December 20, 2012October 2, 2019 Mago Work

(Poem) Winter Solstice Prayer by Mary Saracino

Deep night, Dark night

Night of the longest sigh

Soulful night, Sacred night

Night of the longest dreams

Cold night, Holy night

Night of unfurling desires

Womb of the world, Birther of hope

Bringer of peace and good will

Pray, pray for all good things

That suffering for all will end

That life will thrive and generosity reign

In the hearts of all humankind

That joy will rise and children will fly

On wings of prosperity

Oh hear our plea, this silent night

When the moon is round in the sky

When hopes are high and eyes are wide

with delight and audacity

May Love prevail tonight, and always

Leading us back to our Source

May we dance with the dark, without hesitation or fear

And savor her promise of plenty

Deep night

Dark night

Night of the longest sigh

May our weary hearts stay vigilant and receptive

To all that is loving and dear

Source: http://www.makingmoves.net/2011/08/meditation-winter-solstice/

Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet and memoir-writer who lives in Lafayette, CO. Her most recent novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Her short story, “Vicky’s Secret” earned the 2007 Glass Woman Prize.

0 thoughts on “(Poem) Winter Solstice Prayer by Mary Saracino”

Donna Snyder says:

January 14, 2013 at 11:18 AM

Mary,

The participants did find your poem inspiring and beautiful. Thank you.

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Mary Saracino says:

December 21, 2012 at 5:30 PM

Thank you, Donna! I hope the participants in your solstice writing workshop find some inspiration in my poem. Happy Solstice! Mary

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donna snyder says:

December 20, 2012 at 10:16 PM

I misspelled my last name.

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donna snyderr says:

December 20, 2012 at 10:15 PM

a lovely solstice poem. I plan to use it in a solstice writing workshop on Saturday called Writing for the Dark Time. thank you.

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(Poem) Women of my Surroundings by Alshaad Kara

Image from Unplash No shame, no shyness,They fed me with strength.Despite the world being harsh,They did their best to bear everythingIn order for me to survive.My anger towards this worldWas their puissance to voice out.Life was never easy for them.It was a game of circumstances.But the blood I have in my body,Is their contribution making meA feminist of perspectives. https://www.magoism.net/2023/12/meet-mago-contributor-alshaad-kara/
(Art) Primal Feminine Essence by Jassy Watson

Women have a natural born intuition, a sensing, a deep knowing that we have largely been disconnected from and we are seeking ways to get back in touch with our primal feminine core. Our primal nature is embedded in the code of our DNA, it is our life force, the root of our being and by re-connecting and awakening our primal womb energy, we can begin to discover the common link that binds all women, past, present future. We can also gain insight as to our true nature and to our truth and purpose upon this earth, which can lead us to remember the source of ourselves, and all that surrounds us. For me, painting is a direct tool that can be used to access this part of ourself – our innermost soul; the core of our being. The painting shown here was done as part of my ‘Primal Feminine Essence’ workshops that incorporate trance dance and painting. The Primal Process is about stripping back to basics, letting go of fear, embracing trust and just simply mark making just like the ancients did so long ago with tools and oxides made from the earth. From the mark making a story is developed using symbols and patterns and our Primal Self then emerges. The story here is my own creation story and it reads from left to right. The lake feeds the womb below it, which then feeds the people dancing whose tracks lead back to the lake where they gather to fish. The lake is fed by the waterfall behind that stretches far left over the mountains to the ocean. In the centre of her dress are two lovers in the dance of life and the spiral wheel to the right represents the drumbeat/heartbeat. There are a number of things that appeared here including a wolf pup face. Can you see him? Read Meet Mago Contributor Jassy Watson.
(Pandemic Poem 7) The Simpler Ways by Jyoti Wind

Trees, CO. Photo by Jyoti Wind I bake bread. I work with my clients, grateful to have them. I pray for the world and the suffering. I chop wood and carry water. I try to meet the day as it dawns for me. I have my list and I have my breath, and I try to let neither take over the other. I’m remembering the simpler ways I lived raising young kids years ago. One foot, one breath, one act, one prayer. Slowing to Nature’s speed and to what works for me. This is the ideal. I’m learning. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Art) Maryam on the Mesa by Susan Abbott

How the work is born: It started out as a simple landscape sunrise painting. We have spectacular sunrises out on Copper Mountain Mesa where I was living in Joshua Tree and I wanted to get those colors. As I was painting a female figure appeared in the shapes of the way, the water and colors were bleeding into each other. These unexpected things, serendipitous occasions really, often happen in my process. And then behold, the sunrise just burst into flames right before my/her eyes. It made me think of Moses and G-d speaking to him in the burning bush. And that made my think of Maryam having her own conversation, more of a dialogue with the divine. (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Abbott.
(Poem) Sky Woman comes to Earth by Sara Wright

Refuge tree trunk, photo by Sara Wright Every twig is singing a song of thanksgiving to Sky Woman who gifts steady rain nourishing earth’s parched body. Cracked ground softens soaks in minerals and scent sensing wonder. No deluges this time just sheets of falling water overflowing wells brook pools rain buckets Bodies bursting Joy. Gratitude may help the Earth rebirth herself even as she calms and sooths my beating heart scented and renewed. Mourning Doves sweeten New Dawn. In Indigenous story (Robin Wall Kimmerer) Sky Woman fell into a great void when the branch she held – the Tree of Life – cracked. But from that fall the Earth was born… After the Birthing, Sky Woman returned to the sky but her Presence is palpable when nourishing rain blesses the earth, renewing her, allowing us all to begin again. This mythological story belongs to Northern Indigenous peoples and it more plausible to me than the current western mythological story that posits that at ‘first there was nothing and then there was everything’ (Richard Powers). The difference between the two is that in Sky Woman’s story Earth renews herself again and again while in the Big Bang theory the earth and universe will eventually disintegrate through entropy. Sky Woman’s myth describes the circular nature of life, Earth’s Renewal is its central truth. It does not speak to whether or not humans will survive our continued destruction of this beautiful blue green planet. The western story is linear, and most damaging, is considered by most to be scientific truth. I think this latter tale is more about human projection than the reality of life on earth. “Humans are born in the middle of things, live in the middle of things and die in the middle of things. This is not a good story”. (Powers). We are born, we live, we die – this linear story is real and true for us but is probably not true for the earth or the universe as a whole. We live on a planet that is demonstrating to us every single day that cycles define nature’s ongoing life processes. Think of the seasons like the one we are approaching – fall, with its astonishing colors. Leaves falling to earth, becoming food for new life in a few months time. As a naturalist who spends so much time in the forest, I am continually awed by ‘dead’ tree stumps that demonstrate the ongoing nature of life as each births a multitude of tree seedlings and groundcovers. Death births life, and death is simply part of the whole ongoing story. I think of Carol Christ whose writings demonstrate repeatedly the cyclic nature of life, honoring both patterns and proteins (DNA) in the process of living and dying. The words “as above so below” come to mind. The earth and the universe may be dancing the same dance of creation, re-creation. This summer has been too dry. The wild wind driven thunderstorms have not brought us relief from drought, although the deluges do moisten the earth for a brief time before wind disperses the raindrops. At least we have had some kind of regular rain for which I am grateful. The leaves of deciduous trees are dropping prematurely and some maples have already caught fire. Now, in late August we are getting some good soaking rains as the season begins to change. My gratitude knows no bounds. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/
(Poem) Hystory by Susan Hawthorne

The roses are in bloom. They are red and cool and have a smell that makes me remember my mother, cutting stems of red roses. Cutting red roses climbing the legs of the tankstand. Mother. Roses. For how many millennia has this association occurred? —in my rose-wet cave, writes Adrienne Rich. Milliennia ago women drew signs on walls in caves. Signs resembling the leaves of roses doubling as vulvas. Or stones, egg-shaped with a flowerbud vulva engraved on one side. What does woman want? asks the Freud who wrote Totem and Taboo and didn’t think to include mothers in his scheme of things. He seems to have a problem with the mother. Is it womb envy? Is it that he wants to be a hysteric? Wants access to that mysterious state that is specific to women? What he could do with a floating womb! We stand in a place where flowers cling to walls. They have purple petals and we kiss beneath this wall, remembering the women, the two women whose names began each with a V, who at some time kissed beneath this same wall. Sissinghurst. Kissing. With a V like in vulva, like the sign of the bird goddess from the Upper Paleolithic. It was women who determined the shape of human development and of religious beliefs for some 500,000 years, says Marija Gimbutas in a lecture somewhere near Hollywood. A spring day, a day that thousands of years ago might have seen the performance of a ritual to bring the world into being once again. The kind of ritual that might have involved Baubo lifting her skirts in joy to show her vulva to the earth, to spill her blood on fields. The kind that prevailed until they began killing the king and ploughing him into the fields. Men’s magic didn’t work. They never returned, in spite of the stories. The woman does not exist, says Lacan, who fancies himself a hysteric. In fact, he goes on to say, nothing can be said of the woman. Nothing. Nothing? Why not? asks the young woman in the front row of the lecture theatre somewhere in a divided city. Because, he replies, stretching out his words to cover the entire history of man, —for the girl the only organ, or to be more precise, the only kind of sexual organ which exists is the phallus. Really? replies the young woman, perplexed. in my rose-wet cave, writes Adrienne Rich. The young woman has been reading poetry before attending this lecture. She is puzzled by the discontinuities of experience. Lacan goes on, not missing a beat. His history is his history after all. He elaborates on his history and gives an account of how the status of the phallus in human sexuality enjoins on woman a definition in which she is simultaneously symptom and myth. Like Foucault’s distrust of lived experience, Lacan does not, cannot, hear the young woman speak. The woman does not exist. There is no feminine symbolic. She says, But what of those 500,000 years of vulvas on caves and walls and stones and pot shards? What of the ancient language of the body of women? What of the body of knowledge, the body knowledge? She shouts, but no one hears her. —in my rose-wet cave, writes Adrienne Rich. A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, shouts Gertrude, climbing the hill. A stone shouts as her belly lifts to the sky. A stone is carved with the image of a flowerbud on one side. Gertrude runs her finger across the stone, lightly. Primitive fantasies, mutters Freud. Vulvas on the walls of caves, caves as vulvas, wet roses— all primitive fantasies. Only the phallus exists, adds Lacan, staring out the window to where high-rise buildings dominate the horizon. Not far away a high wall divides an ancient city. At the base of the wall, breaking through the mortar, a flower grows. Its anthers exposed to the earth just as Baubo did on a spring day long ago. Ubirr Rock in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. Photo by Susan Hawthorne (2005). ‘Hystory’ draws on the following sources: Gimbutas, Marija. 1990, The Language of the Goddess. —. 1990, Lecture, UCLA, May 5. Mitchell, Juliet and Jacqueline Rose (Eds.). 1982, Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the École Freudienne. Macmillan, London. Texts referred to are: ‘Introduction – II’, Jacqueline Rose; ‘Feminine Sexuality in Psychoanalytic Doctrine’, Jacques Lacan; ‘A Love Letter’, Jacques Lacan. Rich, Adrienne. 1978, ‘Twenty-One Love Poems’ in The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977. Stein, Gertrude. 1988, The World is Round. —. 1971 ‘Tender Buttons’ in Look at Me Now and Here I Am: Writings and Lectures, 1909 –45. —. 1989, Lifting Belly, Rebecca Mark (Ed.). Notes ‘Hystory’ is a poem about women’s culture and lesbian culture. In it, I explore the ways in which this rich cultural thread has been tampered with by men making unsubstantiated theories about women. The images of vulvas on walls of caves dating back tens of thousands of years, to the explorations by Marija Gimbutas and the creativity of poets like Gertrude Stein and Adrienne Rich. The vulvas continue and many still adorn Christian churches. Similar images are found all around the world. I have seen them in Ireland, Italy, Turkey, Greece as well as in Australia. This poem was first published in my book, The Butterfly Effect (2005, Spinifex Press). https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781876756567 https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
(Prose) Language makes us by Susan Hawthorne

Artwork by Suzanne Bellamy, Road Map, © 2004 Language makes us. But we too remake language. And ourselves. If we listen, imagine, invent. Listen to me. Listen to my language. Once upon a time it was the language of the birds. Did you listen then? Are you listening now? I’m a person out of place. Perhaps a person without a place. But that cannot be. Surely, everyone has a place? But is the place in this time? Let me begin again. Once upon a time … it was a very long time ago. More generations than you can count on your hands and your toes. It was in the time when the first stirrings of language were in our throats. A time of gurgling and burbling, of whistling and of singing. It was the singing that began language. We imitated the birds. And slowly, so very slowly, words began to take shape. Words formed from the electrical charges in our brains. Concepts arising with each new song. And so, in a way, we sang ourselves, our communities into being. This is an extract from my novel, Dark Matters. Note When I was finishing my novel Dark Matters, I asked Suzanne Bellamy if I could use this work of art on the cover. It reminds me of labyrinths. She responded and said she thought it was like brain pathways and then discovering that it was based on mitochondria made me even more excited to use it. Suzanne and I have worked together on many occasions, including working on the book Unsettling the Land with art by Suzanne and poetry by me. You can find some of her work here http://suzannebellamy.com/ Artwork by Suzanne Bellamy, Road Map, © 2004. All Rights Reserved. Etched embossed monoprint on Fabriano paper. The image interprets a photograph of Mitochondria, the Motherline DNA, from an old Scientific American photograph. This art was used on the cover of Dark Matters: A Novel by Susan Hawthorne, 2017. https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
Women, Birds, and Feminism by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright When I was about forty years old I discovered a clay deposit on a beach that I visited frequently. Intrigued, I sat down and began working with the river’s gift. I remember my astonishment when a beaked bird – woman emerged out of the clump of damp earth. I could feel a surge of fire pulsing through my body so I took the figure home and placed it on my bedside table, hoping to discern its message. Shortly thereafter I discovered the work of Marija Gimbutas in the book The Language of the Goddess. There were a number of beaked goddesses pictured in this volume, some uncannily similar to mine. Had I tapped into the world of the ancient bird goddesses? I believed so. Although I had no idea what this might mean these images of Marija’s captured my imagination and kept me questioning. It wasn’t long before I also dreamed other bird goddess images and rendered each of them in clay… Some of my earliest memories were tied up with birds because my grandmother loved them, and watching birds was something we did together. To this day I can recognize a bird I haven’t seen since I was a child; all birds are treasured by me. During my mothering years when I was so distracted, I still fed whole flocks of Mourning doves outside my door every morning. Later, after my children were grown and I moved to the mountains, I acquired Lily b, my free flying African Ring Necked dove. Each dawn when writing in my journal, Lily b would reinforce any important insight I had with a certain call. Within six months I was forced to acknowledge that Lily b read my mind. When I learned that scientist Rupert Sheldrake was doing research on animal telepathy I began to correspond with him, and my experiences with Lily b became part of his data bank. This communication between Rupert and I reinforced my belief that Lily b and I had an unusual relationship. My powerful patriarchal conditioning was still insisting that birds don’t read human minds. I loved birds, animals, and plants – fiercely – after all, I was a naturalist. Now that my children were grown I was advocating for all non – human lives through teaching and writing. Yet that internal voice continued to try to dismiss my experiences with Lily, as well as other unusual encounters I had with animals. For the longest time I believed that my relationship with Lily b was an anomaly. In retrospect it is clear that Lily b opened a psychic door that allowed me to cross a threshold into the world of birds, animals and plants on a deeper and more intimate level than I had ever experienced before. When I moved into my log cabin a few years later a glorious crimson Cardinal began coming to my feeder. Oh, I was transfixed, experiencing the same kind of fire that I had when I sculpted my first bird goddess. Soon I had a family of Cardinals who fed their two fluttering nestlings each summer. In the winter I would stand at the door and watch for the pair to come in to feed when it was almost dark, and if they didn’t appear during inclement weather I experienced inexplicable grief and longing. My love for these particular birds rivaled my love for Lily B. One summer tragedy struck. One of the male nestlings was mauled by a cat. Although I attempted to save the bird’s life he died three days later. When the parents disappeared, I was beyond bereft. For two years I heard Cardinal songs up the road but my beloved birds did not return. Every Cardinal song broke my heart. Early in September of the third year a female Cardinal materialized ‘clicking’ outside my open window. I begged her to stay, telling her how lonely I had been for her company. She regarded me solemnly with one beady eye as she listened to my plea. The next morning she appeared again, and afterwards the female began to visit me every day at which time I would race out the door with special food just for her. Six months later she arrived at dawn with a male cardinal who immediately began to sing his ethereal mating song. I was overjoyed. That summer the pair raised a brood that didn’t disperse in the fall. The following winter I had four. I don’t know why it took me so long to begin to converse with Cardinals in an ordinary voice since Lily b and I bid each other good morning every day; he coos and I return his greeting in English. We also coo back and forth because he likes it when I mimic his voice. Once I began communicating out loud with the Cardinals they always responded; they also initiated contact like the day the male warned me NOT to go witness the slaughtered trees at the spring. The females simply click, but the males start singing, pause, wait for me to tell them they are beautiful (!) and then reply, accentuating certain notes each time. The other night one of these exchanges lasted for about 20 minutes. It is normal for me to be awakened by one of the male cardinals every morning at 4:15 AM because it’s summer, and they are early risers ( I have to bring in the feeder every night at dark or raccoons will raid it). If they come during the day when I have temporarily removed the feeder because of squirrel predation, both males and females call out with short irritated chirps and clicks arriving at whatever window is closest to where I am in the house until I return their feeder! It is uncanny how they know which room I am in. I also note that is the male that teaches the youngsters how to get my attention, so the routine is passed on intergenerationally. Although …
(Poem) All My Relations by Mary Saracino

All my relations hail from Puglia and Tuscany their bodies rooted to ancient hillsides, sacred ruins forests filled with wild cinghiali, fallen chestnuts fields bursting with red poppies, stone menhirs All my relations flew through the night skies their souls danced with stardust, cradled by the wind and the voluptuous arms of the full moon secret-keepers, storytellers, healers bakers, winemakers, farmers, musicians, poets

(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part II: We Disagree! Stand up for what you believe but be open-minded! Naa Ayele Kumari: I am going to step away from the common responses and say this… Binary is only no in betweens if you choose sides and can’t see the whole. I have been a part of black consciousness movements and women’s movements and both have the capacity for progress as well as extreme viewpoints. Both have the capacity to become so hypercritical that the movement itself transcends common human compassion and understanding. Mother Teresa was a human being with flaws and goodness. She had a public image and private fears and insecurities.. l like all of us. She lived her life the best way she knew how.. Like all of us. She made mistakes.. misjudgments.. Like all of us. But she also DID help and inspire others to help too. It is this dualistic thinking that forces people to feel like they have to assign the label of good or bad and no in between. None of us are all good or all bad.. so it seems to me that to label her has an evil traitor who let people die is no better than labeling her an Angel of god who did no wrong. She was a woman who lived her life and managed to come to worldwide fame and inspire others to love at a time and in an institution that was highly patriarchal and women were not raised up at all. Mother Goddesses in Africa were known for great nurturing and care symbolized by carrying a baby and also carried a machete on the other side for justice. This was the fine balance of wholeness…she was the gentle rain and the storm.. This was binary, but not one or the other but both.. Opposite ends of the same pole. [H]: I’m having a powerful visceral effect from this conversation. I feel as if I’m going to vomit violently. Mother Teresa comes to me in dreams and meditations. Makes me wonder what kind of person I’m seen as if I attract her energy. I have always felt so much love for her. Naa Ayele Kumari: If she comes in your dreams and it has been healing for you… Allow it/ her to continue to be healing for you. Its all about love and anything that is not love… Leave it be.. Vomiting is rejecting something that doesn’t belong with you. Embrace love my sister. Antonia McGuire: I think we may all agree that all belief systems initially began to promote a sense of goodness or fairness to some degree, but over time they are corrupted and produce both advantages and disadvantages. Donna Snyder: Yes, Gandhi, too. Back in the 90’s when I was in a band/performance art troupe called Central Nervous System, I shocked all the guys in the band coming out with an improv in response to a melody played on a banjo tuned like a sitar, called exactly that-Yes, Gandhi. Now make no mistake, he is one of my heroes, devoid of the falsified sentimentality that clings to MT. Gandhi’s work was for the world, for the masses, not for the appropriately humbled. Yet I spoke out about his sexual practices, his use of female bodies. Telling the truth about a hero requires courage. Retreating into a blind defense of a myth is a form of ethical cowardice. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Strangely I had a discussion with someone about the “hero’s journey” moving from metaphorical to physical being part of the problem…..when the “demons” are human instead of our own flaws, there seems to be a tendency to point the finger (and gun barrel) elsewhere. [B]: Fascinating & thought-provoking conversation, all. I think the biggest stumbling block I have with MT is how her acceptance of the dogma of the Catholic church blinded her to seeing and then being moved by the suffering of others enough to do something to alleviate & not vicariously celebrate it. No wonder she “suffered a lack of connection with the Divine”. This crisis with her spirituality seems to have been divorced from her and others’ body wisdom. Self-abnegation (perhaps not the same as “sacrifice”) ultimately backfires because some small part of us insists, “I am worthy!” To which I say, “We are all worthy!” [H]: I do not see or feel that she vicariously celebrated the suffering of others. I feel that she devoted her life to deeply loving and serving the poorest of the poor. I have not been to Calcutta and I have also seen some unimaginable poverty in India that is not like anything that I’ve been exposed to before. I truly believe that she had a very deep way of working with suffering that is not necessarily visible to those more accustomed to modern medical intervention and the resources available for such. I have participated in a very small amount of poverty medicine and the resources that we take for granted are just not readily available to MANY. I learned very powerfully from my experience how blessed and fortunate and often very careless we really are with our precious resources. This discussion has been a learning experience for me. I am trying to not take the critical comments […]
(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 1) 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.] Introduction by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Wennifer Lin-Haver Helen Hye-Sook Hwang I am asking each of us to consider writing a sentence or paragraph on “Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality?” This idea is prompted by Wennifer Lin-Haver, Founder of Mother Tree Sanctuary, and I agree that we need to and can create a sort of collective writing on the topic. What we write below will be included and published in The Girl God, Mother Tree Sanctuary, and Return to Mago. As a subaltern minority as we seem at the current point of time, Goddessians/Magoists [the term Mago means the Great Goddess] need to make extra efforts to make our voices and presences exposed to the public and inner circles. Length and style are open. Please also include your name, region/state/country, title, and/or website URL. We strongly encourage you if you are located in a place where Goddessians are rarely around. We intend to make a collective testimonial tapestry of WE as Goddessians/Magoists! Please keep this in your mind and join us in this collective effort. Thank you in advance. March 6, 2014 AF (Archaic Future)! Wennifer Lin-Haver Our “call” started as a conversation between Helen and me where I was expressing to her the real need for Mother Tree Sanctuary to be more articulate with exploring the significance and importance of Goddess in our lives. I was prompted to give such a response, when asked “why” we had to differentiate God and Goddess. “Isn’t everything God?” She asked. And “Isn’t Goddess also God?” “Isn’t it all the same as long was we’re all coming from our ‘higher’ self?” she asked. So I saw this warranted a longer and much deeper discussion. I initially thought I should formulate a response and post it as a Page or Tab in our website, but after some reflection with Helen, I saw how much better it would be if we replied to this question as a diverse and creative collective. I surely do not have all the answers as an individual but perhaps together, we can come up with something more whole, colorful and satisfying. I do hope you will contribute a little something! We are always grateful for all that you have to share.

(Essay) Winter Solstice/Yule within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Dates for Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 This Seasonal Moment is the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb and it is a gateway between dark and light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being. Whereas Samhain/Deep Autumn is a dark conceiving Space, it flows into the Winter Solstice dark birthing Place – a dynamic Place of Being, a Sacred Interchange. This Seasonal Moment of Winter Solstice is the peaking of the dark space – the fullness of the dark, within which being and action arise. It is the peaking of emptiness, which is a fullness. As cosmologist Brian Swimme describes: the empty “ground of being … retains no thing.” It is “Ultimate Generosity.”[i] In Vajrayana Buddhism, Space is associated with Prajna/wisdom – out of which Upaya/compassionate action arises. Space is highly positive – something to be developed, so appropriate action may develop spontaneously and blissfully.[ii] In Old European Indigenous understandings, the dark and the night were valued at least as much as light, if not more so: time was counted by the number of nights, as in ‘fortnights,’ and a ‘day’ included both dark and light parts … it was ‘di-urnal’. I have been careful with my language about that inclusion in the ceremonial ‘Statement of Purpose’ for each Seasonal Moment. This awareness is resonant with modern Western scientific perceptions about the nature of the Universe: that it is seventy-three percent “dark energy,” twenty-three precent “dark matter,” four percent “ordinary matter.”[iii] The truth is that we live within this darkness: it is the Ground of all Being. In Pagan traditions since Celtic times, and in many other cultural traditions, Winter Solstice has been celebrated as the birth of the God; and in Christian tradition since about the fourth century C.E., as the birth of the saviour. But there are deeper ways of understanding what is being born: that is, who or what the “saviour” is. In the Gospel of Thomas, which was not selected for biblical canon, it says: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.”[iv] This then may be the Divine Child, the “Saviour”: it may be expressed as the new Being forming in the Cosmogonic Womb,[v] who will be born. We may celebrate the birth of the new Being, which /who is always beyond us, beyond our knowing … yet is within us, burgeoning within us – and within Gaia. What will save us is already present within – forming within us. The Winter Solstice story may emphasize that what is born, is within each one – the “Divine” is not “out there”: it may be said, and expressed ceremoniously, that we are each Creator and Created. We may imagine ourselves as the in-utero foetus – an image we might have access to these days from a sonar-scan during pregnancy. This image presents a truth about Being: we are this, and it is within us, within this moment. Every moment is pregnant with the new. It will be birthed when holy darkness is full. Part of what is required is having the eyes to see the “new bone forming in flesh,” scraping our eyes “clear of learned cataracts,”[vi] seeing with fresh eyes. That is what the fullness of the Dark offers – a freshening of our eyes to see the new. And the process of Creation is always reciprocal: we are Creator and Created simultaneously, in a “ngapartji-ngapartji”[vii] way. We are in-formed by that which we form. In Earth-based religious practice, the ubiquitous icon of Mother and Child – Creator and Created – expresses something essential about the Universe itself … the “motherhood” we are all born within. It expresses the essential communion experience that this Cosmos is, the innate and holy Care that it takes, and the reciprocal nature of it. We cannot touch without being touched at the same time.[viii] We may realize that Cosmogenesis – the entire Unfolding of the Cosmos – is essentially relational: our experience tells us this is so. The image of The Birth of the Goddess on the front cover of my book PaGaian Cosmology expresses that reciprocity for me, how we may birth each other and the healing/wholing in that exchange. It is a Sacred Interchange. And it is what this Event of existence seems to be about – deep communion, which both Solstices express. Babylonian Goddess, Ur 4000-3500 BCE. Adele Getty, Goddess, 33. Birthing is not often an easy process – for the birthgiver nor for the birthed one: it is a shamanic act requiring strength of bodymind, attention, courage, and focus of the mother, and resilience and courage to be of the new young one. Birthgiving is the original place of ‘heroics,’ which many cultures of the world have never forgotten, perhaps therefore better termed as “heraics.” Patriarchal adaptations of the story of this Seasonal Moment usually miss the Creative Act of birthgiving completely, usually being pre-occupied with the “virgin” nature of the Mother which is interpreted as having an “intact hymen.” The focus of the patriarchal adaptation of the Winter Solstice story is the Child as “saviour”: even the Mother gazes at the Child in most Christian icons, while in more ancient images Her eyes are direct and expressive of Her integrity as Creator. NOTES: [i] Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, 146. [ii] See Rita Gross, “The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 179-192. [iii] These figures as told by cosmologist Paul Davies with Macquarie University’s Centre for Astrobiology, Australia. [iv] Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas, saying number 70. See https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/thomas.html . [v] Melissa Raphael’s term, Thealogy and Embodiment, 262. [vi] The quotes come from a poem by Cynthia Cook, “Refractions,” Womanspirit (Oregan USA, issue 23, March 1980), 59. [vii] This is an Indigenous Australian term for reciprocity – giving and receiving at the same time. I explain it a bit further in PaGaian Cosmology, 256-257. [viii] An expression from Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, 68. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living …
Beltaine/High Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRoK2XNeqw The purpose of the video is for ceremony and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have some past photos of yourself, an altar with ancestor photos, a gingerbread snake, some apples sliced up, and some apple juice. The script for this Samhain ceremony is offered in Chapter 4 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. However I want to acknowledge here the inspiration and some text of Robin Morgan’s poem “The Network of the Imaginary Mother” in her book Lady of the Beasts, for which I was given permission in my book. I also acknowledge here the paraphrase of some words by Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance, used in the rite of Sailing to a New World. I also use a line from the poem Song of Hecate by Bridget McKern. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I mention the direction (which I do minimally). For the rite of the Transformation Journey (remembering old selves) I use an adaptation of a children’s game “In and Out the Windows”, where each participant travels in and out of upraised and linked arms of the circle, and when ‘in’ may speak and /or show photos of themselves from the past. Some may choose to remember any self from the entire evolutionary story, with whom they would like to identify. The game seems appropriate to what each being does existentially in so many ways, over the eons as well as in our personal lives. The chant can be found on YouTube. The photos used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Samhain ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Samhain ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. Music credit: All music used in this video is by Tim Wheater, which has previously generously allowed me to use in my work. The pieces used are from Tim’s CD Fish Nite Moon: they are Ancient Footsteps, Fish Nite Moon, Spiritbirth, and Conception. I thank my partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne for his participation in the creation of the video.
(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

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

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

(Mago Stronghold Essay 3) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part 3: Indelible Old Magoism Encrypted in China’s “Mago Stronghold” The Mago word “Mago Stronghold” has narrowly survived patriarchal linguistic censorships. Sometimes it is preferably or deliberately employed as a euphemism. Other times, it is replaced with random words. But it has never been completely wiped out from written and oral texts. The Mago term, constituting the very foundation of patriarchy, is indestructible. Having survived, the term “Mago Stronghold” debunks the plot intent to magna-matricide. It unearths the buried and re-members the severed. Extant Mago Strongholds in Korea and in China differ not only in number but also in implication. Just like Magoist data in general, Korea surpasses China by a large number of extant Mago Strongholds. It is a corollary that China does not have much to do with Mago words in that ancient China “entered the stage of the patriarchal society around 5,000 years ago”.[1] Magoist materials are systematically dismissed as dubious or apocryphal data, as pre-Chinese Old Magoist Korea remains uncharted in Sinocentric East Asian historiography. Readers are reminded of the meaning of Old Magoist Korea, the socio-political-religious conglomeration of the People of the Great Goddess originated from pre-Chinese times. It is by definition non-ethnocentric and pre-nationalist.[2] Magoism substantiates the derivative nature of ancient Chinese history from Old Magoist Korea. It unveils that Old Korea was there long before the establishment of the Chinese patriarchal rule. The Mago Stronghold talk debunks the fantasy of ancient China as the forerunner rule. It is unknown how many Mago Stronghold places may have existed before or survived today in present China. One I found is located in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, according to the Atlas of Heavenly Harbor Government (天津府總圖, Tianjinfuzongtu) published in 1805. The historical accuracy of this place is backed by an earlier account in the Records of the United Great Ming (Damingyitongzhi 大明一統志), a fifteenth century geography book from the Ming dynasty. Its brief record concerns the visit of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) to Mago Stronghold, as it reads: Mago Stronghold is located in Cangzhou on the border of old Qingchi-xian (Clear Lake County). Emperor Wu of Han took an administrative tour to this place and offered rites. Thus came the place-name, Mago Stronghold.[3] The Cangzhou Mago Stronghold, noted for the second century BCE anecdote, makes its history two millennia old at the least. When Magoism is made invisible, however, the long history or the royal association of Mago Stronghold is systematically censored as non-data in official historiography of China, which is the norm for East Asian historiographies. Given that Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) of Han is known as one of the most accomplished rulers in Chinese history, it may appear odd that he is associated with the Mago term, “Mago Stronghold.” Indeed, the account may seem to mismatch Emperor Wu of ancient China with Mago Stronghold. And Chinese scribes would not have fabricated the anecdote. It is indeed a rare case that the Mago term has survived in Chinese official documents. That said, we want to ask if the two terms, Emperor Wu of Han and Mago Stronghold, are irreconcilable per se? My answer is no. They appear to be at odds only to the modern Sinocentric mind. In fact, the above anecdote is highly evocative of the concept of Heaven (天 Tian) worshipped by ancient Chinese rulers. Emperor Wu’s visitation and officiation at Mago Stronghold, which may have been known as Heavenly Stronghold (天城 Tiancheng),[4] account for the ancient ruler’s worship of Heaven. It is of utmost importance for Chinese rulers to observe rites and customs that venerate Heaven, for it is deemed that Heaven selects rulers and endows them with the right to rule. Accordingly, ancient Chinese rulers are known to have taken the title of “the Son of Heaven 天子” and ruled with “the Mandate of Heaven 天命.” Nonetheless, the problem with the Chinese thought of Heaven lies in the fact that Heaven is equated with the supreme god (上帝, Supreme Emperor) or an impersonal quality of the divine. That Heaven is a euphemism for “Mago” was known to the populace. In various sources, Mago is referred to as “Heavenly Deity.”[5] S/HE and Magoism are sometimes equated with the impersonal term, “Heaven.” For example, Mago Lake (Maguji in Chinese) is also called Heavenly Lake (天池 Tianchi in Chinese) in oral tradition.[6] The fact that, according to the Budoji, Heavenly Mountain is known as the residence of the Hwanggung, the eldest clan community in the post-paradise world, is no accident. When its semantic tie to “Mago” is lost, “Heaven” is stripped of the Magoist implication. The surviving term, “Mago Stronghold,” however, debunks magna-matricide in the modern mind. It is inferred that Emperor Wu officiated the Magoist rite at Mago Stronghold as the Son of Heaven according to the Mandate of Heaven. The scheme of Old Magoism puts the above anecdote into a context: Emperor Wu emulated the royal tradition of ancient Magoist shaman queens, the representative of the Great Goddess who is the ultimate sovereign of the Earth, Mago Stronghold. Emperor Wu and Mago Stronghold were not at odds with each other in an earlier time of ancient Chinese history. Written together, they indicate that Magoism was acknowledged by Emperor Wu of Han. Put differently, magna-matricide was not committed or completed in the second century BCE China. Were ancient Chinese rulers including Emperor Wu of Han Magoist? This question is difficult to answer, for each ruler of ancient China may have taken an ambivalent attitude toward Magoism to a varying degree. Some may have been pseudo-Magoists. Ancient Chinese rulers, representing the establishment of Chinese monarchy, which marked the onset of patriarchal history in East Asia, are distinguished from traditional Magoist shaman queens who defended the Magoist confederal system of Old Korea. Nonetheless, they needed the Oracle of the Great Goddess to legitimize themselves as rulers. In pre-patriarchal East Asia, Old Magoist Korea was the source of power, technology, and civilization for any ruler to draw from. Evidence shows that …
(Photo Essay 3) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part III: Archaeology Bespeaks What Ideological Hetero-sexuality Can’t Do Our story-tellers informed us that Gaeyang Halmi is venerated and celebrated on January 14th annually on the lunar calendar. There are two separate rituals performed on that day. Villagers, both men and women, offer their ritual ceremony in the morning in Confucian style. The officiant must preserve the purification ritual, confining oneself to home to avoid ominous affairs for a week prior to the ceremony. After the ceremony of the villagers, Mudang groups come from outside the town and offer their Shaman rituals. A cleavage between two groups is still freshly detected in their narratives. While villagers conform to the Confucian style rituals with a despising but curious eye for the female-centered Shaman rituals, Mudangs are much more powerful in their capacities to command people, spirits, and materials. The Shamanic ritual celebration is fairly well-known domestically as well as overseas to the Chinese and the Japanese, according to our lore transmitters. People from China and Japan come to join the Mudang rituals, a vestige of the intercultural celebration that may have originated in ancient times, a point to be elaborated later. What caught my attention was the fact that the ritual celebration is known as the Ritual of Yongwang (the Dragon King) not the Ritual of Gaeyang Halmi. Our two narrators, Mr. Jeong Dong-Uk and Ms. Jeong Si-Geum, brother and sister, testified contradictorily vis-à-vis the Dragon King. Mr. Jeong mentioned that Gaeyang Halmi is the wife of Dragon King,[i] whereas Ms. Jeong spoke of Gaeyang Halmi as a solo deity without spouse. Ms. Jeong sternly said, “She was alone [without spouse]. She had eight daughters.” “It is said that there used to be a house wherein Gaeyang Halmi and her eight daughters lived together. I saw the cooking pots and household things in the ruin,” added Ms. Jeong. [Interestingly, the motif that she saw the cooking pots and other kitchen items in the ruin reminded me of other Mago folk stories from other regions. People seem to take such artifacts as pots and household things discovered in the ruin as an indication that the myth of Mago Halmi who is told to have lived in the place is plausible.] The topos of “the dragon king” was likely added later on to comply with Confucian ideology. In fact, none of our narrators mentioned the dragon king as the main deity of the Suseong Shrine. The fact that it is called the ritual of the dragon king suggests another layer of erosion/castration/dethronement done to the supreme divinity of Gaeyang Halmi.
(Mago Essay 3) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hwang

[The following sequels including this one are a modified version of my paper presented to Daoist Studies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2010.] Part 3 Daoist Rendition of Mago, the Great Goddess Being the creatrix, progenitor, and ultimate sovereign, Mago has been addressed by many names. Her derivative names include Samsin Halmeoni (Triad Grandmother/Goddess), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Daejosin (Great Ancestor Deity), Nogo (Crone/Grandmother), Gomo (Goddess Mother), Magui (Devil), Seogo (Auspicious Goddess), Seonnyeo (Female Immortal), Seonja (Immortal Person), and simply Halmi (Grandmother/Crone/Goddess) especially in Korea. To say the least, these names, respectively embedded in a particular cultural and historical background, reflect a complex and enduring feature of Magoism. One may wonder: How is it possible to assess that these goddesses with different names refer to the same goddess, Mago? While such a query is legitimate, its answer entails a prolix explication of inferences based on the comprehensive analysis of a large volume of data, a technique that requires all human faculties, not just rationality. Foremost, the name “Mago” is the primary defining factor to identify Her transnational manifestations in East Asia. This name crisscrosses otherwise seemingly unrelated data including folklore, arts, literature, poetry, and religious and historical records. Such toponyms as Mt. Mago, Rock of Mago, and Cave of Mago presently extant in Korea, China, and/or Japan further substantiate the coherence of Magoism in East Asia. Having established the patterns and styles of Mago stories, the researcher is able to identify a common motif that is shared by the stories and place-names of the goddesses with derivative names. In short, these stories are organically interconnected, reflecting the universality and particularities of Magoist theism. As with Her many names, the researcher or art historian requires the same technique to assess a broad range of Her visual representations. One can begin with a good number of paintings whose colophons designate Mago. Two of the most conspicuous colophons are “Magu gathering medicinal herbs” and “Mago presents longevity.” However, many icons including sculptures and embroideries do not have such an indication. In that case, one can tell the Mago icon by its pictorial themes recurring in the images that are identified as Mago. That said, there is no doubt that the Mago icon stands as the prototype of its numerous variations, which are beyond my documentation at this point. A large portion of Mago visual representations I have documented is casually referred to as “The Immortal Magu (麻姑仙, Magu Xian or Mago Seon)” by moderns. As such, it is assumed that She is a Daoist goddess. Would the Daoist appropriation of Mago’s visual images be accurate? I hold that the Daoist rendition of Mago is a specious stopgap, leaving many issues unattended. When B is derived from A, B alone can explain neither A nor B. Not only Her pre-Daoist origin but also Her supreme divinity as the Great Goddess remains unexplained. Furthermore, Daoism has offered no framework to explain the transnational dissemination of Magoist material culture in Korea, China, and Japan.