July 10, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM Editors

(Art) The Deep Within by Lucy Pierce

This piece sprang directly from the drum journey I participated in as a part of the preparation for the red tepee project, the rhythm of the drum taking me on a journey deep within my body, to surprise and enlighten me with what lay beneath.

I have come to know this woman as the One Who Knows, and I endeavour to listen to her when I feel lost, and I feel she is birthing me home. She is strong and robust, deeply powerful and infinitely soft, she is her own authority and heeds her instinct with implacable care and fierce wisdom. She responds to life from the wild blood that remains intact in her, flowing through her by the ancient pathways, her great love, her hunger for truth, her reclamation of her power as woman. With her as I journeyed into my womb, her den, were snake and wolf. Wolf led me into an ancient forest of fur trees. In my arms there was a dead baby, I buried her in the damp earth, wrapping her in fern fronds and wild flowers, I covered her with the soft earth and lay three large stones on the ground over where her body lay. I stood and began to dance, an elation flowing through my body, a surrendering over, a deep letting go. As I danced I felt a skin shedding, a pelt peeling from my body, I wriggled myself free and saw at my feet, an old and withered one, She who had grieved since the beginning of time, her pain etched on the dry pelt of her skin. Lovingly I took her and wrapped her too in fern fronds and wild flowers, I buried her in the Earth and again placed the three stones upon the ground where her body lay. Again I stood and danced for her. So light and exuberant I felt, so free of these two stories I had carried beyond time, not of this life but deeply lived in the body. I think she was showing me how we can all give our pain back to the vast body of the Earth, She will take it from us and help us to heal, we will be renewed and transformed. This vision felt so strange to me, and such a gift, I had to share it as it was.

Read Meet Mago Contributor Lucy Pierce.

[Editor’s Note: Lucy Pierce’s above artwork is included in She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?]

1 thought on “(Art) The Deep Within by Lucy Pierce”

wemarriage says:

July 11, 2015 at 2:22 AM

Fantastic article Lucy.

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(Pandemic Poem 10) Long Enough by Jyoti Wind

Carved Statue, CO. Photo by Jyoti Wind How long is long enough. We’ve all seen what weeks of quarantine can do. Closer family ties, neighborhood cooperation and service. A deeper caringness expressed. A drop into bottom lines, releasing some have-to’s. How long is long enough to let these new insights and patterns remain after the quarantine lifts. That’s when we’ll know how long was enough. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jyoti-wind/
(Book Excerpt 4) Single Mothers Speak on Patriarchy Ed. by Trista Hendren & Pat Daly

Call To Action Trista Hendren One question that repeatedly came up during the compilation of this anthology was: What can I do to help? I have given this question a great deal of thought, and also posted it to the other contributors. The first thing I’d like to share is some personal experiences that made the biggest difference in my life and that of my children. Single moms often need help in the practical, every day sense. I want to share this first because it’s something every person can do now that will help immediately while we wait for the systematic change that needs to happen.
(Book Excerpt 3) Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma by Trista Hendren

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

Women have a natural born intuition, a sensing, a deep knowing that we have largely been disconnected from and we are seeking ways to get back in touch with our primal feminine core. Our primal nature is embedded in the code of our DNA, it is our life force, the root of our being and by re-connecting and awakening our primal womb energy, we can begin to discover the common link that binds all women, past, present future. We can also gain insight as to our true nature and to our truth and purpose upon this earth, which can lead us to remember the source of ourselves, and all that surrounds us. For me, painting is a direct tool that can be used to access this part of ourself – our innermost soul; the core of our being. The painting shown here was done as part of my ‘Primal Feminine Essence’ workshops that incorporate trance dance and painting. The Primal Process is about stripping back to basics, letting go of fear, embracing trust and just simply mark making just like the ancients did so long ago with tools and oxides made from the earth. From the mark making a story is developed using symbols and patterns and our Primal Self then emerges. The story here is my own creation story and it reads from left to right. The lake feeds the womb below it, which then feeds the people dancing whose tracks lead back to the lake where they gather to fish. The lake is fed by the waterfall behind that stretches far left over the mountains to the ocean. In the centre of her dress are two lovers in the dance of life and the spiral wheel to the right represents the drumbeat/heartbeat. There are a number of things that appeared here including a wolf pup face. Can you see him? Read Meet Mago Contributor Jassy Watson.
(Poem) Hands Baking Bread by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Photo by USAID: Public Domain When my hands bake bread, I kneadOcean, rock, the flesh of beasts and flora thenDraw down honey moonlight for alchemy’s fire. My frail, mortal fingers unite all that was to create all that will be andI embed within each loaf this woman’s power of touchThat can halt the most merciless onslaughts with a caressThat can melt centuries of isolation with a warm stroke. My hands give away the bread,Nourishment for body and tinder spark for soul. Across a hostile desert, a woman’s desiccated hands accept my giftIn an act of graceful courage. Once she eatsHer fingers tingle in an awakening of theSweet, invincible bond between women,The body of that connection between every element of the universe,We have created over and over, since ancient days, In the shared ritual of mixing, kneading, waiting, baking. Each receiver of bread returns to her oven and bakes a fresh loafThe aromas rise, restoring the power of our touchMolecule by molecule, to all women who breathe in airMaking of us one and also many, each stronger in herself forBeing with one another, like grains of wheat or flecks of herbs in a loaf. Such a simple act, baking bread, a daily chore.Women’s hands roiling earth and sky together, one with another, Recreating ourselves as floury bakers of that force that spins every atomBinding us in joy with yeast and wheat Feeding each other the miracle of one more day in each other’s lives. Ancient Egyptian woman making bread, Circa 2200 BC, from the Louvre Museum: Photo by Rama – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87820556 [Author’s Note: This poem was first published in Moondance, December, 2005 – March, 2006] https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
Autumn Gold by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Fall is the season of ‘the cutting away’, a poignant time to celebrate the deepening darkness as we turn inward. I think the powers of the goddess are strongest at this time of year… I wrote this wistful poem in celebration of Autumn as I am experiencing it this year… perhaps the personal reflection that follows is the kind of thinking that is capable of opening a door to a new way of perceiving? Autumn Gold Autumn gold stains the maples beech hay ferns too each day a deeper glow bittersweet bleeds into lemon liming veins scarlet sears a leaf or two salmon rose blurs… fir balsam hemlock spires reach skyward forest green needles soak in drops of rain. Fire on the mountain comes late frost filled nights and crimson swamps are still a dream… Earth speaks so concretely about just how fast change is occurring here and everywhere. At the end of September muted color has been the norm along with what I once would have called “too warm” night temperatures. Where is the swamp fire? My field has been cut, the flower garden shorn, my beloved insect ridden apple tree is bare, apples eaten. Her smooth trunk is a study in pure grace – dove gray curves against pale ochre, faded sage. Red Deer no longer climbs the hill but moves swiftly through bowed ferns, rounding the house to feast on the second apple tree’s ripened apples. Grouse will soon perch in ruby laden trees. One crabapple is so thick with fruit that a daily sweep must be done to get out the door. Turkeys scratch a well – seeded ground layered with next year’s wildflower heads, grass -like mulch. After the brutality of two months of summer heat and endless humidity this quiet descent into post equinox fall seems almost anticlimactic. I am scanning the sky for flashes of brilliant leaf color or peering intently at forest ground…. Wild orchids bloom on. Mushrooms abound. I imagine the billions of miles of mycelia just beneath my feet wondering which threads will support the twenty thousand species of fruiting bodies that will burst out of the ground somewhere on this earth, many seduced by rain. Around here frequent, almost daily showers have the rivers singing, and my brook pool is deepening, filled to the brim with healthy oxygen rich fish. These next few weeks will mark the end of the Season of Abundance as Nature orchestrates the Cutting Away. We notice then that the trees are stripped of their vibrant fall colors and leaves during this period that precedes winter white. The bones of the mountain appear; the evergreens have been chipped. I lean into the coming darkness a time to reflect and pose questions… One query I repeat year after year. How can I express my gratitude for nature’s bounty most effectively while including times of attrition as part of the whole? Only recently, within the past few years have I heard someone else articulate the former aspect of this question. Scientist, author, and ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks to the necessity of developing an attitude of reciprocity when engaging with nature. What she means here is that it’s critically important not to take nature’s gifts for granted. Like a sunset, an owl, or a decaying woodland trunk. She points out that most westerners treat nature as if ‘it’ (note the denial of personhood for lack of a better word) is a commodity, existing for the sole purpose of serving humanity. As a naturalist and earth person I have never understood this attitude/belief because it never seemed real. My experiences with animals and trees taught me as a child that this thinking didn’t make sense. During adolescence this denial of nature’s personhood – Nature was inanimate – animals and plants didn’t have souls – became the core issue that split me away from the Christian church. Forced to choose between the two I chose nature and with it, guilt. (I was freed from the latter when I reclaimed my Native roots.) When I first heard Kimmerer’s words about reciprocity they rang with authenticity. All Indigenous peoples know that intimacy with nature involves relationship because every living being in nature is a relative but I had not thought of this relationship as being one of reciprocity though I tried to live it. Nature wants and needs to be seen, appreciated and loved as individuals and as a whole. Still, gratitude did not seem to be enough; it felt like I needed to do more. Of course, gratitude has both a passive and active aspect. Giving thanks and giving back… I advocate for nature through my writing of course, but this seems to be more about me than nature. In many ways writing about this earth l love so much is a way to deal with what otherwise would be intolerable personal grief over what’s happening to our blue green planet. In other words writing helps keep me sane. I think incorporating the acceptance of grief into the story on a larger scale might be part of the answer. If ever there was a time to integrate the need for radical cutting away on a cultural level it is now. Changes in nature and politics are dramatic and unwelcome and one way I can deal with this present is to find a way to take the long view, which incorporates deep time into the whole. As Richard Powers quotes “we are born, live and die in the middle of things; this is not a good story”. Entering deep time is easier if I am, for example, watching a snapping turtle, knowing that this species has been in its present form for 60 – to 200 million years. My life in this context disappears into Time…But I cannot stay here. So at present I can celebrate the cutting away as a seasonal change but that is all. I suspect that my periodic inability …
(Poetry) Things To Take Along by Phibby Venable

Photo by Phibby Venable Maybe if I do it right, unlimited and loose Keep my arms outstretched in this oddly festive life A piano piece in my fingers slipping a note A gallery where the sun plays a brilliant touch of light. A tapestry unfolding, in and out of trees Morphing to a silent doe in a downpour of rain Long ago I urged my bones to bend with empathy I saw an ocean everywhere in the blue hills of fog I gazed across mountains, a dragon’s tail long. So much in the wetness, grateful toward birth Warm cocoons opening in breathlessness. https://www.magoism.net/2015/01/meet-mago-contributor-phibby-venable/
Meet Mago Contributor, Harita Meenee

A Greek independent scholar, Harita Meenee is researching women’s history, the Hellenic and Graeco-Egyptian cultures, as well as the Sacred Feminine. She lives in Athens, Greece, where she studied classical literature and languages; her graduate studies were in the fields of counseling and archetypal psychology. She has translated W.K.C. Guthrie’s Orpheus and Greek Religion; her English adaptations of ancient and modern Greek poetry have been included in various anthologies and journals. Harita has presented cultural TV programs, given a series of interviews and workshops, and has lectured at universities in Greece and the USA. Numerous articles and essays of hers have been published. She is also the author of five books: – Neo-Paganism: The Rebirth of the Ancient Religion – On the Path of Aphrodite – The Women’s Olympics and the Great Goddess – The Sacred Feminine and Mary Magdalene – Neopaganismo (in Spanish translation) Blog: http://hmeenee.wordpress.com/ Website: www.hmeenee.com Facebook page: www.facebook.com/H.Meenee Facebook: www.facebook.com/harita.meenee Published posts from the recent:
(Essay) Eternity by Kaalii Cargill

“Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. it is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.” Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays. My “hunger for eternity” has led me to temples and caves, mountains and valleys, to stand on the ground of the long ago people who made the figures I call “grandmothers”, the Paleolithic and Neolithic representations of Great Mother. Two years ago I first stood on the ground of my current home in the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne in Victoria, south-eastern Australia. The traditional custodians of this land – the Wurundjeri People – were displaced by European settlers nearly 200 years ago and, over the next hundred years, many of the giant Mountain Ash trees (Eucalyptus regnans) were replaced with European trees. There are no Mountain Ash in my garden, although giant stumps remain. Do the newer trees remember these giants? Were the roots of the 120 year old European Beech tree behind my house nourished by the remains of the Eucalyptus trees? As a child I lived alongside one of the few relatively undisturbed areas of native vegetation in the Adelaide Hills region in South Australia. I loved it, but it was not the land of my ancestors. My mother’s mother came to Australia a hundred and ten years ago. Her mother was born in Holyhead, the ancient Druid Holy Isle across a narrow channel from Angelsey in Wales – Ynys Môn. Bryn Celli Du, Neolithic Burial Chamber, Angelsey. My father came to Australia eighty five years ago. He was born in Calabria, Italy, near the ancient Magna Graecia Sanctuary of Demeter at Locri. Ruins of Demeter Sanctuary, Locri, Calabria Italy. Was it possible that I, like the Beech tree, may have been nourished by the land I walked as a child even though it was not the land of my ancestors? I think so. I learnt from the land. I learnt the songs of air, water, fire, and earth. I learnt the songs of the trees, the frogs, the summer rain, and the wind – cold winds from the South and hot winds carrying desert dust from the North. I learnt the songs of dragonflies, lizards, kangaroos, and spider orchids. The rhythms and cycles of the natural world entered my mind and body and never left. Are the Australian songs different from the European songs? Not really. The cicadas at Locri sang the same songs as the cicadas in the Australian summer, the leaves whispered the same secrets, and there are glimpses of eternity everywhere. My first experience of standing on sacred ground and receiving a glimpse of eternity was at Amphitheatre Rock, the name European settlers had given a huge, shallow cave in the cliff face up behind a screen of trees in the native bush near my home. Water running over the cliff had smoothed the platform into a natural stage that faced into a small gully lined with crude, tiered seats of rock. Memory, old and dim, hid in the shadows. I was four years old when I was told that there had once been sacred gatherings at the Rock. I could see the spirits of those who had gathered around the fires on the hillside, their shadows leaping and dancing on the rock walls. I didn’t know their language or customs, but they taught me to respect sacred ground. Amphitheatre Rock, Belair National Park, South Australia Since then I have stood on sacred ground in other places – Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Turkey, United Kingdom, Unites States. The songs are the same. The rhythms and cycles of the natural world are eternal. The ancient Greeks had a word for these natural rhythms: kairos. Kairos time differs from the linear, clock time that structures much of the modern world. It is the timing intrinsic to a process, the time it takes for an Emperor Gum moth to emerge from its cocoon, or for an adult cicada to emerge from its shell. The time it takes for a mother to grow a baby in her womb and give birth. The time it takes for us to hear Great Mother’s eternal song. Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, 6th Millennium BCE. Meet MAGO Contributor KAALII CARGILL
(Essay 9) From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt by Krista Rodin

[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time and culture, remain relevant today.] The Egyptian Goddess Isis to Western Witch Krista Rodin, Ph.D. While it seems that the goddess’ split into the Holy Mother and the damned witch was common throughout the Western world, there are distinct differences in the tenor of legends of witches on the Continent and those of North America and England. This may in part be due to the localities where the legends persist and their earlier pagan relationship to the goddess as well as how well the local Christian church adapted to earlier pagan traditions. In Alpine regions, for example, witches are not necessarily evil, they can be seen as the women who live in the mountains and protect the innocent, while they deal out strikes to those who harm the land, animals or their protected people. The Lady Perchta, who inhabits the mountains of Bavaria, Tirol and Salzburg, is an example of just such a witch. In one tale, “The Witch from Gleichenberg” from Styria, Austria, the Witch, who is also called a gypsy, saves a young boy, who grows up to be the head of castle, with water from a sacred spring. She keeps the spring and its powers to herself, i.e, keeps the magic to herself, but when she knows she is dying, she lets the lord of the castle know where the healing water is located to protect the community.40 The Untersberg Frauen, the women who live in the Untersberg mountain, which lies on the border of the province of Salzburg, Austria and Bavaria, Germany, play tricks on passersby with light shows on wet rocks and undergrowth. They can lead the innocent to safety in storms and through fog, while they have been known to push those they don’t like into crevasses. They live amid the many caves in the mountain, while they play in its streams and waterfalls. They are still respected by the local population, even those who go to church every Sunday. Recently, post-Reformation traditionally negative views on witches have also been mitigated by children’s stories such as the award winning Die kleine Hexe (The Little Witch) by Otfried Preussler.41 The story includes some of the popularized elements associated with witches, and yet it has a twist that brings the Little Witch back in line with elements of the great goddess and her Alpine descendants. The popularized elements include: the Little Witch has a raven companion named Abraxas; the witches at the Walpurgis Night celebration encompass those who have command of the natural elements, such as mountains, woods, swamps, fog, weather, wind, and herbs/plants; they make a witches’ fire and sing and dance around it as they fly through the night; and the witching hour is midnight. They have a Witches’ Council with a chief witch who listens to the other witches as they govern the community—not letting the Little Witch participate in the activities. The witches put spells on people to change bodily features to include parts of animals, e.g., donkey ears and cows’ feet. The Little Witch makes salves of frogs’ eggs and mouse droppings, i.e. she uses natural elements to heal. In one chapter, ‘The Lightly Spelled Marksmen Festival,’ she helps children save their favorite ox from being killed and eaten. In the story, the Witches’ Council gave the Little Witch a year to learn to be a good witch. The young girl, who is only 127 years old, has perfected her powers, learned all the spells in the book of magic, and helped a number of innocent people during the year. When she goes for her final exam on Walpurgis Night in order to be allowed to participate in the Nightly Festival, she answers the questions easily and seems to have passed the exam until one of the other witches, who had been tracking her throughout the year, announced all of the ways she had helped people. The witches in the Council are appalled because being a good witch means harming rather than helping. The Little Witch then uses her magic to trick the other witches and destroy them in the Witches’ Fire created for the Walpurgis Night celebration. She is alone, but she will continue to be the good witch, destroying that which harms and protecting the innocent. This theme of the good witch who only selectively uses magic, and then only to be helpful, was seen in the U.S. television shows Bewitched (1964-1972), Sabrina, the Teen-age Witch (1996-2003) and Charmed (1998-2006) along with a variety of children’s books similar to The Little Witch. This change may, at least in part, be related to the development of Wicca. Wicca originated in England after WWII, as a creation of Gerald Gardner, an amateur anthropologist, who combined diverse pagan traditions with early 20th century theosophical thought. One impetus for creating the new pagan tradition was a reaction and denunciation of organized religion, and as such Wicca has no central authority or doctrine.42 The one most predominant aspect of the various Wiccan traditions is the worship of the Great Goddess and the Great Horned God, reminiscent of the Babylonian/Mesopotamian Baal. While not all Wiccans practice magic, many do, and they associate their skills with their deities. Ellen Reed, a renown Wicca practitioner, ties her faith back to the Great Goddess, even in the title of her book, Circle of Isis: Ancient Egyptian Magic for Modern Witches. In it she explains: In Wicca, our approach to magic is usually through the Gods. Having done all we are capable of doing on this plane, we turn to magic, and will often ask for the help, guidance, and blessing of specific deities. Egyptian legend says that Ra invented magic. The Gods were too busy to do everything, so Ra gave humankind magical powers, heka, so that we would be able to handle the unseen world ourselves. Wicca is, first and foremost, a religion. You might call magic a fringe benefit, a result of our beliefs. We believe that we are part of the Gods and able to do much They can do. The very source of the ability to do magic, however, makes it imperative …
(Essay 1) A Journey with Hermes by Harita Meenee

I was in for some surprises in May of 2006, when I first visited Samos, a Greek island near the border with Turkey, to give a talk at a students’ club. I had been invited by Minas Papageorgiou—a student back then and now a writer, researcher and journalist—to speak about Mary Magdalene. He took me on a journey up a stream named Potami (pron. potámi), the Greek word for river. It turned out to be a magical place as the stream runs through a forest and forms small lakes and waterfalls. Our journey into the wild started—appropriately—with a strange kind of pilgrimage. Soon after Minas and I started hiking, we saw a sign reading: Ancient Chapel, Transfiguration of the Savior. Standing in the shade of a big rock, it had an eerie feeling about it. The day was warm and bright, but no sunrays touched the 11th-century church, as if Helios, the Sun God, carefully avoided this uncanny place. We pushed the blue wooden door and were instantly greeted by a pungent smell of candles and incense. With goosebumps crawling up my arms, I tried to resist the feeling of awe inspired by the tall, gray stone walls, which exuded an aura of mystery. “Non-believers aren’t supposed to feel awe in such places,” I carefully admonished myself.Besides, we were not there to pay homage to the Christian Savior, whose painted image was inspecting us from the door of the sanctuary. We had gone with the purpose of observing the four columns which supported the center of the old building. They were round and smooth, their only decoration being the intricate Corinthian-style column capitals. Were these pre-Christian? Archaeologists believe that they may well be.Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, a French botanist and writer who visited Samos in the early 18th century, claimed that the columns came from the shrine of Hermes Kharidotes, “Giver of Grace (kharis)” or “Bringer of the Graces (Kharites).” In some places, during his festival, called Hermaea, the social order was temporarily reversed, as strictly defined roles came topsy-turvy. Among his many qualities, Hermes was also the Trickster, the Subversive One.The foundations of that church were very old, dating probably from the 6th century CE. It was customary at the time to build Christian temples on top of Hellenic ones as the new religion was rapidly devouring the old one. We stared at the columns in silence, in the vain hope they might reveal their secrets. They didn’t, but an unexpected clue manifested as we turned back to walk out of the door. The evidence was there, right under our feet: the marble rectangular stone which formed the doorstep had a big circle carved in its center, which bore two holes. What else could that be but the base of an ancient statue? Similar stones can be seen in a host of Greek archaeological sites.The name of the church was also telling: the Transfiguration of the Savior. The Greek word for transfiguration is metamorphosis, which is commonly used with the meaning of “transformation.” It rung a bell as Hermes (known to the Romans as Mercurius) is indeed a mercurial figure, a god with diverse roles and many faces, and a mediator between different realms. He was also considered the guide of souls to the underworld; his place of worship could have easily been transformed into that of the Christian Savior of souls…That rather unorthodox pilgrimage was the beginning of our journey up the potami, a stream flowing into the sea just a few meters away from us. We began to walk uphill and soon reached a grove of olive trees and lemon trees, which seemed to relish the abundant touch of the sun and the presence of the life-giving water.As our walk through the grove came to an end, Minas and I suddenly entered a different world. I stood gaping at the dreamlike landscape. The interplay of light and shadow created an otherworldly atmosphere. Hermes came to mind again, this time as the god of dreams, magic and alchemy. As a messenger of the gods, he could easily cross from one world to the other, from heaven to earth and into the underworld. I wondered what messages he had in store for us. (Previously published in Witches and Pagans). (Meet Mago Contributor) Harita Meenee
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 4) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. 13-MONTH YEAR AND 28-DAY MONTH A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. This is a regular annual time of 364 days without intercalations: The cycle of Little Calendar (a period) is called year (Sa, one year). One year has 13 months (Gi). One month comprises 28 days (Il) and 4 weeks (Yo). One week has 7 days. One year has a total of 52 weeks (4×13), which is 364 days (28×13). The Magoist Calendar establishes 28 days for a month and 13 months to make the regular annual cycle of 364 days (28 x 13 = 364), to be supported by intercalations. A week comprises 7 days. A month has a total of 4 weeks. A year has a total of 52 weeks. Thus, it forms an interlocking interplay of 28-13-7-4-52-1-364 numbers. Numerologically, they belong the first group of three types of numbers, the Natural Numbers of 1, 4, 7. Each of 28 days, 13 months, 7 days, 4 weeks, 52 weeks, 1 day and 364 days constitutes a self-regulating spiral calendar and is connected with one another like an engine of differently sized cogwheels. For example, 1 day forms a daily spiral calendar. 7 days forms a weekly spiral calendar. 4 weeks forms a monthly spiral calendar (28 days). 28 days form a monthly spiral calendar (4 of 7 day weekly spirals or 28 daily spirals). 13 months form a yearly spiral calendar (13 of 28 months spirals, or 52 weekly spirals). Concerning the 28 day monthly spiral (4 of 7 weekly spirals), each day of the month is fixated with one of the seven weekdays throughout the year. The basic structure of a month looks as below. In this configuration, the 13th Friday is instated in the second of four weekly spirals. Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Regarding Natural Numbers, 1, 4, 7, it is involved as follows: 1 day (1) 13 months (1+3=4) 28 days (2+8=10, 1+0=1) 7 days (7) 52 weeks (5+2=7) 364 days (3+6+4=13, 1+3=4) Natural Numbers 1, 4, 7 refers to the basic sub-structures of an annual calendar (364 days). Each unit of the 28-13-7-1-52-364 scheme forms a self-regulating organic cogwheel that is in sync with one another. The logographic meanings of such terms as Sa (year), Gi (month), Yo (week) or Yobok (one week), and Il (day) are as follows: Sa (祀 Rituals, year) One year refers to the time to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month) One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day) One day refers to a day of the sun or light due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week) A week include seven days dedicated to the seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the celestial bodies, completion of a week) One week refers to the cycle of seven daily rituals dedicated to the seven celestial bodies. The character, Sa (Rituals), that means a year, appears peculiar in comparison with other terms, Gi (Periods, lunar and menstrual) to mean a month, Il (Sun) to mean a day, and Yo (Resplendence of seven celestial bodies) to mean a week. Sa (Rituals) is apparently unmatched with other terms in that all of the latter involve the celestial bodies of the Moon, the Sun and the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Given that Earth is not implicated in these names, we may postulate that Sa is associated with Earth, referring to the Rite of Earth, the above key terms of the Magoist Calendar make sense, representing the Sun, the Moon, and solar planets including Earth. The Rite of the Earth hypothesis corroborates the definition of a year, the time taken for the Earth to make one revolution around the sun. In any case, the meaing of the character Sa suggest an inextricable relation between a year and rituals. Magoist terms Modern meaning Logographic meaning Corresponding celestial bodies Characteristic cyclic movement Sa祀 Year Rituals Earth Seasons Gi期 Month Periods Moon Menstruation Il 日 Day Days Sun Day and night Yo曜 Week Resplendence of celestial bodies Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn Rotations of solar celestial bodies To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang)
(Book Excerpt 2) Inanna’s Ascent: Reclaiming Female Power, Edited by Trista Hendren, Tamara Albanna and Pat Daly

The Girl God Anthology Descent of the Dark Goddess for Personal Empowerment Sofia Wren Introduction During the Fall of 2017, I felt a calling stir in me to talk about the Dark Goddess. I had received an invitation to speak to members of a nonprofit’s leadership team because they wanted to serve more people from “untraditional spiritual paths.” I’m someone who came from a “nontraditional” spiritual path, that is, I grew up with a secular anti-religious upbringing only to find inspiration from Goddess mythology and spirituality as a solitary practitioner, and later as a member of women’s groups. So, there is much I could say about a voyage that began around age eight. In speaking about possible ways to conduct my talk with my advisor from the nonprofit, I found myself accepted with welcoming arms, but there was one snag. I felt the snag when I mentioned, “Hey wouldn’t it be helpful if I mentioned the Dark Goddess? Some of my classmates at Loyola have found my perspective to be very interesting and enlightening.” To the advisor, this was too advanced for the discussion, like a 300-level course when we were just at 101. I accepted this in the moment, but as time passed and I returned home from the meeting I began to feel the rumble of various emotions and doubts. Was this limitation really fair? It struck a pang in me. Why was it not okay to talk about Her? This dark mother that holds me in the dark when I cry, so that I know it is OK? The one who understands the pain of abuse? Who feels my anger of being oppressed by forces and people in my life? Who wants to tear apart the broken systems and structures and start over from scratch? Who wants to punch back? Who knows my struggle to do the right thing when there are no clear answers? Who knows the sorrow of grief and loss when it tears my heart apart? How could I hold in what I wanted to say about Her? It was a difficult rumbling. Over time, I came to agree with the decision that the explanation wasn’t necessary for that particular forum. After meditating and rumbling, I decided to instead embody the energy of the Dark Goddess during my talk by going into my own personal darkness along my unique spiritual journey, speaking about when I was bullied and called a witch during middle school and as a result, shut down spiritually for ten years. But I knew I would be diving into the topic of the Dark Goddess more deeply soon, not only because of how passionately I felt about the topic’s significance, but also because of what happened the same week. That very same week, a few days after the conversation with my advisor, I attended a group called Full Circle at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis (UUCA). It’s an open earth-based, spiritual women’s circle I’ve attended over the course of many years, which has different themes for different meetings. I didn’t know the meeting topic until I walked into the door, and behold my surprise when it was the Dark Goddess. In all my years of attending, I’m not sure we’ve ever had a richer group discussion. Somewhere between ten to fifteen women attended the meeting, and every woman had something to say about how she connected to the Dark Goddess for deep benefits to her own life. While for people who are not familiar with the Dark Goddess, it may seem “out there” or intense or very far along the path (and, no, it’s not evil). However, from what I heard and took away from the night’s discussion, it seemed to me that working with “dark” aspects of Goddess, divine feminine energy or feminine archetypes is more prevalent and less unusual among those women called to earth-based, neopagan or spiritual practice than I would have thought. In fact, considering the relative diversity and eclectic nature of the women involved in my group, it actually seemed one of the few things we could all agree on beyond appreciating nature and the elements. We nibbled on dark chocolate and sipped little cups of red wine as we talked into the night about our lives, the Goddess, and her journey descending into and ascending from the underworld. To me this was a sign; there was something here, something more. As my Masters in Spiritual and Pastoral Care at Loyola University Maryland rounded to a finish in the Spring of 2018, it seemed obvious to me what I would write about for my final thesis: the Dark Goddess, the one who descends into the underworld, and how to take the work with Her deeper. Given the depth of the discussion from my women’s group Full Circle at the UUCA, I was led through the thesis guidelines to conduct a thought experiment about what “taking it deeper” in that context might truly mean. I had to explain the Dark Goddess in layman’s terms so to speak: taking the explanation to the higher level I didn’t get a chance to explore before. To do so, I describe the Dark Goddess as an archetype rather than just a deity. Some people will see it differently, but I’m flexible; whether the divine is a part of my consciousness or external is not something I quibble about because to me All is One and it is all the same. I am divine and powerful, and so is Goddess, God and all the rest. By focusing on archetypes, I hoped to explain in the clearest of terms and be as inclusive of those in my community as possible—as some are atheist or agnostic. At the end of preparing the original paper I also proposed a group of 6-8 sessions as a possible way to take this work deeper. The women’s group I proposed is a sacred space with different introspective activities and discussion to explore collectively this descent into …

(Special Post Isis 3) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

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(Special Post 1) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

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

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(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

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(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

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(Special post) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

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(Photography & Poetry) Thoughts of Spring by Deanne Quarrie

Spring At the highest point on the tree, you stretch, reaching for the sun. Your pink petals elegant in their grace, you stand alone. Bravest of all, for leaves have yet to come to offer shade Branches bare except for furry buds that will soon follow in imitation of your daring first move. Intrepid flower of Spring, I feel like you in my yearning for the Sun!
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.
(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

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

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

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

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

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

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry 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 expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this 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,[i] 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.[ii] 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 (as of this writing) 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,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] 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. 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 anyone’s 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.[v]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. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …
(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.

(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Species, comprised of the divine, demigods, and humans.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] Magoist Origin of Immortals: All in the Mago Species are given the original nature of immortality or transcendence. Readers are advised to set aside the literal meaning in the English language of the words immortals or transcendents. Immortals is a translation of the East Asian term seon (仙, xian in Chinese). I choose the translation immortals over transcendents not because it is a better translation but because it is the most commonly used term by Western Daoist translators.[i] Although it is known as a Daoist term, I hold that it is pre-Daoist, namely Magoist, in origin. Primarily, it refers to the Mago Species (Mago and Her descendants) who dwelt in Mago Castle, the primordial home, to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Likewise, historical figures known as Immortals are Magoist rather than Daoist.
(Essay 1) Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Pod of narwhals, northern Canada, August 2005. Image courtesy of Kristin Laidre. Wikemedia Commons Manpasikjeok (the pacifying flute that defeats all) is a legendary flute, purportedly made from a narwhal’s tusk, originating in the 7th century Silla (57 BCE-935 CE). King Sinmun (r. 681-692) had a revelation concerning “a bamboo tree” growing on a mysterious mountain floating in the Sea of Whales, today’s East Sea of Korea. From this tree, a flute was made with which he was able to protect the whole world. As a national treasure of Silla, this instrument was famed to defeat all enemies at the time of troubles. What we have is the accounts of the pacifying flute recounted in Korea’s official historical texts. Two sources from the Samguk Sagi (Historical Records of the Three States) and the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three States) shall be examined. Not surprisingly, whales are made unrecognizable not only within the story but also in the official history books of Korea. Magoist Cetaceanism was subjected to erasure in the course of Korean official history, but apparently not in the time of King Sinmun of Silla. The myth of Manpasikjeok testifies to Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism upheld by 7th century Sillan rulers. We are reading a Magoist Cetacean myth, however, told by people of a later time when Magoist Cetaceanism was no longer recognized. The fact that these two official historical texts of Korea recount the narrative of Manpasikjeok speaks to its significance: The story is told with a sense of mystery or suspicion. While the Samguk Sagi overtly treats the author’s sense of disbelief, the Samguk Yusa provides a full narrative in tantalizing but mystified details. How was Manpasikjeok 萬波息笛 created in the first place? Below is the Samguk Sagi version of the story: According to Gogi (Ancient Records), “During the reign of King Sinmun, a little mountain emerged in the East Sea out of nowhere. It looked like a head of a turtle. Atop the mountain there was a bamboo tree growing, which became two during the day and became one at night. The king had his subject cut the bamboo tree and had it made a flute. He named it Manpasik (Pacifying and Defeating All).” Although it is written so, its account is weird and unreliable.[1] Written by Gim Busik (1075–1151), a Neo-Confucian historiographer, the above account betrays an unengaged author’s mind in the story. For Gim, Korean indigenous narratives like Manpasikjeok are anomalous, if not unreliable, by the norms of Chinese history. In contrast to the former, the Samguk Yusa details the Manpasikjeok story in a tantalizing sense of mystery. Its author Ilyeon (1206-1289) was a Buddhist monk, a religious historian who saw the history of Korea as fundamentally Buddhist from the beginning. He elaborates the story with factual data but fails to bring to surface the cetacean underpinning of the myth. It is possible that Magoist Cetaceanism had already submerged much earlier than his time. King Sinmun (r. 681-692) had built the temple, Gameun-sa (Graced Temple), to commemorate his late father King Munmu (r. 661-681) who willed to become a sea dragon upon death. The relic of King Munmu had been spread in Whale Ferry (Gyeongjin 鯨津), also known as the Rock of Ruler the Great (Daewang-am) located in the waterfront of the East Sea also known as the Sea of Whales. Evidence substantiates that King Munmu was a Magoist Cetacean devotee clad in a Buddhist attire. Or today’s Buddhologiests call it Esoteric Buddhism. The Manpasikjeok myth may be called the story of King Sinmun’s initiation to Magoist Cetaceanism. Before explicating the Samguk Yusa account, which is prolix and complex, I have summarized the Samguk Yusa’s account as follows: (Summary of the Manpasikjeok Myth) King Sinmun ordered the completion of Gameunsa (Graced Temple) to commemorate his deceased father, King Munmu. The main hall of Gameunsa was designed at the sea level to allow the dragon to enter and stroll through the ebb and flow of the sea waves. In the second year of his reign (682 CE), Marine Officer reported that a little mountain in the East Sea was approaching Gameunsa. The king had Solar Officer perform a divination. The divination foretold that he would be given a treasure with which he could protect Wolseong (Moon Stronghold), Silla’s capital. This would be a gift from King Munmu who became a sea dragon and Gim Yusin who became a heavenly being again. In seven days, the king went out to Yigyeondae (Platform of Gaining Vision) and saw the mountain floating like a turtle’s head in the sea. There was a bamboo tree growing on its top, which became two during the day and one at night. The king stayed overnight in Gameumsa to listen to the dragon who entered the yard and the substructure of the main hall. Then, there was darkness for seven days due to a storm in the sea. After the sea calmed, the king went into the mountain to meet the dragon. The dragon told him that, if he made a flute out of the bamboo tree, the whole world would be pacified. The king had the bamboo tree brought out of the sea and made it into a flute, which became a treasure of Silla. The mountain and the dragon disappeared. The flute, when played during times of the nation’s trouble, brought peace. Thus comes its name, Manpasikjeok (the pacifying flute that defeats all). During the reign of King Hyoso (r. 692-702), his son, the flute continued to make miracles. Thus it was renamed Manmanpapasikjeok (the pacifying flute that surely defeats all of all). One day, it was reported to King Sinmun that a little mountain was approaching Gameunsa. That mountain had a mysterious bamboo tree atop. On the seventh day from then, he went out to Yigyeondae (Platform of Gaining Vision), the whale watch place near Gameumsa. Then, he stayed overnight in Gameunsa to hear the dragon who entered the temple yard through the ebb and flow of the …
(Mago Stronghold Essay 1) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part I Multivalent Meaning of Mago Stronghold Mago Stronghold (麻姑城, Mago-seong) refers to the center of the world (axis mundi) in the Magoist Cosmogony. It is a metaphor for the Source/Origin/Womb of Life for terrestrial beings. Mago Stronghold represents the forgotten paradise of the Great Goddess in patriarchy. In patriarchal times, it has become a code to unlock the hidden S/HE Reality. As one’s life in the body and mind is the very proof for the first mother, “Mago,” from whom one comes, the existence of Mago Stronghold in toponym and meaning is the very token to prove vital for the primordial home of terrestrial beings, also called the Earth. The Mago Stronghold talk, upon being fully deciphered, merits the bird’s eye view of human history from the cosmogonic beginning of the Great Goddess to this day. Its message is, among others, we are NOT locked out from the blissful time of S/HE beginning. We are NOT disconnected from our ancestors and deities. And we are NOT substantively different from our non-human sojourns. All in WE are found in Mago Stronghold. I present my investigation of Mago Stronghold, rather than a new theory, as an alternative mode of perceiving reality. The Mago Stronghold talk answers the ultimate question of “who I am” as a person and why we are here in our life journey. It is meant to engender metamorphosis, the process of awakening and navigating in S/HE Reality, for both an individual and the collective. We realize that no one is bound to patriarchal reality except those who create it. WE are HERE/NOW. However, the full-fledged implication of Mago Stronghold can’t be unveiled without naming the systemic working of mental blocks and lifting the limit. Official (read patriarchal) historiography is not the place where we nest our conversation. Linear thinking can’t help us arrive at the Scene. Thinking within ethnocentric and nationalist grids is among the mental blocks. We are invited to explore a whole new/old/original way of seeing and knowing matters. You and I across cultures, nationalities, and geographies have a lot in common to talk and think about. Precisely, the Mago Stronghold talk bridges the gap among moderns. Its implication is NOT confined to Korea or East Asia. One may wonder how it is so? The concept of Mago Stronghold, remembered by East Asian Magoists, concerns the common origin of all beings on Earth. Discourse on the Great Goddess/Primordial Mother/Creatrix can’t be parochial by nature. It maps out the gynocentric consciousness of WE, which redefines national/cultural identities as consanguineous. The Mago Stronghold talk works at multi-dimensions crisscrossing and connecting the personal and the collective, the local and the universal, and the physical and the symbolic. Mago Stronghold found across Korea and China is no ordinary cultural or historical landmark. It is also equated with Mago Mountain or Triad Mountain. The extant toponym of Mago Stronghold is a door to the Other Realm of the Great Goddess. Precisely, it signifies the Primordial/Perennial Home for not only the Mago Clan (Mago and HER divine and human descendants) but also all terrestrial beings, according to the Magoist Cosmogony. “Mago Stronghold” is an eponym for such socio-natural-architectural variations as castles, citadels, mountain villages, fortresses, stone walls, earthen walls, and ultimately the Earth. It is etiological, explaining the gynocentric origin of the axis mundi and the sacred mountain reverence known in many ancient worlds. Macrocosmically, Mago Stronghold refers to the Earth, the Splendid Land of the Primordial Mother. Residing in the Big Dipper (Seven Stars),[1] Mago governs the solar system and chooses the Earth as HER Garden.[2] S/HE delegates HER divine and human offspring to cultivate sonic resonance in harmony with cosmic music. In that sense, Earth IS HER Civilization. Its literal meaning, the Stronghold of the Great Goddess, conveys that all Earth’s civilizations are born of the Great Goddess. The Mago Civilization of Earth is aligned with the Law of Nature established by the marvelous working of the Great Goddess. Nature reflects HER Majestic Work. When the Creatrix (Cosmogonic Matrix) is made unthinkable, if not erased, in the course of patriarchal mytho-history, Mago Stronghold stands as an enigmatic cultural icon. It comes to us as a code to decipher. Much is to be unveiled for HER Paradise to be reinstated in the collective mind of humanity. Euphemisms that are severed from the Magoist implication in the course of history are linked back to the original Magoist words. The Mago Stronghold Code enchants us to the holistic view of the Great Goddess, the WE consciousness in S/HE, that is tabooed in patriarchy. Reminding people of the common origin from the Primordial Mother, Mago Stronghold opens a new horizon of the gynocentric reality, WE/HERE/NOW. We have been part of the Grand Plan of the Great Goddess. When it comes to the female, official historiography, which is after all a product of the patriarchal dominant group, offers little to, if not obstructs, the researcher. The history it calls is nothing other than a self-aggrandizing distorted view of the past events, or rather an imposed false view of the past by patriarchal colonizers. Patriarchal history should be called pseudo-history. It concerns not truth but domination and self-expansion. The history of self-sharers/altruists/Magoists never dies for it is about re-membering of all in WE. What happened is never left unanimated, according to the Law of Nature. It can’t be erased, for truth is the language of Life. As such, the collective memory that ancient (read pre-patriarchal) Magoists were the bearers of the Magoist royal lineage has survived official East Asian (read Sinocentric) historiography. It is imbued in such socio-cultural data as lore, literature, art, and place-names, as well as the so-called apocryphal texts. My task here is to decode the meaning of Mago Stronghold, unearthing non-official data and reading them between the lines of written records. (To be continued) See Meet Mago Contributor Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. [1] The Big Dipper (Seven Stars) is favored by Koreans. Triad Deity (Samsin), another name for Mago, is …
(2015 Mago Pilgrimage) Neuk-do (Serpent Island) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

I wanted to visit Neuk-do because of the Mago story told in the region. Its name Neuk-do, which means the Serpent Island (구렁이섬), whispers a deep memory of the gynocentric past. However, people today seem to be oblivious to this. Our guides did not inform us of the meaning of the island’s name. I relished being surrounded by an air of mystery about the island during our visit. Also I was drawn to Neuk-do because it is under the administration of Sacheon City. The place-name, Sacheon (泗川 or 四川 Xichuan in Chinese), is no unknown place in the mytho-history of Magoism. Like many other place-names, “Sacheon,” recurs in both present-day China and the Korean peninsula. They, although written in slightly different characters, concern Magoism (stories, place-names, or topographies). In the case of the Chinese “Sacheon,” Magoism is systematically suppressed and replaced by Daoism. Today China boasts of Xichuan Province as a birthplace of Daoism. Mt. Qingcheng (青城山) in Dujiangyan City, is known as one of the ancient Daoist centers. Our data are, albeit often sketchy, ample to indicate the importance of Mt. Qingcheng in Daoist history. It is a place wherein Zhangling (34-156) or Zhang Daoling, the founder of Tianshi (天師 Celestial Master) Daoism, founded the doctrine of Daoism and died. Yellow Emperor, the pre-dynastic hero of the third millennium BCE, is commemorated. The Temple of Eternal Dao(常道觀 Changdao Guan) located in Mt. Qingcheng is noted for its oldest hall, the Shrine of the Yellow Emperor, built during the Sui dynasty (605-618).[i] Also the place-name, Dujiangyan(都江堰), reflects the ancient irrigation system originally constructed in circa 256 BCE during the Qin dynasty.[ii] Alongside a number of Daoist temples extant today, there are Magoist place-names and topographies, Magu Cave (麻姑洞 Magu-dong) and Magu Lake (麻姑池 Magu-chi) also known as Heavenly Lake (天池). Located adjacent to Shangqing Palace (上清宫 Supreme Clarity Palace), Magu Lake has a story that Magu collected water for her alchemical practice.[iii] “Mago” is alternatively used with “Cheon (Heaven, 天 Tian in Chinese),” as is in “Heavenly Lake.” As in other places, such Magoist place-names in Xichuan have survived Chinese mytho-historiography that has obliterated pre-Chinese Magoism and replaced it with Daoism. Note that Magu is never articulated as the Creatrix in Chinese historiography, whereas her supremacy is adumbrated in Chinese folklore and place-names. Chinese mytho-historiography has paid the price for its matricide: Its origin will never be explained. To say that Xichuan is a Daoist birthplace is a misleading. Xichuan is a pre-Daoist center of Magoism whose origin possibly dates to the time of Danguk (3898-2333 BCE). From the Korean sources, fortunately, we are able to assess that Xichuan was a place of significance from pre-Dangun times. According to the Handan Gogi (Archaic Histories of Han and Dan), Daeeup extant today near Mt. Qingcheng, Xichuan Province, was a place wherein Dangun began her career. The Handan Gogi reads, “Dangun began her career in Daeeup (大邑 Great Town, Dayi in Chinese). All people feared and obeyed her virtue as a divine being. When she was at age 14 in the year of Gapjin (2357 BCE), Sovereign Ungssi, upon hearing her divine virtue, appointed her as Biwang (Auxiliary Ruler) to administrate Daeeup (Great Town) [Female connoting words are mine].”[iv] Thomas Yoon points out that Daeeup is not a fictitious place-name but an actual site extant today in Chengdu, Sichuan.[v] Mr. Kigap Kang, former politician but now an orchard owner who experiments with nature-based farming for fruit trees in Sacheon City, arranged our meeting with the Director of the Sacheon City Cultural Center. The Director alongside his companion met us in his office. They told us Neuk-do’s stories of Mago Halmae. Then, we drove to the road off the shore where we could look out across the stepping stones in the sea that were said to have been placed by Mago Halmae. The tide was high and we could see only the tips of rocks. I could see the island across the adjoining water. Neuk-do had unusual topography as it was an elongated island conjoined by two mountainous isles. From such topography the name, the Serpent Island, may have derived. Houses are populated in the conjoined area. We drove to Neuk-do via a modern bridge with the hope of running into someone who could guide us to the site of Mago stepping stones. A native of Neuk-do, our guide-to-be, happened to be right there, when we got off the car. Mr. Gyeung Jang, a 61 year-old fisherman and native of Neuk-do, showed us the site in the sea where Mago is said to have placed stepping stones. Due to the high tide, we could only see the top parts of Mago’s stepping stones upper edge over the waterline. He also led us to peeking Mago Halmi’s washing laundry rock and estimated its size to be about two meters high at the low tide. He added, Mago Halmi was so tall and giant that she needed a tall rock. The motif that the giant Mago Hami carried a boulder to construct standing stones or dolmens and the story of Mago’s laundry rock commonly recur in other regions. During dinner at a seafood restaurant in Neuk-do, our conversations grew. Mr. Jang informed us of the fact that the whole island of Neuk-do is designated as a cultural and notable site by the province and the state. Its archaeological unearthing began in the early 1980s and has brought out numerous multi-period findings (about 13,000 items) ranging from the Neolithic to the early Iron Age. The unearthed include shell mounds, house sites, human and animal burials, pottery, and daggers that originated from not only Korea but also Yayoi Japan and Nangnang China. As such, Neuk-do has come to be known as a site of ancient transnational maritime centers in East Asia.[6] As I write this, the Mago story turns out to have several versions. I will share three versions here. In one account, Mago Halmae, so tall and giant, walked around the sea. She brought rocks …
(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

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