June 25, 2025June 6, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

My Grandmother’s Pearls are Green… Forget-Them-Not by Sara Wright

“That move into mystery is not an abandonment of perception into a cloud of unknowing. Read More …

June 24, 2025June 17, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 9) Mago Halmi (Great Mother) Shapes Topographies with Her Skirt: An Introductory Discussion by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 1, 2024). Footnotes numbers here differ from those of the original Read More …

June 23, 2025June 6, 2025 Carolyn BoydLeave a comment

(Poem) Children of Our Dreams, We Are With You by Carolyn Lee Boyd

I often think of my ancestors and I sometimes wonder, “Did they ever think of me?” I think they did in their own way, doing what they thought would make Read More …

June 21, 2025June 17, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Sarah Wolfe

Sarah Wolfe’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including The Orchard Poetry Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, Synkroniciti, Bitter Melon Review, Willows Wept Review, Misfit Magazine, Academy of the Read More …

June 20, 2025May 29, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) Birds and Bees and All Things Beautiful by Mary Saracino

They sustain us the birds and the bees in their infinite beauty they fly through the air the bees buzzing, the birds flapping their wings chirping, singing making a joyful Read More …

June 19, 2025December 6, 2025 RTM Co-Editor M SaracinoLeave a comment

(Nine Poets Speak) Chant: Through the Rites of Isis by Louisa Calio

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.] While oppression, called society, rules And puts a clamp on every human with a Read More …

June 18, 2025June 6, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 8) 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).] A Shroud of the Miraculous For the Read More …

June 17, 2025June 7, 2025 RTM EditorLeave a comment

Dancing in Abundance by Susun Weed

My friend Jac came to moonlodge. We were both wearing our red clover shirts. Her wife Rose snapped our photo. Lakshmi, goddess of wealth claims the center. Life is so Read More …

June 16, 2025June 6, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) A Worshipper of Egyptian sky goddess Nuit by Tamara Wyndham

Contact prints of the body have a tradition in sacred arts, often functioningas evidence of the physical existence of divine or holy persons. We knowthe Shroud of Turin, the footprints Read More …

June 13, 2025June 13, 2025 RTM EditorLeave a comment

Celebrate Bees by Susun Weed

I love bees. I’m fascinated by native bees. My heart rejoices when I hear them buzzing. I love the carpenter bees that bumble around. Did you know that most wild Read More …

June 12, 2025December 6, 2025 Mago Work1 Comment

(Nine Poets Speak) Trees Aren’t Crazy or Cruel by Mary Saracino

[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.] Trees aren’t crazy or cruel like humans. They don’t lie or kill. They don’t Read More …

June 11, 2025June 8, 2025 ANewvineLeave a comment

(Music/Art) The Muse as Sacred Collaboration (music by Alison Newvine, title art by Claire Dorey)

One year ago, several artists from the Mago and wider Goddess community came together to create the video “Muse.” The artwork and music explore the journey of descent and resurrection Read More …

June 10, 2025June 18, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(E-Interview) Judy Grahn by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Helen Hye-Sook Hwang It is my honor to e-interview Dr. Judy Grahn. Sometimes life turns serendipitously. I did not think that I would be working with Judy Grahn even two Read More …

(Essay) The Living Earth: What She Reveals by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This is an edited version of a radio program by the author in 1994, on 2BLU 89.1 FM, Blue Mountains, Australia, in the context of a series called “Remembering the Great Mother”. “Thirteen point seven billion years ago, our universe was born in a vast and mysterious eruption of being. Out of the fireball came all the elementary particles of the cosmos, including those that later formed our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and our planetary home, the Earth. All the land, the waters, the animals, the plants, our bodies, the moon and stars everything in our life experience is kin to us, the results of a cosmic birth during which the gravitational power of the event held the newborn particles in a deft embrace. Had the rate of expansion of the infant universe differed by even one part in 1060, it would have either collapsed into a black hole or dispersed entirely … The gravitational embrace, some 4.6 billion years ago, gathered a richness of elements eight light minutes from a blazing star, our sun, and layered them by weight into a sphere with iron at the core. The elements sought their own positions in the layers … creating among themselves all the minerals in Earth’s body. On the smaller celestial bodies (Mercury, Mars, our moon), the electromagnetic interaction overpowered gravity’s pull; on the larger ones (Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus), the opposite relationship developed. Only on Earth were the two in balance. On Earth’s crust, molecules continually broke up and recombined into new and larger molecules. Lightning created the possibility of amino and nucleic acids … Molecules that assembled themselves from amino acids became protein, while others formed of nucleic acids and sugars became ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The long chains of RNA, DNA and protein molecules found themselves drawn into various partnerships, creating a dynamic bioplasm of bacteria in warm mud and shallow seawater. From Earth’s store of potential, the great mediator chlorophyll developed, enhancing our planet’s relationship with the sun through the wonder of photosynthesis. A rambunctious bursting forth of Gaian life stretched over millions of years and continues today ….” Charlene Spretnak[i]
(Pandemic Poem 2) Transmuted by Jyoti Wind

Lotus flower, Longs Gardens, PA. Photo by Jyoti Wind We are changed. Even if not sick, even though not asymptomatic, even though not on the front lines, the virus has changed us. On a mental, emotional and cellular level, we are changed. Our future is not where we thought we were going. Our present is drastically different. A virus transmutes its host. Its host is the world. We have all been transmuted one way or another. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Essay) Saving Mother Earth—and Ourselves by Trista Hendren

It took me a long time to understand the connections between the rape and abuse of women worldwide and the rape and abuse of Mother Earth. My children changed all of that. I realized I couldn’t leave them the world I had helped create. So, I started changing my life radically, reducing my expenses by 80% and getting rid of all non-essentials. I started writing feminist children’s books that I hoped all people, young and old, would read.Madeline L’Engle once said, “If I have something that is too difficult for adults to swallow, I will write it in a book for children.” This still rings true today. Our children are our biggest impetus for change.
(Prose Part 1) Persephone Rises by Sara Wright

While researching Minoan Crete, I learned that each autumn young girls once gathered blue violet saffron crocus to leave as an offering for the Wild Crocus Goddess as they prepared for adolescent female initiation rites. I was intrigued by the reference to autumn because I associate flowers more with spring than any other season. From other sources I discovered that in Minoan Crete young girls also gathered bright yellow crocus to celebrate the Great Goddess and the return of spring and that yellow was the color associated with the Great Goddess because of the golden color of the dye made from the precious saffron crocus. Later in Greece during the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, flowers, especially yellow crocus, were also picked to celebrate Persephone’s return from the Underworld. I was particularly delighted by the reference to Persephone picking bright yellow crocus because my relationship with this goddess has been a somber one; I have always associated her with death. And yellow is a joyous color that I associate with early spring.
(Essay) Networked Rites of Compassion and the Serpentine DNA Dance of Evolution and Emergence by Lila Moore

She dances the serpentine dance, moving with the cosmic whirling motion of galaxies and cells. Her movement is winding inside DNA strands, lit by the symphony of photons, existence evolves to her rhythms. She is in the matter and the immaterial, watcher of codes and languages, turning the single into the plural with the blueprint of her serpentine ‘S’. I discovered the phenomenon of the Holy Snakes of Mary in February 2015 shortly after my visit to the Museum of Cycladic Art’s exhibition entitled “Hygieia” on Health, Illness and Treatment from Homer to Galen”. One of the recurring figures in the exhibition is the serpent which was sacred to Asklepios, god of healing. The cult of Asklepios was sustained by many mythic tales featuring the appearance of wise and healing serpents which communicated with humans and culture. In these myths, the serpents appear as guides and helpers that mediate between mundane reality and the invisible realm with the intention to bring about healing. According to ancient lore, the location of a new sanctuary was guided by a snake. There was also a correlation between Asklepios and Apollo Pythios. Delphic theology stressed the rebirth and regeneration aspect of Apollo, which correlated with the theme of the snake’s cyclic renewal of skin. Perhaps, it was a reminder of the ancient goddess-centred worship of Gaia, the Great Mother, and her daughter, the serpentine creature Python.
Cerridwen in the Woods by Alision Newvine

[This essay is from the anthology entitled The Wisdom of Cerridwen: Transforming in Her Cosmic Brew, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Cerridwen follow me Cerridwen change with me Til I dissolve in you Cerridwen hunt for me Cerridwen consume me Til I be born through you Cauldron I went to the mountains to face my demons. The first time I’d gone there it had been summer and the days were beautiful. My little drum and I would go into the woods at sunrise to create sound. I’d unleash from within me the awe, gratitude, longing and some sadness too. Nights were passed serenely with stars and crickets. In the peace of life in these woods, I entered cauldron space. Something was brewing slowly within me from the sublime concoction of ingredients the woods provided. I was able to encounter the muse, to feel the sacred creative impulse throb within me. There was no pavement between my feet and the soft, red earth. My voice, so often self-censored and stifled, got a little taste of freedom and bliss. Anger Between summer and winter, the trappings of modern life had taken hold of me and I went back with my partner to his cabin in the wooded mountains to cleanse from it all. I had been struggling with confusion over which path I should take. I was frustrated that I kept going in circles, making the same mistakes, with my addiction to coffee and sugar. I was exhaustion by swinging between confidence and insecurity. I expected the magic of the woods to smooth out the jaggedness of my angst and to provide easeful insight. I remembered how the muse had danced with my drum and me in the morning woods and I longed to meet her once more. Of course, things did not go as planned. I felt depressed, groggy and severely impatient with the hardships of a simple life. I tried to deal with my emotions. I kept up with my yoga practice, journaled, exercised. I sawed wood, drank tea and rested. These actions helped to take the edge off, temporarily, but the edge would quickly return like a thin layer of dust on a shelf. The moment I had completely wiped it away, new specks would start to accumulate, making it harder to breathe, harder to see what was beneath the dust. The cold was ruthless. I didn’t drum. I didn’t sing. I didn’t talk about my brewing discontent. My voice felt even more constrained than it had back in the city. One morning, after a particularly bad night’s sleep, I awoke cold and bitter. I attempted to light the fire, irritated that warmth wasn’t available at the press of a button. It would not light and I was getting frustrated. Anger at my own helplessness overcame me. I threw the matches against the wall, pulled on my boots and jacket, and ran out of the cabin towards the woods. Below the surface frustration was a deeper rage that had been boiling in that cauldron. Rage at the theft of my sacred empowerment, stolen from me bit by bit by the Prince Charming narratives and Father God threats that created in me a belief in my inferiority, helplessness and desperate need to be saved. Hare It felt good to run, to move what my body was holding. The hut was still within my sightline when sharp pain in my heart stopped me in my tracks. I was still pulsating with fury that was about so much more than not lighting the fire. I sat down on a rock and had a good cry. Or maybe it was a bad cry. I’d had a few of those over the past couple of days, the kind that go on too long so that rather than purge the toxic emotion, the cry just exacerbates it and gives one a splitting headache and swollen face. Whichever kind of cry it was, it stopped when I saw something move in the brush a short distance away. The something was gray and about the size of a large rabbit. My attention was immediately refocused on this living being near me, a mammal, with red blood coursing through its veins just like mine, a being I had never met and would probably never encounter again. I began to really look at what was around me. Snow had fallen during the night, coating the branches of the trees. The skinny, spindly ones and the thick and sturdy ones were enfolded in glittering white dust. The snow was sparkling in the bits of sun that were peaking through the clouds. This is amazing. Its absolutely beautiful and alive and every bit of it is conscious. After days feeling foggy minded, frustrated and lethargic, I was suddenly pulsating with energy. The woods had breathed life into me and I was delighted by all there was to see and feel. I felt soothed by this circle of wood, earth and snow around and beneath me. The soft, muted sun above me felt like the whisper of a kiss. My focus shifted from my own misery and was redirected out to the living, breathing woods and what it was telling me. Stories I knew I’d never be able to relay, wisdom I couldn’t translate into words. I looked back and saw the brown siding of the cabin peeking between the trees. A sisterhood of pine drew me further in, or maybe it was just one tree that caught my eye, or perhaps only a single branch, bent like a wise old woman’s finger, beckoning me nearer. The next time I looked back towards where I’d come from, I couldn’t see the hut anymore, nor could I pick out the brush where I’d seen the gray or white rabbit. I set off in the direction I thought the cabin was hiding and looked for my footprints in the snow. That should be easy, just follow my footprints back the way I …
(Essay 8) The Blending of Bön, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture by Krista Rodin

Daily Life Mosuo House with Buddhist Shrine, Lugu Lake. Photo, K. Rodin The Mosuo’s blending of various religions extends from their daily and annual festivals into the construction of their buildings. Their structures are built with wood and look like log homes with dragon-tiled roofs. They are constructed around a central courtyard and the complex has a grandmother’s house with separate ones for girls over the age of thirteen. The uncles, the grandmother’s sons, also live in the complex. There is a golden stupa room for the family priest/lama. While all women over sixty earn the right to be called grandmothers, a leading matriarch is chosen from the clan, she becomes known as the main Grandmother. Her room is the center of family activity. In a typical Mosuo house, the Grandmother’s room is off to the left in the courtyard. There are two steps up and down to enter the room and one is expected to bow when entering. The steps indicate there is something sacred about entry into Grandmother’s space. The room is in two main sections divided by a stoop on which the majority of the room sits. At the back of the entrance is a table with a fireplace in front of it, and in the back corner is a Buddhist shrine. There is a long bench along the wall for visitors to sit. From the rafters above hang various pieces of pig: arms, legs, face and inner organs. Often at the back on a table is a large pig carcass that has been cleansed of all inner organs, blood and bones, then filled with salt, pepper, wine and a preservative. The carcass is sewn back together and kept for 7-8 years somewhere dry in the house as a sign of wealth and prosperity. The tradition for doing this seems to have started in the distant past when people did not usually have enough to eat, nor any way to preserve meat beyond a few days. When one enters the room one needs to turn right to the main section, which is again divided into a right and left section. The right section is for the men to sit and has the male pole by it; the left side is where grandmother’s cupboard bed, the female pole and the women sit. The women’s pole is cut from the lowest level of the tree trunk, near the roots, while the male pole is taken from the middle section of the tree; both poles must be from the same tree and only by having both of them is the house strong enough. This structure is almost the diametric opposite of the style of a Mongolian ger. As in a ger, Mosuo young children sit in the middle. While fathers do not play a role in Mosuo culture, uncles do. The two most influential people in the family are grandmother and usually the eldest uncle. In the middle of her room at the front is the family’s hearth, which has a large open round iron inset with three prongs to hold pots. At the back of the circle, by the wall is a small insert for food offerings to the ancestors, the shanbalas. Offerings are given first to the ancestors prior to every meal. Fire plays a very important part in Mosuo culture and the hearth is intended to be kept burning as an eternal flame 24/7. They worship the non-gendered Fire God as well as the Goddess Gemu and particular Tibetan Buddhist deities. Fire means happiness and well-being as it provides warmth and cooks food. Ancestor spirits are not just in and around the hearth, but also in the heavens, so sometimes the smoke from cooked meat—pig, goat, yak—is sent up through the rafters to the heavens above. Incense is also offered to the ancestors as well as to the Fire God. On the opposite wall and facing the hearth is usually a poster of the Goddess Gemu on a white mare. She sits astride in a traditional Mosuo white skirt and pink-red bodice with rainbow colored ribbons flowing from her hair, headdress and the horse’s saddle blanket. The goddess holds a flute in one hand, indicating the importance of music to the culture, and a trident with conch in the other, indicating the strength religion brings with calling to the gods. Diagonally across from the Grandmother’s bed is a small door that is only opened for birth and death. It is opened when a baby is born, and when the body is taken out of the house after death wrapped in white cloth similar to a baby’s swaddling clothes. Once a person dies, both the daba and the lama are called. The daba immediately performs send-off rituals, while the lama looks for the most auspicious time for the funeral, based on the deceased birth and death data. Once the time has been chosen, which can be anywhere from a week to a month after death, funeral procedures begin. The three-day ritual begins with the Lama reciting scriptures for the deceased, the following day a wake is held with family and friends, and the third day the actual funeral proceedings take place under the auspices of both the daba and lama. The body is taken from the house and placed in a small log cabin-like box that is on top of a funeral pyre. Today various kinds of artificial inflammation devices are used to help the burning process. There are three major life event rituals and celebrations for the Mosuo: Birth, which is considered to include thirty days after a child is born, which is overseen by the women; the Coming of Age ceremony when children reach thirteen years of age which makes them adults— during this ceremony the children leave their kids’ clothes behind and change to adult clothes; and the third is Death, which is overseen by men. Rituals for all these events are conducted within the household. During the Cultural Revolution, these practices were abolished, along …
(Art) The Sovereign Feminine, An INTUIT Card collage meditation by Cynthia Tom

Art by Cynthia Tom Owning the “Self.” Take the time to remember the Soul purpose you came here to fulfill. Keep the lessons and the love, but shed the negative conditioning from your ancestral family of origin to become your sovereign self. https://www.magoism.net/2021/07/meet-mago-contributor-cynthia-tom/
(Essay 5) Goddesses in Hinduism: “All the Mothers are One” by Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.

[Editor’s Note: This essay is from the same title, “Goddesses in Hinduism: “All the Mothers are One”‘ by Mary Ann Beavis with Scott Daniel Dunbar included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018).] VILLAGE GODDESSES These have been called “Untamed Goddesses of Village India.”[1] As opposed to the pantheon of orthodox Hinduism, the village Goddesses are popular or folk deities, particularly prominent in southern India. Richard Brubaker describes them as “powerfully ambivalent deities crucial to the welfare of their village”,[2] whose worship arises out of times of crisis: floods, famines, drought, epidemics. They are regarded as both the cause of these disasters and as their cure. Some are strictly localized to a specific village, some are more regionally recognized. Venerated physical images of the village Goddesses are often temporary, and rather crude, made specifically for their festivals. They may not be represented anthropomorphically, but by uncarved stones, trees, or small, imageless shrines.[3] Goddess festivals are held according to the mythological cycles of the various deities, but particularly when some calamity strikes. The crisis festival usually includes a blood sacrifice that represents the demonic force to be overthrown by the Goddess. The mythology of the village Goddesses often involves the theme of the injustices to women done by men;[4] they are often addressed as “Mother” (Ma), but they are not necessarily “mothers” of other deities. Perhaps this is because, for her worshippers, “She represents human survival—the well-being of their children, the continuity of life, and the success of crops dependent on favorable weather conditions as well as fertility of the soil. Their lineage should be secure for, if she is honored, people should not be bothered by barrenness or the death of children. She places humans in harmony with nature, reaffirming their connection to it.”[5] One of the myths associated with the Tamil (southeastern India) Goddess Mariyamman (or just Amman) identifies her with a young Brahman girl who was tricked into marrying an untouchable man; when she discovers the deception, she is furious and kills herself, is transformed into a Goddess, and burns the man to ashes. Mariyamman is a rain Goddess, associated with skin diseases like chicken pox, measles, rashes, etc. Although she is a village deity, she is popular enough to have temples both within and outside villages. Her local shrines are often adjacent to an anthill that might be a cobra’s lair, and eggs and milk are offered to the snake.[6] However, as Judy Grahn notes, “among others, two notable Indian scholars, Karin Kapadia and Pupul Jayakar, have each subverted this diminutive view. Jayakar refers to Mariamma as ‘the mighty goddess’ while Kapadia, who lived with and became friends with people of the village of Auruloor in Tamil Nadu, and who calls Mariamma a ‘great goddess,’ reports that the villagers think of their Mariamma as no less than ‘the autonomous ruling power of the universe’.”[7] Mariamma is similar to a village “pox” deity, Shitala,[8] and both are offered a rice porridge called pongal at a women-only festival held once a year. The Pongala Festival is participated in by Muslim and Christian women as well as Hindus.[9] New Goddesses As noted earlier, most of the prominent deities of contemporary Hinduism are not mentioned in the Vedas, the most sacred scriptures of Hinduism. The Hindu pantheon is not closed, and new deities can emerge or be added at any time. A new Goddess who has been studied quite extensively is Santoshi Ma (“Mother of Satisfaction/Contentment”), who emerged in the 1950s-1960s in central India. In her myth, she is identified as the daughter of Ganesha, son of Parvati. She is first revealed when she comes to the aid of a young woman who is abandoned and forgotten by her husband who left home to find work; the woman is left behind to be abused by her in-laws. Despite her troubles, she remains faithful to her husband, and when she observes a fast one day a week in honour of the Goddess, her husband is restored to her and they move into their own house. The release of the film Jai Santoshi Maa in 1975 popularized the Goddess, and her weekly fast (vrat). Philip Lutgendorf relates the popularity of the new Goddess, and particularly of the film, with the rise of middle class aspirations of women in the latter half of the 20th century.[10] A more recent example of a new Hindu Goddess is the AIDS Goddess (AIDS-Amma), a village Goddess created in the late 1990s by a high school science teacher, H.N. Girish, in the south Indian village of Menasikyathana to raise social awareness of the AIDS epidemic.[11] The Hindu Goddess and Feminism The question of whether the Hindu Goddess is a feminist is one that has arisen in recent decades.[12] Of course, the question is deliberately stated in provocative terms that make little sense: why would the Mahadevi, or any of her many manifestations, espouse a contemporary human social movement? It has often been observed that Goddess-worshipping cultures do not necessarily correlate with high status for women.[13] As Rajeswari Sunder Rajan puts it, in India, “the divide between goddesses and women as social beings can be maintained by patriarchy without any sense of contradiction.”[14] Moreover, in India, appropriations of the Goddess/es are intertwined with political, social and religious movements and struggles, including the Indian women’s movement, which may or may not resonate with western concepts of feminism.[15] A recent example of the political, cultural and religious entanglements that feminist appropriations of Hindu Goddesses can engender is the “Bruised Goddess” Campaign, sponsored by Save the Children India to draw attention to the gap between the Hindu reverence for Goddesses and the prevalence of violence against women in India. Here, hand-painted images of Lakshmi, Durga and Sarasvati portray the Goddesses as victims of domestic abuse: “Rendered in classic calendar art style, the goddesses are depicted in all their finery and beauty, but with disturbing bruises on their faces. The copy reads ‘Pray that we never see this day. …

(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [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.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.
(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 1) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

“Ma” in “Mago” and “Ma-Gaia” Mother Goddess, ca.7250-6700 BCE, Catal Huyuk Turkey [Conversation between Carol P. Christ, Ph.D. and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.] Carol P. Christ (CPC): Below is culled from “Gaia” in Wikipedia: The Greek word γαῖα (transliterated as gaia) is a collateral form of γῆ (gē, Doric γᾶ ga and probably δᾶ da) meaning Earth, a word of uncertain origin. R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (trans. as Ma-ga, “Mother Gaia”) also contains the root ga-. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (HHH): “Mago” and “Goma” are closely linked. Gom or Goma means the bear and Magoist shaman queen of the late fourth millennium BCE. She is also related with the Big Bear constellation. “Go” is used as a modifier referring to Mago or the Goddess in various texts of East Asia. “Mago” is related with “magi,” whose singular form is “magus” or “magos.” Will have to check for more details and the source. CPC: My intuition is that “ma” and “na” are baby talk for mother. In other words, preceding any language. Mycenean is IE language, “Pre-Greek” is not IE. CPC: Below is “Mother” from Wikipedia: Synonyms and translations The proverbial “first word” of an infant often sounds like “ma” or “mama”. This strong association of that sound with “mother” has persisted in nearly every language on earth, countering the natural localization of language. Familiar or colloquial terms for mother in English are: Aama, Mata used in Nepal Mom and mommy are used in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, India and parts of the West Midlands including Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Mum and mummy are used in the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong and Ireland. Charles, Prince of Wales publicly addressed his mother Queen Elizabeth II as “Mummy” on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. Ma, mam, and mammy are used in Netherlands, Ireland, the Northern areas of the United Kingdom, and Wales; it is also used in some areas of the United States. In many other languages, similar pronunciations apply: Maa, aai, amma, and mata are used in languages of India like Assamese, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu etc. Mamá, mama, ma, and mami in Spanish Mama in Polish, German, Russian and Slovak Māma (妈妈/媽媽) in Chinese Máma in Czech and in Ukrainian Maman in French and Persian Ma, mama in Indonesian Mamaí, mam in Irish Mamma in Italian, Icelandic, Latvian and Swedish Māman or mādar in Persian Mamãe or mãe in Portuguese Mā̃ (ਮਾਂ) in Punjabi Mama in Swahili Em (אם) in Hebrew A’ma (ܐܡܐ) in Aramaic Má or mẹ in Vietnamese Mam in Welsh Eomma (엄마, pronounced [ʌmma]) in Korean In many south Asian cultures and the Middle East, the mother is known as amma, oma, ammi or “ummi”, or variations thereof. Many times, these terms denote affection or a maternal role in a child’s life. HHH: The name for Goddess seems as ancient as the language itself. [“Ma” being the first intentional word to be spoken by a baby.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Scholars and mythologists agree that “ma” means both one’s mother and the Goddess, I quoted it in my dissertation written in 2004. Judy E Foster: Brilliant discussion, Helen and Carol! So many revelations… hard to keep up! But do continue, its fascinating – makes so much sense. (To be continued)Join the discussion of this and other topics in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group.

Samhain/Deep Autumn within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

Autumn Equinox/Mabon Northern Hemisphere – September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere – March 21-23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRJNY1LSvIs&t=1175s …oOo… The purpose of this video is for ceremony, and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. The script for this Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony is offered in Chapter 11 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. In particular I mention here, credit for the story of Demeter and Persephone as told by Charlene Spretnak in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have one or more stalks of wheat or native grain tied with a red thread/ribbon, a garden pot with soil, a small garden trowel, a flower bulb (daffodil type), food and drink, that may represent your “harvest” – ready for eating and drinking. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I mention the direction (which I do minimally). The images used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Autumn Equinox ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Autumn Equinox ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. My partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne who has participated in all the Seasonal ceremonies since Samhain 2000, adds his voice to this video. Image credits: Demeter and Persephone (500 B.C.E. Greece). Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.72. Art of Demeter and Persephone on MoonCourt wall: Cernak Herself Music credit: “Gentle Sorrow” by Sky: which he has previously allowed me to use in my work. This piece of music is also used in the Autumn Equinox meditation on my PaGaian Cosmology Meditations published 2015.
(Art & Poem) Candelmas/Imbolc by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(Book Excerpt 5) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] How My Education and Experience Helped Me Study Mago The topic of Mago came to me in time for writing my doctoral dissertation for the Women’s Studies in Religion program that I was enrolled in at Claremont Graduate University. My graduate education, which I crafted to be a feminist cross-cultural alchemical process of de-educating myself from the patriarchal mode of knowledge-making, led me to encounter the hitherto unheard-of Goddess of East Asia, Mago. I came to read the Budoji, the principal text of Magoism, in 2000 and did some basic research to find out that Mago was known among people in Korea and that S/HE was also found in Chinese and Japanese sources.
(Bell Essay 3) The Ancient Korean Bell and Magoism by Helen Hwang

Part III Nipples and Breasts of the Ancient Korean Bell, Revival of Old Magoism in Silla (57 BCE – 935 CE) Female sexuality and the divine are seamless. The ancient Korean bell bespeaks the divine, derived from female sexuality. Emitting reverberation, it casts a spell on the hearer. It is the sound that connects one with the Goddess and with one another. However, lapse of time has never been neutral. It has wrought the change of gender principle in society and in human consciousness. The female principle is severed from the divine. The divine without regard to the female is only astray or make-believe. When the seamlessness is broken, the bell loses its power to enchant. The ancient Korean bell, as a time capsule, sets us to the task of undoing the gender reversal. Unfettering of the arcane knowledge of Magoism is the gain. In proportion to the patriarchal progress in East Asia, Magoism, the gynocentric historical and cultural context, has been submerged. The fact that Magoism remains unregistered is a sign that moderns have drifted too far from the Female Origin. As a result, the female symbology of the bell is rendered irrelevant, if not obsolete. The bell and Buddhism are dysfunctional, if not mismatched. Or, maybe the Sillans who commissioned the bells in the 8th century CE saw Buddhism differently. Keeping at bay what makes the bell as the bell — the female symbology, Buddhist patriarchs have set a maze, heading only to “nothingness.” The sonority of the bell travels to the ear of people. However, deep hearing is thwarted by the patriarchal concept of the divine. Part III begins to deprogram the patriarchal conceptual barrier by shedding light on the core of its female symbology, the Nipples, the Bell Breasts, and the Breast Circumferences. Four Dimensional Mandala Is Here The relief of Nipples depicted elegantly and realistically is an attention grabber. For fear of being mistaken for something else especially by the generation to come, Sillan ancestors named them yudu (breast nipples). To be certain, they named the seat of the nipples jongyu (bell breast) and the enclosure of the breast yugwak (breast circumference). Detailed and refined artistry radiates the spirit of honor and veneration. As seen below, the nipples come in various styles showing the mastery of the bell casters in metallurgic technology. [The following images of Nipples are from the bells of different periods including Silla. The structures of nipples and breasts remain the same throughout history, characterizing Korean bells.] Sometimes, the nipples are depicted as the studs of lotus blossoms. Other times they are seated in lotus petals. Less frequently, the nipples are rendered as flat lotus flowers, perhaps to mitigate the graphic look. Regardless, the viewer can’t miss the number of the Nipples, nine. The nine nipples are aligned in three rows of three in the Bell Breast, which is enclosed by the Breast Circumference. Considering that the triad is the symbol of Mago as Samsin Halmi (The Triad Goddess), the three rows of three represent the triad in all ways, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. One is surrounded by the triad in all directions; an epiphany is stored to enact. Now the bell caster conjoins the number three symbol with the number four symbol. In ancient East Asia, the four corners represent all directions, that is, the whole world. Placed in four corners, thirty-six nipples in all (a set of nine nipples in four directions) represent the female occupying the whole world. Seong Nakju in his inquiry about the thirty-six nipples of an ancient Korean bell states that the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (the first state that united China) divided “the world” into 36 heavens in 221 BCE. (Seong Nakju, see below in Sources.) Unlike the rule of the first Qin emperor infamous for tyranny, the 36 Nipples hint at neither domination nor the hierarchical power of the patriarchal monarch. Instead, they saturate the whole world with the female anatomy. To be discussed at a later point, the nine nipples that came from the 8th century are a time-proven means through which we may enter the consciousness of the Bronze Age, if not earlier when they originated and of the times whenever they reappeared. The four dimensional mandala is revealed, biding its time to evoke one to the fifth direction. The bell delivers the triumph of the Goddess (female principle) to the world in an utterly outlandish manner! Her Way is peace, integration, and beauty. Behold, She is enthroned. Gom (Ungnyeo) and the Nine-State Confederacy of Old Magoism What does a set of nine nipples signify? What does it mean that the ancient Korean bell has four sets of nine nipples? In Magoism the nine nipples are not an isolated symbol. They are on a par with the nine-tailed fox and the nine dragons from East Asia. These are the ancient representations of the female divine. I have delineated elsewhere that the nine-tailed fox is associated with Xiwangmu (Queen Mother of the West) and the nine dragons with Gwaneum (Guanyin, Kannon). Other times, Goddess Herself manifests as of the nine forms. As I discussed, the nine maidens of Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea, is a good example (see “Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea,” Part IV). The nine-female symbology goes beyond East Asia. The concatenation includes the nine Muses, the nine forms of Durga, and the African Goddesses of Oya and Mumbi who are known to have nine daughters. As such, evidence of the nine-female symbolism is intense and cross-cultural. The recurring symbolism of nine in East Asia suggests the once prevalent mytho-history of Old Magoism. Old Magoism is characterized by the rule of Magoist shamans who invented and spread the gynocentric civilization of pre-Chinese East Asia worldwide. Precisely, the nine-female symbolism refers to Gom (Ungnyeo, Bear/Sovereign Woman), founder of the nine-state confederacy in pre-Chinese times (see Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea, Part V). In short, the framework of Magoism …
(Essay 2) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] CALENDARICS AND THE MAGOIST COSMOGONY Calendar is the harmonic numerological chart that indicates specifics of the terrestrial time/space relative to the extrasolar universe. As a cosmic almanac of our terrestrial home, calendar teaches the human world to do the right thing at the right timing, determined by the song/dance of the universe. We humans, part of the calendar, are the guardian of the calendar. Calendar is not and should not be an arbitrary arrangement invented to serve the purpose of a particular group of people, the Budoji says. It is

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