December 22, 2022December 14, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

The Ritual of Burying A Doll by Jude Lally

As we cycle into the dark of the year a ritual on my path is to bury a doll. She is a small clay figurine, curled up in a foetal Read More …

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

2023 Post-Pandemic Resolutions by Francesca Tronetti

As we prepare for 2023, I can’t help but wonder if we will finally enter the expected post-pandemic. 2021 was as bad as 2020, with lockdowns still in effect and Read More …

December 20, 2022December 13, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

Hemlock Haunting by Sara Wright

When I stand under one of these giants I sink into the dark spiraling into Deep Time. If Hemlock does not succumb to insects a poisoned sky this tree might Read More …

December 19, 2022December 20, 2022 Mago Work4 Comments

The Gifts of the Winter Solstice Goddesses by Carolyn Lee Boyd

In the midnight hour of the darkest night, they ride through the magic forest, bells jingling, alone or leading a wild entourage, giving gifts and sometimes punishments. Holle, Frau Gode, Read More …

December 16, 2022November 9, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Video 2) Cultural Heritage and Ancestral Healing as Art Mediums by Cynthia Tom

[Editor’s Note: This is the session 2 of the same title presented on August 10, 2022.] PLACE presents PLACE alumni who share how they use art to explore cultural heritage Read More …

December 15, 2022November 15, 2022 Kaalii Cargill1 Comment

(Photo Essay 5) We Remember by Kaalii Cargill

There are places in the world that recognize you and can call you by name, even if you’ve never been there. Our ancestors live in the land, and are the Read More …

December 14, 2022December 10, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Pilgrimage 1) Eight Devi Temples in Kumaon, Uttarakhand, India by Krista Rodin

[Editor’s Note: This and forthcoming parts are the report of pilgrimage visits made during October 2022.] The province of Uttarakhand in Northwest India borders Nepal on the east, Tibet on Read More …

December 13, 2022December 13, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 3) The Myriad Faces, Marvelous Powers, and Thealogy of Greek Goddesses by Mara Lynn Keller, Ph.D.

[Editor’s Note: This and the forthcoming sequels are originally published in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (2018 Mago Books). Part 3 discusses the matristic/matriarchal nature of the Cretan Goddess Read More …

December 12, 2022December 12, 2022 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Winter Turns the Tide… by Sara Wright

[Editor’s Note: This was written last year. Sara Wright was so prolific that we missed timing for this piece of her writing last year.] This winter has been most challenging Read More …

November 11, 2022October 27, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

Breathing with the Cosmos by Carolyn Lee Boyd

From your first breath, you are part of the movement of expansion and contraction that gives life to the universe, the stars, our planet’s landscape, and myriad beings on Earth. Read More …

November 10, 2022November 11, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Prose 1) The Story of a Doll by Jude Lally

I gathered sticks from an ancient bridle path, one that many have walked through over the centuries. Her wool is from a sheep from the Scottish Isle of Colonsay, a Read More …

November 9, 2022November 8, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(S/HE Article Excerpt) Kali Ma & Kundalini: Serpent Goddess Rising” by Tanya Lynne Brittain

[Editor’s Note: This article was previously published and is now available for a free download in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies in Volume 1 Number 1. Do not Read More …

November 8, 2022November 8, 2022 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 1) Encountering Motherhood Divine: Towards a Sacred Economy by Nané Ariadne Jordan, Ph.D.

[Author’s note for 2022: This essay was presented in March of 2006, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region, at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Read More …

(Video) Spring Equinox Goddess Slideshow by Glenys Livingstone

When EarthGaia our Planet reaches the midpoint of Her orbit between the Solstices – the last ones being Winter in the South, and Summer in the North, it is an Equinox Moment @ EarthGaia, a moment of balance of dark and light for the whole Planet. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Season of Spring Equinox/Eostar with the balance about to tip into increasing light after the dominance of dark for six months. This balance moment in the light part of the annual cycle may be associated poetically with the joyful return of the Beloved One who has gained new Wisdom from the depths … after long and lost wanderings. The returning Beloved One may be understood as a redeemer figure – the Seed of Life that never fades away. It is a “resurrection” – the original, and organic to being. It is a Moment of certain emergence, and knowing the joy and power of being.
(Poem) Just Remember WE in S/HE by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Just Remember WE in S/HE Remember the Universe is without the beginning or the end. Remember the Creatrix is the Music of the Universe.
(Pandemic Poem 10) Long Enough by Jyoti Wind

Carved Statue, CO. Photo by Jyoti Wind How long is long enough. We’ve all seen what weeks of quarantine can do. Closer family ties, neighborhood cooperation and service. A deeper caringness expressed. A drop into bottom lines, releasing some have-to’s. How long is long enough to let these new insights and patterns remain after the quarantine lifts. That’s when we’ll know how long was enough. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Prose) Ritual in These Times by Arlene Bailey

Photo by Arlene Bailey ©2020Image in photo by John Shannon It’s a beautiful day and Mother Nature looks gorgeous in all her summer fullness. It is also a day where the energies are erratic and challenging and one of those days when I want to curl up in the roots of my huge Grandmother Oak. I want to lie in those ancient arms and be held. I want to feel the life happening below me as roots, critters and mycorrhizal enzymes in a symbiotic dance alter and enliven the system. I want to feel their community efforts working together, each individual supporting and enhancing the life of the other. I want to feel this because on a daily basis it is situational and in short supply, disappearing even, from the human community. Tears stream down my face as I wonder what has happened. Things were definitely not perfect before – far from it – but now… NOW… well, as Alice would say, everything down is up and everything up is down and nothing is as it seems. My mind goes to that “who can I trust” place. My heart knows, but right now my mind is caught in that proverbial “but and what if” loop. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I light a candle and pick up my drum. Randomly I strike beater against hide a few times until I find a rhythm. Then, as I feel the women of ancient times gather round me, I lay down the beater and allow my hands to find the rhythm… frame drum style. I slowly feel my body begin to move and my voice to make sounds – nothing special and definitely not melodic. Rather, visceral and raw, the sounds of my Soul moving from the depths into the now. Slowly, drum… dance… sound… begin to alter the vibrations holding me captive to the “what if’s and how come’s”, the questions and pesky doubts. I finally reach the stillpoint where the mind is quiet and my body able to tap into its cellular memories. I light some frankincense and inhale this ancient resin whose aroma transports me back to the Temple. I drift off into memories of altars and ritual and purpose. I breathe in those rememberings as I feel myself sink deeper into connection with the Great Mother, She Who Has Been, Is and Always Will Be. I am an Ordained Priestess of the old ways birthed into the Now to ground a different way of being and knowing, living and doing. Ritual is the language of my soul, the memory of ancient ways my guide. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. It’s never easy is it? Never what we expect. Always though what we are called forth to do and/or become. I think on this as I create a new altar to ground the experiences of this day and bring in new energies. Thank Goddess for ritual and altars and the medicine of drums and roots and dirt-filled organisms teeming with life! Honorings and Blessings to you Great Mother for holding and sustaining this daughter through lifetimes… for holding and sustaining me through this lifetime, especially through this now. May you continue to hold ALL of your children. And so it is. https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/ (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey _____________________________________ Ritual in These Times by Arlene Bailey ©2020
(Book Excerpt 1) Re-visioning Medusa Eds. by Glenys Livingstone, Trista Hendren et. al.

Preface Joan Marler The remarkable anthology you are holding in your hands contains the personal stories, scholarly research, revelations, and original artwork by women from Australia, North America, Europe, Israel and Turkey. These offerings reflect the indelible presence of the Gorgon Medusa who has stimulated each author’s unique journey of discovery. Who is this Medusa whose visage has haunted the western imagination for 2700 years? Why has she remained so potent, and why is it necessary to “re-vision” her now in the 21st century? In the Odyssey (11.633-35) by the Greek poet Homer (c. 750 BCE), the hero Odysseus expresses his fear of encountering the Gorgon—a ghastly apparition, the threshold guardian of Hades. In Homer’s Iliad (11.33-37), the ferocious face of the Gorgon is centrally placed on the kingly shield of Agamemnon to frighten his enemies. The Greek term gorgos—meaning “terrible,” “frightful”—was used to designate the ultimate female monster. According to Greek mythology, Medusa is a Triple Goddess, one of three gorgon sisters—Sthenno, Euryale, and Medusa—representing past, present, and future. Only Medusa exists as mortal in present time. Her complex lineage composed of multiple myths and stories, combined with cross-cultural influences, is masterfully presented in this volume by the linguist and archaeomythologist Miriam Robbins Dexter. She rightly points out that the typical emphasis on Medusa’s fearsome features are the result of extreme Greek bias against female powers, which masks her life-giving and regenerative capacities. Long before the Gorgon Medusa constellated within the archaic Greek world and was demonized as ugly and ultimately monstrous—with her tongue lolling between sharp fangs, with writhing serpents for hair and glaring eyes—the roots of her multi-layered iconography extended deep into pre-Greek cultures. The earliest agrarian societies of Southeastern Europe, from the 7th-4th millennia BCE, were intimately bonded with the seasonal realities of the living Earth. These egalitarian farmers who developed long-lived, sustainable societies understood that life feeds on life. Death and decomposition are inevitable consequences of being alive, and the nutrients released from previously living matter are essential for life’s renewal. Within this context, concepts of the sacred are analogous to the cyclic continuity of all existence. In mythic terms, the Great Goddess, as the Sacred Source of all life, is a metaphor for life giving birth to itself and absorbing itself in death. Therefore, the Goddess of Life is also the Goddess of Death who is responsible for regeneration.1 Goddesses in various guises who represent this eternal cycle are found in ancient traditions throughout the world. The nature of every society is shaped by prevailing attitudes—honoring and respectful, or fearful and antagonistic—concerning the humbling and unavoidable fact of our individual mortality. Linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that the Greeks developed from tribes of Indo-European speakers who began entering the Balkan peninsula most likely during the late 3rd millennium BCE. A gradual amalgamation took place between two contrasting social and ideological systems: the matrifocal Old European horticulturalists who venerated the deities of the Earth and the newcomers who brought an androcratic social structure, warfare, and the worship of sky gods.2 The establishment of the Greek patriarchal world shifted the previous cultural valence from the egalitarian continuity of the Old Religion to the extreme imposition of male dominance and the cult of the hero. Under this new world order, all challenges to male hegemonic systems were to be crushed. As the classicist Eva Keuls emphasizes, “the suppression of women, the military expansionism and the harshness in the conduct of civic affairs all sprang from a common aggressive impulse.” That impulse was the expression of “male supremacy and the cult of power and violence.”3 It is no surprise, then, that the earth deities of the Old Religion were demonized or co-opted. A typical task for Greek heroes was to rid the civilized world of those “earth-born bogeys.”4 The Gorgon Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone, became an obvious target. Nevertheless, on the periphery of the Greek world, there is evidence that She was venerated in her ancient powers. During the 6th century BCE on the island of Corfu, an eight-foot-high full-bodied sculpture of Medusa was placed at the highest point on the pediment of the temple of Artemis. This Medusa is not raging, but is radiant in her full potency. Snakes with open jaws extend from each side of her head and two copulating serpents encircle her waist, carrying the potential for both death and new life. She wears winged sandals, her great wings are fully extended, sheltering her two children, and her bent-knee posture suggests that she is flying. All shamanic dimensions are Hers—the Great Above, the Great Below, the Primordial Waters, and the entire expanse of the Earth. She is flanked by great felines, just as the Phrygian Mountain Goddess Cybele and the seated Ancestral Mother from Çatalhöyük before her. The decapitation of Medusa by the Greek hero Perseus, assisted by the patriarchalized Goddess Athena, was painted on pottery, carved as bas reliefs on temples, described in Greek verse, and propagated in myths and legends. Her murder functioned as a cautionary tale defining the ultimate consequence of manifesting female sovereignty. When Medusa was killed, her powers were plundered. She was pregnant with her son Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus who were born from her severed neck. Pegasus was immediately captured and made to bring Zeus Medusa’s roar and the flash of her eyes, which he used as his thunder and lightning. In book three of the Bibliotheca (3.10.3) Apollodorus describes how Athena drains the blood from Medusa’s veins and gives it to Asclepius, Greek god of medicine and healing. The blood from her left side is deadly poisonous, while the blood from her right side brings life. Asclepius’s powers to cure and raise the dead were thereby stolen from Medusa. Athena placed the apotropaic image of Medusa’s severed head on her aegis or breastplate and on Zeus’s shield. Other gorgoneia (images of Medusa’s head) were installed on temples and other places to benefit from her protection, even after death. Ironically, gorgoneia were …
RTM Newsletter August 2017 #11

Subscribe RTM and Mago Pool Circle Newsletters here. Dear RTM Community, RTM was down for about 2 days from August 26 and 27, while she was being transferred to a new server. It is now up running again. If you still don’t see the new website, please refresh your browser’s cache. http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser%27s-Cache (This might be helpful.) The new website will continue to be remodeled to serve the very personal, political and spiritual dynamic of Gift Economy among Goddess feminist activists. New Website Features Support RTM contributors by filling out the comment form, “I like what you said because…”. Anyone can fill out and submit a form to become a contributor included in Call for Contributions. Meet New Contributors Meghanaiyegee Venketasamy (Megha) Meghanaiyegee Venketasamy (Megha), a daughter born and raised in Mauritius – an island loaded with a deep legacy of slavery, colonization, people of colors from around the globe. Such diversity (Continue reading) Susan Clare Painting, for 20 years, in Jamaica, I included meditation and path-working in my studio practice. Since returning to England, I’ve shown in juried exhibitions in London and Essex, been awarded SAA’s Professional Artist of the Year 2016 and had (continue reading) Lena Bartula A visual artist for more than thirty-five years, Lena Bartula’s recent conceptual works include installation, mixed media and collaborative community projects. Believing that artists have a responsibility to the times in which they live, she uses art as a voice with which to speak of beauty (continue reading) Highlights: (Book Excerpt 2) People of the Sea by Jack Dempsey (Poem) Sardinia’s treasures by Susan Hawthorne (Prose) Mother Daughter Betrayal by Sara Wright (Essay 1) The Feminine Principle of Communication by Genevieve Vaughan (Art) Gaia#72: Benediction – We Who Are All Bless-ed by Deborah Jane Milton, Ph.D. (Book Excerpt) “Prehistory Was Female-Centered” by Moses Seenarine, Ph.D. (Art) Sanctus Cumulus—Latin Saint of Clouds by Sudie Rakusin (Book Announcement 1) Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. & Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D. (Poem & Art) Caterpillar by Andrea Nicki and Liz Darling (Book Excerpt 3) Single Mothers Speak on Patriarchy Ed. by Trista Hendren & Pat Daly (Prose) Letter to Cypress: We have Forgotten our Roots by Janie Rezner (Poem) Mountain Chanter’s Curse by Maya Daniel (Mago Almanac 1) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang RTM Editorial: Meet our RTM Editorial Circle here! (Special Post) Why I choose to be a RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone. (Special Post) Why I am a RTM Contributor by Sara Wright. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Founding Director, announces upcoming plans for RTM. Rosemary Mattingley accepts nomination as Co-founder of RTM. Here is the meaning that she finds for her RTM work. Meet Ongoing Contributors! Mondays: Glenys Livingstone, Sara Wright, Deanne Quarrie, Helen Hwang/Jhilmil Breckenridge Wednesdays: Liz Darling, Shiloh Sophia/Open, Sudie Rakusin, Lucy/Pierce/Jassy Watson Fridays: Susan Hawthorne, Deborah Jane Milton/Phibby Venable/Janie Rezner, Andrea Nicki, Maya Daniel/Open All contributions are welcome! If you are a new contributor or guest contributor, your recurring contributions are welcome anytime. We are perennially open for new contributions. For submission details, please refer to Call For Contributions. Want to become a contributor? Please see our Call for Contributions page! Meet People: RTM Advisors, Editors, and Contributors! For Contributors, ongoing Discussions are open in RTM Contributors Facebook Group! The Mago Work branches: Mago Books, Mago Academy, Mago Pool Circle, Gynapedia!
(She Summons Excerpt) Flying Lessons: Inquire Within for Hungry Ghosts by Cynthia Tom

Acrylic on canvas/ mixed media sculpture9’ w x 8’ h Growing up with a Chinese culture that values the son, but negates the daughter, Cynthia Tom uses art to unravel and address embedded feelings of being invisible and unnecessary. In China, during her grandmother’s youth, she had to horrific job of killing her baby sisters as they were born. This was not unusual and the unspoken trauma continues for generations. Each dress form, in this painting, represents the voices of the thousands if not millions of females who have generationally been eradicated through adoption or infanticide, and those who have been or are being abused, neglected and silenced. This painting is an affirmation that women (past, present, future) rise. Rise in feelings of love, forgiveness, admiration, respect and POWER, shifting from being invisible and unnecessary to loved, vital and empowered. FLYING LESSONS. Inquire Within Flying Lessons – means to inspire our women (past, present and future) to grow wings and fly, to own their empowerment and power. “Inquire Within” asks women, families and society to question their own thoughts and beliefs. What do they/we think about ourselves as women? How do we treat each other, with respect and reverence, love and kindness? Do we claim ourselves as others’ victims? Do we make others responsible for our happiness? Do we need to make internal adjustments to claim our own well-being so we can care for others in our communities? How can we come from a place of abundance and generosity? Regarding Hungry Ghosts. This term comes from Buddhist and Taoist beliefs and refers to lost spirits that roam the earth burdened by unfulfilled desires and insatiable needs. I use the term Hungry Ghosts to refer to ancestral family patterns of trauma. Growing up in a Chinese culture that values the son, but not the daughter, I use art to unravel and address embedded feelings of being invisible and unnecessary. My hungry ghost gets in the way of my daily life. I have to remind myself to feel of value to myself and others, that I can ignore people who cause me pain and that I can say no if something doesn’t feel right or does not interest me. I don’t have to take on a million tasks help others to prove my value. I am still important even if I did nothing else. Recently, a medical intuitive said I have to create art addressing my Chinese ancestral pain of unwanted females. Shifting from unconscious feelings of Disconnectedness (I have to earn the right to be accepted) to conscious recognition of Connectedness (that I deserve love and respect just for being), my painting, Ancestras, Please Rise, is a medication on Self-Acceptance and Deep Love of Self. It metaphorically peels away the next layer of virtually unconscious beliefs of being invisible and undeserving. This journey involves unraveling generations of cultural teachings. Inspiration: 1. “Emperor’s Tomb” in China. Since I was little, I have asked,” where are the women”. FLYING LESSONS. Inquire Within, 8’ h x 9’ w x 2’d three panel painting and mixed media piece begins with 100+ dress forms painted in mass on the ground. In the distance, they rise and float up into the air, transforming into 3-D mixed media sculptures. Each dress form represents the thousands, if not millions of Asian females discarded through generations of adoption or infanticide, who suffer abuse or neglect. This is a powerful wish of love for women (past, present and future) to “rise.” 2. My Chinese ancestral patterns endorsing that sons matter, daughters do not. I honor my great grandmother, grandmother and mother whose experiences included female negation. While living on a farm in China, my grandmother‘s job, prior to 1920, was to kill her baby sisters just after birth, causing unspeakable trauma through the ancestral lines. Because of these traumas, held in silence, which are not unusual, I use art to ask questions as form of protest. What messages does this send to our daughters, our mothers, our aunties? How does this affect our lives? How do we recognize and overcome a legacy of culturally enforced irrelevance?” Each dress form, in this painting, represents the voices of the thousands if not millions of females who have generationally been discarded through adoption or infanticide, and those who have been or are being abused, neglected and silenced. This painting is an affirmation that women (past, present, future) rise. Rise in feelings of love, forgiveness, admiration, respect and POWER, shifting from being unimportant and unnecessary to loved, vital and empowered. Ancestras, Please Rise. Cynthia’s work has always encouraged a cultural shift to embrace the importance and power of women, especially within women themselves. She comprehends the multigenerational depth and breadth of these feelings of being unwanted, undeserving, unnecessary amongst women and uses art as the platform to encourage sharing, witnessing and to educate. She does this work through A PLACE OF HER OWN (art-based healing program for woman). For many years, I’ve been creating art and art projects to unravel ancestral diminution and destruction of Chinese girls and to heal an almost unconsciously held beliefs that I am invisible unnecessary, undeserving, an imposition. It is a visceral feeling and not a rational decision. Art is the key to enter this space of culturally enforced silence, to dig into the unconscious and make it conscious. I have made progress and continue to heal and grow my wisdom and love. Asian Pacific American women have deep, trans-generational, and cultural relationships to trauma, mental health issues that are taboo to discuss and consequentially ignored and suppressed until it shows up physically. Asian cultures emphasize compliance and conformity, resulting in self-denial and silence. Depression is the second leading cause of death for APA women. This art is meant to spark personal storytelling and sharing as one way to address trauma. This project encourages artists, women and community to connect through identity exploration with empathetic peers. In February 2019, a major epiphany got at the root of my Hungry Ghosts. It stems from my grandmother’s job. She had to kill her baby sisters between 1910-1920. It stopped when she …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Glenys Livingstone

Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. (Australia) Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Social Ecology) has been on a Goddess path since 1979: her path has included diverse spiritualities and a scientific perspective, inner work as well as academic scholarship. Her studies have been in theology, ritual, archaeomythology, social ecology, psychology, sociology and education. Glenys is the author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion,which fuses the indigenous traditions of Old Europe with scientific theory, feminism and a poetic relationship with place. She was born and lives in country Australia, where she has facilitated Seasonal ceremony for decades, taught classes, and mentored apprentices. Her new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony documents the synthesis of her work over the past decades. She is the author of the children’s book My Name is Medusa, and co-editor of the anthology Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom. In 2014, Glenys co-facilitated the Mago Pilgrimage to Korea with Dr. Helen Hwang. Glenys is a contributor to Foremothers of Women’s Spirituality: Elders and Visionaries, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Vicki Noble (2015), and also to Goddesses in World Culture, edited by Patricia Monaghan (2010). She produced PaGaian Cosmology Meditations CDs and teaches a year-long on-line course “Celebrating Goddess and Cosmogenesis in the Wheel of the Year” for both hemispheres. Her website is http://pagaian.org. Previously Published Posts by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. Older Posts: (Essay 1) The Power of Metaphor: Spelling Ourselves, Our World by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Solstice meditation) Three Candles Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 2) Feminism and the Future of Religion by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 1) Feminism and the Future of Religion by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Review) Women and Spirituality: the Goddess Trilogy by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Review) Signs Out of Time by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 2) Gaia as Universe-Earth-Self: a Unity of Being by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 1) Gaia as a Cosmic Name by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay) Re-Storying Goddess: A PaGaian Cosmology by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. (Essay 2) Con-Text: Personal/Cultural/Cosmic Stories by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. (Solstice Poem) O Mother Sun by Glenys Livingstone (Essay 1) Con-Text: Personal/Cultural/Cosmic Stories by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay) Moon Goddess: Primordial Trinity and Cosmic/Personal Heritage by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Seasonal essay) Spring Equinox Southern Hemisphere September 2013 by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 2) The Terms ‘Feminine’ and ‘Masculine’ by Glenys Livingstone (Essay 1) The Terms ”Feminine” and “Masculine” by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 2) The Body – Essential or Not? by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay 1) The Body – Essential or Not? by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Essay) The Equinoxes as Story of Redemption: Sacred Balance of Maternal Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Poem) Mother-Warrior by Glenys Livingstone (Poem) Precious Body Unknown by Glenys Livingstone (Poem) Transformation by Glenys Livingstone ‘En-trancing Gaia’s Womb through Seasonal Ceremony: Re-creating Her Sacred Site’ by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. Winter-Spring EarthGaian Wisdom: Invoking the Power of Brigid, the Mother Creator by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Video) PaGaian Winter Solstice by Glenys Livingstone Winter-Spring EarthGaian Wisdom: Invoking the Power of Brigid, the Mother Creator by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.
(Video) "Mothers and Daughters" by Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This video meeting was created and produced as part of 2015 Nine Day Solstice Celebration, organized by Mago Academy.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzmv6ePdLGk&feature=youtu.be

(Special Post 2) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

Artwork, “The-great-mother” by Julie Stewart Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Magi/Magus, from Magi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest. Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic, to include astronomy/astrology, alchemy and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for (Pseudo‑)Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words “magic” and “magician”. In the Gospel of Matthew, “μάγοι” (magoi) from the east do homage to the newborn Jesus, and the transliterated plural “magi” entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as “kings” and more often in recent times as “wise men”).[1] The singular “magus” appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician. … An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival magavan meaning “possessing maga-“, was once the premise that Avestan maga- and Median (i.e. Old Persian) magu- were co-eval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit magha-). While “in the Gathas the word seems to mean both the teaching of Zoroaster and the community that accepted that teaching”, and it seems that Avestan maga- is related to Sanskrit magha-, “there is no reason to suppose that the western Iranian form magu (Magus) has exactly the same meaning”[4] as well. But it “may be, however”, that Avestan moghu (which is not the same as Avestan maga-) “and Medean magu were the same word in origin, a common Iranian term for ‘member of the tribe’ having developed among the Medes the special sense of ‘member of the (priestly) tribe’, hence a priest.”[2]cf[3] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gaia, from Gaia (mythology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In Greek mythology, Gaia (/ˈɡaɪə, ˈɡeɪə/ GHY-ə, GAY-ə;[1] from Ancient Greek Γαῖα, a poetical form of Γῆ Gē, “land” or “earth”),[2] also spelled Gaea (/ˈdʒiːə/ JEE-ə),[1] is the personification of the Earth[3] and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess. She is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods) and the Giants, and of Pontus (the sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.[4] … The Greek name Γαῖα (Gaĩa)[5] is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic Γῆ[6] (Gê), Doric Γᾶ (Gã, perhaps identical to Δᾶ Dã)[7] meaning “Earth”, a word of uncertain origin.[8] Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin.[9] In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (transliterated as Ma-ga, “Mother Gaia”) also contains the root ga-.[9][10] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Greek mythology of Gaia’s family tree is remotely evocative of the Magoist genealogy written in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principale text of Magoism. In Korean, “Mama” is also an honorary title referring to the royal family including ruler, ruler’s mother, father, grandmother and so on. This suggests that “ma” means “mother,” “ruler,” and “Goddess” all at once in gynocentric/gynocratic (Magoist/Magocratic) societies, pre-patriarchal in origin. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I came to search the etymology of “montgomery” in relation to Mt. Mago or Mt. Goya and am led to such related terms as Gomer, Gog, Magog. Montgomery (name) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Montgomery or Montgomerie is a surname from a place name in Normandy.[1] Although there are many stories of its origin,[2][3][4][5] An old theory explains that the name is a corruption of “Gomer’s Mount” or “Gomer’s Hill” (Latin: Mons Gomeris), any of a number of hills in Europe named in attribution to the biblical patriarch Gomer,[2] but it does not explain the final -y or -ie (the phonetical evolution would have been *Montgomers) and it does not correspond to the old mentions of the place name Montgommery in Normandie : Monte Gomeri in 1032 – 1035, de Monte Gomerico in 1040 and de Monte Gumbri in 1046 – 1048.[6] More relevant is the explanation by the Germanic first name Gumarik,[7] a compound of guma “man” (see bridegroom) and rik “powerful”, that regularly gives the final -ry (-ri) in the French first names and surnames (Thierry, Amaury, Henry, etc.). Moreover, the name is still used as a surname in France as Gommery,[8] from the older first name Gomeri.[9] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gomer below from Wikipedia. Gomer (גֹּמֶר, Standard Hebrew Gómer, Tiberian Hebrew Gōmer, pronounced [ɡoˈmeʁ]) was the eldest son of Japheth (and of the Japhetic line), and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah, according to the “Table of Nations” in the Hebrew Bible, (Genesis 10). The eponymous Gomer, “standing for the whole family,” as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia expressed it,[1] is also mentioned in Book of Ezekiel 38:6 as the ally of Gog, the chief of the land of Magog. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gog and Magog from Wikipedia. Gog and Magog: They are depicted as monsters and barbarians from the East/Eurasia. Gog and Magog (/ɡɒɡ/; /ˈmeɪɡɒɡ/; Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג Gog u-Magog; Arabic: يَأْجُوج وَمَأْجُوج Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) are names that appear in the Hebrew bible (Old Testament), the Book of Revelation and the Qur’an, sometimes indicating individuals and sometimes lands and peoples. Sometimes, but not always, they are connected with the “end times”, and the passages from the book of Ezekiel and Revelation in particular have attracted attention for this reason. From ancient times to the late Middle Ages Gog and Magog were identified with Eurasian nomads such as the Khazars, Huns and Mongols (this was true also for Islam, where they were identified first with Turkic tribes of Central Asia and later with the Mongols). Throughout this period they were conflated with various other legends, notably those concerning Alexander the Great, the Amazons, Red Jews, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and became the subject of much fanciful literature. In modern times they remain associated with apocalyptic thinking, especially in the United States and the Muslim world. Helen […]
(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) 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.

The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Art & Poem) Candelmas/Imbolc by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

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

Photo by Carolyn Lee Boyd In times past, Creation’s Winter cupped me in her icy hand of sanctuary Gathered in, I sucked dormant life, and slumbered Till Earth’s rebirthing groans awakened my new body Now, older and full of life’s weeping and wondering awe At all that has happened in my decades on Earth I must shake myself into consciousness My seed’s opaque, blinding hull disintegrates and Bodyless, at last I can see through Goddess eyes I ache as my blood paints each flower petal I spin the whirlwind that cannot stop creating abundance I push the seasons through the year that mortals believe revolve of their own accord. Through Goddess eyes I can see me, I inhabit Winter’s hand as my own. I make the cold to slow creation of outside of me To gather the seed into fertile stillness within. That burgeons in my own time. https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
A Southern Hemisphere Perspective on Place by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the Introduction to the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which was an outcome of her doctoral research/thesis entitled The Female Metaphor – Virgin, Mother, Crone – of the Dynamic Cosmological Unfolding: Her Embodiment in Seasonal Ritual as Catalyst for Personal and Cultural Change. This doctoral work was in turn a documentation and deeper research of the Seasonal ceremonial celebrations that the author was already engaged in for over a decade. The whole of the process is here named as her “Search”. photo credit: David Widdowson, Astrovisuals. The site of seasonal ceremonial celebrations will always be significant. In my case, the place in which I have created them has been notably in the Southern Hemisphere of out Planet Earth. The fact of my context being thus – the Southern Hemisphere – had contributed in the past to my deep internalized sense of being “other”, and dissociated from my senses, since almost all stories told were based in Northern Hemisphere perspective. Yet at the same time this context of inhabiting the Southern Hemisphere contributed to my deep awareness of Gaia’s Northern Hemisphere and Her reciprocal Seasonal Moment: thus, awareness of the whole Planet. My initial confusion about the sensed Cosmos – as a Place, became a clarity about the actual Cosmos – which remained inclusive of my sensed Cosmos. PaGaian reality – the reality of our Gaian “country” – is that the whole Creative Dynamic happens all the time, all at once. The “other”, the opposite, is always present – underneath and within the Moment. This has affected my comprehension of each Sabbat/Seasonal Moment, its particular beauty but also a fullness of its transitory nature. Many in the Northern Hemisphere – even today – have no idea that the Southern Hemisphere has a ‘different’ lunar, diurnal, seasonal perspective; and because of this there often is a rigidity of frame of reference for place, language, metaphor and hence cosmology[i]. Indeed over the years of industrialized culture it has appeared to matter less to many of both hemispheres, including the ‘author-ities’, the writers of culture and cosmos. And such ‘author-ity’ and northern-hemispheric rigidity is also assumed by many more Earth-oriented writers as well[ii]. There has been consistent failure to take into account a whole Earth perspective: for example, the North Star does not need to be the point of sacred reference – there is great Poetry to be made of the void of the South Celestial Pole. Nor need the North be rigidly associated with the Earth element and darkness, nor is there really an “up” and a “down” cosmologically speaking. A sense and accountof the Southern Hemisphere perspective with all that that implies metaphorically as well as sens-ibly, seems vitally important to comprehending and sensing a whole perspective and globe – a flexibility of mind, and coming to inhabit the real Cosmos, hence enabling what I have named as a ‘PaGaian’ cosmological perspective, a whole Earth perspective. It has also been of particular significance that my Search has been birthed in the ancient continent of Australia. It is the age of the exposed rock in this Land, present to her inhabitants in an untarnished, primal mode that is significant. This Land Herself has for millennia been largely untouched by human war, conquest and concentrated human agriculture and disturbance. The inhabitants of this Land dwelt here in a manner that was largely peaceful and harmonious, for tens of thousands of years. Therefore the Land Herself may speak more clearly I feel; one may be the recipient of direct transmission of Earth in one of her most primordial modes. Her knowledge may be felt more clearly – one may be taught by Her. I think that the purity of this transmission is a significant factor in the development of the formal research I undertook – in my chosen methodology and in what I perceived in the process, and documented; from my beginnings as a country girl, albeit below my conscious mind in the subtle realms of which I knew little, to the more conscious times of entering into the process of the Search. In this Land that birthed me, ‘spirit’ is not remote and abstract, it is felt in Her red earth[iii]. Aboriginal elder David Mowaljarlai described, “This is a spirit country”[iv], and all of Her inhabitants, including non-Indigenous, may be affected by the strength of Her organic communication. It took me until the later stages of my research to realize the need to state the importance of this particular place for the advent of the research: the significance of both the land of Australia, and the specific region of the Blue Mountains in which I was now dwelling, as well as the community of this particular region, which all lent itself to the whole process. The lateness of this perception on my part, has to do with the extent of my previous alienation; but the fact that it did occur, is perhaps at least in part attributable to the unfolding awakening to my habitat that was part of the project/process. The specific region of the “Blue Mountains” – as Europeans have named them – is significant in that I don’t think that this project/process could have happened as it did in just any region. David Abram says, “The singular magic of a place is evident from what happens there, from what befalls oneself or others when in its vicinity. To tell of such events is implicitly to tell of the particular power of that site, and indeed to participate in its expressive potency[v]”. Blue Mountains, Australia: Dharug and Gundungurra Country The Blue Mountains are impressive ancient rock formations, an uplifted ancient seabed, whose “range of rock types and topographical situations has given rise to distinct plant communities”[vi]; and the presence of this great variation of plant communities, “especially the swamps, offer an abundance and variety of food sources, as well as habitats for varied fauna”[vii]. I feel that this is the case for …
Summer Solstice Poiesis by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …

(Mago Almanac 3) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[This and the following sequels are from Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), Years 1 and 2 (5, 6, 9, 10…), 5915-6 MAGO ERA, 2018-9 CE (Mago Books, 2017).] We want to get back the 13th Friday. This almanac shows how that is possible. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang INTRODUCTION (Continued) HOW TO USE THE MAGO ALMANAC The Magoist Calendar employs a 28 day monthly cycle identical throughout the 13 months (see “28 DAY MONTHLY CALENDAR”). The first month of a year, however, begins with one intercalary day that falls on the eve of New Year for all years. Every fourth year has another intercalary day that fall on the eve of the first day of the 7th month (see “4 YEARS CALENDAR/1 LARGE CALENDAR”). Years are counted as a cyclic unit of four years, which is called Large Calendar. I have charted 8 Large Calendars of 32 years (see “8 LARGE CALENDARS/32 YEARS”). That said, the Mago Almanac will appear as the two types of booklets, Book A and Book B due to its Gregorian Calendar translation dates. The current booklet, Book A, includes calendric data of two years Year 1 and Year 2, the first two of the four years cyclic unit. Year 1 and Year 2 are exactly identical, when it comes to their Gregorian translations. In other words, one can use Book A for the years of 2018 and 2019 with the same Gregorian dates. Book B will include data on Year 3 and Year 4 for the two years of 2020 and 2021 in the Gregorian Calendar. As Gregorian dates intermittently run every month throughout the year and every four years with one leap day added in the month of February, both Year 3 and Year 4 will need a separate translational chart for Gregorian translation dates. While Gregorian leap days are more complicated than just one additional day in February, they won’t interfere with Mago Almanac’s Gregorian translation system until the year 2100, when it skips the leap day.[1] Book A Book B Years 1, 2… 3, 4… Common Era 2018, 2019 CE 2020, 2021 CE Mago Era 5915, 5916 ME 5917, 5918 ME Because both the Magoist Calendar (365.25 days) and the Gregorian Calendar (365.242189 days) are of the solar clendar, their dates tend to coincide every four years. For example, Year 5 and 6 will share the same Gregorian dates as Year 1 and 2. This means Book A is useful not only for Year 1 and 2 but also Year 5 and 6. Likewise, Book B is not only for Year 3 and Year 4 but also Year 7 and Year 8. Such patterns will repeat until 2100. By such recurrence, Mago Almanac will remain useful throughout the coming years. Below is the chart of 12 years (3 Large Calendars) for Mago Almanac’s two books. Book A Book B 1st Large Calendar Year 1 (2018 CE, 5915 ME) Year 3 (2020 CE, 5917 ME) Year 2 (2019 CE, 5916 ME) Year 4 (2021 CE, 5918 ME) 2nd Large Calendar Year 5 (2022 CE, 5919 ME) Year 7 (2024 CE, 5921 ME) Year 6 (2023 CE, 5920 ME) Year 8 (2025 CE, 5922 ME) 3rd Large Calendar Year 9 (2026 CE, 5923 ME) Year 11 (2028 CE, 5925 ME) Year 10 (2027 CE, 5924 ME) Year 12 (2029 CE, 5926 ME) Book A (Year 1 and Year 2) stands for the year of 2018 in the Gregorian Calendar (from December 17, 2017 till December 16, 2018) and the year of 2019 in the Gregorian Calendar (from December 17, 2018 till December 16, 2019). Year 1 (5915 ME) begins on December 17, 2017, the one intercalary day that comes on the day before the New Year’s Day. Its New Year’s day on December 18, 2017 marks the new moon day in the first month of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Year 2 (5916 ME) will be the same as Year 1. It begins with the one intercalary day of December 17, 2018. Its New Year’s day is December 18, 2018. However, it won’t be the new moon day since the moon’s phases are not exactly the same as the moon’s motions for the coming years. For this reason and the Gregorian Calendar’s intermittent dates involved in Book B, Mago Almanac plans to publish its yearly booklet. Book A includes Moon Phases in UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) for the years of 2018 and 2019. The cycle of moon phases (the synodic period of about 29.5 days) will run on its own path in the Magoist Calendar is based on the moon’s motions (the sidereal period of about 27.3 days). Also this almanac includes 24 Seasonal Marks in the Korean Time for the years of 2018 and 2019. Among these 24 seasons demarcated based on the solar calendar are such eight seasonal marks as Yule, Imbolc, Vernal Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lammas, Autumnal Equinox, and Winter Solstice, whose hours vary according to the viewer location. Last but not least, this almanac taps into the self-actualizing power of the calendar, which awakens its users to the Reality of the Creatrix. Its task is to be a user’s guide to the Magoist Calendar, the Living Text of the Creatrix. A cause that is equipped with the self-realizing force is divine. Restoring the Magoist Calendar is a divine work to be accomplished by the power of the gynocentric 13 month calendar itself. Its applicability is left to the hand of users. One’s own understanding of the gynocentric calendar will do the magic within herself/himself. One’s intellectuality is the winder to one’s spirituality. Individuals awakened by the Magoist Calendar will discover a sense of belong/direction/timing, not just to a particular society/place/time but to the inter-cosmic whole, WE/HERE/NOW. One may suddenly re-member her/his kinship with all others in an unexpected way. The consciousness of WE is not a destination arrived at a future time. It is HERE wherein we are born and live. In our …
(Special post) Interweaving Mago Threads by Mago Circle Members

“Mago” tradition Magoism is a new word to the modern Western vocabulary, yet it has its linguistic roots in many parts of the globe and in an ancient knowledge and know-how almost lost. Dr Helen Hwang determinedly and methodically is excavating the little-understood historical Mother-Goddess knowledge of Korea, and its traditions, the Mago, and Magoism, and in doing so is unlocking another previously invisible door, and replacing another ripped-off corner of the global map of significant, almost-lost tradition and forgotten knowledge. This is a most welcomed prospect. The newness of this discovery for those who learn of it fills them with excitement because every step to remember the ancient ways, particularly the lost Goddess ways, and those ways that hint of Source, are crucial to humanity remembering itself. Moderns have become accustomed to modes of mind that strip the soul and psyche of finer attunement to earth, sea, stars and each other. This renders most adrift on a sea of seeming limitless freedoms, to be picked up by any technological hook that would substitute for inner knowing. The map becomes the new computer wiring, insurance policy or bank regulation to follow. But once we scrape from our psyches the encrustation of mind most moderns have settled with (which calcifies the innate senses and finer antennae of knowing, emboldening technologically driven modes of mind and being to take their place), then we are on our way to a vivifying recollection. Here is an earlier presentation of the “mago” root word in “imago” or image. Not coincidentally, perhaps, it is connected to maps. (Mary Ann Ghaffurian, culled from Through a Darkened Door—Light, Part 2 by Mary Ann Ghaffurian PhD [http://magoism.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/through-a-darkened-door-light-part-2-by-mary-ann-ghaffurian-phd/]) A very special online, global group Dearest X, …Which brings to mind the “other” reason why I wanted to write to you … Other than just saying “hello” and letting you know that you are very much missed, I also wanted to share with you about a very special online, global group that I have had the honor of being a part of. This group is called Mago Circle and it was founded by my dear friend, “sister” and colleague, Helen Hwang. Helen’s work and commitment to restoring Mago, Ancestral Mother Goddess, to her rightful place as progenitor and creatrix of the Korean people, has not only been admirable but truly critical during a time when we are in real need for inspiration from thought leaders and scholars with a solid foundation in the arts and research of the sacred feminine. As you know, with the roots of Korean shamanism in the realm of women, it makes perfect sense that Korean spirituality must also have sprung within the womb of Woman … the great cosmic goddess, Mago. While Helen’s work is very much grounded in meticulous research — showcasing Korea to the rest of the world in all of Her depth, herstory, and vibrance — it is more importantly, founded in genuine intentions of love, transparency, and humility. I know that Helen can explain the depth, breadth, and height of her work much better than me so I think it will be better to have her directly share more of herself with you; what I simply hope to do through this letter is perhaps help serve as a familiar hand …. reaching out to you and letting you know that your presence and blessings as a well-regarded and much-admired Korean female shaman and scholar would be much appreciated in Mago Circle. Do you remember, X, … you once told me … about 20 years ago: “Sanity is insanity with a focus.” These words I still remember and hold true … they have helped me through times that were truly dismal and chaotic in my life, and with this reassuring and transformational way of looking at myself, looking at my life, looking at the world, I have made it through. My life continues to have its share of insanity, but I know that with focus, all sanity is restored. I know that my letter to you today may feel unexpected and random (especially after not having seen each other for so, so long), but as you know, somehow, life brings us through twists and turns that may seem awkward and strange at first, but upon retrospect, all makes complete sense. In closing, may I have the honor and pleasure of introducing Helen Hwang and the Mago Circle to you … I realize that you must be very busy, but it is my sincere hope that you will find a little time to acquaint yourself with Helen and this wonderful group of women (and men) who are very much dedicated to restoring the balance and peace of Korea and the world via Mago and her goddess sisters of many names… (Wennifer Lin, culled from her letter to her old friend) I share your call for staying connected with each other at a time of cultural and religious tensions. I too believe that all tensions arise from a patriarchal system of hegemony or domination. In the absence of patriarchal hegemony, there would be little or no tension among human beings. The belief in the Mother Goddess would remove the necessity for aggression and hence domination of other human beings or animals. In the eyes of the Mother, every living being is her creature. Hence love, kindness, nurturing and all that is beautiful would prevail everywhere. Am I sounding too idealistic or am I pining for a utopian society that is just not possible? But in theory, it is possible to return to the spirit of Mother, manifest in everything in nature and in our thoughts and actions. With admiration and preservation of Mother we can change the world for a better place. So with this in mind, I submit to all women (who are the living image of the Great Mother Goddess) and goddess lovers in the world to unite in our efforts to bring back the ideals of the Great Goddess. As an academic, I …
(Mago Essay 3) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hwang

[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.] Part 3 Daoist Rendition of Mago, the Great Goddess Being the creatrix, progenitor, and ultimate sovereign, Mago has been addressed by many names. Her derivative names include Samsin Halmeoni (Triad Grandmother/Goddess), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Daejosin (Great Ancestor Deity), Nogo (Crone/Grandmother), Gomo (Goddess Mother), Magui (Devil), Seogo (Auspicious Goddess), Seonnyeo (Female Immortal), Seonja (Immortal Person), and simply Halmi (Grandmother/Crone/Goddess) especially in Korea. To say the least, these names, respectively embedded in a particular cultural and historical background, reflect a complex and enduring feature of Magoism. One may wonder: How is it possible to assess that these goddesses with different names refer to the same goddess, Mago? While such a query is legitimate, its answer entails a prolix explication of inferences based on the comprehensive analysis of a large volume of data, a technique that requires all human faculties, not just rationality. Foremost, the name “Mago” is the primary defining factor to identify Her transnational manifestations in East Asia. This name crisscrosses otherwise seemingly unrelated data including folklore, arts, literature, poetry, and religious and historical records. Such toponyms as Mt. Mago, Rock of Mago, and Cave of Mago presently extant in Korea, China, and/or Japan further substantiate the coherence of Magoism in East Asia. Having established the patterns and styles of Mago stories, the researcher is able to identify a common motif that is shared by the stories and place-names of the goddesses with derivative names. In short, these stories are organically interconnected, reflecting the universality and particularities of Magoist theism. As with Her many names, the researcher or art historian requires the same technique to assess a broad range of Her visual representations. One can begin with a good number of paintings whose colophons designate Mago. Two of the most conspicuous colophons are “Magu gathering medicinal herbs” and “Mago presents longevity.” However, many icons including sculptures and embroideries do not have such an indication. In that case, one can tell the Mago icon by its pictorial themes recurring in the images that are identified as Mago. That said, there is no doubt that the Mago icon stands as the prototype of its numerous variations, which are beyond my documentation at this point. A large portion of Mago visual representations I have documented is casually referred to as “The Immortal Magu (麻姑仙, Magu Xian or Mago Seon)” by moderns. As such, it is assumed that She is a Daoist goddess. Would the Daoist appropriation of Mago’s visual images be accurate? I hold that the Daoist rendition of Mago is a specious stopgap, leaving many issues unattended. When B is derived from A, B alone can explain neither A nor B. Not only Her pre-Daoist origin but also Her supreme divinity as the Great Goddess remains unexplained. Furthermore, Daoism has offered no framework to explain the transnational dissemination of Magoist material culture in Korea, China, and Japan.

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