January 28, 2015October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Prose poem) The Mark of the Bear by Sara Wright

Leaving the sanctity of evergreen forest and still wrapped in winter wool, he warily approaches me. I stand riveted to a wet nose and open mouth sniffing and tasting the evening light; the bear’s gaze rekindles an ancient fire. A golden arrow pierces the shadow of my longing, forcing me to acknowledge the depth of my grief. Hungering for details I scan his face, noting his widow’s peak, mole brown-marbled eyes; curved claws pop the top off the can. Recognition parts the Veil of Bears as I acknowledge him for the second time. One image of my Beloved is this bear.

Read Meet Mago Contributor Sara Wright.

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(Art) Seven Stars Deities by Lydia Ruyle

Chilseong-sin or Seven Stars Deities represent the Big Dipper/Great Bear constellation. It is believed that the seven stars shine brightest on Korea and protect the people from misfortunes. Chilseong-gut rituals performed by mudangs using reflections on water suggest indigenous origins. Chilseong control the human lifespan, grant wishes, look after children’s welfare, and give blessings. On the banner, three figures are crowned and hold wands and four offer the peaches of immortality. Source: Folk Painting. n.d. Korea www.lydiaruyle.com Goddess Icons Spirit Banners of the Divine Feminine © 2013, Lydia Ruyle
(Poem) Power of Feminism by Alshaad Kara

Image from Unplash It is to stand for what is right.There is no usage of moralitySince all starts in the wombOf a woman to mother earth.The spirit of this truthIs embodied in each oneOn every single day of our lives. https://www.magoism.net/2023/12/meet-mago-contributor-alshaad-kara/
(Poem) reciting writing by Susan Hawthorne

Flying and Falling 1, porcelain sculpture by Suzanne Bellamy, 1991,created for the cover of The Falling Woman by Susan HawthornePorcelain 47 cm x 40 cm, private collection© Suzanne Bellamy, 1991. All rights reserved.© on the above photo Susan Hawthorne, 2024. Notes I am trying to work out how to write about unrecorded history. The best way in is through orature, mythic traditions. I’ve been thinking about orature for about forty years and at one point attempted to write a PhD in the area, but that was 1979 and way too early for academia. I turned first to fiction, writing The Falling Woman[1] (1992) and subsequently to poetry which allows for writing between the cracks of time available to me. In this poem I am reflecting on the way in which writing dispossesses the colonised (women, in this case) and the conquered. I see the irony here, as a woman attached to the written word. All the same, the process continues today and unless orature is protected and strengthened, those histories will be lost. There is enough space in the world for both orature and literature to flourish. Flying and Falling 2, porcelain sculpture by Suzanne Bellamy, 1991,created for the cover of The Falling Woman by Susan HawthornePorcelain 47 cm x 40 cm, private collection© Suzanne Bellamy, 1991. All rights reserved.© on the above photo Susan Hawthorne, 2024 [1] The cover photo of the book is the same sculpture, this photo © Lariane Fonseca, 1992. https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone
(Poetry & Photography) The Loss of the Holy: In Memoriam by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright Something’s wrong. I stopped dead in my tracks as I passed through the gate startling the pre-dawn stillness. I was on my way to the river. It was dark. Gazing up at my beloved Cottonwood Cathedral I couldn’t see, But why couldn’t I feel her Presence? A hole ripped through my heart. Dread seeped in. Some alien force had shattered the Peace. When I reached the river La Llorona was sobbing her veil of mist smudging the trees with a shroud. Retracing the path at dawn the terrifying sight of severed limbs – the loss of supple arches that swept the ground with their bountiful grace, limbs bowed low in surrender… shattered the wonder of this holy place – twisted knives in my gut. To lose a holy place is to be annihilated. Both the trees and I have lost our limbs like the handmaid once did to mindless slaughter by those that neither see or feel.* Never again will we rejoice in the reciprocal joy that the holy bestows on those that are capable of Love. Working Notes For three years I have walked through the Cathedral of Cottonwoods, sometimes two or three times a day just for the simple pleasure of feeling the peace that these Matriarchs of the Bosque bestow upon anyone who can feel their benign yet powerful presence. In just one place beyond the gate the holy lived… and day after day year after year I would stop just to feel the peace – amazing grace. This spot was my sanctuary, the one place on this property that somehow felt like it belonged to me as I did to her. Today my sanctuary has been destroyed forever. This tree destruction occurred either in my absence or sometime during this past week when my dog has been so ill that I have barely stepped out the door except to make a harrowing trip to the vet. My neighbor, the owner of this property is responsible for this act of senseless violence. My body is still struggling to process the magnitude of this loss. Intentional or not it feels malevolent. Each time I walk through this area someone in me screams out “NO NO, not here.” My most beloved place. Gone, the severed limbs will bare ugly scars until the tree itself returns to the earth in death… The worst part of this story is that the severing of the arms of the tree accomplished virtually nothing. These beautiful arches were beyond a fence and part of a path to the river that only I walk daily. Ironically, the man left many dead, dangling branches hanging over the same area. The severed tree limbs remind me of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In this story a father betrays a glorious apple tree that is also his daughter for money. This bargain with the devil intensifies as the dark one then insists the father chop off the girl’s hands. At this point after a second unconscionable betrayal the woman – child leaves home with her severed hands and throws herself on the mercy of Nature, who eventually restores the young woman to wholeness. My beloved cottonwoods will not have their limbs restored but perhaps there’s a message in this story for me. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Book Review) Hallie Iglehart Austen’s The Heart of the Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This beautiful and ovarian work, The Heart of the Goddess by Hallie Iglehart Austen, has a new edition. I have the original edition which was published in 1990, and my copy is very worn with zealous use. The images, teachings and meditations within it have been essential to my journey – personally, and professionally, and do remain so. The cover image of this new edition speaks well of its advent: the six thousand year old image of the Bird-Headed Snake Goddess[1], as Hallie names her, expresses a rising up, an emergence and a re-emergence in our times. In the new Introduction Hallie appropriately connects this cover image with an imagined roar of “No more!”, that may resonate particularly with the contemporary response of women to past and present losses, and with the contemporary response of many Gaian beings to the deadly inebriated sleep/denial that is witnessed flagrantly on the world stage in recent times. As Hallie describes this exuberant Bird deity from Africa: “Rooted in the earth, connecting with the infinite energy that surrounds us all, she calls on us to reclaim our power, love and life force for the sake of all beings[2].” I personally know/recognise this “No more!” from a moment in my life, when at last the steel at the bottom of my stomach was found, after a lifetime of taking little or no authority for the giving of myself, of letting it be taken, all too frequently by/to men who did not care. It is an important place for a woman to find: THEN re-creation is possible. And so it is now on a collective scale it seems. This new edition of The Heart of the Goddess is timely. I loved the magnificent image of Durga as Slayer of the Buffalo Demon[3], new in this edition, opposite the Contents page. It is an image any being may reach for, for courage, integrity, pride, agency and more. To have this image entering into your eyes daily, would teach more than any text: the bodymind could be assured of all these qualities being at hand, and find the capacity to act accordingly. As with the previous edition, throughout the book the images from around the world are alongside a page of Goddess framed text: that is, text told from within a matristic understanding and frame of the whole of the human story, and with respect for and acknowledgement of the image’s indigenous origins, as well as with scholarly acumen. There is also an excellent contemplation/meditation offered for consideration with each image. This 2018 edition includes ten new images, and an updated list of resources, which is a sample of the names of organisations that can be contacted to help protect and support the rights of indigenous peoples; and examples are given of how a particular image may inspire the direction of your desired action. The listed resources includes a list of contemporary artists. Thankfully, along with the new Introduction to this revised edition, there is still the original Foreword by Jean Shinoda Bolen, and the original Introduction by Hallie which is brilliant and timeless, worthy of contemplation and sharing to a broad audience. The subtitles of that Introduction are The Sacred Art, The Goddess is Everywhere, Who is the Goddess?, Myth and Power, The Earth as the Body of the Goddess, Language, How to Use this Book, and Living with the Goddess. I feel that almost no other Goddess book is required to school yourself and/or your group/community in Her ways. With the practice of The Heart of the Goddessyou will become intimate with Her in an wholistic way: She does embody all qualities and power, and you may be able to recognise Her all within you. The book includes A Millennial’s Initiationby Merileigh Moen, Grandchild of the Earth, Writer/Actor, which is witness to this healing/wholing, the sacred in-forming that Hallie’s book offers. I highly recommend The Heart of the Goddess as an educational resource, for your self, for educational programs, and/or any group. I encourage you to do yourself and others you may teach, a favour, and have this new edition of The Heart of the Goddess on your bookshelf, within reach. I love Hallie’s ending advice in the new Introduction: Gaze on these images, live with them, sing their songs and praises, tell their stories and wait: wait and see what inspiration they have for you, right now, today[4]. Reference: Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2018. Website: The Heart of the Goddess NOTES: [1]p.8 The Heart of the Goddess, where her African origins are noted. [2]p.xvii, The Heart of the Goddess. [3]p. vii, 14th-15thcenturies, Nepal. [4]p.xviii, The Heart of the Goddess.
(Essay) I Have Cancer. Making Death an Ally. By Bridget Robertson

“I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I’ll be sending messages on a ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side. When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether or not I am unafraid.” Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals (1980) * We are each promised a lifetime. It may only be minutes or 102 years. That is the only agreement death makes at the beginning of our lives.
(Book Excerpt) Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Just arrived INTRODUCTION This reader includes my articles published in my book, anthologies, and journals from 2015 to present. The majority of chapters were written within the last five years. My research concerning Mago, the Great Mother, began in 2000 for my doctoral dissertation. For the first fourteen years, it was extremely difficult for me to produce articles or a book treating Magoism directly due mainly to the overwhelmingly immense, complex, and slippery nature of the topic. In the course of time, my research focus evolved from Magoism to Magoist Cetaceanism. I learned that Magoist women and mothers were not alone in shaping the destiny of pre- and proto-patriarchal worlds. Contrarily, they were guided by the natural world headed by cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). They discovered cetaceans divine. Whales, surpassing the human standard (in planetary origin, lifespan, biological magnitude, aquatic residence, meteorological influence, sonic communications, and communal social behaviors, to name a few), had been the guardian of the Planet, Earth. Their planetary presence was the model for the divine. In alliance with whales, Shaman Queens of the ancient world cultivated the consciousness of the matriverse (maternally perceived universe). What was feared by patriarchs was not just women but cetaceans whom women revered and bonded with. My encounter with Magoist Cetaceanism enabled me to transform my feminist consciousness into the matriversal consciousness. Feminism is an antidote against patriarchy. Where patriarchy is dispelled, feminism undergoes transformation. Our historical consciousness is not linear. Our view of the past shapes the future. My study of pre-patriarchal confederacies of Old Korea/East Asia shows that patriarchy is a short-living unreality. Patriarchy has proved repeatedly that it is incapable of leading the world in harmony with the universe. That is because it is built on the partial, distorted view that the male is supreme above ALL else. Where the male self is deemed outside the web of interdependence, his rule is there only to be subverted by the rebel force from within. In the matricentric world, women and mothers share agency with ALL else. In the case of Magoist Korea, they revere cetaceans as the terrestrial divine. My research on Magoist Cetaceanism shows the way for humans to restore peace and harmony within the matriverse. I have not shaped Magoism. I have shaped how to write about Magoism. Thus, Magoism is not my invention, although the term “Magoism” is coined by me. And I have been led by my research topic, Mago and Magoism. Mago refers to the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix, and Magoism the Way of the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix. The maternal vision is neither microscopic nor anthropocentric. It is the door to the sublime and bedazzling reality. Magoism unfolds the reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Creation is ever-happening and omnipresent, taking place HERE and NOW in WE. Magoism concerns matriversal soteriology. It releases matriversal consciousness, which saves ALL. Reality is seen as tripartite. The principle of triad (3×3) is an epitome of Sonic Numerology or the Cosmic Music, the cosmogenic force of the matriverse. Referring to a ceaseless interplay of musically charged nine numbers, Sonic Numerology organizes the matriverse. Mago in tune with the Cosmic Music supervises the cycle of birthing, growing, and transforming for ALL. Charting the matriversal kinship of ALL, S/HE enables calendar-clock-atlas to be measured. In short, the triad symbol signifies the organizing force of the matriverse, Sonic Numerology. The three or the nine is the code of the matriversal consciousness in which one perceives the Magoma Divine (the merged divine of Mago the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix and Goma the Shaman Queen Teacher who taught us the former), the supreme divine. From the perspective of ancient Magoists, ALL are the embodiments of Sonic Numerology. The matriversal consciousness cultivated by them is imbued in the sky (heaven), lands, waters, and their surroundings as the ninefold. Thus comes nona nomenclature: Nine heavens, nine dragons, nine deities, nine maidens, nine peoples, nine states, nine waterfalls, nine mountains, nine villages, and nine lands, and so forth. These nona names are epiphanic to the Creatrix, Mago in tune with the Cosmic Music! The Utopian vision has never left the human mind insofar as these nona names are remembered. Human history has run degeneratively. Humankind has sharply drifted away from the path to the Creatrix in the course of the last two millennia. Magoism, the Teaching of the Creatrix, owes to Goma for its foundation. It provides humanity with soteriological kits under patriarchal rules. Magoist nona symbolism or triadism is there to remind people throughout generations of the all-embracing reality of WE/HERE/NOW. This summary is the core teaching of Goma who stands as the greatest deity born of a woman (see “Myogyeon” in this reader). That triadism subverts dualism, which is coopted to enforce the principle of hierarchy in patriarchal unrealities, is only an anachronistic understatement. Triadism averts hierarchical dualism. Concerning the Title “Toward Magoist Cetaceanism” I have entitled this reader “Toward Magoist Cetaceanism.” What about whales/cetaceans? The topic of Magoist Cetaceanism, the veneration of cetaceans as one of the Triad Divine together with Mago (the Cosmic Mother/Creatrix) and Goma (Shaman Queen Mother), did not dawn on me for many years of my research in the beginning. It was meant to arrive in its own time. I was not ready to see it until I became fully conscious of Sonic Numerology, a central theme of the Magoist Cosmogony. My construction of the Mago Almanac, a modern version of the Magoist Calendar, the 13 month 28 day calendar, which marked December 18, 2017 as an onset of the new time counting, was my proclamation of Sonic Numerology as the organizing principle of the matriversal reality (see “Introducing the Magoist Calendar” in this reader). What do Sonic Numerology and the Magoist Cosmogony have to do with Magoist Cetaceanism? (1) In light of the Magoist Cosmogony, the “singing” of whales in bodies of water is seen as cosmogenic. Supervising the task of planetary water, cetaceans raise all earthlings. Cetaceans are the exemplary governor of the planet, Earth, for humans. The true terrestrial ruler governs the world by way of generating the resonance to the …
(Art) Baba Yaga by Lydia Ruyle
(Poem) Ilia’s dream by Susan Hawthorne

circa 740 BCE I know it is a dream but it doesn’t helpevery night I relive itthe old woman rushes in with her torchriver-wept in dream-shockshouting my terrors dear sister you are father-favouredbut he forsakes me in these hoursI tell youlife and energy abscondabandon my whole body the man who takes meit is Marshe is handsome and I am swept awayto an enchanted willow groveembraced by the river I am lost in that strange localemy very self displacedI am ravagedand he laughssister afterwards I ache I do not know up from downearth sways at my every stepa disembodied voice soundsour father Aeneasyou must bear these troubles alone he does not comfort meonly the old woman with her trembling limbshe does not come to me nor defend mehe kowtows to the one who calls himself godas if this excuses rape I reach my hands skywardbut all the words I hear are smooth-tonguedblandishmentsI am heart-sickand insomnia stalks my sleep Notes I wrote a book of poems while I had a Literature Residency in Rome in 2013-2014. I threw myself into the founding stories of Rome and discovered some interesting back stories that are usually not reported. It comes from my long reading of myths and unpacking from a feminist perspective. This poem is translated from the Latin poem by Ennius written in 150 BCE. Ilia/Rhea Silvia is the daughter of Aeneas (responsible for founding the city of Roma after the Cumaean Sibyl’s prophecy) and Eurydice; she is the full sister of the unnamed woman whom she addresses in this poem. Ilia is the mother of Romulus and Remus, the children born as a result of the rape by the god of war, Mars. Ilia’s second name is Rhea Silvia. Rhea suggests the Greek word rheo ‘flow’, therefore associated with the river, the spirit of the Tiber. It is possible there is a connection to res and regnum, hence to the ruling family. Silvia is the Latin word for ‘forest’ or ‘woods’, suggesting a goddess of the forests, perhaps Diana. This story has so many convolutions because Ilia aka Rhea Silvia is also a vestal virgin. The vestal virgins were selected at a very young age (six to ten years) and expected to remain virgins until the age of thirty-five. In a society where a virgin is an independent woman with sacred power, the important thing is that she not be at the beck and call of a husband. By being selected, this daughter of royalty is prevented from having heirs. Her father Numitor had a nasty younger brother, Amulius, who had already killed Numitor’s son and wanted to see an end to his line. In the poem Ilia is referred to as a daughter of Aeneas (eleven generations back) a shorthand term representing the lineage of Aeneas. When Rhea Silvia aka Ilia gave birth to twins the punishment was jail (weighed down with chains, according to Livy) and her children thrown in the river. Rea Silvia by Della Quercia via Wikimedia Commons The poem is from my book Lupa and Lamb (2014) https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/

(Special Post 7) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Kaalii Cargill: Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess. When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.
(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. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 1 Is Isis White (European) or Black (African)? Harita Meenee What could Isis have to do with the political situation in Egypt? Read on to find out! Isis, Egypt and the Revolution For the past few years Egypt has felt like a second home to me. Some cherished friends and co-workers live there, to whom my thoughts often travel. Also, Isis, the Egyptian great goddess once worshiped all over the Mediterranean, has been an ever-present source of inspiration… By: Harita Meenee, Author https://www.facebook.com/notes/harita-meenee-author/isis-egypt-and-the-revolution/457348724361326 Rick Williams Isis and that picture for me is kind of offensive in 2013. KMT [Kemet, Egypt] and AUSET [Isis] “worship” is an oxymoron. Kahena Dorothea Can you explain, Rick Williams, how it is an oxymoron? I am curious. Rick Williams First, Auset as a deity was not a singularly honored symbolic personage. KMT taught principles of BALANCE and UNIVERSAL COSMOLOGICAL TRUTH. There are NO images from the dawn of that age depicting her as EUROPEAN. [Threads curtailed] Helen Hwang I would strongly suggest that Rick and others who see Rick’s point educate us in Mago Circle. I know this is very difficult but we are here to learn and express differences from each other. We are all centers and please share your perspective and knowledge so that others can learn. I am doing that with patience and tolerance as well. Thank you all! Rick Williams I try to be as honest and respectful when I can, Helen. I only personalize things when ONE person says something. Yet there are those who know that the people of that land now weren’t the same people who honored the deities of mythology and that image isn’t of Auset. When will folks stop promoting fictitious images and uneducated observations? I could have beat around the bush and politely asked about the statue, why that one isn’t truly the same of Auset’s time? Helen Hwang Okay, conflicts and contradictions are everywhere. Nonetheless, we can’t be beat by those. We are exploring ways to be empowered by addressing our differences in Mago Circle. We trust that we have good intentions and yet we are not perfect. I do Mago Circle and Return to Mago because I believe there is a way for us to meet and talk with our differences, I can’t let that hope go! Thank us for talking to each other. Naa Ayele Kumari I can see both points. Egypt has a long and ancient history… One filled with invaders.. wars.. people who stole the magic and manipulated it for their own purposes… Those invaders changed images to make them in their own reflections all the while slowly destroying the indigenous images of power and strength as well as the sacred tradition they were built on.. As a woman of African descent, it is sometimes difficult to see the Hellenistic images of our mother.. because her original images were a woman of color. Racism… whether we chose to admit it or not has played an immense part in our oppression as a people and that includes the struggle for Egypt today. It is especially a sensitive issue because those images play a role in how people see and view black women… even today. The dark goddess is stereotyped as being a part of our shadow while the white goddess is caste as being all that is good in the world. What black women struggle to tell the world is that those projections are simply racist projections… and so we reject them. Still, I recognize that people like to experience the divine in their own image and that our Mother has been taken around the world… and by extension absorbed many names and faces because after all, she is mother not to just Africans… but to the World. Right now, we have dominant tradition of Islam… that at its roots has a feminine basis… (Islam came from the word Isis) all the while oppressing women by its dogma. The indigenous people of Egypt, the Badarians and Nubians… are oppressed by Arab invaders who have taken control, projected their own religions all the while wanting to destroy the remainder of the images of the ancients. Injustice recognizes injustice… and all the ways that it shows up. At the root of Egypt…is Isis… called also Esi and Auset by the indigenous people. She has been oppressed by many layers of invaders… Her daughter’s voices have been muted… Timeless icon that she is, as the tides are turning, so are the heavy oppressions being lifted. Women are finding and re-remembering their power… and as they do… Mama Esi.. is taking back her throne. Naa Ayele Kumari This is the Isis on the walls and temples of Egypt. Harita Meenee Seeing the people of Egypt as all white or all Black means stereotyping them. In fact the inhabitants of Egypt are of different colors: some are white, others are Black and many others are something in-between. The same was true in antiquity and it’s reflected in Egyptian art. Rick Williams Harita, really? What does that have to do with your choice of misrepresentation of that image? Please enlighten me, thank you. Harita Meenee Τhere is no misrepresentation, dear Rick Williams. If you read my note carefully, you’ll see that it talks about Isis as a goddess who was worshiped all over the Mediterranean–I’m not referring to just her Egyptian manifestation. The statue depicted is in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece. I took this picture and processed it slightly so that it looks more like a painting than a sculpture. No change was made to the actual form or color of the statue. I’m attaching a photo of the museum label of this work of art. It may not be clearly visible, but it reads: Marble statue of the goddess Isis-Tyche-Pelagia. 1st-2nd century AD. The composite name means that, as was often the case in […]
(Special Post 2) "The Oldest Cilivization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.

Imbolc/Early Spring – a Season of Uncertainty by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Traditionally the Seasonal transition of Imbolc/Early Spring, celebrated in early February in the Northern Hemisphere, and in early August in the Southern Hemisphere, has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself, around us and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may include in our celebrations and contemplations of this Season the beginnings of the new young Cosmos as She was, that time in our cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming; and also the new which has continually emerged throughout the eons, and is ever coming forth. The flame of being, as it has been imagined by many cultures, within and around, is to be protected and nurtured: the new being requires dedication and attention. In the early stages of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: it may flicker and be vulnerable. There may be uncertainties of various kinds. There is risk and resistance to coming into being. The Universe itself knew resistance to its expansion when it encountered gravitation in our very beginnings, in the primordial Flaring Forth[i]. The unfolding of the Universe was never without creative tension. The Universe knows it daily, in every moment: and we participate in this creative tension of our place of being. Urge to Be budding forth Imbolc/Early Spring can be a time of remembering personal vulnerabilities, feeling them and accepting them, but remaining resolute in birthing and tending of the new, listening for and responding to the Urge to Be[ii]of the Creative Universe within. Brian Swimme has said (quoting cultural anthropologist A.L. Kroeber) that the destiny of the human is not “bovine placidity” but the highest degree of tension that can be creatively born[iii]. many flames of being, strengthening each other These times are filled with creative tension, collectively and for most, personally as well; there is much resistance, yet there is promise of so much good energy arising. We may be witness to both. This Season of Imbolc/Early Spring may encourage attention, intention and dedication to strengthening well-being: in self, and in the relational communal context, and opening to our direct immersion in the Well of Creativity. We may be strengthened with the joining of hands, as well as the listening within to the sacred depths, in ceremonial circle at this time. NOTES: [i]As our origins (popularly named as “the Big Bang”) are named by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme in The Universe Story. [ii]As I name this determined Virgin quality in PaGaian Cosmology. [iii]The Canticle to the Cosmos, DVD #8, “The Nature of the Human”. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series, 1990.
(Essay) Summer Solstice/Litha Within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 9 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The dates for Summer Solstice/Litha are: Southern Hemisphere – December 20-23 Northern Hemisphere – June 20-23 A Summer Solstice altar The ‘moment of grace’[i] that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its ‘decline’: that is, its movement back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere, and back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere. This Seasonal Moment is polar opposite Winter Solstice when it is light that is “born,” as it may be expressed. At the peak of Summer, in the bliss of expansion, it is the dark that is “born.” Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, that may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios. Summer Solstice is a time for celebrating our realized Creativity, whose birth we celebrated at Winter Solstice, whose tenderness we dedicated ourselves to at Imbolc/Early Spring, whose certain presence and power we rejoiced in at Spring Equinox, whose fertile passion we danced for at Beltaine/High Spring. Now, at this seasonal point, as we celebrate light’s fullness, we celebrate our own ripening – like that of the wheat, and the fruit. And like the wheat and the fruit, it is the Sun that is in us, that has ripened: the Sun is the Source of our every thought and action. The analogy is complete in that our everyday creativity – our everyday actions, and we, ultimately, are also “Food for the Universe”[ii] … it is all how we feed the Universe. flowers to flames – everyday creativity consumed Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames.[iii] We, and our everyday creativity, are the “Bread of Life,” as it may be expressed; just as many other indigenous traditions recognize everyday acts as evoking “the ongoing creation of the cosmos,”[iv] so in this tradition, Summer is the time for particularly celebrating that. Our everyday lives, moment to moment, are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of the ancestors and ancient creatures that went before us; and so the future is built on ours. We are constantly consuming the work and creativity of others and we are constantly being consumed. The question may be asked: “Who are you feeding?,”[v] and consideration given to whether you are happy with the answer. It is the Sun that is in you. See how you shine. Summer Solstice is a celebration of the Fullness of the Mother – in ourselves, in Earth, in the Cosmos. We are the Sun, coming to fullness in its creative engagement with Earth. We affirm this in ceremony with: “It is the Sun that is in you, see how you shine.” It is the ripening of Her manifestation, which fulfills itself in the awesome act of dissolution. This is the mystery of the Moment. Brian Swimme has described this mystery of radiance as a Power of the Universe, as Radiance: the shining forth of the self is at the same time a give-away, a decline of the self – just as the Sun is constantly giving itself away. This Solstice Moment of Summer is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. Summer and Winter Solstices are Gateways – between the manifest and the manifesting, and Summer Solstice is a Union/Re-Union of these, a kind of meeting with the deeper self. Winter Solstice may be more of a separation, though it is usually experienced as joyful, because it is also a meeting, as the new is being brought forth. The interchange of Summer Solstice may be experienced as an entry into loss – the Cosmological Dynamic of Loss, as manifestation passes. Beltaine, Summer Solstice and Lammas – the next Seasonal Moment, may be felt as the three faces of Cosmogenesis in the movement towards entropy.[vi] The light part of the annual cycle of Earth around Sun is a celebration of the Young One/Virgin quality of Cosmogenesis, with Her face gradually changing to the Mother/Communion quality; and through the Autumn, the dark part of the annual cycle, it is a celebration of the Old One/Crone quality, whose face will gradually change also, back to the Mother/Communion. They are never separate.In this cosmology, desire for full creativity has been celebrated as the allurement of the Cosmos, and being experienced as gravity, as relationship with Earth, our place of being, how She holds us. At both Solstices there is celebration of deep engagement, communion. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series. CA: Tides Foundation, 1990. NOTES: [i] As Thomas Berry named the Seasonal transitions. [ii] Swimme uses this expression in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.” [iii] This is based on the traditional Litha (Summer Solstice) rite described by Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 206. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 95. [v] As Swimme asks in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.” [vi] Just as Samhain, Winter Solstice and Imbolc may be felt as the three faces of Cosmogenesis in the movement towards toward form – syntropy.
(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

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

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Imbolc/Early Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – February 1st/2nd though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, thus actually a little later in early August for S.H., and early February for N.H., respectively. Some Imbolc Motifs In this cosmology Imbolc/Early Spring is the quintessential celebration of She Who is the Urge to Be. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the differentiation quality of Cosmogenesis,[i] and with the Virgin/Young One aspect of the Triple Goddess, who is ever-new, unique, and singular in Her beauty – as each being is. This Seasonal Moment celebrates an identification with the Virgin/Young One – the rest of the light part of the cycle celebrates Her processes. At this Moment She is the Promise of Life, a spiritual warrior, determined to Be. Her purity is Her singularity of purpose. Her inviolability is Her determination to be … nothing to do with unbroken hymens of the dualistic and patriarchal mind. The Virgin quality is the essential “yes” to Being – not the “no” She was turned into. In the poietic process of the Seasonal Moments of Samhain/Deep Autumn, Winter Solstice and Imbolc/Early Spring, one may get a sense of these three in a movement towards manifest form – syntropy: from the autopoietic fertile sentient space of Samhain, through the gateway and communion of Winter Solstice to differentiated being, constant novelty, infinite particularity of Imbolc/Early Spring. The three are a kaleidoscope, seamlessly connected. The ceremonial breath meditations for all three of these Seasonal Moments focus attention on the Space between the breaths – each with slightly different emphasis: it is from this manifesting Space that form/manifestation arises. If one may observe Sun’s position on the horizon as She rises, the connection of the three can be noted there also: that is, Sun at Samhain/Deep Autumn and Imbolc/Early Spring rises at the same position, halfway between Winter Solstice and Equinox, but the movement is just different in direction.[ii] And these three Seasonal Moments are not clearly distinguishable – they are “fuzzy,”[iii] not simply linear and all three are in each other … this is something recognised of Old, thus the Nine Muses, or the numinosity of any multiple of three. Some Imbolc/early Spring Story This is the Season of the new waxing light. Earth’s tilt has begun taking us in this region back towards the Sun. Traditionally this Seasonal Point has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself – around us in flora and fauna, and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and to inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may celebrate the new young Cosmos – that time in our Cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming, as well as the new that is ever coming forth. This first Seasonal transition of the light part of the cycle has been named “Imbolc” – Imbolc is thought to mean “ewe’s milk” from the word “Oimelc,” as it is the time when lambs were/are born, and milk was in plentiful supply. It is also known as “the Feast of Brigid,” Brigid being the Great Goddess of the Celtic (and likely pre-Celtic) peoples, who in Christian times was made into a saint. The Great Goddess Brigid is classically associated with early Spring since the earliest of times, but her symbology has evolved with the changing eras – sea, grain, cow. In our times we could associate Her also with the Milky Way, our own galaxy that nurtures our life – Brigid’s jurisdiction has been extended. Some sources say that Imbolc means “in the belly of the Mother.” In either case of its meaning, this celebration is in direct relation to, and an extension of, the Winter Solstice – when the Birth of all is celebrated. Imbolc may be a dwelling upon the “originating power,” and that it is in us: a celebration of each being’s particular participation in this power that permeates the Universe, and is present in the condition of every moment.[iv] This Seasonal Moment focuses on the Urge to Be, the One/Energy deeply resolute about Being. She is wilful in that way – and Self-centred. In the ancient Celtic tradition Great Goddess Brigid has been identified with the role of tending the Flame of Being, and with the Flame itself. Brigid has been described as: “… Great Moon Mother, patroness (sic … why not “matron”) of poetry and of all ‘making’ and of the arts of healing.”[v] Brigid’s name means “the Great or Sublime One,” from the root brig, “power, strength, vigor, force, efficiency, substance, essence, and meaning.”[vi] She is poet, physician/healer, smith-artisan: qualities that resonate with the virgin-mother-crone but are not chronologically or biologically bound – thus are clearly ever present Creative Dynamic. Brigid’s priestesses in Kildare tended a flame, which was extinguished by Papal edict in 1100 C.E., and was re-lit in 1998 C.E.. In the Christian era, these Early Spring/Imbolc celebrations of the Virgin quality, the New Young One – became “Candlemas,” a time for purifying the “polluted” mother – forty days after Solstice birthing. Many nuns took their vows of celibacy at this time, invoking the asexual virgin bride.[vii] This is in contrast to its original meaning, and a great example of what happened to this Earth-based tradition in the period of colonization of indigenous peoples. An Imbolc/Early Spring Ceremonial Altar The flame of being within is to be protected and nurtured: the new Being requires dedication and attention. At this early stage of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: there may be uncertainties of various kinds. So there is traditionally a “dedication” in the ceremonies, which may be considered a “Brigid-ine” dedication, or known as a “Bridal” dedication, since “Bride” is a derivative of …
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 …
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …

(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?
How do you say what The Mago Work is? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang & Mago Circle Members

It took many years for me to pronounce the communal nature of the Mago Work. Defining the Mago Work necessarily endows us with the bird’s eye view of the Great Goddess, the primordial consciousness of WE in S/HE. Early this year, I asked people to define the Mago Work and their definitions are illuminating about what this book ultimately seeks to achieve.[1]
(Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part I The bell as both a percussion instrument and an idiophone is one of the most pacific, sublime, and ingenious human inventions. It appears cross-culturally from the remote past. Its artistic and ritualistic aspects are fairly well recognized by many. However, many overlook that the bell is a female icon with functionality. Put differently, the bell symbolizes the Goddess, the female who has the purpose. This essay, to be written in parts hereafter, will examine the symbology of ancient Korean bells and explore its implications with regard to Magoist history, cosmogony, and soteriology. At the outset, I posit that ancient Korean bells cast in the form of a woman’s body are there to awaken humanity to the arcane reality of the Female, that is Mago. In East Asia, bell connotes two distinct types, the open ended and the enclosed. In Korean, the open ended bell is called jong (鐘, Chinese zhong), whereas the enclosed one is called bang-ul or ryeong (鈴, Chinese ling). Jong and bang-ul are also distinguished by size. While the former tends to be larger, the latter are commonly used by a shaman or diviner to hold and shake (a group of bang-uls) to invoke the spirit. However, these differences are not unbridgeable. Some bang-uls are open-ended, like jong. By definition, jong is a bell made of metal not stone. (The character jong 鐘 has the radical (basic element) of geum 金, metal or gold. The stone bell is called gyeong.) When jong is used in music, in particular as a musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, it is called pyeon-jong (編鍾, Chinese bianzhong). Perhaps the invention of pyeon-jong follows pyeon-gyeong (編磬, Chinese bianqing), a stone musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped stone chimes. Discussing the differences between the two instruments goes beyond the purpose of this essay. Suffice it to say that jong was likely a metallic replica of gyeong presumably first introduced in the Bronze Age. (See the images below for comparison.) My primary focus in this essay is on jong, in particular the Korean bells cast in the 8th century CE and thereafter. The beauty and significance of ancient Korean bells shed a new light on ancient Korea to be re-dis-covered in relation to Magoism. Both scholars and the public appear to be unaware that the ancient bells of Korea symbolize the female principle as well as woman’s body. It is my hope that this essay allows the ancient bells of Korea to reverberate through time and call people to return to the female origin. Ancient Greek Bells as Woman’s Body A variety of jong from the ancient world appears across cultures. The most explicitly rendered bells which mirror the female form are the terracotta bell figurines of Greece (Thebes) dated circa the 8th century BCE. Both are housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Protruded breasts are placed on the upper part of the bell. The body of the bell is sculpted to resemble the skirt that she is wearing. Two arms annexed from her shoulders appear to be aesthetic rather than functional. The elongated neck is made as a handle to be held. Her neck is adorned with elaborate necklaces. Geometrical designs and swastikas are compelling in both figurines — rife with arcane meanings. The legs are made as mallets. Imagine, then, where the sound comes from upon being shaken! It is her belly, more precisely the vulva from which the sound originates. In the first, above, icon of the Greek bell, women are drawn on the bell’s body in a simplified and exaggerated manner. They are connected with each other hand in hand forming a circle, perhaps dancing a circle dance. As a whole, the bell depicts a dancing woman with her arms raised, standing on her toes. The women painting befits the spirited nature of the bell. In the second, above, icon of the Greek bell, 39.5 cm in height, her breasts are highlighted, encircled by the drawing of two circles. Thus, they appear to be more nipples than breasts. Her arms are laid downward as if pointing to the birds standing below on each side. Each bird is holding an elongated earthworm-like swirling thing at the tip of its beak. Geometric designs in the center of her body are catchily inviting to interpretations. The symmetrical balance is heightened. She appears to stand firmly or be ready to walk. As shown below, one leg when placed out to the side conveys to its viewer that the legs are mallets and at once creates a look that she is real, in motion. In my documentation, the Greek bell idols and ancient Korean bells are the only two groups that are explicitly made in the shape of a woman’s body. Yet, as to be shown shortly, these Greek bell idols, far smaller in size, date about a thousand years earlier than the ancient Korean bells. Furthermore, there is a vast geographical distance between the two bell icons. In comparing them, however, I have no intention to assume that the ancient Greek bell figurines are the earliest of their kind. (It is difficult to discuss the origin of bell as a woman’s body due to the nature of the task, too complex and daunting. It suffices to say that the Chinese bells, dated older than the Thebes bell figurines, have relevance to ancient Korean bells, a point to be discussed at a later part.) Ancient worlds appear not too heterogeneous to say the least, as moderns tend to think. Sillan Bells Let me begin with introducing some ancient Korean bells from the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE) and their major features that are also uniquely ancient Korean (read Magoist). They sound beautifully and deeply when struck. Sounding waves are calculated in the structure of the bell upon being cast. It is known that there are eleven jongs extant from the United Silla period. Only five of them are currently located in Korea, whereas the rest are in Japan. These bells are known as beomjong, a term referring to a bell in Buddhist temples used for Buddhist …