December 8, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin

(Meet Mago Contributor) Lizzy Bluebell

Lizzy Bluebell is a Scots-born, independent writer, researcher, artist, photographer, and Specialist in Neologisms for 13 years. Lizzy works for The Cosmic Mother, supporting the Works of Mago. Her professional background is Canadian T.V. Journalism, Production, and Marketing. Now happily retired in the peaceful beauty of the Ozarks, she raises flowers, vegetables, and stray cats, along with her husband and partner of 20 years. Lizzy is a tireless advocate and activist blogger on Facebook Pages and Groups on various topics, but always with an eye to the issue of the false spells in patriarchal English Language. Lizzy began her passion for blogging one early May Day morning in 2004 when a dream awoke her at 4:00 a.m. with a revelation from the Cosmic Mother which prompted her onto the worldwide web, where she has been writing ever since.

10 thoughts on “(Meet Mago Contributor) Lizzy Bluebell”

Mago Work Admin says:

July 6, 2021 at 9:52 PM

Dear Lizzy,

Now I can match the donation by Stanis Vanuous with you. Thank you so much. Will email you about other matters.

Loading...

Reply
1. Lizzy Bluebell a.k.a. Stanis Vanous says:
  
  July 9, 2021 at 10:02 AM
  
  Awesome!! Replied to your email just a moment ago.
  
  Loading...
  
  Reply
  1. Mago Work Admin says:
    
    July 9, 2021 at 10:11 PM
    
    Which email address did you use? I did not receive yours, Lizzy.
    
    Loading...
  2. Lizzy Bluebell a.k.a. Stanis Vanous says:
    
    July 10, 2021 at 6:33 AM
    
    I simply replied to your email from ninemagos@gmail.com – but just re-sent it.
    I will try to contribute some comments on St. George, who, according to Barbara Walker, originated as Green George, a pagan figure still recognizable as the Green Man.
    
    Loading...
  3. Mago Work Admin says:
    
    July 10, 2021 at 9:04 AM
    
    Got the forwarded email. Will reply there from now on. Thanks!
    
    Loading...
lizzybluebell says:

May 29, 2021 at 10:34 AM

Just discovered that I am still here on your pages Helen, but I’m sorry I have had no success in reactivating my facebook account to keep in touch. Lizzy Bluebell.

Loading...

Reply
1. Mago Work Admin says:
  
  May 29, 2021 at 10:38 AM
  
  Hi Lizzy, I missed you. Check out Mago Academy’s events and love to get connected with you, if not on Facebook. Hope you have been well and safe.
  
  https://magoacademy.org
  
  Loading...
  
  Reply
  1. Lizzy Bluebell a.k.a. Stanis Vanous says:
    
    June 27, 2021 at 3:36 AM
    
    Thanks for remembering me, Helen. Facebook is dicking me around so that I can no longer access my facebook material. You can email me at vanstanam@hughes.net if you want to.
    
    Loading...
  2. Mago Work Admin says:
    
    June 27, 2021 at 8:15 AM
    
    I miss your insights now and then. Alas, a lot has been said and discovered in The Mago Circle, FB group. I will include you in my email list. Can you join Reading the Budoji course? We can begin a new group from Chapter 1. My email is: ninemagos@gmail.com
    
    https://www.magoacademy.org/2020/03/31/online-course-reading-the-budoji-epic-of-the-emblem-city-for-post-coronavirus-generations/
    
    Loading...
  3. Lizzy Bluebell a.k.a. Stanis Vanous says:
    
    July 4, 2021 at 5:13 AM
    
    I do appreciate your invitation. Two things prevent my joining – firstly, My Hughesnet service does not include zoom capability ( I live in a remote area with limits to service). Secondly, my eyesight is deteriorating so I spend very little time reading on the computer due to the hurtful effects of the screen’s glare. However, I will be pleased to send a donation and pop in now and then to see what’s going on. Thanks much for your consideration and for the great work you do.
    
    Loading...

Leave a Reply to the main postCancel reply

(Prose) Difficult Times by Sara Wright

The Healing Aspects of Ritual I have been writing and celebrating ritual for half of my life. The equinoxes and solstices and the cross quarter days (May 1, August 1, All Hallows, and February 2) comprise the eight spokes of the year. What I have learned from my research is that virtually every Indigenous culture follows this calendar in a general way – What I have gleaned from personal experience is that during these ritual periods my body is opened to the Powers of Nature in very specific ways that can be positive or/and negative. Often I experience uncomfortable physical symptoms – feel an intense buzz, am struck by severe headaches, the feeling that I am walking on air without solid ground; I have unusual experiences with animals or plants; I am blind sided by radical insights in day life or through dreaming. I have come to expect that usually there will be some kind of sign and if there isn’t one my body/mind isn’t in tune ritually and something is amiss – either my intentions, or the letting go (death) of some aspect of myself. The older I become the more I attempt to move through these periods with increased awareness that I am a receiver and need to be paying even closer attention… My rituals have become so fluid and usually write themselves through dreaming, my experiences in Nature, my animals and bird, and/or sometimes – less so now – by being triggered in a particular way by some mythological theme. Not this year. The Spring Equinox is historically a difficult time for me; this year is no exception. I normally suffer from debilitating depression at this turning. But I don’t ever recall “celebrating” a spring equinox that had so much fear attached to it. The C/virus struck this month. I am not only facing the virus with emphysema, but also must travel home to Maine, first for my health, (I literally cannot breathe in New Mexico’s intolerable summer heat) and I must also return to begin the foundation work on my log cabin… I am in my mid seventies in the highest risk category. My dreaming life has been most distressing reflecting day fears in graphic detail. One dream urged me to get going; another suggested reassessing motels in “Everytown.” I am also suffering from difficulty sleeping, a problem that I have every spring which has been exacerbated…With PTSD and a general anxiety disorder pressing me on, my ritual intentions were reduced to their lowest denominator. How to deal most effectively with fear. Death fears. This Turning is the second and last of the two Water Festivals, and this year it rained the night before. Unusual, especially in this dry desert year and to me the rain seemed significant. I note that sometimes the element that is honored seems to cooperate in a peculiar way at a Turning that acknowledges its importance. And Water is about purifying, letting go, and flow… I was able to collect precious rain that the trees and cloud people brought to use for our Body Blessings (Lily b, Hope, Lucy and me – only one of us is human). Very special, that. I lit a Balsam Fir Candle to honor the trees who are helping me to breathe easier. When I called in the Four Directions I began with East asking my Spirit bird, the Sandhill Crane, to be present… The last of the cranes migrated north almost a month ago. When Lily b my dove picked up my words in a song that he repeated over and over I felt as if I had really been heard (he is normally asleep by dusk) – my beloved Cranes and Dove were with me…Lizard came next… When I got to the West and called in Bear I had a sudden clear image of wearing a warm coat of black bear fur. Since the bear is the most important Spirit Animal for me this spontaneous image was surprising and very comforting – East and West had both responded in a visceral way and I will be traveling from West to East…(this is the Good Red Road of the Indigenous Way but in reverse) Reverse in this case this probably benign. When I finished with the North whose spirit animal is the deer I lit one candle to acknowledge my intention to deal with my fear, and a second to turn my face to spring, towards my difficulties not away from them… Next I took the bowl of water and blessed my body and those of the two dogs. I sprayed a sleeping Lily b on his roost, briefly awakening him. Just as I completed our body blessings for health and safety, it began to rain lightly. How strange; no wind. Rain without any wind in the desert is a priceless gift. I immediately opened the door, walked outside and stood in the rain asking for a second body blessing, breathing in my deepest gratitude. Once back in the house the rain stopped immediately. Incredible timing. When something happens twice at one time it usually manifests on a physical plane… Certainly our water blessings had been acknowledged. Finally, I offered up my prayers, thanked my Guardians, the Four Directions and opened the circle…leaving it unbroken. Peace. That night I dreamed that trees had hearts and the heart of the tree was what mattered. (I had just written an article on the fact that trees had a pulse – I believe trees have a heart that stretches throughout its body). I love all trees in a way that I cannot explain – Kinship. The following day two doves exactly like mine fluttered together, mating on the garden wall. This coming together of male and female doves seemed hopeful. There were negative effects too. The day before in the pre-dawn hours I heard the calls of the great horned owl. For me this particular owl’s call was always a warning. Before my mother died the owl …
(Essay 1) Embodied Divinity by Luciana Percovich

Once upon a time, in the beginning of human time, during that long and slow first phase of our history, the bodies of women were seen as channels bringing to embodied life, and were observed, portrayed and represented as the expression of creative energy. Deep in our unconscious, we do know that the Biblical story, reversing the natural order of creation, was invented to bewilder our feelings, to separate spirit from bodies and to despise any expression of the flesh.
(Essay) Counting to Three by Hearth Moon Rising

The following is an excerpt from Divining with Animal Guides: Answers from the World at Hand by Hearth Moon Rising, recently published by Moon Books. It is available online in paperback or ebook form and at your bookstore. When I was beginning my study of the occult I was taught to avoid even numbers in favor of the odd. Odd numbers allow for continuity, I was told. In ceremonies of some Native American tribes I observed that leaders tended to avoid odd numbers and favored the numbers four, six, and twelve. Even numbers provide stability, I was told. When I began studying feminist witchcraft I was told the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) were patriarchal because they were dualistic, and therefore inevitably fell into harmful dichotomies of good/evil, heaven/hell, enlightenment/ignorance, etc. While exploring Taoist spirituality I learned that the number two was complementary, simultaneously creating the paradoxical qualities of tension and balance, thereby leading to wisdom. When I looked into Vedic philosophy the number two was out (dualism again) and the number three was exalted because it described the infinity inherent in the cycles of creation, sustenance, and destruction. Numeric philosophy differs according to ethnicity, and there are obvious pitfalls in naively mixing and matching symbology without respecting the underlying structures. At the same time, what strikes me about the above scenarios is that they do reflect a common understanding about the nature of numbers, with the differences more reflective of cultural values than with disagreements about the basic qualities of numbers themselves. This is to be expected, since numbers themselves are real things, not cultural constructs, even if the language of mathematics is constructed. A dozen eggs is a dozen eggs, anywhere in the universe. Stating a preference for odd numbers as agents of “continuity” is professing a value for progress over tradition. Using odd versus even numbers in your shamanic practice depends on whether you view your work as promoting change or maintaining balance. Western magical traditions are built on number systems with European, Semitic, Sumerian, and Egyptian origins. Semitic cultures revere the number two, European the number three, Egyptian the number four, and Sumerian the number seven, although these systems do not revolve around a single number. If you’re thinking this could get complicated, you’re right, but we will concentrate on basic qualities of the numbers themselves and avoid getting unduly bogged down in cultural contradictions. One This is the number for the all-that-is: Creator, Goddess, or Great Mother. The wholeness of the number one is exemplified in the circle, which has no angles or sides; no beginning or end. The fundamental reality of the number one is easy to grasp intellectually, even if it is harder to understand experientially. This number must be feminine, since it contains everything and gives birth to all other numbers by division of itself. In other words, one is the parthenogenetic number. The majority of numeric systems seem to divide numbers into masculine and feminine, a practice I disagree with, but with the first number the feminine is inescapable. The number one will usually not be relevant in a predictive sense, unless you run across an individual animal that is usually paired or grouped. Then you must ask yourself, why only one? Two This is a highly unique number, because it is the only positive whole number that does not exist in the scope of totality. When one splits itself into two parts there are now two entities individually, plus the entities as a whole, making three. This is synthesis, in Taoist terms the resolution of Yin and Yang. Two is the polarity that as a whole becomes a unified field. Two is the number of the couple, yet in marital counseling the therapist views the relationship as an important third element rather than conceptualizing the couple as two individuals. Despite what I said earlier about even numbers being more stable, two is a highly unstable number. Think of a teeter totter or a pendulum: this number seeks balance but is easily pushed into disequilibrium. Two is the number of the twins, who seek both association and individuation. Stories of divine twins abound in mythology around the world. So do stories of divine couples. Before monotheism won out, the Hebrew ruling divinity was a mother-father pair, El and Asherah. The concept of masculine and feminine divinity reasserted itself later in Jewish mysticism with the Kabbalah. Another common pairing in Western mythology is mother-child (Frigga and Baldur; Demeter and Persephone) and same-sex friends (Gilgamesh and Enkidu; Athena and Pallas). With the number two, think attraction, repulsion, resolution, individuation, sameness, opposites, and a lot of contradictory concepts that are hard to wrap your mind around. I said it was an unstable number. It is also the only even prime number. Although some numbers, such as one, three, and nine, will have strong Goddess associations, I caution against automatically applying a masculine/feminine dichotomy to numbers. The number one as the totality of everything must be female, or there could be no birth; otherwise, there is no fundamental reason for sexing a number. Three Now we get to the critical number for those of European heritage, possible proof that pagan programming endures underneath all that Christianization. Ask a Jehovah’s Witness for their thoughts on the word “trinity” and you’re bound to get an earful. The Father/Son/Holy-Ghost triad (“God in Three Persons; Blessed Trinity,” as we sang in church when I was growing up) has no scriptural basis and was introduced because Europeans simply could not stop thinking in threes. “Why do we always give three referrals,” a social work colleague of mine mused aloud one day. “Why don’t we give two or four or five?” The answer is, because of the three blind mice, and the three little pigs, and the third time’s the charm. There, I just gave three answers to a question with three parts; try to stop thinking and talking in threes for three days and you’ll understand how pervasive this …
(Altar Art) Ancient Mother Mandala #4 by Nuit Moore

Sacred sculpture/altar art by Nuit Moore Ancestral iconography, mother back to mother back to mother infinity. The Venus of Willendorf.What engagement do you feel with this ancient primal expression of the origin of humanity? What faint echoes do you hear?Or is she loud and clear? (Meet Mago Contributor) Nuit Moore.
Floating by Dale Allen

Image art by Dale Allen Floating on my back in my home waters of Long Island Sound. Arms outstretched to each side. Complete Utter Relaxation. My Dad, Dan Morgan, used to do this. And then, he’d lie chest-down on the sand, head resting on his arms that were up and crossed under his cheek, feeling the warmth and support of the beach. I always liked seeing the way he knew how to relax and really feel pleasant experiences. He was lots of fun at the beach, too. My brother, Doug, and my younger sister, Lee, along with a collection of childhood friends, would surround him in water that was waist deep for him. He’d submerge underwater, kneeling on one knee, while the other bent leg provided a step for us to climb up and then swing ourselves around to stand on his shoulders. This was very cool for us kids! And then, a big jump forward to splash into the water! “Again!” We all took many turns. And Dad always included any nearby kids that looked on hopefully for a turn. He always included everybody’s kids. My Dad is my second father. He came into our lives after my father, Allen Schmid died when I was 3 1/2 years old. When I was almost 5, my mother remarried. At 37, long-time bachelor for that era, Dan Morgan married my widowed Mom and came, heart-wide-open, into a family of four children who had all experienced the loss of their father. After they married, we left the house my father had built and moved into a new house in town. About 2 1/2 years after they married, my younger sister was born. My beautiful baby sister. My Mom and Dad kept my father’s tradition of having a family boat for summer weekends on the water. We’d fill that boat with food and even more family and friends… these long summer days were wonderful! As I’m floating, I’m one with the gentle rhythmic motion of the waves. I am the waves. I am the Sound. I am the Atlantic Ocean. My Dad came from an Irish-American family of six boys, who were legendary for their antics and humor – legendary! I have a newspaper clipping of a story about their giant pet pig, “Frankie” who got loose and ran around town. Everyone chased and called for the pig around town until finally it ended up in woman’s kitchen, having been drawn in by the smell of blueberry pie. “Morgan Pig Goes Berserk” was the headline. But they also had a built-in, old-fashioned respect. I still love parades and decorum, like my Dad did. My Dad brought that Morgan humor into a family that needed it. He rolled with all of the unsettled emotions of his new family. He rolled with everything. And my father’s memory had plenty of welcome room to be a part of our lives too. My Dad’s mother, Grandmother Morgan told me as a little girl, “I told Gerald…” (She looked upward to indicate her deceased husband’s presence beyond.) “I told him that I would have a blond-haired little girl. He said, ‘Ann, you have six sons!’ But I told him that I would. And see…” (She looked up again and this time pointed a finger at her husband.) “I was right! Here she is!” And then she hugged me. Many, many times she would invite me to tea. I’d delight in selecting my own tiny teapot from her vast collection. She’s fill with it with tea, and we’d sit and talk at her small table in the kitchen. She made a little girl feel very special, and I learned a lot listening to stories of her world travel – solo travel – which was very unusual for the time. My father’s mother, Nana Schmid, after her son died and my Mom remarried, introduced my Mom and Dad to others saying, “This is my daughter, Ellie and her husband, Dan.” We’d all visit them in Delaware where they’d moved. We’d soak in everything we could get from them in word, artistic skill, woodworking, sewing, pug-dog-loving, Pop-Pop-humor that would sneak-up on you and delight you – and a very special kind of Nana-love that filled every nook and cranny. Part of that filled-up feeling was their love for our full family then – all of us. My mother’s mother, Grandma Wachowski who came from Poland as a girl, loved everyone in her own shy way. She was shy, but dependable like the ground that holds us up, and from which everything springs. She had fortitude, inner courage, commitment, and love. She runs like a low hum in me. All five of us children belonged equally to all three sets of grandparents. And we all belonged to each other equally. Everyone belonged. Our extended full family stories are abundant and rich. There are triumphs, there are tragedies, there are countries to leave, there are losses and gains, and there is humor, and music, and family feasts, and noisy gatherings.… Of all the stories, it’s the humorous stories we tell over and over. With each wave, I breathe in the memories and visions. My human body floats in the water, the amniotic fluid of the earth… the earth I came to, and of which I am made. We are all made of the Earth where life ever bursts forward in a cycle of birth, growth, death, renewal. Life, unstoppable. All around us in nature we see these cycles. We see nurturing to support the next generations – in trees, plants, birds, insects, animals. We are made of this. Floating, I am one with the ocean. All of the fish and whales and dolphins swim through it, as if suspended. It’s like the Universe. The stars seem suspended as they move outward with the ongoing expansion of the cosmos. I am the Universe. There are no questions here. No one is missing. We came to Earth, and we are of the Earth. From …
(Poem) spirit by Jhilimil Breckenridge

i know when spirit stills it is when the eagle perches, tearing flesh held in one claw the crow patiently waiting i know when spirit stills it is when clouds are mottled cream painted onto the blue mulmul kurta that is the sky
(Essay 1) The Animal Mother Goddess by Hearth Moon Rising

Excerpt from Invoking Animal Magic: A guide for the Pagan priestess Early religious art was predominantly animal. The cave paintings of Spain and southern France are mostly of animals and animal symbols, like the chevron, egg, crescent, vesica piscis, and spiral. Even obvious goddess figures often have an animal theme, such as the horn that the “Venus of Laussel” holds in her right hand or the feline creatures crouching beside the “Seated Woman of Catal Huyuk.” As the Stone Age progressed, goddess imagery became more pronounced, yet goddess/animal combinations were still common. With the development of writing, goddesses were associated in picture, inscription or verse with specific animals. Some of these goddesses were linked with many animals, or even given the title Mistress of Animals. One of the oldest animal mistresses on record is the Sumerian goddess Ninhursaga, addressed by worshipers of her day as Lady of the Animals, Queen of the Mountain, Lady of the Vulva, Midwife of the Gods, Mother of All Children and Lady of the Stony Ground. Her worship began in southeastern Asia Minor by at least 3500 BCE and spread throughout Mesopotamia. Ninhursaga is mother of both animals and people, which is not a contradiction when you consider humans a part of the animal family. Her place of residence is the rugged mountain steppes, an acknowledgement of the wild origins of humans. Along with her symbolic omega (Ω), which bears a stylistic resemblance to the womb, Ninhursaga is typically depicted with horned headdress, a bow and some type of animal, especially a lion cub or doe. We could call her the Goddess of Bow and Doe. Sometimes Ninhursaga is pictured with a trilogy of cow, bull and calf, a popular motif throughout the region. More obscurely, Ninhursaga is the mother of a dying and resurrecting ass-god of the western deserts. Many of Ninhursaga’s attributes are associated with goddesses we remember today: the Akkadian Ishtar, the Anatolian Cybele, the Greek Artemis, the Roman Diana. Read part 2 and part 3. Read more of Hearth Moon Rising’s posts. Hearth Moon Rising is a Dianic priestess and a priestess in the Fellowship of Isis. She has taught magic for over twenty years. Hearth is a licensed outdoor guide and lives in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Invoking Animal Magic can be found in bookstores or ordered online. See http://invokinganimalmagic.com for more details.
(Essay 2) 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 (2018 Mago Books). Part 2 discusses Marija Gimbutas’ restoration of pre-patriarchal Old Europe as a background for matriarchal Greece.] Goddesses of Birth, Nurture, Death, and Regeneration—In Neolithic Greece The archaeologist Marija Gimbutas uncovered societies in Neolithic Old Europe (7000-3500 BCE), including regions of northern Greece that were decidedly different than the later Bronze Age societies of Eastern Europe, in which she was a leading expert. Instead of warrior-king graves (called kurgans) with a male chieftain buried with his weapons and sacrificed wives, children, horses, and gold; in the deeper earth strata, Gimbutas found burials that indicated the peoples were settled, agrarian, egalitarian, artistic, peaceful, goddess-centered, and probably matrifocal and matrilineal. She named these earlier societies of Neolithic Old Europe, “the civilization of the Goddess.” And she called the Old European set of signs and symbols inscribed on many of the artefacts, the “language of the Goddess.” This set of signs and symbols is being studied as the “Danube script;” it is the earliest known form of inscribed communication, dating to circa 5500-2500 BCE.[1] Gimbutas’ Old European studies were published in numerous journal articles and four major books: The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 6500-3500 BC ([1974] 1983); The Language of the Goddess (1989); The Civilization of the Goddess (1991), edited by Joan Marler; and The Living Goddesses (1999), edited and supplemented by Miriam Robbins Dexter. These works describe the multi-disciplinary academic field and methodology that Gimbutas named archaeomythology. The reconstruction of the pre-Indo-European social structure of Old Europe is possible if various sources from different disciplines are used: linguistics, historical, mythological, religious, archaeological (especially the evidence from cemeteries and settlements). The society was organized around a theacratic, democratic temple community guided by a highly respected priestess and her brother (or uncle). … In all of Old Europe, there is no evidence for the Indo-European type of patriarchal chieftainate.[2] [Figure 1] Artemis, Goddess of Ephesus, many-breasted Cosmic Mother and Mistress of Animals, wearing necklace of zodiac signs and costume of sacred animals, insects, and flowers. Ephesus Archaeological Museum, Selçuk, Turkey. Photo by Diane Martin (2001). By using her methodology of archaeomythology, Gimbutas discovered at her archaeological excavations in northern Greece (at Sesklo and Achilleion),[3] social and religious patterns similar to those she found elsewhere across Europe. She found a preponderance of female and goddess figurines, along with animal, bird, and snake figurines, and a very small minority of male and god figurines. Her analysis of the signs engraved on the female figurines, found in ritual contexts, was the empirical basis for Gimbutas’ characterization of the sacred female iconography as indicating Goddess(es) of Birth and Nurture, Death and Regeneration. She said the artifacts could be interpreted as indicating many goddesses, or as indicating a Great Goddess with many postures.[4] When Gimbutas compared Neolithic Old European finds with those of Bronze Age Europe, she came to the following conclusions: The Old European and Indo-European belief systems are diametrically opposed. The Indo-European society was warlike, exogamic, patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal, with a strong clanic organization and social hierarchy which gave prominence to the warrior class. Their main gods were male and depicted as warriors. There is no possibility that this pattern of social organization could have developed out of the Old European matrilineal, matricentric, and endogamic balanced society. Therefore, the appearance of the Indo-Europeans in Europe represent a collision of two ideologies, not an evolution.[5] It is this thesis of Gimbutas that male and female archaeologists have attempted to disprove, often by arguing, or simply assuming, that patriarchy evolved out of the earlier matriarchal or pre-patriarchal societies and was the next higher stage of evolution and social development. Ecofeminist philosopher-activist Charlene Spretnak critiqued the orchestrated academic backlash against Gimbutas and the thesis, and her ostracism from British and Euro-American archaeology, in her incisive article, “Anatomy of a Backlash: Concerning the Work of Marija Gimbutas.”[6] Gimbutas’ theory of the origins of European civilization in a relatively peaceful, artistic, egalitarian, Goddess-centered, and nature-embedded culture was very controversial for over four decades. Finally, in December of 2017, Gimbutas’ most prominent critic, Sir Colin Renfrew, declared that Gimbutas’ “Kurgan hypothesis” of the invasion of Old Europe by warrior clans from the area of the Eurasian Steppes had been scientifically validated by recent DNA genetic testing. His Gimbutas Memorial Lecture, titled “Marija Rediviva: DNA and Indo-European Origins” [Marjja Renewed/Revived] was presented at the prestigious Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.[7] Goddess thealogian Carol P. Christ quickly responded to his lecture in her Feminism and Religion blog, titled “Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes.” In declaring Marija Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis “magnificently vindicated,” Lord Colin Renfrew, considered by many to be “the grand old man” of his field, opened the floodgates. He implicitly gave permission to other scholars to reconsider all of Gimbutas’s theories and perhaps eventually to restore her to her rightful place as one of the most—if not the most—creative, scientific, ground-breaking archaeologists of the twentieth century, “the grand old lady” of her field.[8] Gimbutas’ Kurgan hypothesis now becomes her Kurgan Theory on the invasion of Old Europe by Indo-European horse-riding nomads. Gimbutas’ work provides a new understanding of the early indigenous origins of European civilization and of the contending social dynamics between Old European and Indo-European cultures, between matricentric and patriarchal values and practices.[9] Cultural historian Riane Eisler names these contrasting social patterns, the “partnership system” and the “dominator system.”[10] (To be continued) [1] Harald Haarman, “A Comparative View of the Danube Script: and Other Ancient Writing Scripts,” in The Danube Script: Neo-Eneolithic Writing in Southeastern Europe, exhibition catalogue, Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania and the Institute of Archaeomythology, eds. (Sebastopol, CA: Institute of Archaeomythology, 2008), 15. [2] Marija Gimbutas, Living Goddesses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 125. See also Joan Marler, ”Introduction to Archaeomythology,” ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation 23, no. 1 (Summer 2000): 2-4; Mara Lynn Keller, “Archaeomythology as …
(Essay 2) Encountering Motherhood Divine: Towards a Sacred Economy by Nané Ariadne Jordan, Ph.D.

[Author’s note for 2022: This essay was presented in March of 2006, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Western Region, at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. I am revisiting my older ideas as based from my thealogical (study of goddess) and birth-based scholarly work. The notion of society moving towards a sacred economy is more pressing than ever.] Baby side / tree of life (Nane Jordan photo credit) I note my ideas on this theme predate the work of Charles Eisenstein and his notion of “Sacred Economics.” I had not heard of him or his work at the time of my own ponderings. Rather, I was immersed in considering the embodied, ecofeminist energetics of freely birthing mothers, alongside my studies of the ancient matrifocal Minoan-Cretan culture, as based in my community-based birth work as a lay midwife, knowing the sacredness of birthing mothers as contiguous to honouring our human interrelationship with Mother Earth as our primary matrix—as I imagine the Minoans may have. I see the Minoans as having lived from a sacred economy in their spiritualized, communal distribution of foods, goods, and resources, towards all citizens through their ancient Goddess architectural complexes. I am mindful of this communal, communing economy as related to what Genevieve Vaughan names the “Maternal Gift Economy,” as I note here in. Though I see gift economy as key, I would say a “sacred economy” is an activated gift economy that is both practically and spiritually grounded in cosmological Goddess matri-worldviews. In the case of the Minoans, a whole culture ritualized mother-love, social care, and life-based spirituality to honour reciprocity with the land through architecture that ceremonially transmits and distributes the abundance, love, and regenerative, birth-based gifts of Mother Earth. This worldview and way of life honours interconnected human and earth-based cycles of birth, life, death, and regeneration. Archeologist Marija Gimbutus highlighted the life-giving, Mother Earth-based principle of regeneration as the sacred, organizing matri-ethics of the Minoans, along with other Neolithic cultures she unearthed, and named them a “Civilization of the Goddess.” It is not my intention to offer a fully develop theory/thearia herein. I have extensively written elsewhere on the matri-power of birth-giving and placentas from contemporary mother-centred perspectives (Jordan, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). I note this brief study below as an intriguing view into understanding the ancient Minoans as a Goddess-template of a sacred economy, so that we may widen understanding of what a matri-culture did and can be. Sacred Economy: Previously in 2006, this essay was a slide list with detailed footnotes. I have brought my footnotes forward into the text, to imagine the Goddess-centred, ecological-economic-complexes of Minoan society as a template for a sacred economy through their ancient integrated ritual structures and uses thereof. I posit Minoan culture as a practice nexus for sacred, reciprocal, human-Earth, place-based interconnections as ritualized through matricentric community life. I dive into Minoan sacred architectural space via the scholarly sources cited herein, adding my own interpretations and imagining to that of the noted scholars. 1) Map of – Kefti and surrounds / Ancient Crete (Castledon 1990: fig. 11). Crete was called Kefti by the ancient Egyptians. Kefti and Egypt enjoyed trade and travel between their Mediterranean sea-connected civilizations. 2) Ritual bowl – made of red stone, found sitting in the antechamber to the Throne Room of the Palace of Knossos – Palatial period, 1600 BC (Alexiou 1968: 67). I see this as a ritual offering bowl for water libations in ceremony. In my own birthkeeping way, I call it a “placenta” bowl as if it held the sacred form of the after-birth. 3) Eileithyia cave – entrance to the sacred cave of Eileithyia at Amnisos on north coast of Crete. One of the oldest shrines on the island, its use dates from the Neolithic period (5000 – 2600 BC). In her Greek manifestation, Eileithyia is understood as a Goddess of childbirth, where her chthonic (underground) womb-aspect was worshipped here. A fig tree stands at the entrance (Alexiou 1968: 24). Caves continued to be utilized as places of worship well into Greek and Roman times. Offerings of libations are noted throughout the cave in the presence of cups, bowls and jugs on flat rocks used as altars. Votive offerings such as seals, bronze figurines depicting worshippers, tools, needles, and double axes, were placed in between rocks or stalagmites, on flat ledges, or thrown down deep chasms. Seasonal agricultural festivity, and visitation through pilgrimage, is noted in some caves through the presence of large pithoi (standing vessels/jars). These storage containers presuppose the collection, redistribution, and feasting on food/produce, as does the presence of dining equipment such as jugs, bowls, and plates (Marinatos 1993: 124). Pithoi are large womb-like containers, where gestation and birth is suggested in the regenerative matri-principle of life, life-giving, and life-sharing in community. 4) Eileithyia cave Again, from the Goddess Eileithyia, understood to be a Minoan Goddess connected to birthing, where mothers and others visit for ritual, ceremonial and contemplative connection to the life-giving principle of birth itself, both actual and metaformic—a metaform means beyond “metaphor” through culture practice, aka poet-philosopher Judy Grahn’s metaformic theory. I have long looked to birth as an activating principle for society and culture at large, to reawaken birth-based cultures of matri-power, love, and care that honour birth as sacred female power, being the undergirding force of our lives on Mother Earth. Not in any reductionist way, but knowing birth itself as wisdom force of life and life-giving, centred in a matri-ethics of care and continuity of life for thriving of all. 5) Mt. Ida – view from the Palace hill at Phaistos. Mt. Ida is the snow-capped peak on the left, the twin peaks to the right are known as the Digeris Saddle. Under this Saddle lies the Kamares cave whose 100ft wide and 60ft high entrance is visible with the naked eye on a clear day (Alexiou 1968: 48). Peak sanctuaries were visited by people throughout ancient Crete, even after the ‘official …

(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [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.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.
(Special Post 2) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is another image of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra slain by Herakles. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(mythology)… Glenys Livingstone: Yes, the Hercules story is more documentation of the Old Battle, of the rise of the “hero” to slay the Mother, when in the earliest of times he served with his beauty and labours. It is so interesting to see the analogies in other cultures/places as you are doing Helen, especially in Asia – it seems important work. Your perseverance is paying off, and will. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Glenys, I am re-reading a book on Chinese mythology and found a lot more on the nine Magoist symbolism. Someday, I hope to write about the topic in its own right. Glenys Livingstone: This chapter’s work is good re the Old Battle in Greek mythology: Valaoritis, Nanos. “The Cosmic Conflict of Male and Female in Greek Mythology”, in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Joan Marler (ed). Manchester CT: Knowledge, Ideas and Trends Inc., 1997, p.247 – 261. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Now back to the female divine who is depicted with the nine heads. See the nine-headed Guanyin/Kannon/Gwaneum. Also note that her icon comes in eleven-headed (the 8 Daughters and the Triad Creatrix, which makes eleven). http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: The symbol of nine dragons was adopted by imperial China. See the Nine Dragon Wall China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We connect the dots. When Guanyin is depicted with nine dragons, it conveys that the nine symbolism was/is once deemed sacred. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/17/b3/4a17b33d9a4ae53bad6466a0eaf11722.jpg How popular the Guanyin icon, three headed and eight armed, to this day! Simply Google “eight armed Guanyin.” Below is from the Late Ming Dynasty, China. https://www.google.com/search?q=eight%20armed%20guanyin… She comes in a different name, Ushnishavijaya, in Tibetan Buddhism. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65445 Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We can draw that the female deity such as Guanyin and Ushnishavijaya, just to name two, is venerated in association with the nine symbolism. Within the mytho-history of Magoism, I infer that Guanyin or Ma Guanyin is a persona embodying Goma, the Magoist Shaman ruler of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE), the head of Nine Hans (Magoist Koreans). Note that Magoist shamans or priestesses are called “Mago.” See my essay, “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology,” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 2018. The insight that the major Goddesses in East Asia and beyond point to the same and old divine persona is NOT farfetched, considering that the nine-headed snake or dragon representing the female sovereignty of pre-patriarchal times is slain by male heroes across cultures. Judy E Foster: I’d have to agree with you here. As usual, interesting information! Patty Kay: My meditation this morning was on a history of mysticism. While I’m in the midst of appropriating all of the wonderful beliefs I find here, I also have found a strand in my own tradition that helps me understand why all the Divine Feminine stuff makes so much sense to me. I’ve been trying to determine when the patriarchal world view took over. According to this history, mysticism began to emerge in about 800 to 500 BCE. Could it be that mysticism kept alive the ancient understanding of the cosmos? This is just speculation, but in it I’m answering my own questions. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.
(Special Post 2) 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.] Harriet Ann Ellenberger I got involved with women’s liberation in the early 1970s, so involved that it became my life for many years. During those beginnings of what is now called “the second wave of feminism,” everything was new to us and everything was mushed together — the political, the economic, the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual. I liked that a lot; it felt as if all the parts of myself were coming together. During that time, I learned something crucial the imagery and concepts of patriarchal religion justify and are embedded in the material structures of oppression. I don’t know which came first, institutionalized oppression (of everyone; I’m not speaking here only of women) or the religious expression of that oppression. All I’m certain of is that patriarchal religion permeates, for example, the Oxford English Dictionary, which I use all the time, in conjunction with Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, conjured by Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi.

(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 Winter Solstice is a celebration of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Triple Goddess in particular – as both Solstices may be, as dark or light come to fullness. Winter Solstice Moment celebrates the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb, and the gateway from that fullness back into new growing light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being, and Her birthing happens in every moment in the breath, and is seamlessly connected with all layers of being – of self, Earth and Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsVZzXtoyM The Text in the Meditation[i] Take a deep breath and let it go. Notice the Void at the bottom of emptying your breath … feeling it, and feeling the Urge to breathe as it arises. And again … feeling it over and over – this breath that arises out of the full emptiness in every moment, birthing you in every moment. – Recall some of the birthings in your life, your actual birth – see it there in your mind’s eye … you coming into being – your Nativity, your Nativity. Recall projects you have brought into being, new beings within yourself, perhaps children, new beings in others, how you have been Creator and Created – even at the same time … who was birthing who? Staying for a while with the many, many birthings in your life. – recalling now Earth-Gaia’s many birthings out of the Dark everyday … the dawn is constant as She turns. See Her in your mind’s eye – the constant dawning around the globe, the constant birthing. Recall Earth’s many births right now of all beings – as day breaks around the globe – the physical, emotional, spiritual births. Her many, many birthings everyday, and throughout the eons. recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. – recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. Come back to your breath – this wonder – none of it separate … the Origin Ever-Present, birthing you in every moment – out of Her Fertile Dark, in real time and space. Feeling this breath, Her breath. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, Winter Solstice ceremonial script, p. 195-196. Reference: Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology. Music: Fish Nite Moon by Tim Wheater, permission generously given Images: – Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pl. 155. See https://pagaian.org/book/cover-goddess-image/ – Winter Solstice window, MoonCourt Australia 2016 – some sources unknown
Beltaine/High Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 8 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Beltaine/High Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – October 31st or 1st November Northern Hemisphere – April 30th (May Eve) or 1st May though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, thus actually a little later in early November for S.H., and early May for N.H., respectively. The twin fires lit in older times on hilltops in Ireland for Beltaine likely represented the two eyes of night and day.[i] With this vision, Goddess as Sun and Moon sees Her Land, and with the power of Her eyes (Sun and Moon) brings forth life and beauty. With the fire eyes, Goddess“reoccupied and saw her whole land…”[ii] The twin fires later came to be used to run cattle between as they headed out to Summer pasture, for the purpose of burning off the bugs and ticks of Winter; the fires may thus be understood to serve a cleansing effect and likely the origins of the tradition of the ceremonial leaping of flames by participants in Beltaine festivities. In PaGaian Cosmology this is poetically expressed as the Flame of Love that burns away the psyche’s “bugs and ticks,” and sees the Beauty present, and calls it forth. The Beltaine flames may be a celebration of Sun entering into the eye, into the whole bodymind: a powerful creative evocation upon which the Dance of Life depends, and as the cleansing power of love and pleasure. PaGaian focus for Beltaine is on the Holy Desire/Passion for life, and it may be accounted for on as many levels as possible … the complete holarchy/dimensions of the erotic power. On an elemental level, there is our desire for Air, Water, the warmth of Fire, and to be of use/service to Earth. There is an essential longing, sometimes nameless, sometimes constellated, experienced physically, that may be recognized as the Desire of the Universe Herself – desiring in us.[iii] We may remember that we are united in this desire with each other, with all who have gone before us, and with all who come after us – all who dance the Dance of Life. Beltaine is a time for dancing and weaving into our lives, our heart’s desires; traditionally the dance is done with participants holding ribbons attached to a pole or tree (a Maypole in the Northern Hemisphere, which may be renamed as a “Novapole” in the Southern Hemisphere), wrapping the pole with the ribbons. This is not simply the heterosexual metaphor as is thought in modern times (thanks largely to Freudian thinking) – it is deeper than that. As Caitlin and John Matthews point out: it is symbolic of a far greater exchange than that between men and women – in fact between the elements themselves. … the maypole, a comparatively recent manifestation in the history of mystery celebrations, can be seen as the linking of heaven and earth, binding those who dance around it … into a pattern of birth, life and death which lay at the heart of the maze of earth mysteries.[iv] Beltaine is a celebration of Desire on all levels – microcosm and on the macrocosm, the exoteric and the esoteric.[v] It brought you forth physically, and it brings forth all that you produce in your life, and it keeps the Cosmos spinning. It is felt in you as Desire, it urges you on. It is the deep awesome dynamic that pervades the Cosmos and brings forth all things – babies, meals, gardens, careers, books and solar systems. We have often been taught, certainly by religious traditions, to pay it as little attention as possible; whereas it should be the cause of much more meditation/attention, tracing it to its deepest place in us. What are our deepest desires beneath our surface desires. What if we enter more deeply into this feeling, this power? It may be a place where the Universe is a deep reciprocity – a receiving and giving that is One. Brian Swimme says, in a whole chapter on “Allurement”: You can examine your own self and your own life with this question: Do I desire to have this pleasure? Or rather, do I desire to become pleasure? The demand to ‘have,’ to possess, always reveals an element of immaturity. To keep, to hold, to control, to own; all of this is fundamentally a delusion, for our own truest desire is to be and to live. We have ripened and matured when we realize that our own deepest desire in erotic attractions is to become pleasure … to enter ecstatically into pleasure so that giving and receiving pleasure become one simple activity. Our most mature hope is to become pleasure’s source and pleasure’s home simultaneously. So it is with the allurements of life: we become beauty to ignite the beauty of others.[vi] Beltaine is a good time to contemplate this animal bodymind that you are: how it seeks real pleasure. What is your real pleasure? Be gracious with this bodymind and in awe of this form, this wonder. Beltaine is also a good time to contemplate light, and its affects on our bodyminds as it enters into us; how our animal bodyminds respond directly to the Sun’s light, which apparently may awaken physical desires. Light vibrates into us – different wavelengths as different colours – and shifts to pulse. It is felt most fully in Springtime (“spring fever”), as light courses down a direct neural line from retina to pineal gland. When the pineal gland receives the light pulse it releases “a cascade of hormones, drenching the body in hunger, thirst, or great desire.”[vii] We respond directly to Sun as an organism: it is primal. NOTES: [i] Michael Dames, Ireland, 195-199. [ii] Ibid., 196. [iii] I have been inspired and informed by Swimme’s articulations about desire, particularly in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 2 “The Primeval Fireball,” video 5 “Destruction and Loss,” and video 10 “The Timing of Creativity.” [iv] Matthews, The Western Way, 54. And for more, see “Creativity …
(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, …
The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[ix] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
(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!
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/

(Video) The Mago Work by Mago Sisters by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL-hbgxa5v1IfUM6h6PvOTpLe8fLv5ExRG&v=HUM6EQ7sEaQ
(Essay 2) Making the Gynocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and Her Tradition Magoism by Helen Hwang

[Editor’s note: Numbers of endnotes differ from the original ones in the article] Reconstructing Gynocentric Korean Identity Scholars in the West, upon assessing a religion or deity of the non-Western world, tend to pair the topic with a modern nation. Thus, they often project their modern knowledge of the nation or culture onto the indigenous religion or deity they study. Such a methodology betrays the assumption that the modern notion of national identities is time-proven and bias-free. In this process, one’s perception of other people’s cultural expression is molded by Western-made modern knowledge of that people. This kind of knowledge ceases to exist outside the Western mind. Some go further to point out that the religious expression of a non-Western country in point is colored by the air of nationalism that is culturally on the rise in that country. This kind of assessment suggests the idea that a cultural expression fostered by nationalist zeal is inauthentic or impure and therefore of less value for study. While such conclusions are not necessarily wrong, I find it misguided. Done so, it prepares the ground for Western scholars to wield the authority of Western hegemony over the non-Western world. Precisely, it is blind to the fact that no cultural expression in modern times is free from nationalist ethos. Modern life is inherently shaped by the shade of nationalism whether it is in a non-Western world or a Western world. In my view, the question to be asked is: How can we assess a religious expression of a people beyond the modern notion of national identities? Or how can we go beneath the modern notion of national identities in order to assess a religious expression of a people? I hold that the modern category of national identities in particular causes harm to the study of the goddess. Modern nationalities go hand in hand with the impetus of patriarchal religions that do away with the female principle. There is an unmistakable difference between the male divine and the female divine when their manifestations are found cross-nationally. It is generally assumed that exchange of cultures between nations allows the male divine to be disseminated from one people to another. It is true that patriarchal religions have traveled around the globe and disseminated their gods into other nations. When it comes to the goddess whose worship is widespread across nations, such as the case of Mary in the West, however, this kind of reasoning proves to be inadequate. Antithetical is the idea that patriarchal religions actively promote the transmission of the great goddess from one nation to the other. Thus, the very perception of the transnational goddess is systematically thwarted in the realm of patriarchal religions. Androcentric researchers may choose to either dismiss as anomalous the topic of the goddess whose manifestation is found cross-nationally or treat her as a local deity severing her from her transnational context. This has been done to the topic of Mago. While Mago’s manifestation exists across the national boundaries of Korea, China, and Japan, it differs in nature, density, and complexity in these countries. Likewise, primary sources also show different traits according to the country. Korean sources surpass her Chinese counterparts not only in number but also in density and complexity. Mago’s supreme divinity is essentially affirmed in Korean sources, whereas it is treated as unknown in Chinese and Japanese counterparts. More to the point, the Budoji, the principal text that re-emerged in Korea in 1986, asserts that Koreans were the defenders of Old Magoism (Magoism in pre-patriarchal times) against the pseudo-Magoist Chinese regime. How can we understand the primacy of Korean Magoism without resorting to the modern notion of nationalist identities?
(Drama Review 1) Liminal Space/Time into WE: What Hotel del Luna Displays by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: Hotel del Luna is a 16-episode Korean television drama aired in 2919. Caution is required for the spoiler. This essay is prompted by this drama, which was discussed in a new class, Experience Korean Culture through Film (EKCF) offered by Mago Academy. I am ever grateful for this opportunity to assess matriversal (read Magoist) soteriology, eschatology, and cosmology implicated in this drama. This drama takes viewers to a liminal time/space. At the liminal timespace, we see how one meets the other. Almost all objects of the drama remind viewers of their liminal property. The female main character, neither living nor dead, stands between the living and the dead. The ghost-serving moon lodge she operates is visible to both ghosts and people. So is the tree of the moon spirit, a symbol for the tree of life or the world tree, which summons the moon lodge to take place. And so are all beings with physical forms. The liminal timespace is where we find ourselves in the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW.] Copyright origin unknown. Part I: Introduction with Synopsis Jang Manwol, the female protagonist, is fixated to the tree of the moon spirit (wolryeongsu 월령수) and entrusted as the representative of the moon lodge, which serves ghosts charged with unrelenting resentments, by the Mago Divine. Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Creatrix), by providing new opportunities, awaits Manwol until she takes actions to relieve her unyielding grudge, caused by the complex socio-political misfortunes in the 7th century. Manwol is, currently neither living nor dead, expected to die and take a ride to the realm of after-life (returning to the origin) just like other ghosts in her lodge. Together with her ghost employees, she operates a large luxurious hotel, Hotel del Luna, the latest name of the moon lodge. Standing in the liminal time/space, the hotel is equipped with an elegantly decorated spacious lobby, a sky-viewing terrace, a horizon-surrounded beach, and an amusement park as well as a multiple number of rooms, each of which is catered to serve the special needs of a ghost guest. At the heart of the lodge is the tree of the moon spirit. The hoteliers welcome ghosts, diagnose the story of han (unresolved resentments) that they carry in themselves and its remedy, and execute plots to resolve resentments in a peaceful manner, to be beneficial to ALL. Upon being healed and rejuvenated with a new perspective on their past lives and the Reality of Intercosmic Life, the ghosts leave the lodge to take the ride to the realm of after-life (jeoseung 저승). The dead are supposed to take this ride to the Origin. Ghosts with unrelenting resentments escapes this route and lingers in the in-between reality of the living and the dead. Until accepting the help of the male protagonist, Gu Chanseong, sent by the Mago Divine, Manwol stubbornly continues to roam around her inbetween space/time. Insofar as she holds onto her own oath to avenge, the tree of the moon spirit remains dormant, seemingly dead. The tree, a visual locus reflecting the inner landscape of Manwol (her predecessors and successors alike), connects ghosts and people and reveals the reality of Life to them. The young man, Chanseong, misses no opportunity to choose the good and to right the wrong in ghosts and people, which is the key to straightening up the entangled karmic consequences. He prompts Manwol to heal herself: She realizes the truth about her betrayer (she was consumed by her anger against him so much so that she could not know the truth; he did not betray her but saved her) and let go of her over-1,300 year-long desire to destroy him. Affected by the grudge-releasing actions of Chanseong, she gradually chooses the path to reconcile with her past, as the Mago Divine wishes for her. The tree of the moon spirit, showing a sign of life again by putting out leaves and flowers, harbingers the end of the moon lodge. Manwol and her ghost employees as well as Chanseong reach the timespace of saying good-bye to move on to the next stage of Life’s cycle. Mawol becomes the last ghost who get helped in her lodge. The Mago Divine is seeking a new owner for the lodge so that ghosts with resentments can continue to be served. The drama is potentially transforming the human psyche from within. Tantalizing, heart-breaking, and frightening stories of the dead and the living stretch the horizon to the whole — the realm of physical life (iseung 이승), the realm of afterlife (jeoseung 저승), and the in-between realm of ghosts. In the sense that its narrative structure is built on the Korean folk belief of Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Crone, and Creatrix), and Magoism, the Way of the Creatrix, I find this drama a composite text of Magoist thealogy (a systematic understanding of Mago, the Creatrix) at the core. What the hoteliers are doing is in fact the role of Mudangs (Korean Shamans). Although Mudangs and Muism (Korean Shamanism) are strikingly absent, the drama resonates with the Muist worldview. The core message is to release unrelenting resentments of the dead on the part of the living. Intriguingly, this drama does not speak directly to humans, “Humans, do not create cheok (hatred or suffering in other beings).” Perhaps, such is too clear a message to articulate. At any rate, we are supposed to gain the lesson by listening to the stories of ghosts. What we see is that troubled ghosts with resentment are helped and guided to the journey of afterlife. The dead are expected to take the ride to the realm of after-life immediately. Ghosts are those who would not follow the path of the dead. Viewers are told why some people become haunting ghosts upon death, why ghosts seek to interfere with humans, and why ghosts are tempted to take revenge upon humans. We may say that ghosts are the confused or disrupted souls. Ghosts face extermination by the Mago Divine if they harm humans or assist an evil ghost. Consequently, evil ghosts are precluded from the cycle of rebirth. That is …