mothers know little about their babies’ placentas, often never seeing them in the hospital except for as a bloody lump in a metal side tray left aside after the birth. In the exchange economy, value is only apparent when the market assigns value to the placenta, as in its use for stem cell research or in the cosmetics industry. We could read this in newspapers and hardly connect stem cells to the placentas of our own early lives, born from our mothers’ bodies and blood. The association of birth blood with refuse also relates to long-time taboos, secrecy, and shame associated with menstrual blood in Western cultures (Grahn). Rather than socially upholding the sacred function of the female body’s life-gifting powers, the public prefers the death blood dominate in popular media culture, and the lived realities of violence and war. In contrast, the blood of life and birth receives silent attention. Further separation rituals, such as early cord cutting and taking the baby away from the mother at the moment of birth, disrupt mother-baby bonding, hormonal systems, and unity. These procedures ultimately interrupt the physiological peak of mothers’ experiences of relief, pleasure, and love in birth gifting, which are part of early bonding and begin the moment a mother becomes pregnant (Buckley). There is an intended dynamic of “safe” birth care at work in obstetrical practices in order to diminish the risks of birth giving. Ostensibly, doctors work in concert with medical protocols and interventions to ward off the risk and fear of death and feelings of pain—truisms of birth. Mothers and babies do walk along the edges of life and death in birth’s passage, in which giving birth is an overwhelming experience that can be painful or dangerous, and requires our whole sense of being. The life-saving capacities of modern medicine are important in this regard. Yet it appears that through fear of pain and death, dominant authoritative structures have become linked to the medicalization of birth and the overuse of interventions. Fear of entering an overwhelming experience such as birth, and often without support, education, understanding, or some attending human warmth and kindness, may also be keeping people tied to a system that loses sight of the maternal gift. Also lost are the positive experiential potentials for relief and even pleasure in giving birth through one’s own power and agency. As we continue to apply medical technologies and market-based, hierarchical attitudes of authority in birth care, can we shift birth practices toward more giftlike ways? Can we put mothers and babies at the centre of birth gifting through placental thinking? In midwifery, a “motherer,”as Genevieve Vaughan names it, is anyone who satisfies needs unilaterally, not expecting reward. Is this a missing or lost gift economy in birth? Of course, there are doctors who practice this gift, putting mothers and babies at the centre of birth, who view mothers kindly and lovingly with care. But directing the gift of compassionate attention is a more common philosophy for midwives and doulas, which includes the ability and commitment to support and empathize with the mother. In a diagrammatic perspective, this looks like a circle, with supportive caregivers holding space for the mother, who is at the centre. In this circle, the mother can retain and direct her own energies and agency for birth giving, both physical and psychic, toward herself and her baby. She is in trusting relations with her attendants, who direct their energy toward her (and not themselves) as needed, and have ability to step back if not needed. In authoritarian and hierarchical systems of care, the energy of birth is directed in straight lines up and away from the mother and baby and toward the attendants at the top. Attention tends to focus on the birth attendants as they dictate the directions for birth experience and implement their expertise, often without regard to the mothers’ wishes. Mothers may feel depleted or worse, traumatized from giving birth under systems that appropriate their birth-gifting power without regard for the centrality of their agency and experience. Obviously, there many nuances and complexities to this topic, and often more analysis is needed on a case-by-case basis. In this regard, birth giving inherently asks a mystery of us. It is older and wiser than our clocks and interventions, and unfolds uniquely for every mother and baby who enter its experience. I have witnessed home and hospital births with “motherer” attendants at hand, where those mothers and babies are held at the centre of a circle of care and love. Attendants keep a respectful watch, moving toward or away as asked or needed. A birthing mother, feeling safe to surrender into her own birth process—however …
The Kindness of Winter’s Cailleach by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Cailleach Beira, Wondertales from Scottish Myth and Legend, 1917, Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons The most ancient Cailleach was the Goddess of winter throughout the Celtic lands. Usually envisioned as an old woman, She is a Creatrix, making mountains by dropping stones from Her apron. She terrified her believers by throwing down Her staff to freeze the land in winter, whipped up frenzied storms, and harshly punished those who mistreated wild animals. You will find her name on rivers, mountains, lakes, monuments, and standing stones. Yet, at the same time, the Cailleach has a nurturing side to Her. She is the mother of entire tribes. She protects deer and other wildlife from hunters. Her staff is known for healing. An Irish tale tells of her rescuing a baby who was to be killed because he was born of rape and incest. She removed the curse from the child and returned him to his grandmother who raised him. In Scotland, she saved a young boy who had fallen from a cliff while hunting rock doves, telling him never to hunt the doves again or she would not be there to rescue him. These gentler qualities of the Cailleach are so needed in our own time. We need goddesses who are unafraid to wield their power and act boldly, but who have a perspective of kindness that comes from witnessing our planet’s travails from the beginning of time and realizing that true transformation comes from encouragement rather than harshness. We need goddesses who understand from healing hundreds of millennia of human misery that only compassion joined with fierce persistence can bring spring from the winter our world is now in. One aspect of this tender-hearted Cailleach that I especially crave these days is seeing other beings as inherently worthy and not commodities, whether cows, deer, or people. From the Cailleach’s perspective, without wealth or social hierarchy, with all the world full of spirit, all beings are experienced as valuable just as they are and not for how they can benefit those who hold authority over them. An Irish poem supposed to be a Cailleach’s lament of the state of the world at the time it was written says: “It is riches you love and not people, when we were alive, it was people we loved.” May we always love people and all beings, and not riches. This Cailleach is concerned with individuals and the small acts of life. She is not too mighty or busy to save a hunted fawn or a young boy who has foolishly risked his life to prey on a small bird to teach him about not victimizing others. She knows that the world changes one person, one action at a time. May we cherish even the tiniest, frailest being and do even the smallest action with intention and thought, knowing that these are the key to the most profound changes. She knows that the mightiest power is that of healing and regeneration, not violence and destruction. When she is hurling her staff to make the winter that is necessary for new life in the spring or throwing boulders to make islands and mountains, she is not destroying, but creating. The Cailleach has given her name and blessing to “womb tombs,” places of burial of the dead, in Ireland and elsewhere. Here people were lovingly placed near carvings of vulvas and other symbols of new life so that they may be reborn and once again join the living. She teaches that death leads to regeneration, to rebirth. May we focus our attention and lives not on destroying and death, but on healing and renewing. People’s Vote March, 2018 User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons Recently I have come to see the Cailleach in many elder women I know. They are strong women with their own ideas, talents, and dreams and wield power within their families and communities while exhibiting a committed kindness. They experienced great loss in their lives but found their way through that grief to the empathy that comes from elder wisdom. They love nature and wildlife and fiercely protect children, non-human living beings, and those in tough circumstances. They were born into societies that did not value their talents, but they live their lives in ways that make it is clear who they are and what is important to them. They are healers on many levels — educators, good friends and neighbors, philosophers and theologians. This mightiness of older women who combine power with caring is seen in current research into the magic of grandmothers who nurture their grandchildren. Karen Hawkes developed the “grandmother effect” hypothesis that having grandmothers care for grandchildren resulted in lower child mortality, a theory that has been borne out by research of populations across time and continents. Moreover, grandmothers are frequently the transmitters of oral traditional culture to their grandchildren. More recently, studies show that children who are cared for by their grandparents have fewer injuries, better grades, and fewer behavioral difficulties. Many of the older women I think of as like the Cailleach never knew the name or myths of the Cailleach, but they each lived Her legacy. You may have, too, and you probably know elder women who do. When I imagine the might of the Cailleach, but with the faces of these women, I know that She is not a mythical figure from long ago, but alive, here and now, in all of us, ready for both our global challenges and moments of love, peace, and joy. Sources: Max Dashu, Witches and Pagans; Patricia Monaghan, Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
(Essay) 36 Steps Toward a Gift Economy by Genevieve Vaughan

To change society we must think a different way about the world we live in: 1. We must realize that market exchange is not natural, real or necessary. It is an invention of patriarchy. The illusion that some religions find life to be is created by the disalignment of our behavior, and constructions of reality, with the deeper logic of nature. Women are more “natural” because they are in alignment with this logic while patriarchy is an aberration and an illusion. Our disalignment and refusal to practice and value this deeper logic create our unhappiness and our problems. 2. Realize that market exchange creates negative relations which foment isolation, competition, war and domination. 3. Understand that exchange – giving in order to receive an equivalent of What has been given – is artificial and is derived from a more fundamental behavior which has a logic of its own. This more fundamental behavior is gift giving, giving directly to satisfy needs. 4. Realize that gift giving creates positive relations, through direct need satisfaction which creates bonding, communication and community. 5. Exchange and gift giving constitute two ways of thinking and behaving that coexist but the gift giving way remains largely unconscious. Many problems derive from the co existence and interaction of these two logics and behaviors. 6. Exchange and gift giving constitute two paradigms or world views which compete with and complement each other. Exchange conceals gift giving, competes with it and takes advantage of its gifts. Gift giving gives in to exchange and gives value to it. Gift giving also often misrecognizes itself as valueless. 7. One of the ways gift giving is hidden in a society based on market exchange is by recognizing it only in mothering, charity, and forms of symbolic gift-exchange. For example this society likes to look at the basis of language as biological, a hard wiring of our brains. Gift giving can be seen as the basis of language at many levels, as the creation of human relations through the giving and receiving of verbal gifts, the mothering tongue. By restoring gift giving to the many areas of life in which it has been unrecognized and concealed, we can begin to bring the gift paradigm to consciousness and revise our thinking accordingly. Thus gift giving underlies the synonymity of language “meaning” and the meaning of “life”. 8. Life beyond the areas of mothering and charity seems to be governed by the ways of the “manhood agenda” which are overvalued. Nevertheless gift giving can be restored to our thinking. For example profit itself can be seen as a gift from the poor to the rich because it is constituted of surplus value, that part of the value of work not covered by the worker’s salary. Women’s free labor in the home, which would add some 40% to the GNP of the US (more in some other countries) can be seen as a gift of those practicing a gift economy to those practicing an exchange economy and to the whole system based on exchange. 9. Mothering and other types of free gift work are made difficult or even sacrificial by scarcity which is necessary for the functioning of the market. The scarcity is artificially created by the appropriation of the gifts of the many by the few, the gifts of poor countries by wealthy countries, the gifts of nature, the past and the future by the few for their profit in the present. The values of mothering are seen as unrealistic and devalued by misogyny. They are seen as the cause of suffering while women’s assertion of their suffering and the lack of satisfaction of their needs is seen as victimism. Rather the scarcity necessary for the market and the discounting of the gift Paradigm causes the suffering of women. 10. The exchange economy has values of objectification, fetishism etc and has always had a problem in distinguishing what is social from what is biological. This depends on its distress as a product of masculation which interprets a social “manhood” agenda as biologically fixed. Why has this happened? 11. Masculation: All humans are born dependent so someone must care for them unilaterally from their earliest childhood. Women have been assigned this role by society due to the social interpretation of their biological capacities as opposed to men’s. Until they learn language baby boys identify with their mothers and participate with them in giving and receiving. When they learn that they are in a category which is the opposite of their nurturing mothers they have to find – or create – an identity the basis of which is NOT being like their nurturing mothers – that is not gift giving. What they find is the manhood agenda: independence (as opposed to the interdependence of giving and receiving) competition (as opposed to cooperation) domination (as opposed to communication at the same level) stoicism (as opposed to emotion). This false agenda has been taken as the human agenda instead of mothering. It has been projected into our institutions and deeply influences the way we construct reality. 12. Emotions are the maps towards gift giving. Manhood requires dominating the emotions. So does the market. 13. Hitting, which also bridges the gap between people (though negatively) and is a way of creating relations (of dominance), is the masculated replacement for gift giving. It replaces gift giving at many levels from violence in the family to war. 14. Gift relations create community, males want the independence which seems to be given by the market. (Though if we extend our interpretation of gifts and recognition of needs we can see that we satisfy others need for independence by not giving to them.) The market supplies a post masculated way to do gift giving. It allows the head of the family to support the family with a salary, and to own and provide the means of giving, the means of production of gifts. Similarly capitalists own the means of production of commodities and the …

(Special Post 4) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is how Goma is known among the ancient Chinese. She is called The Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian xuannu). Nine Heavens refer to the confederacy of nine states, Danguk or Nine Hans. Statue of Jiutian Xuannü, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiutian_Xuann%C3%BC Another icon of Jiutian Xuannu below. https://www.tinyatdragon.com/blogs/spiritual/jiu-tian-xuan-nu-mysterious-lady-of-the-nine-heavens?fbclid=IwAR0n1Ld6tmxqTec23Pzg3DxRjEQ-DbjdGF1DU_Jjlt4eMbHdTOO9Jd7ePnc Lizzy Bluebell: Oh – now I see what the Buddha riding the deer was carrying; her Gourd. A very interesting link, thanks.”…these statues in Taoism are not for worshipping or praying. They are like a container, a magic tool, which is used to program the energies into profiles and be used for different things in Taoist magic. The outsiders cannot understand too much, and so these “Taoist secrets” are often hidden from the public in the old days or even today.” Lizzy Bluebell: Very informative passage on the power of the NINE:”Nine is the pattern of giving off power, or using up the energies of things to give off powers, just like a flashlight burning it’s battery up for the light. Sky is the pattern that relates to any pool of resources or elements that are considered the proactive party that is “starting” something or the giving side of a situation.Remember that we talk about patterns in Taoism, and it applies to everything including our FU talismans words and these special terms like Jiu Tian / Gau Tin.A practical example for this term can be used as in if you are trying to go to the kitchen and cook something for lunch. Your “sky” here is all the things in the kitchen, and ground is the kitchen itself where you put the food into “process” them. So the 9-sky stage is to have picked out the food you like and let them show themselves to let you know which one is the best to use, maybe some just smell better or some look fresher to you. Nothing has been done yet, but you are now able to “start” something because you can at least feel and sense the food’s potentials and power.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, Oh it is gourd. Yes, I forgot about the gourd symbol for Mago/Magu. It is a container for the elixir from which one drinks. It is a common pictographic/literary theme and I have images of Magu with the gourd. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, this is one heuristic analogy. Ancient Magoists depicted/perceived the universe as Nine Heavens, an equivalent to Nine States on earth for it is the lens of Nine Numerology through which they saw everything. Because ancient China removed the history of Goma, they spiritualized/philosophized the teaching of Nine Numerology. If we have Goma’s history (and the mytho-history of Old Magoism), we can perceive the meaning of Nine Heavenly directly (not through theories or analogies). Wherever and whenever the consciousness of Nine Numerology surfaces is a manifestation of Goma’s rule/civilization/religion. This will remain forever insofar as humanity continues because Nine Numerology is the principle of nature including humans. I would say that the teaching/principle of Nine Numerology is Goma’s self-redemptive soteriological gift. Insofar as we understand and honor the Nine Mago Creatrix/Nine Numerology (the female divine in general), we are endowed with the power of self-redemption. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, the character “Xuan or Hyeon 玄” refers to the quality of gynocentric spirituality, which has been made esoteric or mystic. It refers to the spirituality of the Great Goddess (Magoist spirituality). Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nine Hans or Nine Heavens manifests in such place-names as Kyūkoku (九国, Nine States). Kyushu (Nine Provinces) Island, Japan, seemingly a replica of Danguk (confederacy of nine states) representing the Nine Mago Creatrix, reflects the ancient glory of the Goma’s gynocentric rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyushu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Doumu (Mother of the Northern Dipper) also comes in the icon of eight arms. Doumu, Song Dynasty, Wikimedia Commons Domu, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doumu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: She is often conflated with Marici seated on a boar in her iconography (affine to Gemu of the Mosuo and Durga on a tiger/lion). Here Marici is depicted as four-headed and eight-armed. Marici, Wikimedia Commons Marici (Buddhism) – Wikipedia Judy E Foster: So similar to the Indian Goddess… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Indeed! I am afraid that we may not be able to feature some of the nine forms of Durga from “Hinduism”. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang There is more, Marici. Marici, Wikimedia Commons File:Marichi, Buddhist Goddess of Dawn, China, Qing dynasty, 18th… Marichi, Source below. Marichi (Buddhist Deity) – Kalpoktam (3 faces, 8 hands)… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: This is new info. on the nine tripod caldrons of ancient China. “The Nine Tripod Cauldrons (Chinese: 九鼎; pinyin: Jiǔ Dǐng) were ancient Chinese ritual cauldrons. They were ascribed to the foundation of the Xia (c. 2200 bce) by Yu the Great, using tribute metal presented by the governors of the Nine Provinces of ancient China.[1] At the time of the Shang Dynasty during the 2nd millennium bce, the tripod cauldrons came to symbolize the power and authority of the ruling dynasty with strict regulations imposed as to their use. Members of the scholarly gentry class were permitted to use one or three cauldrons; the ministers of state (大夫, dàfū) five; the vassal lords seven; and only the sovereign Son of Heaven was entitled to use nine.[2] The use of the nine tripod cauldrons to offer ritual sacrifices to the ancestors from heaven and earth was a major ceremonial occasion so that by natural progression the ding came to symbolize national political power[3] and later to be regarded as a National Treasure. Sources state that two years after the […]
(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of a discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, Facebook group.]Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I am writing an entry on “Mago” for the Glossary of my book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia:Mago (麻姑): East Asian word for the Great Goddess. Read “Ma” as in “Mama” and “Go” as in “to go.” The logographic characters are pronounced/romanized as Mago in Korean, Magu in Chinese, and Mako in Japanese. When it is used in historical contexts, “Mago” refers to the Great Goddess AND HER cultural matrix, Magoism (Magoist shamans/priestesses/rulers and/or the bygone mytho-history of Old Magoist Korea). S/HE represents Ultimate Reality as One Undividable Unity. The Great Goddess embodies the Creatrix, the cosmic sonic system of Life. Through HER, we enter the view of the whole, the consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW. Also known to have originated from the Big Dipper (Seven Stars) in lore—part of the Big Bear constellation—the Guardian of the Polaris, S/HE is the Guardian of the solar system. S/HE causes the stabilization of the solar system. In that sense, S/HE is the Sun Deity or Heavenly Deity. Self-emerged with Mago Stronghold (Earth) and two moons of the Earth through the sonic movement of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones), the Great Goddess oversees the cosmic music of Yul-ryeo (Rhythms and Tones), another term for the sonic movement of the universe. Mago gives birth to two daughters (Gung-hui) and (So-hui) parthenogenetically. Thus, they form the Mago Triad (Samsin). S/HE delegates HER two daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Oeum-chiljo (Five Pitches and Seven Tunes). Gung-hui and So-hui respectively give birth to four daughters parthenogenetically. The Primordial Mago Clan forms the Nine Magos, the archetype of Gurang (Nine Goddesses). Mago delegates eight (grand)daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones). S/HE causes the self-evolution of the Earth through which all terrestrial beings are brought into existence. In that sense, S/HE is the Earth Deity. As Samsin Halmi (Triad Grand-Mother), S/HE controls the birth and illness of children. Mago allows the Early Mago Clan in the paradise of Mago Stronghold to procreate progenies and entrusts them to take in charge of the terrestrial acoustic equilibrium. Revered as the Cosmogonist, Progenitor, and Ultimate Sovereign, Mago delegates the Mago Descent, the entirety of the divine, human ancestors, and humans, to oversee the acoustic harmony of the Earth in tune with the cosmic music. Hereupon, the paradisiacal Home of Mago Stronghold is established. S/HE is called by many names. Among them are Samsin (Triad Deity), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Halmi (Grandmother/Goddess), Nogo (Ancient Goddess), and Seongo (Immortal Goddess). Also referred to as Mugeuk Nomo (Non-Polarized First Mother) or Musaeng-nomo (Non-birthed First Mother) in Daoism. Mago appears resembling many Goddesses from around the world by way of such mythemes as the triad, parthenogenesis, cosmic music, animal companions, and the cosmogonist. “Mago” is linguistically identical or similar with “Mago” in Italian and Portuguese, “Magus/Magi” in Latin, “Magos” in Greek, “Maka” in Mycenaean Greek, “Magus” in Old Persian, and “Ma Guanyin” in East Asian languages, to name a few. Brian Kirbis: Funny, despite my fondness for language, I never made the connection. Though I have explored the lineage potential between naga and Nuwa 女娲. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: What did you find the linkage between naga and Nuwa, Brian? There is sometimes linguistic linkage relevant and other times mythological linkage… Brian Kirbis: Linguistic, iconographic, and mythological links are all available to us within a broad cross-cultural frame. My own analytic tendency is to see such mirror-image male-female representations as matrilineal and patrilineal essences which, in Chinese energy theory, reside in the kidneys (ancestral qi).Consider the Adam and Eve myth, for instance, with the figures on either side of the tree (spine, cosmic pivot, Milky Way), within which is contained the serpentine energy. There is ample information extant on such Tree of Life symbolism, all of which illustrates the inner energy body. The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.As you know, my area of interest is in the underlying cultural complex of tea-growing peoples located in Southwest China and upland Southeast Asia, an area replete with serpent mythology. Brian Kirbis: Comparison of Indian and Chinese representations of the Naga-Nagini and Fuxi & Nuwa. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Yes, indeed, there is similarity between the two. Interesting! Thanks for sharing them. Lizzy Bluebell: Brian Kirbis – fascinating – any idea what kind of tool each is holding in the sculpture? I see a chevron or M to the right of the Nagini’s head; (M and MA are fairly universal root symbols for Mother; Latin M encodes breasts, mounds, mountains, paps, tophets, etc. plus a general historical dispute over the importance of hills versus valleys.)I also note the inversion of right/left positions in the Nu Wa image.In terms of your statement – “The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.” — My thought: Have you ever considered it otherwise – that humanity has actually EXTERNALIZED chi energy into the form of the snake as a means of expressing it in non-vocal (sonic) symbolism which also manifests form via means of visualization as opposed to sonic/vocalizations or cymatics which creates form via RESONANCE.Helen – note that the tails are knotted – very important symbolic notion of ‘tying things’ as in the Shen Ring and Ankh – a masonic motif – related to measuring and containing within an Ouroborus SYSTEM which is closed, not cyclic or spiraling vis a vis Nature’s Way. It is the CLOSED CIRCLE as Plato’s “perfect form” which traps us in the flaws of re-peating and re-petitioning any ‘his-story’ we follow which does NOT HONOUR AND REVERE MAGO or hold her values close to HEART, as HEARD, in the HERD.Your original post (O/P thereafter) is fascinating and revealing and provides much to discuss on the topic of Zoroaster/Zarathustra and the Persian/Arabic/Semitic invention of Algebra and Astrology. […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part II: We Disagree! Stand up for what you believe but be open-minded! Naa Ayele Kumari: I am going to step away from the common responses and say this… Binary is only no in betweens if you choose sides and can’t see the whole. I have been a part of black consciousness movements and women’s movements and both have the capacity for progress as well as extreme viewpoints. Both have the capacity to become so hypercritical that the movement itself transcends common human compassion and understanding. Mother Teresa was a human being with flaws and goodness. She had a public image and private fears and insecurities.. l like all of us. She lived her life the best way she knew how.. Like all of us. She made mistakes.. misjudgments.. Like all of us. But she also DID help and inspire others to help too. It is this dualistic thinking that forces people to feel like they have to assign the label of good or bad and no in between. None of us are all good or all bad.. so it seems to me that to label her has an evil traitor who let people die is no better than labeling her an Angel of god who did no wrong. She was a woman who lived her life and managed to come to worldwide fame and inspire others to love at a time and in an institution that was highly patriarchal and women were not raised up at all. Mother Goddesses in Africa were known for great nurturing and care symbolized by carrying a baby and also carried a machete on the other side for justice. This was the fine balance of wholeness…she was the gentle rain and the storm.. This was binary, but not one or the other but both.. Opposite ends of the same pole. [H]: I’m having a powerful visceral effect from this conversation. I feel as if I’m going to vomit violently. Mother Teresa comes to me in dreams and meditations. Makes me wonder what kind of person I’m seen as if I attract her energy. I have always felt so much love for her. Naa Ayele Kumari: If she comes in your dreams and it has been healing for you… Allow it/ her to continue to be healing for you. Its all about love and anything that is not love… Leave it be.. Vomiting is rejecting something that doesn’t belong with you. Embrace love my sister. Antonia McGuire: I think we may all agree that all belief systems initially began to promote a sense of goodness or fairness to some degree, but over time they are corrupted and produce both advantages and disadvantages. Donna Snyder: Yes, Gandhi, too. Back in the 90’s when I was in a band/performance art troupe called Central Nervous System, I shocked all the guys in the band coming out with an improv in response to a melody played on a banjo tuned like a sitar, called exactly that-Yes, Gandhi. Now make no mistake, he is one of my heroes, devoid of the falsified sentimentality that clings to MT. Gandhi’s work was for the world, for the masses, not for the appropriately humbled. Yet I spoke out about his sexual practices, his use of female bodies. Telling the truth about a hero requires courage. Retreating into a blind defense of a myth is a form of ethical cowardice. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Strangely I had a discussion with someone about the “hero’s journey” moving from metaphorical to physical being part of the problem…..when the “demons” are human instead of our own flaws, there seems to be a tendency to point the finger (and gun barrel) elsewhere. [B]: Fascinating & thought-provoking conversation, all. I think the biggest stumbling block I have with MT is how her acceptance of the dogma of the Catholic church blinded her to seeing and then being moved by the suffering of others enough to do something to alleviate & not vicariously celebrate it. No wonder she “suffered a lack of connection with the Divine”. This crisis with her spirituality seems to have been divorced from her and others’ body wisdom. Self-abnegation (perhaps not the same as “sacrifice”) ultimately backfires because some small part of us insists, “I am worthy!” To which I say, “We are all worthy!” [H]: I do not see or feel that she vicariously celebrated the suffering of others. I feel that she devoted her life to deeply loving and serving the poorest of the poor. I have not been to Calcutta and I have also seen some unimaginable poverty in India that is not like anything that I’ve been exposed to before. I truly believe that she had a very deep way of working with suffering that is not necessarily visible to those more accustomed to modern medical intervention and the resources available for such. I have participated in a very small amount of poverty medicine and the resources that we take for granted are just not readily available to MANY. I learned very powerfully from my experience how blessed and fortunate and often very careless we really are with our precious resources. This discussion has been a learning experience for me. I am trying to not take the critical comments […]

Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from the conclusion of chapter 5 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. It is a chapter on the process of the Wheel of the Year. for the Northern Hemisphere version: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems to me that the main agenda of the Cosmos is ongoing Creativity, “never-ending renewal” it may be termed, and that this is expressed in Earth’s Seasonal Wheel through the transitions of Autumn,Winter, Spring, Summer; and in the ubiquitous process of a Cosmic Triplicity of Space to Be, Urge to Be and this Place of Being, a dynamic that has often been imagined as the Triple Goddess. In the flow of the PaGaian Wheel of the Year, the Seasonal transitions of the Wheel and the Triplicity of the Cosmos come together. There are two celebrations of the Old One/Crone or the Cosmogenetic quality of autopoiesis creating the Space to Be; and they are Lammas/Late Summer and Samhain/Deep Autumn, which are the meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing dark phase. At Lammas, the first in the dark phase, we may identify with the dark and ancient Wise One – dissolve into Her; at Samhain, we may consciously participate in Her process of the transformation of death/the passing of all. The whole dark part of the cycle is about dissolving/dying/letting go of being – becoming – nurturing it (the midwifing of Lammas/Late Summer), stepping into the power of it (the certain departure of Autumn Equinox/Mabon), the fertility (of Samhain/Deep Autumn), the peaking of it (at Winter Solstice). The meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing light phase then are celebrations of the Young One/Virgin or the Cosmogenetic quality of differentiation, the new continually emerging, the Urge to Be; and they are Imbolc/Early Spring and Beltaine/High Spring. At Imbolc, the first in the light phase, we may identify with She who is shining and new – as we take her form; at Beltaine, we may consciously participate in Her process of the dance of life. The whole light part of the cycle is about coming into being: nurturing it (the midwifing of Imbolc/Early Spring), stepping into the power of it (the certain return of Spring Equinox/Eostar), the fertility (of Beltaine/High Spring), the peaking of it (at Summer Solstice). In the PaGaian wheel of ceremony there are two particular celebrations of the Mother, the Cosmogenetic quality of communion; and they are the Solstices. If one imagines the light part of the cycle as a celebration of the ‘Productions of Time’, and the dark part of the cycle as a celebration of ‘Eternity’, the Solstices then are meeting points, points of interchange, and are celebrations of the communion/relational field of Eternity with the Productions of Time. This is a relationship which does happen in this Place, in this Web. This Place of Being, this Web, is a Communion – it is the Mother; the Solstices mark Her birthings, Her gateways. The Equinoxes then – both Spring and Autumn – are two celebrations wherein the balance of all three Faces/Creative qualities is particularly present: in the PaGaian wheel, the Equinoxes have been special celebrations of Demeter and Persephone – echoing the ancient tradition of Mother-Daughter Mysteries that celebrate the awesomeness of the continuity of life, its creative tension/balance. Both Equinoxes then are celebrations and contemplations of empowerment through deep Wisdom – one contemplation during the dark phase and one during the light phase. The Autumn Equinox is a descent to Wisdom, the Spring Equinox is an emergence with Wisdom gained. I like to think of the Equinoxes, and of the ancient icons of Demeter and Persephone, as celebrations of the delicate ‘curvature of space-time’, the fertile balance of tensions which enables it all. Her Creative Place The Mother aspect then may be understood to be particularly present at four of the Seasonal Moments, which are also regarded traditionally as the Solar festivals; and in this cosmology Sun is felt as Mother. I recognize these four as points of interchange: at Autumn Equinox, Mother is present primarily as Giver – She is letting Persephone go, at Spring Equinox, She is present primarily as Receiver – welcoming the Daughter back, at Winter Solstice the Mother gives birth, creates form, at Summer Solstice, She opens again full of radiance, and disperses form. The Mother is Agent/Actor at the Solstices. She is Participant/Witness at the Equinoxes, where it is then really Persephone who is Agent/Actor, embodying an inseparable Young One and Old One. The Old One is often named as Hecate, who completes the Trio – all seamlessly within each other. Another possible way to visual it, or to tell the story, is this: The Mother – Demeter – is always there, at the Centre if you like. Persephone cycles around. She is the Daughter who returns in the Spring as flower, who will become fruit/grain of the Summer, who at Lammas assents to the dissolution – the consumption. At Autumn Equinox She returns to the underworld as seed – Her harvest is rejoiced in, Her loss is grieved, as She becomes Sovereign of the Underworld – Her face changes to the Dark One, Crone (Hecate). As the wheel turns into the light part of the cycle She becomes Young One/Virgin again. Persephone (as Seed) is that part of Demeter that can be all three aspects – can move through the complete cycle. The Mother and Daughter are really One, and embody the immortal process of creation and destruction. Demeter hands Persephone the wheat, the Mystery, and the thread of life is unbroken – it goes on forever. It is immortal, it is eternal. Even though it is true that all will be lost, and all is lost – Being always arises again: within this field of time there is never-ending renewal, eternity. This is what is revealed in the ubiquitous three faces of the Creative Dynamic/ She of Old, the Triplicity that runs through the Cosmos. The Seed of Life never …
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution (as expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago,[i] and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago.[ii] Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever-changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence (as of this writing) to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as anyone’s ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change.[v]In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done, but it will continue to evolve as all language must. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch

(Budoji Essay 3) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“Reintroducing the concept of the Mago Species has a profound implication, compelling one’s vocabularies to be changed to the Mother’s Tongue.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] There were Four Heavenly Persons at the four corners of the castle. They built pillars and sounded music. Four Heavenly Persons are the four clan leaders who reside in the four corners of Mago Castle, Primordial Paradise. They are entrusted by Mago to cultivate the acoustical effect of the universe (the original music). While the translation of “pillars” is provisional, it may mean a musical instrument of some primordial sort. Given the importance of stone, a theme reiterated in later chapters of the Budoji, the pillars may refer to the stone structure that supports a musical instrument. Or they may indicate stone chimes or an acoustical rock structure.
(Bell Essay 5) The Ancient Korean Bell and Magoism by Helen Hwang

Part V: The Nine Nipples and Korean Magoist Identity Part V demonstrates the difference in bells of Korea, China, and Japan with regard to the relief of nine nipples. Chinese bells after the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) got away with the nipples wholesale, whereas Japanese bells inaccurately mimicked nine nipples. On the other hand, the nine nipples continued to be sculpted on Sillan Korean bells and throughout history. In fact, the nine nipples became the hallmark of Korean bells. Why did post-Han China discontinue the nine nipples, a legacy from Shang and Zhou times? What made Japan mimic the nipples on the bell? What does it mean that Korean bells kept the nine nipples intact throughout history? These questions remain unanswered without the framework of the mytho-history of Old Magoism that defines ancient Korea as the creator and defender of Magoism in pre- and proto-Chinese times. The fact that bells with the nine nipples re-emerged during 7th-8th century Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) is no accident. In fact, it supports the premise that Old Magoism during which Magoist female shamans ruled was revived by Sillan leaders. Silla Koreans took the role of witness to the legacy of Old Magoism before it vanished into the subliminal memory of history once and for all. Like other symbols of the number nine such as the nine dragons, nine-tailed fox, and nine maidens that I have shown in a series of preceding essays, the nine nipples are the cultural/conceptual relic from the bygone Magoist history underlying Sinocentric historiography of East Asia. On one level, the relief of nipples forged on the bells from Korea, China, and Japan in one way or another at some point of history substantiates the cultural influence of Old Magoism across the national boundaries of East Asia. On another level, the fact that the nine nipples characterize Korean bells throughout history suggests the primary association of ancient Koreans with Magoism. Korean bells have served the mission of carrying the cultural memory of Old Magoism. Let us backtrack a bit and ask: Is it possible to conclude that the Zhou bell was the original model of the Sillan bell? It is dubious to deem that the Sillan bell took the model of the Zhou bell solely. That is primarily because the Sillan bell is far more explicit than the Zhou bell in female symbology. The Zhou bell’s nipples are not even called nipples. Foremost, official history of ancient China has no explanation for the female principle embodied in the nine nipples of Zhou and Shang bells. It appears that the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) was the landmark that defined China without regard to its attitude toward Old Magoism. The umbilical cord was not only cut off but also used to matricide, marking the birth of full-fledged patriarchy. The bloody hand was washed in falsified historiography. The Han dynasty marks the period of transition from the pseudo-Magoist to the anti-Magoist for China. In other words, China as a political force began, or rather continued, to abandon the legacy of Old Magoism and forged a new identity of patriarchal rulership in writing. In about four centuries thereafter, we find the bells of the Dang dynasty (618-906) utterly non-traditional in style, showing no sign of female symbology. Bell, Chen Dynasty (575), China Jingyun Bell, Tang Dynasty (711), China Protruded knobs are expressed in Jingyun bell cast in 711 CE but hard to associate them with nipples. The number nine symbology is no longer included. Instead, the magnitude in size and weight (247 cm and 6,500 kg) was there to adumbrate what has gone into oblivion, the magical work of epiphany. Discontinuity between Zhou bells and Dang bells cannot be more overt. As seen in above images, Chinese bells of the post-Dang period are adorned in entirely new styles among which the convoluted end-lines are one of the most distinctive features. Creativity without harmony is no ingenuity but an expression of confusion. Power without harmony is only a disguise of fear and guilt. And harmony comes from the Great Goddess, Mago. The contrast of the Dang bell is heightened when it is juxtaposed with the contemporaneous Sillan counterpart. It is unequivocal that the Sillan Korean bell is closer to the Zhou bell in appearance than the Dang bell to the Zhou bell. Experts may deem this as a corollary that ancient Silla was under the influence of Zhou culture. However, I suggest that both Silla and Zhou took the footstep of the pre-Chinese tradition of Old Magoism. Put differently, there were older models that are not fully exposed at this time. Precisely, Sinocentric thinking is under investigation. On the part of proto-Chinese Korean history, according to mainstream historians, Joseon (2333 BCE-232 BCE) is rendered a myth lacking historicity. Silla not only duly inherited the heritage of Old Magoism but also sought to revive the rule of Old Magoism whose political stance strikingly differed from her contemporaneous neighboring state, Dang China. In fact, the Dang dynasty (618 CE-906 CE) coexisted with the united Silla period (668 CE-936 CE), shorter than the last third of the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE). What prevents one from thinking that Silla inherited the symbolism of nine nipples directly from pre-Chinese East Asian/Korean Magoist Culture? Interestingly, Japanese bells have nipples whose numbers are, nonetheless, inconsistent, more than nine. While showing no overt symbology of female sexuality, the Japanese bell displays the nipples in the four corners aligning with its predecessors. In comparison with Korean bells, nonetheless, they are evidently monotonous in artistry. Absent are the breast circumferences as well as the seats for nipples. Neither goddess images nor intricately designed rinceau designs are employed. However, a hue of mimicry is echoing. The lack of originality in Japanese bells seemed plainly noticed by the Japanese themselves upon encountering Korean bells. More than fifty Korean bells were taken to Japan during the colonial period (1910-1945) and even before then and still remain there. Among them, six bells are known from Silla, cast before the 10th century CE. In fact, the bell in Unjuji, Japan, is alleged …
(Photo Essay 5) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part 5: Gaeyang Halmi, How Does She Relate with Mago? The field research concerning Gaeyang Halmi was undertaken with the thought that Gaeyang Halmi is related to Mago in some way. Such assumption is on the grounds that the folktales of Gaeyang Halmi and Mago Halmi substantively share the same motifs. In fact, I had thought Gaeyang Halmi is another name of Mago Halmi. A scrutiny has proven that the picture of their correlation is far more complex than I first envisaged, exposing the hidden nexuses of Old Magoism. This last part aims at disentangling the grips. It is indispensable for me to invite my readers to the task of reconstructing ancient East Asian mytho-history. Gaeyang Halmi embodies a partial manifestation of Mago as the Sea Goddess. Nonetheless, such a statement lacks complex subtexts that this topic involves. The Gurang (Nine Maidens) mytheme of Gaeyang Halmi sheds light on the mytho-history of Old Magoism (read Magoism in pre- and proto-Chinese times characterized by shaman rulers). To be specific, Gaeyang Halmi in the gurang pantheon suggests a yet-to-be-known shaman ruler, “Ungnyeo” (Bear/Sovereign Woman), founder of the confederacy of the nine states, which I call Danguk (ca. 3898 BCE-2333 BCE). The gurang represented by Gaeyang Halmi is no small clue to the pervasive yet misunderstood civilization of Ungnyeo. “Ungnyeo” is eponymous of the female symbolism of nine, such as the nine-tailed fox in East Asia and the nine muses and the nine forms of Durga beyond East Asia mentioned in Part IV. In short, Gaeyang Halmi oscillating between “Mago” and “Ungnyeo” in Her identity testifies to the suppressed history of Old Magoism. Methodically, I have two types of mythological texts to decipher the overtones of Gaeyang Halmi’s mytheme: folklore (oral narratives) and the written myth. Goddess mythemes, malleable yet immortal, constitute the grammar blocks of the gynocentric language that often appears “awkward” if not “ridiculous” to moderns. They need to be analyzed and interpreted. Feminist techniques are apt to sort out the sediments and decipher the diastrophic disturbances caused by patriarchal advances in the course of time. Some parallels between Gaeyang Halmi and Mago Halmi folk stories are overt. Their stories are so similar that they appear to be an identical goddess: A: The motif that Gaeyang Halmi walks on the sea, often described as wearing namak-sin (wooden shoes) or only beoseon (Korean traditional socks), is also commonly told in Mago stories especially from Jeju Island[i] and other coastal regions. B: That Gaeyang Halmi walks around in the sea to measure its depth is also told in the stories of Mago from other coastal regions. C: The mytheme that Gaeyang Halmi had eight daughters recurs in the stories of Mago, especially from the region of Mt. Jiri. Mago is said to have had eight daughters and sent them to eight provinces. Given the above, it is evident that Gaeyang Halmi lore resembles that of Mago. Were the populace confused about these two goddesses? I hold that the confusion was not a mistake but a way to convey that Gaeyang Halmi is related to Magoism rather than Mago Herself. In folklore, “why” and “how”are the questions to be interpreted, not to be read.

Tag: Danica Anderson

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