May 26, 2014November 15, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 1) Feminism and the Future of Religion by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Part 1 of a paper presented by the author at the National Socialist Conference Sydney, 1990. Feminism/the uprising of women continues to chip away at patriarchal religions worldwide. Though the inroads Read More …

(Review) Animal Magic in Chauvet Cave by Hearth Moon Rising

One of the most intriguing glimpses into the perspectives of Europe’s Paleolithic people is documented by the artwork of the Chauvet Cave in southern France. These paintings originate from about 30,000 B.C.E. and continue over a span of more than 5,000 years. (To put that in perspective, 5,000 years before today the great pyramids of Egypt had not yet been built.) The cave was rediscovered in 1994 by a spelunker, and given the breadth and quality of the art this relatively recent discovery was fortuitous, since degradations in other cave paintings in France and Spain have taught important lessons about the fragility of Ice Age art. For this reason, admission to the cave is limited to select scientists and art historians, and even their access is severely circumscribed.
(Art & Poem) Mabon by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

A CROWN OF LEAVES FOR MABON For Mabon (fall equinox), Sept. 21 Our voices press from us and twine around the year’s fermenting wine Yellow fall roars Over the ground. Loud, in the leafy sun that pours Liquid through doors, Yellow, the leaves twist down as the winding of the vine pulls our curling voices— Glowing in wind and change, The orange leaf tells How one more season will alter and range, [no stanza break] Working the strange Colors of clamor and bells In the winding of the vine our voices press out from us to twine When autumn gathers, the tree That the leaves sang Reddens dark slowly, then, suddenly free, Turns like a key, Opening air where they hang and the winding of the vine makes our voices turn and wind with the year’s fermented wine One of the hanging leaves, Deeply maroon, Tightens its final hold, receives, [no stanza break] Finally weaves Through, and is covered soon in the winding of the vine— Holding past summer’s hold, Open and strong, One of the leaves in the crown is gold, Set in the cold Where the old seasons belong. Here is my crown Of winding vine, Of leaves that dropped, That fingers twined, another crown to yield and shine with a year’s fermented wine. Meet Mago Contributor Sudie Rakusin and Meet Mago Contributor Annie Finch. Both art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books, 2017).
(Poem & Art) Medial Woman by Arlene Bailey

Art, Between the Worlds” by Arlene Bailey ©2018 We are now in the time of the Medial Woman. She comes in my dreams beckoning me come walk between the worlds. Beckoning me keep my promise made before coming to this world. To live strongly. To live wildly. To live deeply. She lives in the light. She lives in the dark. An Edgewalker hovering in the liminal places of our psyche, she both sees and hears what is between the worlds. No longer constrained by society’s expectations of what a woman is, the Medial Woman is free to move as she is called. Feral and Wild and standing always in her sovereign knowing of Divine Female Power, the Medial Woman Calls. Are you Listening? _____________________________________ Medial Woman by Arlene Bailey, ©2020 https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(Essay 2) Con-Text: Personal/Cultural/Cosmic Stories by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

This essay is a version of an excerpt from Chapter 2 of her book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Further to my unfolding awareness of the nature of my cultural con-text, the androcentric nature of the stories in which I grew, was the perceiving of my identification as sex object … with no subjectivity, no space to Be. I remember pornographic magazines from my childhood, depicting women being constantly pursued by salivating men – either there was an assumption that she desired this, or they did not care to ask her. And Christian cosmology, which saturated my context, appeared to condone the imposition of a dominant will upon another – at the very heart of it is “the sacrifice of the lamb”. Women have been especially vulnerable, with their submission openly advocated. They sometimes called me “Marilyn” (for Marilyn Monroe), simply because of my babyhood platinum hair. I was not particularly cute as I grew up, on the contrary, I was skinny, had buck teeth, freckles and a bad haircut. But Marilyn was suggested to me by this naming, as someone I could model myself after. I don’t remember any other significant famous women in the first decade or two of my life. As a child I was very conscious of being looked at, and perhaps on reflection, it was because I was female. I felt transparent and vacuous. The Great Male Metaphors of the day – God and Santa – knew everything about me. The male humans imitated the Deity with constant Gazing, in magazines, movies, wall calendars. I could only hope to be chosen to be worthy of his desire, yet at the same time it was known and told that he could be dangerous. I felt acutely the identification of myself with the “inanimate” world, as it was understood to be – dead and inert: though I had no words for it. Ursula Le Guin says, We are told in words, and not in words, we are told by their deafness, … (that) … the life experience of women, is not valuable … to humanity. (We have been valued by the patriarchal viewpoint) as an element of their experience, as things experienced.[1] The male in this worldview was also “inanimate”, albeit the machine that was expected to perform. I began to find words, and consciousness of my assigned cultural destiny as sex object. I wrote: What did it take to move from that, to develop a shell, a protective boundary, to pull the shades on the imposing mostly male Gaze, to allow a fertile darkness within my being, where ‘I’ could begin? What did it take to create this kind of darkness, a safe place to Be, to shut out the world and scream ‘I’? … A sex object has to completely fall apart before she can rebuild herself in her own image. She has to fall into the mud, begin again, perform her own acts of Creation, mold herself of this solid material. It is out of the mud that the lotus blossoms. It does not grow on some pedestal, under the light of the eternal Gaze. … How ironic that our paternal mythmakers made Medusa’s gaze the deadly one!
(Essay 2) The Body – Essential or Not? by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is the second part of an evolved version of an excerpt from Chapter 2 of her book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Often the work of woman-centred and Gaian/Earth-centred philosophers and writers has been subject to critique by gender-sceptical feminist theory as essentialist, as a perceived “collapse” of female into nature.[i] In the case of my own work and writing, I am actually identifying all being – not just female and male, or just human, but flora and fauna and stars and rocks as well, and even human culture – with nature, and I then metaphorise the dynamics of all being as female, which could be construed as essentialist. It does invoke “female sacrality” which for some indicates an essentialising of sacredness as female.[ii] I acknowledge that it may be so, but also assert that it need not be understood this way. In the case of my work and practice PaGaian Cosmology, there is a recognition or naming of “female-referring transformatory powers”[iii] that are identified as cosmic dynamics essential to all being – not exclusive to the female. For example, “conception” is a female-referring transformatory power, that is, it happens in a female body;[iv] yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. In past ideologies, philosophies and theologies – many of which still make their presence felt, and hence are present – the occurrence of “conception” in that place (the female body) has been devalued; “‘conception” has only been valued in the place of the mind – usually the male mind – as “concept”. Then in some circles of feminist spirituality particularly, there has been reversal of this so that the female body – and sometimes her bodymind – was the only place for significant “conception”: I am not saying that. My work and cosmology affirms “conception” as a female-referring transformatory power which manifests multivalently in all being, thus affirming female sacrality as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place. I do also affirm other qualities of the Universe’s transformatory powers as female-referring … birthing, feeding, containing: and thus She is the most appropriate metaphor to describe the Body we find ourselves within, as we recognise the resonances. My Search in its academic form (of doctoral research) was an inquiry into the affects of such recognition on the hearts and minds and actions of participants – female and male, and including myself. It remains a question for most of the present world: what difference would such recognition and affirmation make to our world? What difference would a “menstrual cosmology”[v] make to the human co-creating of the world – as has been asked and suggested by such brilliant woman-centred philosophies of Judy Grahn[vi] and numerous others. In our times Western science in some niches is arriving at a resonant cosmology, but often with no recognition or acknowledgement of the Maternal nature of these resonances, of the repeated patterns within the female body in particular: She is still left out of the equation. So it often becomes more of Zeus “giving birth” to Athena, a stealing of the “female-referring transformatory” powers of the Cosmic Cauldron in which we are, our Maternal heritage – that of all genders. It may just be more of treating Her like furniture – sitting on Her lap playing King, with no recognition that it is Her sacrality, Her Place and Body. Charlene Spretnak’s work over decades is notable in her conscious and explicit linking of new unfoldings of Western science to female-referring reality.[vii]
(Poem) Be still She says by Arlene Bailey

Art, The Cailleach by Amanda Lindupp Stop the Being and Doing for you can’t listen when you are so active. You can’t hear when so outward. Stop the planning and the cleaning. Those are Autumn actions as we shed all we do not need to take into this time of quiet. For now, look to me. See my ways in this time of rest and sleep and gestation. This time when all of Nature turns inward and is quiet. Enter the Stillness of the As Above, So Below. Allow the silence to wrap Her regenerative cloak around you as you rest… dream… vision. The Outward time is coming. Soon. But for now… Be still She says. _______________________________ (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(She Summons Excerpt) Flying Lessons: Inquire Within for Hungry Ghosts by Cynthia Tom

Acrylic on canvas/ mixed media sculpture9’ w x 8’ h Growing up with a Chinese culture that values the son, but negates the daughter, Cynthia Tom uses art to unravel and address embedded feelings of being invisible and unnecessary. In China, during her grandmother’s youth, she had to horrific job of killing her baby sisters as they were born. This was not unusual and the unspoken trauma continues for generations. Each dress form, in this painting, represents the voices of the thousands if not millions of females who have generationally been eradicated through adoption or infanticide, and those who have been or are being abused, neglected and silenced. This painting is an affirmation that women (past, present, future) rise. Rise in feelings of love, forgiveness, admiration, respect and POWER, shifting from being invisible and unnecessary to loved, vital and empowered. FLYING LESSONS. Inquire Within Flying Lessons – means to inspire our women (past, present and future) to grow wings and fly, to own their empowerment and power. “Inquire Within” asks women, families and society to question their own thoughts and beliefs. What do they/we think about ourselves as women? How do we treat each other, with respect and reverence, love and kindness? Do we claim ourselves as others’ victims? Do we make others responsible for our happiness? Do we need to make internal adjustments to claim our own well-being so we can care for others in our communities? How can we come from a place of abundance and generosity? Regarding Hungry Ghosts. This term comes from Buddhist and Taoist beliefs and refers to lost spirits that roam the earth burdened by unfulfilled desires and insatiable needs. I use the term Hungry Ghosts to refer to ancestral family patterns of trauma. Growing up in a Chinese culture that values the son, but not the daughter, I use art to unravel and address embedded feelings of being invisible and unnecessary. My hungry ghost gets in the way of my daily life. I have to remind myself to feel of value to myself and others, that I can ignore people who cause me pain and that I can say no if something doesn’t feel right or does not interest me. I don’t have to take on a million tasks help others to prove my value. I am still important even if I did nothing else. Recently, a medical intuitive said I have to create art addressing my Chinese ancestral pain of unwanted females. Shifting from unconscious feelings of Disconnectedness (I have to earn the right to be accepted) to conscious recognition of Connectedness (that I deserve love and respect just for being), my painting, Ancestras, Please Rise, is a medication on Self-Acceptance and Deep Love of Self. It metaphorically peels away the next layer of virtually unconscious beliefs of being invisible and undeserving. This journey involves unraveling generations of cultural teachings. Inspiration: 1. “Emperor’s Tomb” in China. Since I was little, I have asked,” where are the women”. FLYING LESSONS. Inquire Within, 8’ h x 9’ w x 2’d three panel painting and mixed media piece begins with 100+ dress forms painted in mass on the ground. In the distance, they rise and float up into the air, transforming into 3-D mixed media sculptures. Each dress form represents the thousands, if not millions of Asian females discarded through generations of adoption or infanticide, who suffer abuse or neglect. This is a powerful wish of love for women (past, present and future) to “rise.” 2. My Chinese ancestral patterns endorsing that sons matter, daughters do not. I honor my great grandmother, grandmother and mother whose experiences included female negation. While living on a farm in China, my grandmother‘s job, prior to 1920, was to kill her baby sisters just after birth, causing unspeakable trauma through the ancestral lines. Because of these traumas, held in silence, which are not unusual, I use art to ask questions as form of protest. What messages does this send to our daughters, our mothers, our aunties? How does this affect our lives? How do we recognize and overcome a legacy of culturally enforced irrelevance?” Each dress form, in this painting, represents the voices of the thousands if not millions of females who have generationally been discarded through adoption or infanticide, and those who have been or are being abused, neglected and silenced. This painting is an affirmation that women (past, present, future) rise. Rise in feelings of love, forgiveness, admiration, respect and POWER, shifting from being unimportant and unnecessary to loved, vital and empowered. Ancestras, Please Rise. Cynthia’s work has always encouraged a cultural shift to embrace the importance and power of women, especially within women themselves. She comprehends the multigenerational depth and breadth of these feelings of being unwanted, undeserving, unnecessary amongst women and uses art as the platform to encourage sharing, witnessing and to educate. She does this work through A PLACE OF HER OWN (art-based healing program for woman). For many years, I’ve been creating art and art projects to unravel ancestral diminution and destruction of Chinese girls and to heal an almost unconsciously held beliefs that I am invisible unnecessary, undeserving, an imposition. It is a visceral feeling and not a rational decision. Art is the key to enter this space of culturally enforced silence, to dig into the unconscious and make it conscious. I have made progress and continue to heal and grow my wisdom and love. Asian Pacific American women have deep, trans-generational, and cultural relationships to trauma, mental health issues that are taboo to discuss and consequentially ignored and suppressed until it shows up physically. Asian cultures emphasize compliance and conformity, resulting in self-denial and silence. Depression is the second leading cause of death for APA women. This art is meant to spark personal storytelling and sharing as one way to address trauma. This project encourages artists, women and community to connect through identity exploration with empathetic peers. In February 2019, a major epiphany got at the root of my Hungry Ghosts. It stems from my grandmother’s job. She had to kill her baby sisters between 1910-1920. It stopped when she …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Rhyannan

Pashta MaryMoon (Rhyannan) is the elder priestess of the Kairosean Kithentradition; and has spent over 20 years being the Pagan visiting clergy/chaplain in hospitals, hospices, and prisons — as well as being a long-time Friend (Quaker), and the Pastoral Care and Memorials clerk for her Quaker Meeting. She is also a Death Midwife, and the executive director of CINDEA (Canadian Integrative Network for Death Education and Alternatives http://www.cindea.ca/) — as well as an Advance Care Planning consultant, and Bedside Singing teacher. She is the leader of the “By My Own Heart and Hand” (basics in home funerals) workshop. She sees herself as a ‘dark priestess’, with a bias towards the positive and active side of The Dark.
(Book Excerpt 3) On the Wings of Isis: Reclaiming the Sovereignty of Auset, ed. by Trista Hendren et al.

Agency in the Face of Adversity Olivia Church Aset is a Goddess (a Netjeret in ancient Egyptian)with an extraordinary history, reaching back to at least the 5th Dynasty of Egypt’s Old Kingdom over 4400 years ago, so far as written words can tell.25 Aset wove her magic through ancient Egyptian culture for millennia, before the Greeks and Romans came to adopt her into their own religious systems, naming her “Isis”. The image we have of her today is highly influenced by this Graeco-Roman form, which is in part because this period of time (332 BCE – 395 CE) was when her cults were at their most widespread both within and beyond Egypt. On the other hand, however, such reinterpretations have perpetuated a Mediterranean portrait of Aset, following the antiquarian trend of claiming Egyptian heritage for Eurocentric narratives of history. It is therefore essential that we collectively reclaim Aset’s North African Egyptian origins in order to restore both her sovereignty as a Goddess and the sovereignty of North African cultural heritage. For this reason, I will refer to her as Aset for the remainder of this article, rather than Isis. Aset is a Goddess who has endured through literally thousands of years’ worth of cultural exchanges. She has survived beyond the closure of her ancient temples and proves to be one of the most beloved Goddesses revived from the ancient world today. Aset’s popularity stems not only from her magical allure, exotic beauty, or shining regalia. She remains popular today due to her ability to empathise with the human condition, as well as her indominable sense of autonomy and personal agency. According to her ancient mythology, Aset was not a Goddess who surrendered to the great woes thrown her way: To modern readers at least, it is clear that Aset takes control of her situation and demonstrates how to handle challenges like a queen! It is often said that knowledge is power, and this is certainly true according to ancient Egyptian religion and mythology. Aset was destined to become the divine queen of Egypt through her marriage to the God Wesir (known to the Greeks as Osiris), which conferred upon her significant authority and power;26 however, though a modern feminist reading one could suggest that Aset was not content to possess power which was reliant upon her marriage to a king. Instead she sought sovereignty in her own right by becoming skilled in magic and rich in wisdom. As a result, according to the Coffin Texts, Aset became renowned as a Goddess who knew everything “in the sky and on the earth.”27 The one thing that she did not know, however, was the true name of the Creator God Ra, a fact of which she was considerably aware. The myth of Ra’s Secret Name describes how the God kept his true name hidden from all other creations in existence, to prevent any from causing him harm.28 The Egyptians believed that written and spoken words held great power and could be used to manipulate things in real life; this extended to someone’s name, their ren, which was considered a living part of them, as much as their physical or spiritual bodies.29 This meant that the possessor of Ra’s true name would have the power to manipulate the Creator God himself, for good or for ill. Without possession of his true name, no creature could harm him, except from himself. Aset’s intentions were not to cause the Creator harm, but to acquire his name, and the power it provided. A spell recorded in the Turin Magical Papyrus tells us how Aset, intent on obtaining this secret name, concocted a plan to trick Ra into revealing it willingly to her.30 Her plan was thus: To covertly collect some of Ra’s spittle as he slept and magically form a serpent with it. The serpent would then bite Ra necessitating that Aset come to his aid offering to heal him. In turn, she would cry out, if only she knew the name of the being which had harmed him! Inevitably Aset’s plan succeeded. Ra screamed in agonising pain following the serpent’s bite, whereupon the Goddess ran to his side offering to help him. Ra provided numerous alternative epithets to no avail. It became clear to him that he had no other option but to concede to Aset’s request.31 The tale ends with Aset learning his secret name, obtaining its power, and restoring Ra to health. Hereafter, she is known by the title, ‘weret hekau’ or ‘Great of Magic’.32 This myth demonstrates how, from the very beginning, Aset sought power for herself through the pursuit of knowledge. She fixed her attention upon her goal and set to achieve it by any means necessary. Her prioritisation of knowledge, above other forms of power, would prove to be invaluable to her throughout the rest of her mythology. She chose to empower herself, not only by her regal title, but in her embodied choices. The story of Aset and Wesir is a famous one, which cannot be explored in full detail here; however, a summary of key moments serve to provide a portrait of Aset’s sense of agency. The first section of stories belonging to this mythic cycle survive through the combination of the Egyptian Stela of Amenmose and the retellings of the Greek authors, Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus.33 The myth unfolds with Aset and Wesir ruling as successful divine monarchs over Egypt. Their brother Sutekh (Greek Seth), God of the desert and thunderstorms,34 was jealous of Wesir’s good fortune, and from the Middle Kingdom onwards, Egyptian sources assert that Sutekh was responsible for the death of Wesir.35 The most common method recorded is that Sutekh tricked Wesir into entering a coffin whereupon he sealed the lid and cast him into the Nile to drown.36 Aset was stricken with grief. She had just lost her beloved in a devastating act of violence at the hands of her own family. The story goes on to describe how Aset fled in search for …
(Essay) Birth of the Moon by Hearth Moon Rising

Many devotees of the Goddess are familiar with the story of Inanna’s Descent, yet this is not the only surviving Mesopotamian myth about the underworld. Offhand, I can think of five others, and there may be more. Birth of the Moon (also known as Enlil and Ninlil) is another complex underworld myth, this one involving the goddess Ninlil. Enlil and Ninlil. Source: Wikimedia Commons Birth of the Moon is written in Sumerian, the oldest recorded language in Mesopotamia. It features the deities Ninlil, Enlil, Nanna, Nunbarshegunu, and Nergal, along with numerous deities that will be unnamed in this account to keep the story simple. Enlil is a god residing in the mountain range east of the fertile valleys. “En” is translated sometimes as “lord” and other times as “producer,” while “lil” means “wind.” Enlil enters the normally arid agricultural centers seasonally embodied in winds heavy with rain. Enlil is associated with the number fifty, synonymous with the idea of “many,” reflecting Enlil’s many symbols. Mesopotamian scholars consider Enlil “chief of the gods,” though some (possibly, only me) question this title. In myth Enlil is frequently a bit of an asshat. For example, in the Mesopotamian story of the Great Flood, Enlil wipes out civilization not because the people have gone bad, like they did in the Biblical flood, but because they are becoming noisy in their growing cities. The noise interferes with his naptime. Ninlil is the mother of the growing season. “Nin” means “lady,” and again “lil” means “wind,” so her name translates as “Mistress of the Wind.” This appellation sounds like a title rather than a real name, leading many scholars to consider her a deity “invented” as a wife for Enlil. This begs the question of why Enlil (apparently NOT a title) should need a wife. Ninlil’s worship was centered at Nippur, and early in that Sumerian city’s history she became syncretized with the cereal goddess Sud of a nearby town. Like virtually every other Mesopotamian goddess, she eventually became syncretized with the goddess Ishtar, though even at this point she was differentiated as Ishtar of Nippur. Ishtar’s number is fifteen, the day on the new moon calendar that women in former times were most likely to be fertile. Nippur. Source: Mapmaster/Wikimedia Commons Nunbarshegunu is the mother of Ninlil, considered a “minor” goddess, because she does not appear much in literature. Already in earliest records she has been merged with divination, barley, and snake goddesses. While researching this, I learned that Nunbarshegunu is also the title of a song by the death metal band Absu, about the myth related below. Nanna is the moon god who regulates fertility. Nergal is his underworld twin. Nanna’s number is (unsurprisingly) thirty. Here is a summary for the Birth of the Moon. This story takes place in the early days, when Nippur is still an undistinguished town of no importance. Nunbarshegaunu, Ninlil’s mother, counsels her daughter not to bathe in the Ninburdu tributary, which is ruled by a spirit of ill fortune. Ninlil listens to her mother carefully, so that she knows what she must not do, and takes off to do exactly that. While bathing in the forbidden waters, Ninlil attracts the attention of Enlil, who summons a ferry to take him to her side of the river. Enlil wishes to make love to Ninlil, but she demurs, saying she is too young. Enlil presses on and overcomes her resistance by force. Enlil provokes the wrath of the Fifty Gods for this transgression, and he is called before a tribunal of the Powerful Seven. They banish him to the underworld, which is apparently the worst they can do to him, since he continues his errant ways. Ninlil, learning that she is pregnant, enters the underworld seeking Enlil, for reasons that are unclear, though her behavior probably made sense to early listeners. Whatever Ninlil needs Enlil for, it’s not sex, because he disguises himself three times in order to impregnate her. It is vital that Ninlil conceive three additional times, because the underworld does not relinquish its visitors. Ninlil must provide shadow substitutes so that she, Enlil, and her first child can leave the underworld. This is especially crucial because that first child is Nanna, the moon. A hard bargain must be made, since Nanna is a male god and cannot give birth. Ninlil, through her fecundity, is the only one who can save Enlil, Nanna, and herself. Zagros Mountain Range, where Enlil lives most of the year. Source: Vah hem/Wikimedia Commons Enlil disguises himself as the first, second, and third guardian of the gates to the underworld, seducing Ninlil at every gate. Ninlil conceives three shadow beings who will remain in the underworld while the parents and child escape. The moon, essential to the cycle of life on earth, is replaced by the underworld god Nergal. (The End) Mythology about rape is unsettling, and it is tempting to turn away from it or to explain it as allegorical of a forceful takeover of matriarchy, as Robert Graves has done with The Greek Myths. I am not challenging Graves’s interpretation of Greek myth, but I do not believe that is what is happening in this particular myth, despite the patriarchal overlay in the story and its modern interpretation. While rape in patriarchal societies is common and usually without consequence for the perpetrator, rape in matriarchal societies was not necessarily unheard of, but rather rare and severely punished. Enlil is called before council and banished to the underworld for his transgression, which is essentially the same as saying he is tried and executed, surely about the worst the gods can do to him. I think Enlil and Ninlil were originally brother and sister, as well as husband and wife, making this a story of incest as well as rape. This is another explanation of their matching names and would explain why Ninlil follows Enlil into the underworld. The glimpse we have of early Mesopotamian culture through myth reveals that brother-sister bonds …
(Essay) Cook, Eat, Celebrate, Heal Lessons from the Yakbab by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

“Glutinous rice is mixed with oil and honey, pine nuts and dates. Families in the neighborhood share bowls of this rice with each other as the magpie awakes, seduced by the clear crisp down [dawn?].” ~ Book 13 of Mogeunjip, by Yi Saek of Goryeo (1328-1396) The word about the importance of healthy eating habits is out, and by now we all have made the necessary adjustments to our diet, think we eat healthy, or aspire to do so. According to statistics the demand for organic food is expanding. Over 81% of the respondents in a recent online survey consider themselves to be foodies.
(Art & Prose) Bloodmoon Blessing – a prayer, picture and poem by Lucy Pierce

Art by Lucy Pierce May the wombs of all daughters be blessed, as eggs in the ovaries of their mothers, inside the wombs of their grandmothers, blessed at their conception and blessed at their birth. May the wombs of all maidens be blessed at their menarche. May the wombs of all women be blessed always at the alter of their loving, through the cycles of their blood, in their terminations and their miscarriages and at the birthing of their babes. May the womb of woman be blessed through all the years of her blood tide and beyond, in her menopause and through all the years of her wisdom giving and also blessed at her death, for all she has dreamed and birthed into being for the all. May all wombs be known as sacred. Daughter of the mysterywhen your time comesand your moon blood flowsmay you know what it is that you have become.May there be fragrant blossoms and loving handsand tender care to escort youthrough the threshold.May there be tears of grief and praise,for what has been lost and what has become,for death and rebirthfor joy and longing.May your blood be claimed as the powerful medicine it is,the reciprocal conduit of your sovereign relationship to the Mother Earth beneath your feetand also now within your womb,birthing your sensitive interfacewith her magnificencewith each cycle of the moon.You are blooming and rising to becomethe living embodiment of life’s co-creative capacity,with it the great gift and the responsibilityfor what is born of our endeavouring to know and to lovethe beingness of our bodies,the longing of our heartsthe knowings of our souls,returning the nourishing harvest of our wombs,the potent gift of our bloodto the earth who sustains us.May we, the world that holds you be fierce and uncompromising in our advocacy of you,in our celebration of your exquisite becoming.May you know yourself to be as the moonand as the cycling tides,embedded in the vast serenade of creation,your body marking the rythmns of the universe within the intimacy of your temple,the holy treasure of your skin.May you know the preciousnessof your own becoming,how sacred it is. May we know how to welcome you,woman born,birthing love on this good earth. Cards and Prints of Blessed Be The Blood available on Etsy. (Meet Mago Contributor) Lucy Pierce.
(Art) Seven Stars Deities by Lydia Ruyle

Chilseong-sin or Seven Stars Deities represent the Big Dipper/Great Bear constellation. It is believed that the seven stars shine brightest on Korea and protect the people from misfortunes. Chilseong-gut rituals performed by mudangs using reflections on water suggest indigenous origins. Chilseong control the human lifespan, grant wishes, look after children’s welfare, and give blessings. On the banner, three figures are crowned and hold wands and four offer the peaches of immortality. Source: Folk Painting. n.d. Korea www.lydiaruyle.com Goddess Icons Spirit Banners of the Divine Feminine © 2013, Lydia Ruyle

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Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), […]

(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
(Prose) Halcyon for the Season by Deanne Quarrie

A bird for this season is the Kingfisher, also known as the Halcyon. The Kingfisher is associated in Greek myth with the Winter Solstice. There were fourteen “halcyon days” in every year, seven of which fell before the winter solstice, seven after; peaceful days when the sea was smooth as a pond and the hen-halcyon built a floating nest and hatched out her young. She also had another habit, that of carrying her dead mate on her back over the sea and mourning him with a plaintive cry. Pliny reported that the halcyon was rarely seen and then only at the winter and summer solstices and at the setting of the Pleiades. She was therefore, a manifestation of the Moon-Goddess who was worshiped at the two solstices as the Goddess of Life in Death and Death in Life and, when the Pleiades set, she sent the sacred king his summons for death. Kingfishers are typically stocky, short-legged birds with large heads and large, heron-like beaks. They feed primarily on fish, hovering over the water or watching intently from perches and they plunge headlong into the water to catch their prey. Their name, Alcedinidae, stems from classical Greek mythology. Alcyone, Daughter of the Wind, was so distraught when her husband perished in a shipwreck that she threw herself into the sea. Both were then transformed into kingfishers and roamed the waves together. When they nested on the open sea, the winds remained calm and the weather balmy. Still another Alcyone, Queen of Sailing, was the mystical leader of the seven Pleiades. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades in May marked the beginning of the navigational year and their setting marked the end. Alcyone, as Sea Goddess protected sailors from rocks and rough weather. The bird, halcyon continued for centuries to be credited with the magical power of allaying storms. Shakespeare refers to this legend in this passage from Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. Hamlet, I, i 157 When I was a young mother, and my children were little, we lived in a house that had a creek in the back yard. There were small trees along the far bank of this creek and every day, a kingfisher would sit in the branches overlooking the creek. Sometimes he sat there very quietly for a very long time. Suddenly he would dive from his perch straight into the creek. Every time he did he came out and up into the air with a fish. It gave me great pleasure to watch him from my kitchen window. I love birds. I love learning about their habits because it teaches me ways of being that are closer to nature. I love drawing birds as well. When I was a young and more able, I was an avid bird watcher, out with my friends hoping for a sight never seen before. I love the story of the kingfisher and her connection to the Halcyon Days of the Winter Solstice. It is for most of us the busiest time of year. Whether it is for the Solstice or Christmas (often both) we are in a frenzy to get things done, making sure everything is just right and perfect. I celebrate the Winter Solstice. As a priestess, my days right now are very busy creating ritual. It is at the Solstice that many passage rites are happening with the women I work with. And of course, I celebrate with my family with our magical Yule Log each year. But I try to honor those seven days before and the seven days after by trying to have the frantic moments before the Halcyon Days begin and then even when busy, hold the peace and calm of that beautiful smooth sea in my mind. Peace and love and joy surrounding the Winter Solstice make it perfect. May the Peace of a Halcyon Sea be yours in this Solstice Season. Do hold the image of that little kingfisher in mind! Meet Mago Contributor, Deanne Quarrie
Lammas/Late Summer within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[ix] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 Winter Solstice is a celebration of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Triple Goddess in particular – as both Solstices may be, as dark or light come to fullness. Winter Solstice Moment celebrates the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb, and the gateway from that fullness back into new growing light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being, and Her birthing happens in every moment in the breath, and is seamlessly connected with all layers of being – of self, Earth and Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsVZzXtoyM The Text in the Meditation[i] Take a deep breath and let it go. Notice the Void at the bottom of emptying your breath … feeling it, and feeling the Urge to breathe as it arises. And again … feeling it over and over – this breath that arises out of the full emptiness in every moment, birthing you in every moment. – Recall some of the birthings in your life, your actual birth – see it there in your mind’s eye … you coming into being – your Nativity, your Nativity. Recall projects you have brought into being, new beings within yourself, perhaps children, new beings in others, how you have been Creator and Created – even at the same time … who was birthing who? Staying for a while with the many, many birthings in your life. – recalling now Earth-Gaia’s many birthings out of the Dark everyday … the dawn is constant as She turns. See Her in your mind’s eye – the constant dawning around the globe, the constant birthing. Recall Earth’s many births right now of all beings – as day breaks around the globe – the physical, emotional, spiritual births. Her many, many birthings everyday, and throughout the eons. recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. – recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. Come back to your breath – this wonder – none of it separate … the Origin Ever-Present, birthing you in every moment – out of Her Fertile Dark, in real time and space. Feeling this breath, Her breath. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, Winter Solstice ceremonial script, p. 195-196. Reference: Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology. Music: Fish Nite Moon by Tim Wheater, permission generously given Images: – Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pl. 155. See https://pagaian.org/book/cover-goddess-image/ – Winter Solstice window, MoonCourt Australia 2016 – some sources unknown
Beltaine/High Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 8 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Beltaine/High Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – October 31st or 1st November Northern Hemisphere – April 30th (May Eve) or 1st May though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, thus actually a little later in early November for S.H., and early May for N.H., respectively. The twin fires lit in older times on hilltops in Ireland for Beltaine likely represented the two eyes of night and day.[i] With this vision, Goddess as Sun and Moon sees Her Land, and with the power of Her eyes (Sun and Moon) brings forth life and beauty. With the fire eyes, Goddess“reoccupied and saw her whole land…”[ii] The twin fires later came to be used to run cattle between as they headed out to Summer pasture, for the purpose of burning off the bugs and ticks of Winter; the fires may thus be understood to serve a cleansing effect and likely the origins of the tradition of the ceremonial leaping of flames by participants in Beltaine festivities. In PaGaian Cosmology this is poetically expressed as the Flame of Love that burns away the psyche’s “bugs and ticks,” and sees the Beauty present, and calls it forth. The Beltaine flames may be a celebration of Sun entering into the eye, into the whole bodymind: a powerful creative evocation upon which the Dance of Life depends, and as the cleansing power of love and pleasure. PaGaian focus for Beltaine is on the Holy Desire/Passion for life, and it may be accounted for on as many levels as possible … the complete holarchy/dimensions of the erotic power. On an elemental level, there is our desire for Air, Water, the warmth of Fire, and to be of use/service to Earth. There is an essential longing, sometimes nameless, sometimes constellated, experienced physically, that may be recognized as the Desire of the Universe Herself – desiring in us.[iii] We may remember that we are united in this desire with each other, with all who have gone before us, and with all who come after us – all who dance the Dance of Life. Beltaine is a time for dancing and weaving into our lives, our heart’s desires; traditionally the dance is done with participants holding ribbons attached to a pole or tree (a Maypole in the Northern Hemisphere, which may be renamed as a “Novapole” in the Southern Hemisphere), wrapping the pole with the ribbons. This is not simply the heterosexual metaphor as is thought in modern times (thanks largely to Freudian thinking) – it is deeper than that. As Caitlin and John Matthews point out: it is symbolic of a far greater exchange than that between men and women – in fact between the elements themselves. … the maypole, a comparatively recent manifestation in the history of mystery celebrations, can be seen as the linking of heaven and earth, binding those who dance around it … into a pattern of birth, life and death which lay at the heart of the maze of earth mysteries.[iv] Beltaine is a celebration of Desire on all levels – microcosm and on the macrocosm, the exoteric and the esoteric.[v] It brought you forth physically, and it brings forth all that you produce in your life, and it keeps the Cosmos spinning. It is felt in you as Desire, it urges you on. It is the deep awesome dynamic that pervades the Cosmos and brings forth all things – babies, meals, gardens, careers, books and solar systems. We have often been taught, certainly by religious traditions, to pay it as little attention as possible; whereas it should be the cause of much more meditation/attention, tracing it to its deepest place in us. What are our deepest desires beneath our surface desires. What if we enter more deeply into this feeling, this power? It may be a place where the Universe is a deep reciprocity – a receiving and giving that is One. Brian Swimme says, in a whole chapter on “Allurement”: You can examine your own self and your own life with this question: Do I desire to have this pleasure? Or rather, do I desire to become pleasure? The demand to ‘have,’ to possess, always reveals an element of immaturity. To keep, to hold, to control, to own; all of this is fundamentally a delusion, for our own truest desire is to be and to live. We have ripened and matured when we realize that our own deepest desire in erotic attractions is to become pleasure … to enter ecstatically into pleasure so that giving and receiving pleasure become one simple activity. Our most mature hope is to become pleasure’s source and pleasure’s home simultaneously. So it is with the allurements of life: we become beauty to ignite the beauty of others.[vi] Beltaine is a good time to contemplate this animal bodymind that you are: how it seeks real pleasure. What is your real pleasure? Be gracious with this bodymind and in awe of this form, this wonder. Beltaine is also a good time to contemplate light, and its affects on our bodyminds as it enters into us; how our animal bodyminds respond directly to the Sun’s light, which apparently may awaken physical desires. Light vibrates into us – different wavelengths as different colours – and shifts to pulse. It is felt most fully in Springtime (“spring fever”), as light courses down a direct neural line from retina to pineal gland. When the pineal gland receives the light pulse it releases “a cascade of hormones, drenching the body in hunger, thirst, or great desire.”[vii] We respond directly to Sun as an organism: it is primal. NOTES: [i] Michael Dames, Ireland, 195-199. [ii] Ibid., 196. [iii] I have been inspired and informed by Swimme’s articulations about desire, particularly in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 2 “The Primeval Fireball,” video 5 “Destruction and Loss,” and video 10 “The Timing of Creativity.” [iv] Matthews, The Western Way, 54. And for more, see “Creativity …
(Poetry & Photo Essay) Pongal by Susan Hawthorne

I am a secularist rather than a ritualist, but I can’t help but be drawn into the celebrations that people make when they honour the passing of the seasons. Even as a child I felt the disconnect between Christmas and the hot dusty days of summer. When Christians invaded and colonised Australia they brought their holidays but did not consider changing the dates to match the seasons. I was in India recently, invited as a speaker at the Hindu Lit For Life Festival in Chennai where I had lived ten years ago. The last day of the festival was the first day of Pongal. A friend, feminist economist Devaki Jain, who had grown up in Chennai eighty years earlier invited me to join her in a car ride to see Pongal celebrations in the streets. This is a Tamil festival dating back at least a thousand years, a sun festival, welcoming the next six months of the sun’s journey, also a harvest festival. During this time many women produce beautiful drawings, known as kolam. In my book Cow I wrote a poem about kolam which I think says more than I can explain here. what she says about kolam where they are drawn and when is all important early morning is auspicious it sets the shape of the day the hard ground is cleaned points of white grain sprinkled she works quickly she knows her design for the day runs the powdered grain from point to point it is a mandala a yantra a sign so the forces of the universe align themselves with her intentions Back to Pongal. The festival goes for four days. On the first day, which is called Bhogi, people are on the streets with the fruits of harvest, piles of tumeric and stacks of sugar cane tied in bunches. My friend, Devaki, bought flowers to take back to her room in the hotel. The second day, called Thai Pongal, I was invited to a harvest lunch at the house of my friend Mangai who is a playwright, theatre director and human rights activist. The word ‘pongal’ means ‘boiling over’ or’ overflow’ and I saw this in the cooking of the sweetened rice dish into which each of the twelve people present poured some water and milk as it almost overflowed the pot. This sweet rice dish was added to the collection of other dishes on the table. I cannot tell you what they were, but the meal was delicious. After lunch everyone relaxed, someone sang, we talked and caught up on news. The third day, is called Maatu Pongal, and cattle are at the centre of celebrations on that day. I don’t know if this line up of cattle had anything to do with the day’s celebration but there they were tied up alongside a very busy main road. These were not cows and I did not see any cows with decorated horns and flowers on their heads. on that day as I have on other occasions. On the fourth day, Kaanum Pongal, things begin to wind down. One of my co-speakers at the festival said she would be visiting family members on that day. The kolams are drawn again, sugar cane is consumed and people go back to their daily lives. What I liked about being in Tamil Nadu during the Pongal festival is that it felt absolutely right. The time of the year, the connection with harvest, so I did not feel the discomfort I so often feel in the midst of the out-of-season commercialised holidays as they are celebrated in Australia. Susan Hawthorne’s book Cow is available worldwide from distributors in USA, Canada, UK, from all the usual online retailers or from Spinifex Press. http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=215/ © Susan Hawthorne, 2019 (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne.
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 …
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.
Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Day of the Dead altar, via Wikimedia Commons According to Celtic tradition, on Samhain (October 31 for those in the north and April 30 for those in the south) the doors between the human and spirit worlds open. Faeries, demons, and spirits of the dead pour out of the Otherworld to walk the Earth. In the past, some would try to hurry ghosts past their houses or ward off evil spirits by setting jack o’lanterns in their windows. They avoided going outside, especially past cemeteries, lest they be snatched away to the Otherworld. In ancient times, some offered sacrifices to propitiate deities. However, others have invited in the souls of friends and family who have passed away. In Brittany, according to W.Y. Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, people would provide “a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white tablecloth, and to supply music” which “the dead come to enjoy with their friends” (p. 218). Other cultures also have such welcoming traditions. In Korea, as so beautifully described by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in her posts about her family’s mourning for her father (Part I and Part II), in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, and elsewhere, food and flowers are brought to cemeteries to honor those no longer in the realm of the living. Many of us live in a society where death is pushed out of sight and Samhain’s sacred traditions have devolved into Halloween, a commercialized children’s holiday. Still, it seems to me that the pandemic, climate catastrophes, and war have made death much more present in our everyday thoughts over the past couple of years than before, so perhaps this year’s Samhain offers us the opportunity to re-examine Celtic and other practices of the past and present to see what insights and meaning they may have for us. Jack o lanterns: By Mihaela Bodlovic, via Wikimedia Commons All these ancient practices respect the spirit world and its power. Whether you believe that the Otherworld can wreak havoc on us at Samhain or not, the realm where spirits dwell clearly has power. Its allure can take us away from focusing on mundane, daily challenges or, more positively, open our eyes to the value of relating to forces that can give richness and meaning to our lives. At the same time, we must remember that each domain has its own power. We can use our physical bodies in beneficial ways that those in the Otherworld cannot. We must respect the power of the Otherworld as well as our own. Some kinds of healing are only possible when we welcome those from the Otherworld into our lives in a healthy way, whether through holiday visits or every day through remembrance, meditation, prayer, or other means. I’m of an age when many of my beloveds are in the Otherworld and so I am beginning to find that the idea of being able to sit with someone I have lost is cause not for fear, but rather joy and comfort. Perhaps those who have longstanding wounds from the past can heal by remembering those we have lost at Samhain and forgiving them or ourselves or realizing that we are no longer bound to those who have hurt us and are now gone. Samhain can also reassure us of the truth of our intuitive sense that our beloveds who we grieve are with us still, in some way, on this night and throughout the year. When we participate in the celebration of Samhain’s opening of doors to the Otherworld, if only for a day, we are honoring our own participation into the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are expanding our vision of ourselves to be more than our bodies on the Earth and experiencing ourselves as connected to many realms, seen and unseen, spirit and human. We are accepting that at some time we will also become ancestors, with all the responsibility that entails and the fulfillment of taking our place in the complex matrix of being that is our universe. When we interact with the souls of those we have lost in ways that are healthy for us, however we may choose and believe that happens, we can also better celebrate the realm of the living. Just as we may listen in various ways for positive messages from those whom we have lost, we can ensure that we are expressing important guidance to those who will come after us by who we are and how we live our lives. We can express that life is worth living, even with all its traumas, and that we respect both the boundaries and the doors between the worlds so that we may continue living fully in our physical bodies on our beautiful, awe-inspiring Earth. I hope my message to my descendants will be: Love your lives. Build on what we have done and do better. Leave behind what we left you that no longer serves. If you feel alone, remember that you have thousands of generations of mothers sending you unconditional love and also generations of women coming after you eager to pick up where you left off. According to Mary Condren in The Serpent and the Goddess, in the most ancient times, “Samhain had been primarily a harvest feast celebrating the successful growth and gathering of the fruits of the past year” (p. 36). While we in the north are coming into the season of death, those in the south are experiencing Beltane, the first moments of spring when the doors between the worlds are also open. The eternal cycle of life, death, and regeneration turns again. Whether you are celebrating Samhain or Beltane, know that this holy time offers us all a chance to enter into the task of maintaining harmony with those we have loved before and for bringing balance between life and death, winter and summer, and the realm of the living and …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 3) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. MAPPING THE MAGOIST CALENDAR According to the Budoji, the Magoist Calendar was fully implemented and advocated during the period of Old Joseon (ca. 2333 BCE-ca. 232 BCE) whose civilization is known as Budo (Emblem City). Indeed, the Magoist Calendar is referred to as the Budo Calendar in the Budoji. Budo was founded to succeed Sinsi and reignited Sinsi’s innovations including the numerological and musicological thealogy of the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji expounds on the Magoist Calendar as follows: The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a cyclic period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds up to 365 days. At the half point after the third Sa, there is a Pan of the big Sak (the year of the great dark moon). A pan comes at a half point of Sa. This is of Beopsu (Lawful Number) 2, 5, 8. A Pan is equal to a day. Therefore, the fourth Sa has 366 days. At the half point after the tenth Sa, there is a Gu of the big Hoe (Eve of the first day of the month). Gu is the root of time. Three hundred Gu makes one Myo. With Myo, we can sense Gu. A lapse of 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si makes one day. This is of Chesu (Physical Number), 3, 6, 9. By and by, the encircling time charts Medium Calendar and Large Calendar to evince the principle of numerology.[12] KEY TERMS Calendric Cycles Jongsi (終是 Ending and Beginning): Cyclic periods Soryeok (小曆 Little Calendar): One year Jungryeok (中曆 Medium Calendar): Two years Daeryeok (大曆 Large Calendar): Four years Names of Year, Month, Day, Week Sa (祀 Rituals, year): One year refers to the time that takes to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month): One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day): One day refers to the sun’s movement due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week): Each weekday is dedicated to seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the Celestial Bodies, completion of a week): One week refers to the veneration of the seven celestial bodies. Names of Monthly Transition Days Hoe (晦 Eve of the first day of the month, 28th) Sak (朔 First day of the month, 1st, the dark moon) Names of Intercalation Days Dan (旦 Morning): Leap day for New Year Pan (昄 Big): Leap day for every fourth year Names of Time Units Gu (晷 sun’s shadow): Time measure, 1/300 Myo Myo (眇 minuscule): Time measure, a total of 300 Gu Myo-Gak-Bun-Si (眇刻分時 minuscule, possibly 15-minutes, minute, hour): Time measure, 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si is equal to a day Names of Three Types of Numbers in Nine Numerology Seongsu (性數Natural Number): 1, 4, 7 in the digital root Beopsu (法數 Lawful Number): 2, 5, 8 in the digital root Chesu (體數 Physical Number): 3, 6, 9 in the digital root THREE SUB-CALENDARS The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). The universe is infinite without beginning and ending. Everything runs the course of self-equilibration in relation to everything else. The Way of Heaven or the Way of the Creatrix circles and makes possible the infinite time/space to be measured and calculated. As the Way of Heaven circles, we are able to perceive Our Universe in finite measures of time/space. Time becomes measurable, as space is stabilized. Seasons and days-nights are demarcated in cyclic patterns, as the Earth makes the three cyclic movements of rotation, revolution, and precession. Calendar, born out of the inter-cosmic time, synchronizes human culture with the song/dance of the universe. The term Jongsi, which means an ending and a beginning, is equivalent to “a cyclic period” that is marked by the beginning and the end. Time (a day, a month, and a year) circles, as space (the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun) spirals. The Magoist Calendar has three sub-calendars: The period of one yearly cycle is called Little Calendar, whereas the period of two yearly cycles is called Medium Calendar and the period of four yearly cycles, Large Calendar. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang) Notes [12] Budoji, Chapter 23. See Bak Jesang, the Budoji, Bak Geum scrib., Eunsu Kim, trans. (Seoul: Gana Chulpansa, 1986).

(Essay 2 Part 1) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova

Part 1 Fans, journalists, critics, and academia in multiple fields have studied this world phenomenon; have written blogs, articles, books; and presented in conferences, dissecting, and making predictions. Still, the magic and mystery of its success persists to be as thrilling as ever. This is the way I see it: DELIGHTING THE SENSES
(Mago Stronghold Essay 3) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part 3: Indelible Old Magoism Encrypted in China’s “Mago Stronghold” The Mago word “Mago Stronghold” has narrowly survived patriarchal linguistic censorships. Sometimes it is preferably or deliberately employed as a euphemism. Other times, it is replaced with random words. But it has never been completely wiped out from written and oral texts. The Mago term, constituting the very foundation of patriarchy, is indestructible. Having survived, the term “Mago Stronghold” debunks the plot intent to magna-matricide. It unearths the buried and re-members the severed. Extant Mago Strongholds in Korea and in China differ not only in number but also in implication. Just like Magoist data in general, Korea surpasses China by a large number of extant Mago Strongholds. It is a corollary that China does not have much to do with Mago words in that ancient China “entered the stage of the patriarchal society around 5,000 years ago”.[1] Magoist materials are systematically dismissed as dubious or apocryphal data, as pre-Chinese Old Magoist Korea remains uncharted in Sinocentric East Asian historiography. Readers are reminded of the meaning of Old Magoist Korea, the socio-political-religious conglomeration of the People of the Great Goddess originated from pre-Chinese times. It is by definition non-ethnocentric and pre-nationalist.[2] Magoism substantiates the derivative nature of ancient Chinese history from Old Magoist Korea. It unveils that Old Korea was there long before the establishment of the Chinese patriarchal rule. The Mago Stronghold talk debunks the fantasy of ancient China as the forerunner rule. It is unknown how many Mago Stronghold places may have existed before or survived today in present China. One I found is located in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, according to the Atlas of Heavenly Harbor Government (天津府總圖, Tianjinfuzongtu) published in 1805. The historical accuracy of this place is backed by an earlier account in the Records of the United Great Ming (Damingyitongzhi 大明一統志), a fifteenth century geography book from the Ming dynasty. Its brief record concerns the visit of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) to Mago Stronghold, as it reads: Mago Stronghold is located in Cangzhou on the border of old Qingchi-xian (Clear Lake County). Emperor Wu of Han took an administrative tour to this place and offered rites. Thus came the place-name, Mago Stronghold.[3] The Cangzhou Mago Stronghold, noted for the second century BCE anecdote, makes its history two millennia old at the least. When Magoism is made invisible, however, the long history or the royal association of Mago Stronghold is systematically censored as non-data in official historiography of China, which is the norm for East Asian historiographies. Given that Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) of Han is known as one of the most accomplished rulers in Chinese history, it may appear odd that he is associated with the Mago term, “Mago Stronghold.” Indeed, the account may seem to mismatch Emperor Wu of ancient China with Mago Stronghold. And Chinese scribes would not have fabricated the anecdote. It is indeed a rare case that the Mago term has survived in Chinese official documents. That said, we want to ask if the two terms, Emperor Wu of Han and Mago Stronghold, are irreconcilable per se? My answer is no. They appear to be at odds only to the modern Sinocentric mind. In fact, the above anecdote is highly evocative of the concept of Heaven (天 Tian) worshipped by ancient Chinese rulers. Emperor Wu’s visitation and officiation at Mago Stronghold, which may have been known as Heavenly Stronghold (天城 Tiancheng),[4] account for the ancient ruler’s worship of Heaven. It is of utmost importance for Chinese rulers to observe rites and customs that venerate Heaven, for it is deemed that Heaven selects rulers and endows them with the right to rule. Accordingly, ancient Chinese rulers are known to have taken the title of “the Son of Heaven 天子” and ruled with “the Mandate of Heaven 天命.” Nonetheless, the problem with the Chinese thought of Heaven lies in the fact that Heaven is equated with the supreme god (上帝, Supreme Emperor) or an impersonal quality of the divine. That Heaven is a euphemism for “Mago” was known to the populace. In various sources, Mago is referred to as “Heavenly Deity.”[5] S/HE and Magoism are sometimes equated with the impersonal term, “Heaven.” For example, Mago Lake (Maguji in Chinese) is also called Heavenly Lake (天池 Tianchi in Chinese) in oral tradition.[6] The fact that, according to the Budoji, Heavenly Mountain is known as the residence of the Hwanggung, the eldest clan community in the post-paradise world, is no accident. When its semantic tie to “Mago” is lost, “Heaven” is stripped of the Magoist implication. The surviving term, “Mago Stronghold,” however, debunks magna-matricide in the modern mind. It is inferred that Emperor Wu officiated the Magoist rite at Mago Stronghold as the Son of Heaven according to the Mandate of Heaven. The scheme of Old Magoism puts the above anecdote into a context: Emperor Wu emulated the royal tradition of ancient Magoist shaman queens, the representative of the Great Goddess who is the ultimate sovereign of the Earth, Mago Stronghold. Emperor Wu and Mago Stronghold were not at odds with each other in an earlier time of ancient Chinese history. Written together, they indicate that Magoism was acknowledged by Emperor Wu of Han. Put differently, magna-matricide was not committed or completed in the second century BCE China. Were ancient Chinese rulers including Emperor Wu of Han Magoist? This question is difficult to answer, for each ruler of ancient China may have taken an ambivalent attitude toward Magoism to a varying degree. Some may have been pseudo-Magoists. Ancient Chinese rulers, representing the establishment of Chinese monarchy, which marked the onset of patriarchal history in East Asia, are distinguished from traditional Magoist shaman queens who defended the Magoist confederal system of Old Korea. Nonetheless, they needed the Oracle of the Great Goddess to legitimize themselves as rulers. In pre-patriarchal East Asia, Old Magoist Korea was the source of power, technology, and civilization for any ruler to draw from. Evidence shows that …
(Art) Nurture by Anna Tzanova

to feed and protect; to support and encourage; to foster and bring up; to train and educate; to develop and nourish; to care for and cherish… Such a multifaceted and meaningful word! It represents to me an essential quality of the Goddess. An aspect I strive to cultivate within, embody, and express externally. I use it to guide all my actions by asking myself, “Is this nurturing?”; “By doing this, what am I nurturing?” Very often, minds have been conditioned to counterpose nature and nurture, creating not only a divide, but also a controversy. The intrinsic feature of Nature is to nurture. The womb not only births, but nurtures. Nothing can be sustained or achieved without nurture. Nature teaches us the lesson of acceptance. Nurture – the lesson of patience. It also provides the opportunity and freedom of choice. Together, they intertwine and weave the entire Creation. What are you nurturing today? From She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 (forthcoming, 2016). See (Meet Mago Contributror) Anna Tzanova.
(Essay 4) Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

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

Part 3 UNIVERSAL APPEAL The worldwide success of Korean historical drama began in 2004, when Dae Jang Geum (대장금), “The Great Jang Geum”, or “Jewel in the Palace”—a Sageuk relating a compelling story about the life of the legendary first woman who became a supreme royal physician in 16th century Joseon—was aired in over 60 countries around the world. Since then, the number is much higher, not taking into consideration DVD sales, pirated DVDs, plus the millions who have seen the drama globally via the Internet. In Iran, Dae Jang Geum was so popular that reports claim Iranians began organizing their mealtimes so as not to interfere with the show’s broadcast. In India, after seeing the series one prisoner wrote an open letter to the broadcast company in Korea saying, “This serial has been of great influence in my personal life, as well adding a lot to my positive approach towards life. I dare say it is not a motivation for only people like me, but for everyone.”[i] In Zimbabwe, the audience protested to a TV station and requested the airing of Dae Jang Geum instead of the Olympic Games when the two timetables clashed.[ii] To me, “Jewel in the Palace” is not just a very beautiful and inspirational piece of art. Seeing it from a personal angle, it is a great reminder of all that is wrong with our medical science, health care, and industrialized food production. How science needs to be as much cerebral as cordis. All the good that can come of turning our eyes and respect back to Mother Earth and all her sentient beings. The importance of not only quality food, but also the way the ingredients are grown, nurtured, collected and stored; the way food is prepared; the thoughts and feelings food is infused with, and how it affects not only the taste, but also the health of those who would consume it. The true holistic approach to health and well-being, as well as how titles and following institutional protocols, doesn’t secure quality of care. The natural curve in the onset and development of every disease, and how its abrupt interruption leads to dire consequences in the long run. The compassion and inner qualities of character a true healer should pursue and cultivate. Korean historical drama offers layers of meaning and understanding. The viewers are not only gently guided to open their hearts and feel, but also to think. Stories are not only well told; internalization by the audience is encouraged. Thus, the experience becomes very personal, and a deep connection between the creators and the spectators is established. Hwang Seongbin quotes a science and technology researcher who shared his opinion on Korean period drama when they met at an international conference reception: “I like Korean historical drama, because the story is told from the perspective of the people, rather than from that of those in power.”[iii] The transnational issues we all face, such as greed, corruption, deceit, conspiracies, abuse, and war, are depicted in their cruelty as shared experiences. Through that and the exploration of universal themes like love, kindness, loss, yearning, overcoming adversities, following one’s passion, achieving one’s dream, and many more, our global communality is fortified. Another trait worth noting is the depiction of traditionally oppressed women. It is a growing tendency in Sageuk to give center stage to heroines. Even when they are not the protagonist, they play significant roles supporting or guiding the protagonist’s efforts: creating nurturing environments, serving as examples of right action, and assisting the protagonist in his growth. There is a fascination, respect, honor, and affection that female leads are surrounded by or treated by the hero. Women in Korean historical drama are strong in a graceful way, using skill and genuine power as opposed to aggression and brutal force. They are persistent in their efforts and courageous in their actions. Despite being sidetracked by hindrances, they never lose focus on their goals. Ultimately, they are never deterred from accomplishing their dreams, transforming or inspiring everyone else in the process. In that regards, women in Sageuk serve as great initiators of change. They embody the most pliable element of all—water—nourishing, never stagnant, unstoppable, constantly adaptable, following its course through and around obstacles, cleansing, reshaping, and renewing. In the words of Clair Webber: “Undoubtedly, there is something inexplicable about K-pop and K-dramas. Whether it is the courage of civil disobedience in North Korea, peace in the Middle East, or female empowerment in Pakistan—South Korean cultural imports have the uncanny ability to foster hope in some of the most seemingly hopeless situations.”[iv] This is what “soft power”, a term coined in 1990 by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye[v], truly is. “They fight with arms, but we—with our hearts,” states Empress Ki in the Sageuk with the same name. I’d love for humanity to hear this message and finally learn how to avoid or deal with conflicts. I am not going to quote or start analyzing different dramas one-by-one. I will leave you to find your own point of view and preferences. Signing up for Mago Academy’s Korean Historical Drama course would be a good place to start. I hope you will consider joining and experiencing first-hand everything I mentioned above, and much more. Korean culture has a specific flavor that distinguishes it from other Asian cultures. It is humble, but resilient. It is charming, heart-centered, perceptive, thoughtful, and caring. It has a lot to offer. Give it a try. But I have to warn you, it might be addicting. (Read Essay 1, Essay 2 Part 1, Essay 2 Part 2) Notes: [i] Busis, Hillary, Korean Dramas: A Beginner’s Guide, Entertainment Weekly, (April 11, 2014) [ii] Gowman, Philip, The Redemptive Power of Lee Young-ae, London Korean Links, (January 13, 2008) [iii] Voluntary Agency Network of Korea blog, Hallyu Report III – Korean Drama, Friendly Korea, My Friend’s Country, (01/09/2013) http://korea.prkorea.com/wordpress/english/2013/01/09/hallyu-report-ii-korean-drama/ [iv] Weber, Clair, K-Pop, K-Dramas, Hallyu – South Korean Culture Around the Globe, About Education, (2015) [v] …
(Essay 2) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] CALENDARICS AND THE MAGOIST COSMOGONY Calendar is the harmonic numerological chart that indicates specifics of the terrestrial time/space relative to the extrasolar universe. As a cosmic almanac of our terrestrial home, calendar teaches the human world to do the right thing at the right timing, determined by the song/dance of the universe. We humans, part of the calendar, are the guardian of the calendar. Calendar is not and should not be an arbitrary arrangement invented to serve the purpose of a particular group of people, the Budoji says. It is