July 28, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 2) The Piggly Wiggly and the Black Madonna by Mary Saracino

[This is Part 2. Read Part 1 here.] To further stoke the fires of my Catholic ambivalence, ten years after my mother left him, my father petitioned the Archbishop to Read More …

June 16, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 1) The Piggly Wiggly and the Black Madonna by Mary Saracino

“The sun spun in the sky,” my father told me. “It twirled in place for a second or two. Then it stopped.” He had witnessed this miraculous phenomenon outside the Read More …

February 10, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Novel Review) Judith by Leslie Moise; reviewed by Mary Saracino

In this finely crafted novel, Leslie Moise has done a wonderful job of fictionalizing the story of Judith of Bethulia, a Hebrew woman whose story did not “make the cut Read More …

January 5, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poem) La Befana by Mary Saracino

With eyes the color of mortal sin a heart as magical as the moon she spends her days sweeping and baking mending and tending preparing her home for love and Read More …

December 25, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poem) The Hens on Christmas Morning by Mary Saracino

The hens greet me at the fence this Christmas morning hungry for feed, for scratch for good cheer, fresh water. The air is crisp and cool, the sky brilliant blue Read More …

December 20, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poem) Silent Night by Mary Saracino

‘Tis the season of deep silence Of dying leaves And waning light Of death, or what seems like death to unseeing eyes Of long nights and even longer longings Of Read More …

November 21, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(Poem in English and Italian) No Country for Old Women by Mary Saracino

Howling from the mountaintops wailing from the riverbanks scooping the moon into their waning wombs the old women know that lies kill, distortions maim, hope isn’t enough to feed starving Read More …

September 25, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin6 Comments

(Poem) MOTHERS WILL MAKE PEACE by Mary Saracino

“Mothers will make peace, so sons will not die.” Huda, a Palestinian journalist living in Jordan, as quoted in “Women’s Gathering Gives Peace a Chance,” Women’s E-News, April 13, Read More …

September 16, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Essay 2) Red Poppies Among the Ruins by Mary Saracino

How far we humans have strayed from our homeland. How long we have wandered alone in the desert of our amnesia. Have we learned nothing? Vivo and morto. The circle Read More …

September 9, 2013February 20, 2018 Mago Work Admin3 Comments

(Essay 1) Red Poppies Among the Ruins by Mary Saracino

Under the alchemy of sea and sky, my bones began to listen. The warm wind tickled my ear lobes, kissed my cheek, bidding me to cede to the desire of Read More …

August 19, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Novel 2) The Singing of Swans by Mary Saracino

Note: This is an excerpt from the first chapter in Mary Saracino’s novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006). Used by permission from the publisher. For more information, visit http://www.pearlsong.com/thesingingofswans.htm Chapter 1 Read More …

August 12, 2013December 22, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Novel 1) The Singing of Swans by Mary Saracino

[Note: This is an excerpt from the first chapter in Mary Saracino’s novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006). Used by permission from the publisher. For more information, visit http://www.pearlsong.com/thesingingofswans.htm.] Chapter 1 Night Read More …

July 17, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin3 Comments

(Poem) Olivastri Millenari by Mary Saracino

Olivastri Millenari* In stillness, I look upon the weathered face of the Ancient Mother, Tree of Life, Tomb of Death, Womb of all that is sacred. 4,000 years of wrinkled Read More …

(Meet Mago Contributor) Matthew Chabin

Matthew Chabin is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He worked as a journalist in the US Navy and studied literature and philosophy at Southern Oregon University. He is the winner of the 2015 Miglior Press Essay contest, and his work has appeared in Gravel: A Literary Journal, Southern Pacific Review, Clues: a Journal of Detection, Star82 and the Ghostwoods Books anthology Cthulhu Lies Dreaming. He currently lives with his wife, daughter, and two cats in Nagano Prefecture of Japan.
(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) The Calling by Angelika Heike Rüdiger

for G. N. & R. E. J. Such sweetness in Your voice You are the Honey of Wild Bees Your gentle touch Soft branches of the yew tree Brushing past my face when finding the blue flower in the shade next to the spring-root, an opener of ways and foxglove-fairyglove the guardian of wild strawberries fruit of the other land Your kiss of promise and enchantment.
(Prose) Asherah, Kali, Jesus? by Joanna Kujawa, Ph.D.

Let’s throw ourselves into the fascinating possibility of Christian Tantra, as described in James Hughes Reho’s (PhD) book Tantric Jesus: The Erotic Heart of Early Christianity. In his book, Reho makes a very brave attempt at proving (or suggesting?) the possibility of Christian Tantra. As someone who has studied Esoteric Hinduism and Tantra for years, I can vouch for Reho’s deep knowledge and understanding of Tantric principles and practices and for his attempt to apply them to Christian practices and teachings. To start with, the dance between Eastern and Western teachings is as ancient as the teachings themselves. I am a believer that spiritual traditions never develop in one particular cultural vacuum but have always informed each other for their mutual benefit. Also, I follow Joseph Campbell, in that the development of the human mythos is universal and only presents itself in different cultural disguises – but carries the same or a very similar message. By ‘mythos’ I mean here the primal individual and collective ‘knowledge’ of our place in the Universe which is somehow embedded in our Consciousness. From this standpoint, Reho’s research and attempt at unifying Tantric and Christian ideas makes perfect sense. First of all, in Tantric Jesus: The Erotic Heart of Early Christianity Reho looks for similarities between the Tantric teachings of Esoteric Hinduism and early Christianity. In this alone, he makes a big conceptual leap which one can only admire: he re-examines and re-defines the Christian understanding of Creation, and especially the Christian understanding of the human body. Reho believes that our current understanding of the body in Christianity is radically different from that of the understanding of early Christians. The Christianity that we know now, he says, was negatively influenced by ‘ascetic Neoplatonists’ which was not intended by the early Gospels or Jesus Himself. He says that he prefers to adhere to the mystical Christianity that ‘thrived largely outside the official institution’ of the Church. Between the second and fourth centuries, the Romanisation of Jesus’ teachings had occurred and he had merged with the Roman Sol Invictus – an all-powerful but remote figure of the Roman God. Jesus became ‘Christ the Conqueror’, and now we are faced with the ‘dogmatic baggage’ of that transformation not only of Jesus Himself but of His teachings as well. I have no argument with this part of the book, as it is historically true that the Roman Empire (Emperor Constantine especially) picked and chose from the early Christian tradition. Also, Reho accurately points to the complete loss of the Feminine Principle in Christianity as a significant part of the process of dogmatisation. In brief, for those of us who are familiar with the Hindu principle of Shakti as the feminine aspect of the Divine, Christianity became de-Shaktified. But, Reho argues, it was not always like this. In fact, he believes that the canonical Gospels, especially the Gospels of Mark and John, tried to bring the feminine back. Theprocess of de-Shaktification (or the removal of the Feminine) from Western tradition, Reho says after Biblical scholar Margaret Barker, started as the ‘Deuteronomic Reform’, of King Josiah of Judah and the high priest Hilkiah around 623 BCE, when they supposedly unearthed a mysterious scroll of the Law of Yahweh written by Moses himself. Josiah destroyed all the ancient temples and removed any traces of the Feminine from the Judaic scriptures. The face of the Feminine aspects banned from Judaic scriptures was that of the ancient Asherah, known also as the consort of Yahweh, in the same way as Shakti was the consort of Shiva in Esoteric Hinduism. Interestingly, Asherah was worshipped as the Queen of the Heavens – very much like the Sumerian Goddess Inanna or the Egyptian Goddess Isis. Indeed, in Egypt, the Jewish population worshipped Asherah (sometimes under the name of Anath) along with Yahweh. Asherah, like Shakti in Hinduism, was the active Power of God. Many representations of Asherah are very similar to representations of Inanna, and even those of the more ancient Ninmah, with poles, trees and serpents being used in relation to earlier interpretations of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Like the Gnostic Sophia, she is often represented as a dove. Reho notes here the biblical significance of the presence of the dove during Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. In this interpretation, the dove represents Asherah/Sophia, which makes Jesus a child and beloved’ of the Goddess. Reho quotes from the Gospel of Mark where, during Jesus’ baptism, ‘a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am pleased”’. The interpretation here is that the dove is the Goddess (Asherah/Sophia) and that Jesus is initiated by Her, rather than by the all masculine and not a particularly friendly God. Since then, attempts to restore the traces of the Divine Feminine were made in Rabbinic Judaism, by ‘the re-emergence’ of the presence of Shekinah – the divine feminine dwelling in ‘the divine presence … as the feminine aspect of God’. In his search for the Feminine Divine in the canonical Gospels, Reho also re-interprets the Prologue of the Gospel of John, translated as ‘In the beginning was the Word’. However, in Greek (the language of the Gospel of John), ‘Word’ is ‘Logos’ – meaning not simply a word but the ‘incarnate Word’ or ‘Wisdom Word’ reminiscent of the Gnostic Sophia (the Wisdom of God) or the creative presence of Shakti. It is worth noting that the same notion was brought up by a Jewish philosopher from the first century in Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria, who also defined ‘Logos’ as the ‘dynamic and creative power of God’ – the exact definition of Shakti in Hinduism. Also in the Gospel of John, the turning of water into wine, according to Reho, symbolises ‘a movement away’ from the ascetism of John the Baptist towards a more inclusive and Goddess-friendly tradition which has its roots in the ancient sacrifice of bread and wine to the Goddess Asherah. In Reho’s book all …
(Poem) Fool’s Moon by Donna Snyder

Wikimedia Commons The Fool’s Moon leads ineluctably to darkness. Sunlight prepares to impregnate the new day. The old one becomes tomorrow’s darkness, both new and fecund, neatly giving doom the lie and illuminating the mathematics of philosophy. Moon paints snakes on her face. Copper bells ring. She dances, peculiarly festooned, as if time really exists, as if She is both in the box and outside the box. The Uncertainty Principle illustrated, darkness both perceived and felt as She appears to diminish. We swim through a sea of vapors, truth a theory proved through self-deception. The Dark Side becomes brilliance. Fools stumble through the perception of dark. https://www.magoism.net/2013/04/meet-mago-contributor-donna-snyder/
(Essay and Poem) Becoming a Priestess of Isis by Jayne Marie DeMente

Jayne Marie DeMente, MA WS @ CIIS Book: Feminine Reformation; a goddess meta narrative. Founder of www.womensheritageproject.ning.com Co-host, online radio show, www.blogtalkradio.com, search Creatrix Media Live Director, Harlots Film Consortium: Matreya; the promise of a dark goddess. A rock opera. Priestess of Isis, Fellowship of Isis, Iseum of the Nubian Moon, https://sites.google.com/site/fellowshipofisiscentral Recently, I was Ordained as a Priestess of Isis and the experience was as mystical or magical as one can imagine. I was asked by Dr. Helen Hwang to write about the encounter so, as with many sages before me, I had to contemplate how to put this transcendental occurrence into real words. To begin, the Fellowship of Isis (FOI) is some 50 year old association begun by Olivia Robinson and her brother, who created a new Isis body of Liturgy and Rituals. I became aware of it when I met Hierophant Anniitra Ravenmoon of the Iseum of the Nubian Moon in Long Beach, California. At the time, I was the co-founder of Magdalene, a Women’s Spiritual & Cultural Arts Center in NoHo, California. We met at one of the Women’s Heritage Project thea/ology classes. We eventually became both friends and co-hosts of Creatrix Media Live, a monthly online radio show, interviewing guest experts on various topics of ancient and contemporary women’s spirituality, cultural arts and feminine social justice. During one of the radio episodes, when we were interviewing a guest, Isidora Forrest, regarding Isis, I brought up Nebhet’s December ritual. No-one online seemed to know much about it, and Anniitra, in true Priestess mode, decided to assign me the task of finding out more about this ritual practice. It is from this pearl of wisdom within Raven’s heart and in the heart of the Nebhet story itself (Egyptian Book of the Dead), that I began to feel energy towards entering into the fold of Isis. Until then, I pretty much followed the Hebrew Goddesses: Asherah, Lilith and Mary/Magdalene. Of course, having graduated from a Women’s Spirituality Program, at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, California – I was aware of the other goddesses belonging to most ethnic groups, but I personally felt “guided” by these archetypes. As I read about Nebhet and this special December 26th ceremony, led by Nebhet for her sister/sister-in-law Isis to renew the Priestess Queen and all the Priestesses of the temple, I experienced how women form sisterhoods or sister bonds. I missed ritual in my academic life and felt a real pull to become part of FOI. I really loved the fellowship between the other members as we met to re-enact this special ritual. I appreciated the various spiritual skills that each member brought to this now beloved occasion. Before I could voice these thoughts, Raven, again in MaMa Priestess mode, decided she was going to “train me” to be a Priestess of the Iseum of the Nubian Moon! Well, there you have it ~ the beginning of a journey that made me lighter and light-hearted. Every step was like a miracle. Carla Jones-Alt, a generous-souled member, offered her beautiful home for the ordination and agreed to be my guardian. Regina Barton, early LA Feminist and art curator, gave me a Moroccan robe with a matching fairy wand and I found a spiral pronged tiara at the Wymon Spirit Winter Goddess Festival in Long Beach; I was ready! Four skilled friends: Tantric Instructor Meloney Hudson (Positive Energy Woman), Rev. Catherine Wright, special FOI member Pat Taylor, and FOI Foremother Linda Isles (Bast; Cat Goddess of Ancient Egypt) called in the four directions. Meanwhile, Carla guarded over me in another room. De Traci Regula (The Egyptian Scarab Oracle) sang and I meditated. When it was my time, Anniitra called us in and as I entered the warm, fragrant room, I felt the dichotomy of being light as air but grounded and aglow. Stephania Ebony, as scribe, read my dedication to the Goddess. The love and support of guests were from the ancient but heartfelt bonds of sisterhood. Carla planned a sumptuous sit-down dinner that followed the ceremony that still makes my mouth water. Storyteller Gillian Cameron regaled us with one of her always entertaining and insightful pieces. Kat Robb placed the photos she took on Facebook and Regina made Raven and me photo memory books. Lastly, but certainly not least, our leader, Laura Janesdaughter (not attending due to health reasons), sent along a dozen irises to grace the altar. I believe that Anniitra sensed my need for community and I have to thank her – this passage had a profound effect on me and when she asked, I did not hesitate to accept. A recovered Christian, a confirmed Jew, I am usually a more cautious person about joining groups. If I were to analyze this event further, I would describe it like trying to define love: When someone asks you why you love her/him, it’s just indefinable in words. I can tell you that not much is required to join FOI other than to be a good person, love your sisters, honor the mother, love the earth, and participate in your community. You also will be asked to choose other deities to honor and guide you, under the umbrella of Isis. You don’t have to give up anything, feel bad about yourself, exclude others, be rigorous or change your diet or friends – just imagine! Lastly, I look forward to the future and what a community of sisters like this will add to my spiritual journey. Blessed Be. Deep in your warm waters Stardust impregnated your womb And I was born… Bonded to you then Remembering you now Oh Joyful Mother’s Day! I knew you as Creatrix, moon, sun and stars And sat in your tree of wisdom among The snakes and birds – I smelled the air And became strong, conscious and loved… I was almost destroyed when you were scarped And I was left helpless at the soul of violence Oh, unhappy knowledge… I have walked such a dry road …
(Nine Poets Speak) The Creatrix Story Re-spun by Michele J. Celello

Art by Michele J. Celello Deep inside Mount Etna, red hot lava spurted towards the cosmos.The blood of our beloved sacred Pachamama-Gaia,fed the galaxies above for three days.Galaxies spun in opposing spirals, making love,birthing new stars to illuminate the planets.Black holes destroyed dying stars to be born again.Pachamama-Gaia instructed women to create first menses ceremonies for girls,one hundred thousand years ago. They bled directly into Her, dying for three days in seclusion, they rested and rejuvenated,cultivating their birthing power. They awoke singing and dancing for joy to the cosmos, celebrating the cycle of life within them as Her,feeding Pachamama-Gaia and the ancestors below with their energy. Reborn as women to serve the community in scared reciprocityCaring for children and feeding each otherThe descent, death, and resurrection story of Inanna emerged in Iraq 4000 years ago.Inanna died in the underworld, was hung on a peg for three days, and reborn through Her sister.Persephone was abducted and died in the underworld and was reborn with spring flowers.The bird goddess of Old Europe was born, died, and reborn, as they painted Her each year.Jesus was born with the sun, died on the cross, and resurrected in three days.He will come again and again in celebrations of generosity of Christmas and Easter.Reclaim your sacred menses ceremony as power. Reclaim the creation story as sacred and feminine.Rebirth yourself with every full moon.We are Inanna and Jesus resurrecting.The story was told, retold, and will be told again. https://www.magoism.net/2025/12/meet-mago-contributor-michele-j-celello/
“I Am Not Mad at You” by Sara Wright

Image from the public domain Atrocity after atrocity is the norm. We are killing children so why not women? I think patriarchy knows that its worst enemy is the compassion, empathy, integrity that is expressed by many women and some men (men and women are not equal here—woman-hatred is at an all-time high). This is the answer to humans who dare to stand up to peaceably protest? KILL them in the name of “homeland security”. Oh, the underlying threat is so clear…you obey my rules or end up dead. And those of us who do care have no power against the dragon slayer. This is a mythical story being enacted by a culture gone insane. In patriarchal culture slaying the dragon demonstrates the success of the hero to subdue his (?) monsters (my interpretation). Feminists have a different story to tell. For them, the dragon is the feminine that is being destroyed. Therefore, they use the rise of the dragon as a symbol of female power rising out of the deep. BOTH MAY BE TRUE. I believe it is very dangerous to use these mythical creatures as ‘support’ figures since each has a light and dark side and they are mythical, which means that there is a powerful intergenerational pattern behind each of these images that can manifest either way. As redeemer or destroyer, both are part of one whole. Worse, these poles can reverse on a dime. They are not under human control. I close with a poem, “She Saw It Coming”, from Deena Metzger, a powerful and well-known woman writer. Her poem is used here with her permission. It can be found at: deenametzger.substack.com. She Saw It Coming She saw it coming But she didn’t see it coming She saw Death coming She saw her death coming She said, not knowing his name yet, “I’m not mad at you.” She saw her American death coming “Dude,” she said to Death, Not knowing his name, “I’m not mad at you,” Thinking she could turn away Or turn the other cheek. Yes, she saw it coming Said, “I am not mad at you,” To Death, holding up a camera Then holding up a gun. Death came Her death Her American death She looked it in the eye. Author’s Note: On January 7, 2026, Renee Nicole Good, a thirty-seven year old woman, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Sometimes it takes an inconceivable particular incident to ram home just how much the USA has become a dragon slaying monster. All the protests in the world will not bring this innocent woman, mother of three, back to life. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright – Return to Mago E*Magazine
Hearth Moon Rising

Read all posts by Hearth Moon Rising. Hearth Moon Rising is a Dianic Priestess living in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. She blends goddess magic and folklore in her blog, http://hearthmoonblog.com/. She is the author of Invoking Animal Magic: A guide for the Pagan priestess. http://invokinganimalmagic.com.

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

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is how Goma is known among the ancient Chinese. She is called The Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian xuannu). Nine Heavens refer to the confederacy of nine states, Danguk or Nine Hans. Statue of Jiutian Xuannü, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiutian_Xuann%C3%BC Another icon of Jiutian Xuannu below. https://www.tinyatdragon.com/blogs/spiritual/jiu-tian-xuan-nu-mysterious-lady-of-the-nine-heavens?fbclid=IwAR0n1Ld6tmxqTec23Pzg3DxRjEQ-DbjdGF1DU_Jjlt4eMbHdTOO9Jd7ePnc Lizzy Bluebell: Oh – now I see what the Buddha riding the deer was carrying; her Gourd. A very interesting link, thanks.”…these statues in Taoism are not for worshipping or praying. They are like a container, a magic tool, which is used to program the energies into profiles and be used for different things in Taoist magic. The outsiders cannot understand too much, and so these “Taoist secrets” are often hidden from the public in the old days or even today.” Lizzy Bluebell: Very informative passage on the power of the NINE:”Nine is the pattern of giving off power, or using up the energies of things to give off powers, just like a flashlight burning it’s battery up for the light. Sky is the pattern that relates to any pool of resources or elements that are considered the proactive party that is “starting” something or the giving side of a situation.Remember that we talk about patterns in Taoism, and it applies to everything including our FU talismans words and these special terms like Jiu Tian / Gau Tin.A practical example for this term can be used as in if you are trying to go to the kitchen and cook something for lunch. Your “sky” here is all the things in the kitchen, and ground is the kitchen itself where you put the food into “process” them. So the 9-sky stage is to have picked out the food you like and let them show themselves to let you know which one is the best to use, maybe some just smell better or some look fresher to you. Nothing has been done yet, but you are now able to “start” something because you can at least feel and sense the food’s potentials and power.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, Oh it is gourd. Yes, I forgot about the gourd symbol for Mago/Magu. It is a container for the elixir from which one drinks. It is a common pictographic/literary theme and I have images of Magu with the gourd. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, this is one heuristic analogy. Ancient Magoists depicted/perceived the universe as Nine Heavens, an equivalent to Nine States on earth for it is the lens of Nine Numerology through which they saw everything. Because ancient China removed the history of Goma, they spiritualized/philosophized the teaching of Nine Numerology. If we have Goma’s history (and the mytho-history of Old Magoism), we can perceive the meaning of Nine Heavenly directly (not through theories or analogies). Wherever and whenever the consciousness of Nine Numerology surfaces is a manifestation of Goma’s rule/civilization/religion. This will remain forever insofar as humanity continues because Nine Numerology is the principle of nature including humans. I would say that the teaching/principle of Nine Numerology is Goma’s self-redemptive soteriological gift. Insofar as we understand and honor the Nine Mago Creatrix/Nine Numerology (the female divine in general), we are endowed with the power of self-redemption. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, the character “Xuan or Hyeon 玄” refers to the quality of gynocentric spirituality, which has been made esoteric or mystic. It refers to the spirituality of the Great Goddess (Magoist spirituality). Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nine Hans or Nine Heavens manifests in such place-names as Kyūkoku (九国, Nine States). Kyushu (Nine Provinces) Island, Japan, seemingly a replica of Danguk (confederacy of nine states) representing the Nine Mago Creatrix, reflects the ancient glory of the Goma’s gynocentric rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyushu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Doumu (Mother of the Northern Dipper) also comes in the icon of eight arms. Doumu, Song Dynasty, Wikimedia Commons Domu, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doumu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: She is often conflated with Marici seated on a boar in her iconography (affine to Gemu of the Mosuo and Durga on a tiger/lion). Here Marici is depicted as four-headed and eight-armed. Marici, Wikimedia Commons Marici (Buddhism) – Wikipedia Judy E Foster: So similar to the Indian Goddess… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Indeed! I am afraid that we may not be able to feature some of the nine forms of Durga from “Hinduism”. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang There is more, Marici. Marici, Wikimedia Commons File:Marichi, Buddhist Goddess of Dawn, China, Qing dynasty, 18th… Marichi, Source below. Marichi (Buddhist Deity) – Kalpoktam (3 faces, 8 hands)… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: This is new info. on the nine tripod caldrons of ancient China. “The Nine Tripod Cauldrons (Chinese: 九鼎; pinyin: Jiǔ Dǐng) were ancient Chinese ritual cauldrons. They were ascribed to the foundation of the Xia (c. 2200 bce) by Yu the Great, using tribute metal presented by the governors of the Nine Provinces of ancient China.[1] At the time of the Shang Dynasty during the 2nd millennium bce, the tripod cauldrons came to symbolize the power and authority of the ruling dynasty with strict regulations imposed as to their use. Members of the scholarly gentry class were permitted to use one or three cauldrons; the ministers of state (大夫, dàfū) five; the vassal lords seven; and only the sovereign Son of Heaven was entitled to use nine.[2] The use of the nine tripod cauldrons to offer ritual sacrifices to the ancestors from heaven and earth was a major ceremonial occasion so that by natural progression the ding came to symbolize national political power[3] and later to be regarded as a National Treasure. Sources state that two years after the […]
(Special Post 5) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I have come across the origin of the Dokkaebi (image, Heavenly Ruler Chiu, 14th Hanung of Danguk. Chiu represented the Magoist rule aided by her 81 giant sister clan allies (nine groups of Nine Hans) fought Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), one of the ancient rulers of pre-historic China. Chiu is known as the empeor of Guri-guk or Guryeo-guk (Nine Ri State or Nine Ryeo State), which is alternatiely referred to as Goryeo-guk and Goguryeo-guk by East Asians. She was worshipped as the deity of war and remembered/depicted for her helmet made of copper and iron. Records about her war against Hungdi inundates ancient Korean and Chinese texts and myths. About Chiu or Chiyou, it is too complex to discuss here. It is a topic to be treated in its own right. Suffice to say that even some of basic information from Wikipedia is illuminating. “Chiyou (蚩尤) was a tribal leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎) in ancient China. He is best known as a king who lost against the future Yellow Emperor during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in Chinese mythology. For the Hmong people, Chiyou was a sagacious mythical king. He has a particularly complex and controversial ancestry, as he may fall under Dongyi, Miao or even Man, depending on the source and view. Today, Chiyou is honored and worshipped as the God of War and one of the three legendary founding fathers of China.” “According to the Song dynasty history book Lushi, Chiyou’s surname was Jiang (姜), and he was a descendant of Yandi. According to legend, Chiyou had a bronze head with a metal forehead. He had 4 eyes and 6 arms, wielding terrible sharp weapons in every hand. In some sources, Chiyou had certain features associated with various mythological bovines: his head was that of a bull with two horns, although the body was that of a human. He is said to have been unbelievably fierce, and to have had 81 brothers. Historical sources often described him as ‘cruel and greedy’, as well as ‘tyrannical’. Some sources have asserted that the figure 81 should rather be associated with 81 clans in his kingdom. Chiyou knows the constellations and the ancients spells for calling upon the weather. For example, he called upon a fog to surround Huangdi and his soldiers during the Battle of Zhuolu.” “Chiyou is regarded as a leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎, RPA White Hmong: Cuaj Li Ntuj) by nearly all sources. However, his exact ethnic affiliations are quite complex, with multiple sources reporting him as belonging to various tribes, in addition to a number of diverse peoples supposed to have directly descended from him. Some sources from later dynasties, such as the Guoyu book, considered Chiyou’s Li tribe to be related to the ancient San miao tribe (三苗). In the ancient Zhuolu Town is a statue of Chiyou commemorating him as the original ancestor of the Hmong people. The place is regarded as the birthplace of the San miao / Miao people, the Hmong being a subgroup of the Miao. In sources following the Hmong view, the “nine Li” tribe is called the “Jiuli” kingdom, Jiuli meaning “nine Li”. Modern Han Chinese scholar Weng Dujian considers Jiuli and San Miao to be Man southerners. Chiyou has also been counted as part of the Dongyi.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiyou Above all, her depiction by ancient China is of a pejorative one. As we will see in the next part, she is contrasted with her opponent Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), a triumphantly depicted ancient hero of ancient China. Above Wikipedia. See her images created by ancient Koreans, the middle one in the three figures, depicted as a woman with female breasts, one of Dokkaebi images. There are other records that describe one of her allies. as one adorned with snakes in the head, which reminds me of Medusa. Silla (left), Baekje (Center), Goguryeo (right) http://lasvegaskim.com/Etc_Poem_55.htm Max Dashu: Oe-ri, Buyeo, in the Baekje period. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: That is where the rooftile at the center is excavated. That is the original image of Dokkaebi that Lydia Ruyle chose and depicted in her banner work. I could not connect this image with Chiu until now. We have the female ruler who subdued the patrilocal force of Yellow Emperor, the forebear of ancientChinese emperors. There are lots of myths and data that I have found on them. Chiu is also numerously depicted as Dokkaebi faces, which makes me think of its connection to the iconography of Medusa and Gorgon (who comes as Three Sisters). Eight-snake-headed Medusahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa Gorgon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/art-dokkaebi-by-lydia-ruyle/ Lizzy Bluebell: ‘Gonggong’ is not a far stretch phonetically from ‘Gorgon’ – I note. Briefly here – because it is a complex explanation – much more can be said about the etymology. For example, “gorge” relates to deep mountain passes with water flowing through them as well as the human throat or gullet, (relating the word to both speech and eating) and mountains are/were Goddess terrain, later usurped by MON-A-Ster-ies. The masculine name Ge-Orge is code which relates to GE/Gaia/Gay as well as to ‘orgy’. Sanskrit “garg” begets English ‘gargle’, and a guttural (gut-her-all) sound. I’ve always seen the archetypal Medusa/Gorgon’s ‘snaking curls’ as the energy emmitted from her head by her Wild I-Deas, which returns us to the theme of the Pythia/Oracle/Snake connections too. “In Greek mythology, a Gorgon (/ˈɡɔːrɡən/; plural: Gorgons, Ancient Greek: Γοργών/Γοργώ Gorgon/Gorgo) is a female creature. The name derives from the ancient Greek word gorgós, which means “dreadful”, and appears to come from the same root as the Sanskrit word “garğ” (Sanskrit: गर्जन, garjana) which is defined as a guttural sound, similar to the growling of a beast,[1] thus possibly originating as an onomatopoeia. While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters […]
(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.

(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …
(Photography & Poetry) Thoughts of Spring by Deanne Quarrie

Spring At the highest point on the tree, you stretch, reaching for the sun. Your pink petals elegant in their grace, you stand alone. Bravest of all, for leaves have yet to come to offer shade Branches bare except for furry buds that will soon follow in imitation of your daring first move. Intrepid flower of Spring, I feel like you in my yearning for the Sun!
(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
(Essay) The Emergence celebrated at Spring Equinox by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Autumnal Equinox occurs each year in the range of March 20-23 in the Southern Hemisphere, and in the range of September 20 -23 in the Northern Hemisphere. Autumn Equinox is a point of sacred balance: it is the point of balance in the dark part of Earth’s annual cycle. Sun is equidistant between North and South as it was/is at Spring Equinox, but in this dark phase of the cycle, the trend is toward increasing dark. Henceforth the dark part of the day will exceed the light part: thus it is a Moment of certain descent … and a sacred Moment for feeling and contemplating the grief and power of loss, for ceremoniously joining personal and collective grief and loss with the larger Self in whom we are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZflKLkvP8 Below is the text of the video. It is based on the traditional poetry for PaGaian Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony[i]. This is the Moment of the Autumnal Equinox in our Hemisphere – the moment of balance of light and dark in the dark part of the cycle. The light and dark parts of the day in the South and in the North of our planet, are of equal length at this time. We feel for the balance in this moment – Earth as She is poised in relationship with the Sun … breathing in the light, swelling with it, letting our breath go to the dark, staying with it. In our part of Earth, the balance is tipping into the dark. We remember the coolness of it. This is the time when we give thanks for our harvests – all that we have gained. And we remember too the sorrows, losses involved. The story of Old tells us that Persephone, Beloved Daughter, is given the wheat from Her Mother – the Mystery, knowledge of life and death. She receives it graciously. But she sets forth into the darkness – both Mother and Daughter grieve that it is so. Demeter, the Mother, says: “You are offered the wheat in every moment … I let you go as Child, most loved of Mine: you descend to Wisdom, to Sovereignty. You will return as Mother, co-Creator with me. You are the Seed in the Fruit, becoming the Fruit in the Seed. Inner Wisdom guides your path.” We give thanks for our harvests – our lives they are blessed. We are Daughters and Sons of the Mother. Yet we take our Wisdom and all that we have gained, and remember the sorrows – the losses involved. We remember the grief of the Mother, of mothers and lovers everywhere, our grief. Persephone descends. The Beloved One is lost. Persephone goes forth into the darkness to become Queen of that world. She tends the sorrows. The Seed represents our Persephones, who tends the sorrows – we are the Persephones, who may tend the sorrows. We go out into the night with Her and plant our seeds. Persephone blesses us with her fertile promise: “You have waxed into the fullness of life, And waned into darkness; May you be renewed in tranquility and wisdom[ii].” These represent our hope. The Seed of life never fades away. She is always present. Blessed be the Mother of all life. Blessed be the life that comes from Her and returns to Her. We tie red threads on each other: we participate in the Vision of the Seed – of the continuity of Life, that continues beneath the visible. The Mother knowledge grows within us. Our hope is in the Sacred Balance of the Cosmos – the Thread of Life, the Seed that never fades away: it is the Balance of Grief and Joy, the Care that we may feel in our Hearts. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, p. 239-247. [ii] Charlene Spretrnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, p. 116. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: a Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992/1978.

(Essay 2) Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Reversing the Reversed of the Buddhist Textual Erasure (Part 1) Dragon Loop and Sound Tube in the Temple Bell of Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) Restored Sillan Temple Bell (8-9th C), excavated in Uncheong-dong, Cheongju Among the many Sillan Magoist Cetacean expressions which stands out is the temple bell, traditionally known as the Whale Bell (鯨鍾 Gyeongjong). The Whale Bell, a signature device of Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism, has two distinctive features, the dragon loop and the sound tube. The dragon loop functions to hang the bell, which occurs in Chinese and Japanese bells as well. This is not to say that the dragon in Chinese and Japanese counterparts are the same as that of the Korean temple bell, a point which was discussed in an earlier part of my essay on the Korean temple bell. However, the sound tube is a feature exclusively present in Korean temple bells, which is, among others, a hallmark of the Korean temple bell, distinguished from its Chinese and Japanese counterparts. Cast adjacent to each other in the bell head, the two are depicted as if the dragon is carrying the sound tube on its back (see the image). By pinpointing the sound tube, a group of Korean scholars (Suyeong Hwang and Donghae Gwak) posit that the sound tube is a replication of the pacifying flute that defeats all (萬波息笛 Manpasikjeok), the seventh century Sillan treasure. Put differently, the Korean temple bell is an innovative remake of the pacifying flute, which is uniquely Sillan. To support their contention, they draw attention to the fact that the sound tube of some Korean temple bells comes in the form of bamboo nodes. Indeed, while most temple bells show the design of nodes etched in the upright pipe, some from the Goryeo period (910-1392) specify the nodes as those of a bamboo tree.[1] Ironically, the bell with the design of bamboo nodes is a whale-effacing variation of earlier Sillan ones with decorative nodes. The Sillan temple bells replicate the bamboo-looking cetacean flute not a bamboo-made flute. This indicates that the Buddhist erasure of Magoist Cetaceanism was gaining hegemony in the Goryeo period. In any case, what does the bamboo-like node design have to do with the pacifying flute? According to the myth of the pacifying flute, the pacifying flute is made from a mysterious bamboo tree grown in a mysteriously floating mountain in the sea. And the dragon loop is no mere functional or decorative design. In the story, the dragon presents the pacifying flute to King Sinmun the Great, the protagonist, with the message that he would be ruling the whole world with the sound. Even if agreeing that the pacifying flute is replicated as the sound tube, there is an enigma yet to be unraveled. How is the sound tube or the pacifying flute related with whales? What is the role of the dragon with regards to whales? Answering these questions requires reinstating the lost name for whales in the myth of the pacifying flute. Temple Bell in the Early Goryeo Period with the sound tube resembling bamboo nodes, Samseon-am in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Temple Bell in the Late Goryeo Period with the sound tube resembling bamboo nodes Truth is that the myth of the pacifying flute written in the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three States), the 13th century Korean Buddhist text that depicts the mytho-history of Korea ultimately Buddhist, comes to us as an altered story. There involved a Buddhist obfuscation of Magoist Cetaceanism. As background, the Buddhist church could not but embrace folk and Shamanic practices in order to reach out to the populace. It must be said that the Buddhist church did not kill or antagonize Magoist Cetacean folk practices. Although seemingly peaceful, however, Buddhist authority aimed at the goal of a patriarchal religion: To subdue and coopt pre-patriarchal spiritual and folk practices, which is gynocentric and cetacean. The evidence of Magoist Cetaceanism had to be dismantled but not completely destroyed. To subdue the public recognition of Magoist Cetaceanism, Ilyeon, its Buddhist monk author, replaces the whale, a narwhal in particular, with “a moving mountain in the sea” and the tusk of a narwhal with “a bamboo tree growing atop the mountain.” By undoing the linguistic harness, we are able to assess the seventh century Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism. It is possible to reconstruct the cogent Magoist Cetacean story of the pacifying flute. At one point of time before the 13th century when the Samguk Yusa was written, there likely existed an original version of the story, which articulates the narwhal (외뿔고래 Oeppul Gorae or 일각고래 Ilgak Gorae) and its single tusk (Oeppul). If we reverse “a moving mountain” to “a pod of whales” and “the bamboo tree” with “the tusk of a narwhal,” the myth of the pacifying flute would make a perfect sense as follows: (A hypothetically original account 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 pod of whales (a little mountain) in the Sea of Whales (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 whale (the mountain) floating like a turtle’s head in the sea. There was a bamboo-tree-like tusk (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 …
(Book Excerpt 5) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] How My Education and Experience Helped Me Study Mago The topic of Mago came to me in time for writing my doctoral dissertation for the Women’s Studies in Religion program that I was enrolled in at Claremont Graduate University. My graduate education, which I crafted to be a feminist cross-cultural alchemical process of de-educating myself from the patriarchal mode of knowledge-making, led me to encounter the hitherto unheard-of Goddess of East Asia, Mago. I came to read the Budoji, the principal text of Magoism, in 2000 and did some basic research to find out that Mago was known among people in Korea and that S/HE was also found in Chinese and Japanese sources.
(Essay 1) Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first published in Trivia, Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007.] I come from Korea. When I say I came from Korea, I do not mean “Korea” in a nationalistic sense. Nationalism, reinforced by international politics as a cardinal rule of the global community, precludes the agency of women; it is a game of the patriarchal controllers. When I say I am Korean, I mean I am a Magoist Korean, a gynocentric Korean. My Korean identity refers to my cultural and historical root. Fortunately, I have found my Korean gynocentric root in the tradition of Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia.1

Tag: Mary Saracino

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Mago Almanac Year 9 Monthly Wheels

S/HE: IJGS V4 N1-2 2025 (B/W Paperback)

Mago Almanac Year 8 (for 2025)

Program Booklets

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