March 26, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Announcement) Your ongoing contributions are now accepted via Facebook

Your S/HE Desire Creates RTM: Now we accept your ongoing submission via Facebook “RTM Contributors”

If you wish to become a contributor, please see here.

If you are already a contributor but have not yet joined RTM Contributors Facebook Group, please join us here.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/324454421077901/permalink/469889233201085/

We are pleased to announce a new and alternative way of submitting/accepting your contributions, which will take place right here. Anyone in the group can submit your timely and seasonal contributions. Your submissions will be published on Tuesdays. We will call this the System B in distinction from the System A, which the standard way of submission that you have done via email. In other word, you will have two ways to submit your contribution from now on.

Thanks to all of you, Return to Mago (RTM) E-Magazine will be 5 year-old in August 15, this year. It has been a blessing for us to witness a steady growth! Along the way, this Facebook group was created with the hope to enhance and promote creativity and connection among RTM Contributors. We feel time is ripe for us to utilize this FB group.

Why implementing the System B?
As you know, we have been publishing thrice per week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays). We, the RTM Editorial Circle, Mary Saracino (Editor-in-Chief), Rosemary Mattingley (Admin Editor), and myself, have experienced that the current thrice per week publication routine at times could not cope with the vitality and intensity of contributions. Meanwhile, we see that your newest works are posted and shared in Facebook. Through the System B, we can provide a venue for your works to reach farther audience. In other words, the System A alone, while stabilizing the foundational structure of RTM, is a bit rigid and fixed to accommodate dynamism and spontaneity that we intend to generate and serve.

How does the System B works?
Like System A, we have a set of volunteers who will make it work.
System B RTM Editorial Circle includes:

Copy-editors: Deanne Quarrie (and another copyeditor, we hope)
Reviewers: Mary Saracino, Glenys Livingstone, and Helen Hwang
Bloggers: Alaya Dannu, Helen Hwang

Just like System A, we accept all genres (essay, prose, book review, poetry, artwork, video, photo, and etc.). It can be a new work or previously published but not widely circulated.

Anyone can recommend the submission post by clicking “Like” and/or commenting. Taking comments into consideration, reviewers will finalize the selection. At this time, we will ask for more data if the submission is incomplete.

For all text writings except poetry, copy-editors will provide copy-editing and return it to the contributor in “Files.” Emails and PMs may be used privately.
Blogger will schedule it on Tuesday, 9PM PST. First come, first serve at this stage. We may extend to Thursdays if necessary.

Submission Guidelines:
–Genres: Artworks, videos, photos, poems, essays (prose), book excerpts, and others. For artworks, videos, and photos, please provide a short write-up about it. For poems, it is not mandatory but a short-write up can help.

–Topic: It is the same as the System A, which concerns the broad topic of Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality. In general, we assume that your contribution will fit the purpose of RTM, which is to promote the collective cultivation of the WE consciousness in S/HE. See the Call For Contributions here.

–Posting: You may create a new post in “Discussion” or use “Files.” “Files” is located in the menu, down below the group image. Please indicate the title in the first line of your post. Include 1-2 images with credit info, 3-5 keywords (your full name should be included in the keyword). Images can be uploaded separately or included in the post.

For essay, prose, and book review submission, it is mandatory to use a Word file and upload in “Files.” AND indicate your preferred way of being contacted by copy-editor (email or PM).

IMPORTANT: SUBMISSION THAT DOES NOT HAVE THE FULL DATA IS SUBJECTED TO A DELAY IN THE PROCESS.

–Withdrawal: Should you wish to withdraw your submission, it would be best to do so before copyediting, but not possible once it is published. That means we ask you to SUBMIT THE FINAL VERSION OF YOUR CONTRIBUTION, NOT A DRAFT. PROOFREAD IS MANDATORY BEFORE SUBMITTING IT.

What RTM System B Editors provide:
–Reviewing: We will finalize the selection and ask for the full data, if incomplete.
–Copy-editing: For all text writing contributions except poetry, copy-editing will be provided. Copyeditor will upload the copy-edited document in “Files.”
–Bloggers will schedule it on the first Tuesday available.

What other RTM Contributors can do:
Anyone can back the submission by commenting. Once it is published, please share it out to your social media and email venues.

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(Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey

Arlene Bailey is a Visionary Artist and Author inspired by the creative fire of woman in her many expressions. Her art and writing reflect the deepest, juiciest, wildest parts of woman’s soul as she explores and reclaims the raw, the authentic, the sacred and holy, the ancient in the now. As a Certified Art of Allowing Facilitator™, Ordained Priestess, Women’s Mysteries Facilitator and, drawing on her experience as a retired anthropologist, Arlene uses her painting and writing to create ritual experiences for women seeking a deeper awareness of Goddess and Self. She is a frequent contributor and current Editor with The Girl God and is also currently working on her own book of personal writings and art.For more information, visit The Sacred Wild at www.facebook.com/arlenebaileythesacredwild/ and www.instagram.com/arlenebaileyartistauthor/
(Art) Resting Place by Lucy Pierce

She carries the sacred places of the Earth within her body and there she rests and restores herself. The body of woman and the body of the earth are one and the same. We seek refuge in wild nature, that the heart may be harbored always in the beating pulse of her breast.
(Prose) Blueberries for Bears by Sara Wright

This morning I went to our local blueberry festival and ate blueberry pancakes with blueberry sauce and started home with three quarts of blueberries, one of which was delivered to my friend Roy who is almost 102 years old. A second quart went to the bears who are already under fire for the coming slaughter which begins this month…that quart contains a bevy of earth bear prayers. The third quart became the blueberry sauce that I lovingly make every single year in honor of this Turning of the Wheel. The month of August signals the beginning of the harvest and for me, like gathering the first ripening pods, making blueberry sauce speaks to my participation in the great round, a holy undertaking. The recipe I use is one that I created, but it has its roots in this wild blueberry festival and the local folk, the men and women who painstakingly pick the berries. Traditionally it is still the women who make pies, muffins, tarts, and cakes to sell – but for me the lure is those fresh berries picked with so much love and attention to detail (no green berries end up in these quarts). As I am stirring the sauce, my mouth literally waters in anticipation of what’s to come and at the end of the cooking time, I scoop up spoons of this deep blue concoction savoring the flavors while staining my mouth and teeth an impossible dark purple! Making blueberry sauce is a wonderful way to preserve the fresh fruit and once the season has passed, opening a jar of the sauce brings late summer back to the table. My young pine forest was once a field that provided me with more berries than I could ever eat, it fed birds of all kinds, coyotes, foxes, and mice, voles, and squirrels, while bears combed the steep field with claws raking whole bunches into their mouths at once; We all feasted on Nature’s bounty and I felt such child-like gratitude to be part of what was then, still an unbroken whole. Memories of time spent with my little brother picking berries for my grandmother’s pies were startlingly vivid during that period as were those spent with my youngest son, who once loved to gather both strawberries and blueberries for the pies and muffins I used to make. Those days are gone now along with most of my berries, though I still know places along the pond where high bush berries and huckleberries still grow in abundance. Today I thought about my two beloved women friends Iren and Harriet and wished that somehow I could have spirited them both from their kitchens to mine to smell and taste this sauce, the color of which defies categorization. Perhaps I think of them because creating delicious concoctions from wild berries is an ancient practice that women have been engaged in since the beginning of womankind. Meet Mago Contributor Sara Wright
(Essay 10) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

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

“One of the strongest links we still have to the Goddess is through the life-giving power of the feminine. Women still give life through their bodies. This is so obvious that we forget the magic of it. Life does not come through men’s bodies, test tubes, or incubators; life still comes into being through women’s bodies. Despite contraceptive chemicals and more than two thousand years of negative conditioning, women’s bodies continue to respond to the cycles of the moon, to the rhythms of Nature. The ancient magic of the life-giving power of the feminine is still with us.” Except from Don’t take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess, Dr Kaalii Cargill PhD. Birthing or menstruating woman, Göbekli Tepe, c 9000BCE. Carved pole with birthing woman at base, Göbekli Tepe, c 9000BCE. Giving birth, Çatalhöyük, 7500-5700 BCE. Sheel-na-gig, Ireland, c 12th Century CE. And the attempted takeover: Contrary to “God’s” instruction, “pagan fertility symbols” credit divine powers to the creation instead of the father God creator . You bet they do! Meet Mago Contributor KAALII CARGILL
(Poem) Resurrection of the Wild by Sara Wright

Outside, one woman’s hammer strikes wood, spikes reluctantly give way. Bare hands cut planks, pound nails, A floor appears where holes once gaped. The carpenter takes pride in her skill. Inside, I scent the wood with peppermint oil.
(Essay) From Gaia and Dionysus to Jesus and Mary Magdalene by Harita Meenee

The Penitent Magdalene, Francesco Hayez 1825. “How would you like to be interviewed for a book that questions the historical existence of Jesus?” asked Minas, a journalist, editor, and old-time friend of mine. “I’d love it if you would like to point out the similarities between Jesus and Dionysus.” It was an offer I couldn’t resist. The interview turned out to me more than 5000 words long, opening a host of fascinating topics. It is included in the book Jesus Mythicism: An Introduction, whose English translation recently came out. It is written by Minas Papageorgiou and also includes interviews by well-known scholars, such as Maria Dzielska, Payam Nabarz, and Joseph Atwill. I’m delighted to share a part of my interview with you, with permission from the book’s author. In your book The Sacred Feminine and Mary Magdalene you describe the power of the female presence in Christianity and other traditions. What has been the relationship of Jesus with the Sacred Feminine? And what parallels can we draw with the cult of Dionysus? Dionysus provides a link to a very distant past, lost in the mist of prehistory. Panagis Lekatsas describes Dionysus as the most matriarchal god of the ancient Greek pantheon. Modern scholars no longer use the term “matriarchy,” but instead they talk about “egalitarian” societies, without inequality and oppression. These were gradually transformed into agricultural societies with a class-divided, patriarchal structure. But the systematic cultivation of the earth is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of humanity. A few thousand years ago, people lived in relatively small groups as hunters and gatherers. Those primitive societies saw Bacchus/Dionysus as a spirit of nature. He is associated with forests, caves, and the moon, and even with hunting and animals (bulls, goats, snakes, etc.). The ritual dismembering and eating of the victim’s flesh echoes the ancient practice of eating raw food, which later became a kind of sacrament: people become one with their god by symbolically eating his flesh, in other words, the meat of the dismembered animal. One of the major Christian “mysteries” is exactly this—the sacrament of the communion with the “flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.” The bacchic cult was eminently “chthonic,” a term deriving from the Greek word chthon (χθών), which means earth. The Earth, as the Mother who nourishes people with her fruit, has been worshiped since time immemorial. We find her figure in carvings dating to the Paleolithic Era. Although the symbolism of these prehistoric figures is still to be decided, I think that the interpretation emphasizing their divinity seems the most probable. What else would people choose to depict – and honor – than the one thing that was key to their survival? The Earth Mother also had a powerful presence in the ancient Greek and Graeco-Roman world. She was venerated as Gaia, Rhea, Cybele, Demeter, Artemis of Ephesus, or even Isis. Despite their differences and the variety of myths created about them, it is not hard to see their common fertility background. Besides, the Orphic Hymn to Nature highlights in the most revealing way the diversity and power of the “shape shifting” Goddess. Moreover, close to mother goddesses we often encounter an entity that dies and is reborn, symbolizing the perpetual rebirth of nature. This deity often becomes the object of a mystery cult; for example, Persephone, Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus. After all, Dionysus’ mother was Semele, who mated with Zeus, the god of the skies. Her name is believed to stem from the root *dgem, which means “earth” and is found in various forms in Slavic languages. It was the union of earth and sky through life-giving rain that produced crops. In Christianity, the role of the primordial Mother was given to the Virgin Mary, who assimilated many pre-Christian elements; her son “inherited” the traits of the dying and resurrected god. Like Dionysus who was worshiped particularly by women (the Maenads), Jesus was often surrounded by female students. Their role, as well as the status of women in society, was generally downgraded in the official texts of Christianity; however, a careful look at the New Testament and the so-called “Gnostic” texts can be revealing. It is no coincidence that the first person to whom the risen Jesus appeared was a woman, Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel of Phillip, one of the Nag Hammadi scrolls found in Egypt, we read the following: And the companion of [the saviour was Mar]y Ma[gda]lene. [Christ loved] M[ary] more than [all] the disci[ples, and used to] kiss her [softly] on her [hand]. The rest of [the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval]. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The Savior answered and said to them, “Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.” The Gospel of Phillip and other similar texts influenced by Gnosticism provide information that may sound shocking today: Jesus used to call Mary “Apostle of the Apostles,” “the woman who knew everything,” “the Blessed One,” etc. He even called her his “companion” and stated that she will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, surpassing all other disciples! Moreover, in 2012 an exciting find came to light: a papyrus written in the Coptic (Egyptian) language. This text goes a step further featuring Magdalene as the wife of Jesus. Some scholars place it in the 6th-9th c. CE, while others insist that it is a forgery. I would like to close this interview with the words of the famous modern Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos in his poem Dionysus Encradled: “my sweet child, my Dionysus and my Christ.” Poets can say at times what is left unsaid by scientists. Joseph Campbell, the great scholar of mythology. once said: “Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one …
(Poem) Butterflies, Goddess, Love, and Freedom by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Photo credit: By Michele Castagnetti, CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons This poem revolves around three actual events: a couple of months ago I was lying under a rose scented geranium when what looked like a caterpillar dropped into my hair (though inside in winter, which means it couldn’t have been an actual caterpillar and I still don’t know what it was, rather than outside in summer), while I was sitting at my mother’s bedside as she was dying I heard the melody from Madama Butterfly and felt deeply comforted, and, finally, a friend told me the story of how she was watching a monarch butterfly fly for the first time and, just as it lifted off, a flock of monarchs arrived and they all flew off together. When I put the three events together, the message of this poem appeared. In a bold moment, risking oblivion for being’s adventure,The milky caterpillar unfurled her grasp on the leaf,Her emerald rose geranium nursery, and flung herselfLike a trapeze artist, into the swirling maelstrom of my hair, My Medusa’s snake strands winding and waving even at rest to catch herAs I lay on the cool, verdant Earth watching the roiling clouds. I had called the butterflies, the dragonflies and damselflies, the beesTo my garden, enticing with fragrant, nutritious milkweed, motherwort, Jerusalem artichoke.The mother butterfly answered with the gift of her larvae before heading home.I promised her I would lie on the ground, her child in the tangle of my hair,The place where women’s spiritual power nests.I promised her I would be still and comforting until the baby’s summer birth,My hands reaching into the soil and clasping fingers with the mycelium,Sending out the message that I am here for the duration.My eyes dim from the sunlight. My water evaporates to the heavens. To the ancient Greeks, the butterfly is the goddess Psyche, the soul,Essence of beauty and mother of joy.To the Nahua people in Mexico, the butterfly is the goddess Itzpapalotl, the soul,Who wears the symbols of death tattooed on Her face. Many years ago, as I sat vigil at my mother’s side while she was dying,I heard the melody from opera Madama Butterfly.It originated not from this realm,But from the portal opening for her to pass through,A leaving from this life that she loved but which was hers no more.Love is eternal. From that time, butterflies have symbolized to me grief and lossEven as I have craved witnessing their wings beating the air,Circling the garden’s blooms and berries.For years I have tried in vain to lure butterflies to my garden.Did they sense my bereavement and feel unwelcomeUntil now, right at this very moment? Outstretched on the embracing wet soil,The breath of herbs and grass soothing me,I have finally gained the message that my mother tendered to meIn the melody that had brought to my mind in that sad moment the flight of butterflies.“Freedom, freedom,” she had coaxed the angels to sing to me,In words untranslated for me till now.Like the butterflies breaking out of their cocoons,“With a mother’s love, with a Goddess’s love, with the Earth’s love,You are free. We could want no more and no less for you.” A butterfly rises from my hair, fluttering against my cheek.For one moment we see each other. She has human eyes,My mother’s eyes that are also my eyes,So that my mother lives on in me.The baby-no-more dries her wings as a flock of sister butterflies surrounds us.They fly away together and none looks back. I try to fly with them by willing my feet to rise into the skyBut I am heavy and earthbound.Now I am fully human, my fingers no longer part of the mycelium,My eyes no longer dim from the sunlight, my body no longer wet from dew.I take up my life again, myself but also more,With dried wings made not of filament, but of flesh and soul. Hello? Have you come to visit? Please, sit in my garden. We’ll have a cup of tea. We’ll chat. How are you? Did you know that butterflies have just come back to my garden this year? I welcome them when they come and wish them adieu when it is time for them to fly away. What else can I do? https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
(Art Poem) House of Gold by Yvonne M. Lucia

O House of Gold,

(Special Post 3) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Helen Hwang I study and advocate Goddess feminism or Magoism because it is a way of living for me. I find myself in Mago (the Great Goddess) who in turn leads me to the Way wherein I learn how to become the person who I can be. It has to be Mago, the Female Divine, because She is real! She is the Primordial Mother who is the Beginning and the End of everything to us on the planet Earth. She teaches me the real. I can’t negotiate Her to anything less. Helen Hye Sook Hwang, Ph.D. California http://magoism.net Bridget Robertson A Goddessian I was introduced to a form of meditative journeying by a resident in my grandmother’s retirement community. She approached to me. I know she was at least part Native American, and that alone made her the topic of much gossip in the building. Her Rose colored lipstick, deep brown eyes, wrinkles that only helped illuminate her face and a chiffon scarf that matched none of her clothes. I thought she needed help with her groceries. She didn’t. She had me stop the elevator. and directly asked about my looking tired. My response was about being, busy balancing all the areas of my life. In fact I was exhausted doling out time like pieces of pie.
(Special Post 4) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is how Goma is known among the ancient Chinese. She is called The Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian xuannu). Nine Heavens refer to the confederacy of nine states, Danguk or Nine Hans. Statue of Jiutian Xuannü, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiutian_Xuann%C3%BC Another icon of Jiutian Xuannu below. https://www.tinyatdragon.com/blogs/spiritual/jiu-tian-xuan-nu-mysterious-lady-of-the-nine-heavens?fbclid=IwAR0n1Ld6tmxqTec23Pzg3DxRjEQ-DbjdGF1DU_Jjlt4eMbHdTOO9Jd7ePnc Lizzy Bluebell: Oh – now I see what the Buddha riding the deer was carrying; her Gourd. A very interesting link, thanks.”…these statues in Taoism are not for worshipping or praying. They are like a container, a magic tool, which is used to program the energies into profiles and be used for different things in Taoist magic. The outsiders cannot understand too much, and so these “Taoist secrets” are often hidden from the public in the old days or even today.” Lizzy Bluebell: Very informative passage on the power of the NINE:”Nine is the pattern of giving off power, or using up the energies of things to give off powers, just like a flashlight burning it’s battery up for the light. Sky is the pattern that relates to any pool of resources or elements that are considered the proactive party that is “starting” something or the giving side of a situation.Remember that we talk about patterns in Taoism, and it applies to everything including our FU talismans words and these special terms like Jiu Tian / Gau Tin.A practical example for this term can be used as in if you are trying to go to the kitchen and cook something for lunch. Your “sky” here is all the things in the kitchen, and ground is the kitchen itself where you put the food into “process” them. So the 9-sky stage is to have picked out the food you like and let them show themselves to let you know which one is the best to use, maybe some just smell better or some look fresher to you. Nothing has been done yet, but you are now able to “start” something because you can at least feel and sense the food’s potentials and power.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, Oh it is gourd. Yes, I forgot about the gourd symbol for Mago/Magu. It is a container for the elixir from which one drinks. It is a common pictographic/literary theme and I have images of Magu with the gourd. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, this is one heuristic analogy. Ancient Magoists depicted/perceived the universe as Nine Heavens, an equivalent to Nine States on earth for it is the lens of Nine Numerology through which they saw everything. Because ancient China removed the history of Goma, they spiritualized/philosophized the teaching of Nine Numerology. If we have Goma’s history (and the mytho-history of Old Magoism), we can perceive the meaning of Nine Heavenly directly (not through theories or analogies). Wherever and whenever the consciousness of Nine Numerology surfaces is a manifestation of Goma’s rule/civilization/religion. This will remain forever insofar as humanity continues because Nine Numerology is the principle of nature including humans. I would say that the teaching/principle of Nine Numerology is Goma’s self-redemptive soteriological gift. Insofar as we understand and honor the Nine Mago Creatrix/Nine Numerology (the female divine in general), we are endowed with the power of self-redemption. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, the character “Xuan or Hyeon 玄” refers to the quality of gynocentric spirituality, which has been made esoteric or mystic. It refers to the spirituality of the Great Goddess (Magoist spirituality). Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nine Hans or Nine Heavens manifests in such place-names as Kyūkoku (九国, Nine States). Kyushu (Nine Provinces) Island, Japan, seemingly a replica of Danguk (confederacy of nine states) representing the Nine Mago Creatrix, reflects the ancient glory of the Goma’s gynocentric rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyushu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Doumu (Mother of the Northern Dipper) also comes in the icon of eight arms. Doumu, Song Dynasty, Wikimedia Commons Domu, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doumu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: She is often conflated with Marici seated on a boar in her iconography (affine to Gemu of the Mosuo and Durga on a tiger/lion). Here Marici is depicted as four-headed and eight-armed. Marici, Wikimedia Commons Marici (Buddhism) – Wikipedia Judy E Foster: So similar to the Indian Goddess… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Indeed! I am afraid that we may not be able to feature some of the nine forms of Durga from “Hinduism”. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang There is more, Marici. Marici, Wikimedia Commons File:Marichi, Buddhist Goddess of Dawn, China, Qing dynasty, 18th… Marichi, Source below. Marichi (Buddhist Deity) – Kalpoktam (3 faces, 8 hands)… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: This is new info. on the nine tripod caldrons of ancient China. “The Nine Tripod Cauldrons (Chinese: 九鼎; pinyin: Jiǔ Dǐng) were ancient Chinese ritual cauldrons. They were ascribed to the foundation of the Xia (c. 2200 bce) by Yu the Great, using tribute metal presented by the governors of the Nine Provinces of ancient China.[1] At the time of the Shang Dynasty during the 2nd millennium bce, the tripod cauldrons came to symbolize the power and authority of the ruling dynasty with strict regulations imposed as to their use. Members of the scholarly gentry class were permitted to use one or three cauldrons; the ministers of state (大夫, dàfū) five; the vassal lords seven; and only the sovereign Son of Heaven was entitled to use nine.[2] The use of the nine tripod cauldrons to offer ritual sacrifices to the ancestors from heaven and earth was a major ceremonial occasion so that by natural progression the ding came to symbolize national political power[3] and later to be regarded as a National Treasure. Sources state that two years after the […]
(Special Post Isis 3) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 3 Isis, Arab Women Revolution, and Black Goddesses Naa Ayele Kumari Going back to the original topic of the post…. Some quotes ” Women are in half the society… How come there are only 7 in the Assembly… and they are all Islamist! ” I can’t beat up my wife and almost kill her and call it discipline… this is not discipline… this is abuse and insanity” http://youtu.be/y4umifTLSII 12-Year Old Explains Egyptian Revolution in Under 3 Minutes www.youtube.com Max Dashu It is tremendously heartening to see these insights being expressed, and spread. The Salafis have made such inroads, and now the pushback is happening. Harita Meenee Dear Naa Ayele Kumari, thank you actually reading my post and commenting something relevant to it. It’s refreshing when someone does hear what we have to say instead of projecting their own notions. Building a solidarity movement with those who are oppressed but fighting is very important during these critical times! Harita Meenee See also: https://www.facebook.co/intifadat.almar2a?fref=ts The uprising of women in the Arab world انتفاضة المرأة في العالم العربي حرية الفكر ، حرية التعبير ، حرية الاعتقاد ، حرية التنقل ، حرية الجسد ، حرية اللب…See More Glenys Livingstone … as you say Max …” way too much of it going on” – amongst people who should know better (I would have thought): “Dark goddess as terrifying, challenging, white goddess as benign; “black magic” as harmful; I see way, way too much of this going on out there.” And related to that in my mind is all the “love and light” business that is so common: the Ground of Being is Dark … it seems to me that mystics have always understood the quintessential darkness of Love/Deity. Max Dashu Sure. I would just like to add that the critique raised here addressed issues much broader than the substance of the article, which made some good points. But once the choice of graphics flagged the issue of representation, people had much more to say about that old yet still very fresh wound which is constantly reopened by the cultural habit of whitening Egypt, or interpreting Africa through a eurocentric lens. It is not on any one person to carry the weight of that; we all have a responsibility to address the issues, but especially those of us of European heritage need to familiarize ourselves with how this plays out over and over. Just as men have a responsibility to speak up in support of women when patriarchal assumptions are on board. We all can learn something from each other, along all the various axes of domination, and overthrow them in coalition. Naa Ayele Kumari I have often considered where the roots of this psychology comes from. It is dualistic thinking that causes us to compare and contrast, then sum up judgement of good or bad and place a value on each. It extends into competition and justification for war. It also doesn’t escape me that often this came with certain civilizations who systematically destroyed others. It didn’t just happen with blacks in Africa… but blacks in Asia and the Indus Valley as well. With the Aryan invasions of India, came the eventual introduction to lighter divinities and more emphasis on male divinities. Southern Indians, Sri Lankans are very dark… even more so than many African Blacks. The caste systems implemented by the Aryan invaders did the same thing to them casting them as “untouchables”. With that came the marginalization of their black female divinities such as Kali. Kali actually has 10-16 forms… from compassionate mother, the fountain of wisdom, to she of great beauty but she is minimized as just destructive and terrifying… especially as Brhaman, Vishnuu, and Shiva grow in popularity. One of Kali’s statues has her black self standing on top of Shiva because she conquered him. Later there is a discussion in on of the Hindu text explaining Kali (as Parvati) after being subdued by Shiva she becomes lighter. Further they have stories about him rejecting her and calling her blackie which made her do austerities to rid herself of her black skin. Naa Ayele Kumari It should not be overlooked that in the Story of Alice in Wonderland… a story intended to keep Goddess elements for future generations, has the Elder sister ( the Queen of Hearts) portrayed as man, ego, and power driven who cuts off heads and has a fierce dragon…a clear reference to Kali. The White goddess as the younger sister is her opponent… and her mission is to usurp the throne of the Queen of Hearts even though she was the rightful heir as the oldest … or primordial. Stories like these also reinforce the stereotypes and negative iconography. Max Dashu Yes, it is pervasive in many cultures of domination. Demons are portrayed as black not only in Europe, which we know well, but also in China and in a lot of Buddhist iconography. In modern India, the sweet goddesses are shown as pink, the wrathful as black; and Krishna (name means “dark”) is turned powder blue. (Another of his titles, s’yam, also meaning dark, is the word translated as “green” in Green Tara.) The countercurrents (Black Mazu, loving Kali – esp in Bengal and south India, Black Madonna) bubbled up from the common people, who knew and longed for something other than the dominant racialized hierarchy. Naa Ayele Kumari I am just discovering Mazu ( Matzu/LuShui) in China today! Never knew about her. This discussion has led me to look deeper for black goddesses in Asia. Max Dashu Taoist spiritual tradition often refers to Xüan Nü, which can be translated in several ways. You’ll usually see it rendered as “the Mysterious Female,” a phrase that occurs in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), and this is a valid translation; but what is less emphasized is that it also means “the Dark Woman.” In […]

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

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

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(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 …
(Budoji Essay 3) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“Reintroducing the concept of the Mago Species has a profound implication, compelling one’s vocabularies to be changed to the Mother’s Tongue.” [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.] There were Four Heavenly Persons at the four corners of the castle. They built pillars and sounded music. Four Heavenly Persons are the four clan leaders who reside in the four corners of Mago Castle, Primordial Paradise. They are entrusted by Mago to cultivate the acoustical effect of the universe (the original music). While the translation of “pillars” is provisional, it may mean a musical instrument of some primordial sort. Given the importance of stone, a theme reiterated in later chapters of the Budoji, the pillars may refer to the stone structure that supports a musical instrument. Or they may indicate stone chimes or an acoustical rock structure.
(Bell Essay 7) The Magoist Whale Bell: Decoding the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This and ensuing sequels are excerpts of a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Whale Mallet, Temple Bell in Sudeok-sa, Chungnam Korea Sources and Methods of Studying the Magoist Whale Bell It is not possible to present the topic in any comprehensive manner due to its complex and outlandish nature. As a whole, its elusive manifestations makes some of this essay’s premises provisional, leaving room for definite conclusions. I suggest that this essay be read as a primer to the large topic, Korean Magoist cetaceanism. I have built this essay on my previously published essay sequels on the Korean temple bell as well as my book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering the Great Goddess Mago from East Asia, on the Magoist Cosmogony.[1] It also draws from my forthcoming essay on Korean Magoist cetacean culture. Importantly, I am indebted to the work of Sungkyu Kim, advocate of Korean cetaceanism, for his valuable insights on the Korean temple bell and Korean cetaceanism in general. While his cross-cultural assessments of ancient Korean cetacean customs are often compelling, his cetacean hermeneutic on the pacifying flute story is in particular indispensable in securing the evidence of Sillan cetacean worship by the generations of Sillan rulers. That said, however, what distinguishes this essay from his work lies in the recognition that Korean cetaceanism is not monolithic totem worship. I hold that Korean cetaceanism was born and flowered within the context of Old Magoism. Here Old Magoism refers to the pre-patriarchal (read pre-Chinese) tradition of East Asia that venerates the Great Goddess, Mago.[2] In turn, the cetacean consciousness of ancient East Asian Magoists enabled a revelation of the Magoist Cosmogony. Thus, Korean cetaceanism is inextricably intertwined with the mytho-history of Magoism. It went underground, as the symbolic power of women inscribed in Magoism was removed from the public space in the course of history. In this light, Kim’s cetacean thought remains revisionist rather than reconstructionist, meaning not radical enough, unable to ask such critical questions as how the Sinocentric mytho-history of Korea or the Buddhist historiography has rendered Korean cetaceanism invisible and what that means to Koreans and the world. Most critically, Kim’s discussion of the Sillan whale bell and the pacifying flute underestimates their musical (read cosmogonic) implications. They are not of a mere musical instrument to call the whale to dance. True that the concept of music is much underestimated outside the context of the Magoist Cosmogony as a whole. The whale bell as well as the pacifying flute represents the regalia of Sillan Magoist rulers who undertook the Magoist mandate of bringing the terrestrial sonic resonance to harmonize the cosmic music of Yulryeo. The whale bell marks a new watershed wherein Sillan rulers successfully reinvented the legacy of Magoist shaman rulers of Old Magoism from the ancient inland mountain culture into the maritime culture of Silla. Stories on the pacifying flute and Manbulsan (Mountain of Ten Thousand Buddhas), the two major myths directly concerning the cetacean code of Korean temple bells, are drawn from the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three States), the 13th century text that recounts myths, legends, and historical events of ancient Korean States including Silla (57 BCE-935), Goguryeo (37 BCE-668), Baekje (18 BCE-660), and Gaya (42-562) from an orthodox Buddhist perspective.[3] To be noted is that the Samguk Yusa (1281), together with another official historical text of Korea, the Samguk Sagi (1145), is a Sinocentric text that tailors ancient Korean history and territory to fit the historical framework of China. As a Sinocentric text, the Samguk Yusa takes a pro-Chinese perspective and presents ancient Korea as a humble little brother who owes Imperial China for his civilized culture. In it, Korean history and territory are curtailed to fit those of Imperial China. Put differently, the Samguk Yusa is a product of a Buddhist evangelist author, Ilyeon (1206-1289), whose interest was in establishing Buddhism of China and India at the cost of traditional Korean Magoism. Among modern Korean historians who are critical of Sinocentric Korean historiography is Sin Chaeho (1880-1936). As Sin’s advocacy of Korean ethnic historiography is largely aligned with the mytho-historical reconstruction of Magoism, I borrow his assessments of the Samguk Yusa and the Samguk Sagi here. Sin maintains that the loss of pre-Chinese Korean history primarily owes to the two survived Korean history books, the Samguk Yusa and the Samguk Sagi, that reduce and distort ancient Korean history. Precisely because of the Sinocentric (read patriarchal and imperialist) take, these two books have survived the persecution of pre-Chinese Korean Magoist historical books. Sin’s poignant criticism goes on to say that the Samguk Yusa employs the Sanskrit words for the names of people and places from the pre-Buddhist period of Wanggeom Joseon and that the Samguk Sagi ascribes Confucian phrases to the speech of Korean warriors who dismiss Confucius thought.[4] What Sin does not see is, however, that the authors of both books chose to be pro-Chinese or pro-Indian to subvert the female-centered tradition of Old Korea, Magoism. In short, they resort to Buddhism and Confucianism, the two major patriarchal religions of East Asia, respectively over against indigenous Magoism. The patriarchal time was waging a war against Magoists and life in general. I hold that both texts mark the milestones that escalated the process of patriarchalization in Korea, which took place much slowerly and later than in China. Damage is not done to Korean history only. A lie brings more lies. In the case of the Samguk Yusa, the portrayal of Sillan Buddhism is distorted. On the surface, the Samguk Yusa treats Esoteric Buddhism as a reservoir of miraculous legendary stories that fertilized orthodox Buddhism. On a deeper level, it dismantles a tie between Magoist cetacean worship and Esoteric Buddhism. The Samguk Yusa’s Buddhist perspective aligned with the Sinocentric historical framework is inherently inadequate in defining Sillan Esoteric …