September 26, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Art poem) The Perfect Birthday by Kushal Poddar

The little rant

sits by the window.

The little rant

ages by the window.

Her birthday,

just another day.

But at least she has this

window.

Read Meet Mago Contributor Kushal Poddar.

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(Essay) You Have a Voice . . . by Kaalii Cargill

Mural painting by Kaalii Cargill, 2010. 3000 x 55 cm. Acrylic and enamel on wood. The following is an excerpt from my speculative historical novel Daughters of Time (2012) – https://kaalii.wixsite.com/soulstory. The story is about a line of daughters who carry the way of Goddess from ancient Sumer through 4000 years to the present day. In this excerpt, three contemporary women are talking about “misinformation and deliberate disregard that has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point of no return”. They are referring to climate change, but today they could be having a similar conversation about the COVID-19 pandemic. (start of excerpt) Haleli nodded. “What we speak of here is very large. I have been preparing for twenty years. I do not like to be taken by surprise.” “Who does?” said Paula. Haleli frowned. “There is more to this than you know. The prophecy is a warning. Global warming, degradation of freshwater systems, food-producing systems; do you think this is all natural? Our world is being destroyed by greed, and we call it climate change!” Paula’s head was spinning. She agreed that cutting down trees and burning fossil fuels was an environmental disaster, but was Haleli suggesting that the juggernaut of global consumerism was part of a conspiracy? How could any right-thinking academic believe in conspiracy theories? Haleli turned to her computer. She entered a series of passwords that opened a virtual storage cache. Encrypted material appeared. More passwords. She moved the screen so they could see: lines of data, names, dates, documentation of meetings, correspondence, financial transactions. “I have collected evidence.” “I don’t understand,” said Lili. “There are those who would erode the environment to the point of global collapse. The world will be saved by the same ones who destroy it, and they will have the power to do with it as they want. What do they care if millions die?” Paula sighed. Conspiracy theories were always flawed: why did the richest people in the world need to invent elaborate schemes to have more? “Wealth is nothing but a construct,” said Haleli as if she anticipated Paula’s objections. She spoke slowly, emphasising each word, as if talking to children. “A useful construct to disempower entire populaces. But I am not talking about a global coup. The same ones who would be capable of such a thing could not trust each other long enough to bring it about. No, I am talking about the misinformation and deliberate disregard that has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point of no return; governments, multi-national companies, and thousands of smaller operators all benefit from it.” Lili was biting her lip, her face pale. Haleli sighed. “Let me show you one of the things I found.” She opened more files on her computer. “This is HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.” An emerald-green cloud illuminated a field of huge antennae. “What is it?’ asked Lili. “It’s part of the Strategic Defence Initiative. Star Wars, some people call it. HAARP was constructed to investigate the ionosphere and establish whether some of its properties could be used for communication or surveillance purposes, but we now know it has the ability to trigger floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes.” “How?” “HAARP intensively bombards the atmosphere with high-frequency rays. Low frequency electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate matter. These waves modify the World’s electro-magnetic field, affecting everything from people’s brains to tectonic movements.” Lili whistled through her teeth. Paula sucked in air as if she had been winded. “It’s like a gigantic heater,” said Haleli. “It slices away the protective layer of the ionosphere.” “Can’t it be stopped?” asked Paula. Haleli shook her head. “It has been presented to the public as a program of scientific and academic research. People believe what they are told.” “But it’s a weapon!” said Paula. “We only call them weapons when they are aimed at us,” said Haleli. “When they belong to us we call them protection or defense, or research.” “What can it do as a weapon?” “It can target laser beams of enormous power anywhere in the World. It can selectively destabilise agricultural and ecological systems of entire regions. It can trigger earthquakes and tsunamis and change weather patterns.” Lili sighed deeply. “I would never have thought it, being the child of a Holocaust survivor, but my life seems sheltered all of a sudden. What are a few academic papers compared with this?” Paula shook her head. Was Lili buying the conspiracy theory? “In my family there are missing bits: people, places, memories from before the Holocaust. My mother was ten when she lost her family. I’ve tried, but I can’t imagine what that would be like.” Lili looked intently at Haleli. “But I think you might know.” Haleli met her look. The silence became intense. When she spoke, it was like listening to a storyteller. “I was twelve when I left my family, but they were not at risk like your family during the War in Europe. It was I who would have been at risk if I had stayed. “The women in my family, like most women throughout the Mediterranean and the Arab countries, lived and died at the sufferance of the men who owned them.” She stated it as a fact, no emotion apparent in her voice or face. Paula winced at the pain she guessed was there. Her own heritage was full of child brides and slave labour in the name of marriage, but she rarely thought of it. Her father had not been like that . . .or had he? She thought of the smallness of her mother’s world, the day-to-day toil of it. “You were both born into different cultures,” said Haleli. “You escaped the worst of it, and you are here. Unlike your mothers or their mothers, you have a voice.” Her own voice sounded tired. (end of excerpt) # In terms of the pandemic, the misinformation appears in the narrow view of governments in …
The Cosmos is a Ritual by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the Introduction to the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion Ceremonial space set to celebrate Samhain Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming”, as Charlene Spretnak describes it[1]. Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response[2]. Ritual may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ritual then is a “microcosmos”[3] – a human-size replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things[4]. It is a way in which we may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming – hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: there is evidence of burial sites dating back at least one hundred thousand years, and often going to huge effort, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind. The precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill are expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as we might term it these days – or “relationship”. Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence[5]. The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ritual celebration of the Seasonal Wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Sabbats when practiced in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible “gateways” through the Flesh of the world to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are spelling ourselves with – individually and collectively. NOTES: [1] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.145. [2] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.153. [3] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace, p.145. [4] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.152. [5] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p.152. REFERENCES: 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. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Essay 2) In the Footsteps of Mary Magdalene: Alexandria by Dr Joanna Kujawa

In this blog I would like to take you, along with me, along with myth, imagination and historical possibilities, on a great spiritual investigation. All I ask of you is your patience, as we need to follow the not always visible and often hidden threads of the life of one of the most fascinating figures in Western history – Mary Magdalene. I will discuss here the possibility of Mary Magdalene escaping to Alexandria, Egypt, after the Crucifixion, as suggested by Margaret Starbird in her now-famous book The Woman with the Alabaster Jar. I am not going to get involved in any discussions on the different ideas about the Crucifixion but rather will focus on the figure of a remarkable being who rises again in our collective psyche with great power – Mary Magdalene. Starbird believes that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife and had a child with him: a girl called either Sarah or Tomar, depending on the tradition. I am not particularly interested in her marital status and whether she was a mother. However, I am deeply interested in Mary Magdalene as a remarkable woman (and perhaps more than a human woman) who was, as the Gnostic Gospel of Philip says, a companion or consort of Jesus and who, as the Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene suggests (as well as another Gnostic work, Pistis Sophia), was either the lead disciple or a favoured disciple of Jesus. This honour was later transferred to Peter by the Orthodox traditions. And since I am interested more in her profile as a wise woman and the possible representation of the Divine Feminine and Divine Wisdom in the tradition of Sophia in Jesus’ life, her arrival in Alexandria is an interesting possibility. Starbird argues that after the Crucifixion, a pregnant Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea (the wealthy man who agreed that Jesus’ body be placed in his family tomb) escaped to Alexandria in Egypt. Interestingly, alternative and mythical traditions often place Mary Magdalene in Egypt in some period of her life. I find this interesting of itself. Joseph Campbell teaches that myths should be treated seriously, as they carry a larger truth within which is often repressed or dismissed by our rational minds. Myth is a collective, if allegorical, memory stored in our subconscious. Myth can preserve for us the essence of the Truth, even if it is vague on details and can be difficult to trace within the hard facts of history. Myth preserves for us what was quite possibly edited out of history for the convenience of the powers at hand. Even if a myth cannot be trusted with specific details, it does point us in the right direction of the truths hidden beneath the surface of our subconscious minds. So although I do not necessarily believe every wild story about Mary Magdalene in Egypt, I do believe there must be some connection between the woman I have come to admire and Egypt, specifically Alexandria. Why Alexandria, you may ask? There are many possible reasons for this. Alexandria was a port city and the centre of learning in the first century. It was a place where the greatest minds of the West and East met, and its famous library stored thousands of manuscripts, scrolls and papyri from around the world. Without any exaggeration, Alexandria was Paris, Rome, New York and London all in one. Also – and this is important – Alexandria was a place where many rebel philosophers argued about their own understanding of the scriptures of all traditions; it was the centre of what the institutionalised and dogmatic traditions later called ‘heretical thought’. Interestingly, Carl Jung in his Gnostic work, Seven Sermons to the Dead, chose Alexandria and not Jerusalem as the city where the spiritual truth resides. It is easy to imagine great and rebellious thinkers, explorers and heretics discussing matters of the soul in the corners of Alexandria’s famous library. If I could pick one time and place in history to visit, you know my choice. (On a more personal level, I fell in love with my first husband once I saw his plans for an architectural competition to rebuild the library of Alexandria! It was like discovering an ancient memory in my psyche.) But back to the essence of our search for Mary Magdalene in Alexandria. I hope you see my point now that, as a learned woman, as a favoured disciple and possibly a consort of Jesus, she would find Alexandria, with its great library and reputation as an intellectual enclave for the free thinkers, a natural place to be. Let’s go through some sources which can give us more direct reasons for her escape to this city, apart from her natural predisposition for learning. And evidence can sometimes be found in surprising and unorthodox places. For example, the Urantia Book, which is a modern, vaguely Gnostic source of revelation to some, has a chapter on young Jesus travelling to Alexandria. According to the Urantia Book, the young scholarly Jesus met an Indian businessman (Gonod) who hired him as a tutor for his son (Ganid) on his tour of the Mediterranean. At this stage, the young Jesus was already an accomplished scholar and known as the ‘scribe of Damascus’, where he had spent some time. In Alexandria, Jesus and Ganid visited the great Library where learned professors gave daily lectures. They anticipated hearing there the most famous of the first century philosophers of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria, but were disappointed that Philo had fallen ill and could not meet them. If we trust the Urantia Book’s story, there was already a connection between Jesus and Alexandria. By extension, why would it also not be possible for Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ lead disciple and partner, to look for safe refuge in the same city of great and liberal minds, a place Jesus had once also enjoyed? It is also probably no coincidence that later ‘heretics’, who claimed Mary Magdalene was the main disciple and the consort …
(Video & Poetry) Resurgence 2020 by Lila Moore

Resurgence 2020 When the cat left her imprint on the Paleolithic cave’s wall to possess a body, Sekhmet was awakened and born from her stony flesh. The dreamers saw the feline-woman quenching her thirst with the blood of the flooding Nile, reclining on the back of a crocodile, weaving into a papyrus scroll the myths of civilizations and eons. The lotus dreamers dreamt of her being carried to the muddy shore on the back of a crocodile, a cat hidden by papyrus plants, breathing eternal life into the mouth of her priestess. The video integrates footage of performance with video projections, clips shot at the British Museum, Royalty-Free footage of lioness & cat, and graphically manipulated drawings by Moina Bergson Mathers. Performed, shot and edited by Lila Moore, 2019 Recommended viewing quality: Select setting on the horizontal menu bar. Next, select 1080p. More Digital Poems of Ritual Magic, here (Meet Mago Contributor) Lila Moore, Ph.D.
(Poem) Once upon a time by Arlene Bailey

SoulBird Art by Roberta Orpwood Once upon a time, All of life coexisted in harmony and beauty. The sacred art of the Cosmos and Nature dwelling side by side. Shades of blue and green, Earth and Water, intermingling into azure and emerald holding life so precious. All was beautiful. All was sacred. Once upon a time, Woman was sacred, her body treasured and her voice heard. She was Mother, Sister, Lover, Warrioress, Queen. Sovereign unto herself, she was power and grace, creatrix and destroyer. She was Nature personified. Holding life in her hands, Woman carried the Cosmos within her body and stood at the portals of life and death. Protected and Inviolate. She was Hallowed. She was Sacrosanct. Once upon a time, She was the Past. She was the Present. She was the Future. Once upon a time. All of life coexisted in harmony and beauty. The sacred art of the Cosmos and Nature dwelling side by side. Once upon a time. __________________________________ Once Upon A Time, Arlene Bailey ©2020 (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
The Friendship Spell by Hearth Moon Rising

In the mid-80s, in San Francisco, I was having roommate problems. I don’t remember what sparked the issues, exactly, and I’m not sure I ever knew. The only thing clear was that my roommate hated my guts, in an obvious, vocal way, punctuated by all kinds of petty behaviors. Moving out was an option, of course, but even back then rents in the Bay Area were high and good roommate situations difficult to find. Besides, before moving in with her, this woman had been a friend. My first instinct was to try to improve the relationship. Photo: No-W-Y When my attempts at reconciliation failed, I went to one of the neighborhood botanicas and explained the situation. The woman in the shop said I needed a “friendship spell” and sold me a pink candle dressed with rose oil. I followed the woman’s instructions carefully, and as the candle burned the loving vibration was palpable. The response was dramatic. My roommate shifted from disliking me intensely to engaging in a full blown persecution. She began disparaging me to others, even saying things about me that were untrue – although who knows how connected to reality she was in her constant state of dudgeon. She went from constant criticism to silent nasty looks that oozed contempt. After I announced my intention to move, she began throwing away things of mine that occupied common areas. They were inconsequential things, I admit, but it’s the thought that counts. My friends had the theory that the roommate wanted to scapegoat me, and she resented that I was giving her no ammunition. Worse, I had messed up her program by bringing love energy into the house, and it was taking more out of her to maintain hostility. I bought this theory at the time, and I still don’t think it’s wrong, exactly, but I have another perspective. I think energy is energy, and while it takes concerted will and perservation to turn loving energy into hateful action, if a person is determined enough, it can be done. I think she was taking the friendship energy from the spell and using it to fuel her own sick agenda. There’s another explanation for the explosive change in the household environment. The spell, from her perspective, was a violation. After all, I was the one who wanted harmony and love, and I had just assumed that she did, too. I did not have her permission to change the situation. Was I coercing equality and peace onto a person who wanted domination and control, with yours truly as the controllee? There are some who would say the spell was not “karmically balanced.” Photo: Kurt Stuber There is still another explanation. The spell was working on me, and I was becoming more loving and respectful toward myself. It never occurred to me that I had been placating her, like a dog exposing its belly to signify submission, but it’s possible that I was. Reclaiming dignity is a sure way to set an abuser off on a path of rage. None of these explanations are mutually exclusive; they may all have been true to some extent. Whatever the reason for the way that spell explosively backfired, it wasn’t the correct response to a situation where one party was not committed to reconciliation, harmony, and respect. What I needed in that time and place was protective, defensive magic. I want, in future articles, to write more about protective magic for women, because we often find ourselves in situations where, whatever our part in building the poor dynamics, working on ourselves cannot change anything because the other party does not want change. Abuse can come from incels, men’s rights activists, trans rights activists, so-called feminist activists, bullying employers, or male family violence. What abusers have in common is a disinclination to change abusive behaviors. Huwawu. 2nd millenium B.C.E. Photo: Rama We can go to therapy, learn to recognize abusers, learn the ways we ourselves sabotage relationships, begin taking responsibility for our own addictions, codependent behaviors, and boundary violations – but at the end of the day, this can only have partial success in improving outcomes when the other side isn’t playing. These are not scenarios that call for “sending love energy.” At least not initially. One surprising outcome of the “friendship spell” was that I did not carry resentment toward my abusive roommate for long. Today, I recognize her behavior as wrong, and I regret being the target of it, and I can’t exactly say that I wish her well, but I wish her no ill. Mostly, I feel grateful for what the experience taught me about how magical energies work. In my next essay, I will expland on the issues described here through the old Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh and Huwawa. An image of Huwawa was used in Mesopotamia for protection. A version of the myth is contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but I think the older tale deserves scrutiny in its own right. https://www.magoism.net/2013/04/meet-mago-contributor-hearth-moon-rising/
(Hymn & Altar Art) Hymn to Lilith #3 by Nuit Moore

Lilith shrine, image by Nuit Moore LILITH…. She is the breath of the desert and of the sea. She is the bitter earth, myrrh and root and shadow. She is the salt of the Red Sea, and the shifting sands of primordial menstrual Earth, ancient cycle of death and birth. She is the first cry of ecstasy, and the first howl of loss. She is flight and fire, both blight and fecund light. She was born in the first beat of the drum, the moan, and the rhythmic hum. She is the blood offering to beasts and seeds, and the keening reeds, the wind. She is the darkest night, and the seer-sighted flight. The air, the ascent, and the scent of all women, tangled with heat. She is the eternally raging bittersweet… (Meet Mago Contributor) Nuit Moore.
(Prose poem) The Mark of the Bear by Sara Wright

Leaving the sanctity of evergreen forest and still wrapped in winter wool, he warily approaches me. I stand riveted to a wet nose and open mouth sniffing and tasting the evening light; the bear’s gaze rekindles an ancient fire. A golden arrow pierces the shadow of my longing, forcing me to acknowledge the depth of my grief. Hungering for details I scan his face, noting his widow’s peak, mole brown-marbled eyes; curved claws pop the top off the can. Recognition parts the Veil of Bears as I acknowledge him for the second time. One image of my Beloved is this bear.
(Art) The Door Where Time Stands Still by Jhilmil Breckenridge

In a neighbourhood near my house, which is modern and in a privileged area, is this poorer area,
(Prose) To Every Season by Deanne Quarrie

We are closing in on the last of the season of abundance. Wherever we look we see Her harvest around us. Purple grapes hang from their vines. Branches hang heavy from the weight of fruit and sweet nuts. All the forces of life have done their work ~ the sun ~ the rain ~ the earth ~ the wind ~ all have added and blessed everything with fruitful abundance. We have reached the time of the harvest. The shadows of the day are lengthening and our growing season is drawing to a close. We reach out claiming our rich rewards ~ our bountiful harvest. We are about to see one last show of beautiful color, the trees bursting forth in dazzling color ~ one last display ~ reds and golds ~ yellows and oranges ~ in final preparation for plants to move into their resting season. The minerals of the Earth fed these living things, giving life in the spring followed by summer, with flowers blooming into fullness. Finally, heaviness swelling, they return the body to the earth in this deepening autumn. We begin a season of quiet rest. We are not unlike our kin of the plant kingdom. We plant our feet on this firm Earth as well. We live in similar cycles, first with fresh adventures, new ways to grow, new plans all bursting within us. We move into the summer of our work ~ the blossoming forth of our dreams into reality, each promising a fruitful harvest following our hard work. The visible signs of what is yet to come hold promise, a thread of light that runs through everything in the Universe, a promise without which we could not ever begin again with hope for new endeavors, just as the trees, without it, would not bloom in the spring. As we move deeply into our own experience, we feed on what nourishes the soul, we expand to embrace new ideas, concepts, visions, pleasures, and sorrows. Much like the trees reaching higher and wider, we expand our view. Just as the plants, we struggle in the summer of the cycle for growth and expansion. In our cycles of growth, inevitably there comes a time when no matter what our involvement or dedication, a change comes. Somehow no matter how much we try to resist, some important process within us stops and we cannot move forward. This is not an indication that all is lost or even that the growth is over. It is simply a sign of change. The trees know the change is upon them when the day grows shorter and the temperature begins to drop; and if these signs do not speak loudly enough, the first frost brings home the message. We know the summer of expansion is at an end when we can take in no more, when no fresh understanding unfolds, or when the heart has gone out of the experience. It is time to pause in our growth, to rest from our steady seeking. We must put aside our books, come home from our adventures and just sit by the fire. In the closing of this cycle we, too, must let the quiet enfold us while the fruit of our searching ripens. We must take the time to gently search within ourselves for the full harvest of our experiences. As I am writing, I am singing this in my head … Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Byrds To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven A time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap A time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven A time to build up, a time to break down A time to dance, a time to mourn A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time to every purpose, under heaven To know the cycle of nature is to know our own cycle. Every season has its purpose. When a cycle of life becomes autumn for us, we are not delaying new growth by taking time to rest in the sweet wonders of our experience. Before we look ahead to the promised spring, before we hurry on to our next project, let us take counsel with ourselves, and take part in the rich reward that is the true fruit of our seeking; let us celebrate the harvest and rest awhile in these the lengthening shadows of autumn. Many Blessings Bendis (Meet Mago Contributor) Deanne Quarrie. D. Min
(Photo) Goddess in a Temple's Garden by Andrea Schlund
(Prose) Metamorphosis by Deanne Quarrie

Sometime between the ages of 35 and 55, give or take, a woman enters a phase in her life that can only be described as metamorphosis. Yes, most call it peri-menopausal or menopausal, but truly such changes occur in each woman’s life at this time and it truly is a metamorphosis. It is that time in her life when she stops producing as much estrogen but the production is often haphazard, sporadic and certainly unpredictable. This affects every aspect of her life. She might notice her eyes being dry in the morning, feeling like grating sand when she tries to open them. Her bleeding times may come on at different intervals or not at all. She may bleed more – she may bleed less. She may experience hot flashes – you ask, “What does that feel like?” Imagine a wave of hot air hitting you in the back of your neck and head – instantly causing you to break out in a sweat. You might even get red in the face! All of this, of course, is without warning, and happening at the most inconvenient times. You will often exclaim, “Is it hot in here?” Night sweats – now these are fun! You will find yourself waking up in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes able to go back to sleep but often not. It may take awhile for you to notice that along with this wakefulness come the drenched bed covers and sleepwear! Ye gads! This, my sisters, is the best of it. There is more you ask? Oh my, yes! Let’s talk about the mood swings! Imagine PMS every day – now, not all day – but all of the emotional expressions of PMS become your regular friends. Bitchiness, bad temper, impatience, foul moods, unexpected tears, and a general “leave me the heck alone” feeling! Your friends and family will wonder what is happening to the sweet, levelheaded woman who used to be in their lives. Actually, this is a very beneficial process of pushing aside all of the garbage we load ourselves down with and the phony fronts we feel we have to put on to be what is expected instead of who we really are. This process is truly a shedding – you are the Sacred Snake of Becoming! My whole world as I knew it, my relationships with friends and co-workers – everything changed for me when peri-menopause set in. I had spent my entire life up to that point controlling every emotion, making sure that what surfaced for others to see was “acceptable” to others. Having been raised in a very “British” home, emotions were something not displayed in front of others. Not silly laughter, not anger, and certainly not tears. I had a hysterectomy (uterus only) when I was 43. Because I had healthy ovaries, I knew that one day I would experience menopause as does every woman. But somehow, because I no longer had a period each month, it took me awhile to figure out who this new woman was that I was becoming. Everyone had always known me as steady, level, un-flappable. Never seen before were the sudden eruptions of temper or the instant fits of weeping. Even more important was the fact that I also, did not know this new woman emerging. It was frightening, to say the least. Fortunately, I had just recently found the Goddess and so when I figured out what was going on with my emotions, I decided to accept this new me and ride the ups and downs, the ever turbulent roller coaster of my life. I also decided to do it without hormone help and was far too new at this to even consider herbal assistance. It did not take me long to figure out that my anger would not kill me or anyone else. I also learned that I did not die from my flowing tears. I am not sure why I thought I would. Perhaps I had transferred my earlier fear of parental wrath into fear of the emotions themselves. One thing I did know, I was free of that paralyzing fear – free of embarrassment and free to fully experience the “feeling” me, the emotional woman I had buried deep inside. Gone were the muscle spasms of pent up tension. Gone were the headaches I had suffered for years. Gone too, were those I thought to be friends but who were not accepting enough to accompany me with love on this ride. Surprise, surprise, I have never missed them! If your friends wonder – share that with them. Tell them that you are the Sacred Snake shedding Her skin! You may even feel like “hissing.” This is your time of metamorphosis and in the end, a magnificent Crone will appear. Guaranteed! Oh, did I tell you that your hair will mysteriously disappear from all over your body as well? Ye gads, someone ought to tell you that pubic hair is not forever! Nor are thick eyelashes or shapely eyebrows. Those will suddenly grow in every direction imaginable. You might even get nose hair! The good news is you won’t have to shave your legs near as often and if you are like me – you will just quit shaving altogether! All of this is your practice zone for the Crone that is coming. The Crone who won’t give a darn what people think. This is your training ground for letting go of all of those “people pleasing” ideas. This transitioning time will allow you to test the waters for being outrageous and of course, will give your friends and family a taste of what is yet to come! This is your time to shed all the cumbersome clothing and the clinging trappings of a sedate life and learn to fly – even if one day you might need a cane! My advice for you is to accept this as a normal part of your life. Welcome the surging emotions for …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Melissa Austin

Melissa B. Austin is a poet, educator, activist, and student, from El Paso, TX. She has a passion for poetry and writing, of course, but also for education and community. One of her primary interests is the point where these things can effectively intersect. She is interested in identity, place, faith and queerness, bodies, memories illness, roots, science and nature. Everything is important, and everything is worth examining and exploring. She plans to continue writing, performing, and teaching, wherever life takes her. The future is there to unlock, and she hopes to build a life in it, filled with love and light, plants and animals, and a little home to call her own, somewhere in this big big world. We, the co-editors, contributors, and advisers, have started the Mago Web (Cross-cultural Goddess Web) to rekindle old Gynocentric Unity in our time. Now YOU can help us raise this torch high to the Primordial Mountain Home (Our Mother Earth Herself) wherein everyone is embraced in WE. There are many ways to support Return to Mago. You may donate to us. No amount is too small for us. For your time and skill, please email Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Please take an action today and we need that! Thank YOU in Goddesshood of all beings! (Click Donate button below. You can donate by credit card or bank account without registering PayPal. Find “Don’t have a PayPal account?” above the credit card icons.)

(Special Post 1) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) are a revised version […]
(Special Post Isis 1) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. […]
(Special Post) Why I choose to be an RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone

The contribution of my writing to Return to Mago E-Magazine has evolved since it began […]
(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) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE FOR EL PASO ARTIST MARIO COLÍN by Donna Snyder

Born in Juárez in 1959, Mario Colín lived his entire life in the Five Points area […]
(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, […]

(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.
The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[ix] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 7) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) at Mago Bookstore. YEARLY LEAP DAY AND EVERY FOURTH YEAR LEAP DAY Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds to 365 days. At the half point of 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. Each year has a leap day (Dan), which makes a total of 365 days. Every fourth year is a leap year that has a leap day (Pan), which makes a total of 366 days. The Dan day comes before the New Year in the winter solstice month. And the Pan day comes before the first day of the summer solstice month in the fourth year. The above, however, does not indicate when the New Year comes. Logographic characters of Dan and Pan each suggest their meanings. While each year includes the Dan day (the morning), every fourth year has the Pan day. A unit of four years makes the Big Calendar. Dan (旦 Morning) Leap day for every first three years Pan (昄 Big) Leap day for every fourth year I have postulated that the year begins on the Dan day (one leap day), a day before New Year that comes in the month of Winter Solstice in the Norther Hemisphere. And the Pan day comes on the day before the first day of the 7th month that has Summer Solstice in the fourth year in the Norther Hemisphere. Years Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Months Dan Dan Dan Dan 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 Pan 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 13 Days 365 365 365 366 The Magoist Calendar’s intercalation involves one leap day every year and one leap day every four years. That is, each year has one extra day to make it 365 days. Every fourth year has an extra day to make it 366 days. Four years has a total of 1461 days (365×3+366), which makes the mean of 365.25 days. Considering that the month is following the sidereal period rather than the synodic period, it is inferred that the year also follows the sidereal year rather than the solar year. In fact, Magoist Calendar’s one year is very close to today’s 365.25636 days of the sidereal year compared to 365.24217 days of the solar year or the tropical year. Given that, as seen below, the Budoji mentions the tiniest discrepancy of one leap day for 31,788,900 years, the discrepancy between 365.25 and 365.25636 (0.00636 day) can be explained that the year was actually 365.25 days at the time of Budo circa 2333 BCE, 4440 years ago. In other words, there is a discrepancy of 0.12375936 seconds between 2017 CE and 2333 BCE. Regarding Lawful Numbers 2, 5, 8, it is involved as follows: 365 days (3+6+5=14, 1+4=5) Lawful Numbers 2, 5, 8 refers the unit of 365 days (364 days with one intercalary day). Further dynamics are unknown. The sidereal year refers to the time taken by the Earth to orbit the sun once with respect to the distant stars. In contrast, the solar or tropical year means the time taken by the Earth to orbit the sun once with respect to the sun. The sidereal year, 365.25636 days, is about 20 minutes and 24 seconds longer than the mean tropical year (365.24217 days) and about 19 minutes and 57 seconds longer than the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days. The difference occurs primarily because the solar system spins on its own axis and around the Milky Way galactic center making the solar year’s observed position relative. Time is no independent concept apart from space and the agent. The very concept of time is preceded by the agent bound in a space. It is always contextualized. In Magoism, both calendar and time are born out of the cosmogonic universe, the universe that is in self-creation. Like calendar, time is to be discovered or measured. It is a numinous concept. The very concept of time testifies to the reality of the Creatrix. Time proves the orderly movement of the universe into which we are born. Calendar patterns time, whereas time undergirds calendar. How can we measure time? We are given the time of the Earth that comes from its rotation, revolution, and precession in sync with the moon and the sun (and its planets). One type of time is the solar time. The solar time is a calculation of time based on the position of the sun. Traditionally, the solar time is measured by the sundial. The solar time is, however, specific to the Earth only. It is valid only for the-same-observed-location. It is not made to be used for the time of another celestial body. For example, Mars’ solar time has to be measured independently based on its own rotation and revolution rates. The solar time is an isolated time. It is static and exclusive, not made for the time of other celestial bodies. By nature, it is unfit for connection and communication across celestial bodies. The second type is the sidereal time. The sidereal time is a time scale based on the rate of Earth’s rotations measured relative to the distant stars.[29] Because the observed position is in the far distant stars beyond the solar system, the sidereal time may as well be called an extrasolar stellar time. We can think of the observer’s position of an imaginary cosmic bird far out there, infinitely far beyond not only the solar system and …
(Prose) Halcyon for the Season by Deanne Quarrie

A bird for this season is the Kingfisher, also known as the Halcyon. The Kingfisher is associated in Greek myth with the Winter Solstice. There were fourteen “halcyon days” in every year, seven of which fell before the winter solstice, seven after; peaceful days when the sea was smooth as a pond and the hen-halcyon built a floating nest and hatched out her young. She also had another habit, that of carrying her dead mate on her back over the sea and mourning him with a plaintive cry. Pliny reported that the halcyon was rarely seen and then only at the winter and summer solstices and at the setting of the Pleiades. She was therefore, a manifestation of the Moon-Goddess who was worshiped at the two solstices as the Goddess of Life in Death and Death in Life and, when the Pleiades set, she sent the sacred king his summons for death. Kingfishers are typically stocky, short-legged birds with large heads and large, heron-like beaks. They feed primarily on fish, hovering over the water or watching intently from perches and they plunge headlong into the water to catch their prey. Their name, Alcedinidae, stems from classical Greek mythology. Alcyone, Daughter of the Wind, was so distraught when her husband perished in a shipwreck that she threw herself into the sea. Both were then transformed into kingfishers and roamed the waves together. When they nested on the open sea, the winds remained calm and the weather balmy. Still another Alcyone, Queen of Sailing, was the mystical leader of the seven Pleiades. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades in May marked the beginning of the navigational year and their setting marked the end. Alcyone, as Sea Goddess protected sailors from rocks and rough weather. The bird, halcyon continued for centuries to be credited with the magical power of allaying storms. Shakespeare refers to this legend in this passage from Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. Hamlet, I, i 157 When I was a young mother, and my children were little, we lived in a house that had a creek in the back yard. There were small trees along the far bank of this creek and every day, a kingfisher would sit in the branches overlooking the creek. Sometimes he sat there very quietly for a very long time. Suddenly he would dive from his perch straight into the creek. Every time he did he came out and up into the air with a fish. It gave me great pleasure to watch him from my kitchen window. I love birds. I love learning about their habits because it teaches me ways of being that are closer to nature. I love drawing birds as well. When I was a young and more able, I was an avid bird watcher, out with my friends hoping for a sight never seen before. I love the story of the kingfisher and her connection to the Halcyon Days of the Winter Solstice. It is for most of us the busiest time of year. Whether it is for the Solstice or Christmas (often both) we are in a frenzy to get things done, making sure everything is just right and perfect. I celebrate the Winter Solstice. As a priestess, my days right now are very busy creating ritual. It is at the Solstice that many passage rites are happening with the women I work with. And of course, I celebrate with my family with our magical Yule Log each year. But I try to honor those seven days before and the seven days after by trying to have the frantic moments before the Halcyon Days begin and then even when busy, hold the peace and calm of that beautiful smooth sea in my mind. Peace and love and joy surrounding the Winter Solstice make it perfect. May the Peace of a Halcyon Sea be yours in this Solstice Season. Do hold the image of that little kingfisher in mind! Meet Mago Contributor, Deanne Quarrie
Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Day of the Dead altar, via Wikimedia Commons According to Celtic tradition, on Samhain (October 31 for those in the north and April 30 for those in the south) the doors between the human and spirit worlds open. Faeries, demons, and spirits of the dead pour out of the Otherworld to walk the Earth. In the past, some would try to hurry ghosts past their houses or ward off evil spirits by setting jack o’lanterns in their windows. They avoided going outside, especially past cemeteries, lest they be snatched away to the Otherworld. In ancient times, some offered sacrifices to propitiate deities. However, others have invited in the souls of friends and family who have passed away. In Brittany, according to W.Y. Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, people would provide “a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white tablecloth, and to supply music” which “the dead come to enjoy with their friends” (p. 218). Other cultures also have such welcoming traditions. In Korea, as so beautifully described by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in her posts about her family’s mourning for her father (Part I and Part II), in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, and elsewhere, food and flowers are brought to cemeteries to honor those no longer in the realm of the living. Many of us live in a society where death is pushed out of sight and Samhain’s sacred traditions have devolved into Halloween, a commercialized children’s holiday. Still, it seems to me that the pandemic, climate catastrophes, and war have made death much more present in our everyday thoughts over the past couple of years than before, so perhaps this year’s Samhain offers us the opportunity to re-examine Celtic and other practices of the past and present to see what insights and meaning they may have for us. Jack o lanterns: By Mihaela Bodlovic, via Wikimedia Commons All these ancient practices respect the spirit world and its power. Whether you believe that the Otherworld can wreak havoc on us at Samhain or not, the realm where spirits dwell clearly has power. Its allure can take us away from focusing on mundane, daily challenges or, more positively, open our eyes to the value of relating to forces that can give richness and meaning to our lives. At the same time, we must remember that each domain has its own power. We can use our physical bodies in beneficial ways that those in the Otherworld cannot. We must respect the power of the Otherworld as well as our own. Some kinds of healing are only possible when we welcome those from the Otherworld into our lives in a healthy way, whether through holiday visits or every day through remembrance, meditation, prayer, or other means. I’m of an age when many of my beloveds are in the Otherworld and so I am beginning to find that the idea of being able to sit with someone I have lost is cause not for fear, but rather joy and comfort. Perhaps those who have longstanding wounds from the past can heal by remembering those we have lost at Samhain and forgiving them or ourselves or realizing that we are no longer bound to those who have hurt us and are now gone. Samhain can also reassure us of the truth of our intuitive sense that our beloveds who we grieve are with us still, in some way, on this night and throughout the year. When we participate in the celebration of Samhain’s opening of doors to the Otherworld, if only for a day, we are honoring our own participation into the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are expanding our vision of ourselves to be more than our bodies on the Earth and experiencing ourselves as connected to many realms, seen and unseen, spirit and human. We are accepting that at some time we will also become ancestors, with all the responsibility that entails and the fulfillment of taking our place in the complex matrix of being that is our universe. When we interact with the souls of those we have lost in ways that are healthy for us, however we may choose and believe that happens, we can also better celebrate the realm of the living. Just as we may listen in various ways for positive messages from those whom we have lost, we can ensure that we are expressing important guidance to those who will come after us by who we are and how we live our lives. We can express that life is worth living, even with all its traumas, and that we respect both the boundaries and the doors between the worlds so that we may continue living fully in our physical bodies on our beautiful, awe-inspiring Earth. I hope my message to my descendants will be: Love your lives. Build on what we have done and do better. Leave behind what we left you that no longer serves. If you feel alone, remember that you have thousands of generations of mothers sending you unconditional love and also generations of women coming after you eager to pick up where you left off. According to Mary Condren in The Serpent and the Goddess, in the most ancient times, “Samhain had been primarily a harvest feast celebrating the successful growth and gathering of the fruits of the past year” (p. 36). While we in the north are coming into the season of death, those in the south are experiencing Beltane, the first moments of spring when the doors between the worlds are also open. The eternal cycle of life, death, and regeneration turns again. Whether you are celebrating Samhain or Beltane, know that this holy time offers us all a chance to enter into the task of maintaining harmony with those we have loved before and for bringing balance between life and death, winter and summer, and the realm of the living and …
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 …
The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ as is experienced and contemplated in the Season of Deep Autumn/Samhain, may be a metaphor for the passing of all/any that has come to fullness of being, or that has had a fullness, a blossoming of some kind, and borne fruit; and in the passing it has been received, and thus transforms. The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ may be in hearts and minds, an event or events, a period of time, or an era, that was a deep communion, now passed and dissolved into receptive hearts and minds, where it/they reside for reconstitution, within each unique being. Samhain is traditionally understood as ‘Summer’s end’: indeed that is what the word ‘Samhain’ means. In terms of the seasonal transitions in indigenous Old European traditions, Summer is understood as over when the Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Lughnasad comes around; it is the first marked transition after the fullness of Summer Solstice. The passing and losses may have been grieved, the bounty received, thanksgiving felt and expressed, perhaps ceremonially at Autumn Equinox/Mabon; yet now in this Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn it composts, clearly falls, as darkness and cooler/cold weather sets in, change is clearer. In the places where this Earth-based tradition arose, Winter could be sensed setting in at this time, and changes to everyday activity had to be made. In our times and in our personal lives, we may sense this kind of ending, when change becomes necessary, no longer arbitrary: and the Seasonal Moment of Samhain may be an excellent moment for expressing these deep truths, telling the deep story, and making meaning of the ending, as we witness such passing. What new shapes will emerge from the infinite well of creativity? And we may wonder what will return from the dissolution? What re-solution will be found? We may wonder what new shapes will emerge. In the compost of what has been, what new syntheses, new synergies, may come forth? Now is the time for dreaming, for drawing on the richness within, trusting the sentience, within which we are immersed, and which we are: and then awaiting the arrival, being patient with the fermentation and gestation. Seize the moment, this Moment – and converse with the depths within your own bodymind, wherein She is. Make space for the sacred conversation, the Conversing with your root and source of being, and take comfort in this presence. We may ponder what yet unkown beauty and wellness may emerge from this infinite well of creativity. The Samhain Moment in the Northern Hemisphere is 17:14 UT 7thNovember this year. Wishing you a sense of the deep communion present in the sacred space you make for this holy transition.
(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 Winter Solstice is a celebration of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Triple Goddess in particular – as both Solstices may be, as dark or light come to fullness. Winter Solstice Moment celebrates the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb, and the gateway from that fullness back into new growing light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being, and Her birthing happens in every moment in the breath, and is seamlessly connected with all layers of being – of self, Earth and Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsVZzXtoyM The Text in the Meditation[i] Take a deep breath and let it go. Notice the Void at the bottom of emptying your breath … feeling it, and feeling the Urge to breathe as it arises. And again … feeling it over and over – this breath that arises out of the full emptiness in every moment, birthing you in every moment. – Recall some of the birthings in your life, your actual birth – see it there in your mind’s eye … you coming into being – your Nativity, your Nativity. Recall projects you have brought into being, new beings within yourself, perhaps children, new beings in others, how you have been Creator and Created – even at the same time … who was birthing who? Staying for a while with the many, many birthings in your life. – recalling now Earth-Gaia’s many birthings out of the Dark everyday … the dawn is constant as She turns. See Her in your mind’s eye – the constant dawning around the globe, the constant birthing. Recall Earth’s many births right now of all beings – as day breaks around the globe – the physical, emotional, spiritual births. Her many, many birthings everyday, and throughout the eons. recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. – recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. Come back to your breath – this wonder – none of it separate … the Origin Ever-Present, birthing you in every moment – out of Her Fertile Dark, in real time and space. Feeling this breath, Her breath. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, Winter Solstice ceremonial script, p. 195-196. Reference: Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology. Music: Fish Nite Moon by Tim Wheater, permission generously given Images: – Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pl. 155. See https://pagaian.org/book/cover-goddess-image/ – Winter Solstice window, MoonCourt Australia 2016 – some sources unknown
(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.
Imbolc: Through Goddess Eyes by Carolyn Lee Boyd

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

(Mago Pilgrimage 3) Seonam-sa (Seonam Temple), Suncheon, South Jeolla Korea by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Seonsam-sa, located in Suncheon City, South Jeolla Province, is one of many ancient Buddhist temples in Korea. It is among the seven Korean Buddhist temples designated as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites this year. I visited Seonam-sa during the Mago Pilgrimage to Korea in 2014. The name, Seonsam-sa (仙巖寺 Seonam Temple), drew my attention immediately for the first two characters “seon (read sun)” and “am (read ahm)” of its title convey Magoism. It remains esoteric that Seon-am (仙巖 Precipice of Seon) is an alternative of Mago-am (Precipice of Mago) also known as Nogo-am (Precipice of Nogo). “Nogo” (老姑 Primordial Goddess) is a popular epithet, which is often interchangeably used with “Mago” in place-names and folktales. That said, the character “seon or xian (仙)” refers to Magoists rather than Daoist Immortals, a topic that requires another space to explicate. Fork traditions have preserved its Magoist meaning (Mago or Magoist) in place-names and stories. One prominent exmaple is “Mago Seonnyeo” to convey a Maogist Female Seon. Below I use it as Seon without transliteration. It is rarely recognized by the public that Seonam-sa is imbued with Magoist mytho-historical-cultural memories. This is not to say that Korean Buddhist temples are as a whole independent of Magoism. I have discussed, among others, that the main hall (Daeung-jeon) of many Korean Buddhist temples is dedicated to Goma, the Magoist shaman queen founder of Danguk (3898-2333 BCE), also known as Daeung (Great Hero), as follows: Korean Buddhism is characterized by its idiosyncratic feature of Daeung-jeon (Hall of the Great Hero), its main building, in most Buddhist temples. That Goma is enshrined in Daeung-jeon accounts for the Magoist root of Korean Buddhism.[1] Seonsam-sa has some intriguing unorthodox Buddhist characters. While its foundation is debated to be in the mid 6th century by Ado Hwasang in 592 or the second half of the 9th century by Monk Doseon (827-898), we have stories about Monk Doseon , the alleged founder. Monk Doseon, according to the story, had a revelation from the Heavenly Ruler of the Holy Mother (聖母天王) of Mt. Jiri who told him “If you establish three Amsas (Precipice Temples), Three Hans will unite and there will be no wars.” Doseon founded the three precipice temples known as Seonam (Seon Precipice), Unam (Cloud Precipice), and Yongam (Drago Precipice).[2] Three Hans (Samhan) refers to the descendants of Old Joseon (ca. 2333-232 BCE), the Magoist people of ancient Korean states including Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla, Gaya and their remnants who sought to restore the bygone rule of Magoist confederacies.[3] In short, the foundation story of Seonamsa reflects the mytho-history of Magoism. Also intriguing is the fact that Seonam-sa has Seungseon-gyo (Bridge of the Ascended Seon) and Gangseon-ru (Pavilion of the Descended Seon), which are evocative of such Magoist place-names as Mangsoen-gyo (Bridge of Anticipated Seon) and Biseon-dae (Point of Ascending Seon), to name a few. In addition, Seonam-sa is, among numerous halls and shrines, noted for Sansin-gak (Mountain Deity Pavilion) and Samseong-gak (Three Sages Pavilion), the indigenous faith practices that are incorporated in a Buddhist temple. We were enrolled in Seonam-sa’s Temple Stay. Later I detected that the monk who guided us was unenthused about our interests in indigenous elements of Seonam-sa. Out of honesty, he mentioned that Seonam-sa needed to purge itself of indigenous shrines. It was sad to hear that but I could see where he was coming from. It appeared that monks were not all in agreement with him, however. Our visit to Seonsam-sa seemed to end with a somewhat uneasy stroll with the monk. Lo and behold! As we were about to leave the temple, we ran into a female Buddhist novice who took interest in our queries. Together with her, we hurriedly payed visit to Sansin-gak and a couple of indigenous shines located in the backside of the main sectors. While on a brief leisurely stroll with our new guide, she finally led us to an unlikely place, the unseen heart of Seanam-sa by the public. She showed us the place wherein monks gather to begin Dong-angeo (Winter Retreat), an annual three-month-long winter medication practice. Inside this ordinary-looking Korean traditional house was a traditional style kitchen stove. Above the big iron cast cooking pot was hung a tablet that reads “Nammu Jowangsinwi,” which means “Take refuge in Jowang Deity who is present here.” Faith in Jowang Deity was still alive among Buddhist monks!!! Jowang-sin or Jowang Halmi, the Kitchen Goddess or the Hearth Goddess, is one of the many indigenous Goddesses of Korea. It is known today that she was enshrined in the kitchen and widely venerated by women in the past. Today, She is still worshipped in Muism (Korean Shamanism) as the deity of fire, children, and wealth of the household. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. Notes [1] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea, and Her Mythology” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 293. [2] Sanghyeon Kim, “Suncheon Seonam-sa,” in Hanguk Daebaekgwa Sajeon (Encyclopedia of Korean Culture). http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Contents/Item/E0028783/. August 12, 2018. [3] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, “Mago, the Creatrix from East Asia, and the Mytho-History of Magoism” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 29-34.
(Essay 2) Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first published in Trivia, Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007. Also to be included in the forthcoming anthology She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?] An Introduction to Magoism Mago is the Great Goddess of East Asia. Nonetheless, she remains barely known to the world. Her equals, Xiwangmu (the Supreme Goddess of Daoism) and Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess of the Japanese imperial family), are said to comprise the pantheon of East Asian cosmic goddesses. Considering that these goddesses are often aligned with the ancient culture of China or Japan, one notices that the pantheon of East Asian Great Goddesses thus omits both Mago and “Korean culture.”
(Poem) Knowing Mago Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This poem was an offshoot of an essay on Magoist Calendar and Nine Numerology, to be included in the forthcoming anthology, Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). I thank Genevieve Vaughan, Danica Anderson, and Harriet Ann Ellenbeger who have given me feedback to the article and inspiration to this poem.] Mago Calendar is the umbilical cord of the Great Goddess, the umbilical cord that re-members the Beginning Story of us all terrestrial beings, that enables the one and many songs/dances of the Earth, and that nourishes the human world to sing the chorus to the cosmic lullaby. Mago Calendar is the grand wheel of the Great Mother, the grand wheel that spirals the inter-cosmic orbit of truth, goodness, and beauty, that carries all earthlings to the fullest becoming, and that builds bridges into the inter-protonic galaxies. Mago Calendar is the everlasting blessing of the Nine Mago Creatrix, the everlasting blessing that scripts the ecstasy of Heavenly Numerology, that charts the Earth’s metamorphosis from the infinite to the physical, and that unfolds the Reality of the Mago Time, WE/HERE/NOW. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.
(Book Excerpt 4) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] This chapter,[i] interweaving the personal (how I came to study Mago) and the political (why I advocate Magoism), informs the general and particular tenets of Magoism. My study of Mago was, although it took the form of a doctoral dissertation, ultimately motivated by my self-searching quest as a Korean-born radical feminist. I came to encounter the Great Goddess known as Mago in East Asia by way of several detours on my life’s journey. Like my non-Western and
(Goma Article Excerpt 2) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books]. Background Discussions Hanung (Her Title) and Sindansu (Divine Goma Tree) We will peel off the layers of patriarchal and Sinocentric devices that conceal her unparalleled supreme manifestations. In a conventional interpretation, we are told that Goma and Hanung are two different persons as the mother and the father of Dangun. This proves to be an androcentric invention to divest Goma of supremacy. Goma is not the consort of Hanung. Nor Hanung the male counterpart of Goma. Goma and Hanung refer to the same figure, not a heterosexual couple. It is her title (Hanung 桓雄) that is split from her (Goma) and made into a male ruler. Androcentric interpreters have noted the two homonyms “Ung (熊 bear)” and “Ung (雄 hero)” but made them two different figures. Thus, they deem that the former “Ung” refers to Ungnyeo, the bear-woman, whereas the latter “Ung” to Hanung, the male ruler. However, the latter “Ung” does not mean a male. It is true that logographic characters are characteristically polysemic. And Ung is no exception as it means “a hero,” “a great person,” or “a male bird.” When it is used to mean a male, it refers to a male bird or animal. The literal meaning of Hanung should be the heroic ruler (Sovereign) of Han (the People of the Creatrix). In short, the character “Ung (Hero),” as is in Cheonung (天雄 Heavenly Hero) and Sinung (神雄 Divine Hero), refers to Goma, the heroic founding ruler (Sovereign) of Danguk. The idea that Hanung is the male ruler remains unsupported. First of all, the present myth is rife with female symbols and images including the cave initiation, the divine tree, conception, and procreation. Indeed, the Goma myth is a completely pacific or rather pacifying story, void of conquering, killing or raping. Secondly, the idea of Hanung as a male founder is left without a direct connection with the bear clan (Ungjok) and the Goma words, a topic to be explicated in detail at a later section. Most critically, if Hanung were the male ruler, his association with Sindansu would be too superficial to give due meaning to the Korean foundation myth. The present myth ascertains that the protagonist of the Sindansu (Divine Goma Tree) motif is a female. Sindansu, the tree of life or the world tree, to be explicated at a later section, is credited with one of the most pivotal mythemes, if not the most, of the Korean foundation myth. It is the cosmic tree, which Goma envisioned for the common origin of all beings from the Triad Creatrix and prayed for conception without a male partner. The syllable, “dan (檀)” in “Sindansu,” refers to the divine tree in Mount Taebaek. It is the eponymous root of the terms that indicate the Goma people. It is used in such words as Danguk (Goma State), Dangun (Head of the Goma State), and Danmok (Goma Tree), to name a few. Note that “Danguk was the strongest among the states of the bear clan,” headed by queens,[1] indicating that Danguk was the the confederal mother state that led the nine daughter states. Put differently, Danguk represents the matriarchal (magocratic, referring to a society ruled by a Magoist shaman queen) confederacy of the bear clan states.[2] Goma’s alternative epithets including “Ungssi-ja (Decendant of the Goma Clan), “Ungssi-wang” (Ruler of the Goma Clan), and “Ungssi-gun” (Head of the Goma Clan) substantiate that she is the ruler and head of the bear clan.[3] Also note that Dangun, Goma’s dynastic successor, “was enthroned as the Descendant of Heavenly Sovereign, as she established the capital in Danmok, Asadal, succeeding Danguk.”[4] Danmok is another word for Sindansu. Its alternative meaning “the birch” comes from the sound of “bakdal (박달).” Prominent Koreanists tend to agree that the character “dan” is related to “barkdal (밝달),” “baekdal (백달),” and “baedal (배달),” all of which indicate the Korean people.[5] However, they do not seem to see the multi-connection among Sindansu, Danmok, Baedal and Goma (Ungnyeo). Thus, they fail to see the Magoist context of the Goma myth. The Goma myth is about Danmok and Sindansu, Goma’s tree in Mount Taeback (Great Resplendence). The Divine Tree of Mount Taebaek is wherein Hanung Goma descended to rule the world. Goma has been commemorated as Ungsang (熊常Eternal Tree) and Dangmok (堂木 Shrine Tree) throughout history. The Goma tree sheds light on the origin of the tree worship in Korea and beyond. According to the Handan Gogi, the veneration of Ungsang originated from the time of Danguk and revived throughout the period of Dangun Joseon.[6] In traditional Korea, it is enshrined as Dangmok (Shrine Tree) in village shrines, Seonhwang-dang. It is not haphazard that Korean women are noted for their prayers of conception under the shrine tree. Splitting Goma into Ungnyeo and Hanung has resulted in awkward phraseology especially concerning her procreation in the story. Ultimately, it proves to be an androcentric device to dismiss the mytheme of her parthenogenetic birth to a child, the virgin birth, a contradictory concept to the patriarchal mindset. She, the shaman queen of the bear clan, was enthroned as Hanung, the dynastic founder Hanung of Danguk. Also, her offspring, Dangun, is the new queen-founder of Joseon who succeeded Danguk, rather than her biological son. The Goma myth is the story of a polity not a family. I maintain that the shaman rulers in Old Magoism (Hanguk, Danguk, and Joseon) are predominantly women.[7] In addition to “Hanung,” other titles of Goma include “Cheongwang (天王 Heavenly Ruler),” “Cheonung (天雄Heavenly Sovereign),” “Sinung (神雄 Divine Sovereign),” “Cheonhwang (天皇 Heavenly Empress),” “Seonhwang (仙皇Immortal Empress), and “Daeung (大雄Great Hero).” The Goma worship in Korean culture remains too pervasive to be recognized. As suggested in these alternative epithets, it has shaped the landscape of Korean popular religions, in particular Shamanism and Buddhism. Most prominently, the Goma worship manifests in the form of revering the Shrine Tree (Dangmok) in Seonhwang-dang (Seonghwang-dang or …
(Art) Mago by Lydia Ruyle

Mago of old Korea and East Asia, also known as Magu, Mako, Samsin Halmeoni (Triad Grandmother Goddess) and Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), is the Great Goddess. Mago is the progenitor, creatrix, and ultimate sovereign. Early gynocentric cultures venerated Her in many forms. Her multivalent identities include an immortal, mendicant, crone, shaman, and/or nature-shaper of mountains, rocks, caves and seas. In art, Mago often carries a basket of lingzi mushrooms, medicinal herbs and flowers–all symbols of immortality. Source: Painting c. 1400 CE by Seokgyeong. Joseon Dynasty. Korea (Meet Mago Contributor) Lydia Ruyle.