February 3, 2025October 30, 2024 RTMeditorsKGLeave a comment

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

Lammas/Late Summer: the traditional dates are Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd. The actual astronomical date varies, and it is the meridian point or cross-quarter day Read More …

February 5, 2024December 15, 2023 RTMeditorsKGLeave a comment

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, Read More …

February 4, 2019November 15, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

Lammas/Late Summer in PaGaian tradition By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Traditionally the dates for this Seasonal Moment are: Southern Hemisphere – Read More …

February 3, 2016January 21, 2021 RTM Editor2 Comments

(Video) Lammas Goddess Slideshow by Glenys Livingstone

The Season of Lammas is the welcoming of the new Dark, post-Summer Solstice. Lammas, and all of the dark part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Crone/Old One aspect Read More …

February 9, 2015November 15, 2019 RTM EditorLeave a comment

(Essay) Lammas/Imbolc Earth Moment February 2015 by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

In the Southern Hemisphere, it is the Season of the waxing dark … we are just past the cross-quarter moment named as Lammas, between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox: it Read More …

February 4, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

(Art Essay) Lap of the Mother by Annabelle Solomon

(Art) Namaste, from the Initiation Series by Glen Rogers

Namaste Initiation Series, oil on panel, by Glen Rogers Namaste is one of three paintings from my recent Initiation series focusing on women’s spirituality and ritual. All of the works are steeped in symbolism associated with the Goddess. In this image, she is offering up her prayers and gratitude. A bindi, the small colored dot between the eyes worn by Hindu women in India (and other religions/countries), is considered the point at which creation begins and is also described as “the sacred symbol of the cosmos in its unmanifested state”. A pink lotus gently opens over her Yoni to acknowledge her sexuality and sensuality, her woman-ness. Spirals, symbols of renewal and regeneration, cover her body while circles, symbols of wholeness representing our place in the Universe, fill the space around her. The three paintings evolved in shades of blue – a color associated with spiritual realization according to Kate Smith, an internationally recognized color expert on her https://www.sensationalcolor.com/ website. She says “blue conjures images of sky and sea, it’s also the color of bravery and dedication. Blue represents introspective journeys and symbolizes wisdom and depth of understanding.” Each painting is 23” x 19”, Oil on wood panel. To see the rest of the series, visit my website: https://www.glenrogersart.com/figurative-paintings (Meet Mago Contributor) Glen Rogers https://www.magoism.net/2021/01/meet-mago-contributor-glen-rogers/
(Prose) What Matters by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

Guadalupe has an arm around quotidian Mary they have begun to howl not worrying that the moon is not in the right phase  it’ll come says the second Mary  when we reach BE elemental quintessential that is what matters –Susan Hawthorne, “wolf pack” in Lupa and Lamb (Spinifex Press, 2014) 30 January 2017 BE (Biophilic Era, time of the life-lovers)
(Trilingual poem) Puriwan na kamo Manarukmay by Maya Daniel

(In DAGIL, the ancient/archaic Tumanduk [Indigenous People in Central Panay] language, with direct Hiligaynon and English translations) e oka’t yabon Tunda do’t parina, Parina manug-alinton Alintuni doy si Sindaan Alintuni doy si Babailan Sunod ka sa hayahay Sunod ka sa ugayong Sunod ka sa hagashas Puriwan na kamo manarukmay Puriwan kamo mang-agaw lupa Bawion namon ang kahilwayan… –Maya Daniel (inspired by a Babailan chant) Abyan Sang Tumanduk * Sindaan – ngalan sang sinauna nga Babailan —
(Essay Part 1) Language for Goddess: Divine Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D

This essay is part 1 of an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. ‘Goddess’, as I understand the term, is the female metaphor for the Great Creative Principle of the Universe. As such, She is both the Matrix, and immediately also an wholistic template of Being; that is, She is whole and complete within Herself, and She is a complete illustration of the process of coming into being and passing away. Her three aspects are often based on chronological/biological phases of a woman’s life, but the aspects are not in any way limited to those biological phases … those particular phases are actually just one of the valencies of the three omnipresent cosmic qualities of being that the ancients in many cultures noticed and celebrated. It seems that the three aspects were understood as a dynamic of ultimate Creativity, which is why they were so revered and celebrated. One witness to that is the Triple Spiral engraved in central position at Bru-na-Boinne (Newgrange) in Ireland. The significance of the Bru-na-Boinne monument may yet to be fully understood, as the heretofore ethnocentric minds of researchers only now begin to remember the Goddess centred minds that built it. This is true also of other monuments and artifacts in Old Europe, which have puzzled patriarchal Earth-alienated minds.[1] I propose that the Triple Spiral encoded at Bru-na-Boinne may specifically celebrate the triple faced female metaphor – ‘Goddess’ – as ‘Cosmic Dynamic of Creativity’; it seems so since it is lit up at the moment of Winter Solstice, the Seasonal Moment that especially celebrates Origins and the renewal of Earth-Sun creativity.[2] I understand ‘Creativity’ as another name for the Mystery of Being, and it is what I understand as the essence of Being. As Loren Eiseley reflects, No utilitarian philosophy explains a snow crystal, no doctrine of use or disuse. Water has merely leapt out of vapor and thin nothingness in the night sky to array itself in form. There is no logical reason for the existence of a snowflake any more than there is for evolution.[3] ‘Creativity’ is also a term used by process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead for “the Category of the Ultimate”[4] and he refers to it as threefold in nature.[5] Thus, so do I understand ‘Goddess’ – the dynamic, triple-faced metaphor: She may enable the identification of life itself, as we witness it, experience it, and inter-act with it, with the manifestation of the ultimate Mystery at the heart and origin of existence. To further this identification I have associated the three faces of the Female Metaphor – Goddess – with three characteristics of what is scientifically known as Cosmogenesis, the omnipresent creative dynamic essential to all structure and form in the Universe. These qualities of Cosmogenesis are referred to by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry in their story of the Universe. They describe them as three central tendencies, which are “the cosmological orderings of the creative display of energy everywhere and at any time throughout the history of the universe.”[6] The three chronological/biological phases of a woman’s life in which the faces of Goddess are mirrored are: pre-menarchal young one, menstrual mother, and post-menopausal elder; and thus they have been known as Virgin/Maiden, Mother/Creator, Old One/Crone. It is necessary to ‘re-story’ these terms, since women and men in these times, no longer understand them in their full integrity – diminished, trivialized and even demonized as they have been by millennia of patriarchal narrative. Whereas, in the earliest of times of consciousness, and even later, these phases seem to have been sensed as aspects of the Great Creative Process whereby life continued, they had in recent patriarchal times lost their sacred essence. Indeed the Great Creative Process itself, expressed in the female as sacred, had become background. The mother became mere vessel, and ‘useful’ in this mode. The young virgin became a prize to be taken, the older virgin became a harsh deviant to be avoided. The old one became ‘used up’ and troublesome. Adam McLean advises that: To find the Triple Goddess … we must go back to an early stratum of myth. Long before the ascendancy of the Christ myth, the primal myths of the Goddess had been overlaid with generations of masculine Gods usurping her place in the scheme of things, taking over her sacred centres and grasping for themselves some facet of her attributes. If we go back to the earliest myths of humankind we will find the goddess in her purest, usually triune, form.[7] The re-storying of women – the Being of the female, is a preface to being able to speak sensibly of how Virgin-Mother-Crone could be a metaphor for the mystery of being. It is then possible to relate these three aspects to the evolutionary cosmic dynamics – to ‘Cosmogenesis’ – as a way of deepening awareness of them in the present moment and as a way of entering into the Female Metaphor more fully; as a way of comprehending or sensing ‘Goddess’. The seasonal celebrations then may become a way of accessing the Metaphor, embodying ‘Goddess’, and developing personal and cultural relationship to the Cosmos. The process of celebrating Her annual cycle of Creativity is a process of joining Earth in Her annual journey of descent and return, in Her divine expression. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] See Paul Devereaux Earth Memory p.34 and 120-124, Michael Dames The Silbury Treasure, Claire French The Celtic Goddess, p.22. [2] other valencies may be included, as with all poetry and art. [3] Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey, p.27. [4] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p.28. [5] More of this is described in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4: see “Whitehead’s ‘Threefold Creative Composition’”. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.72. [7] Adam McLean, The Triple Goddess, p.12-13. REFERENCES: Dames, Michael. The Silbury Treasure: The Great Goddess Rediscovered. London: Thames and Hudson,1976. Devereux, Paul. Earth Memory: The Holistic …
(Essay 13) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] The Mythic Vanir Mothers becoming Goddesses in the Asir Pantheon Universally, the transition into patriarchy is constituted by new laws, divine and secular, which admitted elite males to own land, including its riches and the people living there and working it, and to own biological children/sons, who were now given sur- or family names after their fathers. Their all-encompassing rights were claimed to rest on divine sanction, which further furnished males with lawful rights also to defend their privileges with violence. The spiritual world was now put exclusive into male hands. The take-over of the Asir chieftain, Odin followed the world-wide, traditional PIE-scheme. Odin set up his divine pantheon Asgård, a parallel, but invisible realm above the Earth, and Odin became its sovereign top-figure and master. For this new epoch, Carlsson argues; ”The new house-carl-ideology (400-550CE) demanded new gods; and the creation of Odin-cult and Asir-belief need to be seen in this context.” (Our translation from Swedish).[1] Using the Odin figure as metaphor for the patriarchal take-over in which the Vanir Mothers, after over a thousand of years as mythic icons in the Old society, now became goddesses in Odin’s Asgård, and subordinated as wives to the Asir gods, we will re-tell the story of the transition as a narrative, based on the mythological references in the Icelandic sagas. The Asirs coming up from Asia (Troy),[2] if not literally then at least true for the patriarchal ideas that he intended to implant, Odin had his strategy clear to put into action. In order to succeed in establishing a warfare society and religion, he first of all needed the full control over the local Vanir females, the mythical and the physical human. Alternately using tricks or violence, he intended to wrest out of their hands all rights to their inherited land, their natural rights to their children, their sexual freedom, as also their shamanism and spiritual world. To be able fully to control them, Odin wanted the Vanir female entities literally interwoven, and totally integrated and absorbed into his new mythology. Hoping for a minimum of resistance, he wished to create an illusion and to make believe that the new order of society was nothing but a natural continuation of the old – and no conflict there between them. For these reasons, Odin, renowned for never losing a war, for once refrained from demanding the enemies into his hands by swinging his spear, Gungner over the battlefield.[3] On purpose, he let this first war in Scandinavia, the Vanir-Asir war, end in a draw. The peace agreement, and the exchange of hostages that followed, allowed him to select the most venerated mythological Vanir entities for his Asgård;[4] and thus, and not by free will, the Vanir mothers with their children made their final walk into Asgård.[5] The next step for Odin was to stage a mass-wedding in which the Vanir females were quickly married off to the gang of Asir gods. Patriarchy world-wide introduced the institution of marriage. It was a perfect tool in their hands. In an instant, they could gain a total right to rule a woman’s land and property, and later to inherit her land to his sons. Also marriage gave men a full control over women´s sexuality, and child-bearing. Wedding the Vanir mothers, the Asir gods completely ignored the fact that already, due to Vanir tradition, the females were firmly committed to their brothers in sibling parental pairs, and had dear lovers of their own. For once, the Asir gods also completely shut their eyes to the fact that they all married mothers-with-children, not virgins. Thus tied up in what all too soon proved to be unharmonious and miserable marriages, the lives of the Vanir mothers had suddenly been placed under the will of their masters in Asgård. As Odin´s plan was to introduce the idea of the two-world system – Gods and Humans, Sky and Earth, Heaven and Hell etc. – his next goal was to transformed the mythical Vanir mothers into goddesses in the divine Asir pantheon. Finishing off this part, he would soon be ready for the grand final, when declaring himself godly ruler of it all. But to get there, he needed just one last thing; the female’s shamanism, the sejd. The snag in every new religion is its ability to produce arguments, sufficiently convincing on its unlimited access to the spiritual world, and control of its mysteries. Odin, highest drott (druid) must have been fully skilled in the druidic art of illusions himself already.[6] Druids themselves were never found fighting within the chaotic battlefields; instead, from high locations and hills surrounding the battlefields, they performed their uncanny illusory techniques, e.g. they could make their own armies invisible, scream like raging wild animals; blind and deafen their enemies with veils of smoke, clamor and clangor etc.[7] Druidic tricks were first of all designed to scare their enemies, and to support their own army. Celtic Druids had decennials long trainings to obtain the baffling expertise in playing magnificent tricks.[8] Today’s illusionists and fairytale magicians like Gandalf are heirs of the druidic magicians. Transmitted legends and medieval recordings of stunning techniques performed in battlefield are reported also to have been carried out by Germanic/Nordic drotts, which hint to the fact that a similar druidic know-how and skill did exist in Scandinavia. But except for the existence of the title, drott (druid), and mythological references to Odin´s other names as Blinde (Blinder), meaning he, who blinds the enemy army in battlefield; or Svafner; he, who lulls the enemy to sleep; or make their weapons not bite – not much is known about any secret …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Deborah Jane Milton, Ph.D.

I moved from Pennsylvania USA to Montana in 1980. Buried beneath my Eastern intellect and conformity, the juicy, risk-taking adventurer burst forth inspired by the Western wild spaces. I served as a psychotherapist for a decade there (I have a PhD in Human Development) before taking my own advice to “follow my belly’s wisdom.” Spending two months in solitude in 1993, I reclaimed my childhood dream of being an artist at the same time Ecstatic Wisdom Postures (EWP) found me. An embodied spiritual practice based on our ancestors’ artifacts discovered by anthropologist Dr. Felicitas D. Goodman, EWP has provided vision, endless inspiration and a reliable compass for my own journey. I was certified to teach them in 1996. In 1999, I established Athanor Arts, my own creativity center on ten acres of meadow and forest but six years ago left it all behind to move to Bainbridge Island, WA. Now, all four of my adult children and their families live nearby. Here, my Posture practice continues to inspire my intuitive, sacred earthART, along with inspiration from Jassy Watson and Glenys Livingstone, whom I met last year online. I have been painting the Many Faces of Gaia ever since. Gratitude runs deep. Her artworks are found in www.deborahmiltonartist.com and www.awakeningstorylines.com
(Poem) Handprints on a Cave Wall by Mary Saracino

Meet Mago Contributor, Mary Saracino. If I touched my hands to the ochre palms that grace the walls of the ancient cave would I know the secrets the rocks whisper in the dark to ears attuned to magic?
(Tribute) Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum by Mary Saracino

Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum On January 7, 2024, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, left this Earthly plane, and joined the Ancestors. She had turned 100 just four days before. Her passing is a loss to the women’s spiritualities community; it is also a deeply personal loss to me. She was my friend, my mentor, my Comare (an Italian term meaning godmother or co-mother, signifying close soul connection between women). I met Lucia in 2001 in Sicily. I had joined her, her husband Wally, and a group of other seekers, for a Dark Mother Study Tour of the island, led by Lucia. We travelled around the island visiting sites sacred to the Dea Madre and her Christian manifestation, the Black Madonna. The adventure changed my life. In 2004, I joined her and Wally, and other like-minded seekers, for a Dark Mother Study Tour of Sardegna. While I had become cognizant of women’s spiritual traditions when I was in graduate school in the late 1970s, having read Merlin Stone’s When God Was A Woman, and Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father and Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, as well as other related and similar works, Lucia’s book, The Black Madonnas: Feminism, Religion, and Politics in Italy and Dark Mother: African Origins and Godmothers, expanded my understanding and also connected me to my Italian ancestral pre-Christian traditions. Lucia opened my heart, mind, and spirit, in profound ways. She invited me into her life, and her home. She wrote blurbs for many of my books, and she always invited me to speak to the women in her classes at CIIS when one of my new books launched. She included my poems in her book, The Future Has an Ancient Heart: Legacy of Caring, Sharing, Healing, and Vision from the Primordial African Mediterranean to Occupy Everywhere and Black Bird and a Pear Tree: The Story of Lucia and Wally 1945-2019. She asked Mary Beth Moser and me to co-edit the third edition of the anthology series she founded: She Is Everywhere, which we gladly and enthusiastically did. Lucia considered the founding of that anthology series to be among her most significant achievements. In an email to me she wrote: “It seems to me that the academic manifestation of women’s spirituality is necessary, but is institutionally limited to academic protocols. We need the continuing voices of all kinds of women and of other people.” Lucia was a sheltering tree, a High Priestess, a loving presence in the world. She often said she learned so much from her students, and she always empowered them to pursue their paths and follow their hearts. I was honored to be among the women in her circle of scholars, writers, artists, and visionaries whom she called Comare. People loved her because of the deep and rich ways she supported them and how she widened the circle, inviting them into the ongoing conversation. Her heart was as vast as her intellect. Many times I had the feeling that she was channeling amazing things from the Dark Mother source. It has always heartened me to know that she was cherished by so many people, both at CIIS, where she taught for many years, and around the world. In my humble opinion, Lucia was one of the best teachers I have ever had because she empowered her students to dig deep and live the questions and trust their gut and their hearts. She was a deep well of knowledge and wisdom…and joy…and I love how she continued to help shift the paradigm away from the patriarchal model of power over to the matriarchal model of co-creation and empowerment. While she clearly held her presence as a mentor in the classroom and as an authority on the subject she was teaching, she also managed to hold a space for equality and co-creation of ideas, sharing of information and thoughts and experiences. In my experience, that is a very, very, very rare combination. I have learned so much from Lucia and I have been inspired to continue to do my own searching, learning, writing and teaching as a result. In her academic career and in the ways she interacted with people in the world, she primed the conduit channel for many years with her scholarship and books. She has joined the Ancestors now—the Ancestors who are asking for our help to help the world, remember their wisdom. As she so eloquently noted, the future has an ancient heart. She was part of that band of seekers/seers who came to the planet to help the world remember that there will be no future unless and until we as a species can remember and honor and listen to our ancient heart. I loved her dearly and respected her beyond measure. She was a gift to the planet…and to those fortunate enough and blessed to know and love her. Comare extraordinaire, you will live forever in my heart. May we all continue to move forward, inspirited and inspired by one another to do our work in the world and to continue her immeasurable legacy. Rest in Power, dear Lucia. Ti voglio bene. https://www.magoism.net/2013/05/meet-mago-contributor-mary-saracino/
(Special Post 5) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, Facebook group.] Magnetic Meridians, Wikimedia Commons Marka Zenmyo: Lash goes into the roots of magic, magi, and majestic, which is a word that has been coming to mind recently. Majesty. Majestic. It’s really a beautiful word. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Jigsaw puzzles are putting together. Below from https://www.livius.org/articles/concept/magians/. Magians Magians (Old Persian Maguš): experts in Iranian religious – probably: oral – traditions, perhaps belonging to a Median tribe. They are to be distinguished from priests. Magians and magicians A Magian (Oxus Treasure) When discussing the Magians of ancient Persia, one thing should be clear from the very start: Magians have nothing to do with magic or wizardry. The confusion, however, is understandable or – in any case – very old. In the sixth century BCE, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus directed his prophecies against the wanderers of the night: the Magians, the Bacchantes, the Maenads, and initiates. Heraclitus threatens them with tortures after death, he threatens them with fire, for what they believe to be initiations in the mysteries are in fact impious rites. Heraclitus’ threats are well chosen, because, as we will see below, the Magians venerated fire and believed in rewards and punishments after death, which was a common religious idea in Iran. This was the first time that the word “Magians” was used negatively. Later authors lumped the expression together with words like “charlatan” and “wizard” and gave the word its now common meaning. The famous Macedonian philosopher Aristotle of Stagira (384-322), who had not spent part of his life in Persia’s western territories for nothing, felt himself forced to state explicitly “that the Magians neither know nor practice sorcery”.note (Read more.) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On Magian Order:https://www.metahistory.org/…/telestics/IlluminatiNIHI.php Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: https://www.amazon.com/Not-His-Image…/dp/193149892X AMAZON.COM Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of… Marka Zenmyo: One of the most important books I’ve ever read. Period. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Yes, I can see that. Magoism is not in the picture yet. I am excited as well! Lizzy Bluebell: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang – “Not in His Image” – an enlightening ex-posit-ion!! Utter respect !! Thankyou! I so agree !! Some initial, important points to ponder:1. “The NHL uses the Coptic RHOME and the Greek anthropos interchangeably for humanity, the species, not “man,” the male gender, andros in Greek.” YES! This sleight-of-hand is also how the esoteric symbol for the YONIC RO/RU (Vesica Pisces or Piscis meaning SOURCE) was inverted by the Egyptians into a horizontal MOUTH symbol – then further inverted by Constantine’s Labarum – Greek RHO (P) superimposed by an “X” (Chi). Similarly, the US dollar $ sym-bowl achieves the same ‘end’ – by pronging Sophia’s feminine ‘silent-gnosis’ and energy on his RO-D – which ‘he’ rode with roads to Rome and Rho-des.2. “The Gnostic teacher today would insist that intervention is an event to be discovered as it is happening, rather than predicted as an act of divine will, or merely observed as a spectacle that requires no human involvement. The conditions that precede intervention, as well as the conditions in which it comes to be implemented or manifested, are to be determined by human imagination and critical intelligence, not by blind faith.” YES! My fav way of seeing it “the balls are still in the air” – we are still juggling them – but I sense the ‘fat lady is singing’ and also, that she has now emerged from the ‘back room’.3. “The assertion that “her name is Silence” presents a clue pointing to the way that Sophia intervenes in the world event. It is instructive to combine that clue with another key passage from the cosmological text, On the Origin of the World (II, 5.25)When Pistis saw the impiety of the Lord Archon she was filled with anger. Acting in her invisible form, she spoke in this way: “You are mistaken, blind one — false deity who cannot see. There is an immortal luminous child, the Anthropos, who came into existence before you and who will appear among your spectral forms (plasmata). This luminous child will trample you in scorn just as a potter’s clay is pounded (into a lump). And you will sink away to your proper zone, the abyss (of gravity), along with those who belong to your legion.For at the consummation of your work, the entire defect [of Archontic illusion] exposed in the light of truth will be abolished, and [that illusion] will be as if it never had been.” YES ! It’s clear (to me) that all book-burnings of the past were such attempts!4.Your story of the silent child drawing and scribbling gave me goosebumps – this is me!! This is ME now, and was the same me at age five. I CAN speak, but rarely do. I write and scribble instead! Trista Hendren: I wrote out a ton of quotes from that book when I read it several years ago. Good stuff! Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: You can see how “Mago” is linguistically co-related across cultures and regions here. You can do the keyword search with “Magus” and “Magi” etc. as well. Hope this helps, let me know please. Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen: It´s thrilling, isn’t it?! Marka Zenmyo shared a link (on August 25, 2016) My [Marka Zenmyo’s] notes: Ancient cultures used sound and water to harness the earth’s magnetic energy to amplify food production, healing centers, etc… Then she goes deeper into Chavin culture (Peru) and Egyptian culture. Finding parallels in the use of magnetic energy. She talks about magnetic field around Earth and around us as a protective shield against high frequency rays. Theorizes about future Zero Point could signify shift out of body consciousness into body-less consciousness… The Sine Wave. Path of the Sun is the East West feminine energy line that forms a sine wave as it travels around the earth. North south is masculine. The Sun’s path used to go right through Giza. Then Earth’s axis shifted. Lion is exactly where Path of the Sun crossed the Path of the Earth (The Great Year) which travels in opposite direction. The …

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

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion or spirituality of Indigenous Australians, Munya Andrews of the Bardi people from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, acknowledges this and chooses to name her recently published book with it, explaining that: “I love the term … For me, it conjures up a magical and mysterious world.”, and she feels that the term aligns perfectly with the common global religious concept that Diety is beyond words and human understanding. For me, as Munya Andrews describes “Dreamtime”, it seems resonant with the sense of “ever-present Origins”[1]; that is, original space and time that is omnipresent. This is a space/place that I understand to be referred to as “between the worlds” and “beyond the bounds of space and time”, by Indigenous Europeans (Pagans), a tradition with which I am familiar. I understand it to be a sentient world in which we are immersed actually, and which may be revealed to the observant person in synchronous moments. With practice one may live with clearer everyday connections with this world, and Munya’s book is an important contribution to making those connections from within the cosmology of her people; and for “all beautiful souls to keep the Dreamtime alive”, as she says in the book’s dedication. This book provides informative story that should be part of every Australian’s education at various levels: it lays a groundwork and also elicits deepening understandings. The teachings offered in Journey into Dreamtime should be considered essential knowledge for living on this land named Australia, whereas heretofore most present occupants have often not had easy access to such learning. This very readable and small book provides some basic facts: for example, that there are “250 or so Indigenous nations, each having their own language, their own names and ‘country’ or tribal lands.”; and that terms such as Koori, Nunga or Murri are “pan-Aboriginal” names taken on since colonisation, for the sake of asserting a distinct Indigenous identity, in the face of forced removal from families and land. In the course of the seven chapters Munya develops understanding of Dreamtime, and also understandings of Indigenous Law, Songlines, sacred sites, bush doctors/bush medicine, Rainbow Snake, and Kindredness. I found all of this really helpful, an invitation into a world of being and relationship; and it is told with frequent analogies from Western science and academic and spiritual texts, with which the reader may be more familiar, enabling the bridge into Indigenous science and worldview. There is a list of suggested readings offered, along with links and details for further connection and learning. At the conclusion of each chapter of Journey into Dreamtime there are “Dreamtime Reflections”, posing questions for personal consideration, inviting personal participation and pathways into some actual sense of an alive self in relationship with the alive world described. This book needs to be in spaces/places where everyday people can read it, like waiting rooms of all kinds (where there are frequently Bibles); as well as in every library, and especially Australian libraries. I highly recommend Journey into Dreamtime as an educational resource, for your self, for educational programs, and/or for any group that you may gather. Aunty Munya, as she names herself, has an impressive track record of speaking engagements, mentioned at the conclusion of the book, and invites you to have her speak to your organisation. She describes her life purpose as “to create better understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal people and to leave behind a legacy of Dreamtime wisdom for generations to come.” May it be so, as readers of Journey into Dreamtime absorb its teaching and resources. To order a copy of Journey into Dreamtime visit Evolve Communities NOTES: [1]“ever-present origin” is the English translation of Jean Gebser’s Ursprung und Gegenwart, Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag, 1966.
(Special Post 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

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

(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …
Samhain/Deep Autumn within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, 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. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
(Essay) Ceremony as “Prayer” or Sacred Awareness 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. MoonCourt Ceremonial Space set for Autumn Equinox ceremony, 2013 Ritual/ceremony is often described as “sacred space.” I understand that to mean “awareness of the space as sacred”: all space is sacred, what shifts is our awareness – awareness of the depth of spacetime, and of the depth of all things and all beings. I understand “sacred awareness” as an awareness of deep relationship and identity with the very cosmic dynamics that create and sustain the Universe; or an awareness of what is involved in the depth of each moment, each thing, each being. Ceremony is a space and time given to expression, contemplation and nurturance of that depth … at least to something of it. Ceremony may be both an expression of deep inner truths – perceived relationship to self, Earth and Cosmos, as well as being a mode of teaching and drawing forth deeper participation. Essentially, ceremony is a way of entering into the depth of the present moment … what is deeply present right here and now, a way of entering deep space and deep time, which is not somewhere else but is right here. Every-thing, and every moment, has Depth – more depth than we usually allow ourselves to contemplate, let alone comprehend. This book, this paper, this ink, the chair, the floor – each has a history and connections that go back, all the way back to Origins. This moment you experience now, in its particular configuration, place, people present, subtle feelings, thoughts, and propensity towards certain directions or outcomes, has a depth – many histories and choices that go back … ultimately all the way back to the beginning. Great Origin is present at every point of space and time – right here. In ceremony we are plugging our awareness into something of that. In this holy context then – in this mindframe of knowing connection, everything one does is a participation in the creation of the Cosmos: for the tribal indigenous woman, perhaps the weaving of a basket; for another, perhaps preparing a meal; for you, perhaps getting on the train to go to a workplace. It is possible to regain this sense, to come to feel that the way one breathes makes a difference – that with it, you co-create the present and the future, and you may even be a blessing on the past. In every moment we receive the co-creation, the work, of innumerable beings, of innumerable moments, and innumerable interactions of the elements, in everything we touch … and so are we touched by them. The local is our touchstone to the Cosmos – it is not separate. Ceremony may be a way into this awareness, into strengthening it. 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”[i] 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.[ii] Ceremony then is a form of social action. I have found it useful to describe ceremony using and extending words used by Ken Wilber to describe a “transpersonal practice,” which is needed for real change: he said it was a practice that discloses “a deeper self (I or Buddha) in a deeper community (We or Sangha) expressing a deeper truth (It or Dharma).”[iii] My extension of that is: ceremony may disclose a deeper beautiful self (the I/Virgin/Urge to Be/Buddha), in a deeper relational community (the We/Mother/Place of Being/Sangha), expressing a deeper transformative truth (the It/Old One/Space to Be/Dharma). This is the “unitive body,” the “microcosmos” that Charlene Spretnak refers to in States of Grace.[iv] Since ceremony is an opportunity to give voice to deeper places in ourselves, forms of communication are used that the dreamer, the emotional, the body, can comprehend, such as music, drama, simulation, dance, chanting, singing.[v] These forms enable the entering of a level of consciousness that is there all the time, but that is not usually expressed or acknowledged. We enter a realm that is ‘out of time,’ which is commonly said to be not the “real” world, but it is more organic/indigenous to all being and at least as real as the tick-tock world. It is a place “between the worlds,” wherein we may put our hands on the very core of our lives, touch whatever it is that we feel our existence is about, and thus touch the possibility of re-creating and renewing ourselves. NOTES: [i] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [ii] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation. [iii] Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996), 306-307. [iv] 145. [v] As Starhawk notes, The Spiral Dance, 45. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996.
(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.
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

(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 …
(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 1) Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Pod of narwhals, northern Canada, August 2005. Image courtesy of Kristin Laidre. Wikemedia Commons Manpasikjeok (the pacifying flute that defeats all) is a legendary flute, purportedly made from a narwhal’s tusk, originating in the 7th century Silla (57 BCE-935 CE). King Sinmun (r. 681-692) had a revelation concerning “a bamboo tree” growing on a mysterious mountain floating in the Sea of Whales, today’s East Sea of Korea. From this tree, a flute was made with which he was able to protect the whole world. As a national treasure of Silla, this instrument was famed to defeat all enemies at the time of troubles. What we have is the accounts of the pacifying flute recounted in Korea’s official historical texts. Two sources from the Samguk Sagi (Historical Records of the Three States) and the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three States) shall be examined. Not surprisingly, whales are made unrecognizable not only within the story but also in the official history books of Korea. Magoist Cetaceanism was subjected to erasure in the course of Korean official history, but apparently not in the time of King Sinmun of Silla. The myth of Manpasikjeok testifies to Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism upheld by 7th century Sillan rulers. We are reading a Magoist Cetacean myth, however, told by people of a later time when Magoist Cetaceanism was no longer recognized. The fact that these two official historical texts of Korea recount the narrative of Manpasikjeok speaks to its significance: The story is told with a sense of mystery or suspicion. While the Samguk Sagi overtly treats the author’s sense of disbelief, the Samguk Yusa provides a full narrative in tantalizing but mystified details. How was Manpasikjeok 萬波息笛 created in the first place? Below is the Samguk Sagi version of the story: According to Gogi (Ancient Records), “During the reign of King Sinmun, a little mountain emerged in the East Sea out of nowhere. It looked like a head of a turtle. Atop the mountain there was a bamboo tree growing, which became two during the day and became one at night. The king had his subject cut the bamboo tree and had it made a flute. He named it Manpasik (Pacifying and Defeating All).” Although it is written so, its account is weird and unreliable.[1] Written by Gim Busik (1075–1151), a Neo-Confucian historiographer, the above account betrays an unengaged author’s mind in the story. For Gim, Korean indigenous narratives like Manpasikjeok are anomalous, if not unreliable, by the norms of Chinese history. In contrast to the former, the Samguk Yusa details the Manpasikjeok story in a tantalizing sense of mystery. Its author Ilyeon (1206-1289) was a Buddhist monk, a religious historian who saw the history of Korea as fundamentally Buddhist from the beginning. He elaborates the story with factual data but fails to bring to surface the cetacean underpinning of the myth. It is possible that Magoist Cetaceanism had already submerged much earlier than his time. King Sinmun (r. 681-692) had built the temple, Gameun-sa (Graced Temple), to commemorate his late father King Munmu (r. 661-681) who willed to become a sea dragon upon death. The relic of King Munmu had been spread in Whale Ferry (Gyeongjin 鯨津), also known as the Rock of Ruler the Great (Daewang-am) located in the waterfront of the East Sea also known as the Sea of Whales. Evidence substantiates that King Munmu was a Magoist Cetacean devotee clad in a Buddhist attire. Or today’s Buddhologiests call it Esoteric Buddhism. The Manpasikjeok myth may be called the story of King Sinmun’s initiation to Magoist Cetaceanism. Before explicating the Samguk Yusa account, which is prolix and complex, I have summarized the Samguk Yusa’s account as follows: (Summary of the Manpasikjeok Myth) King Sinmun ordered the completion of Gameunsa (Graced Temple) to commemorate his deceased father, King Munmu. The main hall of Gameunsa was designed at the sea level to allow the dragon to enter and stroll through the ebb and flow of the sea waves. In the second year of his reign (682 CE), Marine Officer reported that a little mountain in the East Sea was approaching Gameunsa. The king had Solar Officer perform a divination. The divination foretold that he would be given a treasure with which he could protect Wolseong (Moon Stronghold), Silla’s capital. This would be a gift from King Munmu who became a sea dragon and Gim Yusin who became a heavenly being again. In seven days, the king went out to Yigyeondae (Platform of Gaining Vision) and saw the mountain floating like a turtle’s head in the sea. There was a bamboo tree growing on its top, which became two during the day and one at night. The king stayed overnight in Gameumsa to listen to the dragon who entered the yard and the substructure of the main hall. Then, there was darkness for seven days due to a storm in the sea. After the sea calmed, the king went into the mountain to meet the dragon. The dragon told him that, if he made a flute out of the bamboo tree, the whole world would be pacified. The king had the bamboo tree brought out of the sea and made it into a flute, which became a treasure of Silla. The mountain and the dragon disappeared. The flute, when played during times of the nation’s trouble, brought peace. Thus comes its name, Manpasikjeok (the pacifying flute that defeats all). During the reign of King Hyoso (r. 692-702), his son, the flute continued to make miracles. Thus it was renamed Manmanpapasikjeok (the pacifying flute that surely defeats all of all). One day, it was reported to King Sinmun that a little mountain was approaching Gameunsa. That mountain had a mysterious bamboo tree atop. On the seventh day from then, he went out to Yigyeondae (Platform of Gaining Vision), the whale watch place near Gameumsa. Then, he stayed overnight in Gameunsa to hear the dragon who entered the temple yard through the ebb and flow of the …