January 18, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Tribute 5) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

I’m sure Barbara sent me more letters in the 15-month gap from May 1995 to her next (September 1996) below. The loss remains my fault, although that May brought my Read More …

January 17, 2019October 2, 2019 Kaalii CargillLeave a comment

(Photo Essay 6) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting Read More …

January 16, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Book Excerpt 3) “Placental Thinking: The Gift of Maternal Roots” by Nane Jordan

[This and the ensuing sequels are from a Chapter from Placenta Wit: Mother Stories Rituals, and Research, edited by Nané Jordan, Demeter Press, 2017, pp. 142-155.] PLACENTAL PRACTICES Attending to Read More …

January 15, 2019August 31, 2020 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(Poetry) Whales and the Cosmos by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

What if whales are singing the music of the spheres? What if whales sing in the rhythms and tones of creation creating? What if whale song brings forth new being? Read More …

January 14, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Prose) “First Light Reflection…” by Sara Wright

This morning I awakened to the same smoky blue gray clouds that brought in twilight last night, clouds that bled black ink into a fiery sky. The air was mild, Read More …

January 13, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

Meet Mago Contributor, Liz Darling

Liz Darling is a visual artist from Kansas. Deliberate and intricate, Darling uses watercolor, ink, and other water-based media to create cosmic, organic compositions that often center on themes of spirituality, transience, the Read More …

January 12, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, Stockholm, Sweden. Danish and Swedish. Bachelor Degree in Theology/Religious History and deep studies in Thealogy and shamanism. Storyteller, dancer, professional weaver, and physiotherapist in psycho-somatic. Organizer of Read More …

January 11, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Essay 3) From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt by Krista Rodin

[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time Read More …

January 10, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Prose-Poetry) Be-ing In Your Embrace by Deanne Quarrie, D.Min.

Be-ing In Your Embrace I feel your breath on my skin like the gentle wind blowing in my face as I open the window to my garden in the morning. Read More …

January 9, 2019November 8, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Prose) The Cat Goddess in Ancient Egypt by Hearth Moon Rising

Ancient Egypt is rightfully seen as the apogee of cat worship. Less well known is the ideological basis of that worship. Even as superstitions of cats as purveyors of evil Read More …

January 8, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 5) Discovering the Gift Paradigm by Genevieve Vaughan

Hitting The escalation towards dominance through competition can be done not just economically of course but also physically, psychologically, linguistically and institutionally, at the level of individuals and at the Read More …

January 7, 2019October 2, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

(Book Review) Myths Shattered and Restored, editors Marion Dumont & Gayatri Devi, by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

What a pleasure to read this collection of diverse scholarly voices who speak of global mythological/spiritual traditions from within a Goddess frame: that is, from within a frame where She Read More …

January 4, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Poetry) Women philosphers in the ancient world by Susan Hawthorne

The history of philosophy is mostly the history of men and their minds. However, this is not the whole story and there are a significant number of women who are Read More …

(Poem) 'Crane Dance' by Anne Wilkerson Allen

Crane Dance We danced at the edge of pale waters, not caring if we missed a step or fell into the wake of each others jubilance. We leapt in the moonlight, contours of light and shadow reflected in the depths of the lake. The soft down at the base of her feathers was a gentle caress on the breeze of tender love and her silver eyes embraced me. “Why are you afraid of what you feel? Kindle the furnace of your heart and let go, or you will never know yourself” I beheld my nakedness and abandon and felt complete freedom in that moment, as with a trusted lover. “Mother,” said she, and I looked behind me. “Mother,” said she, and stepped closer to my fear because the voice was not of my child. In her voice I heard the yearning of a million hearts I felt the aching of a thousand needs And the brokenness in my own heart that I don’t know. I don’t know if I have enough to feed them all. Translated to French by Pierre Leclair Traduction (anglais > français) Nous avons dansé au bord des eaux pâle, ne pas se soucier si nous avons manqué une étape ou ont diminué dans le sillage de chaque jubilation autres. Nous sauté dans la lune, contours d’ombre et lumière reflété dans les profondeurs du lac. Le duvet à la base de ses plumes était une caresse sur la brise de l’amour tendre et ses yeux d’argent m’a embrassé. «Pourquoi avez-vous peur de ce que vous ressentez? Meublez votre cœur avec passion. Si vous ne lâchez pas, vous ne serez jamais se connaître » Je regardai ma nudité et d’abandonner et ressenti une liberté totale en ce moment, comme avec un amant de confiance. «Mère», dit-elle, et j’ai regardé derrière moi. «Mère», dit-elle, et s’approcha de ma peur parce que la voix n’était pas de mon enfant. Dans sa voix, j’ai entendu le désir d’un million de cœurs J’ai ressenti le mal d’un millier de besoins Et le brisement dans mon propre cœur que je ne sais pas. Je ne sais pas si j’ai assez pour nourrir tous.. ******************************************************** 鶴の舞蒼々とした水辺で自由気ままに踊っていました。ステップが絡もうとも、互いの歓喜の航跡に落ちてしまおうとも気にせずに月の光の中で心躍らせ、光と影の輪郭は湖の奥深くに映し出されていました羽の奥のにこげが愛の風の中で優しく揺れて輝いた眼差しがわたくしを包み込みました “自分の情感を怖がることはありません。心の炬に火を点けて、身を任せなさい。そうすれば本当の自分を見つけられますから“ 私はすべてを曝け出しました。感じるままに、その瞬間、完全なる自由が得られました。愛する人に身を任せた時のように「お母さん」と呼ばれて、私が振り返りました「お母さん」と呼ばれて、不安が近寄りましたその声は、わが子のものではないのですその声には大勢の叫びと悲痛な願いが入り混じり、そして砕けてしまった私の心を感じました。果たしてこれらの願いを満たすことは出来るのでしょうか。 Translated by Kunibumi Izumi 訳：　泉国文
(Poem) Young Nature Goddess by Andrea Nicki

Six-year-old girl has a pet ladybug for half-an-hour She puts it in a small glass jar with bits of green leaves draws a picture of it and a girl with a ladybug-pendant around her neck then lets the tiny creature go
(Poem) Embedded in the Turquoise Bands by Gloria Manthos

Coral snake slithers Circling corazón sangrante; Squeezes – to cauterize the wound.
(Poem) My Father and I by Dale Allen

Image art by Dale Allen My father and I Were staring at the beautiful night sky. It was so black, so big, and unbounded. And the stars were there Trillions of them! Fixed, bright, clear: It was magnificent. I felt small under that panorama. It’s been there so long, And it will be there Even when this earth is long gone. It’s so awesome and overpowering, And the thought it being so eternal And me being so transient Scared me. But not my father. He understands the universe. I was lying down on the grass And he was lying underneath it.Notes I wrote this poem when I was 18 years old. My father died when I was 3 ½ years old. He has been with me all my life. When my Mago submission was due this morning, this poem came to my attention me like a shooting star. I went to the basement and found my poetry book. Yesterday was my father’s birthday. Tomorrow is Father’s Day. This Mago submission is my father, Allen Schmid’s doing. PS: My name is Dale Allen. When I was in my 20s and working in New York and LA in acting, voice-overs and stand-up comedy, I created the name Dale Allen, using my father’s first name in place of our surname. https://www.magoism.net/2024/05/meet-mago-contributor-dale-allen
(Prose) The Cat Goddess in Ancient Egypt by Hearth Moon Rising

Ancient Egypt is rightfully seen as the apogee of cat worship. Less well known is the ideological basis of that worship. Even as superstitions of cats as purveyors of evil magic have been supplanted by cute Internet kitties, modern assumptions infuse popular understanding of Egyptian cat worship. Photo: Schuyler Shepherd To gain a comprehensive picture of cat worship in Ancient Egypt, we first have to look at lion worship, which predated and informed later worship of the domestic cat. Lion deities abounded in the Nile River Valley. Every locality had a lion deity and a lion cult. As the Nile Valley came under unified political control, lion deities became unified under one name, or other deities acquired lion aspects. Sekhmet. Kom Ombo temple, 150 B.C.E. Photo: Remih. Lions were once native to most countries bordering the Mediterranean, but Egyptians understood a few things about lions that early Greeks and Mesopotamians did not. They knew that lions are felines – related to cats, not dogs. Think about it for a moment: all other wild felines are solitary creatures, living in isolated family groups only to raise young. Lions, on the other hand, live in extended family groups and hunt in a coordinated fashion like some canines. Another Egyptian insight was that the lioness, not the male lion, is central in the lion pride. The females do most of the hunting, choose their mating partners, and communally nurture young, making decisions for the pride on that basis. The lion mainly eats the food provided by the lioness and fights with other lions. Jungle Cat goddess defeating snake god. Note the long ears. From the tomb of Inherkha, 1300 B.C.E. Egyptians remained animal worshippers, only partially anthropomorphizing their animal deities, even as the society became technologically advanced. They incorporated many types of animals into daily life, in temples as divine representatives and in houses as pets. The earliest small feline pet was the Jungle Cat, and this is the cat depicted on papyrus until the African Wildcat, probably imported from the southern kingdom of Nubia, supplanted the native cat as a pet. Egyptian breeding programs with the African Wildcat eventually produced the consistent genetic aberrations from the original animal that are the hallmark of a domesticated species. Egyptians may not have been the first to keep the African Wildcat as a pet (the jury on that is still out), but all domestic cats today are believed to be descendants of the Egyptian ones, despite initial government efforts to ban feline exports. Aside from differences in appearance, domestic cats differ from their wild ancestor most pointedly in aggression and sociability. While most people don’t consider their affectionate kitty an aggressive animal, the domestic cat is a relentless hunter, to the detriment of bird populations, killing even without eating or caching prey. It’s not difficult to see why this would be a desirable trait in a grain-based economy, but Egyptian cats were valued not only for rodent control but for killing poisonous snakes. African Wildcat. Photo: Sonelle. The idea of the sociable cat defies modern stereotypes of the independent creature who, in Rudyard Kipling’s words, “walks by himself,” but domestic cats can and do get along well with one another. Legendary cat fights occur when males fight over fertile females or unrelated cats are brought together. Studies of feral domestic cat populations have found that, unlike the African Wildcat, domestic cats prefer to live in complex social structures when food is plentiful. This makes the domestic cat more like the lion than other felines. Sociability would have been an important trait for populations of domestic cats housed together in temples, and the lion goddess was easier to manage in her diminutive form. In contrast to other Mediterranean cultures, Egyptian feline deities were goddesses, not gods, and the priesthoods of feline deities were often female. The Egyptian word for cat, “mau,” was a term of endearment for young girls. Cat goddesses had large retinues of female musicians, and the instrument particularly favored was the sistrum. Temple worship was an elite affair for women and men, linked with nobility and government, the liturgies guarded and privileged. In contrast to the Sumerian temples with their accessible architecture, Egyptian temples, closed to the public, housed the important statues and ceremonies inside inner sanctums that even temple personnel might not see. The populace participated in worship during the public festivals, when the gods in their statues would be taken out of their temples into the open air. The most popular festivals were the feline ones, lasting many days. The wine poured freely on these occasions, sexual activity was ubiquitous, and the din from percussion instruments was overpowering. The sistrum was a favorite instrument of the cat goddess. From Tutankhamen’s tomb. 1350 B.C.E. Photo: Harry Burton. The most famous Egyptian cat goddess, Bast, was originally a lion goddess who morphed into a domestic cat. In contrast to other lion goddesses, such as Sekhmet, Bast was always a gentle lioness. As synchronization of Egyptian deities progressed, Sekhmet and Bast became aspects of the same feline goddess, with Bast as domestic cat her beneficent aspect. Bast brought fertility, love, children, and health, while the fierce Sekhmet would be invoked for protection. Amulet of goddess Bast. 700 B.C.E. Photo: Rama. Sources: See this article.(Meet Mago Contributor) Hearth Moon Rising.
(Essay 3) Baba Part III: The Smile (A tale of Vasilisa) by Jillian Parker

Vasilisa reached for a long, flat black lacquer box from its hiding place atop a roughly-hewn shelf. She slid open the box and let her hand rest on its contents for the briefest sigh of a moment. It was a shirt, sewn by her hands, crafted from the finest cloth she had ever woven. If she were to remove it from its hiding spot, she knew she would be able to thread it effortlessly through the small filigree ring on her finger. Within the folds of the shirt lurked a faded piece of parchment. She slid the box shut. “Thank you, dearest friend, for teaching me to weave,” she whispered. For one last time, or so she thought, she walked out the door. A pair of clouds was hovering near a crescent moon. She closed her eyes, and it was as if the moon kissed her brows and became a boat there, swaying back and forth. Absent-mindedly, she plucked a white aster growing near her door, and held it close while shuffling over to her bed. Images from Vasilisa’s memory crowded into her mind’s eye, and prevented her from falling asleep. Once, she had been sent on a journey with that very black lacquer box, to the far-off capital. There, she had witnessed surging armies, sieges, clashes, and blood spilled upon the dark earth. Vasilisa remembered how she had reached the castle wall, bruised, and with her clothing torn to shreds, so that when she appealed to the guards standing at attention with their pikes crossed, they did not believe she had any business in that place, and had turned her brusquely away. The most haunting of all of her reflections were those of silvery silhouettes of Ivan Tsarevich, pacing back and forth in his garden, or perhaps looking out to sea from a grey tower. Vasilisa began to dream that the boat on her brow was her own self floating on the ocean of consciousness. She passed a blinding light, and cried out in her sleep. Then she encountered a horrific storm. The waves of the sea curled around her and spoke in unison. Her senses nearly exploded from noise and terror. “Zarya! Help me! My bright Day!” she cried out. The dream was full of torment and anguish, until she heard a voice, “You are a soul. You are White Aster.” “But what does this mean?” she argued and begged, over and over with the storm. Yet the conflict would not cease. A voice came to her. “I am. You are, White Aster.” She still did not understand, although she could feel warmth seeping into her freezing limbs. “What is happening?” In the darkness, her struggle continued, until somehow she remembered the flower lying on her breast. Although afraid at first, she tipped the boat till it careened dangerously, then she directed it lower, until it was pointed straight at the flower; that is, in the direction of her heart. A light appeared inside its petals, and the pulsing flower expanded, until she was floating inside it. All of the raucous memories, the rioting waves, even a stray Leviathan which had been curled around her boat, as if ready to crush it, began to burn away in the curious white light within the aster, which was cool, yet warming at the same time; and then the sea was becalmed. Vasilisa woke with a start. She remembered the crescent moon, and the pair of clouds above it, and ran for the door. Her boat began rocking again. But there they were: the two clouds, as if hiding a pair of mysterious eyes, above a silver smile. Vasilisa smiled in response. The two sides of the sea were once again still and smooth. She made another attempt at a smile. Each time she smiled, while settled in this space, it was as if a hanging bridge had appeared, uniting the two surging sides of her soul-self. Slipping into this smile made her feel that she had just donned the finest kokoshnik, and a diaphanous, fairy-made royal gown. Finally, Vasilisa walked over and glanced at Vera on her cot. She pulled Vera’s coverlet down over her bare feet, and then returned to her own bed, and, with a smile lingering on her lips, sank into a fathomless dream. Read part 1 and part 2. Read Meet Mago Contributor Jillian Parker.
(Poem) The Trees Talk to Me by Mary Saracino

Los Altos Trees, photo credit: Mary Saracino The trees talk to me. They tell me to slow down, don’t push it. let the wind pour through me. I need to be sturdy enough to bend gracefully, and yield to powers bigger than me. If I do not heed their message, I will break. I can’t find the seed the core of what I came here for. I want to crack open and pour forth spilling words cascading sentences a wild waterfall of paragraphs and stories. I want to froth like an ocean creating meaning from the ebb and flow of my ferocious passions. But I am parched, hard with the insistence of “NOW!” The birches watch and smile. With papery curled eyes they wait for me to relax and breath. “Go play,” they say. “Go play. The rest will come.” The wind whispers her tender invitation tickling the leaves with the promise of inspiration. Out of play the images will flutter my heart will dance and I will freely express all manner of glorious beginnings. https://www.magoism.net/2013/05/meet-mago-contributor-mary-saracino
(Book Excerpt 3) Mago Almanac Planner by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Details for Mago Almanac Planner are available here. What is the Magoist Calendar? It is a 13 month 28 day luni-menstrual-solar calendar of Old Magoist Korea. Insofar as one year marks about 365.25 days, a time taken for the earth to revolve around the sun, it is a solar calendar. The fact that both the moon and the female menstruation cycle mark 28 days, which makes 13 months or 364 days for one year. This makes approximately 1.25 a surplus. Thus, we have days outside the calendar grid. Each year has one extra day on the day before the New Year’s day. The New Year of Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era was set on the new moon date before Winter Solstice in 2018 by the Gregorian Calendar. With one extra day, the year makes 365 days. Given that the actual period of the Earth’s revolution is approximately 365.25 days, we have the second extra day every fourth year. Setting aside the extra days, we have 364 days for one year. 364 days divided by 28 days is 13. That is how we have 13 months in a year. The Magoist Calendar championing the matricentric worldview is the very indication that our Mother Earth is stabilized in her own voyages. (To be continued) https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 12) The Ancient Korean Whale-Bell: An Encodement of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.] The Belly The belly of the bell is adorned with Water Nymphs and Striking Seats, enclosed by the Lower Support from below. In the case of the Divine Bell, the Name Text comes in two sections of the bell’s body (Figures 24-1 and 24-2). For the Sangwonsa Bell, there are four relieves – two sets of two water nymphs (see [Figure 22]) and two striking seats – displayed in four corners alternatively. From the frontal side, two nymphs and one striking seat are visible. The two nymphs, playing the instruments of a zither (gonhu) and a windpipe (saenghwang),[1] are posed standing on their knees above the water waves, which carry them in the air. The depictions are so realistic and graphic as stated: They are bending in their knees, as if they are in flight in the sky. Their clothes as well as their bodies and faces are depicted as cubic …. The nymph on the left is holding the zither with her body, whereas the nymph on the right, with the windpipe in her mouth, has her chicks inflated with the air as she plays the instrument.[2] For the Divine Bell, a single water nymph is designed in four corners, flanking the Name Text on both sides (see Figures 23 and 29). These nymphs are being carried upward by the water clouds or the sonic force, the singing of a whale, expressed as the sound of a dragon. The upward wave-like patterns are the visualization of the whale singing, which circulates water from the seas and oceans to the atmosphere. Once again, the nymphs of the Sangwonsa Bell are depicted in a far more dynamic, intuitive, and multifaceted style than that of the counterpart of the Divine Bell. The Sangwonsa Bell conveys the self of a caster and a viewer in union with the cetacean divine. In the Divine Bell, however, the kneeling nymph is presented as a devotee, being carried by the dragon force. The self as a worshipper is separated from the worshipped. The Name Text of the Divine Bell comes in two sides, the front and the back, in the belly (see Figures 24-1 and 24-2). To be discussed later, it is the highlight of the Divine Bell, which was cast as a political statement of Regent Queen Mother Manwol. The Striking Seat (see Figures 25 and 26) comes in the form of a lotus flower with its stylized curvilinear patterns. The Sangwonsa Bell surpasses in beauty and craftsmanship in comparison with the Divine Bell. In both, the nona symbolism is articulated as eight petals. The nona symbolism collectively refers to the Cosmic Music or Palryeo (八呂Eight-toned Music), a ceaseless interplay of all nine numbers. Nine, eight, and three are the major representations of the nona symbolism. The number nine is the Mother Number, which embraces all eight daughter numbers (note the lore of Nine Magos, Mago and her eight shaman daughters). Three (3×3) is an epitome of the number nine. 36 is the number 9 in the digital root. All other numbers, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are part of the nona symbolism. In the Magoist Cosmogony, the Mago Triad refers to the pantheon of the Nine Mago Creatrix, Mago and HER eight (grand)daughters.[3] Lower and Upper Supports For the Sangwonsa Bell, both the Upper and Lower Supports display a metallurgical mastery in elegant flower petals, curvilinear patterns, geometric designs, and musicians. In the Upper Support, there are two musicians carved, whereas in the Lower Support, there are four musicians carved (see Figures 27 and 28). For the Divine Bell, the Lower Support comes in the eight-pointed end, each of eight points is decorated with an eight-petaled flower (see [Figure 29]). (To be continued) [1] Ibid. [2] Ibid. [3] The nona symbol is not an exclusive hallmark of Sillan bells. It is profusely present in pre- and post-Silla Korean culture and history. In fact, it manifests trans-temporary across cultures. Suffice it to say that Sillans and their contemporary Koreans shaped Buddhism with the nona symbolism at the core. Among others, the nine-story pagoda was the most outstanding encodement of the nona symbology. Baekje (18 BCE-660) is known for the large-scale erection of the three nine-story pagodas in Mireuksa (Temple of Maitreya) in the 7th century. Sillans also constructed the nine-story pagoda in Hwangryongsa (Temple of Yellow Dragon). https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang

(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of a discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, Facebook group.]Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I am writing an entry on “Mago” for the Glossary of my book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia:Mago (麻姑): East Asian word for the Great Goddess. Read “Ma” as in “Mama” and “Go” as in “to go.” The logographic characters are pronounced/romanized as Mago in Korean, Magu in Chinese, and Mako in Japanese. When it is used in historical contexts, “Mago” refers to the Great Goddess AND HER cultural matrix, Magoism (Magoist shamans/priestesses/rulers and/or the bygone mytho-history of Old Magoist Korea). S/HE represents Ultimate Reality as One Undividable Unity. The Great Goddess embodies the Creatrix, the cosmic sonic system of Life. Through HER, we enter the view of the whole, the consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW. Also known to have originated from the Big Dipper (Seven Stars) in lore—part of the Big Bear constellation—the Guardian of the Polaris, S/HE is the Guardian of the solar system. S/HE causes the stabilization of the solar system. In that sense, S/HE is the Sun Deity or Heavenly Deity. Self-emerged with Mago Stronghold (Earth) and two moons of the Earth through the sonic movement of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones), the Great Goddess oversees the cosmic music of Yul-ryeo (Rhythms and Tones), another term for the sonic movement of the universe. Mago gives birth to two daughters (Gung-hui) and (So-hui) parthenogenetically. Thus, they form the Mago Triad (Samsin). S/HE delegates HER two daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Oeum-chiljo (Five Pitches and Seven Tunes). Gung-hui and So-hui respectively give birth to four daughters parthenogenetically. The Primordial Mago Clan forms the Nine Magos, the archetype of Gurang (Nine Goddesses). Mago delegates eight (grand)daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones). S/HE causes the self-evolution of the Earth through which all terrestrial beings are brought into existence. In that sense, S/HE is the Earth Deity. As Samsin Halmi (Triad Grand-Mother), S/HE controls the birth and illness of children. Mago allows the Early Mago Clan in the paradise of Mago Stronghold to procreate progenies and entrusts them to take in charge of the terrestrial acoustic equilibrium. Revered as the Cosmogonist, Progenitor, and Ultimate Sovereign, Mago delegates the Mago Descent, the entirety of the divine, human ancestors, and humans, to oversee the acoustic harmony of the Earth in tune with the cosmic music. Hereupon, the paradisiacal Home of Mago Stronghold is established. S/HE is called by many names. Among them are Samsin (Triad Deity), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Halmi (Grandmother/Goddess), Nogo (Ancient Goddess), and Seongo (Immortal Goddess). Also referred to as Mugeuk Nomo (Non-Polarized First Mother) or Musaeng-nomo (Non-birthed First Mother) in Daoism. Mago appears resembling many Goddesses from around the world by way of such mythemes as the triad, parthenogenesis, cosmic music, animal companions, and the cosmogonist. “Mago” is linguistically identical or similar with “Mago” in Italian and Portuguese, “Magus/Magi” in Latin, “Magos” in Greek, “Maka” in Mycenaean Greek, “Magus” in Old Persian, and “Ma Guanyin” in East Asian languages, to name a few. Brian Kirbis: Funny, despite my fondness for language, I never made the connection. Though I have explored the lineage potential between naga and Nuwa 女娲. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: What did you find the linkage between naga and Nuwa, Brian? There is sometimes linguistic linkage relevant and other times mythological linkage… Brian Kirbis: Linguistic, iconographic, and mythological links are all available to us within a broad cross-cultural frame. My own analytic tendency is to see such mirror-image male-female representations as matrilineal and patrilineal essences which, in Chinese energy theory, reside in the kidneys (ancestral qi).Consider the Adam and Eve myth, for instance, with the figures on either side of the tree (spine, cosmic pivot, Milky Way), within which is contained the serpentine energy. There is ample information extant on such Tree of Life symbolism, all of which illustrates the inner energy body. The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.As you know, my area of interest is in the underlying cultural complex of tea-growing peoples located in Southwest China and upland Southeast Asia, an area replete with serpent mythology. Brian Kirbis: Comparison of Indian and Chinese representations of the Naga-Nagini and Fuxi & Nuwa. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Yes, indeed, there is similarity between the two. Interesting! Thanks for sharing them. Lizzy Bluebell: Brian Kirbis – fascinating – any idea what kind of tool each is holding in the sculpture? I see a chevron or M to the right of the Nagini’s head; (M and MA are fairly universal root symbols for Mother; Latin M encodes breasts, mounds, mountains, paps, tophets, etc. plus a general historical dispute over the importance of hills versus valleys.)I also note the inversion of right/left positions in the Nu Wa image.In terms of your statement – “The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.” — My thought: Have you ever considered it otherwise – that humanity has actually EXTERNALIZED chi energy into the form of the snake as a means of expressing it in non-vocal (sonic) symbolism which also manifests form via means of visualization as opposed to sonic/vocalizations or cymatics which creates form via RESONANCE.Helen – note that the tails are knotted – very important symbolic notion of ‘tying things’ as in the Shen Ring and Ankh – a masonic motif – related to measuring and containing within an Ouroborus SYSTEM which is closed, not cyclic or spiraling vis a vis Nature’s Way. It is the CLOSED CIRCLE as Plato’s “perfect form” which traps us in the flaws of re-peating and re-petitioning any ‘his-story’ we follow which does NOT HONOUR AND REVERE MAGO or hold her values close to HEART, as HEARD, in the HERD.Your original post (O/P thereafter) is fascinating and revealing and provides much to discuss on the topic of Zoroaster/Zarathustra and the Persian/Arabic/Semitic invention of Algebra and Astrology. […]
(Special post) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), in recognition of the ill-treatment and misunderstanding of Aboriginal people that was set in train when, in 1788, white people first settled in the land now known as Australia.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [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.] [C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments: To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do. [C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented! [Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope. I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system? Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there. Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be. [C]: On this […]

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

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

It is the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. In the PaGaian version of Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony participants journey to the “Luminous World Egg” … a term taken from Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance[i], where she also names that place as the “Shining Isle”, which is of course, the Seed of conception, a metaphor for the origins of all and/or the female egg: it is the place for rebirth. Artist: Bundeluk, Blue Mountains, Australia. The “luminous world egg” is a numinous place within, the MotherStar of conception: that is, a place of unfolding/becoming. The journey to this numinous place within requires first a journey back, through some of each one’s transformations, however each may wish to name those transformations at this time. The transformations for each and every being are infinite in their number, for there is “nothing we have not been” as has been told by Celts and others of Old, and also by Western science in the evolutionary story (a story told so well by evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, particularly in her video Journey of a Silica Atom.) Ceremonial participants may choose selves from biological, present historical self, or may choose selves from the mythic with whom they feel connection; from any lineage – biological or otherwise. Selves may also be chosen from Gaia’s evolutionary story – earlier creatures, winged or scaled ones … with whom one wishes to identify at this time. Each participant is praised for their “becoming” for each self they share. When all have completed these journeys/stories of transformation, the circle is lauded dramatically by the celebrant for their courage to transform; and she likens them all to Gaia Herself who has made such transitions for eons. The celebrant awards each with a gingerbread snake, “Gaian totems of life renewed”[ii]. gingerbread snakes Participants sit and consume these gingerbread snakes in three parts: (i) as all the “old shapes” of self that were named; and (ii) remembering the ancestors, those whose lives have been harvested, whose lives have fed our own, remembering that we too are the ancestors, that we will be consumed; and (iii) remembering and consuming the stories of our world that they desire to change, the stories that fire their wrath or sympathy: in the consuming, absorbing them (as we do), each may transform them by thoughts and actions – “in our own bodyminds”. When all that is consumed “wasting no part”, it is said that “we are then free to radiate whatever we conceive”, to “exclaim the strongest natural fibre known” – our creative selves, “into such art, such architecture, as can house a world made sacred” by our building[iii]. This “natural fibre” is a reference to the spider’s thread from within her own body, with which she weaves her web, her home; and Spider has frequently been felt in indigenous cultures around the globe as Weaver and Creator of the Cosmos. Spider the Creatrix, North America, C. 1300 C.E., Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.13 In the ceremony, participants linked with a thread that they weave around the circle, may sail together for a new world “across the vast sunless sea between endings and beginnings, across the Womb of magic and transformation, to the “Not-Yet” who beckons”[iv]: to the Luminous World Egg whereupon the new may be conceived and dreamed up. Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony is an excellent place for co-creating ourselves, for imaginingthe More that we may become, and wish to become. This is where creation and co-creation happens … in the Womb of Space[v], in which we are immersed – at all times: and Samhain is a good season for feeling it. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005 Sahtouris, Elisabet. Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution. Lincoln NE:iUniversity Press, 2000. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. NY: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. The Earth’s Imagination.DVD series 1998. NOTES: [i]p.210 [ii]a version of this Samhain script is offered in Chapter 7 PaGaian Cosmology [iii]These quoted phrases are from Robin Morgan, “The Network of the Imaginary Mother”, in Lady of the Beasts, p.84. This poem is a core inspiration of the ceremony. [iv]“Not-Yet” is a term used by Brian Swimme, The Earth’s Imagination, video 8 “The Surprise of Cosmogenesis”. [v]note that creation does not happen at the point of some god’s index finger, as imagined in the Sistine Chapel – what a takeover that is!
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/
(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
(Book Excerpt) Imbolc/Early Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Imbolc/Early Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – February 1st/2nd though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, thus actually a little later in early August for S.H., and early February for N.H., respectively. Some Imbolc Motifs In this cosmology Imbolc/Early Spring is the quintessential celebration of She Who is the Urge to Be. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the differentiation quality of Cosmogenesis,[i] and with the Virgin/Young One aspect of the Triple Goddess, who is ever-new, unique, and singular in Her beauty – as each being is. This Seasonal Moment celebrates an identification with the Virgin/Young One – the rest of the light part of the cycle celebrates Her processes. At this Moment She is the Promise of Life, a spiritual warrior, determined to Be. Her purity is Her singularity of purpose. Her inviolability is Her determination to be … nothing to do with unbroken hymens of the dualistic and patriarchal mind. The Virgin quality is the essential “yes” to Being – not the “no” She was turned into. In the poietic process of the Seasonal Moments of Samhain/Deep Autumn, Winter Solstice and Imbolc/Early Spring, one may get a sense of these three in a movement towards manifest form – syntropy: from the autopoietic fertile sentient space of Samhain, through the gateway and communion of Winter Solstice to differentiated being, constant novelty, infinite particularity of Imbolc/Early Spring. The three are a kaleidoscope, seamlessly connected. The ceremonial breath meditations for all three of these Seasonal Moments focus attention on the Space between the breaths – each with slightly different emphasis: it is from this manifesting Space that form/manifestation arises. If one may observe Sun’s position on the horizon as She rises, the connection of the three can be noted there also: that is, Sun at Samhain/Deep Autumn and Imbolc/Early Spring rises at the same position, halfway between Winter Solstice and Equinox, but the movement is just different in direction.[ii] And these three Seasonal Moments are not clearly distinguishable – they are “fuzzy,”[iii] not simply linear and all three are in each other … this is something recognised of Old, thus the Nine Muses, or the numinosity of any multiple of three. Some Imbolc/early Spring Story This is the Season of the new waxing light. Earth’s tilt has begun taking us in this region back towards the Sun. Traditionally this Seasonal Point has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself – around us in flora and fauna, and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and to inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may celebrate the new young Cosmos – that time in our Cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming, as well as the new that is ever coming forth. This first Seasonal transition of the light part of the cycle has been named “Imbolc” – Imbolc is thought to mean “ewe’s milk” from the word “Oimelc,” as it is the time when lambs were/are born, and milk was in plentiful supply. It is also known as “the Feast of Brigid,” Brigid being the Great Goddess of the Celtic (and likely pre-Celtic) peoples, who in Christian times was made into a saint. The Great Goddess Brigid is classically associated with early Spring since the earliest of times, but her symbology has evolved with the changing eras – sea, grain, cow. In our times we could associate Her also with the Milky Way, our own galaxy that nurtures our life – Brigid’s jurisdiction has been extended. Some sources say that Imbolc means “in the belly of the Mother.” In either case of its meaning, this celebration is in direct relation to, and an extension of, the Winter Solstice – when the Birth of all is celebrated. Imbolc may be a dwelling upon the “originating power,” and that it is in us: a celebration of each being’s particular participation in this power that permeates the Universe, and is present in the condition of every moment.[iv] This Seasonal Moment focuses on the Urge to Be, the One/Energy deeply resolute about Being. She is wilful in that way – and Self-centred. In the ancient Celtic tradition Great Goddess Brigid has been identified with the role of tending the Flame of Being, and with the Flame itself. Brigid has been described as: “… Great Moon Mother, patroness (sic … why not “matron”) of poetry and of all ‘making’ and of the arts of healing.”[v] Brigid’s name means “the Great or Sublime One,” from the root brig, “power, strength, vigor, force, efficiency, substance, essence, and meaning.”[vi] She is poet, physician/healer, smith-artisan: qualities that resonate with the virgin-mother-crone but are not chronologically or biologically bound – thus are clearly ever present Creative Dynamic. Brigid’s priestesses in Kildare tended a flame, which was extinguished by Papal edict in 1100 C.E., and was re-lit in 1998 C.E.. In the Christian era, these Early Spring/Imbolc celebrations of the Virgin quality, the New Young One – became “Candlemas,” a time for purifying the “polluted” mother – forty days after Solstice birthing. Many nuns took their vows of celibacy at this time, invoking the asexual virgin bride.[vii] This is in contrast to its original meaning, and a great example of what happened to this Earth-based tradition in the period of colonization of indigenous peoples. An Imbolc/Early Spring Ceremonial Altar The flame of being within is to be protected and nurtured: the new Being requires dedication and attention. At this early stage of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: there may be uncertainties of various kinds. So there is traditionally a “dedication” in the ceremonies, which may be considered a “Brigid-ine” dedication, or known as a “Bridal” dedication, since “Bride” is a derivative of …

(Essay) Reviving and Celebrating the Nine-Goddess Symbolism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

In my ongoing research on the Great Goddess known as Mago, I have discovered the number nine gynocentric symbolism as the most prominent current that constitutes Magoism and named it the Nona (Number Nine) Mago religion/civilization/mythology. Like other civilizational inventions such as the calendar and musicology, numerology is an intellectual system of knowing the Way of Nature/Universe/Creatrix. And the number nine is no arbitrary number but is the numeric code of the Creatrix or the Primordial Mother. It codifies the cosmogonic beginning of the Primordial Mother, that is, the Primordial Mago Household. It refers to the primordial principle of the solar/terrestrial beginning.
(Essay 1) Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s note: This paper is published in the journal, the Gukhak yeonguronchong 국학연구론총 (Issue 14, December 2014). Here it will appear in five sequels including the response by Dr. Glenys Livingstone.] Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity[1] Abstract: This paper discusses the gynocentric principle in the Magoist cosmogony embodied in Cosmic Music and compares it with the traditions of Muses in ancient Greco-Roman culture and Matrikas in Hindu cultures. Methodologically, being the first research of its own kind, my study of Magoism takes a path led by the peculiarities of primary sources from Korea, China, and Japan. As a result, a feminist, transnational, multi-disciplinary, and comparative approach is employed to dis-cover otherwise irrelevant or isolated materials that include written texts, folktales, art, literary and place-names. The Magoist cosmogony characterized by Cosmic Music as ultimate creativity and Mago lineage of the first three generations known as Gurang (Nine Goddesses), the Mago Triad (Mgo and Her two daughters) and eight granddaughters strikes a strong resonance in Muses and Matrikas. In the latter two traditions, not only linguistic and numerical evidence but also the gynocentric (read female-centered) principle represented by parthenogenesis, matri-lineage, and cultural manifestations appear akin to the Magoist cosmogony. From the perspective of Magoism, such multifaceted unity is not surprising. Precisely, traditional Magoists self-proclaim as the memory-bearer of the original narrative of the Primordial Mother. Keywords: Mago, Mago Stronghold, Budoji, Parthenogenesis, Muse, Matrika, Goddess, Cosmic Music, Music of the Universe, Nine Goddesses, Triad, Matrilineal, Korean Goddess, Mago lineage, Greek Goddess, Indian Goddess, Hinduism
(K-Drama Review 1) Liminal Space/Time into WE: What Hotel del Luna Displays by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: Hotel del Luna is a 16-episode Korean television drama aired in 2919. Caution is required for the spoiler. This essay is prompted by this drama, which was discussed in a new class, Experience Korean Culture through Film (EKCF) offered by Mago Academy. I am ever grateful for this opportunity to assess matriversal (read Magoist) soteriology, eschatology, and cosmology implicated in this drama. This drama takes viewers to a liminal time/space. At the liminal timespace, we see how one meets the other. Almost all objects of the drama remind viewers of their liminal property. The female main character, neither living nor dead, stands between the living and the dead. The ghost-serving moon lodge she operates is visible to both ghosts and people. So is the tree of the moon spirit, a symbol for the tree of life or the world tree, which summons the moon lodge to take place. And so are all beings with physical forms. The liminal timespace is where we find ourselves in the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW.] Copyright origin unknown. Part I: Introduction with Synopsis Jang Manwol, the female protagonist, is fixated to the tree of the moon spirit (wolryeongsu 월령수) and entrusted as the representative of the moon lodge, which serves ghosts charged with unrelenting resentments, by the Mago Divine. Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Creatrix), by providing new opportunities, awaits Manwol until she takes actions to relieve her unyielding grudge, caused by the complex socio-political misfortunes in the 7th century. Manwol is, currently neither living nor dead, expected to die and take a ride to the realm of after-life (returning to the origin) just like other ghosts in her lodge. Together with her ghost employees, she operates a large luxurious hotel, Hotel del Luna, the latest name of the moon lodge. Standing in the liminal time/space, the hotel is equipped with an elegantly decorated spacious lobby, a sky-viewing terrace, a horizon-surrounded beach, and an amusement park as well as a multiple number of rooms, each of which is catered to serve the special needs of a ghost guest. At the heart of the lodge is the tree of the moon spirit. The hoteliers welcome ghosts, diagnose the story of han (unresolved resentments) that they carry in themselves and its remedy, and execute plots to resolve resentments in a peaceful manner, to be beneficial to ALL. Upon being healed and rejuvenated with a new perspective on their past lives and the Reality of Intercosmic Life, the ghosts leave the lodge to take the ride to the realm of after-life (jeoseung 저승). The dead are supposed to take this ride to the Origin. Ghosts with unrelenting resentments escapes this route and lingers in the in-between reality of the living and the dead. Until accepting the help of the male protagonist, Gu Chanseong, sent by the Mago Divine, Manwol stubbornly continues to roam around her inbetween space/time. Insofar as she holds onto her own oath to avenge, the tree of the moon spirit remains dormant, seemingly dead. The tree, a visual locus reflecting the inner landscape of Manwol (her predecessors and successors alike), connects ghosts and people and reveals the reality of Life to them. The young man, Chanseong, misses no opportunity to choose the good and to right the wrong in ghosts and people, which is the key to straightening up the entangled karmic consequences. He prompts Manwol to heal herself: She realizes the truth about her betrayer (she was consumed by her anger against him so much so that she could not know the truth; he did not betray her but saved her) and let go of her over-1,300 year-long desire to destroy him. Affected by the grudge-releasing actions of Chanseong, she gradually chooses the path to reconcile with her past, as the Mago Divine wishes for her. The tree of the moon spirit, showing a sign of life again by putting out leaves and flowers, harbingers the end of the moon lodge. Manwol and her ghost employees as well as Chanseong reach the timespace of saying good-bye to move on to the next stage of Life’s cycle. Mawol becomes the last ghost who get helped in her lodge. The Mago Divine is seeking a new owner for the lodge so that ghosts with resentments can continue to be served. The drama is potentially transforming the human psyche from within. Tantalizing, heart-breaking, and frightening stories of the dead and the living stretch the horizon to the whole — the realm of physical life (iseung 이승), the realm of afterlife (jeoseung 저승), and the in-between realm of ghosts. In the sense that its narrative structure is built on the Korean folk belief of Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Crone, and Creatrix), and Magoism, the Way of the Creatrix, I find this drama a composite text of Magoist thealogy (a systematic understanding of Mago, the Creatrix) at the core. What the hoteliers are doing is in fact the role of Mudangs (Korean Shamans). Although Mudangs and Muism (Korean Shamanism) are strikingly absent, the drama resonates with the Muist worldview. The core message is to release unrelenting resentments of the dead on the part of the living. Intriguingly, this drama does not speak directly to humans, “Humans, do not create cheok (hatred or suffering in other beings).” Perhaps, such is too clear a message to articulate. At any rate, we are supposed to gain the lesson by listening to the stories of ghosts. What we see is that troubled ghosts with resentment are helped and guided to the journey of afterlife. The dead are expected to take the ride to the realm of after-life immediately. Ghosts are those who would not follow the path of the dead. Viewers are told why some people become haunting ghosts upon death, why ghosts seek to interfere with humans, and why ghosts are tempted to take revenge upon humans. We may say that ghosts are the confused or disrupted souls. Ghosts face extermination by the Mago Divine if they harm humans or assist an evil ghost. Consequently, evil ghosts are precluded from the cycle of rebirth. That is …

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