October 29, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin3 Comments

(Poem) Annwn by Angelika Ruediger

Annwn1 Light of a lonely candle Yours is the task to make us feel The deep, the dark, the unknown.

(Poem) My Lady: A poem written for Love by Sara Wright

My Lady is a Messenger; her peaked cap, breast and body tinted the palest rose. A bittersweet orange beak cracks scattered seed.
(Poem & Art) The Return to Nature by Noris Binet

Art by Noris Binet The Return to Nature The Return to the Earth To the elements To what gives life and nourishes To what connects us With the essence of things As they are naked Without covering them, altering them, or discarding them This is the meeting I am having every day from when I rise until I lie down. I’m returning little by little to recognize that my life’s path has to be baptized with life, Has to be sacralized with the presence of the elements that form my body. The elements! The foundation of all existence which is why they are sacred for all communities of peoples who live in harmony with nature, with the sky and with the cosmos. The water that cleans purifies, nurtures, hydrates also baptizes. The air that oxygenates, purifies and nourishes is the life thread of the ethereal where the soul dwells. The fire, hot and consuming, regenerating and transmuting is the key to alchemy. Under the ardent sun one receives the cosmic energy. The earth solid, pasty malleable, absorbs regenerates, revitalizes and returns everything to its origin. She is the mother where we are all reborn. The four elements are the foundation the very nature, of the body that you possess and the spirit that you are. Stop for a moment And stay conscious of your body and the elements, because you are fire, water earth and wind. Meet them before this body returns to earth and goes back to ashes do it now while there is consciousness. The elements are sacred, because they are never born nor die– just transformed and constantly. Wise people of the past knew this and is why they worshiped them. They understood their bodies to be mud, water, fire and air. They were not ignorant because they honored the rising sun or the moon in all its facets because they worshiped rivers and freshwater lakes or brought offerings to the sea as the origin of life. No, not ignorant– to the contrary, they recognized the source from which life rises and where all existence finally returns. They blessed the fruits of the earth with water and purified its toxins with fire, knowing that nature’s way was the only way to remain healthy vital and active. They saw that human spirit only blossoms where everything flows and that paradise is not in a faraway place But right here when we open our eyes and see clearly that we are nature itself and there is no separation between she and us. That our flesh energetically is the earth and that water predominates our bodies, the air infuses life and allows us to exist, fire is the same heat that we generate from inside our own selves. We are life itself eternally birthing! Noris Binet © 2/14/17. Guadalajara, Vida Sana, Mexico https://www.magoism.net/2019/08/meet-mago-contributor-noris-binet/
(Art Essay) Body and Venus Entwined by Claire Dorey

Venus symbols 1 by Claire Dorey Moon cycles and women’s cycles dance in cosmic synchronicity, but what about the rhythm of Venus, planet and Goddess of Love? Are we in tune with Her dance and how is She encoded in ancient symbolism? The priestess gazes beyond her own reflection. Too brilliant to look at, she’s observing, in a mirror, Venus in transit, once diamond bright, now a dark circle merging with the molten fury that is the Sun. Her intermittent orbit, a song of love and loss and ecstatic return, light to dark, dark to light is a fleeting moment of intangible impermanence, showing us how we, on lonely Earth, are cut off from and connected to a rare song. To understand Venus symbolism it is necessary to understand the way she moves. According to Joe Pao, Venus-moon encounters occur roughly every 27 days, 7 hours and 43 minutes, approximately one sidereal month [1] [Positions vary according to orbits]. According to exploratorium.edu Venus appears as the Morning Star, visible in the pre-dawn sky for 263 days (late August to March); disappears for 50 days; reappears as the Evening Star, after sunset, for 263 days; then fades from view for eight days [2]. Note: depending on sources, time spans vary, some sources say three days and three nights [3]. Venus transits (when Venus moves in front of the Sun) occur in pairs, eight years apart within a 243 year cycle. Venus transits are rare. Sparkling bright, she moves in retrograde. The Dance of Earth and Venus, orbiting the sun, forms a five petalled star. Eight Venus years are equal to five Earth years. The number eight is important in Venus symbolism. The Star of Ishtar (Venus) is an eight-pointed star. Venus intrigued many ancient civilizations, inspiring cosmic mythologies interwoven with psychology. Celestial motion is embedded in the human soul and psyche. Babylonians knew Her as the “divine lady, illumination of heaven.” Ishtar, Inanna, Anahita and Aphrodite were identified with Venus. As the Morning Star, She was called Lucifer. Venus played an important role in ancient Mayan calendars. The Mayan sacred almanac, a 260 day divinatory calendar, is still used by some to track gestation (approximately 266 days). [4] The Aztecs saw Venus as a symbol of death and resurrection. When it comes to cosmic symbolism, the dark spaces, the void, does the talking. In Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld, her descent, death and resurrection may relate to the disappearance and reappearance of Venus. Viewed as cosmic motion, the story of Inanna [Venus] descending to meet her sister Ereshkigal, the underworld sun Goddess, may have taken place when Venus went dark.[3] Patterns can represent big ideas. Do patterns on one glyph and two Goddess figurines, separated by time and geography, reveal orbits of Venus consciousness swirling within the Matriverse? By decoding their ornament can Venus be written back into the wider consciousness? Venus symbols 2 by Claire Dorey I propose that a fascination with Venus, her movements intuitively observed, has been captured in the mark making and forms of the following three images. Overlaying a template of the Venus Earth Dance onto them, can I unlock their stories and show how the motion of Venus is encoded within them? [A] This early Bronze Age, silver Anatolian Goddess figurine [circa 2500-2300 BCE, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] has shimmering feet and breasts, with four golden dots decorating her crescent shaped head. I propose her head is a Sun Course Symbol. The four dots, possibly eyes and earrings, may also represent the four phases of Venus. Her breast orbs may represent Venus as the Morning and Evening Star. Whilst her head is in the cosmos, her luminous feet walk in the underworld, bringing light there. Perhaps this icon is about Venus descending to meet the underworld sun Goddess [when Venus is in transit]. Note: in total there are eight gilded points depicted on this icon. Curves within the Venus Earth Dance template appear to align with proportions within the icon, for example her shoulders follow an arc within it. [B] In Chalking the Eyes in Search of She Who Spins, published Celebrating Inter-cosmic Kinship of the Goddess, Mago Books, I pondered the “possibility of meaning” of one Pictish glyph [600-800 CE, the National Museum of Scotland. See image]. In stone, the artist appears to have chiseled an anthropomorphic female figure emerging from within cosmic alignments and orbits. I’m revisiting this image to cross reference it with the two icons featured here. I propose the crescent is a Sky / Sun Course Symbol, with a high arc for summer, a low arc for winter. Arrows point up, to the East, for sunrise, downwards, from the West, for sunset. The spirals (divine eyes) below the arrow tips tell the observer to look into the sky at dawn and sunset. The “breasts” are Venus as the Morning and Evening Star, formed from and shown as both dots and gibbous crescents. Venus appears in whole or as a slither at various stages of orbit. The “soft cell” curves, shapes found in Nautilus shells and the Golden Section [5], drawn within the crescent, may be a section of the five petalled Venus and Earth Dance. Overlaying the “soft cells” with the Venus and Earth Dance template reveals the position of the sun where the belly button would be on the human body. The crescent maybe a recumbent moon. *In Roman and Sumerian mythologies the Crescent Moon & Star symbol honors the cosmic power of the Goddesses Venus & Ishtar. I am more inclined to think the crescent, drawn as a pair of curves, represents a pair of Venus transits, separated by eight years, as the planet moves in an arc across the Sun. I’ve checked with Nasa’s Eclipse website and there were Venus transits in 667, 789, 797 CE which fits with the time frame for this glyph (789/797 CE if it’s a pair of Venus transits shown). [“Transit Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC.”] At this time the Picts were …
Ode to My Love by Dale Allen

My love As the world turns on its axis, day and night As our earth orbits its elliptical turn away from the sun into the beautiful season of autumn, in our blessed little solar system, midway from the center of our galaxy Among trillions of galaxies Your love is Constant, true, pure, beautiful Like the one constant harmonic of love that pervades the universe and our nurturing home The one constant vibration where everyone who ever was, and ever will be, sings My love Do you hear the delightful songs being sung for you? While I revel at the blessing you are to me – to we With each blessed sunrise and sunset With each blessed orbit of our circular walks to the shore and home With each new experience that life is Here you are – constant, true, pure, beautiful The harmonic sounds sweet The songs fill us I join in the chorus https://www.magoism.net/2024/05/meet-mago-contributor-dale-allen
(Essay) Eating the Flesh of the Goddess by Harita Meenee

A bakery in Tyrnavos, Central Greece, during the time of the Carnival. Photo from my personal archive. Demeter and the “Bread of Life” “I am the bread of life.”This phrase is put in the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel According to John. [1] Again and again he declares himself to be “the true bread from heaven,” “the bread of God which … gives life to the world,” “the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.” “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world,” he solemnly announces.[2] Yet the “bread of life” did not come down from heaven; it came from the hands of women and was one of the most important kinds of food in antiquity, sustaining people in good as well as in hard times. Interestingly, the word for wheat, sitos, became synonymous with “food.” Demeter holding ears of wheat above an altar. 470-450 BCE. Capua, Italy. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 12. Photo taken by myself. The bread, in a way, was also the flesh of the Goddess: the very name of Demeter came to be identified with it, as well as with the grain. [3] She also had the titles Sito (“of the wheat”) and Megalartos or Megalomazos (“with big loafs”).[4] The Megalartia was the festival celebrated in her honor on the sacred island of Delos in the Aegean Sea. Even a month was named Megalartios after her. [5] The bread must have been considered sacred since prehistoric times, since the oven became the principal feature of prehistoric European shrines, according to Marija Gimbutas. Some miniature shrines contained one or more figurines which grind grain and prepare dough. The same author maintains that loafs prepared in temples were dedicated to a goddess and used in her rituals; those were marked with multiple lozenges and snake spirals were probably used as an offering to the Earth Mother. [6] Gimbutas’s theories are considered controversial, partly because it is hard to penetrate into traditions lost in the mists of time. Yet the religious importance of the bread is well documented in later antiquity: loafs and cakes for ritual purposes were baked in symbolic forms, such as those of animals and flowers. During classical times and beyond something similar happened during the festival of Skirophoria, honoring Athena, Demeter and Persephone, which took place in the early summer. The purpose of the celebration was to enhance the growth of vegetation. Women threw into chasms dedicated to the goddess of agriculture phalluses and snakes (also phallic symbols) made of dough, as well as piglets. It is not hard to discern in this custom another representation of the Sacred Marriage, since both the clefts of the earth and the piglets are symbols of the vagina—in fact the ancient Greek word for piglet is delphax, deriving from delphys, “womb.” Three months after the Skirophoria, the women-only festival of Thesmophoria occurred, again in honor of Demeter. At this time, what had remained from the thrown objects was retrieved and then ground and mixed with grains which would be sown in the fields. [7] In the Hellenic colonies of Sicily during the same celebration another interesting offering was made: bread was kneaded with honey and sesame and shaped as a vulva-—a natural symbol of fertility! The religious significance of the loaf is so powerful that it was never lost; it was carried into Christianity and continues up to our day undiminished. Thus, in the Greek Orthodox Church pieces of bread called artos are offered after the Sunday service to all those who attend it. Crumbs of bread are added to sweet wine and consumed as “the body and the blood of Christ” by those who take communion. As the new religion forcefully replaced the old one, the flesh of the Goddess was turned into the body of the Young God, while wine, the precious gift of Dionysus, was transformed into Jesus’ blood. Yet the connection between the loaf and the Sacred Feminine persisted through the centuries, transferred on to the Virgin Mary, another archetypal Mother. The Greeks usually refer to Mary using her title Panaghia, “All-Holy”—perhaps it is not a coincidence that the same adjective was attributed to some of the priestesses in Eleusis. [8] In medieval times, bread was offered to the Mother of God and was also named panaghia. This custom occurred in the palace of the Byzantine emperors, as well as in some monasteries, where the loaf was placed on a special tray called panaghiarion. Interestingly, every year, at the time of the autumn equinox, when the Eleusinian Mysteries were once celebrated, women in Eleusis still bake special breads and dedicate them to Mary, in order to ensure a good harvest. Surprisingly, even the phalluses made of dough, ancient offerings to the Goddess, found their way into modern Greek culture. Once a year, they figure prominently at the traditional, Dionysian Carnival of Tyrnavos, in Central Greece. Present-day “pilgrims” cheerfully consume them, in an atmosphere of revelry reminiscent of the fertility festivals of times past… (Meet Mago Contributor) Harita Meenee. Originally published in Witches and Pagans. This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. NOTES [1] John 6: 35. [2] Ibid. 6: 32-33, 6:51. [3] Hesychius of Alexandria, Dictionary, s.v. “Demeter,” “sitos.” Henry G. Liddell and Robert Scott, Great Dictionary of the Greek Language, s.v. “Demeter.” [4] Sito: Athenaeus 416B. Megalomazos: Athenaeus 109B. [5] Liddell and Scott, Great Dictionary of the Greek Language, s.v. “megalartia,” “Megalartios.” [6] Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), 147. [7] Vlassis G. Rassias, Festivals and Rituals of the Greeks (Athens: Anikhti Poli, 1997), 110, Karabouzis, The Ancient Attic Calendar and Festivals, s.v. “Skira or Skirophoria.” [8] According to the dictionary of Hesychius, “Panaghia: priestess who does not sleep with a man.” For more information on these priestesses of Eleusis see Dimitrios N. Goudis, The Mysteries of Eleusis, 2nd ed. (Athens: Demiourgia, 1994), 124.
(Book Excerpt 5) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Shapeshifting Mythic Griefscapes Through the Divine Wisdom of the SealwomanDr. Fee Mozeley I belong nowhere and everywhere. A particular kind of grief grows from my sense of place-based estrangement. As a sixth-generation white Australian woman, I live and have always lived on stolen lands. I was born overseas but have no memory of that place. We moved a lot throughout my childhood, and as a teenager I experienced violence in the place we lived making returning difficult. And yet, anytime I am outdoors whether in forests or cities, anywhere I can see the sky and feel the Earth, I feel a sense of belonging. These deeply felt tensions are hard to reconcile. It is in these moments that I turn to women’s stories to ground my place-based sorrow. In this chapter, I explore my Earth-felt longing and belonging through inhabiting the mythic landscapes of a Selkie folktale. There are many versions of this story told across the cold-cold lands of the north. In these frigid places, Clarissa Pinkola Estés (1992, 257) reminds us that “words freeze in the open air, and whole sentences must be broken from the speaker’s lips and thawed at the fire so people can see what has been said”. This Selkie story, retold by eco-mythologist Sharon Blackie (2016, 71–80), comes from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, home of my mother’s people. The divine feminine does not always present as a goddess figure, sometimes she is embodied through strong female characters, like the Sealwoman and her daughter, her eleven sisters, the Cailleach and the Old Woman of the World. Their stories help make sense of my longing and belonging as a woman living in Australia’s colonially informed patriarchal present. And so, I invite you to journey with me to my ancestral mythic lands: There is an island to the far west of these lands, close to the end of the world—somewhere in your dreams you’ve seen it. Long white beaches, rocky coves, stormy seas. From the clifftops on its westernmost shores, you might sometimes catch a glimpse of the Isle of Woman way out on the horizon. When the sky is blue, and the air is still—which happens rarely enough in those parts. Here, the wind blows hard and long through the dark days of winter, and summer is precious and fleeting. Somewhere along the stormiest section of that westernmost coast is a high, inaccessible cave where they say the Old Woman of the World lives still, with her companion Trickster Crow—but no one I’ve met has ever found that cave, though many have searched, and many have drowned in the process. Maybe she’s still there, stirring the soup which contains all of the seeds and all of the herbs and the essence of all the growing and living things in the world. Maybe she’s still there, working on the most beautiful weaving in the world, with its fringe of sea-urchin quills. The story goes on to explain that: The island’s beaches are haunted by seals. Neither common nor grey seals; But then they’re not ordinary seals: they’re Selkies. And for one night every month, on the night of the full moon, they take on human form, slipping off their sealskins to dance on the beach in the moonlight. The story that unfolds is a tale of patriarchal and colonial violence as a lonely fisherman steals the skin of one of the Selkie sisters trapping her in human form and on land,exiling her, from“her home beneath the waves”. He confesses to the Sealwoman he has stolen her skin, and he pleads with her to be his wife, for seven years. ‘Seven years’, he whispered to her. ‘Give me seven years, and then I’ll give you back your skin. After that, I’ll let you decide. If you still want to leave, then I’ll let you go’. And at that moment the first light of dawn crept into the sky, and the glow of the moon began to fade. Reluctantly, then, the woman went with him, understanding that without her skin she could do nothing. She had no choice. What follows, of course, is that when the seven years pass the man does not return her skin. Mara, the Sealwoman’s daughter, finds her mother’s skin but it disintegrates in her small hands. Skinless and alone, the Sealwoman must now journey to the cave of the Old Woman of the World to find a way back home, to the sea, where she belongs. But the journey is not straight forward, as mythic journeys rarely are. She headed north. She walked in the rain, with the wind so strong in her face that every step took twice as long as it ought. She clambered over rocks so slippery she fell constantly. Her boots were cold and wet and heavy, and her heart was heavier still. It was hard, and she was weak. But still she found the Old Woman of the World’s cave and the Old Woman greeted her: “You’ve done well to make it this far, Daughter. But there’s more for you to do before you’re done”. And she told the Selkie what must be done. And so, her journey continued… Soon the Sealwoman found the cave that the Old Woman told her she would find. And as she entered, she saw what she had been told she would see. There in the centre were the skeletons and skins of eleven dead seals. These were no ordinary seals—neither common nor grey; they were Selkies. They were her sisters… So, she did as the Old Woman had told her. She lit a fire in the darkening cave, and she sat vigil over the skins and the bones. And as night fell, she began to sing over the bodies. And she sang, and she sang, over and over, singing her sisters home. Slowly, slowly, the flesh began to …
(Poem) Invocation to the Great Mother by April Aronoff

Inspired from within, I remember ancient wisdom. I. I am everything and nothing. I am the holder of space, its lushness and emptiness, flowing in and out like dye mixed with water, becoming singular and many, as dark mixes with light.
(Video) Power of Nine by Max Dashu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQUgsCferQE A survey of goddesses, fates, giantesses, and holy women who come in nines, from Greece, Rome, Mali, Celtia, Scandinavia, India and China. (This was included in 2017 Nine Day Solstice Celebration.) Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research global women’s history across the full spectrum of the world’s peoples. She has built a collection of 40,000 slides and digital images and created 130 slideshows on female cultural heritages, especially Indigenous traditions. Her legendary slideshows bring to light female realities usually hidden from view, from ancient female figurines to women leaders, priestesses, clan mothers, and philosophers, to warriors and rebels, all with attention to patterns of conquest and domination. Dashu has been presenting her visual talks for 44 years, first at grassroots women’s and community centers, then universities and conferences, and now internationally. She also teaches via webcasts and online courses. Her daily posts on the Suppressed Histories Facebook page are followed by 163,000 people. Dashu’s book Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1000 was published by Veleda Press in 2016. It is Vol. VII of the 15-volume series Secret History of the Witches. Pythias, Melissae and Pharmakides, on women’s spiritual cultures in Greece and the Aegean, is Vol II (forthcoming in 2018). Deasophy: Coloring Book of Goddesses .:. Spirits .:. Ancestors (Veleda, 2017) features 50 icons from around the world, with Max’s drawings and commentary.
(Poetry) The Quest for a Friend by Andrea Nicki

The quest for a Friend noble and brave to bond with in fierce conversation intellectual acrobatics like two eagles soaring high in the sky locking talons, and cartwheeling toward the earth unafraid in times of vulnerability tending to you like an eagle parent with an exposed egg balling up its talons and tucking it under its ferocious plumage guarding it against the elements (Meet Mago Contributor) Andrea Nicki

(Special Post Isis 2) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 2 The Color Talk in Goddesses Kahena Dorothea Athena was also whitened which is sad. However the statues were worshiped by many women to whom they brought comfort. And their origins were later remembered by the abundance of Black Virgins that became important in Italy and other parts of Europe. I don’t see Dark Goddesses as shadows but as having depths of Creativity and Knowledge. My main Goddess is Kirke and the bast relief I have of her is a chocolate brown. Diane Horton The worship of Isis broadened from Egypt to all the countries bordering the Mediterranean, as well as the Middle East and the isles called now the British Isles. She and Her worship were virtually everywhere in the westernly known world of the time! She IS the Goddess of 10,000 Names! And as such she was adapted to each culture’s vision of Her. She was the basis of all the” Black Madonnas”. I do not think of this as Isis/Auset representing the “dark” Goddess as something somehow bad or to be dealt with, but rather that ancient darkness represents infinite potential, eternal creativity/fertility, the beginning and ending of all things, and the always deepening knowledge of magick. Max Dashu However, there is a politics of representation that we all need to be aware of, that pushes original African iconography down and away, and fronts Europeanized images. There is no possibility of “colorblindness” in such a system; a restoration of the original must be actively striven toward. This is incumbent on all of us not of (recent) African descent. Otherwise we perpetuate the injurious status quo, instead of overturning it. Harita Meenee I agree with those who say that race is largely a social construct. Its roots seem to lie in colonialism and the slave trade. I would also like to add that racism is used to oppress people of different nationalities and colors. Ηere in Greece the IMF neo-liberal policies are destroying our economy (and lives); they go hand in hand with a vicious racist campaign against immigrants, along with the rise of a neo-Nazi party. This is part of an effort to redirect people’s anger away from the government and bankers, towards those who are poor and foreign and often have a different color or religion. Fortunately, many grassroots activists are responding to this by building a strong anti-racist, antifascist movement. You can see our Facebook page below. It’s in Greek but the photos are quite revealing. If anyone is interested in learning more about the situation here, please message me and I’ll try to find some articles in English for you. https://www.facebook.co/19JanuaryATHENSvsFASCISM?fref=ts 19 Γεναρη – ΑΘΗΝΑ ΠΟΛΗ Αντιφασιστικη Μπροστά στη κλιμάκωση της φασιστικής απειλής και της ρατσιστικής βίας, στη εμφάν…See More Naa Ayele Kumari Let me put this in the context of something you might understand. This is a goddess group that honors the feminine and the power it represents. People in this group understand the oppression and misrepresentation of women. We understand the implications of misogynistic patriarchal thinking. We understand the implications of stealing the information, rites, and traditions from goddess centered cultures and rephrasing them into male dominated themes… especially those that then went on to oppress women today. This is the same thing that has happened as it related to race and our cultures. It infuriates us when a man may say… why do we have to focus on the goddess? Let us just accept that we are all human and no special consideration should be given to anyone because of their gender. Or, this is just a distraction or social construct and it really doesn’t matter. We understand the blatant disregard and ignorance of those statements. Yet, the same is true for race and people of other races. Your attitude and casual disregard perpetuates a lie that you are comfortable with and don’t wish to move from that comfort zone. It means you don’t have to be accountable for the injustices or oppression it continues to perpetuate in the larger culture toward people who do not look like you. As far as I am concerned, I truly believe that the dark goddess for many with white skin IS their shadow… It is the part of themselves that they deny and fear. That you may have come from black people may scare you… even when the science proves it. That deep down… you fear what you don’t understand. To even confront it is frightening… something that you would rather ignore and deny… Yet… here we are. Black, Yellow, Red… people.. women… who have been oppressed for thousands of year because of this… and are asking… to be seen in their true likeness… not as you wish them to be… or fear them to be. Naa Ayele Kumari Thank you Max Dashu, I so appreciate your scholarship and dedication to the truth where ever you find it… and Helen Hwang for staying open to it as well. [Someone withdrew the threads.] Rick Williams No, you can’t passively aggressively slither your way out of this, reread your own statements and that last post contradicts most of your ascertains. I can’t believe that you honestly say fire away at you like you’re some sort of martyr and VICTIM of being misunderstood, not at all, I understand you very well. I don’t think you understand yourSELF. That’s the real tragedy. Rick Williams “The Lips of Wisdom are Closed except to the Ears of Understanding.” It is in quotes, and it’s part of Ancient Wisdom, of Tehuti, DJehuti, or Hermes Trimegitus… The Great Scribe of KMT.. they have alot of pretty pictures of him all over KMT(Egypt).. still have no idea what you are saying have the time. Max Dashu Thank you Naa Ayele for taking the time to make the extremely apt analogy of women’s oppression to clarify the politics of race oppression […]
(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.

(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.
(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.
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

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

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

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Traditionally the dates for this Seasonal Moment are: Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd however the actual astronomical date varies. See archaeoastronomy.com for the actual moment. Lammas table/altar Lammas, as it is often called[1], is the meridian point of the first dark quarter of the year, between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox; it is after the light phase has peaked and is complete, and as such, I choose it as a special celebration of the Crone/Old One. Within the Celtic tradition, it is the wake of Lugh, the Sun King, and it is the Crone that reaps him. But within earlier Goddess traditions, all the transformations were Hers[2]; and the community reflected on the reality that the Mother aspect of the Goddess, having come to fruition, from Lammas on would enter the Earth and slowly become transformed into the Old Woman-Hecate-Cailleach aspect …[3] I dedicate Lammas to the face of the Old One, just as Imbolc, its polar opposite on the Wheel in Old European tradition, is dedicated to the Virgin/Maiden face. The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again. I state the purpose of the seasonal gathering thus: This is the season of the waxing dark. The seed of darkness born at the Summer Solstice now grows … the dark part of the days grows visibly longer. Earth’s tilt is taking us back away from the Sun. This is the time when we celebrate dissolution; each unique self lets go, to the Darkness. It is the time of ending, when the grain, the fruit, is harvested. We meet to remember the Dark Sentience, the All-Nourishing Abyss, She from whom we arise, in whom we are immersed, and to whom we return. This is the time of the Crone, the Wise Dark One, who accepts and receives our harvest, who grinds the grain, who dismantles what has gone before. She is Hecate, Lillith, Medusa, Kali, Erishkagel,Chamunda, Coatlique – Divine Compassionate One, She Who Creates the Space to Be. We meet to accept Her transformative embrace, trusting Her knowing, which is beyond all knowledge. Lammas is the seasonal moment for recognizing that we dissolve into the “night” of the Larger Organism of whom we are part – Gaia. It is She who is immortal, from whom we arise, and into whom we dissolve. This celebration is a development of what was born in the transition of Summer Solstice; the dark sentient Source of Creativity is honoured. The autopoietic space in us recognizes Her, is comforted by Her, desires Her self-transcendence and self-dissolution; Lammas is an opportunity to be with our organism’s love of Larger Self – this Native Place. We have been taught to fear Her, but at this Seasonal Moment we may remember that She is the compassionate One, deeply committed to transformation, which is actually innate to us. Whereas at Imbolc/Early Spring, we shone forth as individual, multiforms of Her; at Lammas, we small individual selves remember that we are She and dissolve back into Her. We are the Promise of Lifeas was affirmed at Imbolc, but we are the Promise of Her- it is not ours to hold. We identify as the sacred Harvest at Lammas; our individual harvest isHer Harvest. We are the process itself – we are Gaia’s Process. Wedo not breathe (though of course we do), we borrow the breath, for a while. It is like a relay: we pick the breath up, create what we do during our time with it, and pass it on. The harvest we reap in our individual lives is important, andit is for us only short term; it belongs to the Cosmos in the long term. Lammas is a time for “making sacred” – as “sacrifice” may be understood; we may “make sacred” ourselves. As Imbolc was a time for dedication, so is Lammas. This is the wisdom of the phase of the Old One. She is the aspect that finds the “yes” to letting go, to loving the Larger Self, beyond all knowledge, and steps into the power of the Abyss; encouraged and nourished by the harvest, She will gradually move into the balance of Autumn Equinox/Mabon, the next Sesaonal Moment on the year’s cycle. References: Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess.Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Gray, Susan. The Woman’s Book of Runes.New York: Barnes and Noble, 1999. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. McLean, Adam. The Four Fire Festivals. Edinburgh: Megalithic Research Publications, 1979. Notes: [1]See note 3. [2]Susan Gray, The Woman’s Book of Runes,p. 18. This is also to say that the transformations are within each being, not elsewhere, that is the “sacrifice” is not carried out by another external to the self, as could be and have been interpreted from stories of Lugh or Jesus. [3]Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, The Year of the Goddess, p.143, quoting Adam McLean, Fire Festivals,p.20-22. Another indication of the earlier tradition beneath “Lughnasad” is the other name for it in Ireland of “Tailltean Games”. Taillte was said to be Lugh’s foster-mother, and it was her death that was being commemmorated (Mike Nichols, “The First Harvest”, Pagan Alliance Newsletter NSW Australia). The name “Tailtunasad” has been suggested for this Seasonal Moment, by Cheryl Straffon editor of Goddess Alive! I prefer the name of Lammas, although some think it is a Christian term: however some sources say that Lammas means “feast of the bread” which is how I have understood it, and surely such a feast pre-dates Christianity. It is my opinion that the incoming Christians preferred “Lammas” to “Lughnasad”: the term itself is not Christian in origin. The evolution of all these things is complex, and we may evolve them further with our careful thoughts and experience.

(Video) 2013 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s note: The first Mago Pilgrimage to Korea took place June 6-19, 2013. We visited Ganghwa Island, Seoul, Wonju, Mt. Jiri, Yeong Island (Busan), and Jeju Island.] Read Mago Pilgrimage Essay 1 and Mago Pilgrimage Essay 2. See Meet Mago Contributor, Hae Kyoung Ahn for “Ma Gaia Womb” chant music and Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hwang Ph.D.
(2014 Mago Pilgrimage Report 1) Sweat Lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Islands by Helen Hwang

[Author’s Note: Revised verison of this report is published in Celebrating the Seasons of the Goddess (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books, 2017). 2014 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea (Oct. 7-Oct. 20) was participated by a culturally mixed group of pilgrims from the U.S. Australia, and Korea. Among non-Koreans were Dr. Glenys Livingstone (co-facilitator), Mr. Robert (Taffy) Seaborne, and Ms. Rosemary Mattingly. For details, read 2014 Mago Pilgrimage. View the video on our visit to Ganghwa Islands by Robert (Taffy) Seaborne.] 2014 Mago Pilgrimage granted me ever unfolding revelations. The first of them that I would like to mention concerned the sweat lodge called Hanjeung-mak (汗蒸幕, Chamber of chill and steam).[1] Until we visited the traditional sweat lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Island, it did not occur to me that the origin of its modern variations[2] has to do with the rebirthing experience in the Womb of Mago. (Here Mago means the Great Goddess or the Primordial Mother.)
(Photo Essay 1) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part I: Living Tradition Bearers and Her Shrine, Suseong-dang I had the privilege to join a field trip to collect the folk stories of Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess, in Buan-gun (Buan County), North Jeolla Province, South Korea July 10-12, 2012. The team comprised a group of graduate students studying Korean Literature at the Kunguk University (Kim Jungeun, Cho Hongyoun, Lee Won-Young, Hwang Sungup, and Lee Boohee) headed by Dr. Shin Dong-Hun, Dr. Park Hyeon-Suk, and myself.[i]