June 26, 2020June 19, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Labrys by Pegi Eyers

The first labyrinths were associated with the ceremonies of the Moon Goddesses of the ancient world such as the Amazon Goddess Gaea, and with the symbol of the double-headed axe. “Her Read More …

May 22, 2020May 22, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Ninhursaga by Pegi Eyers

The ancient Sumerian “Mountain Mother,” Ninhursaga gave birth to a family of deities and created the first humans. She was associated with the omega symbol (womb), the tree of life, Read More …

February 28, 2020February 9, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Inanna by Pegi Eyers

Inanna is the Sumerian Goddess of the morning and evening star. A symbol of death and rebirth, and presiding over both night and day, the winged Goddess moved freely between Read More …

January 24, 2020January 20, 2020 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Fertility Woman: Power of the Blue Stone by Pegi Eyers

To our Paleolithic Ancestors, it was obvious that women, with their mysterious cycles, performed the same functions as the earth, which was the source of all nourishment, protection and procreative Read More …

December 27, 2019December 23, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Dryad, Tree Nymph by Pegi Eyers

Dryads are Greek or Hindu tree spirits. Bonded to their tree for life, both the nymphs and the gods punished any mortals who dared to harm the trees. “Her soul message Read More …

August 30, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Earth Mother Motorcycle by Pegi Eyers

The Goddess Spirituality movement seeks to re-sanctify the natural places of the world and the attitudes and icons of our culture. Why not a Goddess on a Harley? Commemorative shrines Read More …

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

(Art 2) Gather the Women by Pegi Eyers

The shared support and connection between women allows us to heal from the patriarchy that has waged war on us for millennia, and joining together in the true spirit of Read More …

June 1, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art 1) Gather the Women by Pegi Eyers

Gather the Women 1/2 The shared support and connection between women allows us to heal from the patriarchy that has waged war on us for millennia, and joining together in Read More …

April 26, 2019October 2, 2019 RTM Editors1 Comment

(Essay) Green Goddess: Loving the Earth with a Fierce Devotion! by Pegi Eyers

“The essence of LOVE is found everywhere in nature, and LOVE is the vibratory field for the plant kingdom, the kinship of the creatures, the nurturing power of the Feminine, Read More …

July 9, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 5) Re-visioning Medusa Eds. by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren, et. al.

The Medusa Imaginal Pegi Eyers WHEN I PUT ON MY PAPER MEDUSA MASK,154 my serpent jewelry and snakeskin robes, I embody an ancient feminine force of resistance, seeking to shut Read More …

December 30, 2015November 8, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Video) 2015 Published Goddess/Female Divine Books by Hearth Moon Rising

[Editors’ Note: This video presentation was created as part of 2015 Nine Day Solstice Celebration, a special event sponsored by Mago Academy and The Girl God.] “2015 Published Goddess/Female Divine Read More …

November 3, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Pegi Eyers

Pegi Eyers writes about sacred land, indigenous mind and the holistic principles of sustainable living, and is a member of the Celtic mtDNA-based Helena Clan (world clans descended from “Mitochondrial Read More …

(Poem) When the Mists Shall Part by Arlene Bailey

Aerial image of Glastonbury Tor emerging from morning mist, Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Autumn (November) 2022. Image by AdamBurtonPhotography.com I come from a time before timeA time that existed in sucha way that the inhabitantsof this planet understoodthings beyond this plane,things beyond this worldIt was a time of learningand questioningA time of intuition and themagic of creative venturesIt was a time I thought wouldlast forever, a time we thought…We – the Sisterhood – thoughtwould last foreverNestled in our own sacred gnosisand as a community devotedto the greatness of the AllThis was the time before the delugeBefore division entered our Worldand our livesBefore it altered our understanding,which, if I speak the truth, was thebeginning of our undoingBit by bit all we’d created imploded,as did our island home and our ways ofbeing and knowing, living and doingNever again to exist in the time of manas the mists of time enshroudedthis Holy IsleIn the time of Woman, however…Now that’s a different dimension andShe has brought home and is bringing homemany of our knowings and ways of beingWays open for those who come searchingfor something they sense was lostSomething they sense once again liveson this plane available to those seekingthe Magick and the Mystery of theAll of the All of the AllOnce more it is the time of the PriestessThe time of AvalonFor as the women are called,the Mists begin to part andThe Holy Isle is once again visibleto those Seekers pure of heart,open in mind and steadfast in theirdevotion to what most call a mythWhat they and we know to be thetruth of the existence of the agesThe truth of the Sacred IsleThe truth of Avalon_________________________________________________©2023 https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(Pandemic Poem 5) Surely by Jyoti Wind

Blue window with ladder, NM. Photo by Jyoti Wind Surely, as light follows dark, we will emerge from this time with an acknowledged connectedness and keep it in daily awareness. Surely, through the fears we’ve faced, we will have a more acute sense of where we are in the scheme of things. Surely, our prior arrogance, thinking we had dominion and license to forge ahead gave way to humility to take forward. Surely, this virus as catalyst changes us, reminds us that as guests and stewards, we are in service to a greater consciousness. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Poem & Art) committed by Maya Daniel

you bonded your heart and committed to serve the people the enemies painted your name black as coal they hunted you that calls from home were painfully undone some thought of you a mystique no one could dare say you are dead or alive, it’s just that you disappeared in shadows and fasten your heart to the revolutionary movement, embraced a life that beats survived moments of death cheating and now fading away to the stars thank you for being here you who found life’s motive and dared the challenges of our time.
(Prose) Stardust Calling by Amina Rodriguez

I call in my Soul Essence, Great Mother Within, I call in what I need for health and vitality, confidence and courage, abundance, joy and may I always be love manifest unto all beings and may all beings be free and have peace, love, joy and abundance. The particles before my eyes are charged with light and I can see that I can manipulate them, please I ask my cells, never forget that. Remember to always observe the lit particles in front of your eyes knowing that you are that. She tells me, the stardust in your cells are crying out to you in need longing for your touch, for your love, and your self-compassion. I have long longed to honor your call Great Mother, Green Heart of heaven within, but only now beneath my rooted feet and under the green grass, the primal rhythms vibrate far under the dark rich earth. Our ancient ancestors call out to us through the earth and through all those ancient ruins. Divine Mother creator of humanity, we are the children of the earth, as we look upon you with such care you look upon us as innocent children, Soul Essence will guide us, flow with the Great Mother Within, let Her energy flow through you like the blood flows through your veins. Awaken the tribal spirit within you however in which ever way you can, it is that Spirit that will guide you, the One that lives there among the trees and within your heart’s desires. Surrender to Her Spirit and from your insides will flow creations beyond your current known experience. Do you hear her drumming heart? The rumblings of her ancient sounds are the echoes of our ancestors beating hearts, the music of Pachamama, may our breath with hers become as One. (Meet Mago Contributor) Amina Rodriguez.
(She Summons Excerpt) The Seed Who Summons (Part 1) by Claire Dorey

Were snake 1 by Claire Dorey There is a seed deep underground that the serpent knows about. Inanna knew. Isis did too. “What were they doing, our ancestral mothers, with their hands full of snakes?” I am standing quietly, resting my forehead on a cherry tree, talking to a viper. This summer has been a race against the birds – ‘sky watchers’ with their wasteful beaks, tearing holes in sacred flesh, cherries swinging like pendulums from the tree I planted forty years ago, when I was young and fit. The boughs hang red, ripe fruit rotting under foot – a decaying carmine carpet, nutrient rich. The tree I planted has blossomed into a fertile temple, whilst I flounder in my hot, dry, fat years – body violently rejecting all that is artificial, with flashes of heat. I have become a two headed, fire breathing monster – a dragon, incinerating my way though everything I find intolerable. My flame thrower is so deadly, I’ve had to retreat into nature, before I do real damage. I need to dig. I need dirt under my fingernails – that is my plug into sanity. When I’m in the garden I am like a pig, snuffling and rooting about in the earth. Something deep under the soil has summoned me. It is the Time Of Covid, and a portal has opened. Sophia the snake slithers up the cherry tree. She is dainty and delicate and sparkles like moire silk. Ever since Eve was expelled from the Garden Of Eden and her Wisdom Serpent, rendered legless, snakes have missed their special bond with women. ‘We serpents miss dancing with the descendants of Ishtar,” sighs Sophia, “our guts need to feel the vibration of the gyrating Goddess, stepping barefoot upon the Earth.” Snakes detest the biblical version of that story – with venom! They find it barbaric and hate that it twists woman into the villain of humanity. “Think.” says Sophia. “WOMEN ARE THE VILLAIN OF HUMANITY” “It is truly absurd. But that was the propaganda of the time and the closer ancient history got to Biblical times, the more demeaned women became – and what’s more, women are still having to live with the vestiges of this nonsense.” The light catches Sophia’s eye. It glimmers like obsidian. “I know how you like to dig,” she whispers. “You are opening up to the divine messaging of the female mysteries. Lean your back against the cherry tree, close your eyes and let your intuition answer my questions.” “Why do you think the Ancient Greeks believed that Hades had to abduct and rape Persephone so she could descend into the underworld, becoming Autumn and Winter, when she could go there of her own accord?” she asked. “Why does the patriarch think that Demeter mourned her daughter’s absence, as she wintered in the underworld, when it was the chilling effectiveness of the Rape Myth she was mourning? “I’ll tell you why,” interjects Sophia, before I can answer. “They wanted to subjugate the cycles of the seasons. They crushed our trust in the seeds of regeneration, just like they crushed Persephone, beneath their heavy hand-tooled boots. They wanted us to believe the reassurance, that life will burst forth each Spring, could only be given, if there was a rape, that violently put Mother Earth in her place, firmly under the iron shod boot of man. They dominated through ownership and marked their territory.” “Tell me more,” I urged. We are in lockdown. The pandemic is raging. Humanity is facing tough questions about where it can go from here. Divine Feminine energy is rising up through vents in the Earth, and it feels like patriarchy is in chaos, approaching its death throws and taking down a lot of people with it. I sense I am in the presence of great wisdom. I want to hear Sophia speak. I want to know what she knows.(To be continued) * About Claire Dorey Published in, Warrior Queen; Answering The Call Of The Morrigan – The Girl God Books, 2021: A Shriek Goddessy and Eel Kundalini, St Patriarch and the Wide Sargasso Sea – words and images Published in, She Who Summons – Mago Books, 2021: The Seed Who Summons – words and images Published in, In Defiance of Oppression – The Legacy of Boudicea – The Girl God Books: When The Colour Of Emotion Floods The Nervous System. Earth Mothers and daughters surviving invasion and the stereotypes of misogyny. Accepted for publication in, Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma – The Girl God Books: Revolutions Of Defiant Ecstasy: Stealing Kali And Goddess Wisdom From The Primordial Wave Of Feminism. Accepted for publication in, The Crone Initiation and Invitation: Women speak on the Menopause Journey – The Girl God Books: Fat is a Goddess Issue – Gateway to Khaos and Reframing the Menopause. [Editor’s Note: This piece is included in She Summons: Why… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality?” Volume 1 (Mago Books, 2021).]
(Poem) Changing Woman Speaks by Sara Wright

The two climbed steep hills and rubble to reach the meadow. The flat-topped mountain peered down at the women gathering stones (from her body) as if they were diamonds. Amber, moss, pearl white, rose red and orange, gray and ebony – a luminescence emanated from each, almost as if the moon had infused each flake and boulder with her translucent light.
(Essay 1) What It’s Like to Live on Wimmin’s Land by Hearth Moon Rising

There’s been a lot of discussion on social media over the past year about reviving wimmin’s land. Many women are proposing establishing all-woman living collectives in rural areas, a phenomenon that began in the 1970s and faded somewhat by the turn of the century (though some women’s communities are still around). For women dreaming about this alternative, I wanted to share some of my experience. I lived on Adobeland, a now-defunct women’s community in southern Arizona, from 1989-1990 and again from 1993-1996. I also visited wimmin’s lands in California and New Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s. Last year I had the opportunity to meet with alumni of A Women’s Place, another defunct women’s community in upstate New York, and learn about their experiences. Source: US Bureau of Land Management Many women dreaming of wimmin’s land are inspired by their experiences at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Michfest was an important part of women’s culture and in my memory (I only attended once) a heady experience. Living on wimmin’s land, however, is more ordinary and more difficult than a conference or festival. It’s a lot of work, both physical work and relational work. It’s a lot of hardship, too, both physical hardship and the hardship that comes from the lifestyle. Many women come to wimmin’s land and decide on their third day (or thereabouts) that they are going to live on “the land” for the rest of their lives. They quit jobs, burn bridges and take on commitments to the collective that they cannot follow through on. Reality sets in, and in another six weeks these women are gone, never returning to wimmin’s land again. The good news is that your women’s group can basically set the rules and parameters that you want. Every women’s community has its unique culture, structure, and set of problems. Some communities have time and work commitments; others are more organic. Some communities are all lesbian, others allow women of all sexual orientations. Some allow male children; others do not. You don’t have to be “inclusive” of everyone. That’s a value appropriated by men from feminist collectives striving for diversity of class, ability, and ethnic representation. Men have twisted “inclusivity” into a form of domination. You simply can’t be inclusive of everyone in everything you do. Not even every woman. Wimmin’s land, by it’s nature, is exclusive on many levels, not the least of which is that you usually need to be introduced to the community: it certainly isn’t advertised. Source: US National Park Service Adobeland, where I lived, allowed straight women to live and visit. We also allowed men on the land for specific purposes, such as towing a disabled car. Male children were allowed to visit. I don’t believe we ever had a woman request to raise her son in that environment. With advance warning, we allowed a woman’s father or brother to visit her structure and meet with some of the women. At that time, there were more flaky religious cults around, Jonestown was a recent memory, and the concern of a woman’s relatives (even the male ones) to understand the place where she was living was reasonable. The point is that you can make the structure fit the needs of your group. Your women’s community will have conflicts with neighbors, no matter how isolated your location. Disagreements can arise regarding water rights, right-of-way, and local values around nudity, among other things. Conflicts may not be confined to people you are disposed to dislike, such as redneck men, but may involve other women or indigenous communities. And you may find yourself sympathizing, over time, with some perspectives of poor rural men and possibly aligning with them on local political issues. A women’s community is not a ticket out of the wider world. There is no place on earth isolated enough for that. In retrospect, some members of one women’s community felt that they had needlessly generated conflict through reflexive disregard for the values of the white rural community they settled in. They stressed the importance of active listening and diplomacy from the outset, before ill feelings become established. Source: Darxus/Wikimedia Commons Adobeland initially attracted huge attention from law enforcement, due to the secrecy of the community. Women felt, justifiably, that they had no obligation to seek dispensation from male authorities for living collectively, and male authorities assumed the women were establishing an Amazon terrorist satanic brainwashing child-abusing drug cult. Once that issue was disposed of (which escalated to the point of SWAT teams in helicopters), another problem developed. Adobe bought the land in what she thought was a barren corner of the desert, but the population of Tucson exploded over the years and the area became a bedroom community. New arrivals in what was now a suburban development disliked the “commune” as they called it, and initiated a concerted effort to drive the women out. This took the form of complaints to all manner of local authorities: the health department, child protective services, the sheriff, the dog catcher. These bureaucracies have a mandate to investigate all complaints, and complaints were so numerous that eventually the health department established a regular schedule for inspections. Eventually the various petty law enforcement agencies, weary of the bogus demands on their time and resources, assigned women to investigate complaints against the community. This was a victory of sorts, respecting the request of the women of Adobeland that this was women’s land and all harassers should be women. This article is getting long, so I will continue this subject in a later article. I don’t want to give short shrift to another conflict issue: the conflicts amongst women living on the land. (To be continued)Meet Mago Contributor, Hearth Moon Rising.
(Prose) 2015 Survivors of Violence Art Exhibit—Reading by Swami Pujananda Saraswati

I awoke to the news that there was a volcano erupting in Chile. The images were stunning. I saw the timelapse and bowed my head to Her power. But that’s Chile’s Calbuco volcano, and it is far away. But its victims are not far, they are near. Nature behaves in fury, and humans get the idea that they can also behave irrationally and even criminally with impunity. There is wisdom in nature that does not reach the human abuser. Let me stretch my imagination and sit with you and with this thought. There is wisdom in Nature… even if it kills innocent people? But that is not fair? Who said we’ve come to a world that is fair? Look around and see all the destruction around us, this may not sound too helpful, but it is a necessary thought for dissolving cycles of self-pity and destructing memory of suffering. Not all memory of our suffering should be discarded—it would be like throwing the water with the baby. But there suffering arose a fire within us that should not be denied its power. Because we are powerful beyond measure, if only we knew it. It is interesting that in Kundalini Yoga, the science of chakras and nadis, the navel center relates to will power. In other indigenous worldviews, the navel is considered to be firm like a mountain. A mountain evokes certain firmness, we know. But in our culture, all the advertisement and propaganda are about keeping women at the water chakra, the chakra of sexuality and preventing women from reaching a fuller power and potential. In a market economy most relationships include harmful elements of competition. When navel chakra or center of power is activated, no one can tell us that we are victims or abused anymore. A woman who has come to her power is a force to be reckoned with, even if she appears to be soft and gentle, her thoughts and feelings can change the world. And you are the changing women, initiating a journey into transformation that will put an end patriarchal domination. I want to read to you a short essay by Anne Baring, the title is “Awakening to the Feminine,” you can find her online. http://www.annebaring.com/anbar34_awakeningtofeminine.html The word ‘Feminine’ stands for the Soul: the unseen cosmic web of life that connects each one of us to all others as well as to the life of the planet and the greater life of the cosmos. It stands for the recognition that we live within a Sacred Order and that we have a responsibility to protect the life of the planet and all the variety of species it embraces instead of exploiting them for the benefit of our species alone. In sum, the word ‘Feminine’ stands for a totally different perspective on life, a totally different worldview or paradigm of reality and for the feeling values which might reflect and support that worldview. It stands for a new planetary consciousness and the arduous creation of a new kind of civilization. Without reconnecting to the Soul and the guidance and wisdom of the Feminine, without going in search of the values it represents and opening our own heart to its subtle guidance, we will not understand the purpose of our presence on this planet, nor will we be able to disempower the unconscious atavistic tendencies which draw us ever closer to the destruction of our habitat and therefore to self-annihilation. Like the fiery magma of the earth’s core, the long repressed feminine principle is rising to meet the masculine one in response to a deep soul impulse to balance and marry these archetypal energies within ourselves and within our world. The resurgence of the Feminine invites a new planetary consciousness where the deepest instincts of the heart in both men and women: compassion, informed intelligence and a longing to protect, heal and make whole are able to find expression in ways that can best be described as devotion to planetary and cosmic life. Awakening to the Feminine means becoming protective of the whole of creation; dying to all the divisive ways of looking at life and each other; being born into an utterly different vision of reality. As it becomes more conscious in us, we are already becoming aware of our dependence for our continued existence on the integrity and sustainability of the planetary biosphere. Our image of reality and our relationship with the planet and with each other are being transformed as we assimilate the implications of this ‘marriage’ of the two primary archetypal principles. The return of the Feminine has the impact of a planetary earthquake, dissolving long-established social patterns, political and financial systems and religious institutions, asking for a radical transformation of our understanding of life….. (Anne Baring) I cannot stress enough the importance of allowing only positive and compassionate empowering women in your life. People who have territoriality issues, who see you as competition or as victim have no place in your life. If my friend could do it, so can you. You find a new beginning as powerful testimony when you connect body-mind-spirit, and much good and personal strength can come out of our pain. It is a strength that comes from having been broken and recovering the ever present unbroken one within. She went through feeling broken, and erected a new identity out of inspiration and cautious attention to who she associated with. She is living proof that recovery is possible. My life mission is to empower women with herstories of healing after abandonment, trauma and abuse, stories about women who crossed the threshold of victim identity to the new dawn of transformed empowered and compassionate presence. Once you shed the victim identity and grow into empowered woman character, you have one more mountain to climb to reach complete satisfaction from your long journey and efforts. Inspiration comes to compel you to empower other women. A time comes when it is your turn to mentor women who suffer abuse from …
(Book Exerpt 1) She Rises Volume 3 by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3 (Mago Books, 2019)INTRODUCTION DEANNE QUARRIE, D. MIN. I look back and can’t imagine why I said yes, to Helen Hye-Sook Hwang when she asked me to be the lead editor for, She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3. Having edited and published an eight-time yearly, online magazine, The Global Goddess Oracle, I knew it was a big job and I was up for it. It was a lot. I never dreamed there would be so many amazing people, so many submissions, all bringing such talent, such heart and such love to this work. It was like being allowed into the hearts and yes, private lives of those women and men who love Goddess. It became primarily a job of organization, to keep track of so much. I asked Christine Hirsch to join me in co-editing this wonderful material, splitting the submissions, and we went to work. It took a long time, longer because of my health, interrupted with hospital stays followed by cataract surgery and so we had delays. Thank you, Helen, for being so kind and patient, waiting for me. Reading each piece, seeing the beautiful art and incredible poetry, often brought tears from the emotions I felt while reading into the lives of the contributors, the stories, so amazing and yet, so familiar as well. I feel such gratitude, knowing we all share such love in our similar journeys. We all have so many ways of expressing the deep commitments of living lives of joy, dedication and commitment, walking with Her. As you hold this book in your hands, may you be touched deeply as you read into all the lives of those who shared here for you. CHRISTINE COURTADE HIRSCH, PH. D. I have lived a brightly blessed life, but one of my greatest blessings was being asked to serve as a guest editor for She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3. Words cannot express the sheer pleasure and soul-deep joy of reading the submissions: the variety, the depth, the inspiration, the learning, the art, the majesty, the magic. I think perhaps equally important was being invited into the company of sisters – sisters in strength, in beliefs and values, in hope, in power, and in the so deeply undervalued recognition and sharing of what we have in common as women in the goddess sisterhood! Bright blessings to all as you read, learn, share, reach inward and outward, and grow in the magic, love and joy found within this volume! And thank you forever and beyond for allowing me to participate! HELEN HYE-SOOK HWANG, PH.D. She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? is the third volume in the She Rises trilogy after She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 1 (2015) and She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 2 (2016). The present volume continues on the path prepared by the two earlier volumes and takes the Goddess feminist activist movement to a new horizon. Creativity and connectivity are the hallmarks of this volume. Our 59 contributors have tailored the question, What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? to convey their insights and to address the importance and urgency of Goddess feminist activism amidst the current crises on the global context that affects all beings within the very eco-system. We in this volume collectively embrace a capacity of connectivity with other sisters and brothers across borders. Our message is that Goddess feminist activists are healing, nurturing and transforming ourselves and the world. We are born stronger. We are ever more grounded, committed, daring, creative, and fiercely focused. We are the trees that are crisscrossed at the root! This book presents a loom that interweaves colorful tapestries of insights, experiences, visions, research articles, poems, artworks, rituals, plays and creative activities across disciplinary boundaries. Our readers may sense a phenomenon through this book. Like other She Rises books, She Rises Volume 3 follows the convention of using Mothers as Parts and Sisters as Chapters. We have three Mothers (Mother One, Mother Two, and Mother Three) and nine Sisters (1 Sister East, 2 Sister North, 3 Sister West, 4 Sister South, 5 Sister Center, 6 Sister Wind, 7 Sister Fire, 8 Sister Water, and 9 Sister Earth) organized under each triad Mother. This is to visualize the cosmogonic principle of Sonic Nine Numerology embodied in the pantheon of our divine mothers and human ancestors (Goddesses) across cultures. As co-editor and publisher of the She Rises trilogy, I am ever honored and humbled for the history of the collective writing project itself. Indeed, it is a tremendous amount of time, effort, reading, thinking and editing as well as laying out the manuscript for publication that I have put into these projects. It is nothing other than a sharing of myself. Am I depleted? Do I feel exhausted inside? The opposite is the case. I am ever freshly renewed and charged to dream the dreams and work hard to make our dreams happen. At the core, the vision and necessity that I see among ourselves lead me to keep moving forward. In particular, I rejoice to see the very fruition of the She Rises trilogy in this volume. Our readers will discover bedazzling jewels in the forest, as I have found. As we complete the She Rises trilogy with this volume 3, I have a little flashback. About five years ago in the fall of 2014, I hurriedly announced in social media that we wanted to begin a book project of our collective writing on the topic of Goddess feminism, activism and spirituality. Out of the blue, I did that. Neither had I planned or thought about it. In fact, I never heard of the phrase, “Goddess feminism, activism and spirituality” before. Wennfier Lin-Havor had addressed a need to bring the Goddess to our attention during our phone conversation. Bringing the Goddess into our discourse wasn’t enough for me. Even the thought …

(Special Post 8) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Marija Krstic-Chin To remember who we really are (nature, cycles, network, creative force, one, infinite…) for the benefit of all of humanity and all living things; and to unite and unify as we broadcast, hand down, protect and defend this truth and each other against the oppressive intentions and actions of patriarchal perpetrators, puppets, and pawns who seek to enslave us by various old and new divide-and-conquer strategies.
(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 Mother Teresa 1) 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 I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in […]

A PaGaian Wheel of the Year and Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

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

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

(Mago Almanac 4) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[This and the following sequels are from Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), Years 1 and 2 (5, 6, 9, 10…), 5915-6 MAGO ERA, 2018-9 CE (Mago Books, 2017).] We want to get back the 13th Friday. This almanac shows how that is possible. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang INTRODUCTION (Continued) 13 MARY DALY QUOTES Each monthly calendar, headed by quotes from Mary Daly’s Wickedary, has space for users to continue OUR Story. 1 Elemental Rhythms 1: rhythms displaying the infinite interplay of unity and diversity characteristic of Elemental phenomena such as tides, seasons, phases of the moon: TIDAL RHYTHMS 2: cadences and vibrations of the wordings of Websters, which are Be-Spoken in cosmic concordance Background the Realm of Wild Reality; the Homeland of women’s Selves and of all other Others; the Time/Space where auras of plants, planets, stars, animals and all Other animate beings connect. 2 New Space Space on the Boundary of patriarchal institutions; Space created by women which provides real alternatives to the archetypal roles of fatherland; Space in which women Realize Power of Presence New Time Time on the Boundary of patriarchal time; women’s Life-Time; Time in which the past is changed and Archaic Futures are Realized 3 Archaic Time Original Creative Time, beyond the stifling grasp of archetypal molds and measures; the measure of Original Motion/E-Motion/Movement Archespheres the Realm of true beginnings, where Shrews shrink alienating archetypes and Unforget Archaic Origins, uncovering the Archimage, the Original Witch within 4 Re-calling 1: persistent/insistent Calling of the Wild; recurring invitation to Realms of Deep Memory 2: Active Unforgetting of participation in Be-ing; Re-membering and giving voice to Original powers, intuitions, memories 5 Courage to live The Courage to refuse inclusion in the State of the Living Dead, to break out from the deadforms of archetypal deadtime, to take leap after leap of Living Faith; Fiercely Biophilic Courage 6 Elemental Spirits Spirits/Angels/Demons manifesting the essential intelligence of spirit/matter; Intelligences ensouling the stars, animating the processes of earth, air, fire, water, enspiriting the sounds that are the Elements of words, connecting words with the earth, air, fire, water and with the sun, moon, planets, stars 7 Tidal Characterized by cosmic interconnections and rhythms; Elemental; Wild Tidal Memory Memory of the Deep Background, characterized by Tidal Rhythms of Re-membering: ELEMENTAL MEMORY Tidal Time Elemental Time, beyond the clocking/clacking of clonedom; Wild Time; Time that cannot be grasped by the tidily man-dated world; Time of Wicked Inspiration/Genius 8 Wild The vast Realm of Reality outside the pinoramic world view constructed by the bores and necrophiliacs of patriarchy; true Homeland of all Elemental be-ing, characterized by diversity, wonder, joy, beauty, Metamorphic Movement and Spirit 9 Biophilic Bonding 1: the Lusty combining of Elemental forces among Others 2: the uniting of Life-Loving women in Hopping/hoping harmony 10 Metabeing Realms of active participation in Powers of Be-ing; State of Ecstasy 11 Re-membering 1: Re-calling the Original intuition of integrity healing the dismembered Self – the Goddess within women; Re-calling the Primordial connections/conversations among women, animals, and other Elemental beings 2: Realzing the power to See and to Spell out connections among apparently disparate phenomena: Spinning, Creating 12 Powers of Be-ing Be-ing the Verb, understood in multiple and diverse manifestations, e.g., Knowing, Creating, Loving, Unfolding – and through diverse Metaphors – e.g. the Fates, Chaning Women (Eastan Atlehi, Creatrix of the Navaho People), Shekhina (female divine presence in Hebrew lore) 13 Thirteen represents the Other Hour, beyond the direction of disaster. It signals the Presence of the Otherworld – Metamorphospheres – True Homeland of all Hags, Crones, Furies, Furries and Other Friends. It represents the Realm of Wild Reality, the Background, the Time/Space when/where auras of plants, planets, stars, animals, and all truly animate be-ing connect. It points to Living Worlds utterly foreign to foolocracy – Worlds that are Eccentric, Erratic, Odd, Queer, Quaint, Outlandish, Weird. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.
(Photo Essay 2) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part II: The Lost Iconography of Gaeyang Halmi We visited the Suseong Shrine a second time on July 11, 2012. I looked inside the Shrine wherein a shaman ritual was being performed by a Mudang (Korean Shaman)[i] and her assistants. The Mudang in colorful ritual outfit appeared to console her female client on behalf of the spirit. The ritual continued another hour or so and we waited outside until she finished her performance. We had come here on the day of arrival in Jungmak-dong, Buan. The shrine was locked, apparently not being in use. On our second visit, the shrine was packed with four people and their instruments and equipment. It was so compact that it left no room for another person to sit; however, it was pumping up the sober energy. In fact, I have no recollection of which musical instruments were being played inside the shrine. Nonetheless, it feels like that I was hearing the sharp and high banging of the kkwaenggwari (gong) accompanied by the janggu (hourglass drum) rhythm [symbolizing the sound of thunder and rain respectively]. The “musical” sound that I heard shook off the debris of ordinary thoughts and took me to the Other Side of Reality. I began to see things clearly the way they are. I was stepping into the history of this place that I was going to discover.
(Budoji Essay 1) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Great Goddess Myth is the first and last revelation to humankind. Where the Primordial Mother is, there is Home!” Part 1 Introduction When I first read the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principal text of Magoism, my life journey took an unexpected turn. The power of the Magoist cosmogony began to work on me, and suddenly I was returning Home with/to/in Mago, the Great Goddess! Before, “Home” had seemed an unreal destination, a mirage that lured voyagers to its abyss of nowhere. I had been stripped of “Home.” The Magoist cosmogony gifted me with a vision of what I had been seeking as a feminist voyager. I meant to return Home. In Mago, I felt no longer free-floating, but this was not without its price. My radical feminist searches brought me no material benefits; rather, to become Myself was the reward. Layer after layer of patriarchal deception had to be peeled off. And for women who, like me, came from the non-Western, formerly colonized world, reversing the reversals required a deeper analysis of racism, ethnocentrism, and colonialism. I underwent the process of becoming Me, a process which also led me to WE. Personally, Homecoming means an integration of myself within the mytho-historical-cultural context of Magoism. However, Homecoming in the Great Goddess can never be an isolated individual act. Magoism unfolds the Primordial Home wherein all beings are kindred. The Primordial Home is for everyone. Everyone is destined to return Home in the Great Goddess because She is Here for us all. She will be Here for as long as humanity survives. Homecoming is a harbinger; it signals the arrival of WE, a very old concept that was misconstrued if not tabooed in patriarchy. The nature of my life has changed. “I” is no longer in the way of “WE.” “I” and “WE” do not stand against each other. Furthermore, “I” is transformed by “WE,” just as are all things in the universe. Scalar turns to vector. Chaos yields to order. The labyrinth leads to the Source. My feminism is rewarded with gynocentrism, the Goddess Matrix in which the female principle by far surpasses patriarchy. As many admit, Myth, the story of the divine, is etiological, meaning it explains the origin of things. I hold that only the gynocentric cosmogonic myth can be fully etiological, shedding light on the primal beginning. Myth is inherently gynocentric, for it is derived from the perception of the Primordial Mother, the oldest divine in human history. Put differently, Myth tells us that the Divine is She, that Female is the original divine. Myth is ultimately inseparable from the Great Goddess. The Primordial Mother is the macrocosmic translation of a mother. She is the Metaphor for life-giver and life-raiser. Divinity issues from Her. In Her, everything, including the God, is endowed with divinity. The etiological and metaphoric nature of Myth is fully illumined only in the story of the female beginning. The Goddess Myth told to/by us testifies to what patriarchy can’t or doesn’t tell. It is a language distinguished from that of patriarchy, dominating if not violent. The nature of Its language is persuasive and pacific. The truth It tells awakens one to Home. It is intrinsically soteriological, and herein lies the urgency of Myth: It shows the Way that humanity needs to know and follow in order to survive and flourish. The Great Goddess Myth is the first and last revelation to humankind. Where the Primordial Mother is, there is Home! Mago is not necessarily the “creator” of things. In the Magoist cosmogony, there is no one who created or creates anything alone. (I have used the term “cosmogony” in place of “creation” to avoid the conflation of Magoist thought with the origin-stories of patriarchal religions.) Instead, all things are interdependent and the power of auto-genesis is embedded within the universe itself. In explaining that, the Magoist cosmogony does not employ a magical or a logical jump. In the time of beginning, cosmic rays dance in accordance with the law of nature. Mago and primordial matter are self-born through the movement of cosmic music. Mago is, above all, the Cause of human existence. All things on Earth are indebted to Mago for She initiated the process auto-genesis of the Earth itself. In short, She is the Source of Life on Earth. Without Her, nothing is possible for us.

Tag: Pegi Eyers

(Art) Labrys by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art) Ninhursaga by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art) Inanna by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art) Fertility Woman: Power of the Blue Stone by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art) Dryad, Tree Nymph by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art) Earth Mother Motorcycle by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art 2) Gather the Women by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Art 1) Gather the Women by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Essay) Green Goddess: Loving the Earth with a Fierce Devotion! by Pegi Eyers

Like this:

(Book Excerpt 5) Re-visioning Medusa Eds. by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren, et. al.

Like this:

(Video) 2015 Published Goddess/Female Divine Books by Hearth Moon Rising

Like this:

(Meet Mago Contributor) Pegi Eyers

Like this:

Mago Almanac Year 8 (for 2025)

S/HE: IJGS V3 N2 2024 (B/W Paperback)

S/HE: IJGS V3 N1 2024 (B/W Paperback)

2025 S/HE Conference Program Booklet

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: