August 14, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Announcement) Mago Wickedary of Goddess Feminist Activism, 4 Year Projects

Dear RTM Contributors and Readers,

Upon our 5th anniversary on August 15, 2015, Mago Books is pleased to announce a practice of Maternal/Gynocentric Gift Economy in the form of Gynapedia/Mago Wickedary of Goddess Feminist Activism.

Mago Books seeks encyclopedic articles on (1) persons/organizations, (2) feminist/gynocentric notions, (3) animals/plants/nature. These articles will be first published in Gynapedia, Online Gynocentric Encyclopedia. We aim at publishing them as three books in the form of E-Books and/or Print Books within the coming 4 years by Sept. Equinox of 2021.

On a perennial basis, one can become Author for Gynapedia and create pages. Please find the proposal form below and submit it accordingly.

What is the Gynapedia/Mago Wickedary Project about?

It is one of the things that we CAN do in the face of ever-accelerating patriarchal assaults. We trust that the speed of our minds/hearts/souls runs faster than that of the former. The project is conceived as an extension and continuation of the Mago Gift Work aligned with Maternal/Gynocentric Gift Economy. Ultimately, we do this to give ourselves, communities, and the terrestrial eco-community what we are universally given by our mothers, ancestors, and the Cosmic Mother. Advocating the Gift Economy, Genevieve Vaughan writes, “We are born into a Gift Economy practiced by those who mother us, enabling us to survive. The economy of exchange, quid pro quo, separates us from each other and makes us adversarial, while gift giving and receiving creates mutuality and trust.”

The project of Gynapedia/Mago Wickedary of Goddess feminist activism aims at channeling the Sisterly dynamic (Inter-cosmic Sisterhood) in which one’s self-motivated giving/sharing for the cause of ALL in WE empowers both the receiver and the giver, the Original Dynamic of the Creatrix. Simply put, we aspire to host the Metamorphic Nature of the Gift Economy; our giving/sharing of gifts/talents/resources transforms us all and saves the inter-specieal terrestrial community (Yes, we humans are responsible for the survival of animals, plants and nature as well). Outcome of such dynamic is Sisterly trust and bond that animate all in WE. In this mechanism, we experience the divine providence of our giving and receiving, which guides us into an ever-deepening commitment to look after the Whole.

The term, Wickedary, is borrowed from Mary Daly’s Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language in Cahoots with Jane Caputi. As the title suggests, Mago Wickedary is propelled by the vision of Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, advocate of Magoism who was immensely influenced by Mary Daly.

Gynapedia/Mago Wickedary of Goddess Feminist Activism is perceived as the third type of the collective writing project that the Mago Work has undertaken after She Rises series and Celebrating the Goddess series.

Project Categories (not in priority order):

(1) Persons and organizations (writers, researchers, advocates, poets, artists, musicians, and others)

(2) Feminist/gynocentric notions

(3) Animals, plants and nature

Publishing Media: Gynapedia (Free Online Gynocentric Encyclopedia), E-books, and/or Print Books

Deadline: Ongoing till Jan. 31, 2021.

Primary Deadline Jan. 31, 2018.

The Persons and Organizations Category: This book will build on the bio data of Mago Work collective writing projects’ contributors including She Rises Volume 1 and She Rises Volume 2, Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess Volume 1, Return to Mago E-Magazine, Mago Pool Circle and Gynapedia but does NOT exclude other Goddess feminist activist writers, artists, poets, researchers, advocates, musicians, educators, and others.

Proposal Form for all three categories:

1. Your name, country/state/city of residence

2. Contact email, and/or website(s)

3. Categories of your articles (one may write for multiple categories):

(1) Persons and organizations (writers, researchers, advocates, poets, artists, musicians, and others)

(2) Feminist/gynocentric notions

(3) Animals, plants and nature

4. List of your accomplishments (briefly describe them in the spirit of Gift Economy, if appropriate)

5. Please indicate if you can create page(s) in Gynapedia directly. If so, list your online article(s) instead of below.

If you do not wish to become a Gynapedia Author, please refer to below:

Proposed entry word count: up to 2000 words (include URLs for interlinking)

Font: Times New Roman (12 font size, 1 spaced)

Style: Chicago Style, footnotes (if applicable)

Illustrations: As attachment of jpg files (must be 300 dpi)

Submission: Email submission only, to Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang magopoolcircle@gmail.com (State “Gynapedia/Mago Wickedary Proposal” in the subject line of your email.

Proposal Form for Persons and organizations:

Write the summary of your biography (no more than 100 words strictly) AND answer the proposal form below (all together 1000 words). Attach your self-photo image and/or a couple of other images in your email.

Please use the following proposal form (you may answer them selectively).

1. Your name, country/state/city of residence

2. Contact email, and/or website(s)

3. Your area of specialty (research, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose, art, photography, advocacy, social movement)

4. List of your accomplishments (briefly describe them in the spirit of Gift Economy, if appropriate)

5. What makes you become a Goddessian, feminist, and/or activist?

6. How did you come to arrive at where/what you are as a Goddessian, feminist, and/or activist?

7. As a Goddessian, feminist, and/or activist, what do you aspire for yourself, the young, and/or the world?

8. Something that you want to give/share with the Goddess feminist activism community and/or the world.

9. Please indicate if you can create page(s) in Gynapedia directly. If so, list your online article(s) instead of below.

If you do not wish to become a Gynapedia Author, please refer to below:

Proposed entry word count: up to 2000 words (include URLs for interlinking)

Font: Times New Roman (12 font size, 1 spaced)

Style: Chicago Style, footnotes (if applicable)

Illustrations: As attachment of jpg files (must be 300 dpi)

Submission: Email submission only, to Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (magopoolcircle@gmail.com) (State “Gynapedia/Mago Wickedary Proposal” in the subject line of your email.)

Mago Books is seeking volunteer Authors and Coeditors for these books as well as Gynapedia. Please contact Dr. Hwang (magoism@gmail.com).

In gratitude of RTM Editorial Volunteers!

Support The Mago Work/The Mago Pod!

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(Essay) The Wheel of the Year in Stone by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space – cosmic calendars. They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate within it. [See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time, 1994.]
(Essay) The Internet and Research on Goddess History and Culture by Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.

NYC Public Library Research Room”Not everyone has access to large research libraries, instead the internet has become their information source.” Francesca Tronetti Scholars are consistently engaged in research of one type or another. Whether they are looking for primary sources, reevaluating established works, or considering new findings, there is always something new to discover. Academic scholars are fortunate enough to have credentials which allow them access to libraries and museum collections that laypeople cannot access. Laypeople which include pagan individuals who wish to research and revive ancient traditions but may not have the background in history, anthropology, classical studies, or religious studies. Instead, they spend hours trolling through libraries, used bookstores, and online archives. They find and bring together multiple sources to create a better understanding of an ancient religious practice. When Cathryn Platine began researching the worship of Cybele in the ancient world in the 1990s the internet personal webpages were being posted, online bookstores were reprinting ancient texts, and the forum boards allowed people to connect with other like-minded researchers. Cathryn remembers finding niche publishing houses which often were the only source for some documents. She remembers “Llewellyn Press started by publishing great arcane books you could not get anywhere else, they republished antique books of ceremonial magic.”[1] Today Llewellyn does not offer these arcane books, most of which were primary source material. The rare books Cathryn bought from Llewellyn are now mainly produced by reprint publishers such as Kessinger Publishing and can be ordered through their website[2]or found on Amazon.com. The internet also played a vital role in Cathryn’s research on the worship of Cybele in Phrygian and Rome. She did most of her research during the 1990s in the early days of the internet. During this time, educational institutions and museums across the globe were beginning to digitize their collections and make them available online. Maps of archaeological excavations, pictures of the artifacts, and site reports were also starting to appear online. Tufts University began the creation of the Perseus Digital Library,[3] an online collection of ancient texts and stories with translations and complete publishing information. Additionally, individuals were making out-of-print material available for free online. One book was vital to Cathryn’s research and my dissertation, and its story demonstrates how crucial it was to have documents available online. Much of the history of Cybele’s worship which Cathryn told me, and which she wrote in her book The Cybeline Revival,[4] was without citation. She told me, “When we started this, we weren’t paying attention to citing things, we wanted to get [the information is written] down and share it.” Over Yule of 2016, when I had returned to the Maetreum to pick up books and talk to Cathryn and Viktoria, I asked Cathryn where she had gotten some of her quotes. Specifically, I was interested the phrase “I have drunk from the cymbal,” a quote which I had spent a year looking. Cathryn’s book was the only source I had for the phrase, and in all my research I had never found it in any other writing. This time, while sitting in her office, she directed me to her bookshelves and told me that she might have the source for that phrase. Cathryn told me to pull out a blue binder and inside was the title page to a book, printed off the internet, Pagan Regeneration: A Study of Mystery Initiations and Secret Rites in the Graeco-Roman World by Harold R. Willoughby.[5] I looked through the text, and there was the quote, twice with two different cited sources. I was elated, for a year I had been searching for this reference and here it was. Cathryn told me that I could borrow the binder to look at, but I could not take it out of the house. Willoughby’s book had been out of print for decades, and she was not going to lose her only hard copy.[6] She found the PDF copy online in the late 1990s or early 2000s and had printed it out, which she said was good because the website she found it on no longer existed. Curious to see if I could find a print copy, I did a Google search. Sure enough, it had been republished and was now available on Amazon. Pagan Regeneration was first published in 1929, and the next publishing date I found was 2009. Aside from the online copy, Cathryn had found, Willoughby’s book had not been reprinted for almost eighty years. This experience, and other stories she told me demonstrated the amount of work that went into her research on Cybele. Some of the older texts had, in the 1990s, been out of print for between twenty and seventy years[7] if not longer. The availability of out of print material, whether through an online archive, a reprinting publisher or the sale of a book on eBay or Amazon, is of immense advantage to professional and lay scholars. Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult has never been republished after its translation into English in 1977, even though it is referenced in any book or project dealing with the worship of Cybele or her cult. Having the primary source in your hands, rather than using a quote of a quote of a paraphrase, is vital to gathering factual data and researching reliable conclusions. Online publishing scholarly and out-of-print material gave Cathryn, and the other priestesses access to the information they needed to revive the worship of Cybele. It is true that the internet is now home to conspiracy websites and sometimes the ravings of people claiming to be experts. However, we cannot forget that it was the first place where people could access material that had previously been available to academics. And, the internet continues to be a place where researchers of all backgrounds can share information and sources to enhance our understanding of the material and spiritual world. (Meet Mago Contributor) Rev. Francesca Tronetti. [1] Platine, in interview with author, October 28, 2015. [2] Kessinger …
(Essay 2) The Blending of Bön, Buddhism and the Goddess Gemu in Mosuo Culture by Krista Rodin

[Editor’s Note: This series is included as a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth .] Legends of the Goddess View of Dragon Mt. and Lugu Lake from Goddess Gemu’s Cave, photo K. Rodin The Naxi and the Mosuo may have originated from the same group in the distant past as they have similar funerary rites in which the soul of the deceased is guided back to the spiritual home of the ancestors. According to Knödel, during the ceremony a Daba practitioner or Dongba priest lists the places the soul is to travel. The journey begins at the place where the person resided during life and ends where the clan’s ancestors reside in the afterlife.[1] The ancestors live in physical places in the region; for the Mosuo in Yongning on Lugu Lake it is on the south side of Mt. Chha-na-dorje. The Lijiang Naxi, on the other hand, land on the holy mountain Junarulo. Both Naxi and Mosuo identify themselves by clan, i.e., siri, which is like a lineage. According to Knödel, for the Mosuo the siri comprises the children of a particular mother. The children stay within the mother’s household; traditionally, the Mosuo did not marry, but instead had ahzu (often spelled ‘ahxia’) relationships, mutually agreed upon bonds between a couple that could be stopped at any time on the wishes of either party. As there is neither a financial nor social obligation to either partner, the Mosuo tend not to have acrimonious split-ups. The men visit the women at night, but leave before daybreak returning to their mother’s households where, as uncles, they help raise the children. Some of the current tourist information about the region cites Rock’s mistaken statement that the Mosuo do not know who their fathers are. While this is not accurate, it is true that fathers are not responsible for taking care of their offspring; instead they have the obligation to help take care of their nieces and nephews. The practice of matrilineal uncles being the leading male figures in the clan is not unique to the Mosuo, but is found in a number of other southern Tibetan and Northern Nepali cultures, including the Tamang, who share a number of other similar shamanic traditions with the Mosuo, although not the ahzu relationships. Chinese exploitation of these traditions with the intent to increase regional tourism has led to the misunderstanding that the Mosuo believe in “free love” with rotating partners every night, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Ahzu relationships, or ‘walking marriages’ are often for a lifetime. The concept of Mosuo “walking marriage” goes back to the Goddess Gemu in their creation stories, of which there are many. One of the most common is that Gemu was the most beautiful girl in the known world. She fell in love with Hu Zhau, a dragon and he with her. This was a forbidden love as dragons belong in heaven and people on earth. Nonetheless, the two lovers arranged to meet at night; Hu Zhau would go to Gemu’s house after dark where they would then spend the night together. Hu Zhau always had to leave before daybreak so no one would know about their relationship. One night, he fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up in time. Heavenly King found out and decided to punish him by turning him into a mountain. Gemu was so upset that she cried and cried and cried; over seven days and nights her tears created Lake Lugu, which took the shape of a broken heart. Heavenly King then turned her into a mountain as well, where she rules from a cave. Today the mountain lovers still meet crossing the waters after dark. Gemu is the female mountain, which is also called the Lion Mountain as it looks like a lion lying on its side; it is on the left of the Dragon Mountain, which is a reversal of typical traditional Chinese gender role placement. The Goddess resides within a large cave from where she judges people after death and sends those who haven’t been good down the dark unending hole of Hell, while those who were good ascend to Heaven. There are many versions of her story. In some she was at one time a young human girl whom the god of the sky wanted for himself. In others, she is a sky god from the beginning. In either case, she was unhappy in the sky and fell into a forbidden love, which led to an ahzu relationship. A different version recounted by a young Yongning townswoman, Sadama, is that Gemu was a very beautiful girl who all the boys and men wanted to marry, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. She was renown for her winemaking skills, so she said that whoever came and drank her wine and didn’t get drunk was the one she would marry. Her wine was so good, though, that everyone did imbibe too much. Then one day when she was at a festival she saw a young handsome archer, Hulung. The two immediately fell in love. The sky god interfered forbidding their marriage as he wanted Gemu for himself, wine is after all the drink of the gods. Hulung warned Gemu to run away and save herself, but she wanted to stay with him no matter what happened. He threw a special necklace his mother had given him for protection to Gemu, but she wasn’t able to catch it. The great god in his jealous anger turned both of them into mountains; they could see each other but never touch. For the Mosuo the idea of “walking marriages” extends even to the heavens. It is said that the moon is the ahzu of the sun, although he visits her only once a month. Venus is considered the azhu of Polaris, although he visits her only once a year.[2] [1] Knödel, 214-215. [2] Chuan-kang Shih, “Mortuary Rituals and Symbols among the Moso,” Naxi and Moso Ethnography: Kin, …
(Essay 4) The Giant Huwawa by Hearth Moon Rising

This is the last of a four-part series. Part one. Part two. Part three. There are elements of the story of Huwawa, in both the Babylonian and Sumerian versions, which do not make sense. I’m not talking about dragons as comrades-in-arms or auras that behave like military weapons – those kinds of things don’t bother me. I’ve been puzzled by associations of Huwawa that do not make sense in the story’s own terms. One of these is the talismanic nature of Huwawa’s head, his role in divination, and his recurrent appearance in art. He’s not the hero of the story we know; he’s the victim. Why is he popular, and apparently good luck? Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammad Amin Furthermore, why does Gilgamesh head east from Uruk to the Cedar Forest to combat Huwawa, then make a raft and sail down the Euphrates River back home? It’s hard to see how that’s possible. Most of the cedar in the Sumerian cities came from what is today mountains in Lebanon or northwestern Syria, and it’s possible that a robust river in these forests might have been a tributary to the Euphrates. I don’t know that much about the geography of that region, especially five thousand years ago. Let’s assume a hero could sail in a raft from the cedars of a Mediterranean mountain range clear to Uruk. That still would mean that Gilgamesh would have to travel northwest, not east, to reach the Cedar Forest. The Zagros Mountains, located in present-day Iran, are definitely east of Uruk. The obvious problem is that there is no water route, at least directly east or along the Euphrates. Still, that seems possible. But I learned recently that there are no cedars in the Zagros, so the forest Huwawa guarded, if it was in the Zagros, was not cedar. A revision in the narrative? A problem in translation? Photo: Libanonzeder/Wikimedia Commons One idea that solves the problem of geography, and lets us keep our Cedar Forest cedar, is to place the root story not in Sumer or with King Gilgamesh of Uruk but with another culture. There is a Hurrian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, in fragments and untranslatable, that is the basis for a Hittite version that emphasizes the battle with Huwawa. The Hurrians did not have written texts until around 2,000 B.C.E., but that does not mean that the story arrived then. The Hurrians were located in what is now southeast Turkey (Anatolia) and northeast Syria. They were conquered by the Indo-European Hittites. Mountain ranges to the east of Hurrian settlements historically contained a great number of cedars. To understand why this solution appeals to me, remember that in my last essay I explained that Sumer was a multi-ethnic culture with Sumerian the dominant language. Some of the people who settled in Mesopotamia came from Anatolia. Placing the original story in Anatolia, as part of the oral history of the region, solves the contradictions in the text. The hero, who predates King Gilgamesh, heads east with his entourage, does battle with Huwawa, and then travels on cedar logs down the river to his Anatolian or upper Mesopotamian kingdom, which predates Sumer. So who is Huwawa? The blogger at Old European Culture, who makes a good case for the myth of Huwawa coming out of Anatolia, believes Huwawa is a tiger. That seems a bit odd, doesn’t it? Her rationale is that the wavy curly texture of some Huwawa/Humbaba faces could be tiger stripes. Personally, I don’t see it. But lets go back to the description of Huwawa. Photo: Ltshears/Wikimedia Commons In the Babylonian texts (1,700 to 1,100 B.C.E.), Gilgamesh sets out to the Cedar Forest to vanquish Huwawa/Humbaba. The giant hides in the thick forest and does not allow himself to be seen unless provoked. He has acute hearing and no one can sneak up on him. His voice is overwhelming, his speech is like fire, and his breath is “death.” Actually, this could refer to the sounds a tiger makes, and the death breath could be metaphoric or simply the halotosis of a predator. The Hittite fragment (1,200 B.C.E.) adds that Huwawa likes to ambush his combatants. The Sumerian texts (2,100 B.C.E.) have Gilgamesh setting out to cut trees on the Cedar Mountain, where Huwawa, known as “The Living One” has his lair. The fight with Huwawa is incidental to cutting down the trees in Huwawa’s forest. By reputation, Huwawa has the teeth of a dragon, the eye of a lion, a forceful chest and brow, and an insatiable hunger for blood like a man-eating lion. While Gilgamesh and his men are cutting down trees, Huwawa is disturbed and attacks. As he attacks, he wrinkles his brow and bares his teeth. Photo: Rama/Wikimedia Commons None of these descriptions contradicts the notion that this might be a tiger, even if the images of Huwawa are problematic. Huwawa’s body, when shown, is definitely the body of a man, yet anthropomorphic animal deities are common in Near Eastern art, so this is not a deal breaker. By this logic, the fact that Huwawa can talk, that he likes the idea of marrying Gilgamesh’s sisters, or that he accepts gifts of precious stones, bottled water, and sandals do not rule out this being an animal deity. The part that stumps scholars, on many levels, is the seven weapons that Huwawa eventually surrenders to Gilgamesh. They are usually translated as “auras,” but no one knows what they are. They don’t seem to connect with tigers, but then they don’t seem to connect with anything. The two weapons Huwawa exchanges for “big sandals for your big feet” and “little sandals for your little feet,” however, suggest Huwawa is a four-footed giant. Both felids and canids usually have larger back feet than front, and the feet of a tiger are dissimilar in size. The largest of all cats, the tiger is apotropaic in cultures where it is extant, so the use of the Huwawa effigy as a charm …
(Art Essay) Girls On Top by Claire Dorey

Nut and Four Faces of Hathor and Womb as Pyramid by Claire Dorey Follows Understanding Tanit through Felt Experience and Visualising the Energy in Hathor’s Temple (click to read). In these minimalist times we accept the sky as being the domain of one male god. The Goddess Nut, in her star-spangled unitard, arching over humanity in pyramid pose, turns sky father doctrine on it’s head. Girls On Top aligns much better with astrophysics, after all the womb and cosmos are both creative cauldrons. “God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there’s no turning back.” – Gloria Steinem. My journey into decoding the triangle, through an artist’s eye, leads me to ask the following questions. Why the premise that up-pointing triangles represent male / air energy and down-pointing triangles represent female / earth energy? Why would an inverted vulva symbol, a container for female creative energy, represent male energy? Which came first, the vulva or alchemy? Was the triangle subject to patriarchal reversal to claim female power as male power? Can we use the triangle to track the rise and fall of Girl Power? If the triangle is the building block of the universe then Goddess Nut, as a great cosmic arc, is the Golden Spiral. Nut, ‘nw’ , the water pot and infinite consciousness and nothingness, holds space and IS space. She rises from Earth to the amniotic waters of the Milky Way, birthing souls, birthing stars, her body as vessel for the entire cosmos, whilst the negative space beneath Her holds structure for humanity. Understanding Nut and ancient Egyptian’s elaborate mechanics of the universe is to go to the place where the edges are blurred, to felt experience, to tantra. It’s why I’m searching for answers in the artwork in Hathor’s temple. There are parallels with science and tantra but perhaps science trips itself up because quantifying consciousness is not necessary to understanding it. To unravel the complex world of ancient Egyptian deities is to see beyond the ordinary and step into the vibrational fields of mirroring, twinning, pairing, polarity (deities in female / male pairs – Isis / Osiris); omnipotence (particles and deities can be everywhere at once – the four faces of Hathor); interconnectivity (complex, often incestuous, relationships – Shu / Tefnut); quantum entanglement (deities link together even though in space they are far apart – Nut / Geb); parallel universes and alternate dimensions (the afterlife). Nut swallows the sun at dusk and births it at dawn. Meanwhile sky Goddess Hathor who is vibration, the Eye of Ra and mother, sister, consort and daughter of the sun god Ra, births him through her iris. The mythology of the omnipotent, energetic mother intertwines, forming and reforming, moving through itself like a Torus energy field (click to view). Mirrors were Hathor’s votives and in Her temple mirror images hint at divine reflections of ourselves and mirror universes – afterlife in ancient Egypt was a replica of life on Earth. One of Her avatars, as the sun’s heat, drawn as rays, when mirrored, forms a pyramid facade. It seems logical the up-pointing triangle is a reflection of the down-pointing triangle, both vulva symbols, both female. ‘As above, so below…” Hermes Trismegistus. ‘As above’ Nut arches over the ceiling of the Hypostyle hall in Hathor’s temple. Meanwhile ‘so below’ in the crypt there are pairs of bulb shaped containers, known as the Dendera Lightbulbs, with serpent filaments and Blue Lotus cords, the negative space beneath forming a triangle. Nut Dendera Lightbulbs with Icons by Claire Dorey Perhaps these lotus bulbs are Nut’s ‘mirror’ wombs, rising up in a pyramid pose from the Earth god Geb – the first act of creation. Perhaps this scene represents Nut’s own birth as She simultaneously births the twins Osiris and Isis, as Isis simultaneously births Horus – birth within births, infinitely folding back in on itself like the Torus. One coffin text says Isis was impregnated by a flash of lightning so perhaps the lightbulb theorists aren’t so far off! “You stirred in the belly of your mother in the name of Nut,You are indeed a daughter more powerful than her mother, Great One who has become the sky!” – Geb to Nut – Pyramid texts. So what of the pyramids, the ultimate triangle? As a pentahedron, does the square base represent Nut’s hands and feet marking the four cardinal directions? Or perhaps it represents the ‘four faces of Hathor’, the seeing-all eye. ‘Hwt-hor’ means House of Horus, so perhaps She is the pyramid. If the pyramid is the pharaoh’s tomb, the final stage of rebirth happening in another dimension, then surely it makes sense to think of the pyramid as a womb. “To reach the afterlife the dead pharaoh had to be rejuvenated into the womb of various goddesses, in particular, the great mother and sky goddess Nut.” – Birth and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt – Cathie Spieser – Asor. Overlaying an image of Khafre’s pyramid with an image of the uterus is not definitive but the dimensions do correlate. The lower and upper burial chamber passageways resemble fallopian tubes. Is this the coincidence of divine proportion or by design? The insidious rise of patriarchal conditioning and gender stereotyping erased from consciousness the harmonious and ancient pairing of rising female energy and grounding male energy – Shu supporting Nut rising from Geb. In ancient Egypt there were male uprisings. Ra forbade Nut to give birth on certain days, limiting her power. Pharaoh Akhenaten replaced polytheism with Atenism – the worship of one single sun god – possibly the first doomed attempt to limit the power of the sky Goddess. Of course there is such a thing as female and male energy however, as many now intuitively identify beyond the binary ’she’ and ‘he’, I question why gender is used to describe ascending and grounding energy. Gender stereotyping opens a portal for discrimination and exploitation. I’m sure cross dressing Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, 1479 – 1458 BC, would agree, …
(Video) AWARENESS is Curative. The Origin and Ongoing Stories by Cynthia Tom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fTX2k-YTFo Oct 2022 PLACE Origin and Ongoing Artists’ Stories: AWARENESS is Curative A PLACE OF HER OWN artists illuminated their creative journeys. Learn the art based origins of the workshops and how we use found objects, cultural heritage and generational healing as art mediums. 1.25 hr speakers, 1hr Q&A -cup of tea and a chat (Chapters listed below) PLACE provides artistic tools, and perspectives to wake us to our purpose and guide us on our journey. Chronic heartache transforms to resilience through layers with love, creativity, community and compassion. Featuring our wonderful panel: Cynthia Tom, Ahran Lee, Julie Andersen, Emily Yamauchi, PAZ Zamora, Norma Carrera, Mylene r.a.d. Leng Leng Acknowledgements: Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco’s Sankofa grant California Arts Council. San Francisco Arts Commission Do A Little Foundation AAWAA, Asian American Women Artists Association: PLACE’s fiscal sponsor Photos: Cris Matos| Presentation guidance: Susan Almazol Dedicated: Janet King, Diana Lew and Sue Tom 00:00 Start 04:06 Cynthia speaks to PLACE’s Art based Origin 25:52 Emily Yamauchi 34:10 Mylene rad Leng Leng – Reyna 42:52 Patricia Zamora 54:42 Julie (JillieLee) Andersen 1:03:59 Norma Carrera 1:13:40 Ahran Lee 1:23:45 Cup of Tea and a Chat, Q&A and Upcoming (1:24:48 Jordan’s film screening and Bronwyn) About PLACE A PLACE OF HER OWN (PLACE) https://www.aplaceofherown.org, an arts based healing program. This series of workshops, culminating exhibitions and artists’ talks uses intuitive art making processes for self-reflection and sharing to address and release ancestral trauma. Participants learn to recognize and release ancestral patterns, including links to family, and cultural dysfunction. To claim aspirations and self-worth, the art exhibition provides a way to artistically answer: “If you had a place of your own, what would it be?” Leadership Development: The program continues to provide workshop alumnae with opportunities to develop self-agency and leadership skills. Alumnae are invited to participate as exhibition artists, workshop facilitators, speakers and event coordinators. https://www.magoism.net/2021/07/meet-mago-contributor-cynthia-tom/
(Poetry) Crow Lesson on Abundance by Andrea Nicki

The crow neighbours received a windfall today. A stranger in the area passed through on her bike and released a small bag of shelled peanuts in the middle of the street. The crows did not rush in and fight over it, approached with an attitude of abundance, a few leisurely hopping into the street, some taking two, others only one. One remained above me on the fence, ignoring the bounty, letting me take its photo. Perhaps it was not hungry and had stored enough food or just felt assured without promises– a permanent contract with benefits– other food would follow. (Meet Mago Contributor) Andrea Nicki.
(Essay) The Emergence celebrated at Spring Equinox by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Spring Equinox Moment occurs September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere, March 21-23 Northern Hemisphere. The full story of Spring Equinox is expressed in the full flower connected to the seed fresh from the earth; that is, it is a story of emergence from the dark, from a journey, perhaps long, perhaps short, through challenging places. The joy of the blossoming is rooted in the journey through the dark, and an acknowledgement of the dark’s fertile gift, as well as of great achievement in having made it, of having returned. Both Equinoxes, Spring and Autumn, celebrate this sacred balance of grief and joy, light and dark, and they are both celebrations of the mystery of the seed. The seed is essentially the deep Creativity within – that manifests in the Spring as flower, or green emerged One. the full story: the root and the flower As the new young light continues to grow at this time of Spring, it comes into balance with the dark at Spring Equinox, or ‘Eostar’ as it may be named; about to tip further into light when light will dominate the day. The trend at this Equinox is toward increasing hours of light: and thus it is about the power of being – life is stepping into it. Earth in this region is tilting further toward the Sun. Traditionally it may be storied as the joyful celebration of a Lost Beloved One, who may be represented by the Persephone story: She is a shamanic figure who is known for Her journey to the Underworld, and who at this time of Spring Equinox returns. Her Mother Demeter who has waited and longed for Her in deep grief, rejoices and so do all: warmth and growth return to the land. Persephone, the Beloved Daughter, the Seed, has navigated the darkness successfully, has enriched it with Her presence and also gained its riches. Eostar/Spring Equinox is the magic of the unexpected, yet long awaited, green emergence from under the ground, and then the flower: this emergence is especially profound as it is from a seed that has lain dormant for months or longer – much like the magic of desert blooms after long periods of drought. The name of “Eostar” comes from the Saxon Goddess Eostre/Ostara, the northern form of the Sumerian Astarte[i]. The Christian festival in the Spring, was named “Easter” as of the Middle Ages, appropriating Goddess/Earth tradition. The date of Easter, which is set for Northern Hemispheric seasons, is still based on the lunar/menstrual calendar; that is, the 1st Sunday after the first full Moon after Spring Equinox. In Australia where I am, “Easter” is celebrated in Autumn (!) by mainstream culture, so we have the spectacle of fluffy chickens, chocolate eggs and rabbits in the shops at that time. There are other names for “Eostar” in other places …the Welsh name for the Spring Equinox celebration is Eilir, meaning ‘regeneration’ or ‘spring’ – or ‘earth’[ii]. In my own PaGaian tradition, the Spring Equinox celebration is based on the Demeter and Persephone story, the version that is understand as pre-patriarchal, from Old Europe. In the oldest stories, Persephone has agency in Her descent: She descends to the underworld voluntarily as a courageous seeker of wisdom, and a compassionate receiver of the dead. She represents, and IS, the Seed of Life that never fades away. Spring Equinox is a celebration of Her return, Life’s continual return, and thus also our personal and collective emergences/returns.We may contemplate the collective emergence/returns especially in our times. I describe Persephone as a “hera”, which of old was a term for any courageous One. “Hera” was a pre-Hellenic name for the Goddess in general[iii]. “Hera” was the indigenous Queen Goddess of pre-Olympic Greece, before She was married off to Zeus. “Hero” was a term for the brave male Heracles who carried out tasks for his Goddess Hera: “The derivative form ‘heroine’ is therefore completely unnecessary”[iv]. “Hera” may be used as a term for any courageous individual: and participants in PaGaian Spring Equinox ceremony have named themselves this way. The pre-“Olympic” games of Greece were Hera’s games, held at Her Heraion/temple[v]. The winners were “heras” – gaining the status of being like Her[vi]. At the time of Spring Equinox, we may celebrate the Persephone, the Hera, the Courageous One, who steps with new wisdom, into power of being: the organic power that all beings must have, Gaian power, the power of the Cosmos. This Seasonal ceremony may be a rejoicing in how we have made it through great challenges and loss, faced our fears and our demise (in its various forms), had ‘close shaves’ – perhaps physically as well as psychicly and emotionally. It is a time to welcome back that which was lost, and step into the strength of being. Spring Equinox/Eostar is the time for enjoying the fruits of the descent, of the journey taken into the darkness: return is now certain, not tentative as it was in the Early Spring/Imbolc. Demeter, the Mother, receives the Persephones, Lost Beloved Ones, joyously. This may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the sixty-five million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. They describe the Ecozoic Era as a time when “the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation”[vii]. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning” of our times[viii]. Collectively we have been away from the Mother for some time and there is a lot of pain. At this time we may contemplate not only our own individual lost wanderings, but also that of the human species. We are part of a much bigger Return that is happening. The Beloved One may be understood as returning on a collective level: …
(Video 2) Cultural Heritage and Ancestral Healing as Art Mediums by Cynthia Tom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evg71wYIqNA&feature=youtu.be [Editor’s Note: This is the session 2 of the same title presented on August 10, 2022.] PLACE presents PLACE alumni who share how they use art to explore cultural heritage and ancestral healing. Following her talk for the deYoung/Legion, Cynthia Tom (PLACE Founding Director) shares how her art creations led to her healing and inspired A PLACE OF HER OWN. She introduces 3 PLACE alumni artists: PAZ Zamora Katie Quan and Manon Wada, ( A PLACE OF HER OWN alumni) in conversation about their cultural heritage-inspired artwork and artistic healing experiences with PLACE. Acknowledgements: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Convening Grant Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Virtual Wednesdays. California Arts Council: “Impact and General Operating” grants San Francisco Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Initiative Grant Do A Little Foundation AAWAA, Asian American Women Artists Association: PLACE’s fiscal sponsor https://www.magoism.net/2021/07/meet-mago-contributor-cynthia-tom/

(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part II: We Disagree! Stand up for what you believe but be open-minded! Naa Ayele Kumari: I am going to step away from the common responses and say this… Binary is only no in betweens if you choose sides and can’t see the whole. I have been a part of black consciousness movements and women’s movements and both have the capacity for progress as well as extreme viewpoints. Both have the capacity to become so hypercritical that the movement itself transcends common human compassion and understanding. Mother Teresa was a human being with flaws and goodness. She had a public image and private fears and insecurities.. l like all of us. She lived her life the best way she knew how.. Like all of us. She made mistakes.. misjudgments.. Like all of us. But she also DID help and inspire others to help too. It is this dualistic thinking that forces people to feel like they have to assign the label of good or bad and no in between. None of us are all good or all bad.. so it seems to me that to label her has an evil traitor who let people die is no better than labeling her an Angel of god who did no wrong. She was a woman who lived her life and managed to come to worldwide fame and inspire others to love at a time and in an institution that was highly patriarchal and women were not raised up at all. Mother Goddesses in Africa were known for great nurturing and care symbolized by carrying a baby and also carried a machete on the other side for justice. This was the fine balance of wholeness…she was the gentle rain and the storm.. This was binary, but not one or the other but both.. Opposite ends of the same pole. [H]: I’m having a powerful visceral effect from this conversation. I feel as if I’m going to vomit violently. Mother Teresa comes to me in dreams and meditations. Makes me wonder what kind of person I’m seen as if I attract her energy. I have always felt so much love for her. Naa Ayele Kumari: If she comes in your dreams and it has been healing for you… Allow it/ her to continue to be healing for you. Its all about love and anything that is not love… Leave it be.. Vomiting is rejecting something that doesn’t belong with you. Embrace love my sister. Antonia McGuire: I think we may all agree that all belief systems initially began to promote a sense of goodness or fairness to some degree, but over time they are corrupted and produce both advantages and disadvantages. Donna Snyder: Yes, Gandhi, too. Back in the 90’s when I was in a band/performance art troupe called Central Nervous System, I shocked all the guys in the band coming out with an improv in response to a melody played on a banjo tuned like a sitar, called exactly that-Yes, Gandhi. Now make no mistake, he is one of my heroes, devoid of the falsified sentimentality that clings to MT. Gandhi’s work was for the world, for the masses, not for the appropriately humbled. Yet I spoke out about his sexual practices, his use of female bodies. Telling the truth about a hero requires courage. Retreating into a blind defense of a myth is a form of ethical cowardice. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Strangely I had a discussion with someone about the “hero’s journey” moving from metaphorical to physical being part of the problem…..when the “demons” are human instead of our own flaws, there seems to be a tendency to point the finger (and gun barrel) elsewhere. [B]: Fascinating & thought-provoking conversation, all. I think the biggest stumbling block I have with MT is how her acceptance of the dogma of the Catholic church blinded her to seeing and then being moved by the suffering of others enough to do something to alleviate & not vicariously celebrate it. No wonder she “suffered a lack of connection with the Divine”. This crisis with her spirituality seems to have been divorced from her and others’ body wisdom. Self-abnegation (perhaps not the same as “sacrifice”) ultimately backfires because some small part of us insists, “I am worthy!” To which I say, “We are all worthy!” [H]: I do not see or feel that she vicariously celebrated the suffering of others. I feel that she devoted her life to deeply loving and serving the poorest of the poor. I have not been to Calcutta and I have also seen some unimaginable poverty in India that is not like anything that I’ve been exposed to before. I truly believe that she had a very deep way of working with suffering that is not necessarily visible to those more accustomed to modern medical intervention and the resources available for such. I have participated in a very small amount of poverty medicine and the resources that we take for granted are just not readily available to MANY. I learned very powerfully from my experience how blessed and fortunate and often very careless we really are with our precious resources. This discussion has been a learning experience for me. I am trying to not take the critical comments […]
(Special Post 7) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[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. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. 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.] Kaalii Cargill: Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess. When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.
(Special Post 1) 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.] Introduction by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Wennifer Lin-Haver Helen Hye-Sook Hwang I am asking each of us to consider writing a sentence or paragraph on “Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality?” This idea is prompted by Wennifer Lin-Haver, Founder of Mother Tree Sanctuary, and I agree that we need to and can create a sort of collective writing on the topic. What we write below will be included and published in The Girl God, Mother Tree Sanctuary, and Return to Mago. As a subaltern minority as we seem at the current point of time, Goddessians/Magoists [the term Mago means the Great Goddess] need to make extra efforts to make our voices and presences exposed to the public and inner circles. Length and style are open. Please also include your name, region/state/country, title, and/or website URL. We strongly encourage you if you are located in a place where Goddessians are rarely around. We intend to make a collective testimonial tapestry of WE as Goddessians/Magoists! Please keep this in your mind and join us in this collective effort. Thank you in advance. March 6, 2014 AF (Archaic Future)! Wennifer Lin-Haver Our “call” started as a conversation between Helen and me where I was expressing to her the real need for Mother Tree Sanctuary to be more articulate with exploring the significance and importance of Goddess in our lives. I was prompted to give such a response, when asked “why” we had to differentiate God and Goddess. “Isn’t everything God?” She asked. And “Isn’t Goddess also God?” “Isn’t it all the same as long was we’re all coming from our ‘higher’ self?” she asked. So I saw this warranted a longer and much deeper discussion. I initially thought I should formulate a response and post it as a Page or Tab in our website, but after some reflection with Helen, I saw how much better it would be if we replied to this question as a diverse and creative collective. I surely do not have all the answers as an individual but perhaps together, we can come up with something more whole, colorful and satisfying. I do hope you will contribute a little something! We are always grateful for all that you have to share.

Imbolc/Early Spring – a Season of Uncertainty by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Traditionally the Seasonal transition of Imbolc/Early Spring, celebrated in early February in the Northern Hemisphere, and in early August in the Southern Hemisphere, has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself, around us and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may include in our celebrations and contemplations of this Season the beginnings of the new young Cosmos as She was, that time in our cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming; and also the new which has continually emerged throughout the eons, and is ever coming forth. The flame of being, as it has been imagined by many cultures, within and around, is to be protected and nurtured: the new being requires dedication and attention. In the early stages of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: it may flicker and be vulnerable. There may be uncertainties of various kinds. There is risk and resistance to coming into being. The Universe itself knew resistance to its expansion when it encountered gravitation in our very beginnings, in the primordial Flaring Forth[i]. The unfolding of the Universe was never without creative tension. The Universe knows it daily, in every moment: and we participate in this creative tension of our place of being. Urge to Be budding forth Imbolc/Early Spring can be a time of remembering personal vulnerabilities, feeling them and accepting them, but remaining resolute in birthing and tending of the new, listening for and responding to the Urge to Be[ii]of the Creative Universe within. Brian Swimme has said (quoting cultural anthropologist A.L. Kroeber) that the destiny of the human is not “bovine placidity” but the highest degree of tension that can be creatively born[iii]. many flames of being, strengthening each other These times are filled with creative tension, collectively and for most, personally as well; there is much resistance, yet there is promise of so much good energy arising. We may be witness to both. This Season of Imbolc/Early Spring may encourage attention, intention and dedication to strengthening well-being: in self, and in the relational communal context, and opening to our direct immersion in the Well of Creativity. We may be strengthened with the joining of hands, as well as the listening within to the sacred depths, in ceremonial circle at this time. NOTES: [i]As our origins (popularly named as “the Big Bang”) are named by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme in The Universe Story. [ii]As I name this determined Virgin quality in PaGaian Cosmology. [iii]The Canticle to the Cosmos, DVD #8, “The Nature of the Human”. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series, 1990.
(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution (as expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago,[i] and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago.[ii] Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever-changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence (as of this writing) to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as anyone’s ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change.[v]In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done, but it will continue to evolve as all language must. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …
(Essay) Conceiving, Imagining the New at Samhain by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

It is the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. In the PaGaian version of Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony participants journey to the “Luminous World Egg” … a term taken from Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance[i], where she also names that place as the “Shining Isle”, which is of course, the Seed of conception, a metaphor for the origins of all and/or the female egg: it is the place for rebirth. Artist: Bundeluk, Blue Mountains, Australia. The “luminous world egg” is a numinous place within, the MotherStar of conception: that is, a place of unfolding/becoming. The journey to this numinous place within requires first a journey back, through some of each one’s transformations, however each may wish to name those transformations at this time. The transformations for each and every being are infinite in their number, for there is “nothing we have not been” as has been told by Celts and others of Old, and also by Western science in the evolutionary story (a story told so well by evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, particularly in her video Journey of a Silica Atom.) Ceremonial participants may choose selves from biological, present historical self, or may choose selves from the mythic with whom they feel connection; from any lineage – biological or otherwise. Selves may also be chosen from Gaia’s evolutionary story – earlier creatures, winged or scaled ones … with whom one wishes to identify at this time. Each participant is praised for their “becoming” for each self they share. When all have completed these journeys/stories of transformation, the circle is lauded dramatically by the celebrant for their courage to transform; and she likens them all to Gaia Herself who has made such transitions for eons. The celebrant awards each with a gingerbread snake, “Gaian totems of life renewed”[ii]. gingerbread snakes Participants sit and consume these gingerbread snakes in three parts: (i) as all the “old shapes” of self that were named; and (ii) remembering the ancestors, those whose lives have been harvested, whose lives have fed our own, remembering that we too are the ancestors, that we will be consumed; and (iii) remembering and consuming the stories of our world that they desire to change, the stories that fire their wrath or sympathy: in the consuming, absorbing them (as we do), each may transform them by thoughts and actions – “in our own bodyminds”. When all that is consumed “wasting no part”, it is said that “we are then free to radiate whatever we conceive”, to “exclaim the strongest natural fibre known” – our creative selves, “into such art, such architecture, as can house a world made sacred” by our building[iii]. This “natural fibre” is a reference to the spider’s thread from within her own body, with which she weaves her web, her home; and Spider has frequently been felt in indigenous cultures around the globe as Weaver and Creator of the Cosmos. Spider the Creatrix, North America, C. 1300 C.E., Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.13 In the ceremony, participants linked with a thread that they weave around the circle, may sail together for a new world “across the vast sunless sea between endings and beginnings, across the Womb of magic and transformation, to the “Not-Yet” who beckons”[iv]: to the Luminous World Egg whereupon the new may be conceived and dreamed up. Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony is an excellent place for co-creating ourselves, for imaginingthe More that we may become, and wish to become. This is where creation and co-creation happens … in the Womb of Space[v], in which we are immersed – at all times: and Samhain is a good season for feeling it. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005 Sahtouris, Elisabet. Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution. Lincoln NE:iUniversity Press, 2000. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. NY: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. The Earth’s Imagination.DVD series 1998. NOTES: [i]p.210 [ii]a version of this Samhain script is offered in Chapter 7 PaGaian Cosmology [iii]These quoted phrases are from Robin Morgan, “The Network of the Imaginary Mother”, in Lady of the Beasts, p.84. This poem is a core inspiration of the ceremony. [iv]“Not-Yet” is a term used by Brian Swimme, The Earth’s Imagination, video 8 “The Surprise of Cosmogenesis”. [v]note that creation does not happen at the point of some god’s index finger, as imagined in the Sistine Chapel – what a takeover that is!
(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 …
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch

(Tribute) In Loving Memory of Lydia Ruyle (1935-2016) by Mago Circle Members

We posthumously honor Lydia Ruyle (August 5, 1935-March 26, 2016) as Patron of Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality. Mago Circle Members on June 11, 2016. Glenys Livingstone I feel blessed to have known Lydia and to have been in occasional personal communication with her for several years … initially via the Goddess Scholars list. Lydia sent me great information of some of her journeys, was always encouraging and generously supported my CD crowdfunding project in 2015. I feel honoured to have carried her Goddess banners to Australia in 2014.
(Essay 1) Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and Her Tradition Magoism by Helen Hwang

Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and her Tradition Magoism[i] This study documents and interprets a substantial body of primary sources concerning Mago [麻姑, also known as Magu or Mako] from Korea, China, and Japan. Much of this material has never been brought to light as a whole. In working with these various and sundry data including folklore, paintings, arts, literature, poetry, toponyms, rituals, historical and religious records, and apocryphal texts, I encountered an organic structure that relates these seemingly unrelated materials and named it Magoism. Magoism refers to an anciently originated gynocentric cultural and historical context of East Asia, which venerates Mago as supreme divine. Although “Magoism” is my coinage, its concept is not new. Magoism is referred to as the Way of Mago, the Origin of Mago, the Event of Mago, Reign of Mago, Heavenly Principle, or simply Mago in historical sources. In the West, its partial manifestation is known as the cult of Magu within the context of Daoism. One of the earliest verified records, the Biography of Magu (Magu zhuan) written by Ge Hong (284-364) dates back to proto-Daoist times.[ii] Nonetheless, “Mago” remains largely forgotten and misrepresented to the world especially in modern times. More incisively, her sublime divinity is made invisible despite strong evidence. No scholarship in the West has treated Mago as a topic in her own right. Mago’s multiple identities ranging from the cosmogonist to a grandmother, from the progenitress to the Daoist goddess, from the sovereign to a shaman/priestess in Korea, China, and Japan remain unregistered in modern scholarship. When mentioned, her transnational manifestation is not recognized cogently. She is often lumped together with other parochial goddesses from China. Other times, she is fetishized as a Daoist goddess of immortality. She is also known, among other representations, as the giant grandmother (goddess) who shaped the natural landscape in the beginning of time among Koreans. In any case, Mago is not deemed on a par or in relation with Xiwangmu (the Queen Mother of the West in Chinese Daoism) and Amaterasu, (the Sun Goddess of the Japanese imperial family), both of who represent the East Asian pantheon of supreme goddesses to the West. I hold that the paramount significance of Magoism lies in the fact that it redefines the female principle and proffers a gynocentric utopian vision to the modern audience. Its utopian cosmology is no free-floating abstract idea but imbedded in the mytho-historical-cultural reality of East Asia. I suggest Magoism as the original vision of East Asian thought. Put differently, Magoism is an East Asian gynocentric testimony to the forgotten utopian reality. In the sense that Magoism presents an East Asian gynocentric symbolic system, this study is distinguished from Western and androcentric discourse. In other words, its gynocentric universalism should not be subsumed under the discourse of Western or patriarchal universalism. Magoism prompts an alternative paradigm of ancient gynocentrism that redefine major notions of the divine, human, and nature in continuum. Mago, the great goddess, is the unifying and at the same time individualizing force in this system. Magoism enables a macrocosmic view in which all individualized parts are organically co-related and co-operating. As a religious system, it is at once monotheistic and polytheistic. That is, Mago is the great goddess in her multiple manifestations. Underlying the patriarchal edifices, the Magoist principle is the Source from which the latter is derived.
(Book Excerpt 3) The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia

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