Meet Mago Contributor, Robin Scofield

Robin Scofield is the author of And the Ass Saw the Angel and Sunflower Cantos from Mouthfeel Press. She has poems appearing or forthcoming in Pilgrimage, Cedilla Six, Interstice, and Mezcla II. She is a poetry editor for BorderSenses who lives in El Paso and writes regularly with the Tumblewords Project.

“The Ballad of Cantalily” is included in Sunflower Cantos, published by Mouthfeel Press in August of 2012. In the book, Scofield creates her own cosmology, set forth through the mouth of the trickster goddess, Cantalily. Cantalily is a liminal figure both very much of the present as well as of the time before time.

Published posts from the recent:

(Poem) The Ballad of Cantalily by Robin Scofield

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(Book Excerpt 3) Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma by Trista Hendren

https://thegirlgod.com/re-membering.php Surviving “Traumarchy” Sharon Smith I grew up traumatized by Patriarchy. I didn’t know it at the time, but now I can see clearly the negative effects this androcentric Dominator System had on my body, my mind, and my soul as a girl growing into womanhood during the ‘60s and ‘70s. My first experience was physical abuse at the hands of my mother who had been, herself, the victim of child abuse perpetrated by her own mother who told her (as she beat her), “Girls are no goddamned good! Only boys are good!” She was the only daughter in a family of eight children. And she was the only one who ever got beaten. This abusive domination of my mother undoubtedly traumatized her. But it was also an early and destructive imprint upon her “love map,” and it dictated what kind of mother she would be to her own daughter. And then I was born, the second child and only girl of three children. The first beating I recall was when I was still in a highchair. I remember this event clearly. Pain has a way of etching itself upon body and mind. My mom had sat me in the highchair and given me a bowl of jello. I was expecting the little wiggly cubes she usually cut it into, but this time she had whipped the dessert into a frothy substance that I didn’t recognize. So, I pushed it away to let her know I didn’t want it. Unfortunately, I pushed the bowl a little too hard and it went crashing to the floor, spilling the frothy jello all over the linoleum. My mom was furious! She got one of dad’s belts, and then she grabbed me by the arms and yanked me out of the highchair. She lashed the belt across my back and buttocks hard… with the buckle end. I remember screaming in pain. But she kept on whipping me till my body shook. Finally, when she stopped, the pain had spread itself into a total body numbness. That was my first memory of dissociating from my body. My mom apparently had internalized the patriarchal belief that “girls are no goddamned good; only boys are good” which had been beaten into her. And she taught me in return. “Traumarchy”—that’s a word coined by Meera Atkinson, author of the book, Traumata. She describes it thus: “the way patriarchy perpetuates trauma, making it ‘inherently traumatic’ and giving rise to a multitude of sufferings and strife.” My life has been a struggle to overcome traumarchy in more than just physical abuse. At age three I also suffered child sexual abuse at the hands of an uncle, who digitally raped me… and then threatened to kill me if I told anyone. I was so frightened that I began to cocoon myself under the covers in my bed each night, thinking I’d be “hidden and safe” if he came through my bedroom window. I also began to bed wet, which had the unfortunate consequence of angering my mother, which resulted in more beatings. But the trauma didn’t end there. Throughout my youth, I was subjected to the groping hands of neighborhood boys and even some of my own male cousins. One teenage cousin asked me to go into the woods with him so we could “fuck.” I was too young at the time to know what “fuck” meant, but it didn’t seem like anything I wanted to do, so I said “No” and ran home. The boys always got away with their harassment and assaults, because—and who hasn’t heard this one?—“boys will be boys!” Sad thing is, the boys who groped my body (without my permission, of course)—sometimes grabbing my breasts or my crotch or pinching my behind—talked dirty about me and spread lies and rumors, so, of course, I was called a “slut” and a “whore.” Funny, because I hadn’t even “fucked” yet. But that didn’t matter. Boys could say whatever they wanted to shame and blame girls. And girls just had to keep their mouths shut. Traumarchy: Patriarchal trauma. It left me feeling ashamed and dirty. And I hadn’t really done anything worthy of it. Except be born a girl. After high school, I, like many girls of that time period, got married. I had met my husband in my senior year (he had already graduated and was working as a stock boy at a local grocery store) and we had “fallen in love.” We got engaged during that final year of school and “tied the knot” (wonderful saying, no?) in August of 1972. The “honeymoon” didn’t last long. I found myself going from an abusive home-life to an abusive marriage. Except this time, the abuse wasn’t physical. It was mental and emotional abuse and neglect. And, in many ways, it hurt far worse. For most of my 28-years with this man, I was neglected and mentally/verbally abused. For instance, while I was very pregnant with his child—belly large and protruding—he seemed to get a kick out of focusing on my weight gain. On one occasion (at church, no less), he saw me walking toward him and exclaimed aloud while our church friends looked on: “Hey, Hey, Hey: Here comes Faaaaaat Albert!” in the cartoon voice. I wanted to disappear through the cracks in the floor of that “sanctuary.” He thought it was “funny;” I found it humiliating and demeaning. He laughed… I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and cried. After about the third year of our marriage, my husband stopped getting me cards for any occasion—not even my birthday or Mother’s Day (although I had two beautiful daughters with him). And no gifts either. Not even at Christmas. I continued to buy him cards and gifts, and I strived to be a “Proverbs 31 Woman,” according to my Fundamentalist Christian beliefs. I was a stay-at- home Mom and did my utmost to make that man feel like the King of His Castle, as we were taught …
(Essay) Battered, Bruised but Not Broken: The Ancient Goose Goddess by Jeri Studebaker

As amazing as it sounds, a bird we now call “silly” was once a goddess so powerful she could (and did) create the mighty sun in the sky. One way to drain power from transcendent symbols is to wage smear campaigns against them. In medieval Europe, the Church turned people against Pagan deities by erecting statues of them in town squares and paying people to hurl rocks at the statues. It seems obvious that if Europeans had not been vigorously insistent upon worshiping these deities it’s unlikely the Church would have gone to this kind of trouble to get rid of them.
(Poem) Roots by Anne Wilkerson Allen

Roots I don’t understand the languages of the ancestors, but I hear them speak to me in birdsong, communicating through the shapes of leaves, navigating the patterns of rough bark on the trees, singing through the waves that lap the stones by my feet. I did not sit at their fires, but I feel the heat from bodies moving in shadows – a cadence of reverence for something greater, a bliss of awakening to understanding the ecstasies of union. I did not know their deities, but their priestesses dance inside me to the rhythms of the earth and the cycles of the moon every season of my life. Their blood still courses through me – their thoughts and loves and fears the moment of death no different, the moment of birth still joy – their language is the blood of my rebirth. ~awa Anne Wilkerson Allen
(Poem) What does it mean when the Black Birds Come? by Sara Wright

First it was the magpie Black and White shivering iridescent feathers flashing in every conceivable hue – warning about extremes. Next the raven took up residence in the shining crown of the Russian Olive outside my window quorking his threat hoarsely at dawn. But when the redwings arrived in outrageous numbers flocking to the ground a hundred or so at a time I imagined I heard a Red Bird singing arising from the dead… A river of birds around and over my head cry out that Nature is always listening appearing in times of calamitous need supporting by Presence a tangible truth in the midst of alcoholic delusion. The Great Goddess comes to life through trees and birds – thriving on the edges of disaster – offering Comfort when there is none. The women with wings are ancient female spirits appearing in the guise of birds whose Love intervenes when Fire threatens to annihilate just as Gimbutas intuitively understood. Working notes This morning I read Carol Christ’s most recent article on scholar and archeologist Marija Gimbutas whose work has informed my writing for the last thirty years (Carol P. Christ, “Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ in feminismandreligion.com). Understanding intuitively that Marija spoke truths no one else had dared to utter, I read, sculpted, listened with secret relief having finally found a context in which I could find comfort and a reason to go on… Instead of paraphrasing I will quote Christ’s words directly because this woman is a scholar perhaps equal only to Gimbutas herself. “Responding to the backlash against her theories, Gimbutas is said to have told a female colleague that it might take decades, but eventually the value of her work would be recognized. It is now more than twenty years since Marija Gimbutas died in 1994, and the value of her work is beginning to be recognized by (at least some of) her colleagues—including one of her harshest critics. In a lecture titled “Marija Rediviva: DNA and Indo-European Origins,” renowned archaeologist Lord Colin Renfrew (allied with the British Conservative Party**), who had been one of Gimbutas’s most vociferous antagonists and a powerful gate-keeper, concluded the inaugural Marija Gimbutas Lecture at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with these words: “Marija [Gimbutas]’s Kurgan hypothesis has been magnificently vindicated.” In the lecture, Colin* explains Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis about the spread of Indo-European languages from the steppes north of the Black Sea by invaders she called “Kurgans,” from a word of Slavic origin which refers to their characteristic burial mounds. Gimbutas spoke of these as “big man” graves, arguing that they marked the appearance of a new cultural group into Europe—one that was patriarchal, patrilineal, and warlike. Before their arrival, the people Gimbutas called “Old Europeans” buried their dead in communal graves, with grave offerings indicating no great difference in wealth or status and no domination of one sex over the other. Gimbutas argued that the “Kurgan” people introduced Indo-European languages into the lands they conquered, as well as new cultural systems based on domination of warriors and kings over the general populace and the domination of men over women. She stated that the Kurgan invasions of Europe began about 4400 BCE and lasted for several millennia. Colin* dismissed the Kurgan theory, advancing his alternative hypothesis that Indo-European languages were introduced into Europe through the spread of agriculture from the Middle East after 7000 BCE. While Gimbutas spoke of a “clash of cultures” between the peaceful, sedentary, matrifocal cultures of Old Europe and the new culture of the Kurgan warriors, Colin* preferred the theory that cultures change through processes of internal evolution, rather than by violent overthrow. In his lecture, Colin* discussed the different theories about the diffusion of the Indo-European languages across most of Europe and large parts of the Middle East and South Asia. He cited new evidence based on analysis of DNA in ancient bones that has been published in the last several years, acknowledging that this evidence definitively proves that a group called the “Yamnaya” people entered Europe in large numbers from their homeland north of the Black Sea. Colin* stated that he believed this evidence to be scientifically valid and thus to have proved Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis. Stating that little work had been done on DNA of ancient bones from the area of modern Turkey he postulated as the Indo-Eurpoean homeland, he said that his hypothesis had not been disproved and held out the hope that it too might be proved to be correct. (Most scholars consider this unlikely.) It is important to note that when Colin* said that Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis has been proved, he was saying only that there is now convincing DNA evidence to uphold her idea that a new population element most likely speaking an Indo-European language entered into Europe at the times she postulated. He did not evaluate or endorse Gimbutas’s theory of a “clash of cultures” between peaceful, sedentary, matrifocal cultures of Old Europe and invading nomadic, warlike, patriarchal cultures of the Indo-Europeans. Nonetheless, in declaring Marija Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis “magnificently vindicated,” Lord Colin Renfrew, considered by many to be “the grand old man” of his field, opened the floodgates. He implicitly gave permission to other scholars to reconsider all of Gimbutas’s theories and perhaps eventually to restore her to her rightful place as one of the most–if not the most–creative, scientific, ground-breaking archaeologists of the twentieth century, “the grand old lady” of her field.” The Women with Wings are hidden among the boughs of the trees that love them, biding their time until Her Collective Voice rises out of the ashes of a civilization crumbling in collapse. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright
(Essay 6) Future of Identity: Reclaiming the Northern Pagan Tradition by Jillian Burnett

Art by Jillian Burnett Power of Ritual The power of ritual will always have significance culturally—to atheists, practitioners, non-believers, and the curious. Just as for winter solstice, when folks celebrate the solar minimum—the rituals has importance in the northern hemisphere. The northern pagan tradition celebrates Yule and the new year; inaugurating the return of the sun’s light and renewal. Smaller family rituals also honor handfasting, blót, family ceremonies—birth and death. For these rites people gather privately or publicly. The spaces are decorated and cleansed—often with natural ingredients like juniper and holly or fresh pine cones. There is live music and song at these food-filled family-oriented gatherings. Included in these rituals often is a feast where ancestors and other-worldy energies are invited as well. Some intentions that may be set can be to move out bad luck and burn it away, sending it into fire along with the yule log. Other rituals may distribute positivity and blessings. Yet others feast and invite and honor the dead. As folk come together to recall their ancestry and tell their stories, they identify into their group’s power. This has ramifications that can have grave impact. On a forward-looking basis this undertaking aims to understand how the revival of the northern pagan community and its practices will accelerate societal transformation.Modern northern pagans will be influenced by their past in various ways. If seeking economic advice whether for individual, organization, or as state policy,the Eddas and anglo-saxon texts advise that a person should manage their own household, keep close ties with kin, and be generous to people when times are prosperous. Overall however the practices of self-sufficiency could tend towards policies of populism, protectionism, or isolationism. To a beneficial degree, populism can support workers. Unfortunately in the efforts to support the common worker, companies respond by shifting abroad as well as outsourcing or automating. Populism has an interesting pivot point as voting demographics of northern pagans aligne to more liberal and left leaning policies; overall voting to support benefits to the blind, widows, veterans, and any in society that have need. In terms of economic policy, expansion of the nanny state is a hot-button topic that both left and right argue; investments and wealth and economy are complex—requiring multi-vector analysis. Society runs on subsidies whether they be to petrol or to sugar, to gas or electricity. The lights on the roadsides and the fire brigades all are a part of how we envision our lives in the first world. Kindergarten and public schools for every child is hardly something society will give up on the basis of taxation. Economic policy may be hard to derive exactly—if we look to the past for guidance. Today’s sensibilities are moreso based in equity and sharing, and the past teachigs often value closeness with kin and self-sufficiency; although generosity is seen as a true virtue. Within the northern pagan tradition, no quick solution may be viable. Another way the past practices resurface is in the handfasting tradition. Marriage as an institution to say the least—is changing. No longer are conveniences that convenient. And the cost of money and the cost of time are not comparable. When couples want to meaningfully bind themselves in spiritual union many are now turning to the northern pagan practice of handfasting. Symbolically the couple is joined with a knot or tied cloth—each end borne by both. In ritual both families are seen as being joined. Spiritually as sound embodied in chant, often in a heterosexual marriage the sky father would be called to join the earth mother. These metaphors are drawn down from ancient times and are present in the couple’s knot tying ritual. Normally this rite takes place outdoors under the sun and trees surrounded by community. An important concern of the past to consider is conflict resolution. When a harm was done or a crime committed; offense was noted legally. There was a price that could be paid to mitigate blood retribution, but this weregeld often did the minimum to assuage the loss or heal hurts. Financial compensation was paid for many kinds of harms, including theft, sheep slaughter, or abduction of brides without consent. The northern pagan tradition had many legalities, and restitution was always paid. This did not stop blood feuds however, as revenge and anger are a part of human experience. Normal expectation of payment through monetary fines would not suffice the egos, and so the sagas tell of generational blood feuds. While we don’t have an Allthing to formally bring up all our woes within community to seek repayment and restitution, what we can learn from the past—is to mediate conflict with communication. The Allthing was a way to reconcile fighting parties by finding a middle ground for them to move forward from pain. This arbitration helped societies to stay together, instead of fracturing families as we see with today’s trends. These past practices can positively influence today’s northern pagans. The day to day living routines of modern folk who follow the northern pagan traditions are impacted by the philosophical rationales and perspectives derived from ancient mythos and cosmology. As many pagans leave their house, they can knock on the structure or walls of their home to awaken their house spirits—to keep watch. Many of these spirits are believed to be able to roam around the dwelling. This spirit being can take the form of a person or dog or have a ghost like appearance. Awakening a consciousness to protect the home is quite common for pagans. According to scholars in fields ranging from philology, anthropology, archaeology, and mythology, hearth dwelling spirits known as húsvættir were considered guardians. In the northern tradition sometimes these house spirits can be tricksters or have a naughty aspect to them. But ultimately their sugar and spice nature makes for an integrally balanced environment. A practitioner of the northern pagan tradition sees themselves completely inseparable from all phenomena—this is what it truly means to understand the web of wyrd. The interlocking of the …
(Video 1) Maternal Gift Economy: Breaking Through, 2020 Virtual Conference by Genevieve Vaughan

[Maternal Gift Economy: Breaking Through stands for a series of bi-weekly ongoing virtual salons. These salons are preceded by the virtual conference held on November 27, 2020.] [Words of Invitation] Drawing on Maternal Gift Economy theory, the suppressed wisdom of women, and the traditions and ethics of Indigenous societies, this integrated programme of presentations sponsored by the International Feminists for a Gift Economy Network will offer new insights, perspectives, and challenges to the underlying market-based mentality of the dominant world order. In this time of crisis and systemic upheaval, the model of the Maternal Gift Economy on which our survival depends at the beginning of life, is being revealed and celebrated. The interdependence of all living beings can now be made visible and honored. Mother Earth provides the model of an economy based on gifting that we receive as young children from our nurturers—before we are alienated into market exchange. We must make the transition from the exploitive Euro-American patriarchal/dominating and capitalistic ideology to a gift-based economy and culture grounded in the values of nurturing and care rather than competition and greed. We invite you to join us in exploring the possibilities in this series of presentations and dialogues that bring together those who have been laboring to articulate the principles of the Maternal Gift Economy, protect Indigenous values, and practice peaceful and just community building. The time is now for all humans to cooperate rather than compete. Please join us! Video Conference is featuring Darcia Narvaez, Mary Condren, Heide Goettner-Abendroth, Sherri Mitchell, Dr. Vandana Shiva, and Genevieve Vaughan and moderated by Letecia Layson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gEQHHHvMoM For information about speakers, see here. For more information on the Maternal Gift Economy, see here. https://www.magoism.net/2014/06/meet-mago-contributor-genevieve-vaughan/
(Book Excerpt) Blood & Honey The Secret Herstory of Women by Danica Anderson, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: The Kolo, the round dance and to be in the Circle. It’s the archetypal movement of Hands and Feet. Bozaloshtsh: Bird goddess and snake goddesses of regeneration – fates, and destiny – has the suffering Baba Yaga-Mother Nature. Slavic- with long hair and fairy-like stature who announces the imminent death within the domovoi by crying beneath its window.] As I met with the grandmothers over the years, I noticed a pattern they repeated often during our gatherings. The women’s worn aprons were used to wipe teary eyes and to clean dirty hands from labor; this universal gesture among them symbolized their trauma and hatred, but also their comforting and healing. During my visits to Bosnia, I would often sit next to one Ahmica grandmother who had barely spoken since the slaughter of her family on April 16th. After three long years of sitting next to this woman who was cloaked in silence, she once reached over, grasped my hands in hers, and sobbed. She gathered her apron and dabbed away my tears and then hers. No words were spoken, but as I looked down at the wet but clean apron, stained with tears, I felt the love she had for her lost ones who were now in their graves. My tears soaked into the apron along with hers. I was startled to feel a lack of hatred in this woman—a complete absence of desire for retaliation or revenge after the loss of many members of her immediate family. I looked up into her face. She spoke as if she had heard my thoughts, saying, “I think of other grandmothers having such a loss, and I cannot hate what I am,” she stated. https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/meet-mago-contributor-danica-borkovich-anderson/
(Poem) Ourobouros by Susan Hawthorne

OurobourosLiasis olivaceus The scrub python beside the driveis in a digestive statehaving swallowed the worldswallowed the wallabybody coiled betweenbranches almost invisible [Author’s Note: While this is not strictly an ourobouros what it captures is the link between snakes, goddesses and sheela-na-gigs.] Wikimedia Commons image. Notes This poem was written in the weeks following Cyclone Larry (2006), a category-5 cyclone with winds of around 300 kph (stronger that Hurricane Katerina). Cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) remind you of our impermanence. The winds spin on themselves and everything seems to be turned upside down with trees on houses, overturned cars, leaves scattered across the ground instead of on trees and more. The ourobouros is represented as a snake eating its tail where past and future interlock. The snake or serpent is a figure widely seen among pre-patriarchal cultures. As Miriam Robbins Dexter notes in Whence the Goddess the ureaus in Egypt is the serpent that bites its tail and ‘represents the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth’ (p.6). Similar forms of the snake are found around the world. In the Greek tradition, the python guarded the shrine of the goddess Themis and in the later period the Pythia made oracular prophesies from the same cleft at Delphi after the god Apollo killed the snake. The snake in the patriarchal era has been depicted as evil and the stories of her treatment are widespread in battles against the snake in the Garden of Eden, Leviathan in the Bible and dragons and monsters almost everywhere. Pre-patriarchal images of the snake celebrate her in figures such as snake-haired Medusa, or Cassandra whose ears were licked by a snake and so she was able to foresee the future. Once again, Apollo intervenes after Cassandra fights against his assault and ensures she is never believed. This poem is published in my book Earth’s Breath. https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
(Poem Art) we only live where lightning burned the soil by Maya Daniel

we can’t live out of our lands, we only live where lightning burned the soil our hearts beat that anybody just can’t understand how can we live out of our lands you see us as settlers around your camp lost in your “modernity” of bombs, rifles, planes and choppers, and troops who hears nothing but commands why don’t you have that gentleness even in simple speech? you can’t conquer souls by force, or by fears, our land is for life and not for your unjust wars kill us. and our sons and daughters will seek on you, still holding on those images of you and your sons, too, in their memories is that holding to a lost strand of our culture?

(Special Post) Why I choose to be an RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone

The contribution of my writing to Return to Mago E-Magazine has evolved since it began four years ago, into a deeply mutually enhancing relationship. The time and effort taken to write carefully and in alignment with my heartfelt passions and insights, and then to be able to publish to a receptive audience, has always been rewarding – for me personally and apparently for many who received it.
(Special post) The Goddess Inanna: Her Allies and Opponents by Hearth Moon Rising

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld is one of the most fascinating myths ever told. Not just because it is profound and enlightening, although it is certainly that. It’s an exciting journey that ignites the imagination, and female characters are at the hub of the action. This is a tale of power: power that is demanded, power that is won, power that is appropriated, and power that cannot be escaped. The story follows the fertility goddess Inanna, who brought civilization to Mesopotamia, as she seeks to expand her realm by venturing into the world below. Inanna’s experiences in the great below, her escape, and the wild events that unfold as a result of her caper are the focus of the tale.
(Special Post) Discussion on Mother-Daughter Wound by Mago Circle Members

[Mago Circle members discussed and answered the question, “What do you think of this (the topic article below)? If you are a feminist, it is something that you would promote? If so, why? If not, why not?” The discussion took place on May 15, 2017 and shortly thereafter in The Mago Circle.] Topic Article: “For The Daughters Who Don’t Love Their Mothers – Screw Mother’s Day” by Sade Andria Zabala Everyone talks about a mother’s unconditional love. But what if it doesn’t exist? Daughters are socially expected to be close with their mothers. But are you one of the women who aren’t? Mother’s Day isn’t just for celebrating moms. It’s a day some of us dread because we are reminded we grew up (or are still) unloved, not good enough. (Read the whole article here.)

(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Sekhmet by Katlyn Each year between December 20-23 Sun reaches Her peak in the Southern Hemisphere: it is the Summer Solstice Moment. Poetry of the Season may be expressed in this way: This is the time when the light part of day is longest. You are invited to celebrate SUMMER SOLSTICE Light reaches Her fullness, and yet… She turns, and the seed of Darkness is born. This is the Season of blossom and thorn – for pouring forth the Gift of Being. The story of Old tells that on this day Beloved and Lover dissolve into the single Song of ecstasy – that moves the worlds. Self expands in the bliss of creativity. Sun ripens in us: we are the Bread of Life. We celebrate Her deep Communion and Reciprocity. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express Her fullness of being, Her relational essence and Her Gateway quality at this time. 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 Summer Solstice. 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=syTBjWpw3XU Shalako Mana Hopi 1900C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess), Corn Mother. Food is a miracle, food is sacred. She IS the corn, the corn IS Her. She gives Herself to feed all. The food/She is essential to survival, hospitality and ceremony … and all of this is transmuted in our beings. Sekhmet Contemporary image by Katlyn. Egyptian Sun Goddess. Katlyn says: Her story includes the compassionate nature of destruction. The fierce protection of the Mother is sometimes called to destroy in order to preserve well being. And Anne Key expresses: She represents “the awesome and awe-full power of the Sun. This power spans the destructive acts of creation and the creative acts of destruction.”- (p.135 Desert Priestess: a memoir).A chant in Her praise by Abigail Spinner McBride: Sheila-na-gig 900C.E. British Isles. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). From Elinor Gadon The Once and Future Goddess (p.338): “She is remembered in Ireland as the Old Woman who gave birth to all races of human…. In churches her function was to ward off evil”, or to attract the Pagan peoples to the church. From Adele Getty Goddess (p.66): “The first rite of passage of all human beings begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. In India, the vulva “known as the yoni, is also called cunti or kunda, the root word of cunning, cunt and kin … (the yoni) was worshipped as an object of great mystery … the place of birth and the place where the dead are laid to rest were often one and the same.” Getty says her message here in this image “is double-edged: the opening of her vulva and the smile on her face elicit both awe and terror; one might venture too far inside her and never return to the light of day …” as with all caves and gates of initiation. In the Christian mind the yoni clearly became the “gates of hell”. And as Helene Cixous said in her famous feminist article “The Laugh of the Medusa”: “Let the priests tremble, we’re going to show them our sexts!” (SIGNS Summer 1976) Kunapipi (Australia) “the Aboriginal mother of all living things, came from a land across the sea to establish her clan in Northern Australia, where She is found in both fresh and salt water. In the Northern Territory She is known as Warramurrungundgi. She may also manifest Herself as Julunggul, the rainbow snake goddess of initiations who threatens to swallow children and then regurgitate them, thereby reinforcing the cycle of death and rebirth. In Arnhem Land She is Ngaljod …” (Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller – thanks to Lydia Ruyle). More information: re Kunapipi. NOTE the similarity to Gobekli Tepe Sheela Turkey 9600B.C.E., thanks Lydia Ruyle.Lydia Ruyle’s Gobekli Tepe banner. Inanna/Ishtar Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E. (Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature) She holds Her breasts displaying her potency. She is a superpower who feeds the world, nourishes it with Her being. We all desire to feel this potency of being: Swimme and Berry express: “the infinite striving of the sentient being”. Adele Getty calls this offering of breasts to the world “a timeless sacred gesture”. Mary Mother of God 1400 C.E. Europe (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A recognition, even in the patriarchal context that She contains it all. Wisdom and Compassion Tibetan Goddess and God in Union. This is Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle). Sri Yantra Hindu meditation diagram of union of Goddess and God. 1500 C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, p.75). “Goddess and God” is the common metaphor, but it could be “Beloved and Lover”, and so it is in the mind of many mystics and poets: that is, the sacred union is of small self with larger Self. Prajnaparamita the Mother of all Buddhas. (The Great Mother Erich Neumann, pl 183). She is the Wisdom to whom Buddha aspired, Whom he attained. Medusa Contemporary, artist unknown. She is a Sun Goddess: this is one reason why it was difficult to look Her in the eye. See Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! REFERENCES: Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1990. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess.Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Katlyn, artist https://www.mermadearts.com/b/altar-images-art-by-katlyn Key, Anne. Desert Priestess: a memoir. NV: Goddess Ink, 2011. Mann A.T. and …
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …
(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. …
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/

Mago, the First Mother from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Excerpts from “Mago, the First Mother from East Asia,” Creatrix Media Live (CML) Roundtable Radio Talk with Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. May 23, 2011] Jayne DeMente: Welcome Helen, I was fortunate to read some of your research and I applaud you because, we in the Western WSE movement have long needed to hear more from Asian women spiritual leaders and feminists and your reference to the Neolithic timeline… For our listeners and participants online, let’s lead with the question of who is Mago, was she a mother figure, what is Magoism, does any other deity pre-date her? Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: *Mago is the great goddess known to East Asians throughout history. She is the first mother of all, cosmogonist, and ultimate sovereign/ruler. She has many names. Among them are Triad Deity (Samsin), Grandmother (halmi), Auspicious Goddess (Seogo), Evil (Magui), and Old Goddess (Nogo). She is also known as the Giantess who shaped the natural and cultural landscape. Her manifestations are so multivalent that one may think they do not refer to the same goddess. She was well loved, given high esteem, celebrated by East Asians in the past. She was almost completely forgotten, however in modern times, up until the 1980s in Korea, when the principle text of Magoism, the Budoji, re-emerged. *Mago is a mother figure in the sense that she bore two daughters, Kunghee and Sohee, and managed her household called the Castle of Mago, the primordial paradise of humanity. She is the ancestor of all races. She takes care of everything on earth via the equilibrium of cosmic music/sound/vibration. *Magoism is the term that refers to the totality of culture/civilization venerating Mago as the great goddess. It is a tradition largely unnoted but co-opted and distorted in major East Asian religions. The concept of Magoism helps one identify and understand Mago’s multivalent manifestations that are found trans-nationally. It also makes possible to name the female-centered original/primal civilization that gave birth to the forthcoming East Asian civilizations and religions. *Whether Mago is the earliest deity known to East Asia is unknown. In fact, there are goddesses unearthed from “pre-historic” archaeological sites without their names. The life-sized goddess statue was unearthed in the site of Hongshan Culture, northeastern region of present China dating from 4,700 to 2,900 BCE. The heavy use of jade along with the partly bear-figured female icon is congruent with the account of Magoism in the Budoji. Also, of course, there are numerous female figurines called dogu excavated in Japan’s “pre-historic” times. The ancient origin of Mago or Magoism has a merit to explain some facts that remain a mystery, so to speak. Korea is also known as the land of dolmens. Half of the world megaliths are populated in the Korean peninsula. There are numerous pyramids found in mainland China. There is a documentary film about the sunken temple beneath the sea of Okinawa Japan, etc. dating to 10,000 years ago. *Then, how early does Mago date to? It is difficult to date the earliest evidence of Mago or Magoism simply because written history does not exist in pre-patriarchal times. As you see here, when we talk about the earliest of something, everyone assumes it is of Chinese. So let me follow this line of thought: Ge Hong’s record on Magu from China dates to the early fourth century CE (Ge Hong 283—343 CE). However, Daoist scholar Robert Ford Campany states that the cult of Mago dates back to the Stone Age. It is more difficult to date Mago in Korean records simply because ancient written records did not survive. Two books, the Budoji and the Handan Gogi, alleged to have been written in the late 4th or early 5th century and subsequent later times, which refer to Mago otherwise known as Samsin (Triad Deity) remain controversial. Considering that the name Mago is embedded in Korean language as in “gom,” “geum,” and “gam,” whose meaning indicates ruler, sovereign, and head, the origin of Mago is as old as these words. Likewise, most materials that recount Mago as cosmogonist are of folklore, place names, literature, arts, and debris of historical and religious records, most of which are difficult to date for its origin. Anniitra Ravenmoon: Thank you Helen, you have done much academic research and hold several degrees, can you explain to us how your education or experience informed you regarding Mago? Helen: *I would say that encountering Mago as a doctoral research topic is ultimately prompted by my intellectual quest as a Korean feminist. Following radical feminism of Mary Daly, I wanted to seek spirituality that is not only non-patriarchal but also East Asian and Korean. This made me study feminism and East Asian religions, histories, and cultures, etc. I end up with so much to study over the past decade and a half. I did not take up graduate studies as a means to develop an academic career. I loved reading and studies from youth. This kind of attitude is not that practical in the job market. However, I believe this is the right path for me. To look back, I did not follow the ready-made conventional path of life. I was a dreamer and idealist. I still value those qualities in myself and others. I used to think to myself, if I had remained a Christian, I would not have sought Mago. How could I? Likewise if I had resorted to Buddhism, I would not have encountered Mago. Because I wanted to carve out my own spiritual path as a Korean feminist, I was able to encounter Mago. Another factor at work in my study of Mago is the cultural or spiritual tradition of cultivating the Dao, the Way, in East Asia. I wanted to find out what the truth was, how I could make the most out of my life and etc. So I tried the shoes of a Catholic overseas missionary for a while. Leaving Christianity behind, however, helped me realize the cultural heritage that I have within. It was …
(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] Magoist Calendar is the inter-cosmic genealogical chart of the Creatrix in which all is found kindred. It unfolds the one standard unified time, which I call the Cosmic Mother’s Time or the Mago Time, wherein all beings in Our Universe from microcosmic quarts to macrocosmic celestial bodies are perceived in continuum. The Cosmic Mother’s Time is an inclusive time in which everyone is re-membered and celebrated. It is revelatory for its numinous nature, which some may call a mystery. The Mago Time is happening
(Pilgrimage Essay 2) Report of First Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen Hwang

[Author’s note: The first Mago Pilgrimage to Korea took place June 6-19, 2013. We visited Ganghwa Island, Seoul, Wonju, Mt. Jiri, Yeong Island (Busan), and Jeju Island.] Part 2 Traditional Korea and the Primordial Home of Magoism It was the time for the sacred, ancient mystery of Magoism to be reenacted once again for the Race of WE! Mago Pilgrimage was an open invitation to the deep knowing that Korean Magoism unfolds beneath the surface of patriarchal consciousness. It was a call from the Background [to borrow Mary Daly’s term, which, I explicate, refers to the biophilic reality wherein the deep memories of Goddess are alive, unfettering from the foreground, patriarch reality] to be present with Mago, the Great Goddess, Here and Now! Third eyes flashed, while open hearts unlocked the doors to the path. We heard the whisper, the chorus of the natural, cultural, and historical landscapes of Korea, the arcane music of the Female Beginning. The magic worked its own feats. As could be expected, undertaking the Mago pilgrimage entailed daunting tasks for me. Nonetheless, it was proven to me time and again that the purpose creates the means. The Korean saying, “Where there is a will, there is a way,” spoke to it well. We, the intercontinental pilgrims, were made welcome by supporters, organizers, and volunteers from the locale. We attracted fabulous scholars, teachers, artists, administrators, and activists along our paths. It was the first cross-cultural and cross-gender goddess event to be held in Korea in modern times! Excitement and anticipation were high. As a researcher of Mago and Magoism, I knew the Mago pilgrimage was the right thing to do. In fact, I had been faithfully following the direction that my heart beckoned to throughout my life. The consequences were the actions that I took. This time, however, I was rewarded with the fate-ful encounter; the very research of Mago came as a revelation to me. The topic of Mago emerged from nowhere at the juncture of my labyrinthine journey to non-patriarchal [gynocentric] consciousness. I was a student of feminist studies in religions. Without knowing what was in store for me, I knew that I was not content with the feminist theology of patriarchal religions of the West and the East. If any theme of these religions had appealed to me — I wished at times, to confess to my readers — during those years, my path would not have crossed with Magoism. My radical feminist quest was the cause for encountering Mago.