February 15, 2013April 14, 2022 Mago Work

(Poem) Birth of Aphrodite #2 by Donna Snyder

Small breasts and fat rolls
Body of an immortal beauty
The goddess of love and righteous indignation
Aphrodite

She rose fleshy and pristine from the foam of the infinite sea
Unlike her sister Athena
who sprang from the imperfect brow of the father god
Aphrodite is unmeasured and without flaw

Small breasts and fat rolls
The image transcends the span of centuries
I feel flesh beneath my fingers
Smell and taste the abundant flesh against my face

Small breasts and fat rolls
Blood and breath dance through my mortal body
I close my eyes and dream in mother of pearl

This poem was previously included in “I Am South,” my chapbook published in 2010 by VirgoGray Press.

7 thoughts on “(Poem) Birth of Aphrodite #2 by Donna Snyder”

kytheria says:

February 24, 2013 at 4:45 PM

Thank you! I’ve finally been able to get back online, and hopefully you will gain some new readers through my humble little blog 😀

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kytheria says:

February 21, 2013 at 4:02 PM

The statue is gorgeous & the poem is what my tumblr is about — do you know where the original of that image is located? I’d love to feature it, with a crediting link to this post as well.

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1. Donna Snyder says:
  
  February 21, 2013 at 6:11 PM
  
  Thank you for reading and commenting. I am pleased you want to link my poem to your site. Thanks to Anna, I can identify the sculpture. Here is the link: Aphrodite 250-200 BC, Hellenic Macedonia-Greece, The J. Paul Getty Museum http://www.getty.edu/museum/about.html
  
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Donna Snyder says:

February 19, 2013 at 12:44 PM

Thank you, Kenneth. What a lovely comment. Your words tally lifted my spirits.

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Kenneth Holmes says:

February 19, 2013 at 3:19 AM

I love, your pearls of wisdom,
I had Homers book, the Iliad as a child.
At my bedside
,You are an amazing poet,

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Donna Snyder says:

February 15, 2013 at 12:24 PM

Thank you, sisters!

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dlwshieldfacebook2 says:

February 15, 2013 at 9:33 AM

Yes! “Small breasts and fat rolls.”

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(Video) 2015 Published Goddess/Female Divine Books by Hearth Moon Rising

[Editors’ Note: This video presentation was created as part of 2015 Nine Day Solstice Celebration, a special event sponsored by Mago Academy and The Girl God.] “2015 Published Goddess/Female Divine Books” hosted by Hearth Moon Rising Stay in touch with emerging concepts in Goddess spirituality. Join us for a review of spiritually oriented books published in 2015. The program was aired live at 3:00 pm EST on December 16th. There is a mixture of essays, nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. A link to the recording is available the day following the program on Hearth’s blog: http://hearthmoonblog.com The program includes a live interview with Elizabeth Hardy, author of Female Sperm Whale … and other [feminist] poems The following books is also featured: Healing Your Feminine Essence: A Transformative Journey Within for Women Who Wish to Be Free by Marie de Kock Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots and Restoring Earth Community by Pegi Eyers Locust Girl: A Lovesong by Merlinda Bobis The Mago Way: Re-Discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (vol i) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? edited by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Kaalii Cargill See Meet Mago Contributor Hearth Moon Rising. For more, see Day 3 Program of 2015 Nine Solstice Celebration.
(Art) Seven Sisters Dreaming by Susan Abbott

About this painting a friend had commissioned me to do a painting that involved dogs, the Dogstar/Sirius, and the number 7. The request led me on a search about the Pleides/Seven Sisters constellation – for images of the seven star constellation and some of the stories and myths and dreaming across many indigenous cultures. I did not dwell on any one particular story but was moved by the idea of the seven sisters as I had recently learned that in my own extended bio-family constellation, I am one of seven sisters – a cluster of four of us from one mother and the other three of different mothers but all the same father. I dreamed of a time and ways that we had all known each other better, egged each other on to be our best, and grew old and wise together, stellar people that we were. (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Abbott.
(Essay 1) The Kiss of Nong Toom by Matthew Chabin

If I call this a love letter, I do not (I must assure my wife) mean it in the usual sense, as a missive of personal, amorous courtship. If I call it an exposition on culture, gender, mythology and blood sports, I hit the limbs and miss the heart. If I call it a tribute to a wise and beautiful person I condemn my efforts to redundancy, for ample tributes have already been made. Let us then call the spirit of the thing erotic, in the precise sense of the term, which is something I also hope to clarify. Let us start with that, and see where it takes us. I do not recall exactly how or when I first heard of Parinya Charoenphol, aka Nong Toom, aka the Beautiful Boxer, only that my initial reaction was not very positive. A transvestite kick-boxer? Whatever dude. More things in heaven and earth, right? I was young, and my sense of hetero-normative manhood looked askance at the derangement of reliable binaries—man/woman; warrior/drag queen. It did not occur to me that certain of my most actively cultivated values—individualism, mental and physical toughness, self-awareness, creative adaptability—could hardly be more radically manifest than in the example of this remarkable person. My course in seeing things differently, how I came to admire, even revere, Ms. Charoephol, is a tale for other pages. My aim here is only to demonstrate why she, Nong Toom, merits inclusion in an elite circle of modern, mythic heroes, people who, in transforming themselves, have wondrously transformed their world. But first, a bit of fun with semiotics (oh, just a bit). What you see above is a modified semiotic square, or cube, to be precise. The forward plane is standard, representing the familiar social handles of male (M) and female (F), and their immediate negations/implications of not-male (-M) and not-female (-F). The background plane explores the extended, both/neither implications. The priorityof terms in the hybrid and double-negative categories may be variously interpreted, e.g. the difference between (M/F) and (F/M) may be taken in atransgender context to signify gender transitioning—female from male, male fromfemale—or as two instances of a freely fluctuating, gender-fluid identity.[1] The negative corollaries may refer to aperson of either sex who is stigmatized as lacking, or having lost, someessential gender marker, an effeminate man disavowed by his fellows or a woman shamed by some (generally sexual) indiscretion.[2] Or they may represent transgender individuals closeted by the pressures of family, religion or culture, forbidden fromexpressing their inner experience. Yet athird possibility is that they represent “gender clowns,” individuals who ape the stereotypes of the opposite gender for reasons having little or nothing todo with authentic identity, such as profit, satire, deception, or ticks of deeppathology.[3] Thisclown figure will be of special interest as we return to the story of NongToom. Because when a demure, muscular, sweet-faced teenager first took the ring conspicuously marked with in lipstick and rouge, the question her audiences asked was is this for real? Transvestites and transwomen in Thai society are often entertainers or prostitutes, and are widely accepted as such, but few people were ready to believe that a transwoman could also be an authentic Muay Thai boxer. They assumed her fights were staged, a ploy to boost ticket sales (not an unreasonable assumption given the shady profiteering that notoriously dogs the sport). It’s true that Nong Toom’s motives were largely financial; she, like many of the poor country boys she trained with, was trying to earn money for her impoverished family. But no one was laying down for her. On the contrary, her opponents were positively desperate to win, as the macho culture of Muay Thai made them afraid of losing to a “ladyboy.” And yet lose they did, one after another, laid low by Toom’s heavy kicks and cutting elbows. A devout Buddhist and truly gentle soul, Toom liked to give her defeated foes a kiss on the cheek (if they were still standing, that is), a way of saying “I was rough on you, I’m sorry.” Soon, nothing in the brutal sport was more feared than the shy, apologetic kiss of Nong Toom. His audiences quickly evolved a new theory to accommodate the evidence of her ability: if Nong Toom was a real fighter, she must then be a fake transwoman. This was an aspersion cast on her interiority, and in the nasty way of such things, she found herself internalizing it. She had started wearing makeup as an expression of what she felt to be her true self, but now, in the sight of the rowdy, taunting mobs, she had her moment of doubt. She began to wonder, am I a clown? It is here thatthe story of Nong Toom gets really interesting from a mythic/psychologicalstandpoint, right at the crux where the inner and outer conflicts spin out froma common paradox, and an inner/outer doubling begins to complicate thepicture. But what exactly are themythic/psychological taproots of this doubling? (Meet Mago Contributor) Matthew Chabin.
(Poem) Goodbye Vermont by Francesca Tronetti

Omar Rodriguez organizes bodies in the Gerard J. Neufeld funeral home in Elmhurst on April 22, 2020. New York Magazine. 610,000 dead in early August as county fair season starts While we argue over mask mandates in our schools As we fill restaurants and walk into stores faces uncovered While we try to squeeze in a few last weeks of fun in the sun 618,000 dead on August 11 while the Delta variant sweeps through As parents start moving their children into college dorms Stores advertise sales, trying to get people to buy out the stock And now we are hearing about the Lambda variant making a surge School boards vote on mask mandates in community meetings Which are disrupted by shouts and threats, ‘we know who you are’ People wave around copies of the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the Bible. 624,000 dead on August 18, one thousand more that live in Vermont Another state has fallen to Covid-19, the Pandemic, the life changer American lives have been taken, American work may never be the same But the trauma does not encourage unity and safety, only anger. A hospital in Brevard County Florida sends out an SOS desperate for help Calling in refrigerated trucks which can hold up to 30 bodies each Doctors volunteer to run lab reports back and forth or sit with patients It still is not enough to help an overwhelmed system or nurses in the end. 2021 is surpassing 2020, the Delta variant is more easily communicable But 99% of those who are infected were never vaccinated, it wasn’t real Even now, knowing those who have died, or who have lasting effects of the virus They refuse to get vaccinated, because it’s a hoax, and they still have questions. It will be another year of working from home and online learning Another year of people being unable to pay their rent as the bills pile up But policies which could help, like loan forgiveness, or continued unemployment Are pushed to the side, ridiculed, and dismissed, those in power aren’t hurting. Politicians are entrenched, the Big Lie cannot be countered lest the profit fall So cultists continue to take the microphone, spouting buzzwords and rhetoric Plandemic, it’s all about the children, you will be tried for treason, Trump won I shake my head, how can you be so crazy, how do you not know someone who died? But they do know someone who died, they just don’t care anymore It’s not about taking care of each other, of getting through this nightmare together The madness has set in, the battle lines drawn, and no man’s land is outside the door The next fight will be over boosters, added to the passport I don’t want to write these poems anymore, not for another state They are no longer an outpouring of sadness, a reminder of the dead Instead, now they are my anger and my disbelief at what has happened My country has fractured, a cult has taken the minds of my neighbors. But we cannot deprogram them nor free them from its grasp Because to deprogram them we must stop the leader’s messages We must give them truth, hard facts, show them they have been hurt How can we do that when they have been told they cannot trust truth? We have lost two states worth of people, but they are small states Barely populated, only ranchers and hardy folk who love the elements The next Washington DC, a major metropolis, could fall by Christmas Would that be enough to shake the people out of the fog I wonder. Goodbye Vermont, with your college towns and university campuses No more Vermont cheddar, maple syrup, or Ben and Jerry’s ice cream If only that were true, if only this were confined by the borders of a state Would people care then, if they saw how many we’d lost? A state’s worth? (Meet Mago Contributor) Francesca Tronetti https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/
(Essay 1) A Journey with Hermes by Harita Meenee

I was in for some surprises in May of 2006, when I first visited Samos, a Greek island near the border with Turkey, to give a talk at a students’ club. I had been invited by Minas Papageorgiou—a student back then and now a writer, researcher and journalist—to speak about Mary Magdalene. He took me on a journey up a stream named Potami (pron. potámi), the Greek word for river. It turned out to be a magical place as the stream runs through a forest and forms small lakes and waterfalls. Our journey into the wild started—appropriately—with a strange kind of pilgrimage. Soon after Minas and I started hiking, we saw a sign reading: Ancient Chapel, Transfiguration of the Savior. Standing in the shade of a big rock, it had an eerie feeling about it. The day was warm and bright, but no sunrays touched the 11th-century church, as if Helios, the Sun God, carefully avoided this uncanny place. We pushed the blue wooden door and were instantly greeted by a pungent smell of candles and incense. With goosebumps crawling up my arms, I tried to resist the feeling of awe inspired by the tall, gray stone walls, which exuded an aura of mystery. “Non-believers aren’t supposed to feel awe in such places,” I carefully admonished myself.Besides, we were not there to pay homage to the Christian Savior, whose painted image was inspecting us from the door of the sanctuary. We had gone with the purpose of observing the four columns which supported the center of the old building. They were round and smooth, their only decoration being the intricate Corinthian-style column capitals. Were these pre-Christian? Archaeologists believe that they may well be.Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, a French botanist and writer who visited Samos in the early 18th century, claimed that the columns came from the shrine of Hermes Kharidotes, “Giver of Grace (kharis)” or “Bringer of the Graces (Kharites).” In some places, during his festival, called Hermaea, the social order was temporarily reversed, as strictly defined roles came topsy-turvy. Among his many qualities, Hermes was also the Trickster, the Subversive One.The foundations of that church were very old, dating probably from the 6th century CE. It was customary at the time to build Christian temples on top of Hellenic ones as the new religion was rapidly devouring the old one. We stared at the columns in silence, in the vain hope they might reveal their secrets. They didn’t, but an unexpected clue manifested as we turned back to walk out of the door. The evidence was there, right under our feet: the marble rectangular stone which formed the doorstep had a big circle carved in its center, which bore two holes. What else could that be but the base of an ancient statue? Similar stones can be seen in a host of Greek archaeological sites.The name of the church was also telling: the Transfiguration of the Savior. The Greek word for transfiguration is metamorphosis, which is commonly used with the meaning of “transformation.” It rung a bell as Hermes (known to the Romans as Mercurius) is indeed a mercurial figure, a god with diverse roles and many faces, and a mediator between different realms. He was also considered the guide of souls to the underworld; his place of worship could have easily been transformed into that of the Christian Savior of souls…That rather unorthodox pilgrimage was the beginning of our journey up the potami, a stream flowing into the sea just a few meters away from us. We began to walk uphill and soon reached a grove of olive trees and lemon trees, which seemed to relish the abundant touch of the sun and the presence of the life-giving water.As our walk through the grove came to an end, Minas and I suddenly entered a different world. I stood gaping at the dreamlike landscape. The interplay of light and shadow created an otherworldly atmosphere. Hermes came to mind again, this time as the god of dreams, magic and alchemy. As a messenger of the gods, he could easily cross from one world to the other, from heaven to earth and into the underworld. I wondered what messages he had in store for us. (Previously published in Witches and Pagans). (Meet Mago Contributor) Harita Meenee
(Essay) A Meta-religious Metaphor By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 8 of the author’s bookPaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Thomas Berry has said that we need to understand that the challenge of our time – that is, the apparent planetary siege by the human, is not just an outcome of the last few hundred years of Western scientific thinking. It is not just Cartesian, it is not just economics; this moment, he says, has required everything. He calls the challenge of this moment, “meta-religious”[1], and that we, as a species and as a planet, are in a “moment of transformation”. It is my understanding that part of what that means for humans, is to realize that we are not in control – we never have been, and never will be. While it is true that we participate, that we are in it, that it is our Story, that we co-create it, we are not the Story. It is Gaia’s Story. We are participants through whom Creativity proceeds … whether consciously or not, whether as compost or new growth, we participate, we make choices, and She proceeds with Her Creativity. Thomas Berry lists three rights of all creatures: the right to be, the right to habitat, and the right to fulfill its role in all existence[2]. These three rights correspond to the three qualities of Cosmogenesis that he and Brian Swimme decribe in The Universe Story[3]: it is an ethics based on the creative impetus of Gaia, an ethics that may enable life as we know it and as we don’t yet know it, to proceed. Intrinsic to it is a balance and a recognition of, love of self, love of other, and love of All-That-Is. It is based in a balance and recognition of, urge of each being to unfold, place to be in the web of life, and participation in subjective space[4]. Deep in the present moment, all the Creativity that is necessary, is present. I notice in myself and others who continue to participate in the seasonal ceremonial celebrations, an opening to subtle perceptions and sensitivities that do enable and evoke a passion for adopting everyday changes to our domestic lives; that is, how we relate to the water we use, the food we eat, the methods of transport we choose, the social and cultural context. It seems that as each actually feels what Charlene Spretnak calls “the unitive dimension of existence”[5]- as one may in ceremony over time, as one feels themselves to be “a node within a vast network of creative dynamics”[6], becomes more mindful of flux, wonder and awe[7]- as one may with artful practice of this cosmology; that we do in fact begin to devise strategies for change in our lives. The strategies for change are ones whereby we may be more authentic in our relationship with this expressly sentient Earth and Cosmos. Some participants have given up their cars, found ways to reuse water, are learning how to garden organically, relate more consciously with the flora and fauna around them – care more, and feel that their small care does make a difference. This translates on a broader scale to an increasing ability in the hearts and minds of participants to step outside the anthropocentric frame, as increasingly each one becomes more conscious of an “Earth Jurisprudence”[8]: that is, that Earth Herself has innate wisdom and integrity. It is a wisdom that ceremonial particpants can sense and come into relationship with, that is primordial, as they do constantly express and enact in the ceremonies. There is in participants more humility about the place of the human in the scale of things, more willingness to step back from the human impress on the planet and other beings, and to reframe more inclusively. There is nothing comprehensive about this particular “re-inventing” as I have described it so far herein – it is a beginning, as other participants and I are aware. We are novices, most of us. Each year that I celebrate the Seasonal Moments, I understand a little more. And it is new as well as old. In these times, any of us comes to it all with different minds than our forebears did – this is somewhat of a disadvantage, but the novice has a freshness too. References: Mike Bell, “Thomas Berry and an Earth Jurisprudence”: http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/106 Berry, Thomas. “The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”. A paper delivered before the Divinity School and the University Committee on Environment at Harvard University, April 11 1996. htpp://www.ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. SF: HarperCollins, 1993 Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story. NY: HarperCollins, 1992. NOTES: [1]Thomas Berry, ”The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”, a paper delivered before the Divinity School and the University Committee on Environment at Harvard University, p.8. [2]Thomas Berry defines these in a talk he gave on June 4 2000, at the Center for Ecology and Spirituality , Port Burwell Ontario. It was a 5 day colloquim on “The Cosmology of Religion”. He also suggests them in ”The University: Its Response to the Ecological Crisis”, p. 5. [3]Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.66-79. [4]These three characteristics and qualities of Cosmogenesis are developed in PaGaian Cosmology, by Glenys Livingstone, Chapter 4 in particular. [5]Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22. [6]Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22. [7]Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.22. [8]Mike Bell, “Thomas Berry and an Earth Jurisprudence”: http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/106
(Prose) Dark Matrix, Dark Matter, Dark Mother by Rhyannan

THE DARK MOTHER The Dark Mother ‘face’ of the Goddess has probably existed since the beginnings of self-reflective awareness. In fact, it is likely that so-called ‘primitive’ concepts of both the Bright and Dark Mother precede any distinct concept of a Goddess as deity — recognized only as an all-pervading ‘Presence’, most commonly referred to as ‘the Great Mother’.
(Prose) The Goddesses of Autumn by Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.

Wikimedia Commons image I love autumn. It is arguable my favorite season. I love wearing jeans, turtlenecks and sweaters, flannel and fleece. I love warming my hands around a hot chocolate and watching the wind blow colorful leaves off the trees. I love pulling out my cozy socks and planning my winter projects. I love everything. Except for the pumpkin spice, which I hate. Most people I know also love autumn, usually for the same reasons. They love Halloween, warm clothes, and cooler temperatures, which make our outdoor activities more tolerable. They love the colors of autumn in nature and clothes, the plaids and denim, and all things black cat. Autumn is a favorite season for many people. But, what is to say that the Goddess(es) don’t also embrace autumn as her followers do? Let us take a quick look at some of the Goddesses of the Harvest and how their attributes mirror what we enjoy about the season. In some Pagan traditions, autumn is when the Goddess changes her form, name, or attributes. Cerridwen, or Kerridwen, from Celtic traditions, is the keeper of the cauldron, a goddess of knowledge, rebirth, and transformation. New life and new ideas come out of the darkness of death or the shortened days. She crosses between the physical and the spirit realm and reminds us to honor our ancestors. Cerridwen would fit right into most of our friend groups. Autumn is a great time for cooking up a large stew full of freshly harvested carrots and potatoes, both crops from the earth. As we brace ourselves for the early darkness, we plan what we will do with that time. Will we settle down in front of a fire with a history book on warrior women, or are we determined to finally finish that book of crosswords without looking in the back for the answers? And as Halloween approaches, we could turn off the slasher and gore flicks and instead take time to remember and honor those whom we will miss as Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, and they are no longer here to celebrate with us. Hestia is another Goddess who has many autumn qualities. The Greek Goddess watched the hearth and the home, and offerings of sweet wine and food were left as offerings in her temples. In autumn, we return home, for a visit or permanently. Food is part of the experience, coming home to a pot roast in the slow cooker, baking cookies in the afternoon just because, or trying out the new bread recipe which fills the house with the warm, golden smell. The encroaching darkness draws us home sooner, and we gather around the fireplace or kitchen to spend time together because even though there is nothing out there, the dark and cold make things a little scary outside. Pachamama is an Incan Goddess of fertility, a mother of earth and time. She watches the planting and the harvesting of the crops giving everything needed to sustain life. Myths say that she can cause earthquakes to punish those who anger her—a reminder to honor her and the earth. Powerful earthquakes are rare where I live; we get hundreds of small ones yearly. But that doesn’t mean that we are beyond nature’s grasp. Here in farm country, the worst blowing snow occurs across the fields, where trees have been cleared, leaving barren land without protection from the sub-zero winds. Twenty-four inches of snow can fall in 24 hours, and stronger storms have recently left us trapped for days before the plows come. Pachamama brings both the harvest which sustains us during the cold winter months and the wicked weather that many fear when they must go out to work. Respect for nature is vital during this time of year. Understanding how the weather moves across the Great Lakes, down from Canada, or up the Eastern Seaboard before heading inland will keep one safe. These are just a few of the Goddesses of the harvest and their attributes which cross over into how my friends and I enjoy and appreciate this time of year. If you are among those who live for and love autumn, embrace it. And as you enjoy these activities, cooking a meal with your harvest, warming yourself by the fireplace, learning a new skill or hobby, or gathering with friends, take a moment to think about the Goddess you are reflecting, and give a little thanks to her for all she gives you during this season. The earth gives one last bountiful harvest, a riot of color and scent, before falling deathly quiet under a blanket of snow. Winter is the time of death before the rebirth of spring, but autumn is not the death throws of nature. It is it’s last hurrah before the animals and plants shut themselves up for the long sleep, not knowing who will wake up again in the spring. Wikimedia Commons image Embrace this last hurrah, even while we get busy and stress about driving to or from work in the snow and ice. While we stock up on pantry staples at the market so there is always a quick meal to be made. Take the time to slow down with a warm cup and a good book or magazine, sit and listen to the rustling of the leaves as mice scamper through them. Pay attention as the days get quieter, as the noise of the insects dies away. Give thanks for this time of change and embrace the coming uncertainty of the darkness. https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/
Goddess Pilgrimage Central Queensland Australia by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Her vulval images are in abundance in this place, Carnarvon Gorge, Central Queensland Australia; however, in a cultural milieu that can barely say the word ”vulva”, let alone understand the ceremonial celebration of female anatomy, this place has gone largely unrecognised. Even Goddess people barely know of it, though I was alerted to it by a good Goddess woman, Chris Sitka, who went there a few years ago. Part of me is amazed that the site of these engravings is open to the public, and people are allowed so close up: it seems to me almost sacriligious to do so: most who view the work would have little perception of the sacredness of the art. The Indigenous people who created them were long ago banished from the place and their descendants are only beginning to return and tell their story again. In the story told at the Ranger’s Station there, the vulval images are named as “cup and ring” motifs; my partner and I were aghast at the complete erasure of Her. There was only an admission that they “were associated with very significant fertility ceremonies”. Perhaps the Europeans who wrote this actually did not have any idea, since their kind had destroyed so much of the culture and knowledge of the people, and their own culture and religions were so completely devoid of sacred female imagery. It would have been difficult for them to imagine, much like the Sheela-na-Gigs have not been comprehended by minds locked up in dualistic, androcentric mythologies. Thankfully the story being told at one site, “The Art Gallery” as it is named, is different. It is entitled “A Woman’s Story” and the word “vulva” is used. The full text in this location reads: Women are responsible for looking after some of the stories etched along this section of the sandstone wall – women’s business. You will see engraved over and over again the motif of the human vulva. Our Elders tell the story of this design being a fertility symbol. There must be very interesting discussions that go on about how to describe the engravings. The place is certainly not advertised as a sacred female place, though there are Elders (recorded at the Ranger’s Station) who tell that it is women’s business. I can only advise that Carnarvon Gorge, Central Queensland, Australia, be put on the list of global Goddess sites, and it’s true worth recognised, received and revered. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone
(Poem) Eurydice, delayed by Jillian Parker

I thought I was dead, she kept repeating.Only the wrong ones paid any attention.A policeman spotted the pile of ragsand bundled her off to the hospital.To pay for a room in a dormitory,she put on a uniform and knelt before shelves,counting cans as she stacked. A sort of chant.A reminder of an existence she could not place.In Spring, she fingered the new-formed leaves,and watched the curling of bark into scrolls.One evening she opened a room-mate’s bookand wept at the sight of her own name. Read Meet Mago Contributor Jillian Parker.
(Poem) Resurrection by Mary Saracino

Deep in the coils of memory our DNA sings ancient songs of life, death, regeneration. We each turn on our own axis, as the Earth turns through her seasons, winter’s fallow followed by spring’s eternal greening. All sacred litanies arise from her soil, take to the sky, return their blessings to the wells, the rivers, the oceans. Why can’t we remember? Our souls are hung on crosses, our limbs bound, our hands and feet nailed to unrelenting dogma, our tender ribs pierced with thorny spears, our vulva-wounds ooze with bloody amnesia. We have forgotten where we come from: the dank caves of consciousness littered with the bones of stone age lovers painted ochre-red to honor menstrual blood, the original river, to honor, too, its womb-source, our primal passageway the portal from which we all emerged, mouths open, wailing for our mother’s breast, seeking the milk that sustains us. Like spring we are born again and again; we circumnavigate our lives, spiraling forward, circling back, orbiting our hearts until we open to the sun like red tulips in a once-fallow field, dancing in the breeze, loose with joy, sharing our subterranean secret, reviving the buried bulb’s dormant hopes, reveling in our resurrection. “Resurrection” was originally published in 2007 at http://www.newversenews.com/ Mary Saracino lives in Denver, CO. Her newest novel, Heretics, will be published in 2014 by Pearlsong Press. The anthology she co-edited with Mary Beth Moser, She Is Everywhere! Volume 3 (iUniverse 2012), the anthology she co-edited with Mary Beth Moser received the is Enheduanna Award for excellence in the field of women’s spirituality from the Master’s Program in Women’s Spirituality at Sofia University in Palo Alto, CA. Mary’s novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), was named a Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the Spirituality category.
(Poetry and Photography) Spring Lament 2020 by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright We Could Have Listened I made my way to the river, heard the song of a starving body barely rippling over black stone. Man’s* need to control her flow may win out this spring as more ditches are gouged, and she is flooded (not in time for the young cottonwoods whose roots are too shallow, but to grow human food and graze destructive cattle man must have to eat). A plague sweeps through poisoned air infecting us One by one… As I round the Bosque at daybreak breathing in grasses sweetened by last night’s rain crystals hang from bare branches, the decaying comfort of moist cottonwood leaves mutes all sounds beneath my feet. S/he* listens as I give thanks, witnesses my Lament… We could have listened to weeping trees, screaming plants dying animals witnessed holes in blue sky, stopped poisoning Earth’s precious ground. Nature tried to capture man’s arrogant attention as he built more walls between self and other ignoring mounting evidence supporting what Indigenous peoples have known for millennia: Interconnection is Fundamental to Life – Dead whales and krill, the slaughter of all but three percent of the Earth’s forests, missing birds, unbreathable air, melting ice – Some western gods of science still protest to no avail. How many people Have I heard say “Oh, it’s sad – too bad they’re are dying by the millions” as if humans were somehow Exempt. Unique. Those of us that heard the cries were ridiculed. Branded “ Voice of Doom”. We could have listened to weeping trees, screaming plants, dying animals, witnessed holes in blue sky, stopped poisoning Earth’s precious ground. Has Nature finally made her point with an invisible killer transmitted by wind that shrieks a dire warning? This rampant threat will reduce human populations, with the potential to eliminate a species by first destroying those most vulnerable. Millions may die before business returns to normal in this Straw Man’s world until the Next Time… We could have listened. to weeping trees, screaming plants, dying animals, witnessed holes in blue sky, stopped poisoning Earth’s precious ground. “Man” is used to define the human species as he still defines himself… I wonder what happened to humankind?“S/he” refers to Nature as being inclusive – male, female. transgender – Postscript I have been witnessing with increasing horror and grief the willful refusal of people to accept that any species except our own is capable of developing awareness or consciousness, has its own teleology, or its own reason for being. We use Nature as a commodity; as if every non human species was designed to meet our needs and those of no other. For much of my life my experiences and my dreams have taught me that all non -human species have awareness and possess an intelligence equal to our own – although intelligence in particular is expressed differently in Nature. It is clear from a lifetime of observations that all living things lead meaningful lives that we know nothing about. I have endured ridicule and derision for my ideas throughout my life. It wasn’t until this year that I was finally able to let go of trying to shift the trajectory that humans are on through my writing. Ironically it was my relationship with Nature that helped me understand that I had done what I could. Today most of my writing is focused on the fascinating aspects of Nature making my writing once again a joyful endeavor. In this process I finally got it, realizing that I had it backwards. Nature doesn’t need us; we need her. It is humans that are in need of deep healing. Nature will survive as a whole although at present many species are already extinct and so many others are dying. The fact that S/he will survive brings me great joy, and for that knowing in my bones I feel deep gratitude. The difference between me and most people is that I have known all my life how much I needed Nature to survive. It was this need that turned me into an advocate in the first place. Sadly, we humans don’t seem capable of living sustainably. (The exception, of course, refers to Indigenous folk who developed a culture based on shared resources and sustainability; pockets remain) I am just as much a part of the problem as anyone else, although I do carry awareness of my complicity and grieve deeply. There are many ways to look at the current pandemic. Many see it as the “enemy,” Nature at her worst – The “man against nature paradigm” is alive and well. Personally, it is as frightening to me as it is to others… I do not want to die from this virus and I am one of the people at the highest risk – But I am also aware that Nature is ultimately focused on the big picture (although she also has a deeply personal aspect), and the human species is a failed experiment as of now. Nature exemplifies the necessity of Interconnection and Community. Humans have failed to hear her anguished cries…and so I see this pandemic as a “natural event” – a way to begin to redress the horrific imbalances that we have created as humans at the expense of all of Nature. Nothing is personal here. Human induced Climate Change will no doubt do the rest. How ironic. It’s only a matter of time. Today in the northern hemisphere we celebrate the turning of the seasonal wheel into spring – the vernal equinox – normally a joyous time for many – but not this year. Instead, we are fearful and isolated in our homes … Outside my window the wind is howling and churning up so much dust that with emphysema I don’t dare go out. The raging wind also seems to be reminding me of the spread of this pandemic through polluted air, which fueled the writing of this prose and post. In this area BLM was supposed …
(Commemorating Mary Daly 4) My Memoirs of Mary Daly (1928-2010) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: My personal encounter with Mary Daly, a U.S. post-Christian feminist thinker, goes back to 1994, if not earlier. I stayed in Korea from 1994-1997 during which I translated two of Mary Daly’s early books, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation 하나님 아버지를 넘어서 (Seoul: Ewha Women’s University Press, 1996) and Church and the Second Sex 교회와 제 2의 성 (Seoul: Women’s News Press, 1997) in Korean. I carried with me to the U.S.A. our correspondences in the form of letters and documents mostly faxed to each other for the period of more than two decades. Later at one point I digitized them in images. Through these memoir series, I share some highlights of my memories with Mary Daly, her influence on my feminist thinking, and my own radical feminist journey to Magoist Cetaceanism.]Mary had faxed me “Author’s Note to the Korean Edition of BGTF” dated September 23 1996, which I posted in a previous section of my memoire. My letter to her dated October 25 1996 shows that we talked on the phone between these two letters. My memory is vague, if Mary ever called me in Korea but I called her in the U.S. [It’s plausible that she called me too. She may have called me after faxing her letter to me.] In fact, I don’t have any recollection how I dealt with phone bills but it is possible that I had a way to handle international phone calls. Nonetheless, phone bills did not interfere my connection with Mary. That was not because I had enough money or was extravagant but because it was one of things that had to be done. Making a phone call to her was like turning on the light on the dark path that I just began to follow. Or connecting with Mary was like a dawn in my new day. At that time, I was taking matters in my own hands. My mother was the top priority. I consciously connected with my mother for the first time (I was emotionally separated from my mother from a very young age and I responded to our needs of reconnecting with each other). That is a topic that I need to mention in another space. And connecting with Mary Daly was the second priority. I needed to connect with her not for her but for myself. Translating her books was a medium that made that possible in a special way. It was upaya (a perfect means to to serve multiple purposes), to borrow a Buddhist term. Don’t be mistaken that I attempted to gain something like public recognition or money, if it could. Mary made it clear that I did not have any other hidden agenda. In retrospect, Mary was in a difficult situation with Audre Lorde’s claim, which turned out to be a deliberately falsity. She did not know that I was no Audre Lorde in any manner. I was a liberated woman who finally chose her own destiny. I just enjoyed being alone apart from patriarchal fetters at last and doing what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had withdrawn my membership from a Catholic overseas missionary congregation based in the United States in early 1994. I did not know Mary Daly personally then. For the first time, I began to shape my life with my own hands! Letting go of the old self and the patriarchal institutions that I blindly accepted, I held tight onto things that gave me joy; things that made me feel that I was alive. I was breaking out my own shell to be self-birthed as a self-identified woman, a radical feminist. I chose a few and right things for myself. My brother generously shared his small apartment with me when I just got out of the Philippines, my missionary field. Then, I needed a job to survive. Maryknoll Sisters in Korea were there to help me get on my own feet. They waited for me to join them and helped me when I left them. Everything seemed to fall in right places. I was able to teach English to some groups of neighboring children, while lecturing for an English language institute. I was lucky to get paid from these teaching opportunities. Making money was not that difficult for me at that time. My concern was to choose the right thing for the rest of my life rather than to make money to survive. In fact, nothing was difficult for me to do. Or I had nothing to lose. That is not to say that I has a source of income beyond what I earned. My life back in Korea was an easy one compared to the lives of people that I had met and lived together in the countries that I traveled and studied. The most important task was completed; I left Christianity and stopped feeding my dependency on patriarchal institutions. I jettisoned anything and everything that I did not need, which made me feel free and at peace at last. I was able to save some money to pay the tuition for the graduate school in the U.S. For the first time in my life that I made and saved money for myself. Prior to joining Maryknoll Sisters, I used to give away the money that I earned to those including my relatives who were in need of it. In my letter to Mary Daly that I share below, I gave Mary the amount of US$12,000 that I would receive from the Ewha Press. I did not give that money to her but I had my press to pay her the full royalty, part of which I was supposed to receive. In fact, I had forgotten about that until I found this letter of mine. I wanted to support Mary in the best way that I could do and I was happy that I could do it. I had completely forgotten about the money factor between Mary and myself. …

(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [Editorial Note: The following is […]
(Special Post 6) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that […]
(Review) Journey into Dreamtime by Munya Andrews, reviewed by Glenys Livingstone

Although the term “Dreamtime” is often not considered an adequate translation of the cosmology, religion […]
(Special Post 6) 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. […]
(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that […]
(Special post) The Goddess Inanna: Her Allies and Opponents by Hearth Moon Rising

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld is one of the most fascinating myths ever told. Not […]

(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the conclusion of chapter 5 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. It is a chapter on the process of the Wheel of the Year. for the Northern Hemisphere version: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems to me that the main agenda of the Cosmos is ongoing Creativity, “never-ending renewal” it may be termed, and that this is expressed in Earth’s Seasonal Wheel through the transitions of Autumn,Winter, Spring, Summer; and in the ubiquitous process of a Cosmic Triplicity of Space to Be, Urge to Be and this Place of Being, a dynamic that has often been imagined as the Triple Goddess. In the flow of the PaGaian Wheel of the Year, the Seasonal transitions of the Wheel and the Triplicity of the Cosmos come together. There are two celebrations of the Old One/Crone or the Cosmogenetic quality of autopoiesis creating the Space to Be; and they are Lammas/Late Summer and Samhain/Deep Autumn, which are the meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing dark phase. At Lammas, the first in the dark phase, we may identify with the dark and ancient Wise One – dissolve into Her; at Samhain, we may consciously participate in Her process of the transformation of death/the passing of all. The whole dark part of the cycle is about dissolving/dying/letting go of being – becoming – nurturing it (the midwifing of Lammas/Late Summer), stepping into the power of it (the certain departure of Autumn Equinox/Mabon), the fertility (of Samhain/Deep Autumn), the peaking of it (at Winter Solstice). The meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing light phase then are celebrations of the Young One/Virgin or the Cosmogenetic quality of differentiation, the new continually emerging, the Urge to Be; and they are Imbolc/Early Spring and Beltaine/High Spring. At Imbolc, the first in the light phase, we may identify with She who is shining and new – as we take her form; at Beltaine, we may consciously participate in Her process of the dance of life. The whole light part of the cycle is about coming into being: nurturing it (the midwifing of Imbolc/Early Spring), stepping into the power of it (the certain return of Spring Equinox/Eostar), the fertility (of Beltaine/High Spring), the peaking of it (at Summer Solstice). In the PaGaian wheel of ceremony there are two particular celebrations of the Mother, the Cosmogenetic quality of communion; and they are the Solstices. If one imagines the light part of the cycle as a celebration of the ‘Productions of Time’, and the dark part of the cycle as a celebration of ‘Eternity’, the Solstices then are meeting points, points of interchange, and are celebrations of the communion/relational field of Eternity with the Productions of Time. This is a relationship which does happen in this Place, in this Web. This Place of Being, this Web, is a Communion – it is the Mother; the Solstices mark Her birthings, Her gateways. The Equinoxes then – both Spring and Autumn – are two celebrations wherein the balance of all three Faces/Creative qualities is particularly present: in the PaGaian wheel, the Equinoxes have been special celebrations of Demeter and Persephone – echoing the ancient tradition of Mother-Daughter Mysteries that celebrate the awesomeness of the continuity of life, its creative tension/balance. Both Equinoxes then are celebrations and contemplations of empowerment through deep Wisdom – one contemplation during the dark phase and one during the light phase. The Autumn Equinox is a descent to Wisdom, the Spring Equinox is an emergence with Wisdom gained. I like to think of the Equinoxes, and of the ancient icons of Demeter and Persephone, as celebrations of the delicate ‘curvature of space-time’, the fertile balance of tensions which enables it all. Her Creative Place The Mother aspect then may be understood to be particularly present at four of the Seasonal Moments, which are also regarded traditionally as the Solar festivals; and in this cosmology Sun is felt as Mother. I recognize these four as points of interchange: at Autumn Equinox, Mother is present primarily as Giver – She is letting Persephone go, at Spring Equinox, She is present primarily as Receiver – welcoming the Daughter back, at Winter Solstice the Mother gives birth, creates form, at Summer Solstice, She opens again full of radiance, and disperses form. The Mother is Agent/Actor at the Solstices. She is Participant/Witness at the Equinoxes, where it is then really Persephone who is Agent/Actor, embodying an inseparable Young One and Old One. The Old One is often named as Hecate, who completes the Trio – all seamlessly within each other. Another possible way to visual it, or to tell the story, is this: The Mother – Demeter – is always there, at the Centre if you like. Persephone cycles around. She is the Daughter who returns in the Spring as flower, who will become fruit/grain of the Summer, who at Lammas assents to the dissolution – the consumption. At Autumn Equinox She returns to the underworld as seed – Her harvest is rejoiced in, Her loss is grieved, as She becomes Sovereign of the Underworld – Her face changes to the Dark One, Crone (Hecate). As the wheel turns into the light part of the cycle She becomes Young One/Virgin again. Persephone (as Seed) is that part of Demeter that can be all three aspects – can move through the complete cycle. The Mother and Daughter are really One, and embody the immortal process of creation and destruction. Demeter hands Persephone the wheat, the Mystery, and the thread of life is unbroken – it goes on forever. It is immortal, it is eternal. Even though it is true that all will be lost, and all is lost – Being always arises again: within this field of time there is never-ending renewal, eternity. This is what is revealed in the ubiquitous three faces of the Creative Dynamic/ She of Old, the Triplicity that runs through the Cosmos. The Seed of Life never …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 3) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. MAPPING THE MAGOIST CALENDAR According to the Budoji, the Magoist Calendar was fully implemented and advocated during the period of Old Joseon (ca. 2333 BCE-ca. 232 BCE) whose civilization is known as Budo (Emblem City). Indeed, the Magoist Calendar is referred to as the Budo Calendar in the Budoji. Budo was founded to succeed Sinsi and reignited Sinsi’s innovations including the numerological and musicological thealogy of the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji expounds on the Magoist Calendar as follows: The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a cyclic period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds up to 365 days. At the half point after the third Sa, there is a Pan of the big Sak (the year of the great dark moon). A pan comes at a half point of Sa. This is of Beopsu (Lawful Number) 2, 5, 8. A Pan is equal to a day. Therefore, the fourth Sa has 366 days. At the half point after the tenth Sa, there is a Gu of the big Hoe (Eve of the first day of the month). Gu is the root of time. Three hundred Gu makes one Myo. With Myo, we can sense Gu. A lapse of 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si makes one day. This is of Chesu (Physical Number), 3, 6, 9. By and by, the encircling time charts Medium Calendar and Large Calendar to evince the principle of numerology.[12] KEY TERMS Calendric Cycles Jongsi (終是 Ending and Beginning): Cyclic periods Soryeok (小曆 Little Calendar): One year Jungryeok (中曆 Medium Calendar): Two years Daeryeok (大曆 Large Calendar): Four years Names of Year, Month, Day, Week Sa (祀 Rituals, year): One year refers to the time that takes to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month): One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day): One day refers to the sun’s movement due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week): Each weekday is dedicated to seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the Celestial Bodies, completion of a week): One week refers to the veneration of the seven celestial bodies. Names of Monthly Transition Days Hoe (晦 Eve of the first day of the month, 28th) Sak (朔 First day of the month, 1st, the dark moon) Names of Intercalation Days Dan (旦 Morning): Leap day for New Year Pan (昄 Big): Leap day for every fourth year Names of Time Units Gu (晷 sun’s shadow): Time measure, 1/300 Myo Myo (眇 minuscule): Time measure, a total of 300 Gu Myo-Gak-Bun-Si (眇刻分時 minuscule, possibly 15-minutes, minute, hour): Time measure, 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si is equal to a day Names of Three Types of Numbers in Nine Numerology Seongsu (性數Natural Number): 1, 4, 7 in the digital root Beopsu (法數 Lawful Number): 2, 5, 8 in the digital root Chesu (體數 Physical Number): 3, 6, 9 in the digital root THREE SUB-CALENDARS The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). The universe is infinite without beginning and ending. Everything runs the course of self-equilibration in relation to everything else. The Way of Heaven or the Way of the Creatrix circles and makes possible the infinite time/space to be measured and calculated. As the Way of Heaven circles, we are able to perceive Our Universe in finite measures of time/space. Time becomes measurable, as space is stabilized. Seasons and days-nights are demarcated in cyclic patterns, as the Earth makes the three cyclic movements of rotation, revolution, and precession. Calendar, born out of the inter-cosmic time, synchronizes human culture with the song/dance of the universe. The term Jongsi, which means an ending and a beginning, is equivalent to “a cyclic period” that is marked by the beginning and the end. Time (a day, a month, and a year) circles, as space (the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun) spirals. The Magoist Calendar has three sub-calendars: The period of one yearly cycle is called Little Calendar, whereas the period of two yearly cycles is called Medium Calendar and the period of four yearly cycles, Large Calendar. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang) Notes [12] Budoji, Chapter 23. See Bak Jesang, the Budoji, Bak Geum scrib., Eunsu Kim, trans. (Seoul: Gana Chulpansa, 1986).
Beltaine/High Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Walking with Bb: a story exploring the psychic connection between one woman and her bear. Preface: The black bear – hunting season in Maine is brutal – four months of bear hell – five if one includes the month where hunters can track bears for “practice” with hounds – separate mothers and cubs, terrorize them, tree them and do anything but legally kill them. During the legal slaughter, Hunters bait bears with junk food by putting old donuts etc. in cans and shoot the bear while he or she is eating. Most bears (82 percent) are slaughtered in this manner, the rest are killed by hounding and trapping. The season begins in August and lasts through December. Trapping, by the way, is illegal in every state but Maine. Black bears are hated, and that hatred will, of course, eventually result in their extirpation. I had a shy (male) year old black bear visiting my house this past summer with whom I developed a friendship, and what follows is part of our story: Last Saturday I was walking down the road when I remembered that I had not done my daily “circle of protection” imaging for Bb (standing as he was the day he visited me at the window early in August). When I began to do this another picture of Bb moving on all four feet with his face turned towards mine super-imposed itself over his standing image. I could almost see his expression, but not quite. I didn’t know what this imaging meant beyond that we were communicating in some unknown way, and he was in the area (not a good thing on hunting Saturdays). He had not been coming in most nights and I was worried… That night he came. He is still making nightly visits five days later, the most sequentially consistent visits since September 15th, the day I believed that he had been shot. This experience prompted me to write about telepathy and precognition. It is close to All Hallows and the full Hunter’s moon (Nov 3). I keep listening to Charlie Russell’ story which reminds me that loving bears (especially male bears) is hard, almost a sure recipe for disaster, and that I was not alone in this deep concern for and fear of losing Bb. I can barely stand to remember my other bear losses and I can’t stand feeling them. Even after I wrote about the incident with Bb, the experience seemed to carry a charge that didn’t dissipate. Had I missed something? Next I wrote “Root Healer,” exploring the possibility that as I continued to act as Bb’s “little bear mother” now employing psychic techniques to keep him safe (in some desperation as it was the only means left open to me to protect this very vulnerable yearling), that Bb’s presence might also include a gift for me and that it might involve some kind of root healing for my body because Nature thrives on reciprocity. One idea I missed completely, for it was so obvious. Bb’s image was communicating to me that we were having a psychic conversation in that very moment. It was the first time in three months of imaging protective circles that moved with him that I had confirmation from him that we were communicating effectively in this unknown way. This rarely happens. Normally when I do this kind of work, I just do it. I don’t get direct confirmation that it’s working from the animal itself (except with Lily b). Knowing this helped me make another decision I might not have made so intentionally. The hunting season will last into mid December, and I will be traveling during that last month. I keep thinking that putting actual physical distance between Bb and I might pose more of a threat for his life and I have to remind myself that psychic phenomena are not distance dependent. I should be able to image that protective circle every day and feel that it is working. Bb has already shown me that it can but I fear adding distance because I don’t completely trust my own perceptions.* I suspect believing might be an additional dimension of ensuring success when it comes to psychic protection for this bear. But how do I incorporate belief into a picture that is so clouded with personal/cultural doubt? Half the time I don’t believe myself and virtually no one except Rupert Sheldrake, Iren and Harriet have ever taken my experiences seriously. I have to remind myself that I have done this work many times dealing with doubt and it worked anyway. The point of writing this reflection might be to put me on a new edge of increasing Bb’s odds of survival. If it’s possible that an attitude that embraces believing in what I do could help me protect Bb more effectively until hunting is over and its time for him to den in peace I want to claim it. The question I need to answer now is how to go about moving into a more trusting self as a woman who continues to walk with a bear at her side? The night after I wrote the above paragraph I dream of the doubters in the roles of my parents, and in a friend. I take these dreams seriously as doubters inside me and out. These dreams may be telling me that it is unreasonable to expect me to believe that what I do works when no one else does? The problem with this idea is that on some level I do believe. I feel as if I am walking with this bear, every single day. I think about him constantly. The only thing that got me out of the house yesterday was that he was out of chocolate donuts. Something is intensifying my relationship with Bb although I never see him. I am caught in a field of bear energy and information, perhaps through some version of beauty and the beast. That an archetype is …
(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, …
(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: …
(Photography & Poetry) Thoughts of Spring by Deanne Quarrie

Spring At the highest point on the tree, you stretch, reaching for the sun. Your pink petals elegant in their grace, you stand alone. Bravest of all, for leaves have yet to come to offer shade Branches bare except for furry buds that will soon follow in imitation of your daring first move. Intrepid flower of Spring, I feel like you in my yearning for the Sun!
(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 10 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd These dates are traditional, though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox, thus actually a little later in early February for S.H., and early August for N.H., respectively. a Lammas/Late Summer table The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again, to celebrate She Who creates the Space to Be. Lammas is a welcoming of the Dark in all its complexity: and as with any funerary moment, there is celebration of the life lived (enjoyment of the harvest) – a “wake,” and there is grieving for the loss. One may fear it, which is good reason to make ceremony, to go deeper, to commit to the Mother, who is the Deep; to “make sacred” this emotion, as much as one may celebrate the hope and wonder of Spring, its opposite. If Imbolc/Early Spring is a nurturing of new young life, Lammas may be a nurturing/midwifing of death or dying to small self, the assent to larger self, an expansion or dissipation – further to the radiance of Summer Solstice. Whereas Imbolc is a Bridal commitment to being and form, where we are the Promise of Life; Lammas may be felt as a commitment marriage to the Dark within, as we accept the Harvest of that Promise, the cutting of it. We remember that the Promise is returned to Source. “The forces which began to rise out of the Earth at the festival of Bride now return at Lammas.”[i] Creativity is called forth when an end (or impasse) is reached: we can no longer rely on our small self to carry it off. We may call Her forth, this Creative Wise Dark One – of the Ages, when our ways no longer work. We are not individuals, though we often think we are. We are Larger Self, subjects within theSubject.[ii] And this is a joyful thing. We do experience ourselves as individuals and we celebrate that creativity at Imbolc. Lammas is the time for celebrating the fact that we are part of, in the context of, a Larger Organism, and expanding into that. Death will teach us that, but we don’t have to wait – it is happening around us all the time, we are constantly immersed in the process, and everyday creativity is sourced in this subjectivity. As it is said, She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire:”[iii] the same Desire we celebrated at Beltaine, has peaked at Summer and is now dissolving form, returning to Source to nourish the Plenum, the manifesting – as all form does. This Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Late Summer celebrates the beginning of dismantling, de-structuring. Gaia-Universe has done a lot of this de-structuring – it is in Her nature to return all to the “Sentient Soup” … nothing is wasted. We recall the Dark Sentience, the “All-Nourishing Abyss”[iv] at the base of being, as we enter this dark part of the cycle of the year. This Dark/Deep at the base of being, to whom we are returned, may be understood as the Sentience within all – within the entire Universe. The dictionary definition of sentience is: “intelligence,” “feeling,” “the readiness to receive sensation, idea or image; unstructured available consciousness,” “a state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness.”[v] The Old Wise One is the aspect of the Cosmic Triplicity/Triple Goddess that returns us to this sentience, the Great Subject out of whom we arise. We are subjects within the Great Subject – the sentient Universe; we are not a collection of objects, as Thomas Berry has said.[vi] This sentience within, this “readiness-to-receive,” is a dark space, as all places of ending and beginning are. Mystics of all religious traditions have understood the quintessential darkness of the Divinity, known often as the Abyss. Goddesses such as Nammu and Tiamat, Aditi and Kali, are the anthropomorphic forms of this Abyss/Sea of Darkness that existed before creation. She is really the Matrix of the Universe. This sentience is ever present and dynamic. It could be understood as the dark matter that is now recognized to form most of the Universe. This may be recognized as Her “Cauldron of Creativity” and celebrated at this Lammas Moment. Her Cauldron of Creativity is the constant flux of all form in the Universe – all matter is constantly transforming. We are constantly transforming on every level. a Lammas/Late Summer altar These times that we find ourselves in have been storied as the Age of Kali, the Age of Caillaech – the Age of the Crone. There is much that is being turned over, much that will be dismantled. We are in the midst of the revealing of compost, and transformation – social, cultural, and geophysical. Kali is not a pretty one – but we trust She is transformer, and creative in the long term. She has a good track record. Our main problem is that we tend to take it personally. The Crone – the Old Phase of the cycle, creates the Space to Be. Lammas is the particular celebration of the beauty of this awesome One. She is symbolized and expressed in the image of the waning moon, which is filling with darkness. She is the nurturant darkness that may fill your being, comfort the sentience in you, that will eventually allow new constellations to gestate in you, renew you. So the focus in ceremony may be to contemplate opening to Her, noticing our fears and our hopes involved in that. She is the Great Receiver – receives all, and as such She is the Great Compassionate One. Her Darkness may be understood as a Depth of Love. And She is Compassionate because of …
(Slideshow) Beltaine Goddess by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

Tara, Hallie Iglehart Austen, p.122 On November 7th at 22:56 UTC EarthGaia crosses the midpoint in Her orbit between Equinox and Solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Season of Beltaine – a maturing of the Light, post-Spring Equinox. Beltaine and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin aspect of Goddess, even as She comes into relationship with Other: She remains Her own agent. Beltaine may be understood as the quintessential annual celebration of Light as it continues to wax towards fullness. It is understood to be the beginning of Summer. Here is some Poetry of the Season: Earth tilts us further towards Mother Sun, the Source of Her pleasure, life and ecstasy You are invited to celebrate BELTAINE the time when sweet Desire For Life is met – when the fruiting begins: the Promise of early Spring exalts in Passion. This is the celebration of Holy Lust, Allurement, Aphrodite … Who holds all things in form, Who unites the cosmos, Who brings forth all things, Who is the Essence of the Dance of Life. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express this quality of Hers. And also for consideration, is the fact that most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Beltaine. As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable – that which can only be known in body – below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKGRoVjQQHY Aphrodite 300 B.C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). This Greek Goddess is commonly associated with sexuality in a trivial kind of way, but She was said to be older than Time (Barbara Walker p.44). Aphrodite as humans once knew Her, was no mere sex goddess: Aphrodite was once a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity – the Creative Force itself. The Love that She embodied was a Love deep down in things, an allurement intrinsic to the nature of the Universe. Praised by the Orphics thus: For all things are from You Who unites the cosmos. You will the three-fold fates You bring forth all things Whatever is in the heavens And in the much fruitful earth And in the deep sea. Vajravarahi 1600C.E. Tibetan Tantric Buddhism (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A Dakini dancing with life energy – a unity of power, beauty, compassion and eroticism. Praised as Mistress of love and of knowledge at the same time. Tara Contemporary – Green Gulch California ,Tibetan Buddhist. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). “Her eroticism is an important part of her bodhisattvahood: the sweetpea represents the yoni, and she is surrounded by the sensual abundance of Nature. One of Tara’s human incarnations was as the Tibetan mystic Yeshe Tsogyal, “who helped many people to enlightenment through sacred sexual union with her”. – Ishtar 1000 B.C.E. Babylon (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Associated with passionate sexuality (and with Roman Goddess Venus) – which was not perceived as separate from integrity and intelligence … praised for Her beauty and brains! Her lips are sweet, Life is in Her mouth. When She appears, we are filled with rejoicing. She is glorious beneath Her robes. Her body is complete beauty. Her eyes are total brilliance. Who could be equal to Her greatness, for Her decrees are strong, exalted, perfect. MESOPOTAMIAN TEXT 1600 B.C.E. Artemis 4th Cent.B.C.E. Greece. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess) – classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent” – in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted. Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. Tibetan Goddess and God in Union: it could be any Lover and Beloved, of same sex. Image from Mann and Lyle, “Sacred Sexuality” p.74. Sacred Couple –Mesopotamia 2000-1600 BCE “Lovers Embracing on Bed”, Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth, Diane Wolkstein and Samuael Noah Kramer. Represents the sacred marriage mythic cycle – late 3rd and into 4th millennium B.C.E. (See Starhawk, Truth or Dare). This period is the time of Enheduanna – great poet and priestess of Inanna. Xochiquetzal 8th century C.E. Mayan (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Her name means “precious flower” – She is Goddess of pleasure, sexuality beauty and flowers. Sometimes represented by a butterfly who sips the nectar of the flower. “In ancient rituals honouring her, young people made a bower of roses, and, dressed as hummingbirds and butterflies they danced an image of the Goddess of flowers and love.” Her priestesses are depicted with ecstatic faces. (called “laughing Goddesses” !!) She and Her priestesses unashamedly celebrated joyful female sexuality – there is story of decorating pubic hairs to outshine the Goddess’ yoni. https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/meet-mago-contributor-glenys-livingstone/ REFERENCES: Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Mann A.T. and Lyle, Jane. Sacred Sexuality. ELEMENT BOOKS LTD, 1995. Starhawk. Truth or Dare. San Fransisco:Harper and Row, 1990. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983. Wolkstein,Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. NY: Harper and Rowe, 1983. The music for the slideshow is “”Coral Sea Dreaming” by Tania Rose.
(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

(Essay 1) Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and Her Tradition Magoism by Helen Hwang

Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and her Tradition Magoism[i] This study documents and interprets a substantial body of primary sources concerning Mago [麻姑, also known as Magu or Mako] from Korea, China, and Japan. Much of this material has never been brought to light as a whole. In working with these various and sundry data including folklore, paintings, arts, literature, poetry, toponyms, rituals, historical and religious records, and apocryphal texts, I encountered an organic structure that relates these seemingly unrelated materials and named it Magoism. Magoism refers to an anciently originated gynocentric cultural and historical context of East Asia, which venerates Mago as supreme divine. Although “Magoism” is my coinage, its concept is not new. Magoism is referred to as the Way of Mago, the Origin of Mago, the Event of Mago, Reign of Mago, Heavenly Principle, or simply Mago in historical sources. In the West, its partial manifestation is known as the cult of Magu within the context of Daoism. One of the earliest verified records, the Biography of Magu (Magu zhuan) written by Ge Hong (284-364) dates back to proto-Daoist times.[ii] Nonetheless, “Mago” remains largely forgotten and misrepresented to the world especially in modern times. More incisively, her sublime divinity is made invisible despite strong evidence. No scholarship in the West has treated Mago as a topic in her own right. Mago’s multiple identities ranging from the cosmogonist to a grandmother, from the progenitress to the Daoist goddess, from the sovereign to a shaman/priestess in Korea, China, and Japan remain unregistered in modern scholarship. When mentioned, her transnational manifestation is not recognized cogently. She is often lumped together with other parochial goddesses from China. Other times, she is fetishized as a Daoist goddess of immortality. She is also known, among other representations, as the giant grandmother (goddess) who shaped the natural landscape in the beginning of time among Koreans. In any case, Mago is not deemed on a par or in relation with Xiwangmu (the Queen Mother of the West in Chinese Daoism) and Amaterasu, (the Sun Goddess of the Japanese imperial family), both of who represent the East Asian pantheon of supreme goddesses to the West. I hold that the paramount significance of Magoism lies in the fact that it redefines the female principle and proffers a gynocentric utopian vision to the modern audience. Its utopian cosmology is no free-floating abstract idea but imbedded in the mytho-historical-cultural reality of East Asia. I suggest Magoism as the original vision of East Asian thought. Put differently, Magoism is an East Asian gynocentric testimony to the forgotten utopian reality. In the sense that Magoism presents an East Asian gynocentric symbolic system, this study is distinguished from Western and androcentric discourse. In other words, its gynocentric universalism should not be subsumed under the discourse of Western or patriarchal universalism. Magoism prompts an alternative paradigm of ancient gynocentrism that redefine major notions of the divine, human, and nature in continuum. Mago, the great goddess, is the unifying and at the same time individualizing force in this system. Magoism enables a macrocosmic view in which all individualized parts are organically co-related and co-operating. As a religious system, it is at once monotheistic and polytheistic. That is, Mago is the great goddess in her multiple manifestations. Underlying the patriarchal edifices, the Magoist principle is the Source from which the latter is derived.
(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Species, comprised of the divine, demigods, and humans.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] Magoist Origin of Immortals: All in the Mago Species are given the original nature of immortality or transcendence. Readers are advised to set aside the literal meaning in the English language of the words immortals or transcendents. Immortals is a translation of the East Asian term seon (仙, xian in Chinese). I choose the translation immortals over transcendents not because it is a better translation but because it is the most commonly used term by Western Daoist translators.[i] Although it is known as a Daoist term, I hold that it is pre-Daoist, namely Magoist, in origin. Primarily, it refers to the Mago Species (Mago and Her descendants) who dwelt in Mago Castle, the primordial home, to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Likewise, historical figures known as Immortals are Magoist rather than Daoist.
(Photo Essay 2) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part II: The Lost Iconography of Gaeyang Halmi We visited the Suseong Shrine a second time on July 11, 2012. I looked inside the Shrine wherein a shaman ritual was being performed by a Mudang (Korean Shaman)[i] and her assistants. The Mudang in colorful ritual outfit appeared to console her female client on behalf of the spirit. The ritual continued another hour or so and we waited outside until she finished her performance. We had come here on the day of arrival in Jungmak-dong, Buan. The shrine was locked, apparently not being in use. On our second visit, the shrine was packed with four people and their instruments and equipment. It was so compact that it left no room for another person to sit; however, it was pumping up the sober energy. In fact, I have no recollection of which musical instruments were being played inside the shrine. Nonetheless, it feels like that I was hearing the sharp and high banging of the kkwaenggwari (gong) accompanied by the janggu (hourglass drum) rhythm [symbolizing the sound of thunder and rain respectively]. The “musical” sound that I heard shook off the debris of ordinary thoughts and took me to the Other Side of Reality. I began to see things clearly the way they are. I was stepping into the history of this place that I was going to discover.
(Italian language essay) Corea: la Musica cosmica di Mago by Luciana Percovich

[Author’s note: From Colei che dà la vita. Colei che dà la forma. Miti di creazione femminili, Venexia, Roma, Italia, 2009] Capitolo 3 Corea: la Musica cosmica di Mago Mago Nell’Età del Primo Cielo, esistevano solo la luce del sole e l’acqua. Quando Ryoe Ryul (la Musica cosmica armonizzata) risuonò più volte, emersero le stelle. Da Pal Ryoe (la Musica cosmica otto volte avvolta), si generarono Mago e il paradiso di Mago (Mago Sung). Fu un evento che ebbe luogo nell’Età Cosmica di Mezzo chiamata Jim Se (il Suo/Loro mondo). Mago preparò l’età che si chiama Ultimo Cielo. Mago non provava sentimenti né di piacere né di dolore. Nell’Età del Primo Cielo la grande cittadella di Mago stava sopra il SilDal (la Terra reale) e vicina all’HeoDal (la Terra ideale). Anche queste erano emerse dalla musica. Quando il Jim Se ebbe compiuto i suoi cicli per molto tempo, prima dell’Ultimo Cielo (il Nostro/Questo mondo), Mago generò da sola due figlie, Kung Hee (volta) e So Hee (nido) e affidò loro l’Oem Chil Jo (le cinque note e i sette toni). E mentre praticavano l’arte di vivere, dalla terra sgorgava il latte; Kung Hee e So Hee generarono ciascuna due figlie e due figli. In seguito, Mago affidò Ryoe (la Musica cosmica femminile) alle quattro nipoti femmine e Ryul (la Musica cosmica maschile) ai quattro nipoti maschi. Il paradiso di Mago, Mago Sung (la cittadella di Mago), che onorava l’Emblema celeste, seguì al Primo Cielo. Le quattro coppie, chiamate Hwang Gung (volta gialla), Baek So (nido bianco), Chun Gung (volta azzurra) e Heuk So (nido nero) furono posizionate ai quattro angoli della città. Ed esse costruirono i tubi (flauti) e composero musica. Il ciclo dell’Ultimo Cielo si srotolava. Ryul e Ryoe tornavano a risuonare. Si formò Hyang Sang (la rappresentazione dell’eco), suoni e musica si mescolavano. Mago tirò la grande cittadella di SilDal e la immerse nella regione dell’Acqua celeste. L’energia del SilDal salì e coprì la nuvola d’acqua. Quando il corpo del SilDal si espanse, comparve la terra in mezzo all’acqua. Terra e acqua stavano parallele, sorsero le montagne e le correnti si allungarono. La regione dell’Acqua celeste divenne terra e le due nuove regioni di acqua e terra ruotarono ripetutamente, finché il sopra e il sotto si rovesciarono. Da qui iniziarono numeri e calendario. Energia, fuoco, acqua e terra si generavano, mescolavano e equilibravano in mutua relazione. Da quel momento la luce separò il giorno dalla notte e le quattro stagioni. Piante e animali crescevano in abbondanza. C’era tanto lavoro da fare sulla terra… Poiché non c’erano altri se non i quattro uomini e le quattro donne celesti che amministravano la musica originale e la rappresentazione dell’eco, le cose apparivano e sparivano rapidamente senza tenersi in equilibrio. Mago allora mostrò loro come procreare dalle ascelle. Fu allora che i quattro uomini celesti si unirono alle quattro donne celesti. E ciascuna generò tre figlie e tre figli: gli antenati umani che apparvero per la prima volta sulla terra. Tutti gli abitanti di Mago Sung avevano disposizioni di cuore e di mente pure e sincere e conoscevano l’armonia. Bevevano il latte che sgorgava dalla terra e il loro sangue era energia pura. Avevano oro nelle orecchie e sentivano la musica celeste. Correvano e camminavano a loro piacere, erano liberi nei movimenti. Alla fine della loro vita, diventavano polvere dorata. L’essenza dei loro corpi si conservava. Con l’hon (spirito dell’aria) risvegliato, sapevano parlare senza voce e muovendo il baek (spirito del corpo) sapevano agire senza forme. Vivevano sparsi tra le energie della terra e la lunghezza delle loro esistenze era infinita… Quando ogni clan raggiunse il numero di 3000 … Ji So (nido di ramo), del clan dei Baek So (nido bianco), non riuscì più a bere il latte della terra. La sorgente del latte era così piccola e affollata che Ji So perse il suo turno più volte. Così Ji So per la fame assaggiò l’uva e invitò altri a farlo e fu così che un gruppo fu mosso a provare questa nuova esperienza… Il loro sangue e il loro corpo cominciarono a diventare torbidi, crebbero loro i denti, gli si aprirono gli occhi … stavano perdendo la loro natura celeste. Cominciarono a morire e la morte non fece più parte della vita. Nacquero creature bestiali. L’ordinato calendario cadde nel disordine. La comunità si divise e quelli che mangiavano l’uva lasciarono Mago Sung con vergogna, disperdendosi in luoghi diversi … . Fu allora che Mago chiuse i cancelli e ritirò le nuvole attraverso cui la gente poteva restare in sintonia con la Musica cosmica.
(Drama Review 1) Liminal Space/Time into WE: What Hotel del Luna Displays by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: Hotel del Luna is a 16-episode Korean television drama aired in 2919. Caution is required for the spoiler. This essay is prompted by this drama, which was discussed in a new class, Experience Korean Culture through Film (EKCF) offered by Mago Academy. I am ever grateful for this opportunity to assess matriversal (read Magoist) soteriology, eschatology, and cosmology implicated in this drama. This drama takes viewers to a liminal time/space. At the liminal timespace, we see how one meets the other. Almost all objects of the drama remind viewers of their liminal property. The female main character, neither living nor dead, stands between the living and the dead. The ghost-serving moon lodge she operates is visible to both ghosts and people. So is the tree of the moon spirit, a symbol for the tree of life or the world tree, which summons the moon lodge to take place. And so are all beings with physical forms. The liminal timespace is where we find ourselves in the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW.] Copyright origin unknown. Part I: Introduction with Synopsis Jang Manwol, the female protagonist, is fixated to the tree of the moon spirit (wolryeongsu 월령수) and entrusted as the representative of the moon lodge, which serves ghosts charged with unrelenting resentments, by the Mago Divine. Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Creatrix), by providing new opportunities, awaits Manwol until she takes actions to relieve her unyielding grudge, caused by the complex socio-political misfortunes in the 7th century. Manwol is, currently neither living nor dead, expected to die and take a ride to the realm of after-life (returning to the origin) just like other ghosts in her lodge. Together with her ghost employees, she operates a large luxurious hotel, Hotel del Luna, the latest name of the moon lodge. Standing in the liminal time/space, the hotel is equipped with an elegantly decorated spacious lobby, a sky-viewing terrace, a horizon-surrounded beach, and an amusement park as well as a multiple number of rooms, each of which is catered to serve the special needs of a ghost guest. At the heart of the lodge is the tree of the moon spirit. The hoteliers welcome ghosts, diagnose the story of han (unresolved resentments) that they carry in themselves and its remedy, and execute plots to resolve resentments in a peaceful manner, to be beneficial to ALL. Upon being healed and rejuvenated with a new perspective on their past lives and the Reality of Intercosmic Life, the ghosts leave the lodge to take the ride to the realm of after-life (jeoseung 저승). The dead are supposed to take this ride to the Origin. Ghosts with unrelenting resentments escapes this route and lingers in the in-between reality of the living and the dead. Until accepting the help of the male protagonist, Gu Chanseong, sent by the Mago Divine, Manwol stubbornly continues to roam around her inbetween space/time. Insofar as she holds onto her own oath to avenge, the tree of the moon spirit remains dormant, seemingly dead. The tree, a visual locus reflecting the inner landscape of Manwol (her predecessors and successors alike), connects ghosts and people and reveals the reality of Life to them. The young man, Chanseong, misses no opportunity to choose the good and to right the wrong in ghosts and people, which is the key to straightening up the entangled karmic consequences. He prompts Manwol to heal herself: She realizes the truth about her betrayer (she was consumed by her anger against him so much so that she could not know the truth; he did not betray her but saved her) and let go of her over-1,300 year-long desire to destroy him. Affected by the grudge-releasing actions of Chanseong, she gradually chooses the path to reconcile with her past, as the Mago Divine wishes for her. The tree of the moon spirit, showing a sign of life again by putting out leaves and flowers, harbingers the end of the moon lodge. Manwol and her ghost employees as well as Chanseong reach the timespace of saying good-bye to move on to the next stage of Life’s cycle. Mawol becomes the last ghost who get helped in her lodge. The Mago Divine is seeking a new owner for the lodge so that ghosts with resentments can continue to be served. The drama is potentially transforming the human psyche from within. Tantalizing, heart-breaking, and frightening stories of the dead and the living stretch the horizon to the whole — the realm of physical life (iseung 이승), the realm of afterlife (jeoseung 저승), and the in-between realm of ghosts. In the sense that its narrative structure is built on the Korean folk belief of Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Crone, and Creatrix), and Magoism, the Way of the Creatrix, I find this drama a composite text of Magoist thealogy (a systematic understanding of Mago, the Creatrix) at the core. What the hoteliers are doing is in fact the role of Mudangs (Korean Shamans). Although Mudangs and Muism (Korean Shamanism) are strikingly absent, the drama resonates with the Muist worldview. The core message is to release unrelenting resentments of the dead on the part of the living. Intriguingly, this drama does not speak directly to humans, “Humans, do not create cheok (hatred or suffering in other beings).” Perhaps, such is too clear a message to articulate. At any rate, we are supposed to gain the lesson by listening to the stories of ghosts. What we see is that troubled ghosts with resentment are helped and guided to the journey of afterlife. The dead are expected to take the ride to the realm of after-life immediately. Ghosts are those who would not follow the path of the dead. Viewers are told why some people become haunting ghosts upon death, why ghosts seek to interfere with humans, and why ghosts are tempted to take revenge upon humans. We may say that ghosts are the confused or disrupted souls. Ghosts face extermination by the Mago Divine if they harm humans or assist an evil ghost. Consequently, evil ghosts are precluded from the cycle of rebirth. That is …
(Book Announcement 4) Introduction (part 2) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This Introduction is from She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2.] Pre-order available now! The Text of the Primordial Mother/the Creatrix/Mago She Rises Volume 2, like her predecessor, is born out of the Magoist vision.[i] It intends to raise the collective consciousness of WE, a cognitive symbolic system derived from the knowing of the Primordial Mother or the Creatrix. One may call it an embodied knowing or gynocentric epistemology. Our stories shed light on the holistic view in which all parts are revered as a microcosm of the Creatrix. The She Rises book is an emblem of gynocentric cosmology: All contributions are interconnected and the book is enriched by each and all contributions. This book is NOT just about what we have discovered and what we have experienced about Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality but what and how we do with our discoveries and experiences. Where are we heading to with our knowing of S/HE? The collective consciousness of WE summons a gynocentric reality. This book is designed to show our togetherness in our uniqueness. It stands for unity that is enhanced by the diversity of individuals. The key phrase in the subtitle, “Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality,” is a reminder of the all-embracing gynocentric way of our becoming. We ARE committed to the making of the book to reflect the gynocentric principle of unity in diversity. We allow our differences to lead us to a new (read gynocentric) territory without making ourselves fall into factionalism. Competition in a constructive manner helps us grow. But factionalism destroys us. We speak our truths not to argue or win. We speak our truths because they are true to us. Truth speaks, even when we can’t hear. And we trust ourselves to speak our truths in HER. And S/HE shall bring us together in WE. To trust in our contributors is the map that we editors have followed in She Rises collective books. In the process, we have learned that what we really need to be careful of, not the other camp of Goddessians, but what really divides us among Goddessians/Magoists. In my Introduction to She Rises Volume 1, I drew attention to the word “Goddess,” concerning our need to reclaim it despite its linguistic drawback. Summarily, we strategically adopt the word, “Goddess,” knowing its derivative and subsequently dualistic nature from the word “God” in the English language.[ii] We are aware of the functional nature of language, a means for the meaning that we intend to convey. We choose one word over another for our political and utilitarian reasons. Our use of the word “Goddess” has given us a common ground to come together and interweave the She Rises books. The Magoist vision of the book merits the stance that the Goddess is not just the female divine or a sum of female deities but the Great Goddess, the Primordial Mother. It is S/HE who allows us the holistic view of WE/HERE/NOW, the ultimate reality. We who are awakened in S/HE know that we ARE this S/HE reality. In writing my Introduction to the second book, another term has come to my attention, “feminine.” As seen in this book, some of our authors have favorably chosen the word, “feminine” in support of Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality for reliable reasons. The context wherein the term is used is complex and highly suggestive of the female divine power. In their uses, some make it clear that the feminine refers to the female divine nature/power of women. Others use it in redefining and deconstructing patriarchal definitions of “the feminine.” It is true that “the divine feminine” or “the sacred feminine” has taken on popularity so much so that it appears almost indispensable in the Goddess Talk. Nonetheless, I hold that there is a point that we need to think and explore together the meaning of “feminine.” Linguistically speaking, referring to the gender quality of women, the meaning of “feminine” fluctuates. I find it worth broaching these questions to us: Is the term “feminine” empowering Goddess feminism? Why yes? Why no? These questions can only be answered by our authors and readers. We editors by no means advocate the purge of the term, feminine, from this book. Forcing unity is not gynocentric. We propose the question as an ongoing conversation among Goddessians. Here is my stance to the question, which is yes and no. When the context indicates an ancient (read gynocentric) or feminist meaning, the word “feminine” certainly empowers women. When “the divine feminine” indicates the Primordial Mother within an environment like this book, the word is empowering. Put differently, the meaning of “feminine” can be conveyed as gynocentric, that is, women-empowering, when “the divine feminine” refers to the Creatrix, the Great Goddess. In this case, the gender quality of “feminine” is coherent with the biological quality of “female.” The meaning of “feminine” in such context does NOT reflect the patriarchally-imposed qualities of women; the feminine is gynocentric and sacred. However, when the word “feminine” is used outside the gynocentric context, it becomes dubious in meaning, if not self-defeating, obstructing the impetus of women’s empowerment. Referring to the gender quality (read a social/patriarchal construct), of women, the meaning of “feminine” changes in different times and cultures. It is not free from socio-cultural settings. Being feminine today in the U.S. would be very different from being feminine two centuries ago. Also, being feminine today in one country would be very different from being feminine today in another country. On the other hand, the word, “female,” conveying the biological and biologically-derived quality of women, remains coherent in meaning across times and cultures. “Female” offers us a solid ground to build our feminist activism and feminist spirituality. Thus far, we women still hold the power of female biological and biologically-derived traits. The word, “feminine” alone risks a powerful conceptual ground for Goddess feminism. Precisely, it falls short in capturing the divine power of the Primordial Mother, the Creatrix. For example, I …