February 27, 2018October 2, 2019 RTMeditorsKG

(Art) Breath of Change by Susan Clare

We all embody the Goddess as Creatrix – She who creates her world with thoughts, emotions and words. With every new breath we take, we have the opportunity to repeat the patterns we already know, or to bring forth something new. It is our individual responsibility to breathe out Truth and Beauty and so transform our world for the better.

Meet Mago Contributor Susan Clare

Leave a Reply to the main postCancel reply

Breathing with the Cosmos by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Wasp’s nest, photo by Carolyn Lee Boyd From your first breath, you are part of the movement of expansion and contraction that gives life to the universe, the stars, our planet’s landscape, and myriad beings on Earth. This pattern infuses our world from the tiniest seed to the universe itself and has been recognized and celebrated by global Goddess-focused cultures for millennia. We and other living beings grow from a small seed, spore, or embryo into a larger, complex, functioning body, then return to the Earth and break down into nutrients for the next generation’s growth of life. “The Earth’s continents were originally one mass that broke up into our current continents but are now slowly coming back together and may converge in 250 million years.”[1] “Our sun was born when a cloud of gas and dust collapsed into a dense core that then grew to its present size. Someday it will collapse again before expanding, then shrinking, once more into a dense, dim core that may form new stars.”[2] Our universe “may cycle through states of tiny dense hot energy to a cold massive void of expanded space and back again, over and over, according to some physicists.”[3] Old Europe, Indigenous America, Asia, Aboriginal Australia, and elsewhere explored this constant expansion-contraction cycle through the movement of spirals circling into a contracted center and expanding back out. Ancient art features spirals on ritual dishes and bowls, architectural decorations, and elsewhere. Nature loves spirals, forming them into wasp’s nests, flower petals, antelope horns and more. Even our galaxy is a spiral. When we move through to the center of a labyrinth and then back to the edge we are becoming a part of this spiral sequence with our bodies, minds, and spirits. These same cultures often used other symbols expressing movement in and out, including zig-zags and waves. In fact, according to Marija Gimbutas in Language of the Goddess, the “zig-zag is the earliest symbolic motif recorded: Neanderthals used this sign around 40,000 BCE or earlier” (19). Another global symbol using contraction and expansion is the snake, which moves by cinching and then releasing muscles on the sides of its body. We can even perceive some of the most well-known goddess myths through the lens of expansion and contraction. Sumer’s Inanna grows in her goddess power until She descends into the Underworld, contracting to a corpse hung on a wall, before beginning her expansive ascent back into the world. The Japanese Shinto goddess Amaterasu shut herself away in a cave, contracting into solitude, until shown Herself as the image of the sun, when she again emerged into the greater world of life and light. The spiral, snake, and other contraction/expansion symbols are also related to energy. According to Gimbutas, “the snake is life force…epitome of the worship of life on this earth. It is not the body of the snake that was sacred, but the energy exuded by this spiraling or coiling creature which transcends its boundaries and influences the surrounding world” (121). We also see the power of the spiral’s energy in early dances. “…the earliest forms of the labyrinth, which were actually cultic dancing grounds, were simple spirals, (39)” notes Heide Göttner-Abendroth in The Dancing Goddess. Of course, dance invoking spirals and life energy are still very much a living, global spiritual practice. Cosmic expansion and contraction of the universe, galaxies, and stars all involve vast amounts of energy. Integrating the energetic motion of expansion and contraction into our lives is just as beneficial now as in ancient times. It is a way to look at how we move through life as we seek wholeness, balance, and harmony. For example, remember when you first discovered female divinity? Perhaps, like me, your view of yourself and the world expanded as you were exposed to female divinity in myths, art, and history. Then, you spent some time withdrawing into your own inner realm to integrate these into your life perspective before opening again to more new knowledge and experience. For me, understanding the cycle helps me cope as new ideas, scholarship, and perspectives continually recast my understanding of myself and the world. Martha Graham, photo by Nickolas Muray, 1922, Public Domain Aligning with this pattern so ubiquitous in nature can also help make positive change happen on a cultural level. Martha Graham revolutionized modern dance by removing classical ballet’s focus on unnatural positions, such as balancing on the tips of toes, and restrictions on the movement of female bodies. Instead, she centered the contraction and release of muscles to create more flowing, lifelike motion. Her work, along with Isadora Duncan, who also liberated concepts of women’s bodies through movement based on the living world and reflecting contraction/expansion, helped change how women experience their bodies and boldly demonstrated their right to physical freedom. Art aligned with nature creates real positive change. Viewing our work in terms of expansion and contraction can help us remain grounded in our values. Like a spiral, we need to always circle around such basic values as peace, equality, respect, celebration of beauty, and harmony with the Earth. First, we move ever outward in seeking a more complex understanding of how best to navigate our interactions with other living beings and the world. Then we retreat to make sure we are still focused on what truly matters, before once again reaching out with our minds, souls, and connections. Also, it is heartening to remember in times when we are in the contraction part of the cycle that growth will come again. Perceiving, understanding, and being energized by this cosmic breath, this repeating pattern of expansion and contraction, is one key to our well being and the effectiveness of our work. It helps us see the world, ourselves, and our work more clearly when we look through the lens of this ubiquitous natural pattern. We are entering a liminal time when, here in the north, life draws in for winter, as we humans focus our lives quietly indoors, plants …
(Art) Labrys by Pegi Eyers

Art by Pegi Eyers The first labyrinths were associated with the ceremonies of the Moon Goddesses of the ancient world such as the Amazon Goddess Gaea, and with the symbol of the double-headed axe. “Her soul message is the reclaiming of your matriarchal heritage as leader and visionary.” (This is included in She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3)(Meet Mago Contributor) Pegi Eyers.
(Poem) Sky Woman comes to Earth by Sara Wright

Refuge tree trunk, photo by Sara Wright Every twig is singing a song of thanksgiving to Sky Woman who gifts steady rain nourishing earth’s parched body. Cracked ground softens soaks in minerals and scent sensing wonder. No deluges this time just sheets of falling water overflowing wells brook pools rain buckets Bodies bursting Joy. Gratitude may help the Earth rebirth herself even as she calms and sooths my beating heart scented and renewed. Mourning Doves sweeten New Dawn. In Indigenous story (Robin Wall Kimmerer) Sky Woman fell into a great void when the branch she held – the Tree of Life – cracked. But from that fall the Earth was born… After the Birthing, Sky Woman returned to the sky but her Presence is palpable when nourishing rain blesses the earth, renewing her, allowing us all to begin again. This mythological story belongs to Northern Indigenous peoples and it more plausible to me than the current western mythological story that posits that at ‘first there was nothing and then there was everything’ (Richard Powers). The difference between the two is that in Sky Woman’s story Earth renews herself again and again while in the Big Bang theory the earth and universe will eventually disintegrate through entropy. Sky Woman’s myth describes the circular nature of life, Earth’s Renewal is its central truth. It does not speak to whether or not humans will survive our continued destruction of this beautiful blue green planet. The western story is linear, and most damaging, is considered by most to be scientific truth. I think this latter tale is more about human projection than the reality of life on earth. “Humans are born in the middle of things, live in the middle of things and die in the middle of things. This is not a good story”. (Powers). We are born, we live, we die – this linear story is real and true for us but is probably not true for the earth or the universe as a whole. We live on a planet that is demonstrating to us every single day that cycles define nature’s ongoing life processes. Think of the seasons like the one we are approaching – fall, with its astonishing colors. Leaves falling to earth, becoming food for new life in a few months time. As a naturalist who spends so much time in the forest, I am continually awed by ‘dead’ tree stumps that demonstrate the ongoing nature of life as each births a multitude of tree seedlings and groundcovers. Death births life, and death is simply part of the whole ongoing story. I think of Carol Christ whose writings demonstrate repeatedly the cyclic nature of life, honoring both patterns and proteins (DNA) in the process of living and dying. The words “as above so below” come to mind. The earth and the universe may be dancing the same dance of creation, re-creation. This summer has been too dry. The wild wind driven thunderstorms have not brought us relief from drought, although the deluges do moisten the earth for a brief time before wind disperses the raindrops. At least we have had some kind of regular rain for which I am grateful. The leaves of deciduous trees are dropping prematurely and some maples have already caught fire. Now, in late August we are getting some good soaking rains as the season begins to change. My gratitude knows no bounds. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/
(Poem) The Racial Contract by Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: I read an article from the Atlantic, got enraged, got inspired, and out came this poem. “The Coronavirus Was anEmergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying”]. A nurse at a New York hospital has shared a powerful photo amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Buzzfeed News shared the image, which depicts a truck filled with victims of COVID-19 in body bags. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. But to those in power that is how it should be since these are not important people to them. These are the vermin, the welfare queens who sit at home all day collecting unemployment so why should they matter? These “essential” workers do not contribute millions to campaigns for politicians or petition to eliminate public schools. The people who should be protected, whose lives matter, want to be served, and those who serve deserve to suffer for the good of their betters. They serve because they are stupid and lazy and cannot get good jobs to buy yachts and lake houses and host fundraisers. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. The commissioner in California rejoices at their imminent deaths, the virus is culling the herd of the weak, poor, and worthless. The mentally ill veteran was not strong enough, the junkie is pathetic The streets will be cleaner when they are not around. Those who do not give bribes to the politicians who maintain the system only take from it, drain it. Let them die, it will be less of a burden for the rest overall, let them die at their jobs, they can be replaced. No sick days, no healthcare, they do not deserve the benefits of the first world since most came from the third. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. This is the racial contract which the broken system supports, some people’s lives are worth protecting, others are not. And if those who are the better people are not in danger then why should they suffer to protect the lesser people? Hair needs cut, nails need painted, spring wardrobes updated to look their best, This is about Liberty, Freedom, Independence! Confront the police with guns, scream in their faces, swear at the nurses and block the hospitals until everything reopens. All Lives Matter, except Black Lives, Brown Lives their lives are a waste anyway Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. This makes me sick, makes me angry, makes me rage Protect all life you scream, unless that life cleans your floors, cooks your food and stocks your shelves. Those lives are replaceable, they are not the regular folks in Brown county. Are we really like this? My neighbors and Facebook friends? Is this what we give into, threats of violence and guns in our faces and we back down and step back 6 paces. Or will we stand up and fight to protect those deemed essential right now? And keep the fight up in the fall, the winter, next year, the next five years. We must remember, essential workers saved us and deserve a living wage And hospital treatments that do not leave a family homeless. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. Remember this line, remember what was said by media and representatives when they get back to congress and say no to a living wage and treat healthcare like a privilege. Scream and remind them who suffered, who sacrificed, and what we learned. Sick days limit contagion, savings lessens a burden, fast treatment saves lives. Those who bailed out Wall street and forgot main street do not care about you or me, especially if we are not white. Rally for your neighbors, repeat the number of the dead, and never let them tell us some people deserve to suffer, to be poor. Congressmen did not suffer, billionaires did not suffer, we suffered. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. Let this be the epitaph for 2020. The chant for the changes we must make. The eulogy for the Great America. Black and Latino workers are overrepresented among the essential, the unemployed, and the dead. (Meet Mago Contributor) Francesca Tronetti.
(Art 2) Gather the Women by Pegi Eyers

Art by Pegi Eyers The shared support and connection between women allows us to heal from the patriarchy that has waged war on us for millennia, and joining together in the true spirit of sisterhood is a revolutionary act. By forming diverse networks we enhance our own lives, our communities and the earth. The co-creation of women’s culture is a space where we can feel safe, celebrated and empowered, and when we gather together in circles of unity, miracles can happen. (This is included in She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3)(Meet Mago Contributor) Pegi Eyers.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Kathleen McKern Verigin

Kathleen McKern Verigin is a licensed and ordained interfaith minister with deep roots in Celtic Spirituality and the Divine Feminine. She is founder and director of Anam Cara Connections, a non-profit ministry for women based in Portland, Oregon, USA. (Anam Cara in Irish means soul friend.) Through this ministry she offers Celtic ceremonies and classes, a mentoring program for women, and sacred site tours of Ireland. By degree, Kathleen is an educator and communicator. Through life experience she is an EMMY Award-winning television writer/producer, author, publicist, inspirational speaker, spiritual counselor and mentor, guide for sacred site tours of Ireland, and wife, step-mom and cat lover.
(Poem) If you have forgotten by Jhilmil Breckenridge

If you have forgotten who I am If you have forgotten how I sound If you have forgotten how I look let me help you remember
(Prose) “First Light Reflection…” by Sara Wright

This morning I awakened to the same smoky blue gray clouds that brought in twilight last night, clouds that bled black ink into a fiery sky. The air was mild, 30 degrees, as I stepped outside to witness with wonder the dawn breaking – that moment when time ceases and the earth holds her breath. As I scattered seed for the birds a solitary robin sang from the cottonwood, the first spring song I’ve heard him sing this year. Was he heralding the birth of First Light? Suddenly a cacophony overhead: a gaggle of geese flew so low I could see dark wings and white bellies, and as they soared they too were honking with the greatest enthusiasm, a collective song sung with one voice. It was impossible to escape the sense that my avian friends know that today was a special day, a day when the whole earth celebrates the return of the light. When the sun broke over the horizon, a golden orb shining through the trees the smoke was already fading into a deep blue sky. I stood at the gate overlooking Avanyu’s river, (the Pueblo Serpent, whose horned watery undulating image is pecked into so many stones on the highest rubbly mesas), for a moment I felt a sharp pang of grief that the water was so low, but the shimmering serpent seemed intent upon reflecting the beauty of the sky above, and no more. Ancient peoples noted the return of the light and celebrated, each in their own way. Some of us have not forgotten the old ways and live them still and I will always be filled with gratitude for the women’s spirituality movement which developed out of a feminist perspective in the 80’s, because it helped women and men to dive into the cultural meanings behind these cyclic turnings of the wheel resacralizing the earth and her seasonal shifts for many. These turnings that were once considered holy by all peoples… In Celtic lore it is Brigid’s Fire and Light that we honor today. Brigid is goddess of the forge, she works with fire and metal and is a transformer herself; she is also a poet and writer, a great source of artistic inspiration. In my “First Light” ritual (my name for this turning) I always light a “crown” of candles on this day – this circle of light embodies the wholeness that I associate with the sanctity of the earth in darkness as well as light. Groundhog Day is the only vestige of the ancient ritual practice associated with the She Bear, “Mother of All” that remains part of American tradition. On February 2nd, today, the bear (who shapeshifted into a groundhog in the United States) first emerged from his den to determine when spring would come. If the bear saw his shadow spring was still six weeks away and the bear returned to his den to sleep. In actuality wild bears sometimes stir, and males often emerge briefly on the first warm, sunlit, late winter days, so this cultural story has a basis in the habits of real wild bears. What fascinates me about this myth is the shadow element that is associated with the return of the light of the sun. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow… it is easy to forget that light always brings shadow along as its doppelganger… It is important to be mindful of this truth. I think about the custom of the European Shrovetide Bear who was chained and led from house, forced to dance on hot coals to bless the fields for the coming year. This wild animal – a real bear (probably a grizzly) – was tortured for reasons that remain unclear to me unless I consider that the bear has been forced to carry our human shadow element for millennium and was used as a stand in for containment of the dark side of humanity – as an animal scapegoat. Remember, the bear was chained. (Perhaps we need to re-visit this idea of containing the dark side of humanity, which seems to be out of control as we continue to destroy life on this planet). For me, this coming of the light has a shadow aspect that I can feel in my body as a kind of uncomfortable buzz. As a bear researcher I experience raw fear for all the hibernating wild bears who are still snug and safe in their winter dens. From the time these animals first emerge in the spring they will be mercilessly hunted down by men – men who continue to project their dark destructive impulses onto these animals and slaughter them. So this coming of the light is not just about the return of light and the greening of the earth, but reflects the reality of human darkness and the cruelty inherent in the human condition. This knife edge is important to acknowledge as we move into the spring of the year because it is too easy to forget that light and dark are always part of one whole, and to experience one side is to be opened to the other. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright
(Essay) Three-Fingered Fish Goddess- South Slavic Intangible Oral Memory Traditions by Danica Anderson

Lepenski Vir is a Mesolithic site on the banks of the Danube in Serbia, close to the Iron Gates. Dusan Boric and Preston Miracle’s work on the Mesolithic and Neolithic sites of Padina and Hajduka Vodenica, Serbia revealed a long residence of Proto-Slavs from 10,000 BCE in the Danube Gorges. [Boric & Miracle, 341-371] At Lepenski Vir many Fish Goddesses were found reveling in the aquatic lushness of the Danube river gorges. Perhaps, as a tribute to the huge water reservoir, the Fish Goddesses were important relics for burials and a part of the architectural structures consisting of temples not residences. The impressive fact is age of Lepenski Vir dated to the time of Mesolithic-Neolithic transition 6300-5950 BCE. It is here that the ‘Three fingered Fish Goddess’ is remembered in modern day Orthodox religion. The Serbian Orthodox sign of the cross performed with three fingers is a South Slavic oral memory tradition that originated from Neolithic-Paleolithic. In the Lithic eras, the three fingered salute stood for the truncated tree in the vast forest indicating a crossroads or intersection. [Harding, 42; 62-63] Combining or sharing of iconography such as the crossed circle motif associated with Atlantis and Egyptian oral memory traditions to that of Hindu antiquity, we have the geographical coordinates origin (Indonesia first began this geography) and has to do with the intersection of the equator and the Meridian Zero. [online Atlantean Symbolism] With Egypt’s great Nile river, and the legend of Atlantis’ located in the middle of a large body of water to that of the great rivers, Danube and Sava in the Balkans we have in our modern life the same ancient monumental hybrid forms of commemorative practice. The Three Fingered Fish Goddess, held on to the intangible oral memory tradition transmission of important navigation skills for or inner ecology and that of the Slavic Moist Mother Earth. What is held in the archeological artifact of the Slavic Three Fingered Fish Goddess; her three fingered hands are held at the mid-section of her body; the equator. One of the most important insights of the cross and crossing oneself with three finger salute is that we are performing archaic oral memory traditions, what I name as ‘human geography.’ Related to the three fingered Fish Goddess—early Christians did the sign of the fish. In this sense early Christians were not performing a social memory but the sense of a continuous body of wisdom living from generation to all future generations. In doing so, the early Christians portrayed oral memory traditions. The practice of the sign of the cross or three fingered salute acknowledged relations to Aphrodite whose hand pose originated from the three fingered fish Goddess. Three-finger salute (Serb/три пpcтa or tri prsta)-patronymics is found in South Slavic-Serbian names, with “ic”, “ich,” to refer to little or son of. ‘Patri’ is word origins are for father, tracing the upheaval from the Great Mother Goddess. The Serb Orthodox religion took on the three fingered aspect of the Fish Goddess due to the Pagan-Earth Based Religions of the South Slavs once centered on the Moist Mother Earth, the archetypal feminine. With the early Christians, the removal of the troika- of daughter, mother and grandmother, three fingered salute and sign of the cross became modern day trilogies of the father, son and Holy Spirit instead. The Holy Spirit is the last thread to the Great Mother of what was once a cohesive, endogamous (anthropological marriage with accordance of custom or law) body of wisdom. We can move through the generations to present day to view how the cultic and performative practices of our ancestors are still held in our cultural situations. It shows the surrender to the evoke the substantive meanings from what their ancestors embedded in daily life acts. A painting by Paja Jovanovic “Takaovo” translates from Serbo-Croatian to ‘Here or done like this’. This indicates the lithic era for the sense of direction to be taken with the three fingered salute or cross. The intangible oral memory traditions began a twisted notion of ‘Here or done like this’ that now is a sign of inciting wars. For instance, the Serb folk Prince Milos Obrenovic in a three finger salute started the second uprising against the Turks- Ottoman Empire with – “Here we are and here you are” to incite a revolt- war. [Online, Three Fingered Salute] “Njegos” prince-bishop-Vladika who was a great poet, and “Karadorde Petrovic” 1768-1817- the first Serbian leader to start the uprising against the Ottoman Empire- is known as the Serbian House of Karadordevic. [Milne] Note how the house became the domain and power of males- father authority figures. The Montengrin peoples are termed Crni Dorde- Black George for his Montengrin Serb Vasojevici tribe’s dark complexion. The latter indicates the migratory route from middle of Africa, the lineage of our first Mother. The Vasojevici tribe handed down orally for more than thirteen generations their legacies with poems and songs and kolo dances (folk round dances). Serb folk wisdom states Nema krsta be tri prsta- there is no cross without three fingers. What has occurred in modern day era is the identity of the important meaning behind the three-fingered salute, the human geography, is now a mortuary practice to incite violence. The three finger salute went on with its gynocide and mass murder with Ante Pavelic- once leader in WWII for the Croatian Country that became the infamous Ustashi- Nazi SS arm murdering, Serbs, Muslims, Jews and Romano on a whole scale level. In 1991, the Serbian Renewal Movement political party, Belgrade used the three fingered salute for demands, and was stated by Srdan Serckovic, the vice-president to represent “St. Sava” Serbian patron saint known for teaching literacy and orthodox religion to the masses. The latter is the dominance of the father; patriarchy. In 2007 Eurovision employed a song contest with Serbian Marija Serifovic given the award in front of Bosnian television viewers. Marija Serifovic upset the Bosnian viewers with her three fingered salute- since most Bosnians are Muslim …

(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) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), in recognition of the ill-treatment and misunderstanding of Aboriginal people that was set in train when, in 1788, white people first settled in the land now known as Australia.
(Special post) The Goddess Inanna: Her Allies and Opponents by Hearth Moon Rising

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld is one of the most fascinating myths ever told. Not just because it is profound and enlightening, although it is certainly that. It’s an exciting journey that ignites the imagination, and female characters are at the hub of the action. This is a tale of power: power that is demanded, power that is won, power that is appropriated, and power that cannot be escaped. The story follows the fertility goddess Inanna, who brought civilization to Mesopotamia, as she seeks to expand her realm by venturing into the world below. Inanna’s experiences in the great below, her escape, and the wild events that unfold as a result of her caper are the focus of the tale.

(Video) Autumn Equinox/Mabon Poetry by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Autumnal Equinox occurs each year in the range of March 20-23 in the Southern Hemisphere, and in the range of September 20 -23 in the Northern Hemisphere. Autumn Equinox is a point of sacred balance: it is the point of balance in the dark part of Earth’s annual cycle. Sun is equidistant between North and South as it was/is at Spring Equinox, but in this dark phase of the cycle, the trend is toward increasing dark. Henceforth the dark part of the day will exceed the light part: thus it is a Moment of certain descent … and a sacred Moment for feeling and contemplating the grief and power of loss, for ceremoniously joining personal and collective grief and loss with the larger Self in whom we are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcZflKLkvP8 Below is the text of the video. It is based on the traditional poetry for PaGaian Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony[i]. This is the Moment of the Autumnal Equinox in our Hemisphere – the moment of balance of light and dark in the dark part of the cycle. The light and dark parts of the day in the South and in the North of our planet, are of equal length at this time. We feel for the balance in this moment – Earth as She is poised in relationship with the Sun … breathing in the light, swelling with it, letting our breath go to the dark, staying with it. In our part of Earth, the balance is tipping into the dark. We remember the coolness of it. This is the time when we give thanks for our harvests – all that we have gained. And we remember too the sorrows, losses involved. The story of Old tells us that Persephone, Beloved Daughter, is given the wheat from Her Mother – the Mystery, knowledge of life and death. She receives it graciously. But she sets forth into the darkness – both Mother and Daughter grieve that it is so. Demeter, the Mother, says: “You are offered the wheat in every moment … I let you go as Child, most loved of Mine: you descend to Wisdom, to Sovereignty. You will return as Mother, co-Creator with me. You are the Seed in the Fruit, becoming the Fruit in the Seed. Inner Wisdom guides your path.” We give thanks for our harvests – our lives they are blessed. We are Daughters and Sons of the Mother. Yet we take our Wisdom and all that we have gained, and remember the sorrows – the losses involved. We remember the grief of the Mother, of mothers and lovers everywhere, our grief. Persephone descends. The Beloved One is lost. Persephone goes forth into the darkness to become Queen of that world. She tends the sorrows. The Seed represents our Persephones, who tends the sorrows – we are the Persephones, who may tend the sorrows. We go out into the night with Her and plant our seeds. Persephone blesses us with her fertile promise: “You have waxed into the fullness of life, And waned into darkness; May you be renewed in tranquility and wisdom[ii].” These represent our hope. The Seed of life never fades away. She is always present. Blessed be the Mother of all life. Blessed be the life that comes from Her and returns to Her. We tie red threads on each other: we participate in the Vision of the Seed – of the continuity of Life, that continues beneath the visible. The Mother knowledge grows within us. Our hope is in the Sacred Balance of the Cosmos – the Thread of Life, the Seed that never fades away: it is the Balance of Grief and Joy, the Care that we may feel in our Hearts. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, p. 239-247. [ii] Charlene Spretrnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, p. 116. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: a Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992/1978.
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.
(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Sekhmet by Katlyn Each year between December 20-23 Sun reaches Her peak in the Southern Hemisphere: it is the Summer Solstice Moment. Poetry of the Season may be expressed in this way: This is the time when the light part of day is longest. You are invited to celebrate SUMMER SOLSTICE Light reaches Her fullness, and yet… She turns, and the seed of Darkness is born. This is the Season of blossom and thorn – for pouring forth the Gift of Being. The story of Old tells that on this day Beloved and Lover dissolve into the single Song of ecstasy – that moves the worlds. Self expands in the bliss of creativity. Sun ripens in us: we are the Bread of Life. We celebrate Her deep Communion and Reciprocity. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express Her fullness of being, Her relational essence and Her Gateway quality at this time. And also for consideration, is the fact that most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Summer Solstice. As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable, that which can only be known in body, below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syTBjWpw3XU Shalako Mana Hopi 1900C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess), Corn Mother. Food is a miracle, food is sacred. She IS the corn, the corn IS Her. She gives Herself to feed all. The food/She is essential to survival, hospitality and ceremony … and all of this is transmuted in our beings. Sekhmet Contemporary image by Katlyn. Egyptian Sun Goddess. Katlyn says: Her story includes the compassionate nature of destruction. The fierce protection of the Mother is sometimes called to destroy in order to preserve well being. And Anne Key expresses: She represents “the awesome and awe-full power of the Sun. This power spans the destructive acts of creation and the creative acts of destruction.”- (p.135 Desert Priestess: a memoir).A chant in Her praise by Abigail Spinner McBride: Sheila-na-gig 900C.E. British Isles. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). From Elinor Gadon The Once and Future Goddess (p.338): “She is remembered in Ireland as the Old Woman who gave birth to all races of human…. In churches her function was to ward off evil”, or to attract the Pagan peoples to the church. From Adele Getty Goddess (p.66): “The first rite of passage of all human beings begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. In India, the vulva “known as the yoni, is also called cunti or kunda, the root word of cunning, cunt and kin … (the yoni) was worshipped as an object of great mystery … the place of birth and the place where the dead are laid to rest were often one and the same.” Getty says her message here in this image “is double-edged: the opening of her vulva and the smile on her face elicit both awe and terror; one might venture too far inside her and never return to the light of day …” as with all caves and gates of initiation. In the Christian mind the yoni clearly became the “gates of hell”. And as Helene Cixous said in her famous feminist article “The Laugh of the Medusa”: “Let the priests tremble, we’re going to show them our sexts!” (SIGNS Summer 1976) Kunapipi (Australia) “the Aboriginal mother of all living things, came from a land across the sea to establish her clan in Northern Australia, where She is found in both fresh and salt water. In the Northern Territory She is known as Warramurrungundgi. She may also manifest Herself as Julunggul, the rainbow snake goddess of initiations who threatens to swallow children and then regurgitate them, thereby reinforcing the cycle of death and rebirth. In Arnhem Land She is Ngaljod …” (Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller – thanks to Lydia Ruyle). More information: re Kunapipi. NOTE the similarity to Gobekli Tepe Sheela Turkey 9600B.C.E., thanks Lydia Ruyle.Lydia Ruyle’s Gobekli Tepe banner. Inanna/Ishtar Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E. (Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature) She holds Her breasts displaying her potency. She is a superpower who feeds the world, nourishes it with Her being. We all desire to feel this potency of being: Swimme and Berry express: “the infinite striving of the sentient being”. Adele Getty calls this offering of breasts to the world “a timeless sacred gesture”. Mary Mother of God 1400 C.E. Europe (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A recognition, even in the patriarchal context that She contains it all. Wisdom and Compassion Tibetan Goddess and God in Union. This is Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle). Sri Yantra Hindu meditation diagram of union of Goddess and God. 1500 C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, p.75). “Goddess and God” is the common metaphor, but it could be “Beloved and Lover”, and so it is in the mind of many mystics and poets: that is, the sacred union is of small self with larger Self. Prajnaparamita the Mother of all Buddhas. (The Great Mother Erich Neumann, pl 183). She is the Wisdom to whom Buddha aspired, Whom he attained. Medusa Contemporary, artist unknown. She is a Sun Goddess: this is one reason why it was difficult to look Her in the eye. See Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! REFERENCES: Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1990. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess.Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Katlyn, artist https://www.mermadearts.com/b/altar-images-art-by-katlyn Key, Anne. Desert Priestess: a memoir. NV: Goddess Ink, 2011. Mann A.T. and …
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.
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/
(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

(Poem) Knowing Mago Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This poem was an offshoot of an essay on Magoist Calendar and Nine Numerology, to be included in the forthcoming anthology, Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). I thank Genevieve Vaughan, Danica Anderson, and Harriet Ann Ellenbeger who have given me feedback to the article and inspiration to this poem.] Mago Calendar is the umbilical cord of the Great Goddess, the umbilical cord that re-members the Beginning Story of us all terrestrial beings, that enables the one and many songs/dances of the Earth, and that nourishes the human world to sing the chorus to the cosmic lullaby. Mago Calendar is the grand wheel of the Great Mother, the grand wheel that spirals the inter-cosmic orbit of truth, goodness, and beauty, that carries all earthlings to the fullest becoming, and that builds bridges into the inter-protonic galaxies. Mago Calendar is the everlasting blessing of the Nine Mago Creatrix, the everlasting blessing that scripts the ecstasy of Heavenly Numerology, that charts the Earth’s metamorphosis from the infinite to the physical, and that unfolds the Reality of the Mago Time, WE/HERE/NOW. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.
(Photo Essay 4) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

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

[The following sequels including this one are a modified version of my paper presented to Daoist Studies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2010.] Part 3 Daoist Rendition of Mago, the Great Goddess Being the creatrix, progenitor, and ultimate sovereign, Mago has been addressed by many names. Her derivative names include Samsin Halmeoni (Triad Grandmother/Goddess), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Daejosin (Great Ancestor Deity), Nogo (Crone/Grandmother), Gomo (Goddess Mother), Magui (Devil), Seogo (Auspicious Goddess), Seonnyeo (Female Immortal), Seonja (Immortal Person), and simply Halmi (Grandmother/Crone/Goddess) especially in Korea. To say the least, these names, respectively embedded in a particular cultural and historical background, reflect a complex and enduring feature of Magoism. One may wonder: How is it possible to assess that these goddesses with different names refer to the same goddess, Mago? While such a query is legitimate, its answer entails a prolix explication of inferences based on the comprehensive analysis of a large volume of data, a technique that requires all human faculties, not just rationality. Foremost, the name “Mago” is the primary defining factor to identify Her transnational manifestations in East Asia. This name crisscrosses otherwise seemingly unrelated data including folklore, arts, literature, poetry, and religious and historical records. Such toponyms as Mt. Mago, Rock of Mago, and Cave of Mago presently extant in Korea, China, and/or Japan further substantiate the coherence of Magoism in East Asia. Having established the patterns and styles of Mago stories, the researcher is able to identify a common motif that is shared by the stories and place-names of the goddesses with derivative names. In short, these stories are organically interconnected, reflecting the universality and particularities of Magoist theism. As with Her many names, the researcher or art historian requires the same technique to assess a broad range of Her visual representations. One can begin with a good number of paintings whose colophons designate Mago. Two of the most conspicuous colophons are “Magu gathering medicinal herbs” and “Mago presents longevity.” However, many icons including sculptures and embroideries do not have such an indication. In that case, one can tell the Mago icon by its pictorial themes recurring in the images that are identified as Mago. That said, there is no doubt that the Mago icon stands as the prototype of its numerous variations, which are beyond my documentation at this point. A large portion of Mago visual representations I have documented is casually referred to as “The Immortal Magu (麻姑仙, Magu Xian or Mago Seon)” by moderns. As such, it is assumed that She is a Daoist goddess. Would the Daoist appropriation of Mago’s visual images be accurate? I hold that the Daoist rendition of Mago is a specious stopgap, leaving many issues unattended. When B is derived from A, B alone can explain neither A nor B. Not only Her pre-Daoist origin but also Her supreme divinity as the Great Goddess remains unexplained. Furthermore, Daoism has offered no framework to explain the transnational dissemination of Magoist material culture in Korea, China, and Japan.