November 30, 2012October 2, 2019 Mago Work

(Poem) Gaia by Anna McBain

I inhale your scent
Reveling in the perfume that is you
Your breath caresses me
And I close my eyes listening to your hushed words
Your cool body cushions beneath me
And I sigh in the refreshing moment of it
The sun warms me
As it rises above your bosom
The gentle moon fades
Its luminous light far beyond my reach
Life awakens
In all that is you
And I breathe
All that is you
And I feel
All that is you
And I love
All that is you
Gaia

Anna McBain

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(Art Poem) O fruitful like the olive tree by Yvonne M Lucia

O fruitful like the olive tree, you stand strong and resilient though gnarled from age and the ravages of merciless storms. Your face, a storied map, guides me to the truth of Wisdom’s price. In spite of all, your withered limbs bear fruit. May I be so rooted and grounded in the orchard of your generative love that my true worship is a harvest of justice, integrity, and compassion. Meet Mago Contributor Yvonne M Lucia
Meet Mago Contributor, Melissa LaFlamme

Melissa La Flamme is a visionary artisan of cultural evolution. As an author, poet, activist, Jungian & shamanic psychotherapist and Troublemaker, she kindles soul’s smoldering longing for everything real. She helps hack and track the smell of our longing to fully inhabit our life. She shows us how to enact our own Prison Break, from the inner and outer Lockdowns we have unknowingly built. Melissa teaches the soul’s clandestine trade. The trade of the Code Breaker of our one authentic life. The way of the Holy Hacker of our soul. The one writhing alive in our glistening, raving heart, vulnerable, ravished, undone and messy in a world where anything but is the safe way to belong. Visit her at www.jungiansoulwork.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MelissaALaFlamme.
(Art & Poem) Never Again: The Ancestors Speak by Arlene Bailey

“The Tradition” Artwork by Julia Jeffrey They hover just on the other side of the Veil, waiting, watching. These women who gave their lives at the hands of Patriarchy and its fear of women’s ways, women’s wisdom, women’s bodily functions. They wait, these Ancestors, watching the women of today as they declare NEVER AGAIN! They wait, as they work from beyond the Veil to destroy the Institution of Patriarchy, responsible for Centuries of continued murder and subjugation of women. ALL so I… We… may clear the shit dumped on EVERY WOMAN for the past 6000 plus years. They come… They wait… They question… Will I step into my life’s work or take the easy way out and do nothing? They come… They wait… Asking if YOU will step into Your life’s work or will you do nothing? We stand on the precipice of unfathomable shift in modern times and the question is which way will that shift go? Will we do our part or will we dull our senses and trick our minds into thinking and feeling the horror that lurks on the horizon is only in our imaginations? Will we choose to hide in illusion, while we go back to numbing and dumbing down the truth of our innate wisdom, until the day… Until the day we realize the unfathomable is no longer a theory, but our reality, as once again the ancient and religious Chains of Patriarchy Reign Supreme and women are once again mere chattel to be shackled and controlled. They hover just beyond the Veil waiting, watching. These women who gave their lives at the hands of Patriarchy and its fear of women’s ways, women’s wisdom, women’s bodily functions. They wait, these Ancestors, watching the women of today as they declare NEVER AGAIN! They wait, as they work from the Realm of the Ancestors to destroy Patriarchal Institutions responsible for the Centuries of continued murder and subjugation of women. They watch. They wait. They ask… WILL we step into our life’s work? OR Will we do nothing as we hide in denial? We still have a choice… But… For How Long? https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/ _________________________________________________ Never Again: The Ancestors Speak by Arlene Bailey ©2020 The Tradition by Julia Jeffrey, Stonemaiden-art.com
(Essay) Your Feminine Essence the Kore Principle of Female Spirituality by Marie de Kock

Heal your feminine essence: Discover the vital, forgotten information about your essentially feminine, truly magical, multidimensional, creative capacities. Vessel upon vessel containing another vessel… spinning sphere encompassing another and another… dreamy womb within a dreamy Womb within a Dreamy Womb becoming conscious of its own orgasmic being… that is what creation within our Cosmic Womb is… And within your spinning sphere—contained within the spinning sphere of Gaia, you contain a fractal replica, your womb, along with the creative bliss to dream another dream into being… another being into dreaming…
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/
(S/HE V2 N1 Book Review) Max Dashu’s Witches and Pagans Reviewed by Carolyn Lee Boyd

[This content is from S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (V2 N1, 2023) Its online edition and paperback are available at Mago Bookstore.] Well into medieval times, women wielded spiritual power and authority across Europe as witches, diviners, healers, prophetesses, counselors, seeresses; and more. Everyday people prayed to and revered goddesses, while intertwining their lives with the faeries and other female spirits by propitiating them with gifts, asking for their blessings, and more. Over time, secular authorities aided by the church tried to destroy or assimilate the imagery, stories, beliefs, practices, and sacred places of holy women and goddesses, harshly punishing or killing women practitioners and their followers. Now, a millennium later, Max Dashu gathers up and reweaves the scattered and fragmented threads of women’s spiritual culture found primarily in the beliefs and traditions of the “folk,” past and present. These mostly rural people blended in their beliefs and practices the old religion and the new, reflecting, if sometimes imperfectly, the complexity and vibrancy of what had once been Europe’s dominant faith. In Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700 to 1100, Dashu uses deep dives into the etymology of words associated with female spiritual power; myths, written history, literature, and court and church documents; archeological finds in graves, buildings, and elsewhere; and more to give back to us our lost history. The book is well-illustrated by the author’s many drawings. As Dashu writes, “casting a wide net is the only way to get at the texture of culture, the weave of concepts people lived in, and their social realities” (iii). She offers us information previously available only to scholars and carefully explains not only what is known, but also what is unclear and debated among the experts, so readers can make up their own minds or at least know what is certain and what is still to be determined. All the voluminous information is carefully and comprehensively documented. Once readers have read through the book as a whole to gain an understanding of the breadth of women’s spiritual culture in Europe during this time, they will find the book an invaluable sourcebook to go back to time and time again for its detailed descriptions and analysis. While this review can only touch on a fraction of the fascinating information contained in Witches and Pagans, a survey of the major themes can offer a taste of the book’s contents and importance. First, Dashu demonstrates both the ubiquity and interconnectedness of women’s spiritual authority in the Early Medieval period by exploring the web of words and meanings associated with the proto-Indo-European root “Wert.” “Wert” denotes a circular motion, which led to the idea of “being and becoming.” This, in turn, metamorphosed into a symphony of words in various Indo-European languages, like the English words “wyrd” or “weird,” “worthy,” and “worship.” Deeply connected to “Wert” and its descendants is the original concept of female divinity as a force of “being and becoming,” that often manifested in trinities of goddesses, such as the fate goddesses found throughout Europe, Central Asia, and Eurasia. The concept of fate eventually evolved into “fae” and similar words associated with enchantment, the supernatural, and “faery.” The exact Indo-European etymology of the words “wicce” and “witch” is unclear, but they may have come from and been related to words denoting “give rise to,” prophecy, divination, magic wands, movement and vitality, and spinning and weaving. Etymologies related to words for witches, goddesses, and female spirit beings show the many layers and shades of meaning describing the realm of Medieval female spiritual authority. Dashu lists over 200 words from 43 languages ranging from Norse to Croatian to Welsh, Irish, and Scottish to Latin to Anglo-Saxon to Catalan and many more. These words reflect spheres of influence that include knower, wisewoman, prophetess, diviner, enchantress, healer, old woman, doer/maker, shapeshifter, fateful women, spirits or ancestors, and various others. Dashu has made the “Names of the Witch” chapter open access,[1] where anyone may read the chapter in its entirety. Having spread her linguistic net over all of Europe, Dashu then turns to individual regions where traces of the deepest roots can still be found in historical documents, myths, archeology and other sources. First are the Norse völur (singular is völva), “the best-documented tradition of female spiritual leadership in medieval Europe” (99). These prestigious and powerful women traveled to homes with an entourage of singers prophesying in ecstatic ceremonies known as seidr, provided food in famines, practiced weather magic, and shape-shifted, among other practices. Other Norse women were priestesses who oversaw sacrifices. Yet, even in these explorations of specific areas, we find themes that wind their way throughout Europe. The völur and Norse goddesses like the Norns illustrate the cross-cultural importance of spinning and weaving to women’s spiritual culture. “Weaving was associated with wisdom, prophecy, poetry, and blessing in Indo-European cultures” (36) from Ireland to India and elsewhere. It was especially connected with both foreseeing and shaping fate and destiny. Distaffs, staffs used in spinning, became the staffs of power that accompanied these goddesses and have been found in the graves of numerous völur and other women with spiritual prestige and power. Closely associated with fate and destiny were the divination practices found throughout the continent accomplished through interpretation of movement, direction, synchronicity, crystal balls, amulets, and the like. Runes were an alphabet that both spelled out and shaped fate as well as being associated with ancestors and ceremonies for the dead. They were also largely in the realm of female spiritual power across northern Europe. The underworld domain of the dead was also the home of faeries, elves and witches, all of which were sometimes interchangeable. Dashu then moves to primordial goddesses, ancestral deities associated with the Earth and nature as well as the spirit realms. We begin in the northwest rim of Europe — Ireland and Scotland, especially — where the late arrival of romanization and christianization ensured that the traditions …
(E-Interview) Harriet Ann Ellenberger by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

My connection with Harriet Ann Ellenberger goes back to the year when my essay, “Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, East Asia” was published in Trivia: Voices of Feminism (Issue 6, November 2007). Harriet was the editor of Trivia together with Lise Weil. In fact, my essay in point was the talk that I delivered at the herstorical gathering of “A Feminist Hullabaloo: The Historic Reunion of the Wild Sisters,” which took place in June 2007 (Santa Fe, NM). I was one of the featured speakers. Through the editorial process, Harriet befriended me. Our friendship continued throughout the years to this day. Ultimately, I came to be connected with Harriet Ann Ellenberger through Mary Daly and Lise Weil. It is important to mention the event, A Feminist Hullabaloo. I was a postdoctoral scholar when Mary Daly asked me if I was interested in speaking to this feminist gathering. I mustered my courage and said yes. After this talk, Lise Weil, the editor of Trivia: Voices of Feminism, contacted me and asked if I was interested in submitting my speech delivered at the Feminist Hullabaloo to Trivia. I said yes without hesitation. In fact, Lise invited me again to become the guest-editor of the issue, “Thinking about Goddesses” (Issue 9, Spring Equinox 2009). That is how I got involved with Trivia for its two issues. It is indeed synchronous that I came to write this introduction to my interview with Harriet right after we completed the first inaugural S/HE Divine Studies Conference (June 7-9), which summoned the realization of the Mago Community (Mago Work volunteers, contributors, readers, and supporters). Since the event of A Feminist Hullabaloo, it has been exactly 17 years. Through this interview with Harriet, my own memory spins again and anew. I am honored to invite Harriet to tell her story to us and the world. Photo taken by Debbie Alicen in 1976 — it’s called “Drastik Dykes and Friends.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang You are a feminist poet. What are your poems about? How does your feminism get reflected in your poetry? Harriet Ann Ellenberger I’m a feminist because patriarchy happened (oh how I wish it had not), and I write poems because I discover new things about myself and the world in the process of writing. The “same old same old” droning repetition of patriarchal thought is dispelled when I’m working on a poem. And to experience this is a form of ecstasy. I suffer a great deal from writer’s block, but when the writing is flowing, the bad times of silence drop away and I’m free and flying. I write mostly about love and nature, and I honestly don’t know how my feminism is reflected in my poetry except that both are methods of liberation, freeing me from muteness. Hwang How did you get to be involved with Sinister Wisdom? What is Sinister Wisdom? Ellenberger In 1976, my lover Catherine Nicholson and I dreamt up a new journal “for the lesbian imagination in all women” — it was to be a time/space on the boundary of patriarchal reality where women could share our visions and our voices. We named our new space “Sinister Wisdom” because the root meaning of the word sinister is “from the left side.” During the burning times in Europe, sinister, like many words associated with women and intuition, changed its meaning and became linked with evil. Nearly fifty years after we began the journal, Sinister Wisdom is alive and well, having gone through many ups and downs, many editors, many near-death experiences. Today it is edited and published by Julie Enszer, with a network of associates. The wise leadership of Julie and the phenomenal appetite for work of everyone concerned has created an abundance of writing and artwork in what is now a “lesbian multicultural journal of literature and the arts” (see www.sinisterwisdom.org; includes free download of back issues). Hwang What would you say about lesbianism in relation to feminism? Ellenberger The relationship between lesbianism and feminism was a mystery to Catherine and me in 1976, and it’s still a mystery to me. I wish I could phone Catherine and ask her what she thinks about it now, but she passed away several years ago. So I’ll look to my own erratic personal journey for clues. I left a heterosexual marriage in 1974, and moved into the Charlotte North Carolina Women’s Center, where I shortly and very publicly came out as a lesbian. I was swept up in a momentum of logic and emotion that was carryng many of us at that time into new lives. A year later I was lovers with Catherine, and we were digging at the roots of our experience as boundary dwellers and spinning visions of what life could be. We decided to extend the love affair with Sinister Wisdom, to have with other women the conversations that were so central to us. During the five years we edited the journal, we published women who were not lesbians, but the majority of contributors were both lesbian and feminist. In 1981, Catherine and I turned over the journal to Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, and went on to do feminist theatre at Goddard College. Some years later, we separated, and I moved to Montreal to be part of L’Essentielle, a feminist bilingual bookstore. L’Essentielle eventually had to close for lack of finances, but I stayed in Canada, where I became lovers with a man and lived with him for 27 years, from 1997 to his death this past winter. Through all these changes, I have been grateful that I was following my heart rather than a rigid ideology. For me, that was one of the best gifts of feminism — that it could be open-hearted and tolerant. I was most influenced by the lesbian feminist variety of feminism, however, and I still believe that it is essential for women to become free enough to at least imagine being lesbian and to see the patriarchy as heterosexist. Beyond that, …
Meet Mago Contributor Anna Tzanova

Anna Tzanova, M.A. E-mail: annatzanova@yahoo.ca Residence: Sofia, Bulgaria For over 30 years, Anna has been a dedicated student of world spiritual traditions, as well as ancient and contemporary healing modalities. She has worked with individuals and groups teaching yoga, meditation and Art in Healing classes; leading support groups, as well as facilitating variety of wellness workshops in hospitals, studios, private and corporate settings. Anna practices and embodies what she continues to learn. She is an artist, researcher, nutritional consultant, activity therapist, intuitive energy healer and a mother. After 33 years living in North America, she has returned to her roots, residing now in Bulgaria. In 2016, Anna co-facilitated the online Korean Historical Dramas, with Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. Presently she is hosting together with Dr. Hwang another Mago Academy program: Experiencing Korean Culture through Film, that began in July of 2023. Anna’s art is on the cover of Mago Books anthology She Rises: How…Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality Vol.2; inside S/HE An International Journal of Goddess Studies Vol. 2, No 1; back cover of 2018 Mago Almanac. Her essays can be found in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess Vol. 1; She Rises Vol. 2; Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess (forthcoming); and Return to Mago E-Magazine.
‘En-trancing Gaia’s Womb through Seasonal Ceremony: Re-creating Her Sacred Site’ by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

In the earliest of Her stories, Gaia – also known as “Ge”, meaning Earth – was the possessor of the oracle in Delphi, the place at the foot of Mount Parnassus in Greece, that was said to be the font of sacred knowledge, the navel of the world – the Omphalos of Greek tradition. It was Gaia’s Wisdom that was being listened for, and continued to be, even though the names of its ruling deities changed. Earth – Ge, Gaia – was understood as the “primeval prophetess.”[1] To listen to Her one could sleep “in a holy shrine” with an ear upon the ground [2] (and it is interesting how that expression “keep your ear to the ground” survives, to speak of how one might really know). Her priestesses often sat on a tripod over vapours arising from a crevice: a tripod perhaps because of the holy Three being significant, and also perhaps practical, so the priestess could sit with her legs astride opening her bodymind. It is now thought that the site of this oracle was originally located high up on the shoulder of Mount Parnassus in “a mystery centre” called the Corycian Cave, and that it was presided over by Three Sisters – a triad of Goddesses called the Thriae.[3] The Thriae are said to have invented the art of prophecy – their name means “little stones”, which story tells, they threw into an urn of water and watched how they danced. These Three Sisters taught the later gods the art of “divination”, which I translate to “knowing the mind of the divine”, though they themselves often came to be referred to merely as “nymphs” which in patriarchal times enabled a lowering of their status. There has also been much note in various texts, of another Three who were “bee-maidens”, with a very similar name – the Thriai – also said to be the teachers of divination at Delphi. Some researchers address them as the same entity – as “the Triple Muse of Divination at Delphi”[4]. By whatever name, it was They who spoke Gaia’s portents/potentialities to those who wished to listen. We may glean from these fragments of story found scattered in many texts – these shattered pieces of ancient vessel that once held a matrifocal culture – that it was from within the Corycian Cave that Gaia spoke to Her people, Her very offspring … in the earliest of stories of this tradition. Later, some time in the eighth century B.C.E., the Cave was abandoned for the present location and later re-dedicated to Apollo. This Cave, and the earliest times at Delphi, may be thought of as Gaia’s Womb, which in our time is no longer simply located on this mountain in Greece: many now globally name our whole Planet as Gaia. And Her Womb, the sacred Navel of the World, may be understood to be located in any number of places – wherever one chooses to sit (or dance or play or lie down) and open to receive Her teachings. Such a site then becomes the primary Temple – the “holy shrine”: that is, the Place that houses the sense/sensation of the real Space and Time in which we most truly live, the Centre/Mother who holds us at all times … of whom we may become conscious. Such consciousness – “sacred awareness” – may be named and experienced as “trance” … and indeed such awareness is “en-trancing”: we may en-trance Her sacred place/site. One’s mind will be changed. Shift will happen. Gaia’s Cave is within as much as anywhere – in the dark sentient space that each being mostly consists of: there is no need to go anywhere. The Sacred Space may be called forth to consciousness, from the Womb in which we are immersed. Sacred Space – an Omphalos – may be re-created, for Her to rise up from the depths within and speak. She has done so under the guise of many names and places in different sacred traditions of the globe … Earth Mother, known as Gaia in Western philosophical/religious texts, and now named as an entity in scientific texts, has been recognised as the Ground of lore/law by which to live and act. In Australia this Law has been called “Tjukurpa”[5], by Indigenous people. The ritual celebration of Her Creativity expressed in the flow of the Seasonal Moments may be an entrance to Gaia’s “cave”, a womblike Place where one can be held: a method of becoming intimate with Her[6]. The circle of the year that is paced with the consistent year-long practice of seasonal ritual, may be a refuge, a safe place that can be trusted – it becomes a Place, a sacred site. Earth’s journey around Sun is a sacred site, and joining one’s consciousness to that journey – which we all make every day, whether conscious or not – makes sacred one’s journey. One’s ear will be to the Ground. The sacred space that is created by such practice of Her whole annual wheel of seasonal transitions, is a Womb that holds one … one may come to feel held in Her Dynamic of Creativity, where She speaks. It may be considered a task for those who desire Her and know Her: to bring Her forth in this way. I do suggest a small tangible and portable wheel of stones that represents the Seasonal Moments of Earth’s journey … and hence one’s own journey of practice of these ritual celebrations. Such a modest construction re-assembles Her Womb for one’s bodymind, within which one may sit. And the “tripod” upon which one is sitting will be the Triple Muse – the triple-faced Dynamic of never-ending renewal that is celebrated in this complete cycle/circle. Such an assembly is a medicine wheel, for it locates one in the Present. The whole annual wheel of Seasonal Moments/transitions holds within it awareness of the dark depths upon which the present is built – the past: and all that is gestating within these depths …

(Special Post 3) 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.] Helen Hwang I study and advocate Goddess feminism or Magoism because it is a way of living for me. I find myself in Mago (the Great Goddess) who in turn leads me to the Way wherein I learn how to become the person who I can be. It has to be Mago, the Female Divine, because She is real! She is the Primordial Mother who is the Beginning and the End of everything to us on the planet Earth. She teaches me the real. I can’t negotiate Her to anything less. Helen Hye Sook Hwang, Ph.D. California http://magoism.net Bridget Robertson A Goddessian I was introduced to a form of meditative journeying by a resident in my grandmother’s retirement community. She approached to me. I know she was at least part Native American, and that alone made her the topic of much gossip in the building. Her Rose colored lipstick, deep brown eyes, wrinkles that only helped illuminate her face and a chiffon scarf that matched none of her clothes. I thought she needed help with her groceries. She didn’t. She had me stop the elevator. and directly asked about my looking tired. My response was about being, busy balancing all the areas of my life. In fact I was exhausted doling out time like pieces of pie.
(Special Post 1) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hwang: I am thinking of the Nine Goddess/Mago Symbolism or Nine Numerology. Insights connect the data that I have collected, otherwise seemingly unrelated across cultures and periods. We have reasons to celebrate the nine symbolism among us. As seen in this discussion below, Hercules is most aptly equated with Huangdi (Yellow Emperor, 2698–2598 BCE), one of the forebear emperors of ancient China, who is alleged to have defeated Chiu (successor of Goma), the representative of Danguk’s Nine Giants (nine sub-states). The Magoist history writes the other way around. Chiu won the war, the archetypal international/global war waged over the defense/overthrow of the Magoist throne. Old Magoists (Danguk founded by Goma) of Nine Queen-led States defended the rebellion of the patrilocal force, represented by the Huangdi. With this victory, Old Magoist Confederacy of nine sub-states was able to maintain gynocentric peace of the ancient world for about five centuries longer until a man, Yao, rose to give a way for the establishment of the first patriarchal rule, ancient China of the Xia Dynasty (c. 2070 BCE – c. 1600 BCE). Nonetheless, patriarchal ethnocentric Sinocentric historiography has proliferated to this day. Yu, the founder of the Xia dynasty, is depicted as the hero who slains the nine-headed snake. What I am saying is here that the Nine Goddess/Symbolism is pre-patriarchal in origin and possibly speaks of the same event across cultures! The slain of nine-headed snakes or dragons indicates the usurpation of gynocentric rule by a patriarchal hero across cultures. Let me show you some available information and images to open the discussion. Lernaean Hydra 1 oz Copper | The 12 Labors of Hercules “Hercules was sent to slay the Lernaean Hyrda for his second Labor. The multi-headed, snake-like monster was defeated by Hercules after he sliced its one mortal head. The last day to purchase the 1 oz Copper Lernaean Hyrda was the November 12, 2014. There is, however, time to order the 5 oz Copper Hercules Round, and 5 oz Silver Hercules Round. To read about Hercules and his 12 Labors, check out our blog for more information. If you enjoy the 12 Labors of Hercules coin series, take a look at more Silver and Copper coin collections offered by Provident Metals. After defeating the Nemean Lion, Hercules was sent to slay the Lernaean Hydra for his second labor. The Hydra, a snake-like beast with multiple heads, was raised by Hera to destroy Hercules — making this an inevitable match up. In the face-off between Hercules and Hydra, the son of Zeus used a sword to slice off each of the creature’s necks, according to one popular tale. When the heads grew back, Hercules enlisted his nephew to burn each of the necks to halt regrowth. The Hydra had one mortal head, however; so Hercules used his golden sword to slay the mutant and complete his second labor. The beast is displayed on the Second Labor coin, to be released in the 12 Labors of Hercules Series. The reverse features the multi-headed Hydra in a striking position, displaying the daunting task Hercules faced. LERNAEAN HYDRA and II are inscribed. The familiar obverse portraying Hercules with the Nemean Lion draped over his head as armor is shown on this round, as it will be on each round in the powerful series. “1 oz CMXCIX (999 in Roman numerals) FINE COPPER” is also displayed. The 1 oz. Copper Lernaean Hydra rounds will only be available for one month from Oct. 12 through Nov. 12. Make sure to keep your 12 Labors of Hercules Series collection current before time runs out! 12 Labors of Hercules Driven crazy by Hera, Hercules slew his family — only regretful after recovering his sanity. King Thespius purified the son of Zeus, but to atone for his crimes, he was sent to serve King Eurystheus. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to execute 10 Labors, which were a series of tasks carried out as penance for his actions. Hercules successfully completed all 10, but because his nephew helped with one and he planned to accept payment for another, Eurystheus forced Hercules to finish two more Labors alone. Hercules’ Labors adhere to the traditional order of the Bibliotheca: Nemean Lion – Sept. 12, 2014 Lernaean Hydra – Oct. 12, 2014 Ceryneian Hind – Nov. 12, 2014 Erymanthian Boar – Dec. 12, 2014 Augean Stables – Jan. 12, 2015 Stymphalian Birds – Feb. 12, 2015 Cretan Bull – March 12, 2015 Mares of Diomedes – April 12, 2015 Girdle of Hippolyta – May 12, 2015 Cattle of Geryon – June 12, 2015 Apples of Hesperides – July 12, 2015 Cerberus – Aug. 12, 2015 Commemorate the historic battle between Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra with this 1 oz copper round from Provident Metals.” https://www.providentmetals.com/1-oz-copper-lernaean-hydra-the-12-labors-of-hercules.html Helen Hwang: I looked for the answer to this question: How many heads did the Hydra originally have? It is nine, which accords with its icons to be shared shortly. Helen Hwang: Check out Nine-fold or Nine-Headed Phoenix. Not all iconographies of pre-modern China vilify the nine symbolism, which indicates the influence/presence/revival of Magoism. This image is much reminiscent of the blue crane with nine feathers, a Magoist symbol that we have seen in Mago Stronghold, Mt. Jiri during Mago Pilgrimage (to be discussed in another space). “This Qing-dynasty (1644-1911) print shows the nine-headed phoenix, a being from Chinese mythology with a bird’s body and nine heads with human faces. It is one of several hybrid creatures mentioned in the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing), where it is […]
(Special Post 7) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[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. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. 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.] Kaalii Cargill: Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess. When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.

(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. …
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
A Southern Hemisphere Perspective on Place by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

A SEED FOR SPRING EQUINOX . . . till I feel the earth around the place my head has lain under winter’s touch, and it crumbles. Slanted weight of clouds. Reaching with my head and shoulders past the open crust dried by spring wind. Sun. Tucking through the ground that has planted cold inside me, made its waiting be my food. Now I watch the watching dark my light’s long-grown dark makes known. Art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(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: …

(Mago Stronghold Essay 1) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part I Multivalent Meaning of Mago Stronghold Mago Stronghold (麻姑城, Mago-seong) refers to the center of the world (axis mundi) in the Magoist Cosmogony. It is a metaphor for the Source/Origin/Womb of Life for terrestrial beings. Mago Stronghold represents the forgotten paradise of the Great Goddess in patriarchy. In patriarchal times, it has become a code to unlock the hidden S/HE Reality. As one’s life in the body and mind is the very proof for the first mother, “Mago,” from whom one comes, the existence of Mago Stronghold in toponym and meaning is the very token to prove vital for the primordial home of terrestrial beings, also called the Earth. The Mago Stronghold talk, upon being fully deciphered, merits the bird’s eye view of human history from the cosmogonic beginning of the Great Goddess to this day. Its message is, among others, we are NOT locked out from the blissful time of S/HE beginning. We are NOT disconnected from our ancestors and deities. And we are NOT substantively different from our non-human sojourns. All in WE are found in Mago Stronghold. I present my investigation of Mago Stronghold, rather than a new theory, as an alternative mode of perceiving reality. The Mago Stronghold talk answers the ultimate question of “who I am” as a person and why we are here in our life journey. It is meant to engender metamorphosis, the process of awakening and navigating in S/HE Reality, for both an individual and the collective. We realize that no one is bound to patriarchal reality except those who create it. WE are HERE/NOW. However, the full-fledged implication of Mago Stronghold can’t be unveiled without naming the systemic working of mental blocks and lifting the limit. Official (read patriarchal) historiography is not the place where we nest our conversation. Linear thinking can’t help us arrive at the Scene. Thinking within ethnocentric and nationalist grids is among the mental blocks. We are invited to explore a whole new/old/original way of seeing and knowing matters. You and I across cultures, nationalities, and geographies have a lot in common to talk and think about. Precisely, the Mago Stronghold talk bridges the gap among moderns. Its implication is NOT confined to Korea or East Asia. One may wonder how it is so? The concept of Mago Stronghold, remembered by East Asian Magoists, concerns the common origin of all beings on Earth. Discourse on the Great Goddess/Primordial Mother/Creatrix can’t be parochial by nature. It maps out the gynocentric consciousness of WE, which redefines national/cultural identities as consanguineous. The Mago Stronghold talk works at multi-dimensions crisscrossing and connecting the personal and the collective, the local and the universal, and the physical and the symbolic. Mago Stronghold found across Korea and China is no ordinary cultural or historical landmark. It is also equated with Mago Mountain or Triad Mountain. The extant toponym of Mago Stronghold is a door to the Other Realm of the Great Goddess. Precisely, it signifies the Primordial/Perennial Home for not only the Mago Clan (Mago and HER divine and human descendants) but also all terrestrial beings, according to the Magoist Cosmogony. “Mago Stronghold” is an eponym for such socio-natural-architectural variations as castles, citadels, mountain villages, fortresses, stone walls, earthen walls, and ultimately the Earth. It is etiological, explaining the gynocentric origin of the axis mundi and the sacred mountain reverence known in many ancient worlds. Macrocosmically, Mago Stronghold refers to the Earth, the Splendid Land of the Primordial Mother. Residing in the Big Dipper (Seven Stars),[1] Mago governs the solar system and chooses the Earth as HER Garden.[2] S/HE delegates HER divine and human offspring to cultivate sonic resonance in harmony with cosmic music. In that sense, Earth IS HER Civilization. Its literal meaning, the Stronghold of the Great Goddess, conveys that all Earth’s civilizations are born of the Great Goddess. The Mago Civilization of Earth is aligned with the Law of Nature established by the marvelous working of the Great Goddess. Nature reflects HER Majestic Work. When the Creatrix (Cosmogonic Matrix) is made unthinkable, if not erased, in the course of patriarchal mytho-history, Mago Stronghold stands as an enigmatic cultural icon. It comes to us as a code to decipher. Much is to be unveiled for HER Paradise to be reinstated in the collective mind of humanity. Euphemisms that are severed from the Magoist implication in the course of history are linked back to the original Magoist words. The Mago Stronghold Code enchants us to the holistic view of the Great Goddess, the WE consciousness in S/HE, that is tabooed in patriarchy. Reminding people of the common origin from the Primordial Mother, Mago Stronghold opens a new horizon of the gynocentric reality, WE/HERE/NOW. We have been part of the Grand Plan of the Great Goddess. When it comes to the female, official historiography, which is after all a product of the patriarchal dominant group, offers little to, if not obstructs, the researcher. The history it calls is nothing other than a self-aggrandizing distorted view of the past events, or rather an imposed false view of the past by patriarchal colonizers. Patriarchal history should be called pseudo-history. It concerns not truth but domination and self-expansion. The history of self-sharers/altruists/Magoists never dies for it is about re-membering of all in WE. What happened is never left unanimated, according to the Law of Nature. It can’t be erased, for truth is the language of Life. As such, the collective memory that ancient (read pre-patriarchal) Magoists were the bearers of the Magoist royal lineage has survived official East Asian (read Sinocentric) historiography. It is imbued in such socio-cultural data as lore, literature, art, and place-names, as well as the so-called apocryphal texts. My task here is to decode the meaning of Mago Stronghold, unearthing non-official data and reading them between the lines of written records. (To be continued) See Meet Mago Contributor Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. [1] The Big Dipper (Seven Stars) is favored by Koreans. Triad Deity (Samsin), another name for Mago, is …
(Essay) The Mago Hedge School: Why Remember Mary Daly? by Helen Hye Sook Hwang

Prologue By writing this, I do not intend to defend Mary Daly’s position in any dispute. A controversial figure, Mary Daly never let go of her fight with those whom she thought on the other side of her feminist war. Like anyone else in history, Mary Daly belonged to her time and culture, and I leave her unresolved issues up to her. What I write here is my fond memory of her, whose feminist thought left an indelible mark on my being as well as humanity as a whole. Daly’s contribution remains to be reassessed from the fresh eye of new generations. In the meantime, I begin to speak for my part. Without Mary Daly’s thought, I would not have been in this place where I stand right now. It has empowered me to actualize my dreams to the fullest as a wo/man who was born and raised in Korea but had come from the One Home in origin. I first hear of the hedge school “Have you heard of the hedge school, Hye Sook?” asked Mary. “No, I haven’t heard of it,” I answered. This conversation took place during the conference called the Feminist Hullaballoo held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2007. We met there and spent three days as chums. Mary was with another friend, Yvonne Johnson, so the three of us hung out together. It was a very special time for me – I felt as if I were wrapped up in the eye of the storm. (In fact, my life feels so.) At the conference, someone asked me how I came to be invited as a featured speaker. I was among such renowned feminist speakers as Sonia Johnson, Paula Gunn Allen, and Mary Daly herself. They felt like giants to me. I told her that Mary Daly invited me. Mary had asked me if I would like to go and speak at that conference. I did not have an inflated ego. I would not have been hurt if I were not chosen. But I said “Yes” without hesitation. At the time, it felt like another one of the many “outlandish” adventures that I had undertaken throughout my life. In retrospect, however, this was a very special “Yes” to the beginning of my life’s new phase. It was my debut as a radical feminist, so to speak – the first time I spoke to such a large number of radical feminists. Mary sat in the front row and listened to my talk. She nodded her head saying “It was great,” when I finished and came down to sit next to her. Mary was just getting to know my research on Mago in that year; that was what she was referring to. Nonetheless, what mattered to me was not how well I presented my research, but that I managed to do it! The jitters were over! I was returning Home and had just been baptized in public as a Wo/man, the whole being. [This talk was later published in Trivia: Voices of Feminism.] My two dreams When I accepted Mary’s invitation, I was thinking of my two dreams. I am a dream-listener. Or to be more accurate, my dreams have led me through. These dreams with regard to Mary Daly are in fact old; I dreamt them before my arrival in Claremont, California, in 1997. In the first dream, I was in the crowd when Mary spoke to a large audience. The venue was an open plaza and the stage was far away from where I was standing. Then, out of the blue, Mary called my name and asked me to come up to the podium. It sounded like a call to my soul. So I did. Then, she passed the microphone to me. I blacked out, not knowing what to say, and woke up. This dream told me what I lacked, a message to deliver to the world, which I did not have for some years. The second dream was a brief but sweet one. Mary and I were standing in an old-style classroom as co-teachers. The dynamic between us was intimate and enjoyable. Honored and proud, I felt in the presence of my old friends. The classroom was a dream-like space within a dream, as if we were in a time machine! More than two decades have passed since I had those dreams, and now I see that they were indeed self-fulfilling dreams. The first dream was fulfilled through the event of my speech to the Feminist Hullaballoo conference. By then, it was clear that I was going to speak about the topic of Mago, which I had encountered for my Ph.D. dissertation. It was the topic that I had searched for without knowing and I found it. Now I see that it found me! It is the tradition of my ancestors that has beckoned me to come Home. In Mago, I found an anciently originated gynocnetric reality, which encompasses everyone regardless and named it Magoism. Mary and I meet in person The first time I met her in person was in early April of 1999, in Claremont, California. I had been in contact with Mary Daly for about four years before then. We had spoken over the telephone, faxed, and snail-mailed across the Pacific Ocean while I was living in Korea from 1994 to 1997. Mary was invited to speak by the committee of Claremont Colleges programs including the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Claremont Graduate University, the program I was studying in. In fact, that was the program that Mary had suggested I apply for, and she had written a recommendation letter on my behalf. My first meeting with her is imprinted on my soul, and it feels as fresh as ever. It was an unusually cold spring day in Claremont. It even sprinkled some rain. She was staying at the Claremont Inn, only a couple of blocks away from my dormitory apartment. She had phoned me the day before her arrival. She called me …
(Video) Gurang (Nine Goddesses), Gaeyang Halmi (Grandma Gaeyang), and Goddess Gom: Exploring Old Magoism in Korea by Helen Hwang

Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. Read (Photo Essay 5) Gaeyang Halmi, Sea Goddess of Korea.