January 26, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Meet Mago Contributor) Rachael Patterson

Rachael is a young mother, yoga instructor, priestess-in-training and long-time writer. As a young woman, she developed a love for people and writing and is now combining her talents to offer yoga & writing workshops in Dallas, Texas. She is also the President and Founder of Kutumba Yoga Dallas, a non-profit that is uniting the Health & Wellness Community in DFW behind charitable organizations in the area. You can read her blog, check out her social media, and book appointments with her at YogaByRachael.com.

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(Photo Essay 6) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting with the Grandmothers”.] Magura Cave, Bulgaria The Magura Cave (Rabisha Cave) is located in north-western Bulgaria close to the village of Rabisha in Vidin Province. The total length of the 15 million year old cave is 2.5 km with one main gallery of six halls and three lateral galleries. The average temperature is 12°C, although I was so entranced by the art that I didn’t feel cold at all. There are also beautiful natural vaults and spectacular stalactites and stalagmites. In one of the caverns there are prehistoric paintings carved into the walls and decorated with bat guano (droppings). The paintings depict the silhouettes of people dancing and hunting, people wearing masks, animals, stars, tools, and plants. The paintings date from different eras – the early Paleolithic, the Neolithic, the later Neolithic, and the beginning of the Bronze Age. A solar calendar from the late Neolithic is the earliest solar calendar discovered in Europe. Descending into Magura Cave Magura Cave stalactites The images of figures with hands raised above their heads appear in most of the paintings. This motif appears in other cultures from as early as 40,000 BCE through to c400 BCE: The “Adorant” (mammoth ivory, c 40,000 BCE) was found in the Geißenklösterle Cave near Blaubeuren, Germany. Zygouries, Greece, 1300-1180 BCE. Another motif from the Magura Cave paintings is remarkably similar to the contemporary pictogram (Venus symbol) representing woman: Meet Mago Contributor Kaalii Cargill
(Essay) Secret of the Crone by Amy Barron Smolinski

By the last fading light of the longest day of the thirty-fifth year of my life, I sit, bathing in the cool, mild air, watching the crescent moon and Venus and Mars bidding farewell to the sun. My moon blood flows, for the very last time, for in four days, I will become a Crone. It is a strange gift, this knowing. A difficult choice to give over the natural mysteries of time and biology to the clinical skill of a trusted surgeon. This was not how I envisioned entering Cronehood. I thought I needed to wait until my hair was silver, my face etched with the map of time, my heart filled with the wisdom of many more years of life and pain. When I was first given the news, a diagnosis of a condition so irreversible and unmanageable that even the most holistic of healers agree it warrants hysterectomy, I fought. I rejected the idea of removing my womb surgically from my body, and one of the first panicked thoughts I had was “No! I’m too young to be a Crone! I’m not prepared!”
(Book Excerpt 6) How to Live Well Despite Capitalist Patriarchy by Trista Hendren

Ditch Your Car My reformation from country club princess to granola mama didn’t happen all at once. I had been slowly evolving for a while, but things changed drastically for me when I met Anders and experienced his culture in Norway. As with most travel and exposure to other cultures, it’s what I noticed about what we took for granted as “normal” here that opened my eyes the most. I didn’t realize how badly we denigrated those who don’t drive cars in the U.S. until I re-watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin with Anders. While I still find that movie hysterical, it is interesting social commentary that the nerdy virgin rides a bike. Anders noticed it right off the bat. “Men who don’t drive cars here are really treated like losers aren’t they?” I realized he was right. How many times are people completely identified with their cars? How many times has a woman turned down a nice guy because she didn’t like what he was driving? And how do men complete the role of “man” if they cannot pick up a woman for a date? Let’s be honest: It does seem weird. We take it for granted in the U.S. that people own cars. And the richer they are, the nicer that car should be. The owning part of that usually means they have financed a car—or rather, that they’re indebted to someone else for their sense of self. On my first trip to Norway, it was wet and rainy every day. We traveled by foot, bus or train. Every excursion required that we walk at least 10 minutes up or down a steep hill. I saw many people of all ages walking up and down the hill all day long, many carrying heavy bags of groceries. It wasn’t so bad. I got used to the rain and the exercise felt good throughout the day. I have always believed that you had to have a car. My second husband was a high-end car dealer for most of our marriage. Seeing how people lived in Norway was the first time I actually stopped and thought about whether having a car was necessary. When I came home, I decided to sell my car. In the suburban community I previously lived in, it would have been nearly impossible to live without a car, so I eased into it. During the transition, I got used to walking more. In the suburbs, when you walk, people assume you must be having car problems. I can’t tell you how many times a friend stopped, worried that my car had broken down. While I appreciated the sentiment, I found it quite amusing! I decided to move back to a flatter, more urban part of Portland where I could walk nearly everywhere. I sold more than half my belongings and moved into a smaller space we shared with another family. We walked to and from school every day, stopping on the way home for groceries. It was easier than I ever thought it could be. Americans spend an average of 75 minutes a day in their cars—butI always hated driving. It made me tired and cranky to sit in traffic. I now spend an average of 75 minutes a day walking, which means I’m in fairly good shape without a gym membership. When I need to go somewhere distant, I take public transport. On some occasions, I borrow a vehicle—but that’s more and more uncommon. I have also used Uber and Zipcar at times, which gave me a few more options. I have now spent more than 7 years without a car, and I rarely miss it. I have not done all the math, but I know I have saved tens of thousands of dollars every single year. I don’t have insurance, car payments or gas and maintenance expenses. And, I’m in a good mood from all the daily exercise I get. I don’t plan to own a car again. This frees up quite a bit of money for other things that are more important to me. I know many people will find the thought of not owning a car practically insane. But consider this: Driving a car is the most air polluting act an average citizen commits.39 If you cannot fathom life without a car, at least consider driving less if you are able-bodied. You will save money, gain health and stop participating in the destruction of Mother Earth. Find more info on this book here.(Meet Mago Contributor) Trista Hendren.
(She Summons Excerpt) The Seed Who Summons (Part 3) by Claire Dorey

Were Snake 1 by Claire Dorey Sophia has metamorphosised, from a slip of a viper, into a full grown python, patterned like a jaguar, coiling her visceral snake body around my ankle. She is immensely strong and I can feel her grip tighten. “Come down into the underworld with me,” she purrs, flipping me over as her sinews flex. She pulls me, head first, into a cavern beneath the roots of the cherry tree. The earth smells of petrichor – organic and fertile – and even though I’m plunging through the top soil, I feel weightless. I sense this is a sacred journey and I’m following in the footsteps of the enlightened. Inanna made this journey, so did Persephone. Dante wrote an epic poem about it. The game Snakes and Ladders is about it, and countless Romans descended into rock carved warrens to consult with priestesses – conduits to underworld consciousness – who sat over vents, breathing in the Earth’s vapours. “Even Alice went down a rabbit h-o-l-e,” I shriek, as we descend through the sub strata; past tree roots and rabbit warrens; past dormant seeds; past remnants of lost civilisations. We pass forgotten knowledge waiting to be rediscovered and stored up energy waiting to be released. I can feel the pulse of the Earth strengthen the deeper we go. As we descend I become unburdened – unlearning lifetimes of conditioning, stripping back to the essential essence of who I am and how I’m supposed to feel – light and free. We arrive at the agamogenesistic egg (there’s that word again!) – the divine consciousness – the transcendent heart of the Goddess – the primordial seed of knowing, at the Earth’s core. It is iridescent like an opal, spherical like the moon and although it has no density you can’t pass through it. Probably the best description I can give is to say it is like infinity; a ball of nacreous consciousness; a living, regenerative, breathing, crystal super brain, programmed with awareness; a matrix pulse of past, present and future nothingness; but it really is much more than that. If singing had density it would be like this. Sophia introduces me to the Grandmother Serpent, a sixty metre long, guardian, boa-constrictor who is coiled around the primordial egg. I am dumbstruck. “This is….” Sophia pauses, apologetic as she introduces me, “you know what, in all of this, I forgot to ask your name!” In this moment I also forget my name. I open my mouth but nothing comes out. “Can we give you a name then?” asks Grandmother Serpent. I move my lips and still no words come out. “Let’s call her Hekate,” says the Grandmother as she nudges me towards the seed of all creation. “Go on Hekate. Lie on it.” I lean my forehead on the giant ball of infinite knowingness and experience peace and connection like I’d never known before. There is an exchange of joy, so simple in its purity. Gone are any clouds of negative emotion – there is just joy…. yes joy is what this feeling is – ecstasy – probably what the vedic sages would describe as Bliss. So I’m leaning on the primordial egg in a state of Bliss when I become aware that a masculine entity has arrived. He wants a piece of the action and starts to lean into the egg. I recognise him as the menacing and brutish Hades, god of the underworld and rapist who abducted Persephone. I resent his presence, all the more because this rapist was immortalised by patriarchy. He has gnarled old horns, leathery hooves in place of feet, a vestigal tail, and his beard is charred and black and emits a pulse like a geiger counter, programmed to seek out victims. He grabs my fingers and we are locked in a battle of wills, knuckle to knuckle, across the surface of the primordial knowingness, until a crack appears. Eventually my flame-thrower will, which is stronger than his, shatters the egg and it breaks in two. As we cling to separate halves, the egg sheds a tear and the Bliss is gone. The tear becomes a gushing torrent, sweeping us up as supernatural forces turn us into water. The battle of wills has left us exhausted – dehydrated too – and in the confusion we drink ourselves until our egos fade away and then we find we are whole and pure again. The Grandmother Serpent spirals back around the primordial egg, like a giant bandage. “I will hold the two halves together until they heal,” she says. “You’ve done good Hekate.” Sophia is praising me. “You have transformed Hades into the Divine Masculine, Shiva’s spark, by disabling his reptilian brain, where the primitive and aggressive reflexes are. Now you can both rise to the surface.” “How do we do that?” we ask. “It’s simple,” replies Sophia, “Just strap on what we call the Isis jet pack.” I raise one eyebrow quizzically. “You must have heard of Isis,” thunders the Grandmother, “the Egyptian Moon Goddess who is depicted as a cobra or as a divine winged creature. Wings and Snake. What does this combination remind you of? Come on, its obvious!”. “She is what the vedic sages would call a Kundalini Goddess,” Sophia butts in. “To rise to the surface: release the three and a half coils of serpent power that resides in the base of your spine. Let this Sacred Feminine energy – primordial life force – rise through your chakras, then let the rising Kundalini propel you upwards.” We are back on terra firma, and I’m amazed I have been instrumental in bringing the Divine Masculine – a defeated, rinsed and purified Hades – back to the surface of the Earth. And here we both stand under my cherry tree – the carmine temple to fertility and disintegration and regeneration, that I planted forty years ago. “Would you Adam and Eve it!” (Cockney English Rhyming Slang for “would you believe it!”) How the …
(Essay 4) Future of Identity: Reclaiming the Northern Pagan Tradition by Jillian Burnett

Art by Jillian Burnett Relation to the Land This organic movement shines a little light on the northern pagan value of hirð—those close to the household. Northern pagans had a close relationship to the land; self-sustaining homesteads were how their society was arranged. Today’s farm-to-table trend is a slightly wider interpretation of this same sentiment. Management of crop-recourses from the soil to the dinner plate, are locally sourced from farms closer than an hours’ distance. Modern fine-dining, farm-to-table remains an example of northern pagan cultural continuity. The local food movement has also risen in popularity, as both the carbon footprint and petroleum dependency see reduction. The local food trend supports the small farmstead, instead of mega-corporations that own majority stake in land or growing rights. Not only is this movement aligned with supporting smaller communities, but the regenerative and sustainable farming practices support agricultural that doesn’t deplete the land. Additionally, the assets are kept within families—not owned by firms on wall street, or individual investors holding farmland securities. This avenue of farm to table is also more aligned with the northern pagan value of living in equilibrium nature and with landvættir; spirits of the natural environment. The practice of respecting nature also is reciprocal, as dutiful wardens of the organic world are in relationship with spirit. This philosophy holds an underlying presumption that nature is alive; it is no dead thing to carelessly harvest and decimate. The tribe gathers and shares food and song, making offering of meat and drink and smoke to land spirits. Folk care for crops and invoke the gods for a good yield—ritualing for fine yields to better feed the folk for another season. In this way the direct experience of guardianship and kinship with the realm of spirit translate into styles of organic consumption. Folk reject big box groceries in lieu of open air farmer’s markets. If this trend strengthens, this can cause changes the marketplace for mega-corporations who participate in the agriculture industrial complex. If massive changes ensue, there can be a slight destabilization in hierarchical power as the folk retake the means of food production from the 1%. More likely however, is that a compromise would be reached, as the urbanization of most of the modern world precludes the amount of viable land and green from sustaining large populations. Some cities transform rooftops to gardens however, in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint and go green. In some urban warehouses, entire city blocks are converted to hydroponic vegetable gardens. It may be a long time before people are self-sustaining, but each backyard tomato garden brings us one step closer to a greener world. With the growth of these green trends other industries are affected. Electric cars are more commonly seen on the road, with a trillion dollar valuation for Tesla testifing to this trend. Petroleum—gasoline and diesel consumption may see a decline in market size. It is also possible that more green technologies can arise as capital can be redeployed in the best way. Some pagans are concerned with green technology and water conservation; focusing on cleaner riverways and beaches. Conservationists have changed maps. In the US in New York State for example, fracking is banned; in the adjacent state of Connecticut, transporting frack liquid is banned to ensure no spillage, leakage or surface contamination. Other states without strong lobbies are not so lucky; their waterways may be polluted. Clean eating, and diets like whole thirst engage pagans to go green as a food-lifestyle choice. Also surging in popularity are impossible meats and vegetarian dieting. As these trends gain momentum, demands at the marketplace change. Less consumption of meat, effects less breeding of livestock for slaughter, as cows have an RFID tag. Less demand for meat may change the outlook for the menus of restaurants and will trigger inventories to date and change as the marketplace adjusts their supply. Corn fields grown for pork feed can be reallocated to be used for corn-syrup, ethanol production, or perhaps the fields can grow other vegetables altogether, using less water per calorie consumed in the growing space. Less cholesterol and animal fats could even change the number one cause of death which is cardiovascular disease—should people adapt a plant-based lifestyle. Should that societal change happen to the pharmaceutical industrial complex—all the billion dollar financial firms that are shareholders in those industries would see some decapitalization. Small changes can have large long term effects; this is the law of chaos. Right now in Portugal deforestation due to lithium mining has depleted rural areas. Pressures from environmentally focused lobbyists have encouraged governance to reforest. This restoration of degraded land is reviving the local environs in many ways. It can serve to refresh water filtration, rejuvenate the natural carbon sink, renew air purification as well as revive the natural habitats for various fauna and animalia. Arid lands tend to face more soil erosion and this water and soil regulation through a solid tree line with strong root systems can serve in diverse ways. Mankind’s needs however do not always correspond to the idealism of pure environmentalism as the pagan worldview establishes. The afforestation endeavor in Portugal’s rural areas is an industrial investment opportunity. By no means is this reforestation an expression of druidic spirituality or of environmentalist planning. Agribusiness is engaging the planting of Australian eucalyptus which outcompetes native plant life as invasive species. The eucalyptus is a primary benefit for the paper industry there; as such, it is an economic input to the commercial process and mass-production of paper fabrication. It is a small win for locals, who have seen their locality endure mountaintop removal and logging of trees, until their hillsides were bare. This has historically only enabled brush fires. The arid air and environment allows no moisture to be locked into the land, as already it has low water tables with dehydrated soil. Eucalyptus plantations are a small reprieve from barren dirt; at the very least the sight of green may uplift the hearts …
(Essay 3) Enchanting Christianity: Christian Goddess Thealogy by Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.

[Editor’s Note: This essay is from the same title, “Enchanting Christianity: Christian Goddess Thealogy” by Mary Ann Beavis included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018).] Vincett raises the question as to whether “fusing” is a permanent spiritual option, or whether it constitutes a transitional phase between Christianity and full-blown Goddess Spirituality.[1] She tentatively suggests that this depends on the individual, contrasting “June,” an Anglican woman training for the priesthood, and “Jan,” a former minister (both Baptist and United Reformed) who expressed an interest in joining an “exclusively Goddess oriented” spirituality group.[2] She notes that “it would be interesting to know whether in 10 years’ time, participants such as Jan have moved entirely out of the Church,” citing the example of Rose, a woman who “moved in and out of the Church before finally identifying as pagan,” and of Kate, who attests that she doesn’t know anyone who has left paganism to become Christian.[3] My findings imply that the situation is more complex. Indeed, some of my respondents had left the church definitively, and were on the extreme end of CGS, identifying more strongly as Goddessian, but integrating compatible Christian values such as egalitarianism, social justice concerns, and inclusiveness, and including among their images of deity biblical figures such as Jesus, Sophia, the Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. More, however, were more-or-less regular churchgoers in various denominations who had no compunction about participating in Goddess-oriented activities, and who related to the divine primarily as female; a significant number were ordained ministers or seminarians in a variety of denominations. Several were married to ordained Christian ministers. Others had left the church, but not Christianity, i.e., they remained Christians, but not churchgoers. As Vincett suggests, it depends on the individual who will continue to pursue the CGS path, who will leave Christianity altogether for Goddess Spirituality, and who will forsake CGS for more “traditional” forms of Christianity. However, the question of whether those on the CGS path will leave (or have left) Christianity also has an important ecclesiological dimension: churches that are able to provide congenial and compatible environments for those on the CGS path—and for a distinctively Christian thealogy—will be more likely to retain and attract CGS practitioners. As Vincett observes,[4] the question as to whether the church—or at least parts of it—have the ability to “incorporate alternative spiritualities into itself” has important ramifications for the future of Christianity. (End of the essay) [1] Vincett, “The Fusers,” 136. [2] Ibid., 136. [3] Ibid., 136. [4] Ibid., 136. [Author’s Note: This essay is a revision and update of my article “Christian Goddess Spirituality and Thealogy,” Feminist Theology 24,2 (2016): 125-38; for the complete study, see my Christian Goddess Spirituality: Enchanting Christianity (New York: Routledge, 2015).] (Meet Mago Contributor) Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D. https://www.magoism.net/2014/02/meet-mago-contributor-mary-ann-beavis/ https://www.magobooks.com/textbooks/goddesses-in-myth-history-and-culture/
(Book Excerpt 5) Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma by Trista Hendren

https://thegirlgod.com/re-membering.php The Journey Home for this Divine Spark, Flying FreeD’vorah J. Grenn, Ph.D., Kohenet When did I take my last – or my first – breath that was safe from patriarchy, that wasn’t influenced, dominated by, enveloped in the damaging structures and language of a patriarchal culture? When did I begin to pray freely, openly, unencumbered, unafraid, un-self-conscious, without shards and shreds of imposed guilt and patriarchy running through my consciousness? How insistent and constant were the voices of white patriarchs informing my image of G’d and keeping the Goddess hidden from me, putting forth instead only the image of an old, judgmental white man with long white beard, not the vibrant female whose embodied, protective energy can be felt through Shekhinah, Ishtar, Lilith, Anat? Her Presence is so alive in Kali and Durga, in the tree, wind and water goddesses Asherah, Yemaya/Olokun, Oshun, Oya, there can be no mistaking Her power. Now I see Her everywhere, Her essence in the coast live oak, Japanese black pine and Nature-sculpted piece of giant redwood in our garden. It is said in the Talmud that when two people study Torah together, it is as if the Shekhinah – often called “the female face of G’d” in Judaism – is between them. Not G’d, but Shekhinah AS G’d, a secret well-kept from me until I was in my late 40’s. I was so excited to learn this, and so later viewed with disbelief that She had once again been erased, in an image projected onto one long New York museum wall; it said G’d, not Shekhinah in the quote. I viewed it with outrage, knowing that few people would automatically think of G’d as representing a female energy. In starting this article, several questions swirled through my head: which trauma do I write about? How many of them? Didn’t Goddess come into play to help me cope with all of them, even unbeknownst to me? Did She save me from being raped in Golden Gate Park when I was a 17-year-old virgin? As I thought about how to begin, I felt such an essay would entail my remembering all the traumas and so might be too dangerous to attempt. But my subconscious knew I had to write what I could. As I speak these words aloud, thinking through how the process might go, I remember another attempted rape in an empty hotel bathroom in California at age 23 and two date rapes. Do I include the date rapes? I didn’t even have language for them until long after the fact. I hadn’t classified them as violent – though they were forceful – perhaps because I was partly in shock or denial, and partly blamed myself for getting into compromising situations. I’m not sure rape was a word I used to describe them until much later. After these events, I continued on with my life. But what went missing was my full voice, the ability to recognize the incidents for what they were and their impact on me. Perhaps I lost a small piece of me after each incident. All these acts left for a time a soul-killing residue. Our culture teaches us not to see certain things, or to live with them, to be silent for fear of consequences from ostracization to violent blowback. Our own guilt, shame, self-accusation, internalized oppression do a good job of concretizing these silences; that itself is part of the patriarchal design. It’s emotionally and spiritually lethal in its effectiveness… hiding in the shadows yet making itself felt in changes to our personality, in shutting down trust in our own intuitive alert systems so that we can’t recognize or name what’s been done to us. After years of conditioning both societal and personal, we start believing the lies: “Oh, I must’ve overreacted, must be remembering this wrong. Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Oh Oh Oh…” until we have talked ourselves out of our own sense, collaborated in stripping away our essence until sometimes there’s nothing left of us, or just a shell, a silhouette of who we were. Patriarchal systems perpetuate trauma by convincing us something we’ve gone through “wasn’t that bad” or didn’t compare with another woman’s more visible or constant injuries. We now recognize this as minimizing our pain, ignoring the reality/validity of our experience, or as gaslighting to make us question our own perceptions, even our sanity. I didn’t find the Goddess and Her healing presence and properties until my husband died – and even more fully 21 months later, after watching a lover die in front of me. The deaths were a compound trauma and put me in a state of spiritual emergency, which in retrospect I feel was Goddess’s way of getting through to me as I walked through life in a workaholic oblivion. I was cracked open and threw myself headlong into Her open arms without quite knowing why. I just knew I was hungry to know more about this Goddess I’d read about after the deaths; She felt like much more than just the female face of G’d, or one of the benign goddesses we learned about in school, Greco-Roman co-optations of the earlier powerful ancient Mesopotamian and African deities. Through reading Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman, Vicki Noble’s Shakti Woman and Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, I started to understand what had happened to me, what parts of me had been slowly stripped away or killed off with great intent, parts that could return now that I was free and on my own. Not needing anyone’s approval or fearing anyone’s punitive response, I became consumed with Her study and Her worship, and began writing liturgy. I wrote my first piece in 1999, “Inanna-Lilith-Shekhinah,” later published in my Talking to Goddess anthology. She became an organizing principle, and more: part of my very lifeblood, a vital affirmation of all the things I was and am. I realized how many parts of Me were …
(Poetry & Photography) Witness by Sara Wright

It was dark when I first heard Her whooing overhead bearing witness, ushering in the First of the Harvest Moons. The seasonal wheel turning towards ripe fruit and swelling seeds. Summer’s Bounty. This goddess is cloaked in feathery mole brown splendor a Sphinx flying through the night. S/he heralds the Gift of Water answering earnest prayers… As ‘Changing Woman’ she brings rain to soften cracked desert ground… Hidden in a tangle of branches Owl observes my approach… When I pass under the Cottonwood tree she takes flight in silence. lands on a snag – luminous eyes glowing. Fiery embers sweeten the night. Her beneficent Presence floods me with wonder – Oh, I know Her well. Love seeps through a body punctured by holes. Seen at last by my Beloved I give thanks for Owl whooo calls my name. Working notes: Last fall on the night of my birthday I was serenaded by three Great Horned owls conversing outside my window. In the thirty years I had lived in my cabin these owls had never visited me before. The hair stood up on my arms – an omen, I was sure. The owls felt like an embodiment of my mother for reasons I will explain in a moment. Every night after my birthday the owls whooed outside my window until I left Maine for New Mexico six weeks later. The night after I arrived great horned owls began hooting. I couldn’t escape the irrational thought that the owls had followed me here. I felt confused because although I loved hearing them, each time I did I was flooded by conflicting thoughts about my mother, and what this omen might portend… When I was a child I adored my mother – the first woman I ever loved…Unfortunately, my mother didn’t seem to have much use for her daughter, though I did everything I could to please her. A gifted visual artist, my mother loved great horned owls and often drew them. I imitated her, drawing stylized images but I also feared them. The rational explanation for this feeling is, of course, that I feared my mother and equally feared her abandonment of me, so owls became associated with both a fear of women and death. This love and fear of my mother – a distant, cool, unattainable woman dominated my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. It wasn’t until mid-life that I began to separate from her emotionally. It was only then that I began to see her. I recognized that her inability to see me as a person separate from herself ran both ways with disastrous results for both of us. Betrayal characterized our relationship. We gradually became more estranged, and for the last twelve years of her life she refused to see me at all. When she died, initially, all I felt was relief. It was during mid-life and long before my mother’s death that owls first came into my life. One barred owl flew into the house through a window. Others serenaded me at night. A Snowy owl flew head on almost hitting my windshield. Saw whet owls peered at me during the day and the nights were punctuated by Barred owls whooing at night. I found dead owls on the road, collected their feathers, attended a weekend with a well known Lakota -Souix Medicine Woman who wouldn’t allow me near her because I had “Owl Medicine,” and for these Indigenous peoples, the presence of the owl portended certain death. Because I still associated all owls with my mother these occurrences left me with feelings of dread. However, during the next 25 years a great horned owl never appeared to me, and that was a huge relief. Up until 11 months ago. When a convocation of three Great Horned owls surrounded my house and started singing the night of my birthday I sensed that I was crossing a threshold and that my mother was on the other side. Their night calls thrilled me even as I struggled to deal with my fright. The owls kept up their symphony until I left Maine for New Mexico six weeks later. Amazingly, I had only been in Abiquiu one day when Great Horned owls started whooing in the cottonwood forest in the predawn hours. I couldn’t escape the uncanny feeling that the owls and maybe my mother had followed me here… Because I have had intimate relationships with animals all my life I befriended the owls, taking deep pleasure out of their calls, even as I attempted to deal with my fears and reflected over what their continued presence might mean. I arrived in Abiquiu in a destabilized condition not having any idea what the winter would bring, whether I would make my home here, unsure of whether to sell my house. I was moving into the last years of my life and I wanted them to count. When I look back now it is easy to see that I was in crisis but at the time the obvious escaped me. As it turned out the winter months were very difficult with me wondering if I had made a terrible mistake. I was walking on air. At dawn or at night owls continued to serenade me throughout the winter and spring. In late May just before moving into my present home I found one owl feather outside of the east window. The owl’s feather graced the first Nicho in the house, followed by a second discovered and given to me by the builder a day or so later. The first night I spent here the owls sang from the cottonwoods. A few days later I found and added three more owl feathers to the Nicho. All summer I have been graced by owl presence, especially during the full moons when owls have let me see them in the predawn mornings. On the morning of September 1st almost one year after hearing them for the first time, a hooting owl awakened …
(Call for Contributions) Magoism, the Way of S/HE is growing, growing, growing!

Dear friends, The editorial team is amazed and delighted at how Magoism, the Way of S/HE is growing, growing, growing! To help keep it growing, growing, growing, we need contributions to flow, flow, flow! For March, to celebrate International Women’s Day and Human Rights Day, we have the broad theme of feminism. Of course, contributions need not be limited to this theme. We’d love to receive your submissions of poetry, art, essays, films, music, or any other genre that we haven’t thought of, for this theme or anything else. It can be something new, or it can be something you’ve already published, stand-alone, part of a series, an extract. Actually, you don’t need to have published previously. Why not start exploring your Mago-given talents by submitting a contribution? Check through your drawers for that poem or drawing you thought wasn’t good enough or you set aside for lack of further inspiration; clean up your computer to find that lurking file with the brilliant seed idea. Don’t be shy, we’ve posted most submissions we’ve received. We’d love to hear from you! Here’s a guide to what we’re broadly looking for: http://magoism.net/people/call-for-contribution/

(Special post) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), in recognition of the ill-treatment and misunderstanding of Aboriginal people that was set in train when, in 1788, white people first settled in the land now known as Australia.
(Special Post 6) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Esther Essinger “Why Goddess, when “GD” is perpetrating so much grief? 1) First, it’s vital to know that Goddess is NOT “GD” in a skirt. It is demanded of NO one that they “believe” or “have faith”, so there can be no guilt (and no punishment! (No Hell below us, thank you John) in NOT choosing to interest oneself in these particular Stories, myths, legends and tales which center the Cosmic Female, the Universal Mother, Mother Earth /Mother Nature at their core. No evangelism happening here!
(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is another image of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra slain by Herakles. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(mythology)… Glenys Livingstone: Yes, the Hercules story is more documentation of the Old Battle, of the rise of the “hero” to slay the Mother, when in the earliest of times he served with his beauty and labours. It is so interesting to see the analogies in other cultures/places as you are doing Helen, especially in Asia – it seems important work. Your perseverance is paying off, and will. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Glenys, I am re-reading a book on Chinese mythology and found a lot more on the nine Magoist symbolism. Someday, I hope to write about the topic in its own right. Glenys Livingstone: This chapter’s work is good re the Old Battle in Greek mythology: Valaoritis, Nanos. “The Cosmic Conflict of Male and Female in Greek Mythology”, in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Joan Marler (ed). Manchester CT: Knowledge, Ideas and Trends Inc., 1997, p.247 – 261. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Now back to the female divine who is depicted with the nine heads. See the nine-headed Guanyin/Kannon/Gwaneum. Also note that her icon comes in eleven-headed (the 8 Daughters and the Triad Creatrix, which makes eleven). http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: The symbol of nine dragons was adopted by imperial China. See the Nine Dragon Wall China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We connect the dots. When Guanyin is depicted with nine dragons, it conveys that the nine symbolism was/is once deemed sacred. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/17/b3/4a17b33d9a4ae53bad6466a0eaf11722.jpg How popular the Guanyin icon, three headed and eight armed, to this day! Simply Google “eight armed Guanyin.” Below is from the Late Ming Dynasty, China. https://www.google.com/search?q=eight%20armed%20guanyin… She comes in a different name, Ushnishavijaya, in Tibetan Buddhism. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65445 Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We can draw that the female deity such as Guanyin and Ushnishavijaya, just to name two, is venerated in association with the nine symbolism. Within the mytho-history of Magoism, I infer that Guanyin or Ma Guanyin is a persona embodying Goma, the Magoist Shaman ruler of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE), the head of Nine Hans (Magoist Koreans). Note that Magoist shamans or priestesses are called “Mago.” See my essay, “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), 2018. The insight that the major Goddesses in East Asia and beyond point to the same and old divine persona is NOT farfetched, considering that the nine-headed snake or dragon representing the female sovereignty of pre-patriarchal times is slain by male heroes across cultures. Judy E Foster: I’d have to agree with you here. As usual, interesting information! Patty Kay: My meditation this morning was on a history of mysticism. While I’m in the midst of appropriating all of the wonderful beliefs I find here, I also have found a strand in my own tradition that helps me understand why all the Divine Feminine stuff makes so much sense to me. I’ve been trying to determine when the patriarchal world view took over. According to this history, mysticism began to emerge in about 800 to 500 BCE. Could it be that mysticism kept alive the ancient understanding of the cosmos? This is just speculation, but in it I’m answering my own questions. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.

(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
A PaGaian Wheel of the Year and Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

The Spring Equinox Moment occurs September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere, March 21-23 Northern Hemisphere. The full story of Spring Equinox is expressed in the full flower connected to the seed fresh from the earth; that is, it is a story of emergence from the dark, from a journey, perhaps long, perhaps short, through challenging places. The joy of the blossoming is rooted in the journey through the dark, and an acknowledgement of the dark’s fertile gift, as well as of great achievement in having made it, of having returned. Both Equinoxes, Spring and Autumn, celebrate this sacred balance of grief and joy, light and dark, and they are both celebrations of the mystery of the seed. The seed is essentially the deep Creativity within – that manifests in the Spring as flower, or green emerged One. the full story: the root and the flower As the new young light continues to grow at this time of Spring, it comes into balance with the dark at Spring Equinox, or ‘Eostar’ as it may be named; about to tip further into light when light will dominate the day. The trend at this Equinox is toward increasing hours of light: and thus it is about the power of being – life is stepping into it. Earth in this region is tilting further toward the Sun. Traditionally it may be storied as the joyful celebration of a Lost Beloved One, who may be represented by the Persephone story: She is a shamanic figure who is known for Her journey to the Underworld, and who at this time of Spring Equinox returns. Her Mother Demeter who has waited and longed for Her in deep grief, rejoices and so do all: warmth and growth return to the land. Persephone, the Beloved Daughter, the Seed, has navigated the darkness successfully, has enriched it with Her presence and also gained its riches. Eostar/Spring Equinox is the magic of the unexpected, yet long awaited, green emergence from under the ground, and then the flower: this emergence is especially profound as it is from a seed that has lain dormant for months or longer – much like the magic of desert blooms after long periods of drought. The name of “Eostar” comes from the Saxon Goddess Eostre/Ostara, the northern form of the Sumerian Astarte[i]. The Christian festival in the Spring, was named “Easter” as of the Middle Ages, appropriating Goddess/Earth tradition. The date of Easter, which is set for Northern Hemispheric seasons, is still based on the lunar/menstrual calendar; that is, the 1st Sunday after the first full Moon after Spring Equinox. In Australia where I am, “Easter” is celebrated in Autumn (!) by mainstream culture, so we have the spectacle of fluffy chickens, chocolate eggs and rabbits in the shops at that time. There are other names for “Eostar” in other places …the Welsh name for the Spring Equinox celebration is Eilir, meaning ‘regeneration’ or ‘spring’ – or ‘earth’[ii]. In my own PaGaian tradition, the Spring Equinox celebration is based on the Demeter and Persephone story, the version that is understand as pre-patriarchal, from Old Europe. In the oldest stories, Persephone has agency in Her descent: She descends to the underworld voluntarily as a courageous seeker of wisdom, and a compassionate receiver of the dead. She represents, and IS, the Seed of Life that never fades away. Spring Equinox is a celebration of Her return, Life’s continual return, and thus also our personal and collective emergences/returns.We may contemplate the collective emergence/returns especially in our times. I describe Persephone as a “hera”, which of old was a term for any courageous One. “Hera” was a pre-Hellenic name for the Goddess in general[iii]. “Hera” was the indigenous Queen Goddess of pre-Olympic Greece, before She was married off to Zeus. “Hero” was a term for the brave male Heracles who carried out tasks for his Goddess Hera: “The derivative form ‘heroine’ is therefore completely unnecessary”[iv]. “Hera” may be used as a term for any courageous individual: and participants in PaGaian Spring Equinox ceremony have named themselves this way. The pre-“Olympic” games of Greece were Hera’s games, held at Her Heraion/temple[v]. The winners were “heras” – gaining the status of being like Her[vi]. At the time of Spring Equinox, we may celebrate the Persephone, the Hera, the Courageous One, who steps with new wisdom, into power of being: the organic power that all beings must have, Gaian power, the power of the Cosmos. This Seasonal ceremony may be a rejoicing in how we have made it through great challenges and loss, faced our fears and our demise (in its various forms), had ‘close shaves’ – perhaps physically as well as psychicly and emotionally. It is a time to welcome back that which was lost, and step into the strength of being. Spring Equinox/Eostar is the time for enjoying the fruits of the descent, of the journey taken into the darkness: return is now certain, not tentative as it was in the Early Spring/Imbolc. Demeter, the Mother, receives the Persephones, Lost Beloved Ones, joyously. This may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the sixty-five million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. They describe the Ecozoic Era as a time when “the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation”[vii]. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning” of our times[viii]. Collectively we have been away from the Mother for some time and there is a lot of pain. At this time we may contemplate not only our own individual lost wanderings, but also that of the human species. We are part of a much bigger Return that is happening. The Beloved One may be understood as returning on a collective level: …
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …
(Essay and Video) Cosmogenesis Dance: Celebrating Her Unfolding by Glenys Livingstone

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.

(Art) Nurture by Anna Tzanova

to feed and protect; to support and encourage; to foster and bring up; to train and educate; to develop and nourish; to care for and cherish… Such a multifaceted and meaningful word! It represents to me an essential quality of the Goddess. An aspect I strive to cultivate within, embody, and express externally. I use it to guide all my actions by asking myself, “Is this nurturing?”; “By doing this, what am I nurturing?” Very often, minds have been conditioned to counterpose nature and nurture, creating not only a divide, but also a controversy. The intrinsic feature of Nature is to nurture. The womb not only births, but nurtures. Nothing can be sustained or achieved without nurture. Nature teaches us the lesson of acceptance. Nurture – the lesson of patience. It also provides the opportunity and freedom of choice. Together, they intertwine and weave the entire Creation. What are you nurturing today? From She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 (forthcoming, 2016). See (Meet Mago Contributror) Anna Tzanova.
(Book Excerpt 2) Mago Almanac Planner by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Details for Mago Almanac Planner are available here. [Author’s Note: This is Part 2 of the Preface. Read Part 1 of the Preface here.] PREFACE What Mago Almanac Planner Offers There is nothing more plainly indicative of the fallacy of patriarchal thinking, that is, the perspective of male-supremacy than the 12 month calendar. Considering that the calendar is the basic foundation for human activities, the standard 12 month calendar that the modern world is adapting functions to maintain patriarchy. According to the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Magoism, the 12 month calendar was first invented and introduced by Yao (ca. 2356-2255 BCE), the pre-dynastic ruler of ancient China to replace the 13 month Magoist Calendar. The newly risen patriarchal rule needed to amend the female-centered 13 month calendar, which would make the Mother-Nature bond invisible. First of all, the 12 month calendar has an irregular number of days (28, 29, 30, or 31). The inconsistent number of days is an indication that the 12 month calendar is out of tune with Nature’s rhythm, ultimately Sonic Numerology. Reality is distorted. Fundamentally based on the imposed or presumed balance within the scheme of dyads (the male and the female), the 12 month calendar propagates a hierarchical dualism. In the dyad, the two are viewed as independent single entities disconnected from each other so that it allows one to be superior to the other (A>B). The worldview it represents is reductionist; the evolutionary process of life is predetermined. On the other hand, the 13 month calendar has 28 days in a month. It is regular and rhythmic, a sign of a healthy living entity. In tune with Nature’s rhythm, the 13 month calendar guides us into an infinitely creative and open-ended worldview based on Sonic Numerology (musical interplay of nine numbers), the cosmogonic force of WE/HERE/NOW. Numerologically aligned, the 13 month 28 day calendar leads us to an ever-unfolding reality. The triadic principle, an epitome of Nine Numerology, stands for the web of spiral interconnection. One divided by three leads to the realm that never ends as it goes 0.3333… for example. That said, what is the better way to restore the lunar-female song and dance than women themselves by charting out the menstrual cycle in the 13 moon calendar? Mago Almanac Planner provides tools for menstruators to mark menstrual dates side by side with lunation dates. We want our modern-day maidens and mothers to see how their own menstrual cycles run in harmony with all other beings in the Natural World! Menstruation is a calendric indicator designed to guide human societies. Biology is not only social but also cosmic. Menstruation is never a separate biological phenomenon. For non-menstruators, Mago Almanac Planner opens the door to each day, week, and month of the cosmic song and dance. We are about to move the axis of our consciousness in tune with all else in the universe!Book information on Magoist Calendar Year 4 and Magoist Calendar Planner Year 4 here. (To be continued) https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/ [1] This is a topic that will be treated in detail in my forthcoming book, The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time Inscribed in Sonic Numerology.
(Special post) Interweaving Mago Threads by Mago Circle Members

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