September 18, 2023September 14, 2023 Mago Work

(Poem) What if by Mary Saracino

Garden nearby where I live, New Mexico. Photo by Mary Saracino

What if it’s not about who you know

or don’t know

what you know, or don’t know

how much money you have

or don’t have

if you believe in god

or not

what if it’s about

singing with the birds

listening to the trees

blessing the plants and all creatures

great and small

daydreaming with the clouds

gazing at the stars

dancing under the moon

what if it’s about

kindness, compassion, mercy

what, if in the end,

it’s all just about love

Meet Mago Contributor, Mary Saracino

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(Book Excerpt 4) The Crone Initiation: Women Speak on the Menopause Journey ed. by Kay Louise Aldred, Pat Daly & Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This anthology was published by Girl God Books (2022).] “Things We Don’t Talk About at Menopause” by Trista Hendren Trigger Warning for suicide ideation. This was tough to write and may be difficult to read. Make sure you are in a good place first. After I gave birth the first time, I frantically called the nurse into the bathroom. A brick of blood Jello had plopped out of my vagina—and I was terrified. She just laughed it off and said, “Oh that’s normal!” Later, I commiserated with a friend who had a similar experience. “Why didn’t they tell us any of this?” There was so much about my births that I would do over if I could. Had I birthed another baby, I would have done almost everything differently. Like birth, menopause is something people don’t tell you much about. In my early forties, I began thinking about what books I would read when the time came, but I did not consider that maybe I should read them ahead of time to be prepared. Peri-menopause has been a volatile second adolescence for me. I don’t have patience for things I used to. The tantrums I repressed as a child came out in full force. I stopped sleeping well and entered a severe depression. Nothing about my state of mind made logical sense to me. I had everything in the world to be happy about—but I could not pull myself out of my moods. I tried just about every sort of supplement and herb I could think of before I finally got some relief for my insomnia with Skullcap and Motherwort. But months without decent sleep did a number on my brain—and I could not seem to pull myself out of the hellish anxiety I was suffering. I was embarrassed to tell anyone besides my husband (and finally my best friend) that I sometimes thought about killing myself. I did not know that suicide idealization in menopause was a thing until I read Susun Weed’s book on menopause. “Like uncontrollable emotions, thoughts of suicide are normal for menopausal women. Remember that the death phase of menopausal initiation does not imply actual physical death. Yet it would be foolish to deny that the feeling of dying can be as real emotionally as if it were actually happening. There is a physical/emotional logic to thoughts of suicide. These righting disturbing thoughts can show the menopausal woman the next steps on her journey. Real suicide is an act of desperate self-empowerment. But thoughts of suicide can be pathways to wholeness, health, and self-realization. Like depression, suicidal thoughts during menopause are potent guides to truth and joy.”[1] Wow, I thought! Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this??? I took a screenshot of the passages and sent them to my bestie. She knew instantly this was about me. I thought I had done a pretty good job of hiding it. I didn’t want to worry anyone since it seemed highly unlikely that I would go through with it—and I felt self-conscious to be struggling in this way when there was seemingly nothing wrong with my life. It was a huge relief to finally start talking about it. As I opened up to more people, I realized I was not alone. When I googled suicidal thoughts during menopause, I saw a slew of articles that were published last fall. The Independent reported, “Around one in ten women experience suicidal thoughts because of the perimenopause, according to a new study. Research, exclusively shared with The Independent, found around nine in ten women going through the perimenopause experience mental health problems. The study, carried out by a free women’s health app called Health & Her, discovered three quarters of women said they had never experienced mental health issues before going through the perimenopause. Researchers, who polled 2,000 women in the UK aged between 46 and 60 who have experienced the peri-menopause, found just over a third of women polled have not sought help with their symptoms, while eight out of 10 do not discuss mental health issues with their partner or spouse.”[2] Upon reading this, I felt extremely grateful to be married to Anders. This is not my first marriage: I fully understand why so many women do not share this with their husbands. Weeks later, I came as close as I hope I ever come to taking my life. Anders held me all night while I sobbed until I finally fell into a deep sleep. It was a spiritual death of sorts. I felt the deepest, most excruciating emotional pain I have ever endured in my life. Everything that I had pushed down within me throughout my life was no longer willing to be stored in my body. I couldn’t numb it out or stuff it down longer; it wanted to come out. I realized the next morning that my life was not working for me anymore. In truth, it never had. I had spent my entire life giving myself away, piece by piece. There was nothing left to give. I had to reassess. And, I had to change. As someone who abhors any sort of pain, I was puzzled by my sudden desire to slit my wrists. This is the absolute last way I would ever want to end my life. I found Susun Weed’s question helpful. “If you were to cut your wrists off (cut off your hands, symbolically) what would you no longer have to handle?”[3] That struck me right at my core. As a recovering co-dependent, I have carried far too many tasks for others my entire fucking life. Carmel Glenane posed a question that has haunted me since I read it several years ago. She wrote, “Delve into yourself and ask yourself why you don’t consider yourself ‘first’ in everything.”[4] The more I thought about it, the angrier I became at my own indoctrination. I find putting myself first almost impossible. And that is after decades of re-programming. While this …
(Tribute) In Memory of Barbara Mor by Harriet Ann Ellenberger and others

From Harriet Ann Ellenberger: TO BARBARA MOR — BRAVE CAPTAIN, FAITHFUL FRIEND March 8, 2015 International Women’s Day Dear Barbara, Now that you’ve flown free of your body, I won’t bother with e-mail — I’ll just talk to you. Listen, Barbara, you fought the good fight for women and for earth and for all of earth’s children. What that English soldier said of Jeanne d’Arc, I say of you: you were a brave captain.
Brighid in Front of Me, Mary Behind Me by Jude Lally

Just after Lunastal I headed west to Eilean Nam Ban More, The Isle of the Big Women, otherwise known as the Isle of Eigg in the inner Hebrides. It was a fine day as I headed off on a pilgrimage to visit a sacred site. I always head off on pilgrimages alone, for as much as they are a sacred journey, they are a deep communication with the land. I’ve made the journey once before and it is rare to meet another human soul on the route but you’ll be accompanied by other souls such as sheep, perhaps a seal beaking down on the shore, or a little mouse might scurry past your feet. You might be accompanied by the white slender shape of gannets dive bombing into the water and if you’re lucky you might be in the presence of an eagle. The route takes you to the very end of the main road of Eigg and down through the townships of Cleadale and finally Howlin, let me be clear when I saw ‘township’ as this is an island with a population of around 100 and whose terrain is roughly 5 miles by 3. Every time you leave home,Another road takes youInto a world you were never in. New strangers on other paths await.New places that have never seen youWill startle a little at your entry.Old places that know you wellWill pretend nothingChanged since your last visit. John O’Donohue – For the Traveler It was a beautiful day with blue skies and a strong breeze. I hiked up the steep hill that would take me to the other side of the island, and it was at the crest that an entirely new world opens up. The view sweeps down to the Sea of the Hebrides, a vast expanse of water with a flat and glassy surface. A far cry from the rolling waves we sailed in on. Off to the horizon, the faraway peaks of Skye appeared like jagged teeth set in the jawbone of some ancient monster. Suddenly I noticed some movement to the right side and turned to see the large wingspan of an eagle soaring. How wonderful to be in her presence. This story isn’t about the site I was going to visit, it’s about the journey. As this new vista opened up I felt my heart expand to meet it. Without even realizing I find tears streaming down my face and as the track is very narrow, made by little sheep hooves which require you to really dig in with the side of your boots, tears require stopping and sitting down – time to sink into the emotion and the practicality of drying your eyes. The emotion poured like cathartic waves, as the crescendo of the landscape swells, the waves breaking up feelings that drag out old thoughts – tumbling over and out, an emotional landscape, a figurative and actual path of healing. The Return Path Without realizing it, I took a different path on the way back. the path that takes the higher route, I hadn’t realized that this was the exact same scenario that played out last time. About a half hour along I realize I’m far higher than the path I took in, I’m way too close to the cliffs above as I remember viewing them from a far lower viewpoint. This isn’t a big deal as the heather makes for springy padding if you slide down the hillside on your backside. This is normally quite a fun thing but on the journey back that’s when a whole new layer of things started bubbling to the surface. I’m feeling overwhelmed, it’s a three-hour trek back and I keep losing the trail. Staying on a trail is preferable as wading through heather and bracken is hard going. I decide to keep going but the path is leading me even higher. This is normally an easy decision – to lose some elevation but somehow I can’t quite make the decision. Tears come, which means sitting for a while as I can’t walk without clearly seeing where I’m placing my feet. I look out to sea and see two tall white sailboats sailing together. From this vantage point, I can clearly see the path of currents and the fan of the breeze marked across the surface of the water. I wonder how many dolphins, porpoises and whales are out there beneath the surface. I look back to the boats and think If I could just make it back to the shore and caught their attention they could come out on a dingy and pick me up. I decided to scoot down through the heather, using my heel as a brake as you can pick up speed very quickly. I’m not quite sure if I’ve found the path and so wade through the heather looking below me for any signs of breaks in the vegetation. I’m aware that everything that is happening feels like a metaphor for life. When you are off the path and wading through the vegetation you never quite know if there’s a dip in the landscape and you could lose your footing and go over on an ankle. Yet what is life without some risk-taking and heading off on our own? I think I see the path slightly above me and so scramble up a few rocks, but when I look down towards the shore there is a very clear pathway down below me but I’m unsure whether that is the path that I walked in on. As I turn around an outcrop two sheep look utterly shocked to see me, so I sit still for a while and let them run off. Soon they will be herded up from this land and boarded onto the boat which will take them to slaughter. My mind thinks of the traditions and beliefs of these islands were purposely erased as the people themselves were ripped from the land to make way for sheep. The …
(Poem 4) Creation Story by Dr. Mary Ann Ghaffurian

PART IV Down in your neural cord and mine. Deep down. Hurrying past eternal banshees wailing at the rock; Past dead hands gripping at ankles, feet. Struggling off slime, bandit attacks Braving sniper-fire, hidden vantage in assault… You will see. You will learn. Behold. If you dare look through the looming shapes Following every one’s cautious move Fumbling towards one’s truth. Or if you dare not look, Yet sense the overarching threat. Move on… Searching further still…Scooping out within… Not stopping The mantle of stars, they are there. Lotus-eyed creation awaits. The Aeons are with a gift. The innocent gift. Prowlers? They be there to prove to you, For you to prove to yourself, You could outlast them in the end. You could find the truth. You could unravel the coil, the cord, The knot, Unleash the heart, Maintain your Soul. To the final outpost of grief. To the final supernova of relief. In the very beginning was the Serpent A Mother, She wept For where were Her children? They are Here. Text © Mary Ann Ghaffurian 1989 ~The Primordial Path Read Part I, Part II, and Part III. See Meet Mago Contributor, Mary Ann Ghaffurian, and her other posts.
(Poem) Scrying on the Moon by Laurie Corzett

Meet Mago Contributor, Laurie Corzett. ~twilight of the goddess, call to song to aery dancing, lady fair your fiery trance rewinds our souls; enjoy these offerings of fancy: all art is yours ~ By sibylline light images I recognize, creviced captures of my life. I know her judgment to be my own.
(Book Excerpt 1) Rainbow Goddess: Celebrating Neurodiversity ed. by K. L. Aldred, P. Daly, T Albanna, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This anthology was published by Girl God Books (2022).] “Being a Neurodivergent Woman” by Kay Louise Aldred Many people, even my closest friends and family, have no idea that I am a neurodivergent woman. Being autistic is still new to me as I was only recently diagnosed, in November this year. I have done a great job at camouflaging, masking, and presenting as ‘normal’. Neurodivergence was not something I had considered in relation to myself until I had children. This is ironic on many levels, most especially because I am a trained and experienced teacher and have held curriculum and pastoral leadership positions, in which I ensured that all students, from every demographic, including those who were neurodivergent, achieved their potential and felt safe, seen, and heard. It was giving birth and rearing my own children which highlighted the ‘differences’ between me and my contemporaries, and significantly amplified the feelings I had been experiencing since childhood. Feelings of being ‘atypical’, ‘odd’ and a ‘misfit’. Mother and baby groups, children’s parties, and the PTA were mirrors which clearly reflected that I was not at all like ‘most women’. They were also the situations where I began to recognise that my two sons bucked the communal childhood trends of behaviour, thinking and preference. I did however socialise my three children well. Despite my personal discomfort around being in social settings and making small talk, I knew the importance of doing this. They thrived academically but when my sons transitioned to secondary school, I saw the hallmarks and signs of neurodivergence – predominantly sensory processing and autism. Their diagnoses were convoluted, unnecessarily complex in their procedure and stressful. I was told by professionals that I had ‘taught them too well to be normal’ and that ‘they were coping’ so didn’t ‘need a label’. They were both eventually diagnosed a few months before university, when it became completely apparent that the transition would only happen if they had support. The ‘label’ has been very helpful for them both in understanding and representing themselves. Their diagnoses prompted me to assess my own lifelong challenges. My husband had been affectionately calling me his ‘Aspie Wife’ for a while before the penny dropped that I may be ‘on the spectrum’. We operated as an autistic-friendly household – which helped everyone, including my apparently ‘neurotypical’ daughter (her ongoing journey of self-discovery is another story), long before I contemplated my own assessment. I looked on at both of my sons openly ‘owning’ their preferences and explaining their needs, and thought, ‘I feel and have those additional needs too but am constantly pretending I don’t’. I realised that the result of this pretence was suffering and an added burden. That was four years ago. It is only now, aged 48 years, that I have got to the point of exhaustion and the resignation that I am not going to ‘cure myself’ or be miraculously transformed – and let me tell you I’ve tried all sorts of ways to do this including, books, therapy, and spiritual practices. Early last year I requested a GP referral for an adult autism assessment. Regardless of the outcome, I had begun to privately identify as neurodivergent, and noticed that acknowledging this went some way to explain the lifelong loneliness, social anxiety, and chronic low mood I had experienced and offered a reason for the bullying and social rejection I had undergone – particularly as an adolescent. On receiving the diagnosis last month, I wept. I felt numb, angry, grief stricken and elated simultaneously. Processing the magnitude of having an undiagnosed lifelong neurological and developmental ‘disability’ and coping with this alone, without reasonable adjustment, is going to take a long time. Autism is disabling in our society. And no, everyone is not a little bit neurodivergent or ‘on the spectrum’. Knowing I am autistic has brought a new level of self-compassion and self-protection. I can’t change myself or improve myself. Autistic people do not habituate – brain wiring does not change, and autism is not ‘cured’. I’m curious as to who I am unmasked and what gifts that will uncover. Some people who know me well, will be reading and learning this about me for the first time. I wonder if this ‘coming out’ publicly in the anthology will be liberating for the many women who continue to ‘hide’ their authentic self. The spirit of this book is the celebration of neurodiversity and so I’d like to channel that now and reclaim the Rainbow Goddess that I am by declaring that: I pretend to be interested in clothes. I’m not in the slightest bit interested. However, I’d happily wear the same thing every day – black cropped top, black pants, black vest top, black loose, jersey dungarees, black jumper, black socks with Ugg boots in winter and black sandals in summer. It’s all about utility and minimal thought. I’ve got other things I’d rather think about. Tight clothes of any sort are a no. Why would I wear scratchy, restrictive clothing which squash up my intestines and womb and restrict breathing and digestion? Makes no sense. I intensely dislike small talk and prefer deep, philosophical, existential, and meaningful conversation. I find chit-chat exhausting – I don’t understand it. It’s a waste of energy. I’m not interested at all in hairstyles, makeup, trends. I’m interested in the inner landscape of your life. I prefer my own company – listening to my inner guidance. I’m fearful of humans – the aggression, hostility, abusive dynamics, sarcasm, meanness, inauthenticity. I trust very few people. Very few people are trustworthy and transparent. I am fiercely loyal – to those I trust and respect. I can’t sequence – tasks, actions, to do lists. My brain is making patterns and connections about the meaning of life, justice, the universe. I may also have undiagnosed ADHD. I have zero executive functioning skills – packing to go on holiday puts me in a flat spin. Consequently, my home is a peaceful haven where I …
(Essay 2) Restoring Her as Creative Triplicity: Place of Being by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is the second part in a series of edited excerpts from the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Author’s note: In this three part series of essays I continue to use the terms “Virgin, Mother, and Crone” as names for the qualities of the Triple Goddess, whom many have loved in Her different forms throughout the ages. In my opinion, the re-storying of these terms is still a useful exercise – to expand the reduced notions that have evolved over millennia of androcentric thinking and culture. In the last few decades, I sat with many women in circle and we told stories of our lives within the frame of “virgin/young one, mother/creator, crone/old one”; and found it to be a means of reconstituting a larger, deeper and freer sense of being, as we recognised ultimate and omnipresent Creative Cosmic qualities within us. I have also created new names for this Creative Cosmic Triplicity: “Urge to Be/She Who Will Be”, “Place of Being/She Who Is”, and “She Who Creates the Space to Be/She Who Returns All”. As qualities/themes of Cosmogenesis, She is multivalent.[i] She may be understood poetically
(Essay) Good Morning Little Dove by Hearth Moon Rising

The Iseum (space of worship) chartered through me by The Fellowship of Isis is called The Temple of the Doves. Why doves? The dove is one of the feathery creatures most beloved of the goddess, and a particular favorite of a divinity close to my heart: the goddess Ishtar. Reverence for the dove is ancient and enduring, possibly extending back to the Stone Age. According to Marija Gimbutas, “Small birds were sculpted, engraved, and painted throughout prehistory. In Minoan Crete they appear perching on shrines, pillars, and the Goddess’s head. Unfortunately, it is not possible to recognize the species of birds portrayed, except in a very few cases.” Since doves and other pigeons like to roost in large buildings, and the first building complexes were places of worship, the religious significance of the dove may have grown up around the temple. Devotees would have assumed the doves came to bring messages from the sky gods or to carry prayers back to them. These doves would not have been exclusively the subjects and messengers of any god in particular, instead serving the deity of the temple where they lived.
(Essay 1) I Must Call Her Awe/stralia by Leslene della-Madre

Soaked in loving sisterhood, I have recently returned from being on tour in a-mazing Australia. After nearly three years of conjuring with the magnificent women of the School of Shamanic Midwifery in Australia, Melinda Whyman, Jane Harwicke Collings and Susan Stark, I spent this past April there in this sacred land that I must call Awe/stralia! The book/workshop tour invitation was an absolute honor and the tour was beautifully planned and mapped. These women are absolute treasures! My other sister hosts, Glenys Livingstone and Brooke Burton, brought me into their homes as if I had been a relative they hadn’t seen in a while! More women treasures! I was also womb and heart connected with Zohl de Isthar, though we only met over the phone. Zohl is Executive Director at the Kapululangu Aboriginal Women’s Association in Balgo, Western Australia. She cares for the elder Law Women there and is holding the Women’s Law Camp as I am writing this piece. Zohl graciously invited me to come and participate in the Women’s Law Camp, which I so fervently wanted to do, but knew I would need a good rest after my extensive travels and had to turn down her most gracious invitation. I knew I could not do the extensive travel required to get to her and to the beautiful Aboriginal women. It was another way I felt deeply honored, even though I couldn’t be there in body with those a-mazing women. But they are all in my heart! Oh, the power and grace of women!! I have had a deep place in my heart for Awe/stralia for a long time — mainly because the Aboriginal indigenous culture is the oldest continuous shamanic culture on the planet. I have always felt a connection to that reality. Now, after having only recently returned in early May, I realize I was sung there by the ancestors. I was dreamed there. My shamanic work has been connected to the ancestral grandmothers of the cosmos and the planet for a long time. I know the grandmothers of the Dreamtime are part of this vast network, which is something I am coming to understand as a cosmological living mythos pulsing in our cells, in our blood, in our very being — a wisdom, of course, that Aboriginal women have always known. The Dreamtime ancestor world is about the forces of nature and the universe — what I call the YoniVerse — including gravity and electromagnetism as the forces of attraction and repulsion and resonates very well with my recent research into electric universe theory. It is a very different sense of ancestors than what I have been used to in terms of family lineage. However, I feel when one really looks into family lineage, we can find ourselves on a journey that expands into the cosmos. I was called to Awe/stralia because I need to learn what these ancestor grandmothers want me to know. Johanna Lambert, editor of Wise Women of the Dreamtime, writes, “Traditional Aboriginal society is founded on the preeminence of the characteristics of the Universal Feminine.”[1] To have an opportunity to be on the land where women have held this truth for over 50,000 years was profoundly sacred for me — a gift beyond measure. As a devotee of the Sacred She for a long time, and one who is also devoted to uncovering her deep wisdom in any and all ways possible, I feel humbled beyond words by being called, sung and dreamed to this sacred land whose magic I will be integrating for a long time. One trip is not enough!

(Special Post 5) 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: I have come across the origin of the Dokkaebi (image, Heavenly Ruler Chiu, 14th Hanung of Danguk. Chiu represented the Magoist rule aided by her 81 giant sister clan allies (nine groups of Nine Hans) fought Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), one of the ancient rulers of pre-historic China. Chiu is known as the empeor of Guri-guk or Guryeo-guk (Nine Ri State or Nine Ryeo State), which is alternatiely referred to as Goryeo-guk and Goguryeo-guk by East Asians. She was worshipped as the deity of war and remembered/depicted for her helmet made of copper and iron. Records about her war against Hungdi inundates ancient Korean and Chinese texts and myths. About Chiu or Chiyou, it is too complex to discuss here. It is a topic to be treated in its own right. Suffice to say that even some of basic information from Wikipedia is illuminating. “Chiyou (蚩尤) was a tribal leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎) in ancient China. He is best known as a king who lost against the future Yellow Emperor during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in Chinese mythology. For the Hmong people, Chiyou was a sagacious mythical king. He has a particularly complex and controversial ancestry, as he may fall under Dongyi, Miao or even Man, depending on the source and view. Today, Chiyou is honored and worshipped as the God of War and one of the three legendary founding fathers of China.” “According to the Song dynasty history book Lushi, Chiyou’s surname was Jiang (姜), and he was a descendant of Yandi. According to legend, Chiyou had a bronze head with a metal forehead. He had 4 eyes and 6 arms, wielding terrible sharp weapons in every hand. In some sources, Chiyou had certain features associated with various mythological bovines: his head was that of a bull with two horns, although the body was that of a human. He is said to have been unbelievably fierce, and to have had 81 brothers. Historical sources often described him as ‘cruel and greedy’, as well as ‘tyrannical’. Some sources have asserted that the figure 81 should rather be associated with 81 clans in his kingdom. Chiyou knows the constellations and the ancients spells for calling upon the weather. For example, he called upon a fog to surround Huangdi and his soldiers during the Battle of Zhuolu.” “Chiyou is regarded as a leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎, RPA White Hmong: Cuaj Li Ntuj) by nearly all sources. However, his exact ethnic affiliations are quite complex, with multiple sources reporting him as belonging to various tribes, in addition to a number of diverse peoples supposed to have directly descended from him. Some sources from later dynasties, such as the Guoyu book, considered Chiyou’s Li tribe to be related to the ancient San miao tribe (三苗). In the ancient Zhuolu Town is a statue of Chiyou commemorating him as the original ancestor of the Hmong people. The place is regarded as the birthplace of the San miao / Miao people, the Hmong being a subgroup of the Miao. In sources following the Hmong view, the “nine Li” tribe is called the “Jiuli” kingdom, Jiuli meaning “nine Li”. Modern Han Chinese scholar Weng Dujian considers Jiuli and San Miao to be Man southerners. Chiyou has also been counted as part of the Dongyi.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiyou Above all, her depiction by ancient China is of a pejorative one. As we will see in the next part, she is contrasted with her opponent Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), a triumphantly depicted ancient hero of ancient China. Above Wikipedia. See her images created by ancient Koreans, the middle one in the three figures, depicted as a woman with female breasts, one of Dokkaebi images. There are other records that describe one of her allies. as one adorned with snakes in the head, which reminds me of Medusa. Silla (left), Baekje (Center), Goguryeo (right) http://lasvegaskim.com/Etc_Poem_55.htm Max Dashu: Oe-ri, Buyeo, in the Baekje period. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: That is where the rooftile at the center is excavated. That is the original image of Dokkaebi that Lydia Ruyle chose and depicted in her banner work. I could not connect this image with Chiu until now. We have the female ruler who subdued the patrilocal force of Yellow Emperor, the forebear of ancientChinese emperors. There are lots of myths and data that I have found on them. Chiu is also numerously depicted as Dokkaebi faces, which makes me think of its connection to the iconography of Medusa and Gorgon (who comes as Three Sisters). Eight-snake-headed Medusahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa Gorgon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/art-dokkaebi-by-lydia-ruyle/ Lizzy Bluebell: ‘Gonggong’ is not a far stretch phonetically from ‘Gorgon’ – I note. Briefly here – because it is a complex explanation – much more can be said about the etymology. For example, “gorge” relates to deep mountain passes with water flowing through them as well as the human throat or gullet, (relating the word to both speech and eating) and mountains are/were Goddess terrain, later usurped by MON-A-Ster-ies. The masculine name Ge-Orge is code which relates to GE/Gaia/Gay as well as to ‘orgy’. Sanskrit “garg” begets English ‘gargle’, and a guttural (gut-her-all) sound. I’ve always seen the archetypal Medusa/Gorgon’s ‘snaking curls’ as the energy emmitted from her head by her Wild I-Deas, which returns us to the theme of the Pythia/Oracle/Snake connections too. “In Greek mythology, a Gorgon (/ˈɡɔːrɡən/; plural: Gorgons, Ancient Greek: Γοργών/Γοργώ Gorgon/Gorgo) is a female creature. The name derives from the ancient Greek word gorgós, which means “dreadful”, and appears to come from the same root as the Sanskrit word “garğ” (Sanskrit: गर्जन, garjana) which is defined as a guttural sound, similar to the growling of a beast,[1] thus possibly originating as an onomatopoeia. While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [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.] [C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments: To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do. [C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented! [Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope. I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system? Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there. Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be. [C]: On this […]
(Special Post 6) 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.] Esther Essinger “Why Goddess, when “GD” is perpetrating so much grief? 1) First, it’s vital to know that Goddess is NOT “GD” in a skirt. It is demanded of NO one that they “believe” or “have faith”, so there can be no guilt (and no punishment! (No Hell below us, thank you John) in NOT choosing to interest oneself in these particular Stories, myths, legends and tales which center the Cosmic Female, the Universal Mother, Mother Earth /Mother Nature at their core. No evangelism happening here!

(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the conclusion of chapter 5 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. It is a chapter on the process of the Wheel of the Year. for the Northern Hemisphere version: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems to me that the main agenda of the Cosmos is ongoing Creativity, “never-ending renewal” it may be termed, and that this is expressed in Earth’s Seasonal Wheel through the transitions of Autumn,Winter, Spring, Summer; and in the ubiquitous process of a Cosmic Triplicity of Space to Be, Urge to Be and this Place of Being, a dynamic that has often been imagined as the Triple Goddess. In the flow of the PaGaian Wheel of the Year, the Seasonal transitions of the Wheel and the Triplicity of the Cosmos come together. There are two celebrations of the Old One/Crone or the Cosmogenetic quality of autopoiesis creating the Space to Be; and they are Lammas/Late Summer and Samhain/Deep Autumn, which are the meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing dark phase. At Lammas, the first in the dark phase, we may identify with the dark and ancient Wise One – dissolve into Her; at Samhain, we may consciously participate in Her process of the transformation of death/the passing of all. The whole dark part of the cycle is about dissolving/dying/letting go of being – becoming – nurturing it (the midwifing of Lammas/Late Summer), stepping into the power of it (the certain departure of Autumn Equinox/Mabon), the fertility (of Samhain/Deep Autumn), the peaking of it (at Winter Solstice). The meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing light phase then are celebrations of the Young One/Virgin or the Cosmogenetic quality of differentiation, the new continually emerging, the Urge to Be; and they are Imbolc/Early Spring and Beltaine/High Spring. At Imbolc, the first in the light phase, we may identify with She who is shining and new – as we take her form; at Beltaine, we may consciously participate in Her process of the dance of life. The whole light part of the cycle is about coming into being: nurturing it (the midwifing of Imbolc/Early Spring), stepping into the power of it (the certain return of Spring Equinox/Eostar), the fertility (of Beltaine/High Spring), the peaking of it (at Summer Solstice). In the PaGaian wheel of ceremony there are two particular celebrations of the Mother, the Cosmogenetic quality of communion; and they are the Solstices. If one imagines the light part of the cycle as a celebration of the ‘Productions of Time’, and the dark part of the cycle as a celebration of ‘Eternity’, the Solstices then are meeting points, points of interchange, and are celebrations of the communion/relational field of Eternity with the Productions of Time. This is a relationship which does happen in this Place, in this Web. This Place of Being, this Web, is a Communion – it is the Mother; the Solstices mark Her birthings, Her gateways. The Equinoxes then – both Spring and Autumn – are two celebrations wherein the balance of all three Faces/Creative qualities is particularly present: in the PaGaian wheel, the Equinoxes have been special celebrations of Demeter and Persephone – echoing the ancient tradition of Mother-Daughter Mysteries that celebrate the awesomeness of the continuity of life, its creative tension/balance. Both Equinoxes then are celebrations and contemplations of empowerment through deep Wisdom – one contemplation during the dark phase and one during the light phase. The Autumn Equinox is a descent to Wisdom, the Spring Equinox is an emergence with Wisdom gained. I like to think of the Equinoxes, and of the ancient icons of Demeter and Persephone, as celebrations of the delicate ‘curvature of space-time’, the fertile balance of tensions which enables it all. Her Creative Place The Mother aspect then may be understood to be particularly present at four of the Seasonal Moments, which are also regarded traditionally as the Solar festivals; and in this cosmology Sun is felt as Mother. I recognize these four as points of interchange: at Autumn Equinox, Mother is present primarily as Giver – She is letting Persephone go, at Spring Equinox, She is present primarily as Receiver – welcoming the Daughter back, at Winter Solstice the Mother gives birth, creates form, at Summer Solstice, She opens again full of radiance, and disperses form. The Mother is Agent/Actor at the Solstices. She is Participant/Witness at the Equinoxes, where it is then really Persephone who is Agent/Actor, embodying an inseparable Young One and Old One. The Old One is often named as Hecate, who completes the Trio – all seamlessly within each other. Another possible way to visual it, or to tell the story, is this: The Mother – Demeter – is always there, at the Centre if you like. Persephone cycles around. She is the Daughter who returns in the Spring as flower, who will become fruit/grain of the Summer, who at Lammas assents to the dissolution – the consumption. At Autumn Equinox She returns to the underworld as seed – Her harvest is rejoiced in, Her loss is grieved, as She becomes Sovereign of the Underworld – Her face changes to the Dark One, Crone (Hecate). As the wheel turns into the light part of the cycle She becomes Young One/Virgin again. Persephone (as Seed) is that part of Demeter that can be all three aspects – can move through the complete cycle. The Mother and Daughter are really One, and embody the immortal process of creation and destruction. Demeter hands Persephone the wheat, the Mystery, and the thread of life is unbroken – it goes on forever. It is immortal, it is eternal. Even though it is true that all will be lost, and all is lost – Being always arises again: within this field of time there is never-ending renewal, eternity. This is what is revealed in the ubiquitous three faces of the Creative Dynamic/ She of Old, the Triplicity that runs through the Cosmos. The Seed of Life never …
(Essay) Ceremony as “Prayer” or Sacred Awareness 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. MoonCourt Ceremonial Space set for Autumn Equinox ceremony, 2013 Ritual/ceremony is often described as “sacred space.” I understand that to mean “awareness of the space as sacred”: all space is sacred, what shifts is our awareness – awareness of the depth of spacetime, and of the depth of all things and all beings. I understand “sacred awareness” as an awareness of deep relationship and identity with the very cosmic dynamics that create and sustain the Universe; or an awareness of what is involved in the depth of each moment, each thing, each being. Ceremony is a space and time given to expression, contemplation and nurturance of that depth … at least to something of it. Ceremony may be both an expression of deep inner truths – perceived relationship to self, Earth and Cosmos, as well as being a mode of teaching and drawing forth deeper participation. Essentially, ceremony is a way of entering into the depth of the present moment … what is deeply present right here and now, a way of entering deep space and deep time, which is not somewhere else but is right here. Every-thing, and every moment, has Depth – more depth than we usually allow ourselves to contemplate, let alone comprehend. This book, this paper, this ink, the chair, the floor – each has a history and connections that go back, all the way back to Origins. This moment you experience now, in its particular configuration, place, people present, subtle feelings, thoughts, and propensity towards certain directions or outcomes, has a depth – many histories and choices that go back … ultimately all the way back to the beginning. Great Origin is present at every point of space and time – right here. In ceremony we are plugging our awareness into something of that. In this holy context then – in this mindframe of knowing connection, everything one does is a participation in the creation of the Cosmos: for the tribal indigenous woman, perhaps the weaving of a basket; for another, perhaps preparing a meal; for you, perhaps getting on the train to go to a workplace. It is possible to regain this sense, to come to feel that the way one breathes makes a difference – that with it, you co-create the present and the future, and you may even be a blessing on the past. In every moment we receive the co-creation, the work, of innumerable beings, of innumerable moments, and innumerable interactions of the elements, in everything we touch … and so are we touched by them. The local is our touchstone to the Cosmos – it is not separate. Ceremony may be a way into this awareness, into strengthening it. 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”[i] 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.[ii] Ceremony then is a form of social action. I have found it useful to describe ceremony using and extending words used by Ken Wilber to describe a “transpersonal practice,” which is needed for real change: he said it was a practice that discloses “a deeper self (I or Buddha) in a deeper community (We or Sangha) expressing a deeper truth (It or Dharma).”[iii] My extension of that is: ceremony may disclose a deeper beautiful self (the I/Virgin/Urge to Be/Buddha), in a deeper relational community (the We/Mother/Place of Being/Sangha), expressing a deeper transformative truth (the It/Old One/Space to Be/Dharma). This is the “unitive body,” the “microcosmos” that Charlene Spretnak refers to in States of Grace.[iv] Since ceremony is an opportunity to give voice to deeper places in ourselves, forms of communication are used that the dreamer, the emotional, the body, can comprehend, such as music, drama, simulation, dance, chanting, singing.[v] These forms enable the entering of a level of consciousness that is there all the time, but that is not usually expressed or acknowledged. We enter a realm that is ‘out of time,’ which is commonly said to be not the “real” world, but it is more organic/indigenous to all being and at least as real as the tick-tock world. It is a place “between the worlds,” wherein we may put our hands on the very core of our lives, touch whatever it is that we feel our existence is about, and thus touch the possibility of re-creating and renewing ourselves. NOTES: [i] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [ii] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation. [iii] Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996), 306-307. [iv] 145. [v] As Starhawk notes, The Spiral Dance, 45. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996.
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/
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 7) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) at Mago Bookstore. YEARLY LEAP DAY AND EVERY FOURTH YEAR LEAP DAY Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds to 365 days. At the half point of the third Sa, there is a Pan of the big Sak (the year of the great dark moon). A Pan comes at a half point of Sa. This is of Beopsu (Lawful Number) 2, 5, 8. A Pan is equal to a day. Therefore, the fourth Sa has 366 days. Each year has a leap day (Dan), which makes a total of 365 days. Every fourth year is a leap year that has a leap day (Pan), which makes a total of 366 days. The Dan day comes before the New Year in the winter solstice month. And the Pan day comes before the first day of the summer solstice month in the fourth year. The above, however, does not indicate when the New Year comes. Logographic characters of Dan and Pan each suggest their meanings. While each year includes the Dan day (the morning), every fourth year has the Pan day. A unit of four years makes the Big Calendar. Dan (旦 Morning) Leap day for every first three years Pan (昄 Big) Leap day for every fourth year I have postulated that the year begins on the Dan day (one leap day), a day before New Year that comes in the month of Winter Solstice in the Norther Hemisphere. And the Pan day comes on the day before the first day of the 7th month that has Summer Solstice in the fourth year in the Norther Hemisphere. Years Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Months Dan Dan Dan Dan 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 Pan 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 13 Days 365 365 365 366 The Magoist Calendar’s intercalation involves one leap day every year and one leap day every four years. That is, each year has one extra day to make it 365 days. Every fourth year has an extra day to make it 366 days. Four years has a total of 1461 days (365×3+366), which makes the mean of 365.25 days. Considering that the month is following the sidereal period rather than the synodic period, it is inferred that the year also follows the sidereal year rather than the solar year. In fact, Magoist Calendar’s one year is very close to today’s 365.25636 days of the sidereal year compared to 365.24217 days of the solar year or the tropical year. Given that, as seen below, the Budoji mentions the tiniest discrepancy of one leap day for 31,788,900 years, the discrepancy between 365.25 and 365.25636 (0.00636 day) can be explained that the year was actually 365.25 days at the time of Budo circa 2333 BCE, 4440 years ago. In other words, there is a discrepancy of 0.12375936 seconds between 2017 CE and 2333 BCE. Regarding Lawful Numbers 2, 5, 8, it is involved as follows: 365 days (3+6+5=14, 1+4=5) Lawful Numbers 2, 5, 8 refers the unit of 365 days (364 days with one intercalary day). Further dynamics are unknown. The sidereal year refers to the time taken by the Earth to orbit the sun once with respect to the distant stars. In contrast, the solar or tropical year means the time taken by the Earth to orbit the sun once with respect to the sun. The sidereal year, 365.25636 days, is about 20 minutes and 24 seconds longer than the mean tropical year (365.24217 days) and about 19 minutes and 57 seconds longer than the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days. The difference occurs primarily because the solar system spins on its own axis and around the Milky Way galactic center making the solar year’s observed position relative. Time is no independent concept apart from space and the agent. The very concept of time is preceded by the agent bound in a space. It is always contextualized. In Magoism, both calendar and time are born out of the cosmogonic universe, the universe that is in self-creation. Like calendar, time is to be discovered or measured. It is a numinous concept. The very concept of time testifies to the reality of the Creatrix. Time proves the orderly movement of the universe into which we are born. Calendar patterns time, whereas time undergirds calendar. How can we measure time? We are given the time of the Earth that comes from its rotation, revolution, and precession in sync with the moon and the sun (and its planets). One type of time is the solar time. The solar time is a calculation of time based on the position of the sun. Traditionally, the solar time is measured by the sundial. The solar time is, however, specific to the Earth only. It is valid only for the-same-observed-location. It is not made to be used for the time of another celestial body. For example, Mars’ solar time has to be measured independently based on its own rotation and revolution rates. The solar time is an isolated time. It is static and exclusive, not made for the time of other celestial bodies. By nature, it is unfit for connection and communication across celestial bodies. The second type is the sidereal time. The sidereal time is a time scale based on the rate of Earth’s rotations measured relative to the distant stars.[29] Because the observed position is in the far distant stars beyond the solar system, the sidereal time may as well be called an extrasolar stellar time. We can think of the observer’s position of an imaginary cosmic bird far out there, infinitely far beyond not only the solar system and …
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.
(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …

(Essay) Reviving and Celebrating the Nine-Goddess Symbolism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

In my ongoing research on the Great Goddess known as Mago, I have discovered the number nine gynocentric symbolism as the most prominent current that constitutes Magoism and named it the Nona (Number Nine) Mago religion/civilization/mythology. Like other civilizational inventions such as the calendar and musicology, numerology is an intellectual system of knowing the Way of Nature/Universe/Creatrix. And the number nine is no arbitrary number but is the numeric code of the Creatrix or the Primordial Mother. It codifies the cosmogonic beginning of the Primordial Mother, that is, the Primordial Mago Household. It refers to the primordial principle of the solar/terrestrial beginning.
(Photo Essay 2) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part II: The Lost Iconography of Gaeyang Halmi We visited the Suseong Shrine a second time on July 11, 2012. I looked inside the Shrine wherein a shaman ritual was being performed by a Mudang (Korean Shaman)[i] and her assistants. The Mudang in colorful ritual outfit appeared to console her female client on behalf of the spirit. The ritual continued another hour or so and we waited outside until she finished her performance. We had come here on the day of arrival in Jungmak-dong, Buan. The shrine was locked, apparently not being in use. On our second visit, the shrine was packed with four people and their instruments and equipment. It was so compact that it left no room for another person to sit; however, it was pumping up the sober energy. In fact, I have no recollection of which musical instruments were being played inside the shrine. Nonetheless, it feels like that I was hearing the sharp and high banging of the kkwaenggwari (gong) accompanied by the janggu (hourglass drum) rhythm [symbolizing the sound of thunder and rain respectively]. The “musical” sound that I heard shook off the debris of ordinary thoughts and took me to the Other Side of Reality. I began to see things clearly the way they are. I was stepping into the history of this place that I was going to discover.
(Mago Almanac Planner Year 5 Excerpt 1) 13 Month 28 Day Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This and its sequences are a newly added portion in the Mago Almanac Planner Year 5, equivalent to the Gregorian Year 2022. Because the Budoji did not explain further about time units smaller than 1 day, I did not follow through some possible implications in previous Mago Almanac volumes. Next year’s Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar Year 5 or 5919 MAGOMA ERA is forthcoming in Mago Bookstore (October 25, 2021). PDF version is available for purchase.] Angbuilgu (仰釜日晷 Concave Sundial) dated in 1434 of Joseon Dynasty Korea (13 horizontal lines are engraved, indicating 24 seasons and 7 vertical lines indicating times of a day) UNITS OF TIME MEASURE At the half point of the eleventh Sa, there is one Gu of the big Hoe (Eve of the first day of the month). Gu is the root of time. Three hundred Gu makes one Myo. With Myo, we can sense Gu. A lapse of 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si makes one day. This is of Chesu (Physical Number), 3, 6, 9. By and by, the encircling time charts Medium Calendar and Large Calendar to evince the principle of numerology. 1 Gu (approx. 3.71 miliseconds) refers an infinitesimal discrepancy that occurs every eleven years or every ten and a half years precisely. Because Gu (a noncognitive time unit) is a time too small to count, Gu can only be treated as 1 Myo, equivalent to 300 Gu. As shown in the below table, Myo is still a tiny unit of time. 9,633 Myo equals 1 day, which is 288,990 Gu (300×9633=288,990). Because of this, there will be one extra day (9,633 Myo) every 31,788,900 years. This means, the Magoist Calendar has another (the third) leap day every 31,788,900 years (11 x 300 x 9,633). 31,788,900 years is a long time, which we will presumably not take into consideration for the Magoist Calendar dating 3898 BCE (the beginning year of Goma’s Danguk confederacy) that we are under. Because the units of Gak, Bun, and Si are not further explained in the Budoji,[1] it is difficult to designate what they indicate. Although the terms of Gak, Bun, and Si are familiar to moderns as time indicators, what each unit indicates is unknown. Given that 9,633 Myo (Gak-Bun-Si) equals 1 day (1 Il 日 일), it is conjectured that Gak-Bun-Si refers to time segments equivalent to hours, minutes, and seconds in today’s 24 hour a day scheme. 1 Myo is approximately 1.115 seconds, as 9,633 Myo is approximately 8,640 seconds. If we project the time of 1 day into a circle, the whole circle indicates 1 day. Doing this implies that time/space is inseparable in a circular notion of timespace. To specify a size of time smaller than 1 day, we can first divide the circle into two halves. Let’s call the half circle or a half day A. A (equivalent to 12 hours) equals 4,816.5 Myo or 1,444,950 Gu. Then, we divide the half circle into two halves. And let’s call it B. B refers to a quarter of 1 day or B (equivalent to 6 hours), which equals 2,408.25 Myo or 722,475 Gu. Likewise, C refers to one eighth of 1 day, equivalent to 3 hours), which equals 1,204.125 Myo or 361,237.5 Gu. A subsequent division by 2 aligns with the Physical Numbers, 3, 6, 9 in the digital root.[2] Given one sidereal day to be 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.0916 seconds or 23.9344696 hours, 1 A would be 11 hours, 58 minutes, and 2.0458 seconds. 1 B would be 5 hours, 59 minutes, and 1.0229 seconds. 1 C would be 2 hours, 59.5 minutes, and 0.51145 seconds. The circle represents the sidereal day of 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.0916 seconds. Note that the time divisions of 1 day (A, B, and C) follow the order of 1, 2, 4, and 8. Precisely, this is what the Magoist Genealogy of the first three generations that I illustrated above and elsewhere: The Magoist Cosmogony recounts that from one (Mago, the Great Mother) born are the two daughters (Gunghui and Sohui), which makes the triad. From the two daughters born are the four twins, which makes eight. This is observed in meiosis (cell division for sexually reproducing organisms) from one to two and to four and to eight and so forth. The Mago triad and the eight granddaughters are called Nine Magos.[3] The calendar is not just an indication of times or seasons. It is an indication of the life-organizing principle. The Magoist Calendar is a summary of cosmic and planetary life systems. From a microcosmic entity to a macrocosmic universe, all runs by the same force of Sonic Numerology, the metamorphic reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Beings, time, and space are the three inseparable aspects of one reality.(To be continued) [1] It is indeed regretful that the sequence book of the Budoji, Yeoksiji (Book of Calendar and Time), that treats calendar and time has been lost. We have only the Budoji available, the first book of 15 books of the Jingsimnok (Record of Cleansing Mind/Heart), a compendium of 3 volumes that have 5 books in each. Doubtless that the Yeoksiji (Book of Calendar and Time), the third book of Volume 1, would detail the rest of time measures and sub-calendars. [2] D would refer to one sixteenth of 1 day, equivalent to 1.5 hours, which equals 602.0625 Myo (3 in the Digital Root) or 180,618.75 (9 in the Digital Root). If we divide one eighth of 1 day by 3, it is one twenty-fourth of 1 day or E (equivalent to 1 hour). A total of 24 segments. E equals 401.375 Myo or 120,412.5 Gu. These numbers do not follow the suit of 3, 6, and 9, Chesu or Physical Numbers. 401.375 is 2 in the Digital Root and 120,412.5 is 6 in the Digital Root. [3] See this book, 112. https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/