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100 Day Anniversary Free Download, She Rises Vol 2

Mago Books is happy to announce the three-day free download for the Amazon Kindle E-Book in celebration of its 100 day anniversary! Mark the dates and share the info with your friends and families. …

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(Art 1) Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

Ishtar, Protectress of Priestesses 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 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 Vanir Maiden, Guardian of Growth and Sejd Fröja is the most important goddess in the Asir pantheon, familiar from the world-famous Eddas. Older translations of the Eddas have maintained the apparently original Fröja or Fröa/Fröe, but the modern trend, to let the Icelandic language act as a representative for all the old northern cultures, made translators favor the Icelandic spellings of her name, Freja, Freyia, Freyja, instead.[1] But whereas the Icelandic word, freyja/freja/freya has no meaning in Scandinavian languages, Fröja/Fröa/Fröe from frö (seed) is perfectly understandable in both Old Norse as in all the modern continental languages. As carrier of all future seeds (frö) in her cosmic womb, Fröjapersonifies the abstract and ultimate feminine principle, the life-giving (rather than the creating).[2] If to judge solely from the innumerable geographical place-names all over Denmark, Norway and Sweden, like Fröabjär, Frövi, Fröadalen, Fröagölen, Frölunda, many of which are known as old shrines and holy places, there would be no doubt left to her original name being Fröja or Fröa (same pronunciation) – but no old Freja-names found.[3] Old expressions have: “Fröa is out to see if rye is ripe” or “Fröa makes fire with steel and flint.”[4] The earliest ON word for mature womanwas frö/fru (seed-carrier). In the patriarchal, medieval Icelandic language it got a twist, and became a title, signifying only married women, fróvur.[5] As such, it matches the modern Scandinavian words Fru (Mrs), Fröken (Miss) and Jungfru (Virgin, maiden). Interestingly, besides being a title of a married woman, the German word Frau and the Dutch Vrouw managed to keep its original meaning, a woman. And for sure, the VanirFröja was never wife of, or second to, any man, by free will. She owns herself. She owns her own life-giving ability. The door to her private chamber was locked – unless she wished to open it, the Eddas inform.[6] In Asgård, goddesses are portrayed still to own relative autonomy and independence, probably a reflection the situation of women in contemporary time, still enjoying a certain, though limited, amount of freedom, lingering on from their sovereignty in days-gone-by. The Bride of Spring Fröja, and Her Twin Brother Fröj Fig. 24. BRAIDO (from right to left), BRIDE Östergötlands runes KJ54, Himmelstalund Fröja is growth, the power that awakens in the sleeping seeds when winter is over. Like the power of the life-giving potential is awakened in the young maiden, Fröja is therefore the symbol of maturity, and the universal Bride of Spring.[7] In Scandinavia she was once also known as BRAIDO (bride). Into the holy mountain at Himmelstalund, Norrköping covered with Bronze Age rock art figures (1800-500 BCE), her runes were carved into the rock as late as 200-400CE (Fig. 24).[8] The Braido-runes are the oldest rune letters known to be carved on the face of bedrock. They witness still that “Bride was here.” Fröja personifies the colorful, blooming beauty of spring and youth, and the sexually mature and independent, young woman at the peak of her procreating power – not yet having birthed children. She is the symbol and guardian of all new life sprouting, ranging from physical life to abstract ideas and projects to be launched. Her power lies within every menstruating or pregnant female being, woman and animal, as well in the seed and fruit of all female plants. She is not a creatrix goddess, if creatrix means modelling out creation based on imagination (as known from male creators); rather she personifies the feminine life-giving potential, meaning to give birth to new individuals. She is the power itself to grow and re-new. She is connected to the birth-giving, breastfeeding, and to the care of the newborn.[9] Her twin brother, Frö or Fröj mirrors the masculine life-giving potential and fertility (not a creator either).[10] Like their sibling parents, this twin couple, Fröja and Fröj also makes a sibling-based parental pair. Contrary to what the Eddas says in Lokesenna 32; “Foulest of witches (völva), you lay in the arms of your brother. Here the bright gods caught you,” they are not lovers. Their beloved respectively, with whom they beget children, is another matter to which we will return. The brother Fröj is identified by his over-sized phallus in Viking iconography; once in earlier societies the phallus was seen as the un-perverted symbol of blessing, health and happiness of life (Fig. 25, 26).[11] As Nor (oceans), also Fröj (rain) is linked to water. Fröj is rain and raindrops, sustaining life. He will shower and sustain Fröja with fresh drops of water during her summer-season of pregnancy, life-giving, and growth. But as Nor’s salty waters cannot mate with the fertile earth, neither does Fröj’s falling rain automatically spark new life to grow. For sure, it rains all year round, but pouring autumn and winter rain will not lure any seeds to start growing. Both Fröja and Fröj personify metaphorically the abstracts: growth and fertility. The Vanir greeting, Till Árs ok Frid (For Good Harvest, Harmony and Peace) is connected to Fröja and Fröj.[12] Among the many Fröja and Fröj fertility symbols, the sow and boar are well-known. Fröj rides a golden boar, Gyllenborste/Hildisvin. And as the only mammal to give birth to 25-30 piglets, even twice a year, the sow is the self-evident fertility symbol of Fröja. Syr (sow)[13] is another name for Fröja; and at geographical Fröa/Fröja-sites, oral legends will sometimes tell that these places are guarded by a Drottning Tryne (Queen Snout/Sow).[14] In a common legend tied to such Fröja-Sow-places, a priest from the new religion (Christianity) has been called for to give an old lady her last communion before dying. Suspecting the old place …
(Art) Itzpapalotl by Lydia Ruyle

Itzpapalotl is a fearsome skeletal being with jaguar talons and obsidian tipped wings. In addition to Mexico, black obsidian glass is the gift of other volcano goddesses at Catalhuyuk in Anatolia and Pele in Hawaii. Itzpapalotl is the patroness of women who died in childbirth and goddess of the realm of paradise, Tamoanchan. She is a tzitzimime ancestor spirit. Source: Codex Borgia Read Meet Mago Contributor, Lydia Ruyle and her other posts here.
(S/HE Article Excerpt) Reinstating Matriversal Motherhood by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Available in S/HE V1 N1 [Editor’s Note: This article was previously published and is now available for a free download in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies in Volume 1 Number 1. Do not cite this article in its present form. Citation must come from the published version in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies 1,1 (2022): 115-138 (https://sheijgs.space/).”] This essay undertakes the task of introducing, exploring, and discussing the Magoist infant-rearing custom of traditional Korea known as Dandong Siphun (檀童十訓 단동십훈 Ten Instructions for Dan Children) in its oral and written sources.[1] Dandong Siphun (Ten Instructions for Dan Children) refers to a series of nurturing interplays between the mother and her pretoddler infant, “the Home Interplay,” a concept that this essay entertains. Engineered to care for an infant in the stage from womb to walking, Dandong Siphun (hereafter DDSH) employs such foundational human actions as talking, chanting, cuddling and hugging for the task of providing developmental care for the infant. During this period, a child is prepared for an ability to speak and a mobility to walk around independently. Walking freely marks the developmental goal of infanthood in DDSH. And it does not just mean an ability to use legs for the child’s mobility. It means a walking on the Way of the Creatrix. Implications of DDSH are multilayered and multifaceted. Through DDSH, traditional Magoist Korean mothers have maintained and transmitted the matricentric socio-cultural-spiritual way of living from one generation to another. For new readers of my research concerning Mago, the Creatrix, Magoism refers to the consciousness of the Creatrix expressed through the socio-historical-cultural customs of traditional Korea/East Asia and beyond.[2] Concerning the significance of pretoddler childcare, DDSH’s pre- and proto-linguistic developmental conventions are doubtless foundational in the formation of matricentric personhood. A newborn is newly born as a toddler through DDSH plays. The DDSH interplay, tailored by Magoist mothers, awakens the babies to the matriversal consciousness in the process of growing into an adult human being. DDSH is a practice that shapes the body-mind-soul of an infant. Crystallizing matriversal motherhood, DDSH comes to us moderns as soteriology. Humans must stand on matriversal motherhood for the survival and welfare of all beings. I have recently coined the word, matriverse (the maternal universe), to convey pre-patriarchally originated Magoist motherhood and its worldview. “Matriverse” rearranges the reality with the Creatrix at the center. Matriversal motherhood is not just an expansion of motherhood into outer space. It goes downwards and sidewards too. Matriversal motherhood concerns a total state of life in the matriverse. Its root lies in the inter-cosmic bond between matricentric humans and the natural world headed by whales. Why whales? Humans do not stand alone or outside the natural world cared for by whale mothers. Matricentric humans are backed by matricentric whales from within the natural world. To be noted is that DDSH is aligned with other Korean cetacean folk practices including the postpartum diet of miyeok-guk (the sea mustard “birthday” soup), the podaegi (a baby sling) custom of carrying a baby on one’s back, Samsin-sang (Dinner Altar offered to the Triad Great Mother) for the one hundred day and one year birthday of a baby, all of which comes under Magoist Cetaceanism,[3] which requires an extensive discussion elsewhere. I mean to say that DDSH is not a single isolated peculiar practice of traditional Korea. Ultimately, DDSH is a specific expression of the Magoist belief in which a baby’s birth and mortality are determined by the “decision” of Mago Samsin Halmi, the Mago Birth Great Mother, and in which all beings, upon death, return to where they came from, the Home of Mago the Creatrix, the northern center of the universe. The DDSH custom underwent a brief period of oblivion among the public in the early 20th century. In recent decades, Koreans have rediscovered that DDSH was the traditional infant-rearing custom of their ancestors. Although the term, Dandong Siphun, may still be unfamiliar to many Koreans, some individual instructions such as do-ri do-ri (도리도리), jaem jaem (잼잼), and jjak-jjak-kung (짝짝꿍) would be too easily recognizable for them to mention. That is because those forms of mother-infant play are commonly practiced among Koreans to this day. Almost all Koreans were likely taught them at one point in their infanthood or saw them in dramas and films as well as within the family.[4] Both women and men in Korea are increasingly voicing the benefits of the DDSH custom with a sense of amazement and pride. Young mothers have consciously adopted DDSH techniques. Yet, no one has articulated matriversal motherhood embodied in the DDSH custom. In praising DDSH, male advocates attribute DDSH to the Korean indigenous thought of viewing infants as heaven-given. They don’t seem to see the mother as a representative of the Creatrix or Heaven. In fact, patriarchy does NOT want to see mother as a divine representative. If the mother is not divine, no infant could be deemed divine. Because an infant is issued from its mother. My task in this essay is to provide the Magoist context to DDSH practices. I investigate relevant lore, language, mytho-history, and thought of traditional Magoist Korea. The Dandang Siphun custom of Magoist Korea reenacts the reality of matriversal motherhood through mother-infant interplays conducted during the pretoddling period, creating a postnatal foundation for an infant to grow into a healthy, intelligent, and happy matricentric person. With its semantic origin in the pre-patriarchal times of the Danguk confederacy (3898 BCE-2333 BCE),[5] DDSH has been transmitted primarily by mothers and grandmothers throughout generations.[6] To be completed within an approximately one year scheme, DDSH mothers implement a series of progressive interplays stage by stage in a timely manner. The mother guides her infant to mimic her crafted actions and vocalizations, which are to induce an optimized developmental (physical, cerebral, linguistic, emotional, and spiritual) growth in the latter. DDSH mothers see the period of infant’s dependency as a crucial time to begin a time-old matricentric socio-cultural-spiritual education. During this period of childhood dependency, Magoist mothers intend to …
(Essay 1) The Myriad Faces, Marvelous Powers, and Thealogy of Greek Goddesses by Mara Lynn Keller, Ph.D.

Available at Mago Bookstore [Editor’s Note: This and the forthcoming sequels are originally published in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018). Part 1 introduces the six sections of this essay (The Co-Evolution of Greek History and Mythology; Goddesses of Birth, Nurture, Death, and Regeneration—in Neolithic Greece; Rejoicing in the Goddess Religion—in Bronze Age Crete; The Cultural Shift from Mother Rite to Father Right—in Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece; Patriarchy versus Matriarchy—in Classical Athens; and Greek Goddess Thealogy and the Contemporary Women’s Spirituality Movement for Eco-Social Justice) and delves into the first section, The Co-Evolution of Greek History and Mythology, in which Keller enthrones Eurynome, the Creatrix of Pelasgians. Footnote numbers differ from the original article.] Throughout human history, from the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age to the present, all around the world, people have worshipped goddesses.[1] The myriad faces and marvelous powers of goddesses both reflect and also influence human behavior, culture, and history. It was only with the rise of male-centered religions during the Bronze Age (beginning circa 3500 BCE[2]), that gods became dominant over goddesses in many, but not all regions of the world. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Goddess has been officially suppressed under severe taboos. Notwithstanding, the Sacred Feminine remains alive in these and other male-centered, male-dominant traditions, albeit in diminished forms. Peoples practice goddess worship in strong enduring traditions in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas, sharing many features that center on a Cosmic Goddess, Goddess of Nature, Mother of Gods, Sun Goddess, Moon Goddess, Mother Earth, Mistress of Plants and Animals, and much more.[3] Often these goddesses are paired with gods, as brother and sister, or goddess and consort—goddess and god in balance with one another. Sometimes the goddesses were more powerful, as during the Neolithic Age (circa 7000-3000 BCE) in Old Europe; or the gods became more powerful, as during the Greek Bronze Age,[4] and subsequently, in more and more regions of the world. After the Greek Goddesses and Gods became assimilated to the deities of the conquering Romans, and after Rome’s conquest of pagan European cultures, the Greek Goddesses continued as a subculture in Europe through the Christian Middle Ages. And despite the holocaust against women herbalists, healers, midwives, and “witches,” these goddesses endure until today, not only in children’s stories but in the rapidly growing turn from patriarchal religions to Goddess, Wiccan, Pagan and other nature-based religions. It would be a mistake to think that the Greek Goddesses are culturally dead, for they have persisted in Western cultural consciousness for millennia, and they are still symbols and metaphors, bearers of female powers that are healing and transformative. We have been taught that Greece is a primary cultural source of Western civilization. And yet, the narrative has usually omitted to tell us that the roots of Western cultures can be traced back further than the war stories of Homer’s Iliad to a more peaceful and egalitarian time. We will trace the history and mythos of Greek Goddesses in the six sections that follow: The Co-Evolution of Greek History and Mythology; Goddesses of Birth, Nurture, Death, and Regeneration—in Neolithic Greece; Rejoicing in the Goddess Religion—in Bronze Age Crete; The Cultural Shift from Mother Rite to Father Right—in Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece; Patriarchy versus Matriarchy—in Classical Athens; and Greek Goddess Thealogy and the Contemporary Women’s Spirituality Movement for Eco-Social Justice. We ask: What value can the ancient Greek Goddesses have for us today? To answer this, I adopt a three-fold methodology that combines a women’s spirituality perspective that highlights the spiritual dimensions connected to female life; a spiritual feminist hermeneutics that seeks to understand the spiritual significance of ancient texts about women and goddesses in their own historical contexts, as well as their relevance for us today; and archaeomythology, combining the academic disciplines and fields of archaeology, mythology, linguistics, art history, folklore, and history of religions. In doing so, we discover a rather different history of Greek religion, history, and culture. Co-Evolution of Greek History and Mythology Currently, the word myth is popularly used to indicate a false story. However, the meaning of myth encompasses the sacred stories of earlier peoples who believed in goddesses and gods prior to the rise of monotheistic masculinist gods. Myths are the sacred stories of how deities interact with humans, how humans interact with divinity. They symbolize what is most important to know about living. I will use the term mythos, sacred story, to avoid the pejorative use of the term myth. While mythos and history are not identical, there is a dialectical relationship between the two. During the Neolithic or Agrarian Age, when women (most likely) invented agriculture, weaving, and pottery,[5] the fertility of the Earth as Mother was of primary value to the cultures around the Mediterranean world, and the Mother Goddess was given pre-eminence in many of these cultures. During the Bronze Age, when warfare, empire-building, male dominance, and slavery became more and more common, warrior gods and father gods became dominant over the goddesses, as in ancient Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, Greece, and Rome. In Pelasgia, the region that later became Greece, the earliest peoples were the Pelasgians, for whom the acorn of the oak trees provided their staple diet. Their primary deity was Eurynome, a Creatress Goddess who existed before all else. As she wandered, a wind sprang up behind Eurynome, which she fashioned into the great snake Ophion. Taking the form of a bird, she mated with the snake, and from this union came the cosmic egg, from which emerged the universe and all other beings, including humans. Wide-ruling Eurynome lived with her consort Ophion on high Mount Olympus. In time, he came to think that he had created everything. Because of his arrogance, Eurynome cast him down from the mountain top to live among humans. [6] One of these humans, Pelasgus, was the eponymous leader of the Pelasgians who migrated into Greece; he built an altar at Argos to Demeter-Pelasgia,[7] Demeter of the …
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 8) The Ancient Korean Whale-Bell: An Encodement of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.] Two Major Royal Matrilineages At the root of Sillan political power was the royal matrilineage. By the royal matrilineage, I mean the lineage of female royal members including queens and queen mothers who gave birth to a daughter in marriage with a ruler respectively and/or who gave birth to a son who became a ruler respectively. The title, “Queen Mother,” indicates that her son was enthroned, whereas “Queen” implies that she was married to a ruler. Within the Sillan matriarchal royal system especially during the Early Period and most of the Middle Period, which I call the strictly matrilineal period (57 BCE – 737),[1] Queen Mothers symbolically and virtually held the state power. Put differently, the royal matrilineage continued for nearly eight hundred years in Sillan history. That Sillan matriarchal leadership is inscribed in the royal matrilineage goes unnoticed among historians. Sillan history is queen-centered. Like their queens, male rulers are derived from the one royal matrilineage. Sillan royal patrilineages, sporadic and short-lived, take shape as a byproduct of the matrilineage. To the point, the Sillan royal matrilineage reflects the biological principle of Nature. As both sexes are issued from the mother or the Female, both queens and male rulers come from the royal matrilineage. The Sillan royal marriage was exclusively exogamous, insofar as the matrilineage was in place. This means that the progenitor of a royal matrilineage was a non-Sillan woman, an outsider who came to Silla and established her royal own matrilineage.[2] To maintain the exogamous marriage, the queen, the consort of a ruler, had to be of the royal matrilineage. On the part of the queen’s mother, her duty was to secure the succession of her matrilineage by her (queen) daughters. That way, queens were always of the non-local lineage. For queen mothers, her duty was to secure her son ruler to marry a woman of the royal matrilineage. A consanguineous marriage was rare but happened. In the case of Queen Mother Jiso, she married her ruler son and her daughter, each born from a different father.[3] Within this system, the patrilineage of Sillan rulers happened as a byproduct, which did not stand on its own. Male rulers carried his maternal lineage for his own generation.[4] This means that a male ruler was recognized as a son of his mother upon enthronement. Such a custom was a practice exactly opposite of today’s custom of Korean women who follow her father’s surname. Upon marriage, while she keeps her maiden name, her children follow the surname of her spouse. Her own lineage does not get carried on by children. And a few queen mothers ruled as a regent for their sons were too young to rule on his own.[5] The Sillan matrilineal marriage system provided Sillans with the solid foundation for stability and prosperity for the first eight hundred years. I posit that the custom of the Sillan royal matrilineage was pre-patriarchal in origin. Sillans adopted the old system of pre-patriarchal Magoist Korea, the One People of Mago, the Creatrix, a topic, which escape the scope of this essay.[6] The oral myth of Mago Halmi is not unrelated with this custom, as it tells that (1) Mago gave birth to eight daughters and sent them away to eight different islands. (2) Her eight daughters (who married a local man respectively) became the progenitors of mudang mothers (shaman mothers).[7] These shaman head mothers were trusted as the representative of Mago, the cosmic sovereign. Silla was shaped by the two successive major matrilineages. These two matrilineages stand in tandem rather than replaced by the latter. That Silla had two major royal matrilineages mark the change of capital from the coastal regions of the East Sea (the East Sea of present China) to Gyeongju, the coastal city of the East Sea also known as the Sea of Whales in the Korean Peninsula at the end of the Early Period.[8] Sillan history is summarized as the two major matrilineages. The first major matriarchal lineage begins from Holy Mother of Mt. Seondo and continued five generations to Queen Ahyo. The second major matriarchal lineage began with Sulrye and lasted for seventeen generations to Saso, the queen mother of the 37th ruler Seondeok. I maintain that royal matrilineages shaped the history of Silla. Based on the royal matrilineages, I have divided the matricentric history of Silla into three periods, the Early, the Middle, and the Late (see Appendix I). The Early Period (57 BCE-230), Early Silla, is marked by two matrilineages (see [Table 3]). The major matrilineage (the Holy Mother lineage) is headed by Holy Mother of Mt. Seondo, Queen Mother of the 1st ruler, Hyeokgeose, which ends with the consort of the fourth ruler, Talhae (r. 57-80). The second minor matrilineage is the Aerae-Naerae lineage.[9] Noteworthy is that Sillan patrilineages in the Early and the Middle Periods are the offshoot of the major matrilineages, as seen in Appendix II. The Middle Period (196-785), Middle Silla, spans nearly six centuries from 196 to 785, which is marked by the most prominent lineage, the Sulrye lineage. Queen Mother Sulrye,[10] the progenitor of the second major royal matrilineage, the Sulrye lineage continues through her female descendants for seventeen generations. I hold that the Sulrye lineage shaping the backbone of Sillan history was the last of the Magoist matriversal lineage among Koreans. With the decline of Silla in 935, the royal matrilineage was gone to the past. To look more closely into the Sulrye lineage, the royal matrilineage shows no sign of a strictly primogeniture succession (see [Table 4]). For example, the fourth Queen Ihye had two daughters. And one of her daughters, Gwangmyeong, had two daughters, Aryu and Boban. The Sulrye matrilineage culminates at the 9th generation Seonhye (Queen of the 21st ruler Soji) from whom …
(Poetry) The Nine Muses, Daughters of Mnemosyne by Susan Hawthorne

01 Kalliope, Muse of Epic Poetry I’m drawn to Kalliope who can sing for days her verses flowing without end one night I sat by her as she sang her epic poems to the stars she says they are not so long not even a light year long they are intricate their metre complex and rhythmic so you can dance as she sang it seemed that the stars came closer the trees huddled around us and the whispers of animals could be heard in the forest before I knew it I could hear the rushing sound of a stream just out of reach I listened and watched the night through woke to the sound of a trumpeting swan the clatter of grasshopper wings 02 Polyhymnia, Muse of Song I thought Polyhymnia would be a walk-over a softie away with the fairies her head in the clouds but this Muse is serious she is sacred through and through whether it be poetry hymns or dance its her eloquence that lifts her and us she is solid too in her farm boots turning the soil following the ox-plough digging weeding and harvesting then come the celebrations of harvest pantomimes for which you need geometry to organise a stage Polyhymnia is queen of silence meditation more than a hobby on Parnassus she listens to the oracles of Pythia nothing is lost it was her son Orpheus who picked up the lyre and revived the dead 03 Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy in your boots you stomp around the stage with your knife your club and that hideous mask life is tragic enough without making it ugly too your sting is like that of the bee whose honey is sweet but the bite can kill that’s how the tragic arts are we are all engrossed in the story meanwhile our lover has died of heartbreak or lost dreams or serial disappointments we all think we are immune to tragedy in our lives until it strikes without warning like lightning flash there is no way back we are all changed by those moments when we had hoped for joy Melpomene sing your dirges for me so that I might haul myself up unwrap the cloths split the hard chrysalis emerge transformed 04 Ourania, Muse of Astronomy Ourania is an enigma she is invisible in her starry robe against the darkening sky but each clear night we stand watching her movements darkness is in her she is the dark matter that fills the universe the dark energy that sparks everything in the day she has a golden orb around her as she rides the sky in a boat laden with songs carries a globe constantly spinning Ourania full of magic is the first astronomer Uranian once considered a tragic pronouncement who knows what goes on in that heavenly soul she is old and young she is light years away and right here now just as we are here and are everywhere but in fireworks of celebrity unseen unheard unknown 05 Erato, Muse of Lyric Poetry everything always lovely her eyes her hair the way she moves her body Erato is like the sea washing up on the shore rising and falling in waves poets call on Erato in their darkest moments when love turns sour or the stars cross and when inspiration fails they call her then too hoping she’ll stand by them in love and lyric it’s partly her fault because she shoots words into the sky like arrows and whoever feels those arrows falls in love with the next person they encounter but who can get angry with Erato so full of grace she picks up her lyre sings with a voice that is as clear as a night sky filled with stars 06 Kleio, Muse of History when history is in dispute who can you trust but Kleio she was there and if not her then one of her sisters her kinship is wide enough to draw in the world it’s not in the telling but in the unravelling who speaks true who does not one will claim celebrity status say fame is the key to import another says the least known are the most trustworthy for they have nothing to gain or to lose the poets too stay firm to their metre there since the beginning of time history in the making is a troublesome way to go for only later can we see the made and the unmade so unravel your tales and I will weave them anew 07 Euterpe, Muse of Music Euterpe is in her own heaven the fifth dimension where beyond human perception play the music of the spheres music from every time and every place Euterpe is well-schooled in these matters she is the muse of music music creates pleasure which in turns leads us to dance some say Euterpe is the brightest asteroid in the solar system Pythagoras string theorist and mystic mathematician gave Euterpe the number eight that coiling infinity ogdoad like a dancer endlessly spinning to the sound of the double flute astrophysicists are divided some think Euterpe might be responsible for dark matter but some things are unaccountable 08 Thalia, Muse of Comedy it’s hard to be funny when Thalia abandons you but each of us has to get up draw on inner reserves and make one more joke Aristophanes managed it and you can too bring on actors and instead of high boots make them wear socks dress them in rustic outfits put a shepherd’s crook in their hands – I know more than enough about droving sheep to laugh at myself – then she can start her bucolic verses accompanied by comedic flourishes a few stereotypes here and there won’t go astray put a buffoon at the centre and his air-head wife she can parrot some phrases give the quiet one a trumpet to blow away sadness don’t worry there will be …
(Video) SF Open Studio features Cynthia Tom by Cynthia Tom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_L8MIy7kO4 In lieu of visiting Cynthia’s studio in 2020, we provide a short glimpse at her studio and her work. Enjoy. Created by ArtSpan Open Studios – San Francisco to address the pandemic pivot. https://www.cynthiatom.com – Original artwork, events, newsletter https://www.atelierCynthiaTom.com – Merch as Meditation. Products with a Purpose (artistic products for your home, body and soul) @Cynthiatom.art BIO 30+ years as a Community focused Artist/ Curator and Workshop Creator: Art-making for healing as Protest. Social Justice and Equity, Spirituality and Healing Cynthia,integrates her cultural roots and community needs to drive Social Change. A 3rd generation Chinese American, native San Franciscan, he is the Founder of A PLACE of HER OWN: An Arts based healing program for womxn of color. She creates art and workshops to help inspire healing journeys of self-exploration and claiming our authentic selves. Her art and curatorial projects have been exhibited in The Smithsonian 2020 “What is Feminist Art” and permanent archives. In San Francisco: Legion of Honor, De Young Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Thoreau Center, SOMArts Cultural Center, California Institute of Integral Studies. Internationally in Portugal and Barcelona, nationally at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Rutgers’s University, Los Gatos Museum of Art, Woman Made Gallery- Chicago, etc. Curatorial awards: de Young Museum Residencies, SOMArts Curatorial Fellowship, Asian American Pacific Islander Cultural Center. Cynthia’s art appears in text books, Women Artists’ of the American West. Univ of Purdue, Susan Ressler and Asian American Art in Post-Colonial Times_ University of Padua, by Dr. Laura Fantone-Professor SF Art Institute. Features include New York Time’s SF Arts Monthly, Center for Asian American Media, SF Chronicle, Psychology Today, Marin Independent Journal, Digital Journal.com, KPFA and KPOO radio. Her work is represented by California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art collections. She lectures at UC Berkeley, SF STATE and Ca College for the Arts. https://www.magoism.net/2021/07/meet-mago-contributor-cynthia-tom/embed/#?secret=fDs2B6tjix
(S/HE V2 N1 Book Review) Susan Ackerman’s Gods, Goddesses, and the Women Who Serve them, Reviewed by Mary Ann Beavis

[This is from S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (V2 N1, 2023) Its online edition and paperback are available at Mago Bookstore.] Susan Ackerman is a professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Dartmouth College whose research has focused on women’s religious practices in ancient Israel since the 1980s. This book is a compilation of previously published works relating to women’s religion and goddess worship from as early as 1989, most of them prefaced by short introductions where Ackerman reflects on their significance from her standpoint as a mature scholar. The book is divided into four parts: Goddesses, Priests and Prophets, Queen Mothers, and Women and Worship. The chapters in Part One investigate the identities and practices associated with ancient Israelite and other Ancient Near Eastern goddesses beginning with a pioneering investigation of the deity referred to as the Queen of Heaven in the biblical Book of Jeremiah (4:16-20; 44:15, 25) (“And the Women Knead Dough”). This goddess, for whom the women of Jerusalem are said to have baked bread cakes, poured out libations, and burned incense, has similarities with “The great East Semitic goddess Ishtar, Ishtar’s West Semitic Counterpart, Astarte, the West Semitic goddesses Anat and Asherah, and even the Canaanite goddess Šapšu” (p. 7). Ackerman concludes that the deity in question particularly shares the characteristics of Astarte and Ishtar, both heavenly Queens—especially Ishtar—whose worship included the offering of bread cakes. Chapter 2, “Asherah, the West Semitic Goddess of Spinning and Weaving?”, considers the evidence for the ancient Hebrew/Canaanite mother goddess Asherah as the patron of women’s textile production hinted at by the reference in 2 Kings 23:7 to women weavers who lived in the Jerusalem temple compound during the reign of Josiah (c. 640-609 BCE). In view of the ubiquity of goddesses of spinning and weaving in the ancient Mediterranean world (Inanna, Uttu, Tayet, Athena), Ackerman surmises that these women, who were banished from the temple precincts during the Josianic reform, were producing garments to be draped over the cult images of Asherah housed in the temple. The chapter also contains an interesting consideration of the hypothesis that the eshet h̩ayil (“valiant woman”) of Proverbs 31, who weaves luxury fabrics for her household (vv. 22-23), is a personification of Woman Wisdom, a figure informed by the ancient goddess Asherah. The final chapter in the section, “The Women of the Bible and of Ancient Near Eastern Myth” considers the similarities between the Enuma Elish’s account of the defeat of the mother goddess Tiamat by her son Marduk and the notorious story of the Levite’s concubine (pîlegeš) in Judges 19. Ackerman does not posit a direct relationship between the two narratives, but points out that in both cases, a female figure (Tiamat, the pîlegeš) defies ancient near eastern gender norms and is destroyed and dismembered in horrendous acts of male violence. Part Two of the book beings with “Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?)”. In fact, five women mentioned in the Hebrew Bible are called prophets (nĕbî’â)—Miriam, the sister of Moses (Exodus 15:20), Deborah the judge (Judges 4:4), the wife of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 8:3), Hulda, the prophet who verified the “book of the law” conveniently discovered during the Josianic reform (2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chronicles 24:22), and Noadiah, an opponent of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 6:14). These women, Ackerman posits, appear at liminal moments in the history of Israel when “the gender conventions that more usually restrict women from holding religious leadership can be suspended” (p. 100). Similarly, Zipporah, the wife of Moses, performs the priestly act of circumcising her infant son during the liminal site of an unspecified lodging on the family’s return to Egypt. Chapter 5, “The Mother of Esmunazor, Priest of Astarte,” investigates the issue of why priestly roles for women were exceedingly rare in Ugaritic and Hebrew religion, whereas upper-class women of surrounding cultures, like the Phoenician khnt (priestess), queen mother of Esmunazor II of Sidon (5th century BCE) played priestly roles. Ackerman theorizes that women of child-bearing age were excluded from blood sacrificial roles due to the ritual impurity incurred by menstruation and childbirth specific to these cultures. This issue is further investigated in “Priestesses, Purity, and Parturition,” which shows that menstrual impurity was by no means universally regarded as an impediment to female priesthood in the region. Further, Ackerman speculates that pre-pubescent girls, like the frame-drumming ‘ălamôt of Psalm 68:26, were able to access Yahweh’s sanctuary, whereas women of reproductive age were confined to the sanctuary’s periphery (2 Kings 23:7; Ezekiel 8:14; Exodus 38:8). Part Three focuses on another class of women past childbearing age—queen mothers, who, like the mother of Esmunazor, served as priestesses. In “The Queen Mother and the Cult in Ancient Israel,” Ackerman argues that the king’s mother (gĕbirâ) served not only as a trusted advisor to her son, but also as priestess of Asherah, Yahweh’s divine consort (1 Kings 15:2, 9-13; 2 Chronicles 11:20-22; 15:16). As royal representative of the goddess, the queen mother would have been able “to function as the second-most powerful figure in the royal court, superseded only by her son” (p. 169). The next chapter, “The Queen Mother and the Cult in the Ancient Near East,” situates the sacerdotal role of queen mothers in other West Semitic cultures; in a final section, Ackerman notes the attribution of the queen mother role to Mary in the New Testament infancy narratives and in the Protevangelium of James, where the child Mary is dedicated to the temple, and she and other virgins spin the wool for the temple curtain, until she reaches puberty. The two chapters in Part Four are devoted to considerations of Israelite women’s worship in the domestic sphere, encompassing the house of the God, the temple, the royal palace, and the family residence. In “At Home with the Goddess,” Ackerman concludes that Asherah worship was not confined to the elite, or to women; rather, she sees “a close interrelationship between the Asherah cult …

(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 2) "The Oldest Cilivization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

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

Dear Contributors, Do you know that Return to Mago (RTM) E*Magazine is entering its fifth year this fall? And, thanks to our collective effort, we are still growing! As of today, our contributors have grown to more than 130 in number and our readership is from about 140 countries around the world. We have some hundred email followers as well as Wordpress blog followers. We draw 3000-4000 clicks per month on average; that is no small accomplishment for a Goddess blog that is named after a yet-to-be heard word, Mago (the Great Goddess), and that began from scratch.

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/
Lammas/Late Summer in PaGaian tradition By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Traditionally the dates for this Seasonal Moment are: Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd however the actual astronomical date varies. See archaeoastronomy.com for the actual moment. Lammas table/altar Lammas, as it is often called[1], is the meridian point of the first dark quarter of the year, between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox; it is after the light phase has peaked and is complete, and as such, I choose it as a special celebration of the Crone/Old One. Within the Celtic tradition, it is the wake of Lugh, the Sun King, and it is the Crone that reaps him. But within earlier Goddess traditions, all the transformations were Hers[2]; and the community reflected on the reality that the Mother aspect of the Goddess, having come to fruition, from Lammas on would enter the Earth and slowly become transformed into the Old Woman-Hecate-Cailleach aspect …[3] I dedicate Lammas to the face of the Old One, just as Imbolc, its polar opposite on the Wheel in Old European tradition, is dedicated to the Virgin/Maiden face. The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again. I state the purpose of the seasonal gathering thus: This is the season of the waxing dark. The seed of darkness born at the Summer Solstice now grows … the dark part of the days grows visibly longer. Earth’s tilt is taking us back away from the Sun. This is the time when we celebrate dissolution; each unique self lets go, to the Darkness. It is the time of ending, when the grain, the fruit, is harvested. We meet to remember the Dark Sentience, the All-Nourishing Abyss, She from whom we arise, in whom we are immersed, and to whom we return. This is the time of the Crone, the Wise Dark One, who accepts and receives our harvest, who grinds the grain, who dismantles what has gone before. She is Hecate, Lillith, Medusa, Kali, Erishkagel,Chamunda, Coatlique – Divine Compassionate One, She Who Creates the Space to Be. We meet to accept Her transformative embrace, trusting Her knowing, which is beyond all knowledge. Lammas is the seasonal moment for recognizing that we dissolve into the “night” of the Larger Organism of whom we are part – Gaia. It is She who is immortal, from whom we arise, and into whom we dissolve. This celebration is a development of what was born in the transition of Summer Solstice; the dark sentient Source of Creativity is honoured. The autopoietic space in us recognizes Her, is comforted by Her, desires Her self-transcendence and self-dissolution; Lammas is an opportunity to be with our organism’s love of Larger Self – this Native Place. We have been taught to fear Her, but at this Seasonal Moment we may remember that She is the compassionate One, deeply committed to transformation, which is actually innate to us. Whereas at Imbolc/Early Spring, we shone forth as individual, multiforms of Her; at Lammas, we small individual selves remember that we are She and dissolve back into Her. We are the Promise of Lifeas was affirmed at Imbolc, but we are the Promise of Her- it is not ours to hold. We identify as the sacred Harvest at Lammas; our individual harvest isHer Harvest. We are the process itself – we are Gaia’s Process. Wedo not breathe (though of course we do), we borrow the breath, for a while. It is like a relay: we pick the breath up, create what we do during our time with it, and pass it on. The harvest we reap in our individual lives is important, andit is for us only short term; it belongs to the Cosmos in the long term. Lammas is a time for “making sacred” – as “sacrifice” may be understood; we may “make sacred” ourselves. As Imbolc was a time for dedication, so is Lammas. This is the wisdom of the phase of the Old One. She is the aspect that finds the “yes” to letting go, to loving the Larger Self, beyond all knowledge, and steps into the power of the Abyss; encouraged and nourished by the harvest, She will gradually move into the balance of Autumn Equinox/Mabon, the next Sesaonal Moment on the year’s cycle. References: Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess.Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Gray, Susan. The Woman’s Book of Runes.New York: Barnes and Noble, 1999. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. McLean, Adam. The Four Fire Festivals. Edinburgh: Megalithic Research Publications, 1979. Notes: [1]See note 3. [2]Susan Gray, The Woman’s Book of Runes,p. 18. This is also to say that the transformations are within each being, not elsewhere, that is the “sacrifice” is not carried out by another external to the self, as could be and have been interpreted from stories of Lugh or Jesus. [3]Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, The Year of the Goddess, p.143, quoting Adam McLean, Fire Festivals,p.20-22. Another indication of the earlier tradition beneath “Lughnasad” is the other name for it in Ireland of “Tailltean Games”. Taillte was said to be Lugh’s foster-mother, and it was her death that was being commemmorated (Mike Nichols, “The First Harvest”, Pagan Alliance Newsletter NSW Australia). The name “Tailtunasad” has been suggested for this Seasonal Moment, by Cheryl Straffon editor of Goddess Alive! I prefer the name of Lammas, although some think it is a Christian term: however some sources say that Lammas means “feast of the bread” which is how I have understood it, and surely such a feast pre-dates Christianity. It is my opinion that the incoming Christians preferred “Lammas” to “Lughnasad”: the term itself is not Christian in origin. The evolution of all these things is complex, and we may evolve them further with our careful thoughts and experience.
(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/
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 5) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion. The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period. When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe. Synodic Lunar Track (Patriarchal) Sidereal Lunar Track (Magoist) Focus Moon’s phases Moon’s motions Days of month 29 or 30 (irregular) 28 (regular) No. of months in a year 12 13 Women’s menstrual cycle Assumed sync Synced Luni-centric Astolonomy Unknown 28 Constellations Intercalations 11 days annually, a total of 44 days for 4 years 1 day annually & 1 day every 4 years, a total of 2 days for 4 years Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in …
Artful Ceremonial Expression by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(2014 Mago Pilgrimage Report 1) Sweat Lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Islands by Helen Hwang

[Author’s Note: Revised verison of this report is published in Celebrating the Seasons of the Goddess (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books, 2017). 2014 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea (Oct. 7-Oct. 20) was participated by a culturally mixed group of pilgrims from the U.S. Australia, and Korea. Among non-Koreans were Dr. Glenys Livingstone (co-facilitator), Mr. Robert (Taffy) Seaborne, and Ms. Rosemary Mattingly. For details, read 2014 Mago Pilgrimage. View the video on our visit to Ganghwa Islands by Robert (Taffy) Seaborne.] 2014 Mago Pilgrimage granted me ever unfolding revelations. The first of them that I would like to mention concerned the sweat lodge called Hanjeung-mak (汗蒸幕, Chamber of chill and steam).[1] Until we visited the traditional sweat lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Island, it did not occur to me that the origin of its modern variations[2] has to do with the rebirthing experience in the Womb of Mago. (Here Mago means the Great Goddess or the Primordial Mother.)
(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Species, comprised of the divine, demigods, and humans.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] Magoist Origin of Immortals: All in the Mago Species are given the original nature of immortality or transcendence. Readers are advised to set aside the literal meaning in the English language of the words immortals or transcendents. Immortals is a translation of the East Asian term seon (仙, xian in Chinese). I choose the translation immortals over transcendents not because it is a better translation but because it is the most commonly used term by Western Daoist translators.[i] Although it is known as a Daoist term, I hold that it is pre-Daoist, namely Magoist, in origin. Primarily, it refers to the Mago Species (Mago and Her descendants) who dwelt in Mago Castle, the primordial home, to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Likewise, historical figures known as Immortals are Magoist rather than Daoist.
(Bell Essay 2) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part II Overall Structure and Parts of the Ancient Korean Bell The ancient Korean bell takes on the female form figuratively. In other words, its female implication is expressed symbolically rather than descriptively. Unlike the ancient Greek bell that literally depicts a woman’s body (See Bell Essay 1), the ancient Korean bell characterizes female anatomy with symbols and designs. Neither limbs nor a human face is seen. Instead, breasts and nipples are stylized. The head is represented by a dragon. The belly is adorned with the relief of celestial nymphs. The female symbology that the bell invokes is not limited to the material body of the bell only, however. The legend of a female child sacrifice to the casting of the bell should be taken in the light of its female symbology. Likewise, the inscription made on the Sangwonsa Jong indicating that the commissioner was a woman needs to be taken into consideration. Foremost, the Magoist cosmogony that attributes cosmic music to ultimate creativity holds the key to unlock the very purpose of the bell: The bell is created to sound the Call of Mago, the Great Goddess. Visualizing Her, the bell emits the Sound of Mago for which its sacredness is explained. The bell, if we call it Buddhist, redefines Buddhism, Korean Buddhism, to be precise. It calls people to the arcane knowledge of the female origin. These points are to be discussed in more detail in the forthcoming sequels. In this part, I discuss the overall structure of the bell and examine some major characteristics of its parts. An ancient Korean bell consists of two parts: the bell’s body (jongsin) and the dragon loop (yongnu). The bell’s body part includes the Nipples, the Bell Breast, the Breast Circumference, Bell’s Belly, Celestial Nymphs, Bell’s Mouth, the Striking Seat, the Heavenly Plate, the Upper Support, and the Lower Support. And the dragon loop part includes the Dragon Loop and the Dragon Tube (Sound Tube). In addition, the piece of wood (mallet) that is designed to strike the bell on Dangjwa (Striking Seat) is called Dangmok (the Striking Wood). It also requires an Ullimtong (Depressed Ground for Sound Transmission) for the sound waves to travel. Each part, as a microcosm, adds to the beauty and function of the bell. Images sculpted including foliage, flower, lotus, humans, celestial nymphs, breasts, nipples, and dragon are achieved in sophistication. Artistic mastery is sublime. Behold! The bell is a metaphor of not only the body of a woman, the vulva in particular, but also what she is, her purpose! The bell transforms the female to the divine, the Goddess. Now I invite the reader to take note of the overall shape of the bell made in the form of a large Korean crock (hangari) placed upside down. The curved line drawn from top to bottom with the diameter of its mouth smaller than that of the belly is another distinguishing feature. In fact, there are quite a few features that distinguish ancient Korean bells from the bells of China and Japan. The parts that I illustrated above, in particular the nine Nipples, the Bell Breast, the Dragon Tube, Celestial Nymphs, and the Striking Seat, are its representative characteristics. As a percussion instrument, the ancient Korean bell epitomizes precision and sophistication. Everything contained on the surface of the bell is made to resonate with the inner hollow to maximize the travel of sound waves. As shown below in the figure, even the metal residue remaining on the inner wall plays a key role, creating the sound waves. Without those irregular lumps, the sound will have a far lower frequency making fewer waves. In other words, the rough surface of the inner hollow is intentional. Beauty and functionality are conjoined to create the sound of the Goddess. Functional parts such as the Dragon Loop, Dragon Tube (or Sound Tube), and the Striking Seat are seamlessly integrated with the artistry. The Dragon Loop is there to represent the divinity of the Goddess and at once to be used as a hook for hanging. The Dragon Tube open-ended upward is there to vent out the impurity of the sound. When all is said and done, it is designed not just to please the eye but to awaken the mind to seek. The bell in its mesmerizing beauty wakes up the mind of people, otherwise made dull or dormant under patriarchal inflictive routines. Buddhists might say that the reality to which the sound calls is “the way things are” or “suchness.” However, such understanding is only a tingle of the patriarchal mind that refuses to hear the deeper call. The bell awakens people to the reality of the Goddess. Each striking carries the pulse of Mago, the Great Goddess. Sources: Norugwi. [http://blog.daum.net/euijj31/11296149] Cultural Heritage Administration [http://www.cha.go.kr/main/KorIndex!korMain.action] Sin Hyeongjun. “Why is the Sound of Bell beautiful? The Delicacy of the Striking Spot… The Uneven Thickness Creates Sound Waves” Choson Ilbo, October, 9, 2001. (To be continued in Part III, Read Part I)