February 10, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM Editors

(Meet Mago Contributor) Maria Arias

My name is Maria Arias, also known as Maria, which is my artist name. I was born in El Paso, Texas. I live with my husband, daughter and mother in Champaign, IL. I write poems and stories for children and draw illustrations, painting and other visual arts. The media I use includes ink, color pencil, acrylic paint, water color, color pencils and digital media (paint and gimp). I love to express myself in art and share with everyone.

1 thought on “(Meet Mago Contributor) Maria Arias”

Sara Wright says:

March 10, 2016 at 8:30 AM

The poem and art work “I Thought the Morning Crowed” really work well together – one complementing the other. There is a kind of ruthless honesty in the words that is reflected in color.

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(Prose) Methodology: the cosmic sewing maching by Nane Jordan

Perhaps the term “methodology” encapsulates my Cixousian/life writing study, a methodology driven study? I know – Cixous’ writing defies notions of “method.” My point – exactly. “get past the wall” (Cixous, Coming to writing,1991) How can we defy and re-defyne methods? Recognizing the ways in which gender, social forces and patriarchy shape practices of writing, and who can or can’t write. How can writing and methodology speak/communicate/commune-with life in new ways? I see Cixous’ writing as midwife-provocateur of such birthings, an invitation to break free of convention and “etiquette” (à la Sean W.), finding language, dreams, birth/death, the life of objects and poetic-philosophy – narratives in the narrative, turning/tuning towards words-in-themselves. Tracing the educational genealogy of this study is to look at the forces of Coming to writing/ L’avenue à l’ecriture (Cixous 1991/1977) in my own life. I was a secret teenage poet. Poetry gave me a way into my-self, my emotions and scenes of life with others. I loved what words could do. I handed a file of my poems to a university professor in my first year of visual art studies. A well-known Ottawa poet, he let me into his writing class, with words of praise and promise for my writing. I entered and promptly dropped the class. I did not feel able to commit to both writing and visual art. Or I was afraid, of writing. Growing up in a literary (reading) family, I read too, a lot. Mostly female authors, Virginia Wolfe and Doris Lessing were mainstays of my teenage years. I didn’t feel I was ‘novelist’ material, but I sensed the need to write. Reading gave me worlds and words and ways into life within and beyond my own. Years later, after community-based midwifery studies, and the birth of my first daughter, my entrance to a Master of Arts in Women’s Spirituality in San Francisco gave writing back to me. Who knew? Who knew that poet, cultural theorist, and educator Judy Grahn (http://www.judygrahn.org/) would be there, nudging students along in her creative, generous ways, “did you write that story Nané?” In our classes, writing groups, and pedagogical immersions through women-centred scholarship, space, and ritual, hearing the stories of others, telling and re-finding my own stories, I recovered my desire to write. Research methodology was key to this arrival. New feminist research methodologies were about creatively locating ourselves in our own lives as women. We could use the “I” word, a subjective voice! VOICE! Feminist qualitative research as “Organic Inquiry” (Clements, Ettling, Jenett, & Shields, 1998) opened these doors more. Art, writing, and the sacred could merge within me, in a community of e-mergence. I followed red threads that I yearned to, through women’s birth stories, midwifery, eco-feminism. This was the kind of research I had been longing to do through my years of living the birth-work, and reading women’s stories and healing ways. How to make research sing and soar, breath life, give life. Into my PhD, I found arts-based researchers in education at UBC. Again, artists, writers and poets arrived, with communities of stories as our calling. Life writing with an arts-based research team began. And reading Cixous, more and more, things evolved to this place of reading-writing, in its potent-poetic transformative impact. All that is possible in reading-writing – its individual and collective sewing. The cosmic sewing machine In this classroom, I am made more, in saying, telling, writing, following my own tales/tails, letting words come through, the flesh and blood of me, words spin out into sentences, forming a new body. These soft glowing orbs I can hand to others, placement of figurative touch, head to hand to heart, this funny mind-meld, enscribes my sensory awareness, of being. That story I told Judy, long ago about the wolves calling, and she said, “have you written that down?” no – I hadn’t, but soon did, now the thought often arises, to write things down, to stitch stories. I am a bit more familiar with this cosmic sewing machine, the one Judy points to, saying, “I have to get back to my sewing” I look in the direction of her gaze, to the sewing machine on the floor and I think – that looks a lot like a computer. And so begins another way of thinking about sewing, about writing. (Meet Mago Contributor) Nane Jordan.
(Solstice meditation) Three Candles Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This meditation particularly expresses Winter Solstice Poetry – the Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos at this Seasonal Moment, when the the ancients of my heritage celebrated the significance of the Triple Spiral: they engraved this triplicit motif on the inner chamber wall of the Bru-na-Boinne sacred mound in Ireland[1], placed so that it would be lit by the dawn Sunlight at Winter Solstice each year. The Triple Spiral, which was hidden for millennia and only uncovered again in the latter part of last century, apparently represented something essential to the Indigenous religious tradition of the region and perhaps to a wider community of people who came there. I have taken it to represent my understanding of a Cosmology wherein I am in intimate relationship my Habitat/Place: a PaGaian Cosmology, wherein my everyday footsteps are the sacred Journey – as Earth journeys around Sun … our everyday sacred journey. The following meditation celebrates three qualities of the essential Creativity of the Cosmos, that are resonant with other triple metaphors – the Triple Goddess, the Three Refuges. Light the 1st candle: I remember She within me Who is deeply related – the Mother – the Matrix, the Intricate Web – She Who Is – everything within me that connects me to the past, upon which the present is built – the Depth of this moment, this Dynamic Place of Being. I remember the Sangha, the community around the globe that supports Life, those in particular that have and do support my life – all those who have been, and are, my teachers. Light the 2nd candle: I remember She within me Who is ever new – the Young One – the Urge budding forth – She Who will Be – the future, the children, the descendants of body and mind – the much More in myself and all selves. I remember the Buddha, the Self, the Shining One within all, for whom I refine the gold – for whom this life is given, those whom I support, for whom I am teacher. Light the 3rd candle: I remember She within me Who returns me to All-That-Is, to the Great Subject – the Old One – She within Who creates the Space to Be, Who dissolves the old in every moment, Who is the transformations of the Ages – Who knows the Truth of all things – Who is the Sentience within all. I remember the Dharma, She within whose Wisdom is beyond all knowledge. This is the Creative Context in which we are held – in the Context of all that supports this present moment, in the Context of the future that is being conceived and nurtured right here, and in the Context of the Old all-Knowing Compassionate One who receives all – all three creative dynamics present Here within each unique being. NOTES: Bru-na-Boinne is commonly known as “Newgrange”, a name given to the place in Christian times when the significance of the place was all but forgotten, and only remembered perjoratively as “folklore”: the Place was merely a “new farm”. But of Old it was the Place of Boann – the Goddess of the region for whom the Boyne River there is named. For a video version: The Three Candles Meditation on YouTube. Reference: Glenys Livingstone Ph.D., PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, Lincoln NE:iUniverse 2005. p. 259-260. Meet Mago Contributor, Glenys Livingstone.
(Prose) Excerpt from The River Stone: A Spiritual Erotic Fantasy by Marie de Kock

The sexual manual of the Tao is thousands of years old. The Taoists call a specific type of sex “joy-making.” They say the socialization process destroys our joy as we grow up. The thymus gland vibrates with the joy frequency. So the thymus is dormant in adults. The Taoists teach that our jing chi, or sexual energy, or orgasmic joy, can be utilized to activate the thymus again. They pull the orgasmic joy up from the genital area into the thymus gland with controlled respiration and visualization. Of course, an active thymus boosts the immune system. It is also beneficial for the heart and lungs to experience the higher frequency of an orgasmic release; great for emotional wellness.
(Gogyoshi) A Miracle Worker by Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

The White Unicorn Creature beyond time and space Can heal every wound Her quiet tears of pride Flow freely down UN TAUMATURGO L’Unicorno Bianco Creatura oltre il tempo e lo spazio È in grado di curare ogni ferita Le sue silenziose lacrime di orgoglio Cadono liberamente
(Meet Mago Contributor) Swami Pujananda Saraswati

Swami Pujananda Saraswati is a yogic mystic, scholar practitioner. She is also a spiritual activist and anti-imperialist radical feminist in the Goddess motherline and Vedic traditions. As an initiate nun in the sacred Order of Sannyasa–Samkhya and Vedanta (duality and nondualitly)–she teaches Yogic/Vedic psychology. The Swami lived with honorable mentors who embody the divine Mother in Her three forms: Kali-Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Since 1979 she immersed in intensive monastic disciplines at the Yoga Research Foundation Ashram with Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda Maharaj and more recently with Maha Mandaleshwara Ma YogaShakti at the Yoga Shakti Mission, Palm Bay, FL. With profound dedication to the beloved teachers, her heart overflows in sharing the perennial philosophy and Integral Yoga as a way of life towards the fulfillment of human existence. Swami Puiananda continues research on how the psychology of Patanjali and the Scriptures of India inform today´s spiritual activism for personal integration, expansion of consciousness leading to societal transformation. Previously Published Posts by Swami Pujananda Saraswati
(Poem) The Holiness of Broken Things by Melissa Austin

Meet Mago Contributor, Melissa Austin. This girl cried over dead baby birds found among the branches of a lightning-struck tree. She couldn’t see how something broken could still be holy.
(Italian language essay) Corea: la Musica cosmica di Mago by Luciana Percovich

[Author’s note: From Colei che dà la vita. Colei che dà la forma. Miti di creazione femminili, Venexia, Roma, Italia, 2009] Capitolo 3 Corea: la Musica cosmica di Mago Mago Nell’Età del Primo Cielo, esistevano solo la luce del sole e l’acqua. Quando Ryoe Ryul (la Musica cosmica armonizzata) risuonò più volte, emersero le stelle. Da Pal Ryoe (la Musica cosmica otto volte avvolta), si generarono Mago e il paradiso di Mago (Mago Sung). Fu un evento che ebbe luogo nell’Età Cosmica di Mezzo chiamata Jim Se (il Suo/Loro mondo). Mago preparò l’età che si chiama Ultimo Cielo. Mago non provava sentimenti né di piacere né di dolore. Nell’Età del Primo Cielo la grande cittadella di Mago stava sopra il SilDal (la Terra reale) e vicina all’HeoDal (la Terra ideale). Anche queste erano emerse dalla musica. Quando il Jim Se ebbe compiuto i suoi cicli per molto tempo, prima dell’Ultimo Cielo (il Nostro/Questo mondo), Mago generò da sola due figlie, Kung Hee (volta) e So Hee (nido) e affidò loro l’Oem Chil Jo (le cinque note e i sette toni). E mentre praticavano l’arte di vivere, dalla terra sgorgava il latte; Kung Hee e So Hee generarono ciascuna due figlie e due figli. In seguito, Mago affidò Ryoe (la Musica cosmica femminile) alle quattro nipoti femmine e Ryul (la Musica cosmica maschile) ai quattro nipoti maschi. Il paradiso di Mago, Mago Sung (la cittadella di Mago), che onorava l’Emblema celeste, seguì al Primo Cielo. Le quattro coppie, chiamate Hwang Gung (volta gialla), Baek So (nido bianco), Chun Gung (volta azzurra) e Heuk So (nido nero) furono posizionate ai quattro angoli della città. Ed esse costruirono i tubi (flauti) e composero musica. Il ciclo dell’Ultimo Cielo si srotolava. Ryul e Ryoe tornavano a risuonare. Si formò Hyang Sang (la rappresentazione dell’eco), suoni e musica si mescolavano. Mago tirò la grande cittadella di SilDal e la immerse nella regione dell’Acqua celeste. L’energia del SilDal salì e coprì la nuvola d’acqua. Quando il corpo del SilDal si espanse, comparve la terra in mezzo all’acqua. Terra e acqua stavano parallele, sorsero le montagne e le correnti si allungarono. La regione dell’Acqua celeste divenne terra e le due nuove regioni di acqua e terra ruotarono ripetutamente, finché il sopra e il sotto si rovesciarono. Da qui iniziarono numeri e calendario. Energia, fuoco, acqua e terra si generavano, mescolavano e equilibravano in mutua relazione. Da quel momento la luce separò il giorno dalla notte e le quattro stagioni. Piante e animali crescevano in abbondanza. C’era tanto lavoro da fare sulla terra… Poiché non c’erano altri se non i quattro uomini e le quattro donne celesti che amministravano la musica originale e la rappresentazione dell’eco, le cose apparivano e sparivano rapidamente senza tenersi in equilibrio. Mago allora mostrò loro come procreare dalle ascelle. Fu allora che i quattro uomini celesti si unirono alle quattro donne celesti. E ciascuna generò tre figlie e tre figli: gli antenati umani che apparvero per la prima volta sulla terra. Tutti gli abitanti di Mago Sung avevano disposizioni di cuore e di mente pure e sincere e conoscevano l’armonia. Bevevano il latte che sgorgava dalla terra e il loro sangue era energia pura. Avevano oro nelle orecchie e sentivano la musica celeste. Correvano e camminavano a loro piacere, erano liberi nei movimenti. Alla fine della loro vita, diventavano polvere dorata. L’essenza dei loro corpi si conservava. Con l’hon (spirito dell’aria) risvegliato, sapevano parlare senza voce e muovendo il baek (spirito del corpo) sapevano agire senza forme. Vivevano sparsi tra le energie della terra e la lunghezza delle loro esistenze era infinita… Quando ogni clan raggiunse il numero di 3000 … Ji So (nido di ramo), del clan dei Baek So (nido bianco), non riuscì più a bere il latte della terra. La sorgente del latte era così piccola e affollata che Ji So perse il suo turno più volte. Così Ji So per la fame assaggiò l’uva e invitò altri a farlo e fu così che un gruppo fu mosso a provare questa nuova esperienza… Il loro sangue e il loro corpo cominciarono a diventare torbidi, crebbero loro i denti, gli si aprirono gli occhi … stavano perdendo la loro natura celeste. Cominciarono a morire e la morte non fece più parte della vita. Nacquero creature bestiali. L’ordinato calendario cadde nel disordine. La comunità si divise e quelli che mangiavano l’uva lasciarono Mago Sung con vergogna, disperdendosi in luoghi diversi … . Fu allora che Mago chiuse i cancelli e ritirò le nuvole attraverso cui la gente poteva restare in sintonia con la Musica cosmica.
(Commemorating Mary Daly 2) My Memoirs of Mary Daly (1928-2010) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: My personal encounter with Mary Daly, a U.S. post-Christian feminist thinker, goes back to 1994, if not earlier. I stayed in Korea from 1994-1997 during which I translated two of Mary Daly’s early books, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation 하나님 아버지를 넘어서 (Seoul: Ewha Women’s University Press, 1996) and Church and the Second Sex 교회와 제 2의 성 (Seoul: Women’s News Press, 1997) in Korean. I carried with me to the U.S.A. our correspondences in the form of letters and documents mostly faxed to each other for the period of more than two decades. Later at one point I digitized them in images. Through these memoir series, I share some highlights of my memories with Mary Daly, her influence on my feminist thinking, and my own radical feminist journey to Magoist Cetaceanism.] I stayed in Korea from an early month in 1994 until August 15 1997 when I came to Claremont California, USA. I first contacted Mary Daly by letter sometime in 1994. (Mary’s 2007 recommendation letter states that I first contacted her in 1994. See my previous essay part 1 here.) I lost my own letter mailed to her home address and her school address. I had sent the same letter to her in two addresses to ensure her receipt. My memory is vague regarding what I told her in my first letter. I must have told her my story of disillusionment to Christianity. But my first actual conversation with her was a phone call. (See my previous essay part 1 here.)I received a formal letter from her, faxed to me dated April 22 1996, shown below. From Mary’s letter, I can infer the contents of my first letter to her. First off, I must have told her that the publisher, Ewha Women’s University Press, notified me that my proposal to translate one of her books in Korean was accepted. As I write this, my memories return one by one. A feminist professor of Ewha Women’s University, Hyeong Cho, who was on the editorial board of this press at that time, sent me a heartfelt letter (and later I spoke with her by phone), saying that the press had decided on translating Beyond God the Father earlier but could not find a qualified translator. Thus, she said that they were happy to receive my proposal. I danced to myself out of joy, celebrating the launching of my radical feminist voyage. I intuited that my ship was embarking.It was likely that I proposed to the press that I wanted to translate one of Mary Daly’s books and proposed two or three books including Gyn/Ecology: Metaethics of Radical Feminism, which was my favorite. (At that time, I wanted to translate only one book but ended up doing another one the next year and published it by a different press.) I remember myself telling Mary Daly that I submitted a proposal to the press. I told her that I personally hoped to translate Gyn/Ecololgy. Mary did not agree with my idea of translating Gyn/Ecology because of numerous wordplays and neologisms employed in it, I think she explained it to me that much. Given the time of the 1990s, Mary was under attack from many directions amongst feminists. And Gyn/Ecology was a controversial book, harshly debated by non-white feminists. (I learned that only afterward, during my years of Ph.D. studies coursework at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont California). The 1990s was a vulnerable time for her in particular. And Mary may have been in need of shielding her books from possible attacks. I loved this book thoroughly. Upon hearing from me about the press’ decision to go with Beyond God the Father, Mary affirmed that the press’ choice was the best one. I went along with the press and Mary. Deep inside me, however, I still wished to translate Gyn/Eocology. I was unafraid of translating Gyn/Ecology or any of her books. My mind was as clear as crystal. Nothing could be intimidating to me. The confidence that I had is hard to explain. I knew I would convey Mary Daly’s thoughts in Korean correctly because I knew what it was to me (it was shape-shifting and a ray of light that arrived to me from far). Gyn/Ecology gave me wings. If there were no one Korean word to fit, I would have used two or three words with hyphens. If this book was chosen by the press, the landscape of Korean feminist discourse at least linguistically would have been altered. I don’t know how Gyn/Ecology was accepted by Korean feminists. Even in translating Beyond God the Father, I had to coin numerous Korean words. And I was able to explain them by creating translator’s notes. I enjoyed creating new words. I was a self-identified poet and a philosopher from my teen years, even if I majored in chemistry for undergraduate studies. Nothing could have stopped me from the course of my life that was just about to take shape in a new form, a radical feminist. (In another space, I would like to tell you how I came across her book, Gyn/Ecology. I already explained how I came upon Beyond God the Father. Also why I was so happy during this time of translating Mary Daly’s books.)Secondly, I must have told Mary that I was going to a graduate school in Los Angeles California to study feminist theology in the summer of 1996. This was a small school run by a former Catholic organization of religious sisters. I had decided to return to a graduate school to study post-Christian feminist theology or feminism in religion. To continue a graduate study was my second choice in my early twenties. I tried the first card, which was to live my life as a Catholic overseas missionary in a foreign land, but learned that that was not what I wanted for the rest of my life. The school in Los Angeles that I applied for admission proved to be unavailable …
(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

Over the years I have seen the image of the amulet called the Knot of Isis but in all honesty, never paid it much attention. I am on the organizing committee for our annual Goddess Festival here in Austin this year and we have chosen Isis as our Goddess to honor. The intent is to reclaim the Sacred Name of Isis and celebrate Her power, especially for women. I was supposed to go to Brazil that summer to speak. One thing that was to have happened on my trip was to be my ordination as a Priestess in the Fellowship of Isis. However, because I became very ill and was hospitalized, I had to cancel my trip. In preparation for this ordination, I created an altar for Her and began to get to know Her. I have always had special affinity for Hathor and Sekhmet or as I call them together, HetHeru. And so, began my relationship with Isis.
(Special Post 3) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Xiang Yao or Xiangliu is the Chinese equivalent to Hydra in Greek mythology. And Hercules is to Yu, the Great, founder of the Xia dynasty. We will see in the course of this discussion that the myth of Yu, the founding ruler of Xia, the oldest dynasty of China, who slains the nine-headed snake, is only a variation of its older prototype, the myth of Huangdi who fought Chiu, the alliance of the Nine Han Giants (East Asian/Korean Magoists). “According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Xiangliu was a minister of the snake-like water deity Gonggong. Xiangliu devastated the ecology everywhere he went, leaving nothing but gullies and marshes devoid of animal life. Eventually, Xiangliu was killed by Yu the Great, whose other labors included ending the Great Flood of China. In other versions of the story, Xiangliu was killed by Nüwa, after being defeated by Zhurong, but his blood was so virulently poisonous that the soil which it soaked could no longer grow grain.[1] An oral version of the Xiangliu myth was collected as late from Sichuan as 1983, in which Xiangliu is depicted as a nine-headed dragon, responsible for floods and other harm.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangliu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Ancient China had to demonize the pre-Han myth of the nona Mago because it bespeaks the matriarchal/gynocentric history that it overthrew… the past that had to be severed in order to fake patriarchal originality. With this in mind, we have a better look on patriarchal mythopoeia, which appears to be complex but, nonetheless, transparent in its motive to hide/hijack pre-patriarchal gynocentric histories. “One of the most harrowing myths from ancient China is the story of Gonggong’s rebellion. You can revisit the whole story here, but the quick version is that the evil water god Gonggong attempted to drown the world and was only prevented from doing so by the heroic last resort actions of the beneficent creator goddess Nüwa, who cut the legs off the cosmic turtle in order to set things to rights. In the chaos of the climactic battle, however Gongong’s chief minister and partner in crime Xiangliu the nine-headed snake monster completely escaped. Filled with bitterness about Gonggong’s failure, Xiangliu crawled away across the soggy lands of Szechuan (which were water-logged after the nearly world-ending floods). Wherever he went, the snake monster left permanent fens and swamps which were toxic to life. His very being had become steeped in poison, and his progress through the damp and moldy world had to be stopped. Yu the hero, the third of the three sage kings, finally caught up with the nine-headed monster and killed him in a pitched battle. Yet still there was a problem: Xiangliu’s pestiferous blood has poisoned the whole region, which now stank of rot. Crops would not grow and civilization began to falter. Yu dug up the blood soaked soil again and again, but the corrupted blood of the monster just sank deeper into the ground. Finally, Yu excavated a deep valley by Kunlun mountain and rid the world of Xiangliu’s toxins. With all of the land he had excavated he built a great terraced mountain for the gods. Yu then went forth to found the kingdom of Xia, the first civilized state in Chinese history. Of course some people say that Yu did none of this, that, it was the goddess Nüwa who once again came forth to battle the monster and undo the damage he had caused. Then, with accustomed modesty she let Yu take the credit and begin his kingdom (for Nüwa cared not for empty praise and hollow glory but only for the well-being of her children).” https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/xiangliu-the-nine-headed-snake/ Max Dashu: These patriarchal heroes! Nova Scheller: What a fascinating thread…that the nine headed hydra correlates to the nine headed dragon as a linkage to patriarchy or gynocentric/ matriarchal beginnings…the root being in Korea! Dropping into your work of so many years…a privilege as well as informing some of my personal awareness. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nova Scheller, indeed! The myth of slaining the nine-headed snake/dragon across cultures shows; (1) The onset of patriarchy did not come naturally but forcefully, which proves that patriarchy is not original. It was a reaction to what had been before, its matrix. Patriarchy faked its originality by inventing the myth of demonizing and killing the female principle. (2) Patriarchal rules established across cultures adopted the mythic motif of slaining the nine-headed snake or dragon, which appears to be of Chinese origin. (3) The Nine Mago mythic system preserved in Korean Magoism testifies to gynocentric/matriarchal beginnings, which were remembered by peoples of the ancient world. (4) Furthermore, Korean Magoist mythology explains the origin/meaning of the nona Goddess symbol. Let’s explore how the Nine Mago pantheon was remembered in East Asian myths and religions. For this, we need to unravel the patriarchal mythopoeia of Goma, the Shaman ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: In principle, we can tell if an ancient rule/culture was patriarchal or gynocentric by the myth of the nine-headed snake/dragon. In the case of ancient China whose heroes are told to have killed the opponent, the nine-headed snake. Nonetheless, the people’s memory of pre-patriarchal gynocentric history never dies. The nine symbolism is still described as auspicious. It revives time and time again throughout history. In other words, ancient China was a small regional power, only modern scholarship seals it all mighty China. Find out what other ancient myths concern about the nine female symbolism. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.
(Book Excerpt 5) Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma by Trista Hendren

https://thegirlgod.com/re-membering.php The Journey Home for this Divine Spark, Flying FreeD’vorah J. Grenn, Ph.D., Kohenet When did I take my last – or my first – breath that was safe from patriarchy, that wasn’t influenced, dominated by, enveloped in the damaging structures and language of a patriarchal culture? When did I begin to pray freely, openly, unencumbered, unafraid, un-self-conscious, without shards and shreds of imposed guilt and patriarchy running through my consciousness? How insistent and constant were the voices of white patriarchs informing my image of G’d and keeping the Goddess hidden from me, putting forth instead only the image of an old, judgmental white man with long white beard, not the vibrant female whose embodied, protective energy can be felt through Shekhinah, Ishtar, Lilith, Anat? Her Presence is so alive in Kali and Durga, in the tree, wind and water goddesses Asherah, Yemaya/Olokun, Oshun, Oya, there can be no mistaking Her power. Now I see Her everywhere, Her essence in the coast live oak, Japanese black pine and Nature-sculpted piece of giant redwood in our garden. It is said in the Talmud that when two people study Torah together, it is as if the Shekhinah – often called “the female face of G’d” in Judaism – is between them. Not G’d, but Shekhinah AS G’d, a secret well-kept from me until I was in my late 40’s. I was so excited to learn this, and so later viewed with disbelief that She had once again been erased, in an image projected onto one long New York museum wall; it said G’d, not Shekhinah in the quote. I viewed it with outrage, knowing that few people would automatically think of G’d as representing a female energy. In starting this article, several questions swirled through my head: which trauma do I write about? How many of them? Didn’t Goddess come into play to help me cope with all of them, even unbeknownst to me? Did She save me from being raped in Golden Gate Park when I was a 17-year-old virgin? As I thought about how to begin, I felt such an essay would entail my remembering all the traumas and so might be too dangerous to attempt. But my subconscious knew I had to write what I could. As I speak these words aloud, thinking through how the process might go, I remember another attempted rape in an empty hotel bathroom in California at age 23 and two date rapes. Do I include the date rapes? I didn’t even have language for them until long after the fact. I hadn’t classified them as violent – though they were forceful – perhaps because I was partly in shock or denial, and partly blamed myself for getting into compromising situations. I’m not sure rape was a word I used to describe them until much later. After these events, I continued on with my life. But what went missing was my full voice, the ability to recognize the incidents for what they were and their impact on me. Perhaps I lost a small piece of me after each incident. All these acts left for a time a soul-killing residue. Our culture teaches us not to see certain things, or to live with them, to be silent for fear of consequences from ostracization to violent blowback. Our own guilt, shame, self-accusation, internalized oppression do a good job of concretizing these silences; that itself is part of the patriarchal design. It’s emotionally and spiritually lethal in its effectiveness… hiding in the shadows yet making itself felt in changes to our personality, in shutting down trust in our own intuitive alert systems so that we can’t recognize or name what’s been done to us. After years of conditioning both societal and personal, we start believing the lies: “Oh, I must’ve overreacted, must be remembering this wrong. Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Oh Oh Oh…” until we have talked ourselves out of our own sense, collaborated in stripping away our essence until sometimes there’s nothing left of us, or just a shell, a silhouette of who we were. Patriarchal systems perpetuate trauma by convincing us something we’ve gone through “wasn’t that bad” or didn’t compare with another woman’s more visible or constant injuries. We now recognize this as minimizing our pain, ignoring the reality/validity of our experience, or as gaslighting to make us question our own perceptions, even our sanity. I didn’t find the Goddess and Her healing presence and properties until my husband died – and even more fully 21 months later, after watching a lover die in front of me. The deaths were a compound trauma and put me in a state of spiritual emergency, which in retrospect I feel was Goddess’s way of getting through to me as I walked through life in a workaholic oblivion. I was cracked open and threw myself headlong into Her open arms without quite knowing why. I just knew I was hungry to know more about this Goddess I’d read about after the deaths; She felt like much more than just the female face of G’d, or one of the benign goddesses we learned about in school, Greco-Roman co-optations of the earlier powerful ancient Mesopotamian and African deities. Through reading Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman, Vicki Noble’s Shakti Woman and Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, I started to understand what had happened to me, what parts of me had been slowly stripped away or killed off with great intent, parts that could return now that I was free and on my own. Not needing anyone’s approval or fearing anyone’s punitive response, I became consumed with Her study and Her worship, and began writing liturgy. I wrote my first piece in 1999, “Inanna-Lilith-Shekhinah,” later published in my Talking to Goddess anthology. She became an organizing principle, and more: part of my very lifeblood, a vital affirmation of all the things I was and am. I realized how many parts of Me were …
(Photo Essay 9) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting with the Grandmothers”.] I went to Vienna to see the “Venus of Willendorf”, the iconic figure of Great Mother found in 1908 at a Paleolithic site in Lower Austria. She is carved from oolithic limestone tinted with red ochre, and is 11.1 centimetres tall (4.4 inches). Estimated to be about 30,000 years old, the sculpture is displayed in the Naturalhistoriches Museum in Vienna in a small, dark room much like a shrine. The terminology “Venus” would be laughable if it didn’t also reflect patriarchal assumptions about women, power, and so-called “primitive” people. I prefer to call her “Grandmother” as a term of respect. This beautiful sculpture is one of many figurines from Paleolithic Europe. In the Museum, the sculpture stands out against a black background, as if She is looking at us from 30,000 years ago. The prehistory section of the Naturalhistoriches Museum also displays bone beads and shell pendants from 30,000 years ago. Imagine people shaping, drilling, and wearing these . . . Meet Mago Contributor KAALII CARGILL

(Special Post 8) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. […]
(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [Editorial Note: The following is […]
(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 […]
(Special post) The Goddess Inanna: Her Allies and Opponents by Hearth Moon Rising

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld is one of the most fascinating myths ever told. Not […]
(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. […]

The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos 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. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. 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”[ix] 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.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Essay) Walking with Bb by Sara Wright

Walking with Bb: a story exploring the psychic connection between one woman and her bear. Preface: The black bear – hunting season in Maine is brutal – four months of bear hell – five if one includes the month where hunters can track bears for “practice” with hounds – separate mothers and cubs, terrorize them, tree them and do anything but legally kill them. During the legal slaughter, Hunters bait bears with junk food by putting old donuts etc. in cans and shoot the bear while he or she is eating. Most bears (82 percent) are slaughtered in this manner, the rest are killed by hounding and trapping. The season begins in August and lasts through December. Trapping, by the way, is illegal in every state but Maine. Black bears are hated, and that hatred will, of course, eventually result in their extirpation. I had a shy (male) year old black bear visiting my house this past summer with whom I developed a friendship, and what follows is part of our story: Last Saturday I was walking down the road when I remembered that I had not done my daily “circle of protection” imaging for Bb (standing as he was the day he visited me at the window early in August). When I began to do this another picture of Bb moving on all four feet with his face turned towards mine super-imposed itself over his standing image. I could almost see his expression, but not quite. I didn’t know what this imaging meant beyond that we were communicating in some unknown way, and he was in the area (not a good thing on hunting Saturdays). He had not been coming in most nights and I was worried… That night he came. He is still making nightly visits five days later, the most sequentially consistent visits since September 15th, the day I believed that he had been shot. This experience prompted me to write about telepathy and precognition. It is close to All Hallows and the full Hunter’s moon (Nov 3). I keep listening to Charlie Russell’ story which reminds me that loving bears (especially male bears) is hard, almost a sure recipe for disaster, and that I was not alone in this deep concern for and fear of losing Bb. I can barely stand to remember my other bear losses and I can’t stand feeling them. Even after I wrote about the incident with Bb, the experience seemed to carry a charge that didn’t dissipate. Had I missed something? Next I wrote “Root Healer,” exploring the possibility that as I continued to act as Bb’s “little bear mother” now employing psychic techniques to keep him safe (in some desperation as it was the only means left open to me to protect this very vulnerable yearling), that Bb’s presence might also include a gift for me and that it might involve some kind of root healing for my body because Nature thrives on reciprocity. One idea I missed completely, for it was so obvious. Bb’s image was communicating to me that we were having a psychic conversation in that very moment. It was the first time in three months of imaging protective circles that moved with him that I had confirmation from him that we were communicating effectively in this unknown way. This rarely happens. Normally when I do this kind of work, I just do it. I don’t get direct confirmation that it’s working from the animal itself (except with Lily b). Knowing this helped me make another decision I might not have made so intentionally. The hunting season will last into mid December, and I will be traveling during that last month. I keep thinking that putting actual physical distance between Bb and I might pose more of a threat for his life and I have to remind myself that psychic phenomena are not distance dependent. I should be able to image that protective circle every day and feel that it is working. Bb has already shown me that it can but I fear adding distance because I don’t completely trust my own perceptions.* I suspect believing might be an additional dimension of ensuring success when it comes to psychic protection for this bear. But how do I incorporate belief into a picture that is so clouded with personal/cultural doubt? Half the time I don’t believe myself and virtually no one except Rupert Sheldrake, Iren and Harriet have ever taken my experiences seriously. I have to remind myself that I have done this work many times dealing with doubt and it worked anyway. The point of writing this reflection might be to put me on a new edge of increasing Bb’s odds of survival. If it’s possible that an attitude that embraces believing in what I do could help me protect Bb more effectively until hunting is over and its time for him to den in peace I want to claim it. The question I need to answer now is how to go about moving into a more trusting self as a woman who continues to walk with a bear at her side? The night after I wrote the above paragraph I dream of the doubters in the roles of my parents, and in a friend. I take these dreams seriously as doubters inside me and out. These dreams may be telling me that it is unreasonable to expect me to believe that what I do works when no one else does? The problem with this idea is that on some level I do believe. I feel as if I am walking with this bear, every single day. I think about him constantly. The only thing that got me out of the house yesterday was that he was out of chocolate donuts. Something is intensifying my relationship with Bb although I never see him. I am caught in a field of bear energy and information, perhaps through some version of beauty and the beast. That an archetype is …
(Essay) The Wheel of the Year and Climate Change by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ The Wheel of the Year in a PaGaian cosmology essentially celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, in which Earth’s extant Creativity participates directly, as does each unique being. The Creativity of Cosmogenesis is expressed through Earth-Sun relationship as it may manifest and be experienced within any region of our Planet. In PaGaian tradition this is expressed with Triple Goddess Poetry, which is understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution, as it does in the Seasons, happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: and that is because this tilt effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago, and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago[i]. Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it, in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found[ii], and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found[iii]. The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as our ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change[iv]. In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done; but it will continue to evolve as all language must. At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make everyday around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming into being and passing away[v]. Our need for sacred ceremony of relationship with our place, can only be more dire in these times, as we are witness to, and aware of, …
(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 …
(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 10 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd These dates are traditional, though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox, thus actually a little later in early February for S.H., and early August for N.H., respectively. a Lammas/Late Summer table The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again, to celebrate She Who creates the Space to Be. Lammas is a welcoming of the Dark in all its complexity: and as with any funerary moment, there is celebration of the life lived (enjoyment of the harvest) – a “wake,” and there is grieving for the loss. One may fear it, which is good reason to make ceremony, to go deeper, to commit to the Mother, who is the Deep; to “make sacred” this emotion, as much as one may celebrate the hope and wonder of Spring, its opposite. If Imbolc/Early Spring is a nurturing of new young life, Lammas may be a nurturing/midwifing of death or dying to small self, the assent to larger self, an expansion or dissipation – further to the radiance of Summer Solstice. Whereas Imbolc is a Bridal commitment to being and form, where we are the Promise of Life; Lammas may be felt as a commitment marriage to the Dark within, as we accept the Harvest of that Promise, the cutting of it. We remember that the Promise is returned to Source. “The forces which began to rise out of the Earth at the festival of Bride now return at Lammas.”[i] Creativity is called forth when an end (or impasse) is reached: we can no longer rely on our small self to carry it off. We may call Her forth, this Creative Wise Dark One – of the Ages, when our ways no longer work. We are not individuals, though we often think we are. We are Larger Self, subjects within theSubject.[ii] And this is a joyful thing. We do experience ourselves as individuals and we celebrate that creativity at Imbolc. Lammas is the time for celebrating the fact that we are part of, in the context of, a Larger Organism, and expanding into that. Death will teach us that, but we don’t have to wait – it is happening around us all the time, we are constantly immersed in the process, and everyday creativity is sourced in this subjectivity. As it is said, She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire:”[iii] the same Desire we celebrated at Beltaine, has peaked at Summer and is now dissolving form, returning to Source to nourish the Plenum, the manifesting – as all form does. This Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Late Summer celebrates the beginning of dismantling, de-structuring. Gaia-Universe has done a lot of this de-structuring – it is in Her nature to return all to the “Sentient Soup” … nothing is wasted. We recall the Dark Sentience, the “All-Nourishing Abyss”[iv] at the base of being, as we enter this dark part of the cycle of the year. This Dark/Deep at the base of being, to whom we are returned, may be understood as the Sentience within all – within the entire Universe. The dictionary definition of sentience is: “intelligence,” “feeling,” “the readiness to receive sensation, idea or image; unstructured available consciousness,” “a state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness.”[v] The Old Wise One is the aspect of the Cosmic Triplicity/Triple Goddess that returns us to this sentience, the Great Subject out of whom we arise. We are subjects within the Great Subject – the sentient Universe; we are not a collection of objects, as Thomas Berry has said.[vi] This sentience within, this “readiness-to-receive,” is a dark space, as all places of ending and beginning are. Mystics of all religious traditions have understood the quintessential darkness of the Divinity, known often as the Abyss. Goddesses such as Nammu and Tiamat, Aditi and Kali, are the anthropomorphic forms of this Abyss/Sea of Darkness that existed before creation. She is really the Matrix of the Universe. This sentience is ever present and dynamic. It could be understood as the dark matter that is now recognized to form most of the Universe. This may be recognized as Her “Cauldron of Creativity” and celebrated at this Lammas Moment. Her Cauldron of Creativity is the constant flux of all form in the Universe – all matter is constantly transforming. We are constantly transforming on every level. a Lammas/Late Summer altar These times that we find ourselves in have been storied as the Age of Kali, the Age of Caillaech – the Age of the Crone. There is much that is being turned over, much that will be dismantled. We are in the midst of the revealing of compost, and transformation – social, cultural, and geophysical. Kali is not a pretty one – but we trust She is transformer, and creative in the long term. She has a good track record. Our main problem is that we tend to take it personally. The Crone – the Old Phase of the cycle, creates the Space to Be. Lammas is the particular celebration of the beauty of this awesome One. She is symbolized and expressed in the image of the waning moon, which is filling with darkness. She is the nurturant darkness that may fill your being, comfort the sentience in you, that will eventually allow new constellations to gestate in you, renew you. So the focus in ceremony may be to contemplate opening to Her, noticing our fears and our hopes involved in that. She is the Great Receiver – receives all, and as such She is the Great Compassionate One. Her Darkness may be understood as a Depth of Love. And She is Compassionate because of …
(Art & Poem) Spring Equinox by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

A SEED FOR SPRING EQUINOX . . . till I feel the earth around the place my head has lain under winter’s touch, and it crumbles. Slanted weight of clouds. Reaching with my head and shoulders past the open crust dried by spring wind. Sun. Tucking through the ground that has planted cold inside me, made its waiting be my food. Now I watch the watching dark my light’s long-grown dark makes known. Art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …
(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.

(Essay) Reviving and Celebrating the Nine-Goddess Symbolism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

In my ongoing research on the Great Goddess known as Mago, I have discovered the number nine gynocentric symbolism as the most prominent current that constitutes Magoism and named it the Nona (Number Nine) Mago religion/civilization/mythology. Like other civilizational inventions such as the calendar and musicology, numerology is an intellectual system of knowing the Way of Nature/Universe/Creatrix. And the number nine is no arbitrary number but is the numeric code of the Creatrix or the Primordial Mother. It codifies the cosmogonic beginning of the Primordial Mother, that is, the Primordial Mago Household. It refers to the primordial principle of the solar/terrestrial beginning.
(Mago Almanac Planner Year 5 Excerpt 3) 13 Month 28 Day Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This and its sequences are a newly added portion in the Mago Almanac Planner Year 5, equivalent to the Gregorian Year 2022. Because the Budoji did not explain further about time units smaller than 1 day, I did not follow through some possible implications in previous Mago Almanac volumes. Next year’s Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar Year 5 or 5919 MAGOMA ERA is forthcoming in Mago Bookstore (October 25, 2021). PDF version is available for purchase.] We set the new moon day of the Winter Solstice month in 2017 as the New Year of Year 1. With that, we are able to tap Magoist days into Gregorian days that we moderns use. Then, how do we bring down a Magoist time in the scheme of the Gregorian time? How do we determine the onset of New Year in the Magoist Calendar? When would be the midnight of New Year in Year 1? That requires a translation of Mago time into Gregorian time. We can designate midnight as a midpoint in time equidistant from the sunset of New Year’s Eve to the sunrise of New Year. As local times vary around the globe, the midnight of New Year varies in states and cities. In Los Angeles, California USA, the first Magoist midnight falls on 23:29 on December 17, 2017 for Year 1. That would be 07:29 on December 18, 2017 in UTC. Year 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Midnight12/17/2017 23:2912/17/2018 23:2912/17/2019 23:2912/16/2020 23:30Sunset16:45, 12/1716:45, 12/1716:45, 12/1716:44, 12/16Sunrise6:53, 12/186:53, 12/18 6:53, 12/186:53, 12/17 (Sunset and sunrise times in Los Angeles, USA) The below table shows the first Magoist midnight (around 0.33 AM) falls on December 18, 2017 in Gyeongju, South Korea. That would be 15:33 on December 17, 2017 in UTC. Year 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Midnight12/18/2017 0:33.512/18/2018 0:32.512/18/2019 0:32.512/17/2020 0:32.5Sunset17:11, 12/1717:11, 12/1717:11, 12/1717:11, 12/16Sunrise7:28, 12/187:27, 12/18 7:27, 12/187:27, 12/17 (Sunset and sunrise times in Gyeongju, South Korea) We can imagine a spiral progression of years from Little Calendar (one year) to Medium Calendar (two years) and to Large Calendar (four years). Every year has one leap day, whereas every fourth year has another leap day in the middle of the year. Cyclic time, as it progresses, creates rhythm and harmony in the human world. Little Calendar (1 year)13×1=13 months364 days+1 leap day=365 daysMedium Calendar (2 years)13×2=26 months2x(364 days+1 leap day) =730 daysLarge Calendar (4 years)13×4=52 months4x(364 days+1 leap day)+1 leap day=1,461 days (End of the series) https://www.magoacademy.org/virtual-midnight-vigil-to-new-year/ https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(Mago Almanac 3) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

[Author’s Note: The following is from Chapter 8, The Consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW.] The Budoji stories the primordial drama of Mago’s beginning. It furnishes a yet-to-be-heard story of the beginning of the Great Goddess, the taboo story in patriarchy. It is the story of the Creatrix that patriarchy has attempted to erase. It can be temporarily forgotten but can never die because it is the story that is at the root of patriarchy. Ultimately, it is The Story that is happening HERE and NOW. The merit of the Magoist Cosmogony lies in the fact that it, through storying, restores the view of the whole, the macrocosmic view of the All. The holistic view necessarily involves the Great Goddess or the First Mother in that S/HE is the Creatrix. Time is not a linear concept, flowing from one end to the other. Time is the unified Present, happening NOW. It may be said that time is circular or cyclic, as all beings are constantly in motion to enhance the process of self-creation, which causes the whole to change ceaselessly. The Present hosts an infinite number of stories that take place in the undividable One Space HERE. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still happening and we are invited to re-cognize HER STORY in the HERE and NOW. The beginning is a process, not a single isolated event that took place in the remote past.[i] All things exist in the process of becoming HERE and NOW as part of WE. Put differently, the beginning of the Great Goddess is the LIVE SCENE/DRAMA/STORY. We are part of HER STORY. Mago’s beginning is the heart that pumps fresh blood to the body of the terrestrial becoming. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still taking place HERE/NOW. The terrestrial beginning is attributed to the Great Goddess who is self-born through the sonic movement of cosmic light. The beginning story of the Great Goddess is no ordinary one. It is of power and truth, that is, metamorphic. It provides the original text to the meaning of “salvation.” HER Beginning that is happening HERE/NOW holds all from falling into cacophony. For one thing, it delivers us from the patriarchal misconception of ultimate reality that does away with the Creatrix. The holistic view of the Creatrix is capable of saving us from misconceptions and misconduct. Ultimately, it guides us to live our life in harmony with the whole, HERE/NOW. The Magoist Cosmogony engenders the consciousness that WE ARE HERE/NOW. The universe is existent without beginning or end. In one ever-existing reality, things ceaselessly appear and disappear in relation to one another on all levels. All things are in the constant movement of autogenesis striving to arrive at a new position of balance. S/HE IS HERE/NOW telling us the STORY of WE. That is the source of our metamorphosis. Notes: [i] Process thought founded by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John B. Cobb shares a common premise on that regard, although it does not associate ultimate reality with the Creatrix. (See Book Excerpt 1 and Book Excerpt 2. Available in Mago Bookstore.) Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
(Photo Essay 5) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part 5: Gaeyang Halmi, How Does She Relate with Mago? The field research concerning Gaeyang Halmi was undertaken with the thought that Gaeyang Halmi is related to Mago in some way. Such assumption is on the grounds that the folktales of Gaeyang Halmi and Mago Halmi substantively share the same motifs. In fact, I had thought Gaeyang Halmi is another name of Mago Halmi. A scrutiny has proven that the picture of their correlation is far more complex than I first envisaged, exposing the hidden nexuses of Old Magoism. This last part aims at disentangling the grips. It is indispensable for me to invite my readers to the task of reconstructing ancient East Asian mytho-history. Gaeyang Halmi embodies a partial manifestation of Mago as the Sea Goddess. Nonetheless, such a statement lacks complex subtexts that this topic involves. The Gurang (Nine Maidens) mytheme of Gaeyang Halmi sheds light on the mytho-history of Old Magoism (read Magoism in pre- and proto-Chinese times characterized by shaman rulers). To be specific, Gaeyang Halmi in the gurang pantheon suggests a yet-to-be-known shaman ruler, “Ungnyeo” (Bear/Sovereign Woman), founder of the confederacy of the nine states, which I call Danguk (ca. 3898 BCE-2333 BCE). The gurang represented by Gaeyang Halmi is no small clue to the pervasive yet misunderstood civilization of Ungnyeo. “Ungnyeo” is eponymous of the female symbolism of nine, such as the nine-tailed fox in East Asia and the nine muses and the nine forms of Durga beyond East Asia mentioned in Part IV. In short, Gaeyang Halmi oscillating between “Mago” and “Ungnyeo” in Her identity testifies to the suppressed history of Old Magoism. Methodically, I have two types of mythological texts to decipher the overtones of Gaeyang Halmi’s mytheme: folklore (oral narratives) and the written myth. Goddess mythemes, malleable yet immortal, constitute the grammar blocks of the gynocentric language that often appears “awkward” if not “ridiculous” to moderns. They need to be analyzed and interpreted. Feminist techniques are apt to sort out the sediments and decipher the diastrophic disturbances caused by patriarchal advances in the course of time. Some parallels between Gaeyang Halmi and Mago Halmi folk stories are overt. Their stories are so similar that they appear to be an identical goddess: A: The motif that Gaeyang Halmi walks on the sea, often described as wearing namak-sin (wooden shoes) or only beoseon (Korean traditional socks), is also commonly told in Mago stories especially from Jeju Island[i] and other coastal regions. B: That Gaeyang Halmi walks around in the sea to measure its depth is also told in the stories of Mago from other coastal regions. C: The mytheme that Gaeyang Halmi had eight daughters recurs in the stories of Mago, especially from the region of Mt. Jiri. Mago is said to have had eight daughters and sent them to eight provinces. Given the above, it is evident that Gaeyang Halmi lore resembles that of Mago. Were the populace confused about these two goddesses? I hold that the confusion was not a mistake but a way to convey that Gaeyang Halmi is related to Magoism rather than Mago Herself. In folklore, “why” and “how”are the questions to be interpreted, not to be read.
(Mago Almanac 4) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[This and the following sequels are from Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), Years 1 and 2 (5, 6, 9, 10…), 5915-6 MAGO ERA, 2018-9 CE (Mago Books, 2017).] We want to get back the 13th Friday. This almanac shows how that is possible. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang INTRODUCTION (Continued) 13 MARY DALY QUOTES Each monthly calendar, headed by quotes from Mary Daly’s Wickedary, has space for users to continue OUR Story. 1 Elemental Rhythms 1: rhythms displaying the infinite interplay of unity and diversity characteristic of Elemental phenomena such as tides, seasons, phases of the moon: TIDAL RHYTHMS 2: cadences and vibrations of the wordings of Websters, which are Be-Spoken in cosmic concordance Background the Realm of Wild Reality; the Homeland of women’s Selves and of all other Others; the Time/Space where auras of plants, planets, stars, animals and all Other animate beings connect. 2 New Space Space on the Boundary of patriarchal institutions; Space created by women which provides real alternatives to the archetypal roles of fatherland; Space in which women Realize Power of Presence New Time Time on the Boundary of patriarchal time; women’s Life-Time; Time in which the past is changed and Archaic Futures are Realized 3 Archaic Time Original Creative Time, beyond the stifling grasp of archetypal molds and measures; the measure of Original Motion/E-Motion/Movement Archespheres the Realm of true beginnings, where Shrews shrink alienating archetypes and Unforget Archaic Origins, uncovering the Archimage, the Original Witch within 4 Re-calling 1: persistent/insistent Calling of the Wild; recurring invitation to Realms of Deep Memory 2: Active Unforgetting of participation in Be-ing; Re-membering and giving voice to Original powers, intuitions, memories 5 Courage to live The Courage to refuse inclusion in the State of the Living Dead, to break out from the deadforms of archetypal deadtime, to take leap after leap of Living Faith; Fiercely Biophilic Courage 6 Elemental Spirits Spirits/Angels/Demons manifesting the essential intelligence of spirit/matter; Intelligences ensouling the stars, animating the processes of earth, air, fire, water, enspiriting the sounds that are the Elements of words, connecting words with the earth, air, fire, water and with the sun, moon, planets, stars 7 Tidal Characterized by cosmic interconnections and rhythms; Elemental; Wild Tidal Memory Memory of the Deep Background, characterized by Tidal Rhythms of Re-membering: ELEMENTAL MEMORY Tidal Time Elemental Time, beyond the clocking/clacking of clonedom; Wild Time; Time that cannot be grasped by the tidily man-dated world; Time of Wicked Inspiration/Genius 8 Wild The vast Realm of Reality outside the pinoramic world view constructed by the bores and necrophiliacs of patriarchy; true Homeland of all Elemental be-ing, characterized by diversity, wonder, joy, beauty, Metamorphic Movement and Spirit 9 Biophilic Bonding 1: the Lusty combining of Elemental forces among Others 2: the uniting of Life-Loving women in Hopping/hoping harmony 10 Metabeing Realms of active participation in Powers of Be-ing; State of Ecstasy 11 Re-membering 1: Re-calling the Original intuition of integrity healing the dismembered Self – the Goddess within women; Re-calling the Primordial connections/conversations among women, animals, and other Elemental beings 2: Realzing the power to See and to Spell out connections among apparently disparate phenomena: Spinning, Creating 12 Powers of Be-ing Be-ing the Verb, understood in multiple and diverse manifestations, e.g., Knowing, Creating, Loving, Unfolding – and through diverse Metaphors – e.g. the Fates, Chaning Women (Eastan Atlehi, Creatrix of the Navaho People), Shekhina (female divine presence in Hebrew lore) 13 Thirteen represents the Other Hour, beyond the direction of disaster. It signals the Presence of the Otherworld – Metamorphospheres – True Homeland of all Hags, Crones, Furies, Furries and Other Friends. It represents the Realm of Wild Reality, the Background, the Time/Space when/where auras of plants, planets, stars, animals, and all truly animate be-ing connect. It points to Living Worlds utterly foreign to foolocracy – Worlds that are Eccentric, Erratic, Odd, Queer, Quaint, Outlandish, Weird. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.