November 19, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Poem and art) Softly by Rose Aiello Morales and Victor Hernández

Original art created by Victor Hernández for 'Softly' — Original art created by Victor Hernández for ‘Softly’

Sing softly,

a song to make them stand,

perhaps they’ll listen, baying noiseless in the night,

music has its charms, the savage breast contains staccato beats.

Whisper into craters,

Luna knows the words,

she hides her journal on the Dark Side,

flying pigs against the starless sky.

Your works reside

behind the neural trees

a branch fires electricity

and someone reads your mind,

telepathy and thought flow both ways.

Original art for 'Softly' created by Victor Hernández — Original art for ‘Softly’ created by Victor Hernández

Ophelia beneath the water,

bubbles form from sadness

and the madness of the unrequited,

lost upon the surface, it’s a stream of truth,

those submerged will find an answer to the riddle.

Read Meet Mago Contributor Rose Aiello Morales and Meet Mago Contributor Victor Hernández.

We, the co-editors, contributors, and advisers, have started the Mago Web (Cross-cultural Goddess Web) to rekindle old Gynocentric Unity in our time. Now YOU can help us raise this torch high to the Primordial Mountain Home (Our Mother Earth Herself) wherein everyone is embraced in WE. There are many ways to support Return to Mago. You may donate to us. No amount is too small for us. For your time and skill, please email Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Please take an action today and we need that! Thank YOU in Goddesshood of all beings!

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(Poem) The Remembering by Arlene Bailey

I remember you sister Whale Remember when I had a tail and fins Sister Dolphin Remember when we would swim for hours plunging the depths and traversing the breath of the primordial waters Then I changed Shedding fins and tail for Feet and legs, lungs instead of gills and I could no longer join you in the Waters of the Mother They said I had evolved That I could now climb trees and mountains, walk upright and become the dominant species over everything else Oh Sister, how I miss our times in those emerald green and azure blue waters, those places of birthing and She who held those in the leaving Oh how I wish I could once again swim the depths splashing and cavorting with you and the others, protecting each other Alas, I cannot. But I tell you, I am NOT part of their dominant species I DO NOT think I am the pinnacle of creation Rather, I think this human body massively inferior to you my beloved cetaceans Jump and cavort sweet dolphin family Spy-hop and BreachSister Whale, then dive deep and allow me one more view of your incredible fluke Perhaps one day humans will return to the Mother Waters and we shall all dance in the mist in blissful, sweet harmony Until then… I walk on the dry seas with legs with feet and arms with hands, but now with the eyes of Savage Woman as I reclaim my wildness and free spirit known so well to the children of the waters Now I tell stories and speak with the voice of Savage Woman raised in protection of your life and the primordial waters that birthed us all Raising my voice, I sing with you those soul-full melodies of the deep as I feel the water on my skin and… Remember… Remember… Remember. _________________________________ The Remembering, Arlene Bailey ©2021 Orca and Dolphin Photos by Bob Talbot Humpback Photos by Mike Rae Authors Note: I wrote this poem for a prompt in a class I participated in a few months ago. It’s based on my lifetime of love for Cetaceans that began as a child growing up on the Louisiana Gulf of Mexico coast watching Porpoises and Dolphins… a love that grew even deeper when I lived in the Pacific Northwest and spent hours kayaking with orcas in Robson Bight, BC and off of Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington state along with watching Humpbacks in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. All images except Dolphins taken in Robson Bight Ecological Preserve in Johnstone Straight, BC. (Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
Ode to My Love by Dale Allen

My love As the world turns on its axis, day and night As our earth orbits its elliptical turn away from the sun into the beautiful season of autumn, in our blessed little solar system, midway from the center of our galaxy Among trillions of galaxies Your love is Constant, true, pure, beautiful Like the one constant harmonic of love that pervades the universe and our nurturing home The one constant vibration where everyone who ever was, and ever will be, sings My love Do you hear the delightful songs being sung for you? While I revel at the blessing you are to me – to we With each blessed sunrise and sunset With each blessed orbit of our circular walks to the shore and home With each new experience that life is Here you are – constant, true, pure, beautiful The harmonic sounds sweet The songs fill us I join in the chorus https://www.magoism.net/2024/05/meet-mago-contributor-dale-allen
(Essay 1) The Feminine Principle of Communication by Genevieve Vaughan

When the question arises of determining a practice, both on the individual and the group level, which is a radical alternative to existing to harmful practice, it is extremely useful to have a theory by which it may be examined, inspired, and guided. It would be surprising if the non-participating victims and silent partners of war, abuse and oppression did not have a world view which was in reality quite different from that of the purveyors of violence. When I was just becoming a feminist the dilemma appeared to me in these terms: Why if women are not inferior to men have we not succeeded in being like them? The answer to that seems to be that we have a radically different ‘way’-different needs, interests, perceptions, rewards, patterns of behavior. Since we make up 52% of humanity, this different ‘way’ is at least as widespread as men’s ways. We can identify this by saying that it exists concretely as the nurturing practice of women as opposed to the competitive hierarchical practice of men.1
(Book Excerpt 2) “Placental Thinking: The Gift of Maternal Roots” by Nane Jordan

[This and the ensuing sequels are from a Chapter from Placenta Wit: Mother Stories Rituals, and Research, edited by Nané Jordan, Demeter Press, 2017, pp. 142-155.] RELATIONAL DESIGNS As a young midwives’ assistant, I became used to cleaning up and disposing of the blood naturally shed in birth. I was also learning how to handle and care for placentas during and after birth. I knew that the placenta had to be born in a timely way, that the umbilical cord was not cut until it had stopped pulsing, and that the placenta must appear whole without missing pieces. I especially remember the first time I was taught how to “read” a placenta up close. Learning with an experienced midwife, I peered curiously at the bright red placenta she brought from a recent birth in all its blood-red glory. Through close instruction, I began to see, to discern its shape. I was soon in awe of this seemingly sacred design and structure. There are two sides to a placenta: a mother side and a baby side. The mother side has groups of intersecting lobes that appear almost brainlike. The mother side attaches to the inside wall of her uterine muscle, connecting her life blood toward her baby’s nourishment. The baby side is full of roots, roots, roots—in networks of veins and arteries. They interconnect lacelike, fanning outwards in a circular pattern from the umbilical cord, which attaches itself near the centre of the placental mass. The baby side is smooth and cosseted by the amniotic sack, which rises from the edges of the placenta to surround the baby in utero. During pregnancy, the placenta is the key developmental link between mother and child. The umbilical cord transports blood from baby toward and away from the mother through the vascular root system of the placenta. Via placental interchange through capillary diffusion, nourishment and oxygen are drawn from the body of the mother while metabolic wastes are released from the baby for the mother to dispose of. The placenta is singular in its mission: it grows and is born to support and sustain the life of the new human in and from the body of the mother. It was not until after years of attending homebirths, working intimately with mothers and babies postbirth, and handling many placentas that I began to glean the morphological and spiritual wonders of this generative organ. Like a grand communicator, the placenta and umbilical cord define the paradox of the two bodies’ connection and separation. The placenta grows like an apparatus from the baby itself, facilitating a continual dialogue of blood with the mother. Our first language is truly one of maternal nourishment, which flows from mother to child in a heart-to-heart rhythm—an abundant mother stream that ensures the baby’s growth and survival. As a relational interface, this is not a fusion of bodies but a unilateral “gift” communication from mother to baby. Because of my studies and graduate research in women’s spirituality, I began to name the importance of the birth knowledge and wisdom that I had been privy to. I committed to writing and research that could transmit what I and others knew about birth, seeking to expand understandings of social philosophy from birth-based perspectives, which were missing from the Western philosophical tradition—dominated by male-centered thinking that did not take birth experience into account. In these traditions, birth and birth giving are devalued and accorded lower value than social, cultural, and spiritual production, as if mothers and birth are not connected to social and cultural life at its core (O’Brien). Birth mysteries have been invariably silenced, lost, or co-opted through socialized and patriarchal disconnections of our birth-based origins from actual mothers and women. As a foundational experience of human life, revisioning birth in mother-centred ways can provide socially transformative values. In this, I aim for a society that supports, values, and loves mothers, babies, and children at the centre of life rather than at the social and economic peripheries. I aim for this not to essentialize women only as birth givers but to liberate mothers toward the meaning and leadership that is theirs at the core of life. (To be continued) (Meet Mago Contributor) Nane Jordan.
(Essay 9) The Blending of Bön, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture by Krista Rodin

An Uncertain Future Buddhist Temple with Bön and Goddess images at Goddess Gemu Cave. Photo K. Rodin One of the ways the legends have been popularized and coopted is in the public murals that grace the wall outside the Yongling Tourist Office. In keeping with the patriarchal religious traditions of the region, only lamas are allowed to make storyboard murals and paintings, or to interpret them, even when they are placed in public spaces. This means that unless there is a general knowledge of the symbolism and iconography that is associated with the images, the interpretation is subject to guesswork. The murals are supposed to represent scenes from Mosuo history and legends, including a story of the seven fathers and seven stars, six in the sky and one below the earth under the waters. One of the murals is reminiscent of PadmaSambhava, and as this region follows the Black Hat tradition, the great yogi is worshipped, although it may not be intended to be his image. There is a mural of a fire prayer and the worship of fire, as well as scenes of making wine and of carrying water, singing, dancing, and of the former ancient King. The Goddess Gemu is on the last panel riding her white mare, with her rainbow-colored streamers flying in the wind. There is a clear merging of iconographic imagery among the three religious traditions in Mosuo culture, which also makes for vivid tourist posters. Both Green and White Tara appear in the temples alongside the Goddess Gemu and not a few images the Goddess take on Tara’s attributes. The murals in Yongning’s central square demonstrate this merger through a highly selective representation of Mosuo myths that are intended to portray a harmonious, pure and peaceful society. The Bay of the Goddess, a special sacred site on the lake, has so far not been disturbed by the influx of tourism, but these new forces are some that she may not be able to overcome. The seemingly binary opposites of earth and sky, mountain and lake, male and female, shamanism and monasticism, the Goddess and the Buddha became equally balanced in traditional Mosuo culture, even if not in the region’s political sphere. The increase in tourism, however, is changing these configurations by popularizing both Mosuo and Buddhist cultures in the region as tourist attractions. The cable car to Gemu’s sacred cave, the vendors, often not Mosuo, renting costumes on the walking bridge, the literature on “free love” that is promoted to entice young men to the area, the renovations and rebuilding of stupas and temples, as well as the murals themselves bring needed economic growth to the region. The question for the next few years is, how will the binary opposites of economic growth and traditional values, including a respect for the natural world, the Goddess in the lake and mountain, be balanced with new highways, an airport, and new hotels? The Goddess has survived Kublai Khan and the Cultural Revolution, but can she survive this latest invasion? Time, as always, will tell. Works and People Cited and Referenced Anshi, Pan. “The Translation of Naxi Religious Texts.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs, eds. Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu, Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998. 275-309. Arcones, Pedro Ceinos. Sons of Heaven, Brothers of Nature: The Naxi of Southwestern China. Kunming: Papers of the White Dragon, 2012. Aris, Michael. Lamas, Princes, and Brigands: Joseph Rock’s Photographs of the Tibetan Borderlands of China. NYC: China House, 1992. Bliss, Carol. “The Capacity of Folk Song to Reveal Complexities in Musuo Culture.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Claremont Graduate University, Educational Studies, 2004. “A Collection of Studies on the Tibetan Bon Tradition.” http://vajrayana.faithweb.com/ACollectionOfStudiesOnBon.pdf Edwards, Mike. “Our Man in China: Joseph Rock.” National Geographic 191, 1997. 62-81. Gurung, B.C. Bon in the Himalaya. Kathmandu: Uma Gurung Publisher, 2003. Hau, Cai. A Society Without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China, trans. Asti Hustvedt. New York: Zone Books, 2001. Knödel, Susanne. Die Matrilinearen Musuo von Yongning: Eine quellenkritische Auswertung Moderner Chinesischer Ethnographen. Kölner Ethnologische Studien, Band 22, eds. Ulla Johansen and Thomas Schweizer. Cologne: Cologne University Press. 1995. Mathieu, Christine. A History and Anthropological Study of the Kingdoms of the Sino-Tibetan Borderland- Naxi and Musuo. Lewiston: Mellen Press, 2003. Mathieu, Christine. “The Moso Ddaba Relgious Specialists.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin Rites Pictorgraphs, eds. Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum Zürich, 1998. 209-234. Mattison, S. M. “Demystifying the Mosuo: The Behavioral Ecology of Kinship and Reproduction in China’s ‘Last Matriarchal’ Society.” (3431674). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 2010. (808257489). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.nau.edu/docview/808257489?accountid=12706. Moore, Robert W. “Along the Old Mandarin Road of Indo-China,” National Geographic 60. August 1931. 157-200. Namu, Yang Erche and Christine Mathieu. Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World. New York: Back Bay Books, 2004. Norbu, Namkhai. Drung, Deu and Bön: Narrations, Symbolic Languages and the Bön Tradition in Ancient Tibet. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1997. Oppitz, Michael and Elisabeth Hsu, eds. Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998. Oppitz, Michael. “The Propitiation of Heaven.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs, eds.Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998. 173-188. Peters, Larry. Tamang Shamans: An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal. New Delhi: Nirala Publications, 1998. Rock, Joseph. The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of Southwest China 1-2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947. ______. The Life and Culture of the Nakhi Trine of China—Tibet Borderland. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963. ______. “Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws,” National Geographic, LX. July 1931. 1-65. Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Kathmandu and Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. Shih, Chuan-kang. “Mortuary Rituals and Symbols among the Moso.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin Rites Pictorgraphs, edited by Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998: 103-125. Snellgrove, David. Buddhist Himalaya. Kathmandu: Himalayan Book Sellers, 1995. Turner, Kevin. Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2016. Walsh, E.R. “The Mosuo: …
(Essay 1) Magoist Cetaceanism: Why do we listen to the call of whales and dragons? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Moderns have lost the matricentric bond with whales. As a whole, whales are forgotten in the mind of moderns. Listening to the calling of whales has fallen into the hands of specialists. However, the call of whales needs not to be the topic confined to scientists or spiritualists. Magoist Korea invites the world to the calling of whales. The call of whales comes to us encoded in the traditional matricentric culture of Korea, Magoism. Magoist Koreans have favored, celebrated, and venerated whales. They longed for whales throughout generations from time immemorial. Whales constitute the heart of matricentric Korea. Korean Magoist Cetaceanism conveys the message to everyone across borders that our modern lives are NOT severed from the call of whales. On the contrary, it informs us that we humans dwell in “the body” of whales. Such cetacean metaphor carries the vessel of Magoist cetacean thealogy. Modern civilizations are built to hear the calling of whales everywhere and all the time! Our consciousness is apt to realize that we are breathing in the divine reality of cetaceans. The metaphoric perception that we humans live inside the body of a whale runs through the major cultural inventions of traditional Korea. That houses, temples, and palaces as well as tombs, mounds, sweat lodges, and temple bells are built in the shape of a whale’s belly remains esoteric even among modern Koreans. One may think that these insights are my wishful interpretations. Come see and listen to the Whale Bell! Its whale-shaped mallet and its numerous whale names can’t be mistaken! Behold the roof architecture in the image of a whale’s back! This is not just referring to a roof silhouette looking like a whale’s back. The roof ridge, the decorative end tiles, the male and female titles, and the structure profusely indicate cetacean designs and names. Behold the dragon head and tail carvings in the temple and palace buildings. They go with the whale back-like roof! Behold the ornate dragon spout of water spring channels. Behold the traditional floor heating system called the whale of a heated rock (온돌 고래 Ondol Gorae). And Korea’s Eastern Sea is formerly called the Sea of Whales (鯨海 Gyeonghae). There are more: Come see the postpartum nutrition of the sea mustard soup (미역국 miyeok-guk) or the birthday soup, served for Korean women, her baby, and the whole family, which is adopted from the custom of whale mothers. And like a mother whale carries her cub on her back (to help it breathing in the air), Korean mothers and grandmothers carry the baby on her back by using the blanket called “podaegi (포대기)” to wrap the baby around on one’s back with attached straps. A comprehensive discussion of the calling of whales in Magoist Cetaceanism requires field trips and audio-visual materials to see and feel. To introduce the Magoist Cetacean cultural inventions and more, I have prepared for 2021 Virtual Mago Pilgrimage to Cetacean Korea: The Calling of Whales and Dragons to WE/HERE/NOW. What is the call of whales and dragons? And what does it mean that we listen to the calling of whales? These questions will navigate our whale-seeking journeys. Listening to the call of whales is a journey. Cetaceanist seekers enter a collective pilgrimage with whales on Earth. Magoist Cetaceanism shows us that our lives are inseparable from the work of whales. Not just human lives but also all terrestrial lives. 2021 Mago Pilgrimage to Cetacean Korea aims to achieve the following four-fold goals. Firstly, participants will be introduced to the legacy of Magoist Cetaceanism thickly infused in traditional Korean culture. Secondly, we will invoke the Magoist Cosmogony to understand the cosmogonic feature of whale songs. Thirdly, we are given the cetacean identity of dragons in the myth of the pacifying flute. Lastly, we will explore and join the whale-back riding homecoming journey (From Words of Invitation in 2021 Mago Pilgrimage to Cetacean Korea: The Calling of Whales and Dragons to WE/HERE/NOW). Another irreplaceable contribution of Korean Magoist Cetaceanism to the world lies in the fact that a dragon is presented as an imaginary animal for the cetacean divine or the messenger of the whale divine. Put differently, we are told the origin of dragons in Magoist Cetaceanism. I posit that dragons are the ancient invention of Cetacean Magoists, an ingenuous matricentric symbol that conveys the dynamic presence of the whale divine. According to the source, a dragon is made up with nine animal parts: Her antlers are those of a stag, her head that of a camel, her eyes those of a rabbit, her neck that of a snake, her eyes those of a cow, her belly that of a clam, her scales those of a carp, her paws those of a tiger, and her claws those of an eagle. It is unequivocal that a dragon represents the non-human animal world. And they come in the form of nine animals, a topic to be discussed elsewhere. Suffices it to say that nine dragons are a Magoist expression of Sonic Numerology, the cosmogonic force of the universe, together with the Nine Mago Creatrix and the Nine Goma Queens. Also note that dragons are often associated with the royal, rulers, shamans, and heroes. Dragons are often addressed as the Dragon King (龍王 Yongwang), which I rephrase as the king/ruler of dragons. The cetacean divine forms one of the divine triads or the one leg of the tripod. Reinterpreted in Magoism, the traditional Korean thought of the Heaven-Earth-Humans divine triad holds truth to the cetacean divine, representing the terrestrial divine. In short, the Magoist interpretation of the Heaven-Earth-Humans divine triad stands for the matricentric cosmology, which honors the universe, the earth, and humans in a non-hierarchical and interdependent way. Magoist cosmology is predicated on the triadic or nona numerological scheme, a nature’s built-in organic mechanism, which is self-correcting and self-proliferating. This is starkly contrasted with the dualistic and hierarchical divine model (king and father) of patriarchal religions, a reductionist degenerative scheme. The matricentric worldview affirms the …
(Poem) Rainbow girl by Donna Snyder

brown bug crawls across rainbow girl’s face but she doesn’t careshe holds the sacred plant in her hands and faces eastleads the people on the rainbow wayhagonehthank youit is goodsweets come wrapped in velvetbut the goodies are gonea red ribbon for your handtime is that wayleaves you behind in a velvet blouselooking at silver hairs in the mirrorthe young ones call you shimasanigrandmotherthe ancient onethe one who talks for allthe powerful onemother of the worldthere is a joker spying from a waning mooncoyote grinshe knows the light will come againspread its milky feathers on the rocks and mesasrainbow girl bows into the wind her earrings dangle turquoise like teardrops for her people and their waysthe future is a blue glass bottlebreak it if you willor unstop it and let the teardrops catch thereto drink when rains forget they love the skyand brown bugs no longer crawl across paintings in the sand Navajo sand painting
(Story 2) The Spirit in the Teapot by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Art, “Woman with Bountiful Bowls” by Nanri Tenney While the Spirit despaired at the state of the world, Goddess whispered to the Spirit, “look again.” The Spirit now looked into the homes and hearts of women, whom she was specially tasked with caring for, and saw where Goddess had hidden Herself. Spirit saw tea parties, beauty salons, and quilting bees where women had gathered and shared themselves with one another for generations. She stood by women all over the world who were risking their lives to educate girls and delighted in the young ones devouring the knowledge. She smiled at dance teachers showing young women how to love their bodies and be strong and expressive. She was in awe of protesters who placed themselves in the way of bullets and tear gas to demand rights denied too long. She observed billions of acts of kindness in which one woman helped another feed herself and her family, leave abusive homes or just feel cared for. She saw women gather to heal the Earth. It was not in the palaces and processions, but in the ordinary ways of everyday life in which Goddess still dwelled.It was time for Spirit to rise from her slumber and once again serve the people of the Earth. But, how to manifest herself? Through what door could she enter their world? She followed the whistle to the kitchen of one woman and spotted the teapot. She witnessed how the teapot was transforming the woman who drank the tea through memories of her grandmother who had been the embodiment of Goddess on Earth. She saw how teapots and tea had been the center of so many gatherings of women and she knew what she must do. The Spirit entered the teapot and it began to glow with light. The spout became the snake, ready to do its part to bring about the needed changes. The Spirit popped out of the teapot, the blooming top her new headdress, and she made a transforming tea for every woman on Earth. Whether it magically appeared in a cup they were holding, or it rained down on them as part of a monsoon, or became part of their bodies in some other way, each woman received her share. Lucia suddenly tasted the warmth and sweetness of the tea. She began to think not of her own sadness and loss, but of all those who had made the tea she was drinking. She saw in her mind the seed of the tree plant and the sun and water that made the plant grow and the bees who pollinated the blossoms. She thought of those who had picked the tea, packed it for shipping, who worked in the offices of the tea company and the cashier who sold it to her in the supermarket. She envisioned the ocean that carried it to her continent and the plants making the ink on the box, the maker of the teapot and the forger of the iron of the stove. Each of these beings was necessary to create this one cup of tea just as all beings had a part to fill in healing the world. Lucia suddenly knew she was not alone and that she, too, had a mission only she could fulfill. Lucia heard a hesitant knock. She looked through the peephole and recognized a neighbor in the building, carrying a bag of groceries. She opened the door. Her neighbor said “Excuse me. I was in the store this morning and saw you working. I was about to come over and say hello when I heard the manager say you were laid off. That’s happened to me, too. I picked up a few extra things I thought might help tide you and the kids over. You just let me know if there is anything else I can do to help, ok?” and then closed the door. That is just what my grandmother would have done, Lucia thought. The Spirit looked again through the eyes of the soul and saw the pieces of the snake beginning to come together again, shining, powerful, and joyful. Her work done for just that moment, she poured herself a sip of tea from Lucia’s pot, surveyed the world, and smiled. Nanri Tenney Artist Statement Woman with Bountiful Bowls, a symbol for forward movement and positive feminine energy in our times. This spiritual woman on a teapot lid is offering bowls of food to all. She is holding the world in balance with her nurturing creativity and sustainability. The round teapot represents the world in the process of returning to a healthy state. The spout and handle morphs the globe into a peaceful serpent dragon, a vehicle for positive transformation. The cut-up dead snake below the teapot is the shadow world and represents the transgressions that are done to the earth and its just peoples. The woman’s generous, wholesome work is victorious over these dishonorable exploits. May this creative endeavor of words and image bring kindly awareness to all who read it for the benefit of all sentient beings. Drawing is Nanri Studio (c) 2012 Nancy Richardot Tenney (aka Nanri) is part of a bi-cultural artistic family, and from a young age she was fortunate to travel, experience art, and live in several countries. Her French and American heritage, design education, and exposure to many fascinating cultures around the world has ensured her a continuing life of artistry, enterprise, and originality. Nanri has practiced graphic design, illustration and photography professionally since receiving her BFA degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. She has had design studios in Trinidad, WI, San Francisco, CA, Concord, MA, and Maynard, MA where she has been the principal designer of a small design firm, Nanri Studio for 14 years. She teaches Natural Awareness Meditation and is an active volunteer with the climate crisis movement. (End of the Story) https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
(Photo Essay 2) Grandmothers by Kaalii Cargill

The so called “Venus” figurines are figures from prehistory that I prefer to call “Grandmothers”. The figurines were carved from soft stone, bone or ivory, or formed of clay and fired. Over the last 5 years, I have been visiting with the Grandmothers. This series of posts includes images and impressions of those visits. Delphi, Greece When I think of standing in Delphi, I remember the mountains and the cicadas. Before the sanctuary at Delphi was dedicated to Apollo, the sibyls/ wisewomen resided in a cave high on the slopes of Mt Parnassus (2,457 m /8,061 ft above sea level). Temple of Apollo, Delphi I walked among the classical ruins – the temple, the sibyl rock, the tholos – and drank from the Castalian Spring. Tholos, Temple of Athena, Delphi Sitting in the shade of an olive tree, listening to the cicadas, I understood why the ancient Greeks represented music as a cicada sitting on a harp. Surely the people walking there thousands of years ago heard the same song . . . Olive trees on the path to the Tholos, Delphi The Corycian Cave sits high above the temple ruins. The landscape holds the memories and meaning of this place – the long, slow climb up the side of the mountain, the flickering shadows beneath the fir trees, the ever-present cicadas. I visited the cave alone, entering through the small opening, climbing down the rocky slope into a vast cavern (90m long, 60m wide, 50 m high). Entrance to Corycian Cave Main cavern, Corycian Cave In the half light, the huge stalagmites emerged from the shadows – Grandmothers waiting forever for us to remember them. Formed by Nature over millennia, these figures echo the shapes of prehistory Grandmother figurines. Grandmother stalagmite, Corycian Cave Water drops fell slowly from the roof of the cave, taking all the time in the world to form the next layer on the silent guardians of the cave. I listened for Her voice. Between the soft sound of dropping water there was only silence – a deep, eternal silence. Water drops, Corycian Cave Meet Mago Contributor KAALII CARGILL

(Special Post) To Contributors: Strengthening Our Roots by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Dear Contributors, Do you know that Return to Mago (RTM) E*Magazine is entering its fifth year this fall? And, thanks to our collective effort, we are still growing! As of today, our contributors have grown to more than 130 in number and our readership is from about 140 countries around the world. We have some hundred email followers as well as Wordpress blog followers. We draw 3000-4000 clicks per month on average; that is no small accomplishment for a Goddess blog that is named after a yet-to-be heard word, Mago (the Great Goddess), and that began from scratch.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.
(Special Post Isis 3) 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. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 3 Isis, Arab Women Revolution, and Black Goddesses Naa Ayele Kumari Going back to the original topic of the post…. Some quotes ” Women are in half the society… How come there are only 7 in the Assembly… and they are all Islamist! ” I can’t beat up my wife and almost kill her and call it discipline… this is not discipline… this is abuse and insanity” http://youtu.be/y4umifTLSII 12-Year Old Explains Egyptian Revolution in Under 3 Minutes www.youtube.com Max Dashu It is tremendously heartening to see these insights being expressed, and spread. The Salafis have made such inroads, and now the pushback is happening. Harita Meenee Dear Naa Ayele Kumari, thank you actually reading my post and commenting something relevant to it. It’s refreshing when someone does hear what we have to say instead of projecting their own notions. Building a solidarity movement with those who are oppressed but fighting is very important during these critical times! Harita Meenee See also: https://www.facebook.co/intifadat.almar2a?fref=ts The uprising of women in the Arab world انتفاضة المرأة في العالم العربي حرية الفكر ، حرية التعبير ، حرية الاعتقاد ، حرية التنقل ، حرية الجسد ، حرية اللب…See More Glenys Livingstone … as you say Max …” way too much of it going on” – amongst people who should know better (I would have thought): “Dark goddess as terrifying, challenging, white goddess as benign; “black magic” as harmful; I see way, way too much of this going on out there.” And related to that in my mind is all the “love and light” business that is so common: the Ground of Being is Dark … it seems to me that mystics have always understood the quintessential darkness of Love/Deity. Max Dashu Sure. I would just like to add that the critique raised here addressed issues much broader than the substance of the article, which made some good points. But once the choice of graphics flagged the issue of representation, people had much more to say about that old yet still very fresh wound which is constantly reopened by the cultural habit of whitening Egypt, or interpreting Africa through a eurocentric lens. It is not on any one person to carry the weight of that; we all have a responsibility to address the issues, but especially those of us of European heritage need to familiarize ourselves with how this plays out over and over. Just as men have a responsibility to speak up in support of women when patriarchal assumptions are on board. We all can learn something from each other, along all the various axes of domination, and overthrow them in coalition. Naa Ayele Kumari I have often considered where the roots of this psychology comes from. It is dualistic thinking that causes us to compare and contrast, then sum up judgement of good or bad and place a value on each. It extends into competition and justification for war. It also doesn’t escape me that often this came with certain civilizations who systematically destroyed others. It didn’t just happen with blacks in Africa… but blacks in Asia and the Indus Valley as well. With the Aryan invasions of India, came the eventual introduction to lighter divinities and more emphasis on male divinities. Southern Indians, Sri Lankans are very dark… even more so than many African Blacks. The caste systems implemented by the Aryan invaders did the same thing to them casting them as “untouchables”. With that came the marginalization of their black female divinities such as Kali. Kali actually has 10-16 forms… from compassionate mother, the fountain of wisdom, to she of great beauty but she is minimized as just destructive and terrifying… especially as Brhaman, Vishnuu, and Shiva grow in popularity. One of Kali’s statues has her black self standing on top of Shiva because she conquered him. Later there is a discussion in on of the Hindu text explaining Kali (as Parvati) after being subdued by Shiva she becomes lighter. Further they have stories about him rejecting her and calling her blackie which made her do austerities to rid herself of her black skin. Naa Ayele Kumari It should not be overlooked that in the Story of Alice in Wonderland… a story intended to keep Goddess elements for future generations, has the Elder sister ( the Queen of Hearts) portrayed as man, ego, and power driven who cuts off heads and has a fierce dragon…a clear reference to Kali. The White goddess as the younger sister is her opponent… and her mission is to usurp the throne of the Queen of Hearts even though she was the rightful heir as the oldest … or primordial. Stories like these also reinforce the stereotypes and negative iconography. Max Dashu Yes, it is pervasive in many cultures of domination. Demons are portrayed as black not only in Europe, which we know well, but also in China and in a lot of Buddhist iconography. In modern India, the sweet goddesses are shown as pink, the wrathful as black; and Krishna (name means “dark”) is turned powder blue. (Another of his titles, s’yam, also meaning dark, is the word translated as “green” in Green Tara.) The countercurrents (Black Mazu, loving Kali – esp in Bengal and south India, Black Madonna) bubbled up from the common people, who knew and longed for something other than the dominant racialized hierarchy. Naa Ayele Kumari I am just discovering Mazu ( Matzu/LuShui) in China today! Never knew about her. This discussion has led me to look deeper for black goddesses in Asia. Max Dashu Taoist spiritual tradition often refers to Xüan Nü, which can be translated in several ways. You’ll usually see it rendered as “the Mysterious Female,” a phrase that occurs in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), and this is a valid translation; but what is less emphasized is that it also means “the Dark Woman.” In […]

(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 …
The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ as is experienced and contemplated in the Season of Deep Autumn/Samhain, may be a metaphor for the passing of all/any that has come to fullness of being, or that has had a fullness, a blossoming of some kind, and borne fruit; and in the passing it has been received, and thus transforms. The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ may be in hearts and minds, an event or events, a period of time, or an era, that was a deep communion, now passed and dissolved into receptive hearts and minds, where it/they reside for reconstitution, within each unique being. Samhain is traditionally understood as ‘Summer’s end’: indeed that is what the word ‘Samhain’ means. In terms of the seasonal transitions in indigenous Old European traditions, Summer is understood as over when the Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Lughnasad comes around; it is the first marked transition after the fullness of Summer Solstice. The passing and losses may have been grieved, the bounty received, thanksgiving felt and expressed, perhaps ceremonially at Autumn Equinox/Mabon; yet now in this Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn it composts, clearly falls, as darkness and cooler/cold weather sets in, change is clearer. In the places where this Earth-based tradition arose, Winter could be sensed setting in at this time, and changes to everyday activity had to be made. In our times and in our personal lives, we may sense this kind of ending, when change becomes necessary, no longer arbitrary: and the Seasonal Moment of Samhain may be an excellent moment for expressing these deep truths, telling the deep story, and making meaning of the ending, as we witness such passing. What new shapes will emerge from the infinite well of creativity? And we may wonder what will return from the dissolution? What re-solution will be found? We may wonder what new shapes will emerge. In the compost of what has been, what new syntheses, new synergies, may come forth? Now is the time for dreaming, for drawing on the richness within, trusting the sentience, within which we are immersed, and which we are: and then awaiting the arrival, being patient with the fermentation and gestation. Seize the moment, this Moment – and converse with the depths within your own bodymind, wherein She is. Make space for the sacred conversation, the Conversing with your root and source of being, and take comfort in this presence. We may ponder what yet unkown beauty and wellness may emerge from this infinite well of creativity. The Samhain Moment in the Northern Hemisphere is 17:14 UT 7thNovember this year. Wishing you a sense of the deep communion present in the sacred space you make for this holy transition.
(Essay) Ceremony as “Prayer” or Sacred Awareness By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. MoonCourt Ceremonial Space set for Autumn Equinox ceremony, 2013 Ritual/ceremony is often described as “sacred space.” I understand that to mean “awareness of the space as sacred”: all space is sacred, what shifts is our awareness – awareness of the depth of spacetime, and of the depth of all things and all beings. I understand “sacred awareness” as an awareness of deep relationship and identity with the very cosmic dynamics that create and sustain the Universe; or an awareness of what is involved in the depth of each moment, each thing, each being. Ceremony is a space and time given to expression, contemplation and nurturance of that depth … at least to something of it. Ceremony may be both an expression of deep inner truths – perceived relationship to self, Earth and Cosmos, as well as being a mode of teaching and drawing forth deeper participation. Essentially, ceremony is a way of entering into the depth of the present moment … what is deeply present right here and now, a way of entering deep space and deep time, which is not somewhere else but is right here. Every-thing, and every moment, has Depth – more depth than we usually allow ourselves to contemplate, let alone comprehend. This book, this paper, this ink, the chair, the floor – each has a history and connections that go back, all the way back to Origins. This moment you experience now, in its particular configuration, place, people present, subtle feelings, thoughts, and propensity towards certain directions or outcomes, has a depth – many histories and choices that go back … ultimately all the way back to the beginning. Great Origin is present at every point of space and time – right here. In ceremony we are plugging our awareness into something of that. In this holy context then – in this mindframe of knowing connection, everything one does is a participation in the creation of the Cosmos: for the tribal indigenous woman, perhaps the weaving of a basket; for another, perhaps preparing a meal; for you, perhaps getting on the train to go to a workplace. It is possible to regain this sense, to come to feel that the way one breathes makes a difference – that with it, you co-create the present and the future, and you may even be a blessing on the past. In every moment we receive the co-creation, the work, of innumerable beings, of innumerable moments, and innumerable interactions of the elements, in everything we touch … and so are we touched by them. The local is our touchstone to the Cosmos – it is not separate. Ceremony may be a way into this awareness, into strengthening it. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[i] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[ii] Ceremony then is a form of social action. I have found it useful to describe ceremony using and extending words used by Ken Wilber to describe a “transpersonal practice,” which is needed for real change: he said it was a practice that discloses “a deeper self (I or Buddha) in a deeper community (We or Sangha) expressing a deeper truth (It or Dharma).”[iii] My extension of that is: ceremony may disclose a deeper beautiful self (the I/Virgin/Urge to Be/Buddha), in a deeper relational community (the We/Mother/Place of Being/Sangha), expressing a deeper transformative truth (the It/Old One/Space to Be/Dharma). This is the “unitive body,” the “microcosmos” that Charlene Spretnak refers to in States of Grace.[iv] Since ceremony is an opportunity to give voice to deeper places in ourselves, forms of communication are used that the dreamer, the emotional, the body, can comprehend, such as music, drama, simulation, dance, chanting, singing.[v] These forms enable the entering of a level of consciousness that is there all the time, but that is not usually expressed or acknowledged. We enter a realm that is ‘out of time,’ which is commonly said to be not the “real” world, but it is more organic/indigenous to all being and at least as real as the tick-tock world. It is a place “between the worlds,” wherein we may put our hands on the very core of our lives, touch whatever it is that we feel our existence is about, and thus touch the possibility of re-creating and renewing ourselves. NOTES: [i] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [ii] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation. [iii] Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996), 306-307. [iv] 145. [v] As Starhawk notes, The Spiral Dance, 45. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996.
(Essay) Conceiving, Imagining the New at Samhain by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

It is the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. In the PaGaian version of Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony participants journey to the “Luminous World Egg” … a term taken from Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance[i], where she also names that place as the “Shining Isle”, which is of course, the Seed of conception, a metaphor for the origins of all and/or the female egg: it is the place for rebirth. Artist: Bundeluk, Blue Mountains, Australia. The “luminous world egg” is a numinous place within, the MotherStar of conception: that is, a place of unfolding/becoming. The journey to this numinous place within requires first a journey back, through some of each one’s transformations, however each may wish to name those transformations at this time. The transformations for each and every being are infinite in their number, for there is “nothing we have not been” as has been told by Celts and others of Old, and also by Western science in the evolutionary story (a story told so well by evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, particularly in her video Journey of a Silica Atom.) Ceremonial participants may choose selves from biological, present historical self, or may choose selves from the mythic with whom they feel connection; from any lineage – biological or otherwise. Selves may also be chosen from Gaia’s evolutionary story – earlier creatures, winged or scaled ones … with whom one wishes to identify at this time. Each participant is praised for their “becoming” for each self they share. When all have completed these journeys/stories of transformation, the circle is lauded dramatically by the celebrant for their courage to transform; and she likens them all to Gaia Herself who has made such transitions for eons. The celebrant awards each with a gingerbread snake, “Gaian totems of life renewed”[ii]. gingerbread snakes Participants sit and consume these gingerbread snakes in three parts: (i) as all the “old shapes” of self that were named; and (ii) remembering the ancestors, those whose lives have been harvested, whose lives have fed our own, remembering that we too are the ancestors, that we will be consumed; and (iii) remembering and consuming the stories of our world that they desire to change, the stories that fire their wrath or sympathy: in the consuming, absorbing them (as we do), each may transform them by thoughts and actions – “in our own bodyminds”. When all that is consumed “wasting no part”, it is said that “we are then free to radiate whatever we conceive”, to “exclaim the strongest natural fibre known” – our creative selves, “into such art, such architecture, as can house a world made sacred” by our building[iii]. This “natural fibre” is a reference to the spider’s thread from within her own body, with which she weaves her web, her home; and Spider has frequently been felt in indigenous cultures around the globe as Weaver and Creator of the Cosmos. Spider the Creatrix, North America, C. 1300 C.E., Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.13 In the ceremony, participants linked with a thread that they weave around the circle, may sail together for a new world “across the vast sunless sea between endings and beginnings, across the Womb of magic and transformation, to the “Not-Yet” who beckons”[iv]: to the Luminous World Egg whereupon the new may be conceived and dreamed up. Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony is an excellent place for co-creating ourselves, for imaginingthe More that we may become, and wish to become. This is where creation and co-creation happens … in the Womb of Space[v], in which we are immersed – at all times: and Samhain is a good season for feeling it. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005 Sahtouris, Elisabet. Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution. Lincoln NE:iUniversity Press, 2000. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. NY: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. The Earth’s Imagination.DVD series 1998. NOTES: [i]p.210 [ii]a version of this Samhain script is offered in Chapter 7 PaGaian Cosmology [iii]These quoted phrases are from Robin Morgan, “The Network of the Imaginary Mother”, in Lady of the Beasts, p.84. This poem is a core inspiration of the ceremony. [iv]“Not-Yet” is a term used by Brian Swimme, The Earth’s Imagination, video 8 “The Surprise of Cosmogenesis”. [v]note that creation does not happen at the point of some god’s index finger, as imagined in the Sistine Chapel – what a takeover that is!
Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Day of the Dead altar, via Wikimedia Commons According to Celtic tradition, on Samhain (October 31 for those in the north and April 30 for those in the south) the doors between the human and spirit worlds open. Faeries, demons, and spirits of the dead pour out of the Otherworld to walk the Earth. In the past, some would try to hurry ghosts past their houses or ward off evil spirits by setting jack o’lanterns in their windows. They avoided going outside, especially past cemeteries, lest they be snatched away to the Otherworld. In ancient times, some offered sacrifices to propitiate deities. However, others have invited in the souls of friends and family who have passed away. In Brittany, according to W.Y. Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, people would provide “a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white tablecloth, and to supply music” which “the dead come to enjoy with their friends” (p. 218). Other cultures also have such welcoming traditions. In Korea, as so beautifully described by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in her posts about her family’s mourning for her father (Part I and Part II), in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, and elsewhere, food and flowers are brought to cemeteries to honor those no longer in the realm of the living. Many of us live in a society where death is pushed out of sight and Samhain’s sacred traditions have devolved into Halloween, a commercialized children’s holiday. Still, it seems to me that the pandemic, climate catastrophes, and war have made death much more present in our everyday thoughts over the past couple of years than before, so perhaps this year’s Samhain offers us the opportunity to re-examine Celtic and other practices of the past and present to see what insights and meaning they may have for us. Jack o lanterns: By Mihaela Bodlovic, via Wikimedia Commons All these ancient practices respect the spirit world and its power. Whether you believe that the Otherworld can wreak havoc on us at Samhain or not, the realm where spirits dwell clearly has power. Its allure can take us away from focusing on mundane, daily challenges or, more positively, open our eyes to the value of relating to forces that can give richness and meaning to our lives. At the same time, we must remember that each domain has its own power. We can use our physical bodies in beneficial ways that those in the Otherworld cannot. We must respect the power of the Otherworld as well as our own. Some kinds of healing are only possible when we welcome those from the Otherworld into our lives in a healthy way, whether through holiday visits or every day through remembrance, meditation, prayer, or other means. I’m of an age when many of my beloveds are in the Otherworld and so I am beginning to find that the idea of being able to sit with someone I have lost is cause not for fear, but rather joy and comfort. Perhaps those who have longstanding wounds from the past can heal by remembering those we have lost at Samhain and forgiving them or ourselves or realizing that we are no longer bound to those who have hurt us and are now gone. Samhain can also reassure us of the truth of our intuitive sense that our beloveds who we grieve are with us still, in some way, on this night and throughout the year. When we participate in the celebration of Samhain’s opening of doors to the Otherworld, if only for a day, we are honoring our own participation into the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are expanding our vision of ourselves to be more than our bodies on the Earth and experiencing ourselves as connected to many realms, seen and unseen, spirit and human. We are accepting that at some time we will also become ancestors, with all the responsibility that entails and the fulfillment of taking our place in the complex matrix of being that is our universe. When we interact with the souls of those we have lost in ways that are healthy for us, however we may choose and believe that happens, we can also better celebrate the realm of the living. Just as we may listen in various ways for positive messages from those whom we have lost, we can ensure that we are expressing important guidance to those who will come after us by who we are and how we live our lives. We can express that life is worth living, even with all its traumas, and that we respect both the boundaries and the doors between the worlds so that we may continue living fully in our physical bodies on our beautiful, awe-inspiring Earth. I hope my message to my descendants will be: Love your lives. Build on what we have done and do better. Leave behind what we left you that no longer serves. If you feel alone, remember that you have thousands of generations of mothers sending you unconditional love and also generations of women coming after you eager to pick up where you left off. According to Mary Condren in The Serpent and the Goddess, in the most ancient times, “Samhain had been primarily a harvest feast celebrating the successful growth and gathering of the fruits of the past year” (p. 36). While we in the north are coming into the season of death, those in the south are experiencing Beltane, the first moments of spring when the doors between the worlds are also open. The eternal cycle of life, death, and regeneration turns again. Whether you are celebrating Samhain or Beltane, know that this holy time offers us all a chance to enter into the task of maintaining harmony with those we have loved before and for bringing balance between life and death, winter and summer, and the realm of the living and …
(Essay) Winter Solstice/Yule within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(Art) Nurture by Anna Tzanova

to feed and protect; to support and encourage; to foster and bring up; to train and educate; to develop and nourish; to care for and cherish… Such a multifaceted and meaningful word! It represents to me an essential quality of the Goddess. An aspect I strive to cultivate within, embody, and express externally. I use it to guide all my actions by asking myself, “Is this nurturing?”; “By doing this, what am I nurturing?” Very often, minds have been conditioned to counterpose nature and nurture, creating not only a divide, but also a controversy. The intrinsic feature of Nature is to nurture. The womb not only births, but nurtures. Nothing can be sustained or achieved without nurture. Nature teaches us the lesson of acceptance. Nurture – the lesson of patience. It also provides the opportunity and freedom of choice. Together, they intertwine and weave the entire Creation. What are you nurturing today? From She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 (forthcoming, 2016). See (Meet Mago Contributror) Anna Tzanova.
(Mago Stronghold Essay 3) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

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

Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and her Tradition Magoism[i] This study documents and interprets a substantial body of primary sources concerning Mago [麻姑, also known as Magu or Mako] from Korea, China, and Japan. Much of this material has never been brought to light as a whole. In working with these various and sundry data including folklore, paintings, arts, literature, poetry, toponyms, rituals, historical and religious records, and apocryphal texts, I encountered an organic structure that relates these seemingly unrelated materials and named it Magoism. Magoism refers to an anciently originated gynocentric cultural and historical context of East Asia, which venerates Mago as supreme divine. Although “Magoism” is my coinage, its concept is not new. Magoism is referred to as the Way of Mago, the Origin of Mago, the Event of Mago, Reign of Mago, Heavenly Principle, or simply Mago in historical sources. In the West, its partial manifestation is known as the cult of Magu within the context of Daoism. One of the earliest verified records, the Biography of Magu (Magu zhuan) written by Ge Hong (284-364) dates back to proto-Daoist times.[ii] Nonetheless, “Mago” remains largely forgotten and misrepresented to the world especially in modern times. More incisively, her sublime divinity is made invisible despite strong evidence. No scholarship in the West has treated Mago as a topic in her own right. Mago’s multiple identities ranging from the cosmogonist to a grandmother, from the progenitress to the Daoist goddess, from the sovereign to a shaman/priestess in Korea, China, and Japan remain unregistered in modern scholarship. When mentioned, her transnational manifestation is not recognized cogently. She is often lumped together with other parochial goddesses from China. Other times, she is fetishized as a Daoist goddess of immortality. She is also known, among other representations, as the giant grandmother (goddess) who shaped the natural landscape in the beginning of time among Koreans. In any case, Mago is not deemed on a par or in relation with Xiwangmu (the Queen Mother of the West in Chinese Daoism) and Amaterasu, (the Sun Goddess of the Japanese imperial family), both of who represent the East Asian pantheon of supreme goddesses to the West. I hold that the paramount significance of Magoism lies in the fact that it redefines the female principle and proffers a gynocentric utopian vision to the modern audience. Its utopian cosmology is no free-floating abstract idea but imbedded in the mytho-historical-cultural reality of East Asia. I suggest Magoism as the original vision of East Asian thought. Put differently, Magoism is an East Asian gynocentric testimony to the forgotten utopian reality. In the sense that Magoism presents an East Asian gynocentric symbolic system, this study is distinguished from Western and androcentric discourse. In other words, its gynocentric universalism should not be subsumed under the discourse of Western or patriarchal universalism. Magoism prompts an alternative paradigm of ancient gynocentrism that redefine major notions of the divine, human, and nature in continuum. Mago, the great goddess, is the unifying and at the same time individualizing force in this system. Magoism enables a macrocosmic view in which all individualized parts are organically co-related and co-operating. As a religious system, it is at once monotheistic and polytheistic. That is, Mago is the great goddess in her multiple manifestations. Underlying the patriarchal edifices, the Magoist principle is the Source from which the latter is derived.