June 14, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Art) Soul Sisters by Nicole Shaw

Art by Nicole Shaw — Soul Sisters by Nicole Shaw

This piece, titled, Soul Sisters, is about connection between cultures and how women can, and need to, support one another to overcome oppression in all its forms. Dancing and drumming in harmony.

See (Meet Mago Contributor) Nicole Shaw.

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(Essay 3) The Two Marys of Chartres by Anne Baring

[Author’s Note: This essay in four parts is my webinar talk given to the Ubiquity University online Chartres Community Meeting ‘Madonna Rising’ August 14th, 2020] Mary Magdalene or Mary of Bethany Part 3 Fragment of a fourth-century text of the apocryphal Dialogue of the Savior, in which Mary Magdalene is a central figure. Wikimedia Commons. I would like to say, as a preamble to this article, that this time we are living in is a time of metamorphosis, a time of tremendous and profound change, when what was hidden is coming to light, what was lost two thousand and more years ago is being recovered and restored. We can hear the voices, silenced so long ago, returning to life. There are now many books on Mary Magdalene, published over the last 20 years or so, which show that the feminine archetype is using this channel to activate and spread its influence in the world.[1] The Christian persecutions of the past have ended, so what was lost can be restored without fear. The despicable calumny placed on Mary Magdalene has been removed and we can now understand that she was the beloved consort of Jesus and co-teacher with him in Palestine, later taking the Essene Wisdom Tradition to France. She was, in the words of Tau Malachi, the Holy Bride.[2] She may also have been, as Tricia McCannon writes in her book, Return of the Divine Sophia, “the most important single teacher, aside from Jesus, in the entire Christian movement.”[3] She was the embodiment of the Divine Feminine, the feminine counterpart to the Divine Masculine as held by Jesus. She is also the expression of the Divine Feminine within us and her growing importance reflects the activation of that archetype within our soul and within our culture. To understand the historical and religious context for the joint sacred mission of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, we need to go back to the First Temple in Jerusalem that was built by Solomon around 1000 BC. Drawing on the researches of the Biblical scholar Margaret Barker, Betty Kovacs has revealed in her book Merchants of Light, the enormous change in Hebrew cosmology that took place in 621 BC.[4] Originally, Israel and this great Temple had an ancient, shamanic, visionary tradition where the high-priest communed with the Queen of Heaven, the Holy Spirit. But in 621 BC under a king called Josiah, a powerful group of priests called Deuteronomists took control of the Temple. They banished the ancient shamanic rituals of the High Priest and instituted their own rule. They removed everything to do with the Queen of Heaven, The Holy Spirit and Divine Wisdom. In this First Temple, the Goddess Asherah was worshipped as the consort of Yahweh and was, with Him, the co-creator of the world. The statue of the Goddess and the great Serpent representing her power to regenerate life, were removed from the Temple and destroyed. Her Sacred Groves were cut down. All images of her were smashed. The ancient shamanic rituals of the High Priest which had honoured and communed with the Queen of Heaven as Divine Wisdom and the Holy Spirit were banished and replaced by new rituals based on obedience to Yahweh’s Law. The making of images was forbidden. The Deuteronomists also demoted the Goddess whose title was ‘Mother of All Living’, into the human figure of Eve and created the Myth of the Fall with its message of sin, guilt, punishment, suffering, and the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden to life on earth. The Old Testament scholar Margaret Barker writes that “The tradition of the Temple was rich and complex, but it is essential to keep in mind the massive destruction and cultural revolution at the end of the seventh century BCE and to recognize that no complete reconstruction is possible.”[5] The result was that Yahweh was left as the sole Creator God: the feminine aspect of God was exiled from God and excised from Judaism. The Divine Feminine aspect of the god-head was not only lost to Judaism, but also to Christianity which took its image of God from the Old Testament. However, it fortunately survived, first in the Essene Communities and later, in Gnosticism, Kabbalah and Alchemy. The ancient Wisdom Tradition of the First Temple was lost to the Jews in Palestine but miraculously survived in the large Jewish community in Alexandria where many Jews fled in three waves: at the time of the Deuteronomic takeover of the First Temple in 621 BCE; secondly, in 586 BCE at the time of the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple and a final time, after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. It is astonishing that a myth created by a powerful priesthood who eradicated the Divine Feminine from their image of God has endured for over two and a half thousand years and had a profoundly negative influence on two religions – Judaism and Christianity – as well as two civilizations. This is the unhealed wound that lies at the heart of these civilizations. It is an extraordinary and also a tragic story, whose scattered fragments are gradually being pieced together. I believe, with Betty Kovacs, that the Mission of Jesus and Mary Magdalene was to restore the lost Love-Wisdom teachings and practices of the First Temple.[6] Meeting of MM and Jesus in the Sepulchre Garden. ‘Noli me tangere’ by Fra Angelico . The Mary Magdalene of the hidden Wisdom tradition reveals an entirely different story from the one told in the Gospels. Having researched this subject for many years, there is no doubt in my mind that Mary Magdalene was the beloved consort of Jesus or Yeshua as he was called in Aramaic, and the Apostle to the Apostles, described in a gnostic text discovered at Nag Hammadi called the Dialogue of the Savior as ‘The woman who knew the All’ and ‘the woman whom Jesus loved’. In all four gospels, Mary is described as present …
(Art 6) Hearted, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

She is the one who moves you closer to your heart – reminds you that the mind has it’s own purpose but we pave through with the heart Infancy – the very beginning of Remember the earliest part of your life, when you were a baby!!! It is extremely rare for anyone to remember their own infancy. An amazing amount of growth and development happens during that phase. This collection is aligned with the consciously heightened awakened growth that happened as Meghanaiyegee embarked on her own journey of remembering the Sacred Feminine. A journey to meeting HER, feeling HER, seeing HER, connecting with HER, whispering HER and becoming HER. Meet Mago Contributor Megha
(Essay 9) The Blending of Bön, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture by Krista Rodin

An Uncertain Future Buddhist Temple with Bön and Goddess images at Goddess Gemu Cave. Photo K. Rodin One of the ways the legends have been popularized and coopted is in the public murals that grace the wall outside the Yongling Tourist Office. In keeping with the patriarchal religious traditions of the region, only lamas are allowed to make storyboard murals and paintings, or to interpret them, even when they are placed in public spaces. This means that unless there is a general knowledge of the symbolism and iconography that is associated with the images, the interpretation is subject to guesswork. The murals are supposed to represent scenes from Mosuo history and legends, including a story of the seven fathers and seven stars, six in the sky and one below the earth under the waters. One of the murals is reminiscent of PadmaSambhava, and as this region follows the Black Hat tradition, the great yogi is worshipped, although it may not be intended to be his image. There is a mural of a fire prayer and the worship of fire, as well as scenes of making wine and of carrying water, singing, dancing, and of the former ancient King. The Goddess Gemu is on the last panel riding her white mare, with her rainbow-colored streamers flying in the wind. There is a clear merging of iconographic imagery among the three religious traditions in Mosuo culture, which also makes for vivid tourist posters. Both Green and White Tara appear in the temples alongside the Goddess Gemu and not a few images the Goddess take on Tara’s attributes. The murals in Yongning’s central square demonstrate this merger through a highly selective representation of Mosuo myths that are intended to portray a harmonious, pure and peaceful society. The Bay of the Goddess, a special sacred site on the lake, has so far not been disturbed by the influx of tourism, but these new forces are some that she may not be able to overcome. The seemingly binary opposites of earth and sky, mountain and lake, male and female, shamanism and monasticism, the Goddess and the Buddha became equally balanced in traditional Mosuo culture, even if not in the region’s political sphere. The increase in tourism, however, is changing these configurations by popularizing both Mosuo and Buddhist cultures in the region as tourist attractions. The cable car to Gemu’s sacred cave, the vendors, often not Mosuo, renting costumes on the walking bridge, the literature on “free love” that is promoted to entice young men to the area, the renovations and rebuilding of stupas and temples, as well as the murals themselves bring needed economic growth to the region. The question for the next few years is, how will the binary opposites of economic growth and traditional values, including a respect for the natural world, the Goddess in the lake and mountain, be balanced with new highways, an airport, and new hotels? The Goddess has survived Kublai Khan and the Cultural Revolution, but can she survive this latest invasion? Time, as always, will tell. Works and People Cited and Referenced Anshi, Pan. “The Translation of Naxi Religious Texts.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs, eds. Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu, Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998. 275-309. Arcones, Pedro Ceinos. Sons of Heaven, Brothers of Nature: The Naxi of Southwestern China. Kunming: Papers of the White Dragon, 2012. Aris, Michael. Lamas, Princes, and Brigands: Joseph Rock’s Photographs of the Tibetan Borderlands of China. NYC: China House, 1992. Bliss, Carol. “The Capacity of Folk Song to Reveal Complexities in Musuo Culture.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Claremont Graduate University, Educational Studies, 2004. “A Collection of Studies on the Tibetan Bon Tradition.” http://vajrayana.faithweb.com/ACollectionOfStudiesOnBon.pdf Edwards, Mike. “Our Man in China: Joseph Rock.” National Geographic 191, 1997. 62-81. Gurung, B.C. Bon in the Himalaya. Kathmandu: Uma Gurung Publisher, 2003. Hau, Cai. A Society Without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China, trans. Asti Hustvedt. New York: Zone Books, 2001. Knödel, Susanne. Die Matrilinearen Musuo von Yongning: Eine quellenkritische Auswertung Moderner Chinesischer Ethnographen. Kölner Ethnologische Studien, Band 22, eds. Ulla Johansen and Thomas Schweizer. Cologne: Cologne University Press. 1995. Mathieu, Christine. A History and Anthropological Study of the Kingdoms of the Sino-Tibetan Borderland- Naxi and Musuo. Lewiston: Mellen Press, 2003. Mathieu, Christine. “The Moso Ddaba Relgious Specialists.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin Rites Pictorgraphs, eds. Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum Zürich, 1998. 209-234. Mattison, S. M. “Demystifying the Mosuo: The Behavioral Ecology of Kinship and Reproduction in China’s ‘Last Matriarchal’ Society.” (3431674). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. 2010. (808257489). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.nau.edu/docview/808257489?accountid=12706. Moore, Robert W. “Along the Old Mandarin Road of Indo-China,” National Geographic 60. August 1931. 157-200. Namu, Yang Erche and Christine Mathieu. Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World. New York: Back Bay Books, 2004. Norbu, Namkhai. Drung, Deu and Bön: Narrations, Symbolic Languages and the Bön Tradition in Ancient Tibet. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1997. Oppitz, Michael and Elisabeth Hsu, eds. Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998. Oppitz, Michael. “The Propitiation of Heaven.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, Rites, Pictographs, eds.Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998. 173-188. Peters, Larry. Tamang Shamans: An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal. New Delhi: Nirala Publications, 1998. Rock, Joseph. The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of Southwest China 1-2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947. ______. The Life and Culture of the Nakhi Trine of China—Tibet Borderland. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963. ______. “Konka Risumgongba, Holy Mountain of the Outlaws,” National Geographic, LX. July 1931. 1-65. Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Kathmandu and Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. Shih, Chuan-kang. “Mortuary Rituals and Symbols among the Moso.” In Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin Rites Pictorgraphs, edited by Michael Oppitz and Elizabeth Hsu. Zürich: Völkerkundemuseum, 1998: 103-125. Snellgrove, David. Buddhist Himalaya. Kathmandu: Himalayan Book Sellers, 1995. Turner, Kevin. Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2016. Walsh, E.R. “The Mosuo: …
(Art 7) Inanna, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

Birth-Decline-Reanimation, Every birth carries it’s imprinted death and every death carries it’s imprinted birth Infancy – the very beginning of Remember the earliest part of your life, when you were a baby!!! It is extremely rare for anyone to remember their own infancy. An amazing amount of growth and development happens during that phase. This collection is aligned with the consciously heightened awakened growth that happened as Meghanaiyegee embarked on her own journey of remembering the Sacred Feminine. A journey to meeting HER, feeling HER, seeing HER, connecting with HER, whispering HER and becoming HER. Meet Mago Contributor Megha
(Poetry) Sanctuary by Frances Guerin

Birthing Tree, Wheatsheaf 2020 Corona came shouting STOP! You heard Greta Thunberg say, How dare you! Dear David Attenborough agreed then Jane Goodall said she was going to plant five million trees. Stop the traffic, stop the pollution, the bombing, the rocket launches, the oil tanker spills, the logging and manufacturing all that junk. Corona said, And most of all stop torturing and killing animals in the way you do as if they can’t feel pain, as if they don’t experience love, bawling, chasing the trucks carting away their newborn to be slaughtered. Lamb of God! They are sentient, intelligent, the essence of beauty. Listen, clean your house, take care with people, watch yourself because if you don’t, I just might kill you. Smoke haze over the big cities clears. In Delhi you can see the Himalaya again. America burns. In the sanctuary of the Wombat forest. I rake the debris on the forest floor and burn off praying that summer will not breathe her fiery breath on this place, all hell breaking loose. Under the ancient trees where the Dja Dja Wurrung women gave birth, I see an archway Something moves amongst the leaves, the wind perhaps The spirits of those not considered worthy of life, chanting their song of the Dreamtime. The trees remember them. Listen! I place my head against the gnarled lumps of bark about the size of an infant’s head The hollow interior of the tree is quiet The sun shines its rays through of the dense lofty branches of the forest that meet like a vaulted ceiling of Gothic architecture. This is my chapel, this is my cathedral. https://www.magoism.net/2014/03/meet-mago-contributor-frances-guerin/
(Poem) The Neighbours Send a Message by Harriet Ellenberger

Moose, deer, lynx, coyote, bear, skunk, porcupine, snowshoe hare, hawk owl, ant, crow, honey bee, all who live in the woods behind the house I live in, now formally address the human race: We, aforementioned children of earth, together with all our relations, and by the power of spirit that moves in all things, do hereby protest vehemently the destruction of our homes. We have kept watch in silence while you made war on each other, but our time for surveillance and fleeing is finished. We will not watch without intervening while you mindlessly kill our mother. [Many thanks to Monica J. Casper (co-editor of Trivia: Voices of Feminism www.triviavoices.com) for encouraging me to turn a flippant e-mail remark into a finished piece.] A note on the hawk owl, for those who live outside her territory: The hawk owl is a northern owl who hunts silently by day. If you’re a field mouse in the wrong place at the wrong time, her shadow will be the last thing you see. If, however, you’re too big to be on her luncheon menu, you are free to calmly admire her fluffy-feathered beauty, her grace in the air, and the stealth and precision of her strikes. A note on “the power of spirit that moves in all things”: Watching animals, birds, insects, reptiles, and being influenced by them, has given me the idea that they feel “the power of spirit that moves in all things,” that they’re plugged into cosmic mind. I think humans used to be plugged into cosmic mind too, but that the social systems which developed with patriarchal religions broke the connection. Since then, we’ve been rushing around out-of-sync with everyone else on the planet, and, as a consequence, increasingly unhappy and destructive. I especially love the many images of Goddess-with-her-sacred-animals because these images help me feel again what the other beings on earth feel; they help me reconnect to universal intelligence. (Meet Mago Contributor) Harriet Ann Ellenberger.
The Old Antlered One by Jude Lally

Art by Jude Lally I am a product of the land I was born on. If you were to cut me open you’d find my bones are made from bedrock, my lungs are made of heather and moss and my heart beats in tune with the heartbeat of the old ones. For as long as I can remember I have had conversations with the land. Not a conversation of words, a conversation of sensation, the brush of a crow’s wing, the power of twilight, and the invitation to rest by a familiar tree trunk. These things evolved over the years alongside deep grief in burying relatives in her soil as well as the unbridled joy of experiencing the the body’s familiarity with the beat and tempo of walking an undulating landscape. The squish of bog and star moss islands, a high step through bracken, stepping stones over the stream. Wading through the swimming dance of high grass, following the sheep trails through bouncy clumps of heather and the heart-beating scramble up mountainside scree – these are all sensations that my body remembers. Even though my father’s family are Irish they are also intimate with the land of Western Ireland. I have listened intently to this landscape all my life, sat by the boulders at the edge of the Loch (Lomond) marked by the striations of long gone ice ages and drew my fingers across the rock scars like they were an ancient language. “If myth really was the power of place speaking, then I had to bend my head daily to its murmurs’”— Martin Shaw. Scatterlings. Getting Claimed in the Age of Amnesia A Disappearing Act When I was young my dad used to take us walking up around the local hills up above Loch Lomond, Scotland. Among the stones at the top of Carman Hill I would sit ever so quietly, scrunching up my eyes and in my imagination, I ripped up the roads, made all the cars disappear and with a final blink I removed the houses and the streets. I always wanted to see what this place looked like a long, long time ago. Then I would hold my breath to see if I could see the old ones that I knew used to live here, the ones from the times before the roads and the cars and the houses. Even though I never saw those ancient people, I felt them. I felt the presence of the energies of the land, sensing that these lands were sacred and up by the stones at the top of the hill was a place where this world flowed into the other worlds. Years later I began to see those original people on the move and it took a while to realize that they were following great herds. Probably more years before I realized these herds were reindeer. While studying the Geology of the area at University I came across an article which described the finding of a reindeer antler not too far (as the crow flies) found in glacial moraine unearthed in the building of a railway line. Proof that reindeer really were in the area. Old Antlered One – by Jude Lally This is a story about ‘The Old Antlered One’ as I call her. She is the spiritual bedrock of this place. I encountered her before I knew anything of antlered goddesses or antlered women and at that time my main source of an antlered creature was Herne the Hunter from UK kids programs such as Robin of Sherwood and the Box of Delights. In her essay ‘Elen – Goddess of the Ways’ Caroline Wise recalls: ‘Thinking of Mascen’s dream journey, and my idea that this may connect to shamanic flight, I decided to try an experiment. Not having fly agaric to hand, I induced a method of astral projection and invoked Elen. I visualised myself walking through snow, in a bleak landscape. Soon I was ‘astral travelling’ now above the land and completely in the moment and no longer needing to consciously invoke the images. Looking down I saw a pathway littered with bones and antler. It had the appearance of a simple rail track, laid out on the snow, and I realised that this represented the migratory route of the deer. I was following this track that had seen millions of beasts over millennia. I knew it went back aeons, before the Ice age, a memory that was in our genes and in the land itself. The bones and antlers represented the ancestors of the beasts who still, where they could, walked these paths today. I was ‘told’ that these were the ‘oldest pathways in the world’. I felt a huge rush of energy, and the path suddenly rose up, looped out and back on itself, and the bones and antlers formed into a skeleton of a giant elk, rearing up in front of me. It twisted around and started to move forward. This was so dramatic that I snapped back form my astral journey, much to my frustration – if I had stayed with it, I am sure it would led me to discover more. I have never been able retrace that track! While meeting a great elk figure was the end of that story for Caroline, meeting a great skeletal figure is where my story begins. Irish Elk My first experience with the Old Antlered One was meeting a huge skeletal figure. I knew she wasn’t an elk as she was female and her tall branching antlers pointed towards a link to reindeer as they are the only cervids with antlers. The Old Antlered One One night, under a dark moon, with the invitation of the the the rhythmic heartbeat of the drum I sank down. Down into the earth, through many layers holding the bones of ancestors, both human and animal. There in the darkness of that place between the worlds, I emerged at the top of the mountain. In that magical place …
(Poetry) Whales and the Cosmos by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

What if whales are singing the music of the spheres? What if whales sing in the rhythms and tones of creation creating? What if whale song brings forth new being? What if whale song travels beyond earth’s bubble of air? What if whale song reaches the stars? What if whales sing to the stars? What if the stars sing back? – Harriet Ann Ellenberger, 15 December 2018 note: “Whales and the Cosmos” was inspired by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang’s most recent work in reconstructing the old mytho-history of East Asia, in which whales, stars and creation-through-sound play a large part (see her articles in Return to Mago E-zine). The wild-eyed questions in the poem are mine, but she was the muse. Scientists are still not certain what purpose is served by the lengthy and extraordinarily complex songs of whales. Meet Mago Contributor, Harriet Ann Ellenberger. The image is from the blog “Cosmic Reflections” by David Oesper.
(Photo Essay 4) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part IV: Revival of the Gurang (Nine Maidens) Gaeyang Halmi There is more to reveal. As I write this part of the photo essay, I have encountered new information, previously made available online by individuals and organizations. It is reported that the “Suseong-dang” (水聖堂, Sea Saint Shrine) was once called the “Gurang-sa” (九娘祠, Nine Maidens Shine), of which I never heard before.[i] That Suseong-dang is a fake name blew my mind! Note the difference of gender between “the Nine Maidens Shrine” and “the Sea Saint Shrine”! The female-connoted term was stolen just like that! “Gurang-sa,” a female-referenced term as the character “rang” means a maiden, had to go due to its overt female representation. It is not without grounds that I was taken aback to see its present logography, “the Sea Saint Shrine,” on the information board.[ii] I almost heard a voice warning me, “This is not the place that you think it is!” That voice attempted to force me to leave the place without further investigation. However, I intuitively took a mental note, “Something is not correct here.” And I was right! Its name change sheds a consistent light on the meddling of patriarchal distortion/deception done to the tradition of Gaeyang Halmi. Readers are reminded of the lost painting of Gaeyang Halmi, which was replaced by that of the Sea God explicated in Part 2 of this photo essay (also Part 3). Like “the Sea God,” “the Suseong-dang” constitutes no reality. It is not only a conceptual deception but also a theft of the intangible cultural heritage, righteously committed by faceless patriarchal men disappeared into the lapse of time. It is clear that systematic erasure of the Female/Goddess has been in operation. Female power embodied whether in the name of the shrine or in the iconography was stripped away. However, it is proven once again that the Female is immortal because it constitutes the root of patriarchy. People smuggled the forbidden knowledge of the Female to later generations through oral stories. Thus, we find the folklore of the Female subversive.

(Special Post 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.
(Special Post 5) 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.] Annie Finch For me, Goddess is completely different from God–Goddess means acceptance of the sacred WITHIN the physical instead of transcending the physical; acceptance of death and life as equally sacred; and the holiness of changing cycles…. Annie Finch, Maine anniefinch.com Marie de Kock Why Goddess spirituality? Goddess spirituality is crucial for our survival and the survival of our planet. I’m referring to every woman’s connection and relationship with her own Spirit which resides in her heart, and her own divine ability to create, which springs from her womb. The womb is infinitely more than a reproductive organ; it is a replica of the Cosmic Womb or Mago. From that profound pool of infinite silent knowledge, women can access the solutions so urgently needed to recover the equilibrium the world with its God spirituality has lost, and women can dream the solutions into being. It is the intelligence of the heart and intelligence of the womb that humanity needs in order to balance out the ill effects of our noisy ‘rational’ left brained society. Women carry the keys to the wisdom within them. Female spirituality is the door. Marie is in Chile for now http://ninenormalwomenwithwings.com Leslene Della-Madre Goddess among many things to me is a verb–Goddessing. “Goding” isn’t the same. She is Love in action in all things–she is the cosmic gen-Her-ator bringing life into form from primordial chaos, the twin serpents of coming and going. She is the plasMA of the YoniVerse filling space with her divine essence creating great beaded necklaces of galaxies all connected to each other by electric pathways. She is the All and Eternal. Leslene Della Madre, California USA midwifingdeath.com Diane Horton Sacred Goddess Sisterhood Each of our stories as women who have come to embrace the Goddess are varied and interesting. Certainly interesting to each other, as our spirits long to resonate with another who has had a similar journey. Mine began while I was still a member of the Episcopal Church and a Christian. But relative to many, it was not that long ago, just 18 years. Some women have been knowing and worshiping the Goddess for more than 30 years, some have only just come to the reawakening and re-membering recently. Some of us call ourselves witches, some priestesses, or both. Some do not identify with either of those words and simply say they have immersed themselves in the Divine Feminine, or that they worship the Goddess. Some will say they are Pagan or Wiccan or Dianic Wiccan. Whatever we call ourselves, or do not call ourselves, we are all Sisters in Goddess, those who worship the Great Mother. And though our numbers are growing, seemingly almost daily, we are still in a minority. We need those who are articulate to voice our views and we need wise teachers who can share practices, philosophy and knowledge with those who are eager for such spiritual food. One of the great things about this Goddess Path is that, although there is much written and oral knowledge to be had for those who seek it, the deepest part of this path is experiential. Personal experience with Goddess, deep within ourselves, and having our eyes opened to Her all around us all the time, seeing and feeling Her magic in our lives, knowing Her love and nurturance in our hearts. We have no dogma, no set of rules or commandments, no rigid ideology. We have our own hearts to guide us into all acts of love and pleasure, compassion, humility and reverence which are Her rituals. When we express strength, hold our power and honor life, as well as giggle and laugh, those are Her rituals, too. There are the Women’s Blood Mysteries, which set women apart from men who worship the Goddess, but that should serve to unite women in a strong eternal bond, not alienate men. There is no place for hierarchy. We are all women equal to each other as daughters of the Goddess. We cannot, we must not, allow the patriarchal mindset to contaminate Feminine Spirituality. No hierarchy, no duality, no controlling others. If we want to see a world in which the Divine Feminine is prominent, the world that many of us believe is coming, we need to take a good, hard look at ourselves in the mirror of our Sisters’ eyes and all of us individually commit ourselves to Unity, Sisterhood and Unconditional Love. That does not mean we will never disagree, and sometimes disagree vehemently, but it does mean we do not allow those disagreements to fracture us as a body of women or to damage or destroy our Sisterhood. There are many teachers who have their own followings of students, their own coursework, their own publications and newsletters, their own festivals they work all year to organize and make manifest. This is a good thing! Especially with the national economy the way it is now many, many women cannot afford to travel very far from their homes, so the fact that there are festivals in diverse parts of the country is no doubt just as the Goddess desires. Those who know of Her and hear Her call are greatly benefited by all of these in mind, heart and spirit. We all need each other. We who can spread this information far and wide need to do so, not just think of and promote the one group or project we are involved in ourselves individually. This is the BIG PICTURE. This is how the movement moves forward. This is how the Goddess gathers Her women (and men). Unification of purpose. Standing together. Supporting each other in concrete ways. We are Women of Goddess. Her spirit […]
(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is another image of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra slain by Herakles. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(mythology)… Glenys Livingstone: Yes, the Hercules story is more documentation of the Old Battle, of the rise of the “hero” to slay the Mother, when in the earliest of times he served with his beauty and labours. It is so interesting to see the analogies in other cultures/places as you are doing Helen, especially in Asia – it seems important work. Your perseverance is paying off, and will. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Glenys, I am re-reading a book on Chinese mythology and found a lot more on the nine Magoist symbolism. Someday, I hope to write about the topic in its own right. Glenys Livingstone: This chapter’s work is good re the Old Battle in Greek mythology: Valaoritis, Nanos. “The Cosmic Conflict of Male and Female in Greek Mythology”, in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Joan Marler (ed). Manchester CT: Knowledge, Ideas and Trends Inc., 1997, p.247 – 261. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Now back to the female divine who is depicted with the nine heads. See the nine-headed Guanyin/Kannon/Gwaneum. Also note that her icon comes in eleven-headed (the 8 Daughters and the Triad Creatrix, which makes eleven). http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: The symbol of nine dragons was adopted by imperial China. See the Nine Dragon Wall China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We connect the dots. When Guanyin is depicted with nine dragons, it conveys that the nine symbolism was/is once deemed sacred. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/17/b3/4a17b33d9a4ae53bad6466a0eaf11722.jpg How popular the Guanyin icon, three headed and eight armed, to this day! Simply Google “eight armed Guanyin.” Below is from the Late Ming Dynasty, China. https://www.google.com/search?q=eight%20armed%20guanyin… She comes in a different name, Ushnishavijaya, in Tibetan Buddhism. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65445 Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We can draw that the female deity such as Guanyin and Ushnishavijaya, just to name two, is venerated in association with the nine symbolism. Within the mytho-history of Magoism, I infer that Guanyin or Ma Guanyin is a persona embodying Goma, the Magoist Shaman ruler of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE), the head of Nine Hans (Magoist Koreans). Note that Magoist shamans or priestesses are called “Mago.” See my essay, “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology,” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 2018. The insight that the major Goddesses in East Asia and beyond point to the same and old divine persona is NOT farfetched, considering that the nine-headed snake or dragon representing the female sovereignty of pre-patriarchal times is slain by male heroes across cultures. Judy E Foster: I’d have to agree with you here. As usual, interesting information! Patty Kay: My meditation this morning was on a history of mysticism. While I’m in the midst of appropriating all of the wonderful beliefs I find here, I also have found a strand in my own tradition that helps me understand why all the Divine Feminine stuff makes so much sense to me. I’ve been trying to determine when the patriarchal world view took over. According to this history, mysticism began to emerge in about 800 to 500 BCE. Could it be that mysticism kept alive the ancient understanding of the cosmos? This is just speculation, but in it I’m answering my own questions. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.

(Essay) The Wheel of the Year and Climate Change by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
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 …
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/

(Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part I The bell as both a percussion instrument and an idiophone is one of the most pacific, sublime, and ingenious human inventions. It appears cross-culturally from the remote past. Its artistic and ritualistic aspects are fairly well recognized by many. However, many overlook that the bell is a female icon with functionality. Put differently, the bell symbolizes the Goddess, the female who has the purpose. This essay, to be written in parts hereafter, will examine the symbology of ancient Korean bells and explore its implications with regard to Magoist history, cosmogony, and soteriology. At the outset, I posit that ancient Korean bells cast in the form of a woman’s body are there to awaken humanity to the arcane reality of the Female, that is Mago. In East Asia, bell connotes two distinct types, the open ended and the enclosed. In Korean, the open ended bell is called jong (鐘, Chinese zhong), whereas the enclosed one is called bang-ul or ryeong (鈴, Chinese ling). Jong and bang-ul are also distinguished by size. While the former tends to be larger, the latter are commonly used by a shaman or diviner to hold and shake (a group of bang-uls) to invoke the spirit. However, these differences are not unbridgeable. Some bang-uls are open-ended, like jong. By definition, jong is a bell made of metal not stone. (The character jong 鐘 has the radical (basic element) of geum 金, metal or gold. The stone bell is called gyeong.) When jong is used in music, in particular as a musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, it is called pyeon-jong (編鍾, Chinese bianzhong). Perhaps the invention of pyeon-jong follows pyeon-gyeong (編磬, Chinese bianqing), a stone musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped stone chimes. Discussing the differences between the two instruments goes beyond the purpose of this essay. Suffice it to say that jong was likely a metallic replica of gyeong presumably first introduced in the Bronze Age. (See the images below for comparison.) My primary focus in this essay is on jong, in particular the Korean bells cast in the 8th century CE and thereafter. The beauty and significance of ancient Korean bells shed a new light on ancient Korea to be re-dis-covered in relation to Magoism. Both scholars and the public appear to be unaware that the ancient bells of Korea symbolize the female principle as well as woman’s body. It is my hope that this essay allows the ancient bells of Korea to reverberate through time and call people to return to the female origin. Ancient Greek Bells as Woman’s Body A variety of jong from the ancient world appears across cultures. The most explicitly rendered bells which mirror the female form are the terracotta bell figurines of Greece (Thebes) dated circa the 8th century BCE. Both are housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Protruded breasts are placed on the upper part of the bell. The body of the bell is sculpted to resemble the skirt that she is wearing. Two arms annexed from her shoulders appear to be aesthetic rather than functional. The elongated neck is made as a handle to be held. Her neck is adorned with elaborate necklaces. Geometrical designs and swastikas are compelling in both figurines — rife with arcane meanings. The legs are made as mallets. Imagine, then, where the sound comes from upon being shaken! It is her belly, more precisely the vulva from which the sound originates. In the first, above, icon of the Greek bell, women are drawn on the bell’s body in a simplified and exaggerated manner. They are connected with each other hand in hand forming a circle, perhaps dancing a circle dance. As a whole, the bell depicts a dancing woman with her arms raised, standing on her toes. The women painting befits the spirited nature of the bell. In the second, above, icon of the Greek bell, 39.5 cm in height, her breasts are highlighted, encircled by the drawing of two circles. Thus, they appear to be more nipples than breasts. Her arms are laid downward as if pointing to the birds standing below on each side. Each bird is holding an elongated earthworm-like swirling thing at the tip of its beak. Geometric designs in the center of her body are catchily inviting to interpretations. The symmetrical balance is heightened. She appears to stand firmly or be ready to walk. As shown below, one leg when placed out to the side conveys to its viewer that the legs are mallets and at once creates a look that she is real, in motion. In my documentation, the Greek bell idols and ancient Korean bells are the only two groups that are explicitly made in the shape of a woman’s body. Yet, as to be shown shortly, these Greek bell idols, far smaller in size, date about a thousand years earlier than the ancient Korean bells. Furthermore, there is a vast geographical distance between the two bell icons. In comparing them, however, I have no intention to assume that the ancient Greek bell figurines are the earliest of their kind. (It is difficult to discuss the origin of bell as a woman’s body due to the nature of the task, too complex and daunting. It suffices to say that the Chinese bells, dated older than the Thebes bell figurines, have relevance to ancient Korean bells, a point to be discussed at a later part.) Ancient worlds appear not too heterogeneous to say the least, as moderns tend to think. Sillan Bells Let me begin with introducing some ancient Korean bells from the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE) and their major features that are also uniquely ancient Korean (read Magoist). They sound beautifully and deeply when struck. Sounding waves are calculated in the structure of the bell upon being cast. It is known that there are eleven jongs extant from the United Silla period. Only five of them are currently located in Korea, whereas the rest are in Japan. These bells are known as beomjong, a term referring to a bell in Buddhist temples used for Buddhist …
(Book Excerpt 4) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] This chapter,[i] interweaving the personal (how I came to study Mago) and the political (why I advocate Magoism), informs the general and particular tenets of Magoism. My study of Mago was, although it took the form of a doctoral dissertation, ultimately motivated by my self-searching quest as a Korean-born radical feminist. I came to encounter the Great Goddess known as Mago in East Asia by way of several detours on my life’s journey. Like my non-Western and
(Book Excerpt 6) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] Magoism, East Asian Religions, and Magoist Mudangs As mentioned above, Magoism refers to the totality of human civilization that is ultimately gynocentric. Speaking from a narrow perspective, Magoism is the primordial matrix from which such East Asian religions as Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were derived. In the light of Magoism, a patriarchal religion is redefined as a pseudo-Magoism that which has co-opted the Way of the Great Goddess (Magoism) with the androcentric reversal of the female