July 31, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kushal Poddar

Born in a warm corner of India, Kushal Poddar, a lone child brought up with only his shadow mates, began writing verse at the age of six. He adopted English, his second tongue, as the language to dream on. Widely published in several countries in prestigious anthologies such as Men In The Company of Women, Penn International MK, and Van Gogh’s Ear, he was also featuredby Tupelo Press in the Poem-a-Day project for the month ofDecember in 2013. He has been interviewed and read his work in various radio programs in Canada and the United States. Poddar collaborated with photographers for an exhibition in Venice, Italy, and with performers for several audio publications. He has said that he believes “Poetry is a tool to arrest the vast beyond within the canvas of personal experience. To limit the limitless so our thirst and longing for it remains unquenched.”

Poddar currently lives in Kolkata and writes poetry, fiction and scripts for short films when not engaged in his day job as a counsel/lawyer in the High Court At Calcutta. Forthcoming books are The Mood Study Of A Cold Cup and A Place For Your Ghost Animals.

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(Novel 1) The Singing of Swans by Mary Saracino

[Note: This is an excerpt from the first chapter in Mary Saracino’s novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006). Used by permission from the publisher. For more information, visit http://www.pearlsong.com/thesingingofswans.htm.] Chapter 1 Night Rider The night sky held no moon as Ziza pushed through the roof of her house and soared into the stark blackness. A gust of wind became her wings, pushing her up and up above the slumbering sounds of her small village, Caneva, in Friuli — a province tucked away in the northeastern corner of a country that what would someday be known as Italy. Far below, beneath an inky darkness, only the occasional stray cat peered up from the cobblestones, twitching its tail in anticipation of a passing mouse. Ziza’s neighbors snored in their beds. Her husband, Aldo DeSante, tossed and turned, unaware that while his wife’s body lay beside him, her spirit traveled elsewhere. She promised to return before the stroke of five to ensure that death would not claim her mortal limbs. Her children were lost in complicated dreams and her mother, Carmela, nursing a bout of insomnia, sat before the family’s ancestral Lare altar, next to the cold hearth in the corner of their small home. She alone knew that Ziza had been called away on official business. It was cold that Thursday night in the midst of the Ember days of fasting. A sharp wind howled fiercely down the alleyways that third week of September in the year 1575, foreshadowing a long, frigid winter, but Ziza felt nothing of the chill for her body was as vaporous as air. Light and porous she flew past the church steeple, the shops that lined the piazza, and over the well in the center of her village. Dense clouds hovered over the land; no stars shone to guide her, but still Ziza kept on. She levitated above the tiled rooftops, pausing a moment to determine if the others were ready, as well. From the darkened bell tower, an owl hooted, signaling for her to proceed. At the edge of town, Ziza joined Lucia, Pietro, Sophia, Antonio, and Filaberta. Without a word, the night riders veered west and south, toward the wheat fields on a stony ridge two miles outside of town. There amid acres of bearded grain the others waited. There, during this time between solstices, this midnight of the autumn Ember Days, they would enact the ritual. The wind bellowed as the cadre of journeyers sped over roads and rivers, byways and stone fences, olive trees and vineyards. Ziza’s tangle of snaky dark tresses swirled around her face as she raced through the night sky. The night smelled of damp grass and wet soil for the rain had pummeled the countryside earlier that evening. The omen had been favorable and Ziza knew in her bones that after midnight the battle would begin. A victory was possible, if their hearts were pure enough and focused on the welfare of their townspeople.
(Prose) Spring Rain by Sara Wright

For the last couple of days we have had cloudy weather with a few irregular cloudbursts bringing much needed rain to our Juniper clustered high desert…When it rains earth tones deepen and the stones that line my paths standout like people. Perhaps they are Kachinas, after all. Kachinas are on my mind because these holy people come down from the mountains to help the Tewa pueblo peoples invoke the rain – gods that will help the crops grow. Squash, corn, and beans remind me that the Three Sister’s technology lives on. The Kachinas have been around since the winter solstice but they stay hidden until the spring dances begin at the pueblos…
The Ritual of Burying A Doll by Jude Lally

As we cycle into the dark of the year a ritual on my path is to bury a doll. She is a small clay figurine, curled up in a foetal position. This is a ritual normally carried out at Autumn Equinox, in preparation for the coming dark of the year. But this year things are a little out of kilter and she was buried later, in the threshold in which Samhain and Winter Solstice overlap. Small mammal bones in a Barn Owl pellet I can view the hill I buried her on from my house, it’s not towering tall nor holds a circle of standing stones, but to me it is sacred ground. It’s about a 5 mile walk, at a rough estimate. I pause for a moment as I step from the tarmac road and onto the land, a threshold marking two very different worlds. I hadn’t walked far until I came across a Barn Owl pellet, a mass of regurgitated bones all shaped together with fur and other indigestible parts. I stoped for a second or two using a stick to pull the pellet apart, a momentary reading of the bones of little creatures, sacrificed by great talons. In previous years the doll was buried in a large black ceremonial cauldron, made by the hands of a friend. In 2019 that changed, as I felt the call to bury her in the earth. She would travel with me in a small circular tin, and in the photos above I’m on the Isle of the Big Women looking over to Skye. She was buried in the dark peaty soil, further down the hill from a sacred site. As we moved in 2020 and lockdown I felt her connection from under the soil as each of the seasons passed. I held on with a thread, planning to perminantly move back home when I could. Now I am back on home soil, walking my favorite hill. I have placed dried Rowan berries into the little clay doll for this cycle of the deep, and added a few fresh holly berries from a familiar Holly. Holly trees often acted as markers in the landscape, so effective is their ever green against the browns and golds of winter foliage that I can see her from about 5 miles away, from my window! The Guardian Holly Tree There have already been some hard frosts since she was lain in this little opening between two stones. This is at the foot of a dry stane dyke (a traditionally built stone wall) with the roots of my beloved Holly tree below her. I will visit her again around Imbolc and between now and Spring Equinox there will be rain, sleet and snow. I will return at Spring Equinox to retrieve her, a ritual of divination. But for now she lies on the hill with shortening days, curled up in a foetal position, a fitting posture for awaiting the rebirth of the sun. She won’t see those new rays of light but the little berries pressed into her hair hold sacred intentions which I hope will be blessed by the new light. (Meet Mago Contributor) Jude Lally
(Essay 5) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] The Old Scandinavian Belief – Mythical and Shamanic Based Fig. 13. Untouched forest, Sweden. Photo: S. Danielsson Fig. 14. Untouched forest, Sweden Photo: S. Rudehill The indigenous Vanir culture still vivid in the 400CEs may not have been all that different from the Hyperboreanworld that Tacitus described in c. 98 CE. The old culture may have embraced some core features shared with the long extinct OE-civilization in south-Europe; at least even the 400CE culture shows clear signs of a collective foundation, being peaceful, egalitarian, mythic, and if judging from grave findings, society was lending a peculiar high role and function to women.[1] Rich female graves exceed far in number the significantly less number of rich male graves. In other words; suppose the graves of rich women contained wives and queens, where then are the kings? Medieval writings on Asir mythology unintendedly reveal traditional Vanir customs and society as once being matrilocal and matrilineal. This means that women were guardians of local areas of nature. Land, children, and spirituality were associated with women and the female.[2] The Eddas, Tacitus, and Caesar all report that children have matronymic last names, and that they were raised in their mothers’ families and tribes, belonging to their mothers and socially raised and cared for by their maternal uncles.[3] Also, the Old Scandinavia culture testifies shamanism (sejd) and is considered to have reached a high level of spiritual and symbolic involvement, in line with the OE civilization.[4] The old society was oriented towards the giving and sustaining of life, with no concepts pointing towards war and male domination.[5] In contrast to all patriarchal religions claiming a historical origin and core around which a dualistic world view and religion is built, the world view of shamanic based cultures is mythical, timeless, and collective.[6] This means these societies are not occupied with insisting on any historical and “true” origin in the physical reality for their own group – instead mythical societies have timeless myths on the theme … Once upon a time the sun and the earth fell in love and had children on land and in the seas…including all living creatures in a common origin. The archaic myth, known from British Islands to Korea about the skipping Cailleach unintendedly building mountains from pebbles dropping from her apron, is a typical example. At the heart of the mythical thinking of indigenous cultures is theso called one-world concept. This means that there is only one world – the natural world – and it includes everything. In this one physical world that we experience and inhabit, every living entity has a physical body and life – or in Monica Sjöö´s words: Everything has a mother and a spirit.[7] Life or spirit may be understood as the conscious and communicative side to matter, which in turn grants holiness to everything. Animistic perception allows conscious communication to stretch far beyond the limits of general Eurocentric thinking. An animistic perspective endorses communicative relations not only between humans, but between all the living in the physical world, on their own terms, thus including animals, plants and forests, even seas and mountains, directly or through shamanic journeys. The Sami tradition admits a direct communication with birds and animals, trees and land. Everyone in the Sami culture is familiar with shamanistic skills; and the professionals, the noijades would travel to contact the spiritual guardians of lakes, forests and mountains. Likewise would the Norse shaman, the Völva or Vala have travelled when sejding. The labeling animism of the indigenous world views may not be wrong per se, but the contents of the term have not yet been explained in its own rights according to indigenous thinking.[8] Earlier, animism was regarded as a lower and more undeveloped kind of religion in comparison to Christianity, even considered primitive. Today there is growing scholarly support for a distinction between indigenous shaman-based mythic systems and traditional patriarchal and hierarchical religions, recognizing two groups with basically different spiritual approaches to reality. For the animistic idea, academy may by now have discerned its contours, but has still not yet been able to catch its concepts in a satisfactory (and respectful) Western vocabulary that on one side is acceptable to indigenous people, and on the other side is sufficiently clarifying to the Eurocentric mind-set. Still, attempts are being made, for instance; Professor of Archaeology Miranda Aldhouse-Green states of the anthropomorphic figurines from Old European Civilization that they may be seen as deriving from early shamanic based cultures, rather than being simple gods.[9] Professor Emerita in Philosophy and Religion Charlene Spretnak observed that a shamanic based world conception was characteristic for all the classical Greek goddesses before their adoption into the patriarchal Olympic pantheon, led by Zeus.[10] Gimbutas observed a distinction between entities from animistic cultures, but apparently lacking descriptive and definite Western words and labeling, Gimbutas, when talking about the OE-figurines, defines goddess, as a one cosmic symbol including everything,[11] and stating that goddess is just a metaphor for the living earth, the sacred and inviolable Mother Earth, and Ultimate Lawgiver.[12] Thus in OE art, mythic figures do not have personified portraits. They often lack facial expression or wear masks. They are thought of to gestalt life principles in the physical world – not entities.[13] The fashioning in a broad variety of forms and attributes indicate their symbolic status, Gimbutas argues and even suggest that they may represent a kind of Neolithic spiritual language. Pentikäinen highlights how profoundly shamanic based religions differ from dualistic religions, to such extend that maybe instead of religions they would more rightly be identified as world views.[14] Doctor of Anthropology Piers Vitebsky emphasizes for the Arctic …
(Essay) The Women of Fanes by Claire French

Old Agostino was the yardman in my uncle’s building yard. He was a hunchback with a large bony face, sad grey eyes and unkempt grey hair. His hands were like shovels, strong and hard, and he walked with a heavy shambling gait like Alberich in the Northern saga. But to me, a lonely little girl in a world of grown ups, he was always of exquisite gentleness, and I soon discovered that he was a wonderful storyteller. His voice was deep and strong, in stark contrast to his misshapen body, and his words, broken Austrian-German interspersed with his native Ladinian, sounded like water murmuring, rippling and gushing over a stone-filled creek bed. Agostino hailed from the Dolomite mountains, from the forgotten tribe of the Ladinians, and that was his pride and his sorrow. “Agostino, tell me of Dolasilla”, I begged, and waited for the radiant smile to light up his face. “Ah, Dolasilla, the Princess of Fanes … she was so beautiful. Straight and slim she sat upon her charger, and the blue Rayeta Stone gleamed in her crown. She wore the white mantle of the marmots and she had the unfailing silver arrows in her quiver.” This was a story that I did not find in my book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. A princess who fought in battle and who was an invincible warrior. But Agostino did not spare me the tragic end. Yes, Dolasilla wanted to stop fighting and conquering, but it was her father, the wicked king, who would not allow it. He banished her lover, handsome prince Ey-de-Net, and promised his daughter to the King of Aurona, the Great Goldmine. But Dolasilla would not be married against her will. When the King of the Aurona came to get her, she fought against him. But without her lover, who was also her shield bearer, she was vanquished. She was killed in battle and her kingdom, the Kingdom of Fanes, was destroyed.
(Poem) Fool’s Moon by Donna Snyder

Wikimedia Commons The Fool’s Moon leads ineluctably to darkness. Sunlight prepares to impregnate the new day. The old one becomes tomorrow’s darkness, both new and fecund, neatly giving doom the lie and illuminating the mathematics of philosophy. Moon paints snakes on her face. Copper bells ring. She dances, peculiarly festooned, as if time really exists, as if She is both in the box and outside the box. The Uncertainty Principle illustrated, darkness both perceived and felt as She appears to diminish. We swim through a sea of vapors, truth a theory proved through self-deception. The Dark Side becomes brilliance. Fools stumble through the perception of dark. https://www.magoism.net/2013/04/meet-mago-contributor-donna-snyder/
(Art) Black Madonna of Czestochowa by Lydia Ruyle

Black Madonna of Czestochowa, Poland is the most well known Black Madonna in the world. She is Matri Polski, Queen of Poland, and the symbol for change and freedom. She saved the Poles from the Swedes and wears her battle scars on her cheek. The Madonna is a painting on wood which is covered by a screen of precious metals and jewels that is ritually changed during the year. Her image is displayed for mass, then hidden behind a curtain. The walls of her chapel are covered with offerings or milagros asking and thanking Her for miracles and healing. Painting with gold & jewels, Czestochowa, Jasna Gorna, Poland
(Tribute 2) Barbara Mor, “Relentless Love”: Letters 1988-2002 from a Writer’s Best Friend by Jack Dempsey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPtU2Rxbsjc Here below is, to me, the core statement of what Barbara was hoping to help us recover in “GCM” and her poetry, the very center of Human Being which was both our original inheritance and is, hopefully, our evolutionary future—if we can remember our full demonstrable past, and so move beyond the adolescent wishes, limiting mirages, and biophobic delusions imposed by patriarchal power: what Frederick Turner in Beyond Geography called a “suicide note,” namely that prison of blind, dismal ontological assumptions, reductive mechanistic sciences and absurdly-linear political screed called His-Story. Few artists said it as succinctly as Barbara did, defining the essential, liberating (and so, outlawed) experience of ek-stasis or “standing beyond oneself,” beyond the limits of a regressive, isolating, disempowering fiction called the separate ego: What is ecstasy? It is our original state of being. It is the conscious expansion of the universe into a multitude of interconnected dimensions and forms. It is Her dance of being, from which all of us were born. Ecstasy is passion, self-expressed through form. In the case of Earth, human beings and all other creatures and biological and geological activities are the forms, cosmic energy is the passion…. In and with the whole world is where we are supposed to feel it. In and with and as the whole world is where our human ecstasy is born. It is the celebration of the recognition that our spirit and flesh are One. Who else, meanwhile, so efficiently summed up how actual human progress—for example, in The West’s first, longest, most relatively peaceful, creative and egalitarian period, in Minoan Crete—had become a nightmare called “progress” which, to this day, never defines the goal against which it might be measured, even as its ontology carries us blindly ever-deeper into outright fascism and ecological suicide? Because The West was arrogant enough, or insane enough, to believe its anal eye was truly the eye of God, its will to total dominance truly “God’s will”—its perpetual machinery of observation and control in fact “the machinery of God”—it made “progress.” Western leaders, the political, religious and economic elite, officially merged their profits with God’s profits; and the Western peoples were conditioned, consistently and grindingly from the 13th-century beginnings of the Christian Inquisition, to accept submission to this profitable machine as their “moral lot.” The patriarchal denial of the Mother becomes the political denial of the people; which becomes the total mechanization, via capitalization, of the human body. And as the body moves, so does God move: the Biblical capitalist West has created God as a prison-keeper, as a factory-boss, rather than as a living cosmos. God as an assembly-line rather than a dance…. As you can see from readers’ comments at Amazon.com, the reception of GCM ranged from raves of gratitude to a minority of critics who tried to dismiss it on familiar “utopian,” “angry” and “female-biased” grounds. GCM began to sell and have an impact, such that the U-Arizona Library purchased a copy. This in part led Barbara to apply for various jobs there, as lecturer, assistant to its press or library, or as cleaning lady. But her hopes vanished when she was caught simply trying to wash herself in a library rest-room with the luxuries of hot water and soap. And this (December 1st, 1988) was when Barbara somehow managed reply to a first letter of mine: …In the meantime, I had no income, no job, nada….I went from subsistence poverty to absolute zip…Was told by the managing editor of the U of A press that “Writers don’t make good editors.” Arizona is a very yahoo state, including the population of academics. Whatever. I’ve been living on the street, sleeping in abandoned houses in the barrios, hanging out over cups of 59-cent endlessly refillable coffee at Burger Kings and Carl Jr.’s, trying to avoid the tracer beams of Tucson’s police helicopter at night. Altogether, not exactly a book-signing party. But great experience of the wild west, public toilets, street trash, the crazies of the homeless night….So, I’ll read your work with what brains I have left…. So had “our old mama” entered “the junkyard,” her eyes and heart torn open wider than ever to the needlessly suffering and constantly terrorized people in the belly of the American Dream. My own turn had come in the spring of 1980 when, becoming a writer in New York City after a youth of nothing but under-appreciated blessings, I fell in love with a 20-year-old Jewish woman named Eve Helene Wilkowitz. Six weeks of new life ended when, in March, Eve was abducted during her late-night trip home to Long Island, held alive for three days, and then brutally murdered and her body dumped in the backyard of a house near her own. The case was never solved. Completely shattered, I vowed to understand and manifest why, as one detective told me, a murder like this was “an everyday event,” and I began to shake my education by the heels at the Public Library. That was where and when I found, like Barbara, that the vast majority of history—most centrally to me, the first, longest, most peaceful and progressive period of The West, in Minoan Crete—had been as buried by history books as it was by its “heroic” Mycenaean Greek conquerors. In a few years after multiple stays in Crete I had a 2,000-page manuscript of the future novel Ariadne’s Brother to show American publishers, and I quote one response as wholly typical: “We don’t even want to look at it, because of what it’s about.” I’d made the mistake of telling them that the actual first major life-loving phase of Western Civ, still going strong when it fell through natural disaster and invasion, had never been told from its own Minoan-Cretan point of view: all we had was a myth from their enemies describing doomed decadence, a nymphomaniacal queen with a naïve treasonous daughter, and a man-eating Minotaur, all of whom got what they deserved at the hands of a hero brought up on the religion …
(Book Excerpt 1) Pagan, Goddess, Mother by Nane Jordan, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This is the Introduction chapter from: Pagan, Goddess, Mother, edited by Nané Jordan and Chandra Alexandre, Demeter Press, 2021, pp. 11-28, https://demeterpress.org/books/pagan-goddess-mother/.] Introduction Nané Jordan and Chandra Alexandre I am the Mother of all things and my love ispoured out upon the earth…I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters,I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe. From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return. Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals. (From Traditional Charge of the Goddess by Doreen Valiente, adapted by Starhawk) This book gathers creative voices, stories, and scholarship from the forefront of Pagan and Goddess-centred homes—where Goddesses, divine Mothers, female embodiment, and generative life cycles are honoured as sacred. Pagan and Goddess spirituality are distinct yet overlapping traditions, lived through diverse communities in North America and beyond. Those who inhabit these spaces have much to say about deity as mother and about human mothers in relationship to deity. This anthology puts Pagan and Goddess mothering into focus by highlighting the philosophies and experiences of mothers in these movements and spiritual traditions. By doing so, we hope to generate new ways of imagining and enacting motherhood. Questions informing this collection are as follows. How do mothers in contemporary Pagan and Goddess movements negotiate their mothering roles and identities? How does devotion towards Mother Goddesses empower and/or affect the lived experiences of mothers and feminist practices of mothering? As editors, we wondered how Pagan- and Goddess-centred mothers engage in, and are affected by, their particular spiritual leadership through practices of ceremony, ritual, magic, priestessing, as well as through living connections with nature, the more-than-human world, the Earth as Mother, and our own bodies. We were curious to know how Pagan- and Goddess-centred mothers interface with dominant religions, the public sphere, social institutions for children, community leadership, and social justice movements. We were curious especially because Pagan and Goddess spirituality are not mainstream religions, nor are they accepted as such. Adherents often co-create new pathways, subcultures, or countercultures in life and spirit. Practitioners may or may not belong to particular communities or faith-based groups and may even practice traditional religions alongside their Pagan and Goddess spirituality. For many, the term “spirituality” rather than “religion” best describes Pagan and Goddess philosophies and ways of life. Spirituality may be equated with the search for meaning in life; it is related to sensing the more-than-material world of the sacred, numinous, or divine—feeling interconnections within the web of life, and all that is. Spirituality often describes subtle human experiences that are immanent (from within) and/or transcendent (from outside) of the self. Spiritual experiences often have transformative, healing, or uplifting qualities. For some practitioners, Pagan and Goddess spirituality are understood as growing from the roots of ancient religions or as reclaimed from pre-Christian spiritual worldviews. Pagan- and Goddess-loving individuals may be hidden in their communities and face misunderstanding from mainstream religion and society. Conversely, others live openly and identify with particular pathways, groups, or circles, gathering in designated places of worship to practice their spiritual expression. What especially intrigued us, as editors, is the knowledge gained from our own experiences, struggles, and insights with Goddess spirituality. In this, our practices and experiences of mothering have been uniquely affected by living spiritual paths that value women, the sacred female and feminine, daily embodied life, and mothers themselves as divine and part of the sacred cycle of life. We particularly live our mother- centred spirituality as women seeking to engage in nonpatriarchal spiritual practices and leadership. We see this form of spiritual feminist leadership reflected in this volume—through stories of those who support and uplift women as mothers in their communities and through the voices of mothers who strive to live in balance with male partners and/or the men in their lives. Many Pagan- and Goddess- identified mothers and mother-centred people find their spiritual pathways to be life-enhancing alternatives to patriarchal, male-centred religions. In particular, Goddess spirituality, as a women- and female-empowering movement, has grown out of social gender justice and feminist movements in North America and beyond (e.g. Hwang et al., Robbins Dexter and Noble; Sjoo and Mor, Spretnak). Some common principles to both Pagan and Goddess spirituality are a love of nature and the Earth as sacred; knowing the Earth as our Mother; a respect for the elements and the more-than-human worlds of trees, plants, earth, water, and animal life; belief in the importance of the unseen realms; valuing embodied life and our bodies as sacred in female and all gendered forms; honouring the seasons and the cosmic turning of the wheel of the year; and appreciating the depth of interconnections between birth, life, and death. Through the authors represented herein, this anthology examines the pleasures, struggles, and challenges of living Pagan- and Goddess-centred truths as mothers raising children towards postpatriarchal, Earth-based, and love-centred lives, which recognize the pain of suffering alongside the importance of healing, compassion, and the pursuit of an interconnected, joyful life. Such mothers are striving to unleash their own and their children’s fullest potential from worldviews that honour the female/feminine and mothers as divine and sacred to all life. Engaged in and uplifting Pagan- and Goddess-centred spirituality, this anthology reveals the tensions and insights of these communities, philosophies, and practices for empowering and healing the lives of mothers as well as the next generation. (To be continued) (Meet Mago Contributor) Nane Jordan https://www.magoism.net/2014/03/meet-mago-contributor-nane-jordan/
(Photo Essay 11) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting with the Grandmothers”.] Çatalhöyük, Anatolia Çatalhöyük is the site of a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, inhabited from approximately 7500 BCE to 5700 BCE. The iconic Mother Goddess figure of a birthing woman sitting between two leopards was found at Çatalhöyük. The Mother Goddess figure from Çatalhöyük (the head of the figure has been reconstructed), Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara. The Çatalhöyük settlement forms two mounds 20 metres above the plain. These settlement mounds are formed over millennia with successive layers of habitation. In Bulgaria the Karanovo settlement mound has been excavated to show the successive layers. Karanovo settlement mound, Bulgaria – the numbers on the right indicate layers dating back to the Neolithic. So far the excavations at Çatalhöyük have found clusters of domestic buildings, with no obvious communal buildings such as temples, meeting halls or burial grounds. Some of the larger rooms had ornate murals and wall decorations of horned cattle. One understanding is that there may not have been a division between the everyday and the sacred, so that objects with spiritual meaning may have been placed on the walls of homes and in grain bins and beside ovens rather than in designated “shrines”. However, only about 4% of this site has been excavated, so there is more to discover. Recreation of a room from Çatalhöyük – Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, Ankara The population of the main mound has been estimated at 3,000 – 8,000 people living in an egalitarian culture. The mudbrick buildings were clustered together with no footpaths or streets between the dwellings. Most were accessed by holes in the ceiling and doors on the side of the houses reached by ladders and stairs. Section of a mud brick building at Çatalhöyük. The original archaeological interpretations of findings at Ҫatalhöyük included the sacred significance of Mother Goddess figures (see James Mellaart, who led the first excavations at the site – Catal-huyuk. A Neolithic Town in Anatolia.) This interpretation has since been questioned [see Çatalhöyük Figurines – Lynn Meskell (University of Stanford ) and Carolyn Nakamura (Columbia University)]. Meskell and others say that the Neolithic figures at Çatalhöyük may “represent older women who have achieved status” rather than Mother Goddess. Perhaps these two interpretations were not separated 10,000 years ago. Rather than either/or (Goddess or woman), the Çatalhöyük figures may be saying “both/and”, representing Mother Goddess and the life-giving power of women and Nature as the same thing. Figurines found at Ҫatalhöyük:
(Essay 10) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Fröja – the Shaman and High-Völva of Sejd Regardless all changes made to her in Asgård, Fröja upheld her specific title, Vanamö (Vanir Maiden) or Vanadis (Vanir Disir).[1] She kept her identity as High Völva or Vala (shaman), patroness of the sejd, the genuine Norse shamanism. Sejd was a specific Vanir feature. The indigenous, animistic and shamanistic cultures have professional s, the shamans, but everyone is familiar with shamanism for private and everyday use,[2] as discussed for the Sami people above. Also the indigenous Germanics had professional sejders, the völvas/valas, and shamanism was to what it seems, primarily on female hands. To the Asir gods the skill of sejd was originally unknown – and abhorrent. Odin, eventually practicing the sejd, after for a long time having pestered Fröja to give it to him, was never able to take control over Fröja, nor was Iron Age society fully able to control the human völvas, until their extinction. The sejd belonged to and was deeply rooted in the Vanir world, in which the meaning of its symbolism was fully familiar. In indigenous cultures, the task of traditional shamans was to work for the best of society, keeping up harmonious relations between nature and humans, and to travel into the spiritual world to find answers to urgent questions. This was also true for the Scandinavian Vanir vala/völva. The Nordic sejd is considered to have reached a particularly high and advanced level.[3] Sharing the basic principles of world-wide shamanism, the Norse sejd also had a unique character of its own. First, Norse sejd seems to have been a female and collective phenomenon. Second, instead of using shamanic drums, women would stand in a ring around the völva and sing sejd-songs, galders or varðlokkur (circle-sejd-songs).[4] These galders were rhythmic runic songs that helped the völva, when traveling in the spiritual realms. Third, whereas shamans generally perform physical movements on the ground, the völva would sit quietly aloft at her hjäll, a wooden High-Chair, probably once stationary,[5] but later built for each new Sejd-session (not to be confused by the High-Seat of the chieftain at the end of the table). She would hold unto her upright staff, her eyes covered to be able to see clearly in the spiritual world. In the Saga of Red Eric in Greenland, details from a Viking Age sejd-session around 1000CE are depicted.[6] Miniatures and pendants in silver of the vala´s wooden High-Chair (hjäll), snake symbols, and staffs are features, all found in many late (Iron Age), and most often very rich völva-graves. The word völva is agreed to derive from the ON volr, meaning staff. The Völva was the staff-holder.[7] Another epithet referring to her staff-holding is Gand-bera.[8] At least in Viking Age, the late Asir-believers treated the völvas with a combination of both fear and disrespect. They called her names and saw her as witch and evil. Even Fröja was shouted at and treated this way in Lokesenna 32. “Be silent, Freyja! thou foulest witch, And steeped full sore in evil.” Examples are many, and we have come to conclude and agree with Scholar in Mythology and Folklore, Lotta Motz that it is fully possible that the epithet völva is not the original old name for a Vanir shaman. Instead the word völva, meaning stick- or stake-holder, could well be a late derogatory name given to her with salient allusions to the male organ (at least of horses), the völ-sa (perhaps even vulva?). And further, female shaman-graves with divination tools and shamanic tokens stretch back throughout Bronze Age, but the old graves all lack staffs! Graves containing the typical sejd-staffs is an Iron Age phenomenon. The reason could be that not until after their institution had been brought to collapse, did the völvas start to walk about. For her title, if not völva, what then was her title? Vala is another well-established epithet, deriving from falling (into trance), and by W.B. Hjort translated as natural consciousness of the divine.[9] In original Old Norse language and texts Vala is the epithet used, and it is preferred and preserved in all Swedish translations. Only Danish and Norwegian translations have by tradition favored the word völva/volva. Vala is found though, in combination with Edda places´, a fact that would warrant an original and enduring use. An example is Odin´s settlement, called the Vala-skjálf (meaning settlemet of the Vala (“shelf” or ledge on the mountain)), which he took from the high-völva. From there he could overlook all worlds. Therefore, we are inclined to give preference to the word, vala as the original title of the Vanir shaman.[10] Fröja’s fivefold staff became her her token of dignity when wandering. It may signify the World Tree that connects the three shamanic worlds; underworld, midworld and overworld. It is said to have been made from the hollow elder tree, commonly known also asFröja’s Tree, as it grows rapidly and easy; its berries endowing us with Fröja-power all winter long.[11] In Iron Age (Viking Age) onwards, wen no longer stationary but walking about, the staff was indeed carried by Fröja´s human representatives, the völvas/valas. It was so significant that it is suggested to have had its own name,[12] and it followed the human völvas into their graves, at least in the late centuries of the völvas´ existence. Archeologically, female graves with staffs – and other specific items as leather-bags with divination tools, certain brooches and jewelry, like the small silver chair pendants, and the oval brooches with bead-sets, fire-steels pendants, snake-images, etc. (see fig. 27-30), have been found in various places in Scandinavia (one third of these are from Birka (Sw), Fyrkat (Dk), Hedeby (Dk).[13] …
(Art) Mother Earth by Elaine Drew

This painting depicts our mother, Earth, personified as the goddess Taera. The painted marble frame around Taera symbolizes our rock planet. The wallpaper shows examples of life on land (the plant), life in the air (the bird), and life in the water (the fish). The zigzags depict a stylized river, emphasizing the importance of water to life. The overall green color refers to the essential role of photosynthesis in creating life on Earth. As for Taera herself, her red gown symbolizes blood, the carrier of life. The flower motifs on her gown reflect a planet covered in plants. Her necklace evokes DNA, the code of all living things. The round shape of her hat represents the shape of our Earth, spinning in space. For more work by Elaine Drew, see Meet Mago Contributor Elaine Drew.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Vajra Ma

Vajra Ma is the leading pioneer of subtle-body and womb awakening in the Goddess Spirituality movement. She has designed and facilitated women’s ritual since 1986, integrating Goddess knowledge and feminist spirituality with experiential body wisdom (the conscious awareness of subtle body energies) to forge Woman Mysteries of the Ancient Future Sisterhood, a modern mystery school and Priestess lineage based in the devotional, womb-sourced moving meditation she originated, The Tantric Dance of Feminine Powe®: The Tantric Dance of Feminine Power evolved through decades of Vajra Ma’s personal work from the innate power and wisdom of woman’s body. It is the source work for many “tantric dance of” derivatives. She has developed demanding priestess training programs in her Woman Mysteries priestess lineage. Aside from her own books, The Tantric Dance of Feminine Power (1996) and From a Hidden Stream: The Natural Spiritual Authority of Woman (2010), Vajra Ma is featured in the anthologies: Daughters of the Goddess: Studies in Healing, Identity and Empowerment (2000), The Heart of the Sun: An Anthology in Exaltation of Sekhmet (2011) and Stepping Into Ourselvse: An Anthology of Writings on Priestesses (2014).

(Special Post 5) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 1) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously […]
(Special Post 6) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that […]
(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

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

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. […]
(Special Post 2) 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, […]

Imbolc: Through Goddess Eyes by Carolyn Lee Boyd

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

Tara, Hallie Iglehart Austen, p.122 On November 7th at 22:56 UTC EarthGaia crosses the midpoint in Her orbit between Equinox and Solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Season of Beltaine – a maturing of the Light, post-Spring Equinox. Beltaine and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin aspect of Goddess, even as She comes into relationship with Other: She remains Her own agent. Beltaine may be understood as the quintessential annual celebration of Light as it continues to wax towards fullness. It is understood to be the beginning of Summer. Here is some Poetry of the Season: Earth tilts us further towards Mother Sun, the Source of Her pleasure, life and ecstasy You are invited to celebrate BELTAINE the time when sweet Desire For Life is met – when the fruiting begins: the Promise of early Spring exalts in Passion. This is the celebration of Holy Lust, Allurement, Aphrodite … Who holds all things in form, Who unites the cosmos, Who brings forth all things, Who is the Essence of the Dance of Life. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express this quality of Hers. And also for consideration, is the fact that most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Beltaine. As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable – that which can only be known in body – below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKGRoVjQQHY Aphrodite 300 B.C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). This Greek Goddess is commonly associated with sexuality in a trivial kind of way, but She was said to be older than Time (Barbara Walker p.44). Aphrodite as humans once knew Her, was no mere sex goddess: Aphrodite was once a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity – the Creative Force itself. The Love that She embodied was a Love deep down in things, an allurement intrinsic to the nature of the Universe. Praised by the Orphics thus: For all things are from You Who unites the cosmos. You will the three-fold fates You bring forth all things Whatever is in the heavens And in the much fruitful earth And in the deep sea. Vajravarahi 1600C.E. Tibetan Tantric Buddhism (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A Dakini dancing with life energy – a unity of power, beauty, compassion and eroticism. Praised as Mistress of love and of knowledge at the same time. Tara Contemporary – Green Gulch California ,Tibetan Buddhist. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). “Her eroticism is an important part of her bodhisattvahood: the sweetpea represents the yoni, and she is surrounded by the sensual abundance of Nature. One of Tara’s human incarnations was as the Tibetan mystic Yeshe Tsogyal, “who helped many people to enlightenment through sacred sexual union with her”. – Ishtar 1000 B.C.E. Babylon (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Associated with passionate sexuality (and with Roman Goddess Venus) – which was not perceived as separate from integrity and intelligence … praised for Her beauty and brains! Her lips are sweet, Life is in Her mouth. When She appears, we are filled with rejoicing. She is glorious beneath Her robes. Her body is complete beauty. Her eyes are total brilliance. Who could be equal to Her greatness, for Her decrees are strong, exalted, perfect. MESOPOTAMIAN TEXT 1600 B.C.E. Artemis 4th Cent.B.C.E. Greece. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess) – classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent” – in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted. Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. Tibetan Goddess and God in Union: it could be any Lover and Beloved, of same sex. Image from Mann and Lyle, “Sacred Sexuality” p.74. Sacred Couple –Mesopotamia 2000-1600 BCE “Lovers Embracing on Bed”, Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth, Diane Wolkstein and Samuael Noah Kramer. Represents the sacred marriage mythic cycle – late 3rd and into 4th millennium B.C.E. (See Starhawk, Truth or Dare). This period is the time of Enheduanna – great poet and priestess of Inanna. Xochiquetzal 8th century C.E. Mayan (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Her name means “precious flower” – She is Goddess of pleasure, sexuality beauty and flowers. Sometimes represented by a butterfly who sips the nectar of the flower. “In ancient rituals honouring her, young people made a bower of roses, and, dressed as hummingbirds and butterflies they danced an image of the Goddess of flowers and love.” Her priestesses are depicted with ecstatic faces. (called “laughing Goddesses” !!) She and Her priestesses unashamedly celebrated joyful female sexuality – there is story of decorating pubic hairs to outshine the Goddess’ yoni. https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/meet-mago-contributor-glenys-livingstone/ REFERENCES: Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Mann A.T. and Lyle, Jane. Sacred Sexuality. ELEMENT BOOKS LTD, 1995. Starhawk. Truth or Dare. San Fransisco:Harper and Row, 1990. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983. Wolkstein,Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. NY: Harper and Rowe, 1983. The music for the slideshow is “”Coral Sea Dreaming” by Tania Rose.
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 5) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion. The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period. When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe. Synodic Lunar Track (Patriarchal) Sidereal Lunar Track (Magoist) Focus Moon’s phases Moon’s motions Days of month 29 or 30 (irregular) 28 (regular) No. of months in a year 12 13 Women’s menstrual cycle Assumed sync Synced Luni-centric Astolonomy Unknown 28 Constellations Intercalations 11 days annually, a total of 44 days for 4 years 1 day annually & 1 day every 4 years, a total of 2 days for 4 years Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in …
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This article is an edited excerpt from Chapter 7 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. I always wore a special headpiece for the Seasonal ceremonies when I facilitated them over the years, and I feel that any participant may do so, not just the main celebrant. My ceremonial headpiece with its changing and continuous Seasonal decoration took on increasing significance over the years; it became a personal central representation of the year-long ceremonial art process of creating, destroying and re-creating. For the research period of my doctoral studies particularly, when I was documenting the process, I realised that this headpiece came to represent for me the essence of “She” – as Changing One, yet ever as Presence – as I was coming to know Her. In my journal for the Mabon/Autumn Equinox process notes one year I wrote: As I pace the circle with the Mabon headpiece in the centre, I see “Her” as She has been through the Seasons … the black and gold of Samhain, the deep red, white and evergreen of Winter, the white and blue of Imbolc, the flowers of Eostar, the rainbow ribbons of Beltane, the roses of Summer, the seed pods and wheat of Lammas, and now the Autumn leaves. I see in my mind’s eye, and feel, Her changes. I am learning … The Mother knowledge grows within me. The headpiece, the wreath, the altar, the house decorations, all participate in the ceremony: they are part of the learning, the method, the relationship – similar to how one might bring flowers and gifts of significance to a loved one at special moments. Then further, the removal and re-creation of the decorations are part of the learning – an active witness to transformation through time.
(Art & Poem) Candelmas/Imbolc by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Autumnal Equinox occurs each year in the range of March 20-23 in the Southern Hemisphere, and in the range of September 20 -23 in the Northern Hemisphere. Autumn Equinox is a point of sacred balance: it is the point of balance in the dark part of Earth’s annual cycle. Sun is equidistant between North and South as it was/is at Spring Equinox, but in this dark phase of the cycle, the trend is toward increasing dark. Henceforth the dark part of the day will exceed the light part: thus it is a Moment of certain descent … and a sacred Moment for feeling and contemplating the grief and power of loss, for ceremoniously joining personal and collective grief and loss with the larger Self in whom we are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZflKLkvP8 Below is the text of the video. It is based on the traditional poetry for PaGaian Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony[i]. This is the Moment of the Autumnal Equinox in our Hemisphere – the moment of balance of light and dark in the dark part of the cycle. The light and dark parts of the day in the South and in the North of our planet, are of equal length at this time. We feel for the balance in this moment – Earth as She is poised in relationship with the Sun … breathing in the light, swelling with it, letting our breath go to the dark, staying with it. In our part of Earth, the balance is tipping into the dark. We remember the coolness of it. This is the time when we give thanks for our harvests – all that we have gained. And we remember too the sorrows, losses involved. The story of Old tells us that Persephone, Beloved Daughter, is given the wheat from Her Mother – the Mystery, knowledge of life and death. She receives it graciously. But she sets forth into the darkness – both Mother and Daughter grieve that it is so. Demeter, the Mother, says: “You are offered the wheat in every moment … I let you go as Child, most loved of Mine: you descend to Wisdom, to Sovereignty. You will return as Mother, co-Creator with me. You are the Seed in the Fruit, becoming the Fruit in the Seed. Inner Wisdom guides your path.” We give thanks for our harvests – our lives they are blessed. We are Daughters and Sons of the Mother. Yet we take our Wisdom and all that we have gained, and remember the sorrows – the losses involved. We remember the grief of the Mother, of mothers and lovers everywhere, our grief. Persephone descends. The Beloved One is lost. Persephone goes forth into the darkness to become Queen of that world. She tends the sorrows. The Seed represents our Persephones, who tends the sorrows – we are the Persephones, who may tend the sorrows. We go out into the night with Her and plant our seeds. Persephone blesses us with her fertile promise: “You have waxed into the fullness of life, And waned into darkness; May you be renewed in tranquility and wisdom[ii].” These represent our hope. The Seed of life never fades away. She is always present. Blessed be the Mother of all life. Blessed be the life that comes from Her and returns to Her. We tie red threads on each other: we participate in the Vision of the Seed – of the continuity of Life, that continues beneath the visible. The Mother knowledge grows within us. Our hope is in the Sacred Balance of the Cosmos – the Thread of Life, the Seed that never fades away: it is the Balance of Grief and Joy, the Care that we may feel in our Hearts. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, p. 239-247. [ii] Charlene Spretrnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, p. 116. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: a Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992/1978.
A Southern Hemisphere Perspective on Place by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 7) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

(Photo Essay 4) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part IV: Revival of the Gurang (Nine Maidens) Gaeyang Halmi There is more to reveal. As I write this part of the photo essay, I have encountered new information, previously made available online by individuals and organizations. It is reported that the “Suseong-dang” (水聖堂, Sea Saint Shrine) was once called the “Gurang-sa” (九娘祠, Nine Maidens Shine), of which I never heard before.[i] That Suseong-dang is a fake name blew my mind! Note the difference of gender between “the Nine Maidens Shrine” and “the Sea Saint Shrine”! The female-connoted term was stolen just like that! “Gurang-sa,” a female-referenced term as the character “rang” means a maiden, had to go due to its overt female representation. It is not without grounds that I was taken aback to see its present logography, “the Sea Saint Shrine,” on the information board.[ii] I almost heard a voice warning me, “This is not the place that you think it is!” That voice attempted to force me to leave the place without further investigation. However, I intuitively took a mental note, “Something is not correct here.” And I was right! Its name change sheds a consistent light on the meddling of patriarchal distortion/deception done to the tradition of Gaeyang Halmi. Readers are reminded of the lost painting of Gaeyang Halmi, which was replaced by that of the Sea God explicated in Part 2 of this photo essay (also Part 3). Like “the Sea God,” “the Suseong-dang” constitutes no reality. It is not only a conceptual deception but also a theft of the intangible cultural heritage, righteously committed by faceless patriarchal men disappeared into the lapse of time. It is clear that systematic erasure of the Female/Goddess has been in operation. Female power embodied whether in the name of the shrine or in the iconography was stripped away. However, it is proven once again that the Female is immortal because it constitutes the root of patriarchy. People smuggled the forbidden knowledge of the Female to later generations through oral stories. Thus, we find the folklore of the Female subversive.
(Bell Essay 6) The Magoist Whale Bell: Unraveling the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: The part 6 and ensuing sequels are a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Southern right whale from Wikimedia Commons Introduction The Korean temple bell is no mere Buddhist device. Calling it a Sillan Esoteric Buddhist invention in origin only adds to its mystification. Commissioned by Sillan rulers who represented traditional Magoist shaman rulers, Sillan temple bells administer sonic balance within and without all beings once and for all. In short, the Sillan temple bell reenacts the Magost Cosmogony HERE and NOW.[1] Engendering resonance to the self-creative power of cosmic music, Yulryeo (Rhythms and Tones), the Korean temple bell summons the paradisiacal reality of the Creatrix, Mago. Cast in the form of a female body, the bell structurally embodies the gynocentric principle of the Creatrix, the Mago Way. I have discussed earlier such features as nine nipples and apsaras. Here the dragon figure (Yongnyu) and the sound tube (Yongtong or Eumtong) in its head are focused. Multi-functional and polysemic, the dragon is there not only to be the loop for hanging but also to envelop the sound tube, seen below. Among others, the sound tube stands out as a distinctive feature of Korean temple bells that distinguishes them from their Chinese and Japanese counterparts. What is the sound tube of the Korean temple bell? Why do Korean temple bells have a sound tube? Answers to these questions concern a yet-to-be-unraveled undergirding theme of the Korean temple bell, the whale. Although its origin is debated, the sound tube signals Sillan cetacean veneration. In the mytho-history of Magoism, Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) stands as a prominent ancient Korean state, which succeeded and flowered ancient Magoist cetaceanism. Sillan cetacenism defines Silla as a new government that succeeded Old Magoist confederacies. In this context, we can assess a whale-shaped wooden mallet, which is no mere decorative addition to the bell. Nonetheless, the whale-shaped mallet is only a tip of the cetacean meaning of the bell. A whale (고래 Gorae in Korean) is the very model that the Korean temple bell (the bell hereafter) takes after, especially for its vocalizations. The bell mimics the music of whales. While the latter is heard in water, the former is heard in land. Its cetacean names corroborate such an assessment. The bell is called Janggyeong (長鯨 Eternal Whale), Gyeongjong (鯨鐘 Whale Bell), Hwagyeong (華鯨 Splendid Whale), or Geogyeong (巨鯨 Gigantic Whale). As such, the sound of the bell is alternatively called “the sound of whale (鯨音gyeongeum).” Ancient Koreans perceived whales, pre-human in origin and once a land animal, as the messenger of the Creatrix, Mago. In folk traditions, the phrase, “riding the back of a whale,” was widely popularized among East Asians throughout history, which means that one returns to Mago, by riding the back of a whale upon death. That ancient Koreans were cetacean venerators remains esoteric. The cetacean code of Korean temple bells holds the key to unraveling what has gone suppressed in patriarchy, the Magoist Cosmogony. By the Magoist Cosmogony, I mean a systematic origin story of our universe, as is recounted in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City). I have summarized the Budoji’s cosmogonic chapters in my aforementioned book, The Mago Way, as follows: The Magoist Cosmogony highlights the sonic movement of cosmic elements as the Creatrix. In the beginning, there was light. The movement/vibration of light (cosmic music) in the universe caused creation to take place over eons. Stars were born in the previous cosmic era. In due time, Mago was born together with the Earth (the Stronghold of Mago) with her moons. Her (self-)emergence marks the beginning of earthly history. Mago listened to and acted in tune with the cyclic movement of the cosmic music. In further due time, S/HE bore two daughters, Gunghui (Goddess Gung) and Sohui (Goddess So) parthenogenetically. This Primordial Triad laid the foundation for the earthly environment for all species. Mago, assisted by HER two daughters, orchestrated the terrestrial plan to bring acoustic balance in harmony with the cosmic music/sound/vibration. S/HE delegated HER descendants to cultivate and manage the sonic equilibrium of the Earth [Italics added].[2] Precisely, the Sillan temple bell encodes the message that whales are the paragon of Magoists whose mandate is “to cultivate and manage the sonic equilibrium of the Earth.” Restoring Magoist cetaceanism is metamorphic. Antithetical to the very establishment of patriarchy, ancient Magoist Korean cetacean practice unfolds the Other World that has been ever HERE. This essay, assessing the sound tube as a Magoist code of Sillan cetaceanism, aims to delineate how the Magoist cetacean meaning came to be encoded in the sound tube of the bell by the Sillan rulers of the 7th and 8th centuries. In decoding the cetacean message, we are led to the myth of Manpasikjeok (萬波息笛 the pacifying flute that defeats all, hereafter the pacifying flute), a Sillan royal treasure that is hermeneutically construed as made of the tusk of a narwhal. A group of Korean scholars maintain that the sound tube was designed to represent the pacifying flute. The task of this essay is to go further and to re-read the myth of Manpasikjeok—a story of King Sinmun the Great (r. 681-692) of Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) who was told by a sea dragon to create a flute out of a mysterious bamboo tree growing in a mysterious mountain in the East Sea, alternatively known as the Sea of Whales—from the Magoist perspective. This story has been written and misinterpreted as an enigmatic Buddhist story. I hold that “Ruler (King or Queen) the Great (大王 Daewang),” unlike other kings of the ancient world, does not refer to a patriarchal monarch. It is a Magoist cetacean term that is related with “Ruler Whale the Great (Daewang Gorae),” referring to the blue whale for its gigantic size or whales collectively. By adopting the cetacean title …
(Special post) Interweaving Mago Threads by Mago Circle Members

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

[Editor’s note: Numbers of endnotes differ from the original ones in the article] Reconstructing Gynocentric Korean Identity Scholars in the West, upon assessing a religion or deity of the non-Western world, tend to pair the topic with a modern nation. Thus, they often project their modern knowledge of the nation or culture onto the indigenous religion or deity they study. Such a methodology betrays the assumption that the modern notion of national identities is time-proven and bias-free. In this process, one’s perception of other people’s cultural expression is molded by Western-made modern knowledge of that people. This kind of knowledge ceases to exist outside the Western mind. Some go further to point out that the religious expression of a non-Western country in point is colored by the air of nationalism that is culturally on the rise in that country. This kind of assessment suggests the idea that a cultural expression fostered by nationalist zeal is inauthentic or impure and therefore of less value for study. While such conclusions are not necessarily wrong, I find it misguided. Done so, it prepares the ground for Western scholars to wield the authority of Western hegemony over the non-Western world. Precisely, it is blind to the fact that no cultural expression in modern times is free from nationalist ethos. Modern life is inherently shaped by the shade of nationalism whether it is in a non-Western world or a Western world. In my view, the question to be asked is: How can we assess a religious expression of a people beyond the modern notion of national identities? Or how can we go beneath the modern notion of national identities in order to assess a religious expression of a people? I hold that the modern category of national identities in particular causes harm to the study of the goddess. Modern nationalities go hand in hand with the impetus of patriarchal religions that do away with the female principle. There is an unmistakable difference between the male divine and the female divine when their manifestations are found cross-nationally. It is generally assumed that exchange of cultures between nations allows the male divine to be disseminated from one people to another. It is true that patriarchal religions have traveled around the globe and disseminated their gods into other nations. When it comes to the goddess whose worship is widespread across nations, such as the case of Mary in the West, however, this kind of reasoning proves to be inadequate. Antithetical is the idea that patriarchal religions actively promote the transmission of the great goddess from one nation to the other. Thus, the very perception of the transnational goddess is systematically thwarted in the realm of patriarchal religions. Androcentric researchers may choose to either dismiss as anomalous the topic of the goddess whose manifestation is found cross-nationally or treat her as a local deity severing her from her transnational context. This has been done to the topic of Mago. While Mago’s manifestation exists across the national boundaries of Korea, China, and Japan, it differs in nature, density, and complexity in these countries. Likewise, primary sources also show different traits according to the country. Korean sources surpass her Chinese counterparts not only in number but also in density and complexity. Mago’s supreme divinity is essentially affirmed in Korean sources, whereas it is treated as unknown in Chinese and Japanese counterparts. More to the point, the Budoji, the principal text that re-emerged in Korea in 1986, asserts that Koreans were the defenders of Old Magoism (Magoism in pre-patriarchal times) against the pseudo-Magoist Chinese regime. How can we understand the primacy of Korean Magoism without resorting to the modern notion of nationalist identities?
(Mago Almanac 3) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[This and the following sequels are from Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), Years 1 and 2 (5, 6, 9, 10…), 5915-6 MAGO ERA, 2018-9 CE (Mago Books, 2017).] We want to get back the 13th Friday. This almanac shows how that is possible. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang INTRODUCTION (Continued) HOW TO USE THE MAGO ALMANAC The Magoist Calendar employs a 28 day monthly cycle identical throughout the 13 months (see “28 DAY MONTHLY CALENDAR”). The first month of a year, however, begins with one intercalary day that falls on the eve of New Year for all years. Every fourth year has another intercalary day that fall on the eve of the first day of the 7th month (see “4 YEARS CALENDAR/1 LARGE CALENDAR”). Years are counted as a cyclic unit of four years, which is called Large Calendar. I have charted 8 Large Calendars of 32 years (see “8 LARGE CALENDARS/32 YEARS”). That said, the Mago Almanac will appear as the two types of booklets, Book A and Book B due to its Gregorian Calendar translation dates. The current booklet, Book A, includes calendric data of two years Year 1 and Year 2, the first two of the four years cyclic unit. Year 1 and Year 2 are exactly identical, when it comes to their Gregorian translations. In other words, one can use Book A for the years of 2018 and 2019 with the same Gregorian dates. Book B will include data on Year 3 and Year 4 for the two years of 2020 and 2021 in the Gregorian Calendar. As Gregorian dates intermittently run every month throughout the year and every four years with one leap day added in the month of February, both Year 3 and Year 4 will need a separate translational chart for Gregorian translation dates. While Gregorian leap days are more complicated than just one additional day in February, they won’t interfere with Mago Almanac’s Gregorian translation system until the year 2100, when it skips the leap day.[1] Book A Book B Years 1, 2… 3, 4… Common Era 2018, 2019 CE 2020, 2021 CE Mago Era 5915, 5916 ME 5917, 5918 ME Because both the Magoist Calendar (365.25 days) and the Gregorian Calendar (365.242189 days) are of the solar clendar, their dates tend to coincide every four years. For example, Year 5 and 6 will share the same Gregorian dates as Year 1 and 2. This means Book A is useful not only for Year 1 and 2 but also Year 5 and 6. Likewise, Book B is not only for Year 3 and Year 4 but also Year 7 and Year 8. Such patterns will repeat until 2100. By such recurrence, Mago Almanac will remain useful throughout the coming years. Below is the chart of 12 years (3 Large Calendars) for Mago Almanac’s two books. Book A Book B 1st Large Calendar Year 1 (2018 CE, 5915 ME) Year 3 (2020 CE, 5917 ME) Year 2 (2019 CE, 5916 ME) Year 4 (2021 CE, 5918 ME) 2nd Large Calendar Year 5 (2022 CE, 5919 ME) Year 7 (2024 CE, 5921 ME) Year 6 (2023 CE, 5920 ME) Year 8 (2025 CE, 5922 ME) 3rd Large Calendar Year 9 (2026 CE, 5923 ME) Year 11 (2028 CE, 5925 ME) Year 10 (2027 CE, 5924 ME) Year 12 (2029 CE, 5926 ME) Book A (Year 1 and Year 2) stands for the year of 2018 in the Gregorian Calendar (from December 17, 2017 till December 16, 2018) and the year of 2019 in the Gregorian Calendar (from December 17, 2018 till December 16, 2019). Year 1 (5915 ME) begins on December 17, 2017, the one intercalary day that comes on the day before the New Year’s Day. Its New Year’s day on December 18, 2017 marks the new moon day in the first month of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Year 2 (5916 ME) will be the same as Year 1. It begins with the one intercalary day of December 17, 2018. Its New Year’s day is December 18, 2018. However, it won’t be the new moon day since the moon’s phases are not exactly the same as the moon’s motions for the coming years. For this reason and the Gregorian Calendar’s intermittent dates involved in Book B, Mago Almanac plans to publish its yearly booklet. Book A includes Moon Phases in UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) for the years of 2018 and 2019. The cycle of moon phases (the synodic period of about 29.5 days) will run on its own path in the Magoist Calendar is based on the moon’s motions (the sidereal period of about 27.3 days). Also this almanac includes 24 Seasonal Marks in the Korean Time for the years of 2018 and 2019. Among these 24 seasons demarcated based on the solar calendar are such eight seasonal marks as Yule, Imbolc, Vernal Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lammas, Autumnal Equinox, and Winter Solstice, whose hours vary according to the viewer location. Last but not least, this almanac taps into the self-actualizing power of the calendar, which awakens its users to the Reality of the Creatrix. Its task is to be a user’s guide to the Magoist Calendar, the Living Text of the Creatrix. A cause that is equipped with the self-realizing force is divine. Restoring the Magoist Calendar is a divine work to be accomplished by the power of the gynocentric 13 month calendar itself. Its applicability is left to the hand of users. One’s own understanding of the gynocentric calendar will do the magic within herself/himself. One’s intellectuality is the winder to one’s spirituality. Individuals awakened by the Magoist Calendar will discover a sense of belong/direction/timing, not just to a particular society/place/time but to the inter-cosmic whole, WE/HERE/NOW. One may suddenly re-member her/his kinship with all others in an unexpected way. The consciousness of WE is not a destination arrived at a future time. It is HERE wherein we are born and live. In our …
(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.