April 21, 2025April 19, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) Blue Goddess (Nuit) by Tamara Wyndham

Goddess Altar Statement Because we live in a patriarchal society, and because many of us have been raised with or surrounded by imagery of a male God, being able to Read More …

March 22, 2025April 22, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 4) 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 …

March 21, 2025March 18, 2025 Mago Work1 Comment

(Poem) My Three Grandmothers by Mary Saracino

[Author’s Note: Previously published at www.mothertongued.com, September, 2004] The Boss we called her, though in life her authority barely reached beyond the aroma-stained walls of her over-worked kitchen. She came Read More …

March 20, 2025March 10, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

Changing Woman (Updated 2025) by Sara Wright

“She who grows old and then young again”. Myth and Commentary I want to begin by recounting the story of how Changing Woman came to be and why she was Read More …

March 19, 2025March 18, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) Black Goddess with Snakes by Tamara Wyndham

Goddess Altar Statement Because we live in a patriarchal society, and because many of us have been raised with or surrounded by imagery of a male God, being able to Read More …

March 18, 2025February 24, 2025 Susun WeedLeave a comment

Betsy’s Garden #2 by Susun Weed

Oh, oh, oh. Spikes and thorns. Needles and spines. The plants of the desert protect themselves. Especially the edible ones. Like the nopal cactus, also called prickly pear, and, in Read More …

March 17, 2025February 21, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 5) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Shapeshifting Mythic Griefscapes Through the Divine Wisdom Read More …

March 16, 2025March 18, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Tamara Wyndham

I have been making art all my life; encouraged by my mother, an artist. My mother died of cancer when I was almost 9 years old: the trauma catalyzed my Read More …

March 14, 2025February 24, 2025 Susun WeedLeave a comment

Betsy’s Garden #1 by Susun Weed

My friend Betsy lives in the Sonoran desert. Her garden is mostly native plants. Xeriscaping. With some roses, rosemary bushes, and heat-tolerant flowers. Here they are. Can you feel the Read More …

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(She Summons Excerpt) It Matters What Stories Tell Stories by Annukina Warda

[Editor’s Note: This essay was included in She Summons: Why Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality? Volume 1, coedited by Kaalii Cargill and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Mago Books, 2021).] It matters what Read More …

March 12, 2025March 12, 2025 ANewvineLeave a comment

Spirit Salve for Stormy Times – Eris by Alison Newvine

Eris, Merciful One Eris has awakenedShe’ll not go back to sleepthe charcoal chaos of this precipicehas roused HerNo longer just sleep waking amongst the giantsShe is Fully Awakeand Her consciousness Read More …

March 10, 2025February 19, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem & Story) Changing Women’s Light by Sara Wright

Born of Stone and Trees Birthing a People from a Mountain of Light I hold slivers of her body touch numinous fragments worked by Peoples who honor and live the Read More …

March 7, 2025March 7, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) Lost texts by Susan Hawthorne

This poem is one of a series of poems from my book Lupa and Lamb. They are poems invented on the basis of language research, and they tell the history Read More …

(E-interview) Trista Hendren by Alison Newvine

Trista Hendren founded Girl God Books (GGB) in 2011 to support a necessary unraveling of the patriarchal worldview of divinity. Her first book—The Girl God, a children’s picture book—was a response to her own daughter’s inability to see herself reflected in God. Since then, she has published more than 50 books with hundreds of contributors from across the globe. Originally from Portland, Oregon – she now lives in Bergen, Norway with her family. Like many, I found GGB through their facebook page. Their posts weaving together Goddess artwork with excerpts from GGB books and anthologies were an oasis in the desert of advertisements, fear, hatred, and meaninglessness that facebook has become. It was through the GGB facebook page that I found the Mago community and began reading and eventually contributing to Return to Mago E-Magazine. My own path to the Goddess came naturally from my feminist sensibilities and studies. In the capstone project in my undergraduate studies, I focused on rape as a weapon of war and traced these institutionalized horrors to the usurping of Goddess spirituality by patriarchal religions. The interconnection of state-sponsored violence, sexual violence and patriarchal religion has remained crystal clear and as such the connection between Goddess spirituality and political activism and advocacy continues to call me forward in my personal journey. The summer after completing my undergraduate studies in 2009, I accompanied a delegation of activists with CodePink to Israel and Palestine to protest the ongoing occupation of Palestine and violence against the Palestinian people. With this group, I met elderly women living in tents atop their demolished homes in the West Bank, witnessed children being tear gassed by Israeli Defense Force soldiers and attempted three days in a row to bring supplies into Gaza, each time being driven away by Israeli soldiers.There is much more I could say about my experience there, and perhaps I will at another time. What remains embedded in me is the fierce conviction that these lives have value. When I look to Goddess spaces and communities today, I am searching for evidence that this conviction is alive and well among us and so often I find this lacking. Girl God Books has remained a consistent voice for these lives and the connection between valuing these lives and Goddess spirituality. Below is my interview with Trista Hendren, founder of Girl God Books, about the relationship between Goddess spirituality and activism in our current historical moment. ALISON NEWVINE Who is the Goddess to you? TRISTA HENDREN Goddess is everything that brings love and nurturance. She is also destroyer of all that stands in the way of those things. ALISON NEWVINE What does feminism mean to you? TRISTA HENDREN Feminism is first and foremost about the total and complete liberation of ALL women and girls. Part of liberating ourselves is realizing where we may have been oppressing others – and doing the work of decolonizing ourselves. Audre Lorde said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any of you.” ALISON NEWVINE You have been consistent voice for the women and children suffering from patriarchal war, occupation and genocide, specifically the US-funded genocide in Gaza. Why have you chosen to center this in your Goddess advocacy work? TRISTA HENDREN Genocide is a sick invention of patriarchy and it is our obligation to do whatever we can to stop it. The babies and mothers in Palestine are just as much children of Goddess as any one of us. Watching this every day has been almost unbearable. However, there have been times in my life where I have felt the pain of people looking away. It was often more painful feeling than the injustice itself. I don’t want anyone, especially children, to know that feeling. But they do. So we must speak louder and increase our diligence until it stops. And we must keep going until it stops everywhere. ALISON NEWVINE It seems an obvious choice, but many, I would say most, Goddess Spirituality communities and organizations have not done so. Why do you think this is? TRISTA HENDREN I think there are probably a few reasons. Firstly, it is deeply painful. I cry many times every single day. I would say I am in some sort of a situational depression. I have felt a dark cloud over me since October. It won’t be lifted until Gaza is free. It is also costly to have a strong public opinion on this in a field that is not known for making money in the first place. Finally, there is a lot of pressure not to speak out. There is a lot of harassment over speaking. And you are bullied and called names for doing so. Meta is also suppressing posts so it sometimes feels futile to continue posting things that people will not even be able to see. It does feel hopeless at times. But I believe we must continue to speak out as much as possible. ALISON NEWVINE Can Goddess Spirituality flourish if we do not directly address issues such as these? TRISTA HENDREN I don’t believe it can. ALISON NEWVINE How can we bridge the divide among women around the heartbreak of Palestine and Israel? TRISTA HENDREN Women in Palestine and Israel had been making progress in peace groups for some time. I am not sure that can continue now. It would certainly be difficult for me as a Palestinian mother after the last 10 months. Israeli mothers have also experienced heartbreak but it is not on the same level of complete and utter destruction, total exhaustion, and forced starvation. I think many people would like to think this is simply a war of two countries on a level playing field. I understand why many believe this. I was brought up in the church and held these same beliefs myself through high school. If you …
(Art & Prose) Understanding Tanit Through Felt Experience by Claire Dorey

Collage by Claire Dorey Tanit’s logo is not an objectified female form so I don’t think patriarchy created it. I’m in Ibiza getting to know this Goddess intending to wind a story through the ‘triangle’ – an anthropomorphic symbol, a ‘circle’ above a ‘triangle’ with outstretched ‘arms’ – that is relatable for women today. Can felt experience and intuition de-code the enigma of this Punic Goddess and is her iconography a simplified female form or is it code for powerful beliefs? “Where there is matter, there is geometry.” – Johannes Kepler. The Phoenicians brought Tanit to Ibiza. According to Temehu she originated in Libya and even before the Egyptian dynasties emerged she was worshiped there as Neith (Tanit / Tinnit – She Of Neith?) – funerary Goddess of creation, wisdom and weaving – weaving implying she is the Divine Mother. On mini pilgrimage, I climb the steep boulder strewn path winding through pine trees and carpets of rosemary towards Es Culleram, also known as Tanit’s Cave. Rippling folds of organic limestone flank the entrance to the eye-shaped, womb space that smells of old books. Someone has placed a terracotta bust of Tanit in her idealised, Romanised guise as Virgo Caelestis on the central altar stone – the Romans and Phoenicians colonised the island. There’s something powerful about being deep inside a hollow earth, cocoon at the top of a mountain so perhaps Tanit’s triangle represents a mountain, after all she is the Goddess who unites Earth with Sky. Or maybe the triangle represents an aniconic form of the Goddess as a venerated stone. In Puig Des Molins, the museum-necropolis, there are countless mould made Tanit votives and icons. Many hold a distinctive pose which I emulate in the musky cave: arms bent at the elbows, forearms forward, thumbs up, palms open facing each other, a position which is quite unlike any hand Mudra I have ever come across. I fail to traverse some spiritual gateway although I imagine how fire, drumming and ecstatic trance would have power here. My clock stops at 11.11. Is this a message about manifesting and time standing still? Some of the larger busts in the museum-necropolis have detachable arms, possibly because jutting appendages are fragile, or maybe they were for specific purposes and ritual. The posture isn’t familiar. The most comparable hand gesture I can think of is when an Energy Ball is created in Qi Gong. Many of the icons and votives are truncated at the sternum, indicating it’s the upper body that is important, so do Tanit’s hands enclose an energetic space, extending from the palms to the crown chakra? The terminology across the ages may have differed but that doesn’t mean this energy wasn’t felt and harnessed. Claire Dorey emulating the arm positions in Tanit’s cave I’m invited to a singing and drumming circle in a teepee. As the vibration of mantra spirals to the apex my mind wanders to North Africa. Tanit was worshiped there by the Imazighen – ’the free people’ – so I wonder if the triangle represents a tent infused with symbolic meaning, as precious language and history, worn by women on tattooed on skin and woven into rugs where bare feet tread. Symbols touching skin must be of significance. Did generations of women pass on their esoteric knowing through touch and sensation? “The tattoo correlates with the Carthaginian goddess Tanit [ ] one of the most beautiful symbols a woman could have on her face.” – Carolina McCabe, Moroccan World News. Without doubt Tanit’s vibration lives on in Ibiza manifesting as a sense of freedom. Women do seem to be liberated from the weight of patriarchal restrictions and judgement here. Historically Ibiza has a reputation for tolerance and acceptance and this embracing of ‘other’ maybe why it was the heart of hippy counter-culture. One theory claims ‘Tanit as Triangle’ originates from ‘aleph’, the symbol for the ox and the first letter in the Phoenician alphabet. Whatever her avatar: Tanit, Ashtarte, Ishtar, Demeter, Juno Lucina, Athena, Virgo Caelestis, Neith, surely the ‘ox’ points to Divine Mother lineage. Do all roads lead to Isis and beyond to Neith? Tanit’s vestigial ‘disc’ and ‘arms’ could be the solar disc and cow horns worn by Isis and Hathor or vice versa. If so the space within Tanit’s triangle could compare to the space beneath the Sacred Cow Goddess Hathor, birther of the sun, nourishing humanity. When the ‘aleph’ is closed with a line at the base it forms a complete triangle, perhaps a sacred womb space or incubating cave. Reverse the triangle and the vulva symbol is revealed! A vulva pointing skywards – how amazing is that! When the ‘aleph’ is closed it resembles the alchemical symbol for ‘air’ – an upright triangle with a horizontal bar. In reverse ‘air’ becomes ‘Earth’. Two triangles form a hexagram, a six pointed star associated with planetary energies. A three-dimensional hexagram set in motion becomes Merkaba, an electromagnetic field believed to connect humans with the Divine. Convoluted coincidence or is there, hidden within Tanit’s iconography, homage to the female light worker alchemists as soul custodians? I’m tempted to say yes because tomb worship was a ‘thing’ and in the graves at Puig Des Molins oil lamps were placed on the root chakras of the deceased, possibly to spark their journey to the afterlife. Tanit’s symbolism can be found within the sacred geometry of the Tree Of Life and Metatron’s Cube and there are similarities with the Ankh, the Kemetic womb space and symbol of everlasting life. As gate keepers, women were on the front line of birth and death. The afterlife and destiny at birth were huge concerns in the ancient world. This was where the power was and it was in women’s hands. See now why patriarchy set about erasing women’s matrilineal power? But how does this relate to modern woman beyond awareness of ancestral female power being empowering? If Tanit held sacred space and generated energy what was it for? I really don’t …
(Art) Meeting Hecate at the Crossroads by Jennifer Powell

Art by Jennifer Powell This painting is a little over thirty years old, starting it was one of the triggers that brought me to a terrible dark decline. When I was able to raise my head, the painting drew me back and I was able to paint my way out. The finished work revealed profound insights into my journey. However, it was a different Goddess that had triggered the tumultuous descent. I had been working on an enormous piece on the Descent of Inanna, she was Queen of Heaven, but she wished to enter the underworld which was the rehem of her sister Ereshkigal. In order to do that she had to pass through a series of gates and at each she must relinquish a symbol of her earthly power. When she arrives, she is naked and powerless and is left to rot on pegs with the rest of the dead. After three days however she reaches that point of total surrender, and that moment becomes transcendent, and she is reborn to return to life. It was that very moment I was trying to capture and at that point I realized I had to make the journey to truly understand it. So I started to pour myself out onto pages which I glued to the canvas of what would be the Hecate painting. It goes without say that the process was effective, I ended up deep in the underworld and I teetered on the brink of suicide, and then I understood what it really meant to surrender. I went on to finish the Inanna piece with a deep sense of understanding the importance and the power of surrender. However, it is to Hecate I am drawn, and I have journeyed to the crossroads to find her many times in my life. She has helped me understand the power of spoken word therapy in healing work. At first, she was just the watcher inside me, it wasn’t until I made the journey to meet her at the crossroads that she showed me the power I had to heal myself. Together we would go looking for what I refer to is the beacon, a sort of relay point set down at trauma that encoded a message that played over and over in my subconscious. When we found this relay point I had to listen carefully to those words, often bitter disparaging and belittling and try if I could to identify the voice the first spoke them then together we would tear down that beacon putting the fragments into Hecate’s cauldron into which we could distil a healing liquid. Then together we would build a new beacon to play a new message, one of love and acceptance. I would then write down that old message and read it out to myself three times trying to feel the points in my body that might hold it to feel the energy of it inside me then I would consign those words to the flames and say” I release you, I release you, I release you’. I have always kept her painting near me so that I do not forget the process. I’ve had the joy and privilege of using this process in workshops with quite large groups of people and the healing and release that we find there it’s deeply moving. Hecate has always been the great constant in my often tumultuous life and I honour her archetype with all my being. https://www.magoism.net/2016/12/meet-mago-contributor-jennifer-powell/
(Book review) Poemas Ante el Catafalco: Grief and Renewal by Donna J. Snyder, reviewed by Mary Saracino

Poemas Ante el Catafalco: Grief and Renewal (Chimbarazu Press 2014) Donna J. Snyder It is a poet’s challenge to find language for emotions that elude language. In Poemas Ante el Catafalco: Grief and Renewal, Donna Snyder uses her considerable gifts to translate the soul’s bodily wisdom into words that simultaneously pierce the heart and offer solace. This collection of poetry is a personal and intimate testament to how grief and bereavement can undo the human spirit, rain unbearable suffering down upon the human body. Snyder takes our hearts in her very capable hands and leads us over the steep hills and through the deep valleys of grief and surrender. Her poems are unflinching, fearless, beautifully written, brave, honest. True.
(Essay) The Women in the Story by Hearth Moon Rising

Old movies are are like thrift store finds. Vintage treasures lurk within detritus, and the discovery of a jewel feels like an achievement. Publicity Poster I recently watched, for the first time, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, a 1964 film noir that had a half-dozen Academy Award nominations (but no winners). It’s a topical film because of the ongoing discussion about the dearth of woman characters in film, epitomized by the Bechdel Test*, which was actually designed not as an aspirational goal but to highlight the abysmal way Hollywood treats women. Sweet Charlotte meets the Bechdel Test and more: it could be classified under the rubric of films revolving around strong female characters. That this could even be conceived as a special category, with women more than half the population, says something. Even more interesting, the stars of Sweet Charlotte, female as well as male, are over fifty (okay, de Havilland was 48). Hollywood, like the rest of corporate media, has long embraced the notion that a woman can be strong, interesting, and intelligent only as long as she’s young and pretty. The double standard is staggering when you consider that around the time Sweet Charlotte was made, an aging Jimmy Stewart put his foot down about the studio casting him as the romantic lead opposite twentysomthing actresses, rightfully complaining that he felt ridiculous. Bette Davis (left) and Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. So what is Sweet Charlotte about? It’s a Southern-gothic crazy horror thriller flick, categories that have always favored girl victims, lady villains, and psychotic dames. Maybe I shouldn’t say it revolves around the women characters, because the heart of the story is the man one of them murdered, played by Bruce Dern, who makes a brief appearance at the beginning. Other stars are Bette Davis (as Charlotte), Olivia de Havilland, Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotton, and Mary Astor. The screenplay was written for Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (not in the film; long story) to sortof reprise the success of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Hence the many torrid scenes between the women focusing on their fears, jealousies, and recriminations. I have a penchant for car scenes, so I particularly liked the part where Davis and de Havilland are driving off to dispose of the body. Most people know Agnes Moorehead from the television show Bewitched. The solid acting is the strength and the downfall of Sweet Charlotte. Director Robert Aldrich could not bring himself to pare down the stellar performances of his cast, and the movie ends up being way too long, even tedious in places. The near-miss of a movie that could have been great, but ended up only being very good, got me thinking about the primacy of story. There is something primal, perhaps even sacred, about narrative. Sweet Charlotte could be dismissed for its violent themes, but violence and betrayal permeate the Odyssey or the tales of King Arthur or the plays of Shakespeare. These are elements of the narrative, exciting or deplorable depending on your values, but at core narrative is something else. It’s axiomatic that entertainment promoted by American media highlights violence, sex, and celebrity to the detriment of quality, but even “serious” movie-making gets sidetracked by the elements that propel a narrative, forgetting the narrative itself. It’s not about the acting or the cinematography or the costumes or the special effects: it’s about the story. Olivia de Havilland This is a lesson that can be carried over to fiction as well. Writers can get bogged down in description, experimental prose, characters, or rules (no adverbs!), forgetting that they’re supposed to be telling a story. Even ideology – even feminist ideology – can fall over itself by overshadowing the narrative. It has to come through the story or it damages the work, rendering itself useless. Callie Khouri has said that she never envisioned Thelma and Louise as any feminist statement when she wrote the screenplay; her point of view shaped the story but was not her focus. Story is a basic human need. Women have all-too-often been written out of story, but story is not about us: we are a part of story. *Bechdel Test: A movie must have at least 2 female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. https://www.magoism.net/2013/04/meet-mago-contributor-hearth-moon-rising/
(Book Summary) Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Bringing the world back into balance means creating equilibrium and peace at every level: between the genders, the generations, different social groups, and different peoples. Over the past decades a new socio-cultural science offering definitive insights for this process has been developed: research on matriarchal societies, known as modern Matriarchal Studies. Widespread misconceptions about matriarchy notwithstanding, women’s strong position does not mean that matriarchies are women’s autocratic rule. Contrary to this, matriarchal societies are based on gender equality. Their social rules have developed out of thousands of years of experience, and demonstrate a perfectly balanced relationship between women’s and men’s spheres of action. All political decisions are reached through consensus among community members, and insightful, thoroughly worked out principles and social guidelines ensure that unanimity will eventually be achieved on each issue. The resulting social structure is non-violent, and enables a good life for all. This book is the basic mainwork on modern Matriarchal Studies. It gives the philosophical and theoretical foundation of this new field of knowledge, the matriarchy paradigm of human history and society. At first the history of research on matriarchy is briefly given, in its various contexts and academic disciplines. It sheds new light on old theories, and re-evaluates newer theories in light of modern Matriarchal Studies. The chapter ends with a brief review of various feminist and indigenous approaches to matriarchy research. They differ fundamentally from traditional matriarchy research, both in their ideological criticism of patriarchy and their liberative context. In the main part, the complete and detailed new definition of matriarchy, which presents the deep structure of this form of society, is given, a definition which was missing in traditional research on this subject. Based on a vast case-by-case cross-cultural research, the structures and guidelines that function across all levels of matriarchal societies are elaborated. This has been done by investigating and presenting most of the still existing matriarchal societies across the continents of Asia, South and North America, and Africa, which exhibit a fascinating richness of matriarchal forms and patterns. The focus is not only on the microstructures of matriarchal societies, i. e. the guidelines and customary practices that make up family and clan systems, but also on their macrostructures, i.e. the institutions that refer to larger social structures, which can even extend beyond one single matriarchal people to encompass connections of several matriarchal peoples. Topics include: Introduction: Philosophy and Methodology of Modern Matriarchal Studies Part I Chapter 1: A Critical History of Perspectives on Matriarchy Chapter 2: Matriarchy in North-Eastern India Chapter 3: Matriarchal Cults in Nepal Chapter 4: Ancient Queens Realms, and Group Marriage in Tibet Chapter 5: Matriarchal Mountain Peoples of China Chapter 6: Women Shamans in Korea Chapter 7: The Islands of Japan: Women’s Cultures of the South and North Chapter 8: “Alam Minangkabau” – the world of the Minangkabau in Indonesia Chapter 9: Matriarchal Patterns in Melanesia Chapter 10 Pacific Ocean Cultures Part II Chapter 11: Matriarchal Cultures in South America Chapter 12: The Spread of Matriarchy to Central America Chapter 13: North America: Matriarchal Immigrants from the South Chapter 14: North America: At the Cultural Crossroads of South and North Chapter 15: Matriarchy in South India Chapter 16: Ancient Matriarchy in Central Africa Chapter 17: Matriarchal Queen-Kingship in West Africa Chapter 18: Matriarchal Pastoral Peoples in North Africa Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a German philosopher and researcher of culture and society, she is a founder of modern Matriarchal Studies. She taught at the University of Munich and was visiting professor at the University of Montreal, Canada, and the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She guided two World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies in 2003 and 2005, and a third large congress on Matriarchal Politics in 2011. She was nominated as one of the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize” in 2005. Voices on the book “Matriarchal Societies”: With the publication of this important book, Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s brilliant critical conceptualization of the deep structures shared by matriarchal societies around the world becomes fully available in English. Her theory has developed, not abstractly, but inductively from the analytical investigation of numerous societies by non-indigenous and indigenous researchers. It provides the basis for a full fledged interdisciplinary and cross-cultural field of Matriarchal Studies where previously only isolated studies were possible. Matriarchal Studies is a deeply political and liberatory field grounded in an understanding that the destructive patriarchal power structures pervasive today are a historically recent development. Scholars of matriarchy, some of whom are members of remaining matriarchal societies, are uncovering and reclaiming cultures created mainly by women. Their research offers support for indigenous peoples’ struggles on every continent for land and cultural rights and brings hope to us all that we can build a better world. – Angela Miles, Professor of Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. If in the millenium of women, future generations look back to find the origin of their peaceful societies, they will find that the work of Heide Goettner Abendroth opened the way. Modern Matriarchal Studies break through patriarchal capitalist ideology, and provide the new/old models for viable ways of life of which our present globalizing market is only a destructive abberation. – Genevieve Vaughan, Author of the books For-Giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange and Women and the Gift Economy: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible, and Founder of the International Feminists for a Gift Economy. For decades, Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth has worked as a serious scholar on the deep history and on-going traditions of matriarchy in Europe. Her extensive research has taken her through strong, historical matriarchies, both on her own continent and on other continents, drawing together the research of the most modern, international scholars on matriarchy. Her book now brings to undeniable light the matriarchal alternatives available to humanity. Dr. Goettner-Abendroth should be on the reading list of every Women’s Studies program. – Barbara Alice Mann, Ohio Bear Clan Seneca, Assistant Professor at the Honors College, University of Toledo, Co-director of the Native American Alliance of Ohio. …
(Prose) 2015 Survivors of Violence Art Exhibit—Reading by Swami Pujananda Saraswati

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

The megalithic sanctuaries built by the elder kindreds of Europe remained an enduring presence on the landscape in the wake of invasions and migrations, long after the peoples who built them were submerged in the ethnic tide. The ancient lore surrounding the great stone monuments became mixed with new religions and stories, but retained its emphasis on powerful women and goddesses. In medieval Europe these sacred stories survived as the fairy faith, where female deities and land spirits mix with the ancestral dead. International folk tradition credits the faeries with raising dolmens and other megalithic monuments. These accounts laid great emphasis on the builders’ power as spinners, typically saying that a fata or goddess or lady carried the giant stones on her head while walking and spinning. Dolmen of Losa Mora, Rodellar, Aragon An old Aragonese legend of the Dalle Morisca said that “a woman appeared who spun with her distaff and carried the great horizontal stone of the dolmen on her head. As she reached the place where the dolmen of Rodellar now stands, she set the stone in the position in which she had carried it.” [Gari Lacruz, 287] In Portugal, a spinning moura carried the wonderfully carved Pedra Formosa of Citania de Briteiros. [Gallop, 77] The Basques named a dolmen at Mendive after the lamiñas. One of them brought the capstone from faraway Armiague balanced on her head, spinning as she went. In some versions she carried the boulder on her little finger. [Sebillot IV 21] The goddess Holle also carried off a boulder on her thumb, according to Germans of the Meisner district. [Grimm] Another Basque tradition says that the witches built dolmens in a single night, carrying stones from the mountains on the tips of their distaffs. [Barandiaran, 173] This theme of “one night’s work” recurs in Irish traditions of megaliths built by the Cailleach (crone). The Maltese also tell it of their ancient temples . A woman with a baby at her breast is said to have created the oldest of them, the Ggantija. “Strengthened by a meal of magic beans, she is said to have taken the huge blocks of stone to the site in a single day, and then to have built the walls by night.” [von Cles-Reden, 78] The Ggantija is on Gozo island, which Greek tradition called the island of Calypso, daughter of Oceanus. The Maltese still point out her cave below Ggantija, which an 18th century writer describes as a labyrinth. [Biaggi, 13-14] The Ggantija A dolmen in Devon was called The Spinners’ Rock. English tradition says that three spinning women erected the megalith one morning before breakfast, amusing themselves on the way to deliver wool they had spun. [Stone Pages, joshua.micronet.it/untesti/dmeozzi/homeng. html, 6-97] Dous Fadas, a dolmen on the road from Clermont to Puy in Auvergne, was named after fées who spun as they carried its stones. In the Dordogne valley three young women elevated the standing stones of Brantôme with their distaffs. In the upper Loire valley three spinning fées carried stones on their heads to build the dolmens at Langeac. [Sebillot IV 21] The French folklorist Sebillot noted that many menhirs are shaped like distaffs or loaded spindles. They were said to have been put in place by supernatural spinners. [Sebillot, 5] In 1820 peasants near Simandre in Ain told a researcher that the Spindle of the Faery Woman, a great standing stone, had been placed there by la Fau who carried it in her arms. It was the only one left of three menhirs planted in the ground by three fées on their way to a gathering. [Tardy, Le Menhir de Simandre, 1892, cited in Sebillot IV, 6] At Rocquaine on the island of Guernsey a woman of very small stature was seen climbing the cliff beyond the beach, knitting and carrying something in her apron as carefully as if it was a dozen eggs or a newborn. She suddenly stopped and, with great ease, hurled a fifteen-foot stone into the plain above. [Sebillot, 7] The Woman Stone at St Georges-sur-Moulon fell when a giant woman from the Haut-Brune forest was descending the hillside. Her apron-strings broke, releasing the stone she was carrying in it. In Scotland it is a basket-strap that broke as the Cailleach carried earth and stones on her back. They spilled out to form Mount Vaichaird, or the rock piles called Carn na Caillich. The Cailleach shaped the hills of Ross-shire and much of the Scottish highlands by carrying loads in her basket. [MacKenzie, 164] In Ireland, the Cailleach Bhéara had two sister-hags who were guardians of Kerry peninsulas. Once, when the hag of Beare fell on hard times, the hag of Dingle decided to help her by giving her another island. She roped one of her own and dragged it southward, but it split into two before reaching its destination. [O Hogain, 67] This is reminiscent of the story of Gefjon, who made king Gylfi laugh and was granted the boon of as much land as four oxen could plough in a day and a night. She yoked her giant sons as oxen to a plow and pulled a huge chunk of land into the sea, leaving a huge lake in Sweden. Gefjon named the new island Zeeland. These tales reach as far as Finland, where giants’ daughters carried huge rocks in their aprons and tossed them up near Päjände in Hattulasocken. The Scandanavian merwoman Zechiel and her sister wished to visit each other, and set about building a bridge of stones across the sea. But they never finished; Zechiel was startled by Thor’s thunder, and the enormous stones scattered out of her apron. In Pomerania, a giant’s daughter wanted to make a bridge across the sea to the island of Rügen. She brought an apronful of sand, but dropped it when her mother threatened to punish her. The spilled sand became the hills near Litzow. [All Grimm 536-7] A Scottish variant has the devil threatening to take an …
Bird Talk: Prayer to the Bird Goddesses by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright Every fall I look forward to the wild turkeys that visit me during the winter. This year visits are more sporadic but the friendship between the three male turkeys that I call the ‘kings’ or the three amigos has persisted for two years creating many questions for this naturalist regarding bird relationships (despite being ruthlessly hunted in spring and fall and randomly shot at). These three friends still seem inseparable and last year I had a chance to get to know each individual. Two continue to defer to the king who is just a little larger than his friends, but I never witnessed conflict between any of these male birds. Last year they displayed and even mated together! This year there is a predator afoot and except for the king who acts as a protector standing watch while the mixed flock scratches for seed, the turkeys hide from me, so I am sure I am dealing with a human threat. Still, the turkeys come in to feed and that’s what matters. Only recently have the males begun to come separately. The flocks are splitting up for spring mating, still two months away. I am quite certain that the turkey friendships I am witnessing are replicated with the females but because they are more reticent it is harder to get to know them individually. Friendships between birds that may be or not be related are not documented in the literature (except during mating and parenting). But I have also seen and written about chickadees, cardinals, and juncos exhibiting close personal relationships that have nothing to do with mating. Some wild birds like the turkeys, have occasionally included me. I also have ruffed grouse, but these birds are shy and are loners. I see one most often around the edges of my field before dawn. They also fly into the fruit trees to eat the last of withered crabapple berries when the first snow settles on the trees. In the spring there is one male who drums on a log in the very same place in the woods but then he disappears. These birds are also aggressively hunted. Friendship has been restricted to offering grouse a safe haven and leaving it at that. However, each summer I have been fortunate to glimpse a grouse family because one mama nests here hidden in the hay ferns, and I see her leading her fluffy offspring up the hill to reach gravel while huddling close to the fence. Last year the mother that nested here had only one little chick. One turkey hen also nests here, but unlike the grouse mama turkey will proudly parade her young up the hill, settle into the moss and spread out her wings in the sun. Last year mama’s single chick was nestled under her wing. The sound of the spring goose migration sometimes moves me to tears. During the summer I feed the geese at a local pond, admiring the protective males who stand watch while their mates are sitting on eggs and then being thrilled at the sight of the goslings when they start to swim. The geese I feed become friends, appearing out of cattails and reeds almost instantly after I leave my car. Goose families travel together with both parents taking an active role in raising their offspring. Obviously, I have a penchant for ground birds, even those like the geese, ducks, and sandhill cranes who migrate long distances but spend a lot of time feeding either in fields, wetlands, or open water. Then there the ducks… When I lived in NM I witnessed the sandhill cranes who arrived in late fall and spent winter nights at the edge of the river, with one male always standing watch. Every morning before dawn I was outside walking by the river, waiting for the families who travel as one related body (except during mating/ chick raising) to sound their haunting calls as they took to the air to feed in the fields for day. I used to wonder why, instead of extolling even worshipping the predators – eagles, owls, and raptors that most folks adore – I preferred the company of those that were primarily vegetarian and unfortunately preyed upon by others. What follows are some reflections on this question. Ground birds (1) live close to the earth even when they take to the skies during migrations. These are (2) peace loving birds who except for the grouse gather in family groups and migrate together. All but the grouse choose (3) communal living for most of year, (and I have to wonder how much hunting pressure has affected the behavior of these birds – I think immediately of the desert quail who also remain together). With the exception of the grouse, all the others have male (4) protectors who stand watch over their families. There’s a fifth reason I love them; (5) they are birds who fly that also are deeply wed to the earth which isn’t quite the same thing as living close to the earth. I think of them as being embodied in some way that other birds aren’t – difficult to explain. When I put these behaviors together: earth loving, peaceful, living in community with males acting as protectors, embodiment, I Immediately think of the way Carol Christ described the peaceful agricultural societies of the past that flourished without war. We could learn so much from Nature if we paid attention. Birds are at least 150 million years strong. During these dark times I am calling upon the ancient Bird goddesses to guide us onto a path that will lead women back into a more conscious relationship with their bodies and that of the earth. I am also asking that these Ancestors help us create a global community one that births men that are protectors of the earth, women, children, animals, plants, fungi; men who are heavily invested in peace. Postscript: I wrote this personal essay to help me …

(Special Post 4) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Yvonne Lucia: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” -British suffragist and journalist Rebecca West “When the God is male, the male is God.” -Mary Daly Yvonne Lucia sacredartportal.com Lila Moore: My first piece of performance art was a ritual inspired by Isis. However, as a young artist, my interest in combining art and ritual was devalued by my teachers and critics alike. I felt isolated and persecuted. Only after relocating to London was I able to gradually understand that my personal and creative aspiration was integral part of a collective and global feminine and feminist awakening. I realised that personal experiences of women have political perspectives, and that being a contemporary woman artist positions me in the midst of historical and cultural enterprise. As an artist-film-maker and scholar, I have regarded my work as a spiritual quest, exploring through dance-ritual and art films the interaction of the body and psyche with the natural environment and technology. In the 21st century, my interest in the healing and transforming aspects of images on screen has been combined with a growing sense of activism. It seems inconceivable to take images of nature out of context by ignoring the ecological holocaust which is evident everywhere. I have felt compelled to ask whether the needs of the body and mind can be separated from the needs of the Earth?
(Special Post 1) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hwang: I am thinking of the Nine Goddess/Mago Symbolism or Nine Numerology. Insights connect the data that I have collected, otherwise seemingly unrelated across cultures and periods. We have reasons to celebrate the nine symbolism among us. As seen in this discussion below, Hercules is most aptly equated with Huangdi (Yellow Emperor, 2698–2598 BCE), one of the forebear emperors of ancient China, who is alleged to have defeated Chiu (successor of Goma), the representative of Danguk’s Nine Giants (nine sub-states). The Magoist history writes the other way around. Chiu won the war, the archetypal international/global war waged over the defense/overthrow of the Magoist throne. Old Magoists (Danguk founded by Goma) of Nine Queen-led States defended the rebellion of the patrilocal force, represented by the Huangdi. With this victory, Old Magoist Confederacy of nine sub-states was able to maintain gynocentric peace of the ancient world for about five centuries longer until a man, Yao, rose to give a way for the establishment of the first patriarchal rule, ancient China of the Xia Dynasty (c. 2070 BCE – c. 1600 BCE). Nonetheless, patriarchal ethnocentric Sinocentric historiography has proliferated to this day. Yu, the founder of the Xia dynasty, is depicted as the hero who slains the nine-headed snake. What I am saying is here that the Nine Goddess/Symbolism is pre-patriarchal in origin and possibly speaks of the same event across cultures! The slain of nine-headed snakes or dragons indicates the usurpation of gynocentric rule by a patriarchal hero across cultures. Let me show you some available information and images to open the discussion. Lernaean Hydra 1 oz Copper | The 12 Labors of Hercules “Hercules was sent to slay the Lernaean Hyrda for his second Labor. The multi-headed, snake-like monster was defeated by Hercules after he sliced its one mortal head. The last day to purchase the 1 oz Copper Lernaean Hyrda was the November 12, 2014. There is, however, time to order the 5 oz Copper Hercules Round, and 5 oz Silver Hercules Round. To read about Hercules and his 12 Labors, check out our blog for more information. If you enjoy the 12 Labors of Hercules coin series, take a look at more Silver and Copper coin collections offered by Provident Metals. After defeating the Nemean Lion, Hercules was sent to slay the Lernaean Hydra for his second labor. The Hydra, a snake-like beast with multiple heads, was raised by Hera to destroy Hercules — making this an inevitable match up. In the face-off between Hercules and Hydra, the son of Zeus used a sword to slice off each of the creature’s necks, according to one popular tale. When the heads grew back, Hercules enlisted his nephew to burn each of the necks to halt regrowth. The Hydra had one mortal head, however; so Hercules used his golden sword to slay the mutant and complete his second labor. The beast is displayed on the Second Labor coin, to be released in the 12 Labors of Hercules Series. The reverse features the multi-headed Hydra in a striking position, displaying the daunting task Hercules faced. LERNAEAN HYDRA and II are inscribed. The familiar obverse portraying Hercules with the Nemean Lion draped over his head as armor is shown on this round, as it will be on each round in the powerful series. “1 oz CMXCIX (999 in Roman numerals) FINE COPPER” is also displayed. The 1 oz. Copper Lernaean Hydra rounds will only be available for one month from Oct. 12 through Nov. 12. Make sure to keep your 12 Labors of Hercules Series collection current before time runs out! 12 Labors of Hercules Driven crazy by Hera, Hercules slew his family — only regretful after recovering his sanity. King Thespius purified the son of Zeus, but to atone for his crimes, he was sent to serve King Eurystheus. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to execute 10 Labors, which were a series of tasks carried out as penance for his actions. Hercules successfully completed all 10, but because his nephew helped with one and he planned to accept payment for another, Eurystheus forced Hercules to finish two more Labors alone. Hercules’ Labors adhere to the traditional order of the Bibliotheca: Nemean Lion – Sept. 12, 2014 Lernaean Hydra – Oct. 12, 2014 Ceryneian Hind – Nov. 12, 2014 Erymanthian Boar – Dec. 12, 2014 Augean Stables – Jan. 12, 2015 Stymphalian Birds – Feb. 12, 2015 Cretan Bull – March 12, 2015 Mares of Diomedes – April 12, 2015 Girdle of Hippolyta – May 12, 2015 Cattle of Geryon – June 12, 2015 Apples of Hesperides – July 12, 2015 Cerberus – Aug. 12, 2015 Commemorate the historic battle between Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra with this 1 oz copper round from Provident Metals.” https://www.providentmetals.com/1-oz-copper-lernaean-hydra-the-12-labors-of-hercules.html Helen Hwang: I looked for the answer to this question: How many heads did the Hydra originally have? It is nine, which accords with its icons to be shared shortly. Helen Hwang: Check out Nine-fold or Nine-Headed Phoenix. Not all iconographies of pre-modern China vilify the nine symbolism, which indicates the influence/presence/revival of Magoism. This image is much reminiscent of the blue crane with nine feathers, a Magoist symbol that we have seen in Mago Stronghold, Mt. Jiri during Mago Pilgrimage (to be discussed in another space). “This Qing-dynasty (1644-1911) print shows the nine-headed phoenix, a being from Chinese mythology with a bird’s body and nine heads with human faces. It is one of several hybrid creatures mentioned in the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing), where it is […]
(Special Post) To Contributors: Strengthening Our Roots by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Dear Contributors, Do you know that Return to Mago (RTM) E*Magazine is entering its fifth year this fall? And, thanks to our collective effort, we are still growing! As of today, our contributors have grown to more than 130 in number and our readership is from about 140 countries around the world. We have some hundred email followers as well as Wordpress blog followers. We draw 3000-4000 clicks per month on average; that is no small accomplishment for a Goddess blog that is named after a yet-to-be heard word, Mago (the Great Goddess), and that began from scratch.

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

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

https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ The Wheel of the Year in a PaGaian cosmology essentially celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, in which Earth’s extant Creativity participates directly, as does each unique being. The Creativity of Cosmogenesis is expressed through Earth-Sun relationship as it may manifest and be experienced within any region of our Planet. In PaGaian tradition this is expressed with Triple Goddess Poetry, which is understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution, as it does in the Seasons, happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: and that is because this tilt effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago, and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago[i]. Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it, in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found[ii], and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found[iii]. The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as our ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change[iv]. In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done; but it will continue to evolve as all language must. At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make everyday around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming into being and passing away[v]. Our need for sacred ceremony of relationship with our place, can only be more dire in these times, as we are witness to, and aware of, …
(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

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

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Dates for Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 This Seasonal Moment is the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb and it is a gateway between dark and light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being. Whereas Samhain/Deep Autumn is a dark conceiving Space, it flows into the Winter Solstice dark birthing Place – a dynamic Place of Being, a Sacred Interchange. This Seasonal Moment of Winter Solstice is the peaking of the dark space – the fullness of the dark, within which being and action arise. It is the peaking of emptiness, which is a fullness. As cosmologist Brian Swimme describes: the empty “ground of being … retains no thing.” It is “Ultimate Generosity.”[i] In Vajrayana Buddhism, Space is associated with Prajna/wisdom – out of which Upaya/compassionate action arises. Space is highly positive – something to be developed, so appropriate action may develop spontaneously and blissfully.[ii] In Old European Indigenous understandings, the dark and the night were valued at least as much as light, if not more so: time was counted by the number of nights, as in ‘fortnights,’ and a ‘day’ included both dark and light parts … it was ‘di-urnal’. I have been careful with my language about that inclusion in the ceremonial ‘Statement of Purpose’ for each Seasonal Moment. This awareness is resonant with modern Western scientific perceptions about the nature of the Universe: that it is seventy-three percent “dark energy,” twenty-three precent “dark matter,” four percent “ordinary matter.”[iii] The truth is that we live within this darkness: it is the Ground of all Being. In Pagan traditions since Celtic times, and in many other cultural traditions, Winter Solstice has been celebrated as the birth of the God; and in Christian tradition since about the fourth century C.E., as the birth of the saviour. But there are deeper ways of understanding what is being born: that is, who or what the “saviour” is. In the Gospel of Thomas, which was not selected for biblical canon, it says: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.”[iv] This then may be the Divine Child, the “Saviour”: it may be expressed as the new Being forming in the Cosmogonic Womb,[v] who will be born. We may celebrate the birth of the new Being, which /who is always beyond us, beyond our knowing … yet is within us, burgeoning within us – and within Gaia. What will save us is already present within – forming within us. The Winter Solstice story may emphasize that what is born, is within each one – the “Divine” is not “out there”: it may be said, and expressed ceremoniously, that we are each Creator and Created. We may imagine ourselves as the in-utero foetus – an image we might have access to these days from a sonar-scan during pregnancy. This image presents a truth about Being: we are this, and it is within us, within this moment. Every moment is pregnant with the new. It will be birthed when holy darkness is full. Part of what is required is having the eyes to see the “new bone forming in flesh,” scraping our eyes “clear of learned cataracts,”[vi] seeing with fresh eyes. That is what the fullness of the Dark offers – a freshening of our eyes to see the new. And the process of Creation is always reciprocal: we are Creator and Created simultaneously, in a “ngapartji-ngapartji”[vii] way. We are in-formed by that which we form. In Earth-based religious practice, the ubiquitous icon of Mother and Child – Creator and Created – expresses something essential about the Universe itself … the “motherhood” we are all born within. It expresses the essential communion experience that this Cosmos is, the innate and holy Care that it takes, and the reciprocal nature of it. We cannot touch without being touched at the same time.[viii] We may realize that Cosmogenesis – the entire Unfolding of the Cosmos – is essentially relational: our experience tells us this is so. The image of The Birth of the Goddess on the front cover of my book PaGaian Cosmology expresses that reciprocity for me, how we may birth each other and the healing/wholing in that exchange. It is a Sacred Interchange. And it is what this Event of existence seems to be about – deep communion, which both Solstices express. Babylonian Goddess, Ur 4000-3500 BCE. Adele Getty, Goddess, 33. Birthing is not often an easy process – for the birthgiver nor for the birthed one: it is a shamanic act requiring strength of bodymind, attention, courage, and focus of the mother, and resilience and courage to be of the new young one. Birthgiving is the original place of ‘heroics,’ which many cultures of the world have never forgotten, perhaps therefore better termed as “heraics.” Patriarchal adaptations of the story of this Seasonal Moment usually miss the Creative Act of birthgiving completely, usually being pre-occupied with the “virgin” nature of the Mother which is interpreted as having an “intact hymen.” The focus of the patriarchal adaptation of the Winter Solstice story is the Child as “saviour”: even the Mother gazes at the Child in most Christian icons, while in more ancient images Her eyes are direct and expressive of Her integrity as Creator. NOTES: [i] Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, 146. [ii] See Rita Gross, “The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 179-192. [iii] These figures as told by cosmologist Paul Davies with Macquarie University’s Centre for Astrobiology, Australia. [iv] Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas, saying number 70. See https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/thomas.html . [v] Melissa Raphael’s term, Thealogy and Embodiment, 262. [vi] The quotes come from a poem by Cynthia Cook, “Refractions,” Womanspirit (Oregan USA, issue 23, March 1980), 59. [vii] This is an Indigenous Australian term for reciprocity – giving and receiving at the same time. I explain it a bit further in PaGaian Cosmology, 256-257. [viii] An expression from Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, 68. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living …

(Tribute) In Loving Memory of Lydia Ruyle (1935-2016) by Mago Circle Members

We posthumously honor Lydia Ruyle (August 5, 1935-March 26, 2016) as Patron of Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality. Mago Circle Members on June 11, 2016. Glenys Livingstone I feel blessed to have known Lydia and to have been in occasional personal communication with her for several years … initially via the Goddess Scholars list. Lydia sent me great information of some of her journeys, was always encouraging and generously supported my CD crowdfunding project in 2015. I feel honoured to have carried her Goddess banners to Australia in 2014.
(Mago Essay 2) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hwang

Part 2 Gynocentric Study of Mago’s Visual Representations [The following sequels including this one are a modified version of my paper presented to Daoist Studies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2010.] Mago [麻姑, also known as Magu or Mako] remains underrepresented if treated in modern scholarship. Little attention has been given to the topic of Magu in its own right. In the West a handful of scholars have mentioned Mago within the context of Daoism. Her transnational and trans-temporal manifestations in Korea, China, and Japan are largely unrecognized. That Magu is known as multiple identities throughout history in East Asia has gone unnoticed. In my study of Mago, that Mago’s supreme divinity as the Great Goddess has been rendered unintelligible over time under the rule of patriarchy offers a crucial insight leading to a befitting method. First of all, the perception of Her as the Great Goddess enables one to recognize a large volume of primary sources, otherwise left unattended, from across national, regional, temporal, and typological boundaries. Secondly, the primary materials in turn allow one to assess the supreme nature of the Great Goddess, Mago, apart from the theological framework of the monotheistic male god. By being a non-Western and non-patriarchal tradition, Magoism warrants a distinctive thealogy characterized by self-equilibrium and interdependence of components, part of which was discussed in Part I. Thirdly, a trans-disciplinary method is corollary in processing a variety of multi-genre materials that would not be neatly categorized in a mono-disciplinary data-pool. To say the least, it liberates itself from the tyranny of monolithic methodology, which dissects to take only a portion of data from the whole and treat it as if it is a single independent entity. In short, methodology and thealogy, being mutually supportive, lead the researcher to a rather unexplored conceptual territory, which I call gynocentrism. Gynocentrism takes the female principle as an operating system. Its system has been thwarted within the discourse of androcentric perspectives. Gynocentrism is a submerged mode of thinking in the patriarchically indoctrinated psyche. Made to be subliminal, the gynocentric mode of thinking elicits the Mago (Great Goddess) consciousness. Consequently, Mago consciousness upholds the infrastructures of gynocentric thinking. What distinguishes gynocentrism from feminism is that it redefines the male as a derivative of the Female. Gynocentrism reflects the principle of all mothers of living beings. In that sense, my study of Mago is a gynocentric endeavor to chart an alternative paradigm of doing thealogy within the context of East Asian history, mythology, and culture. It is a misunderstanding that Magoist thealogy or Magology (the study of the Great Goddess) concerns the divine only. Gynocentric thealogy is not locked into a separate domain apart from humanity, nature, and the universe. Put differently, Magology is not a mere conceptual tool that explains the divine. It summons gynocentric histories, myths, and cultures that are to be restored and rewritten. It calls for rethinking everything in a fresh light. In the sequels to follow, I bring to light a series of Mago’s visual representations expressed in paintings, ceramics, embroideries, woodprints, sculptures, and topographies, and examine Her multivalent identities in light of the large corpus of Magoist written and oral texts. Mago’s visual icons are beyond one’s documentation. They, especially those from China, are still a favored item in modern day’s auction markets. Several hundred images that I have documented are simply incomplete. Some sample images are chosen to show an array of historical/cultural/social productions, once honored and valued highly by many. Through the economy of commodification, these images have carried the cultural memory of the Great Goddess. While a number of her visual icons are undated, many are from the Yuan (1271 to 1368), Ming (1368 to 1644), and Qing (1644 to 1912) dynasties of China, the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) of Korea, and certain historical periods of Japan. Also, many are from modern times. In them, Mago/Magu/Mako is depicted as: (1) An immortal/transcendant (仙 xian or seon, immortal or transcendant). (2) A mendicant. (3) A sea goddess. (4) A mountain goddess. (5) A crone. (6) The ancestor of shamans. And (7) A non-anthropomorphic identity or giantess as the nature-shaper or cosmogonist of local topographies such as mountains, rocks, caves, and seas. The notion of a giantess is employed to describe Her transcendental nature. In this case, Mago-named topographies alongside folk stories describe Her feature/identity of immeasurability. Needless to say, these identities overlap and merge, making up an overall picture of Mago as the Great Goddess. That is, She is each and all. These visual icons, stylized with symbolic objects, respectively demonstrate specific Magoist cultural memes once prevailing and favored among East Asians. A throng of objects such as medicinal herbs, especially lingzhi mushrooms, flowers, hoes, baskets, vessels, and animals, forms the coded syntaxes of the arcane language. In particular, a troupe of animals including deer, crane, dog, and monkey highlights the drama. Also, colophons carry not only the cultural meme but also prestige and authority for its producers and possessors. (To be continued.) [i] I have discussed this in detail in Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Seeking Mago, the Great Goddess: A Mytho-Historic-Thealogical Reconstruction of Magoism, an Archaically Originated Gynocentric Tradition of East Asia, Ph.D. dissertation (Claremont: Claremont Graduate University, 2005), 335-342; 353-361.
(Essay 2) Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and Her Tradition Magoism by Helen Hwang

[Editor’s note: Numbers of endnotes differ from the original ones in the article] Reconstructing Gynocentric Korean Identity Scholars in the West, upon assessing a religion or deity of the non-Western world, tend to pair the topic with a modern nation. Thus, they often project their modern knowledge of the nation or culture onto the indigenous religion or deity they study. Such a methodology betrays the assumption that the modern notion of national identities is time-proven and bias-free. In this process, one’s perception of other people’s cultural expression is molded by Western-made modern knowledge of that people. This kind of knowledge ceases to exist outside the Western mind. Some go further to point out that the religious expression of a non-Western country in point is colored by the air of nationalism that is culturally on the rise in that country. This kind of assessment suggests the idea that a cultural expression fostered by nationalist zeal is inauthentic or impure and therefore of less value for study. While such conclusions are not necessarily wrong, I find it misguided. Done so, it prepares the ground for Western scholars to wield the authority of Western hegemony over the non-Western world. Precisely, it is blind to the fact that no cultural expression in modern times is free from nationalist ethos. Modern life is inherently shaped by the shade of nationalism whether it is in a non-Western world or a Western world. In my view, the question to be asked is: How can we assess a religious expression of a people beyond the modern notion of national identities? Or how can we go beneath the modern notion of national identities in order to assess a religious expression of a people? I hold that the modern category of national identities in particular causes harm to the study of the goddess. Modern nationalities go hand in hand with the impetus of patriarchal religions that do away with the female principle. There is an unmistakable difference between the male divine and the female divine when their manifestations are found cross-nationally. It is generally assumed that exchange of cultures between nations allows the male divine to be disseminated from one people to another. It is true that patriarchal religions have traveled around the globe and disseminated their gods into other nations. When it comes to the goddess whose worship is widespread across nations, such as the case of Mary in the West, however, this kind of reasoning proves to be inadequate. Antithetical is the idea that patriarchal religions actively promote the transmission of the great goddess from one nation to the other. Thus, the very perception of the transnational goddess is systematically thwarted in the realm of patriarchal religions. Androcentric researchers may choose to either dismiss as anomalous the topic of the goddess whose manifestation is found cross-nationally or treat her as a local deity severing her from her transnational context. This has been done to the topic of Mago. While Mago’s manifestation exists across the national boundaries of Korea, China, and Japan, it differs in nature, density, and complexity in these countries. Likewise, primary sources also show different traits according to the country. Korean sources surpass her Chinese counterparts not only in number but also in density and complexity. Mago’s supreme divinity is essentially affirmed in Korean sources, whereas it is treated as unknown in Chinese and Japanese counterparts. More to the point, the Budoji, the principal text that re-emerged in Korea in 1986, asserts that Koreans were the defenders of Old Magoism (Magoism in pre-patriarchal times) against the pseudo-Magoist Chinese regime. How can we understand the primacy of Korean Magoism without resorting to the modern notion of nationalist identities?

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