September 6, 2024August 31, 2024 Mago Work

(Poem) Things a Lesbian Should Know by Susan Hawthorne

The history of lesbians is difficult to decode and document. So many lives erased and unknown Lives we will never know about. Not because they were lacking in interest or achievements but because lesbians have been vilified over many generations. I argue that when a lesbian does something great, she is known for her achievement; when she does something criminal she is known as a lesbian. I write a great deal about this and other important aspects of lesbian knowledge in my recent book, Lesbian: Politics, Culture, Existence. These are essays (and three poems) I have written over fiftey years. In the essays on culture I write about art – with particular reference to the work of Suzanne Bellamy whose artwork is on the cover – as well as poetry, fiction and circus. I draw on my knowledge of prehistory and ancient languages. On the cover you can see two female figures who are reading a book entitled Lesbian Linear B. This porcelain book was made for me by Suzanne because she knew that I was interested in deciphering the past. It is one of many books she made including one called Lesbian Foreign Policy.

The poem below is the final piece in the book.

Published in The Sacking of the Muses, Mission Beach: Spinifex Press

https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781925950007

FiLiA International Conference, Cardiff. ‘Things a Lesbian Should Know’ read at the Sunday morning Plenary, St David’s Hall, 23 October.

Meet Mago Contributor, Susan Hawthorne

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(Poetry & Art) Change is Coming by Arlene Bailey

Change is Coming, art by Arlene Bailey https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(Prose) Methodology: the cosmic sewing maching by Nane Jordan

Perhaps the term “methodology” encapsulates my Cixousian/life writing study, a methodology driven study? I know – Cixous’ writing defies notions of “method.” My point – exactly. “get past the wall” (Cixous, Coming to writing,1991) How can we defy and re-defyne methods? Recognizing the ways in which gender, social forces and patriarchy shape practices of writing, and who can or can’t write. How can writing and methodology speak/communicate/commune-with life in new ways? I see Cixous’ writing as midwife-provocateur of such birthings, an invitation to break free of convention and “etiquette” (à la Sean W.), finding language, dreams, birth/death, the life of objects and poetic-philosophy – narratives in the narrative, turning/tuning towards words-in-themselves. Tracing the educational genealogy of this study is to look at the forces of Coming to writing/ L’avenue à l’ecriture (Cixous 1991/1977) in my own life. I was a secret teenage poet. Poetry gave me a way into my-self, my emotions and scenes of life with others. I loved what words could do. I handed a file of my poems to a university professor in my first year of visual art studies. A well-known Ottawa poet, he let me into his writing class, with words of praise and promise for my writing. I entered and promptly dropped the class. I did not feel able to commit to both writing and visual art. Or I was afraid, of writing. Growing up in a literary (reading) family, I read too, a lot. Mostly female authors, Virginia Wolfe and Doris Lessing were mainstays of my teenage years. I didn’t feel I was ‘novelist’ material, but I sensed the need to write. Reading gave me worlds and words and ways into life within and beyond my own. Years later, after community-based midwifery studies, and the birth of my first daughter, my entrance to a Master of Arts in Women’s Spirituality in San Francisco gave writing back to me. Who knew? Who knew that poet, cultural theorist, and educator Judy Grahn (http://www.judygrahn.org/) would be there, nudging students along in her creative, generous ways, “did you write that story Nané?” In our classes, writing groups, and pedagogical immersions through women-centred scholarship, space, and ritual, hearing the stories of others, telling and re-finding my own stories, I recovered my desire to write. Research methodology was key to this arrival. New feminist research methodologies were about creatively locating ourselves in our own lives as women. We could use the “I” word, a subjective voice! VOICE! Feminist qualitative research as “Organic Inquiry” (Clements, Ettling, Jenett, & Shields, 1998) opened these doors more. Art, writing, and the sacred could merge within me, in a community of e-mergence. I followed red threads that I yearned to, through women’s birth stories, midwifery, eco-feminism. This was the kind of research I had been longing to do through my years of living the birth-work, and reading women’s stories and healing ways. How to make research sing and soar, breath life, give life. Into my PhD, I found arts-based researchers in education at UBC. Again, artists, writers and poets arrived, with communities of stories as our calling. Life writing with an arts-based research team began. And reading Cixous, more and more, things evolved to this place of reading-writing, in its potent-poetic transformative impact. All that is possible in reading-writing – its individual and collective sewing. The cosmic sewing machine In this classroom, I am made more, in saying, telling, writing, following my own tales/tails, letting words come through, the flesh and blood of me, words spin out into sentences, forming a new body. These soft glowing orbs I can hand to others, placement of figurative touch, head to hand to heart, this funny mind-meld, enscribes my sensory awareness, of being. That story I told Judy, long ago about the wolves calling, and she said, “have you written that down?” no – I hadn’t, but soon did, now the thought often arises, to write things down, to stitch stories. I am a bit more familiar with this cosmic sewing machine, the one Judy points to, saying, “I have to get back to my sewing” I look in the direction of her gaze, to the sewing machine on the floor and I think – that looks a lot like a computer. And so begins another way of thinking about sewing, about writing. (Meet Mago Contributor) Nane Jordan.
(Prose) Canada Goose by Sara wright

Canadian Geese have been on my mind a lot lately. This past winter I have missed the skeins of geese that fly back and forth up and down the river appearing every single morning like clockwork. In Abiquiu when winter turned to spring I noted that the geese were behaving in much the same way the Sandhill cranes did before they migrated, splitting into pairs or groups of three and flying erratically. I was puzzled. I didn’t recall witnessing such behavior before this year. I wondered about migration patterns. Were the geese shifting their flight patterns too? Or perhaps the small groups I saw were staying year round? Some days it almost seemed as if these water birds were confused by something. I saw three Canadian geese on the last predawn walk I took to the river/Bosque – just an hour or two before leaving for Maine. I knew that a perilous journey was ahead because we were driving. The C/virus was a frightening threat though I brought all food, and planned to camp/use woods as bathroom. The first morning after my arrival at home I saw and heard three geese honking over my head. I was struck by the odd synchronicity remembering the mother goose tales of my childhood – and later as a graduate student when I learned about their mythology. Mother Goose is a benign and loving image of the ancient mother goddess* that is present throughout world mythologies. I like to think that the presence of geese at both ends of a challenging cross – country trip were harbingers of the safe passage… The Canadian Goose is native to North America and it breeds in Canada and the northern United States in a wide range of habitats. By the early 20th century overhunting and loss of habitat decimated populations almost to the point of extinction, but with the help of preservation programs most populations have recovered. In some areas these birds are regarded as pests. Many are routinely shot. I find this behavior sad and ironic because the root of this problem belongs to humans who have killed off the birds natural predators, as well as the fact that people have created an abundance of man made bodies of water near food sources like those found on golf courses, manicured green lawns, public parks, lakefront cottages, and beaches in planned communities. Geese love succulent grasses, sedges, aquatic vegetation, cultivated grains, seeds and berries. They also eat insects and some crustaceans. Photo by Sara Wright Geese mate for life; life-long pair bonds are formed during the second year. Offspring remain with their parents for about twelve months traveling together in large flocks of family groups. The female chooses the nest site, which can be found in unlikely spots like cliff ledges as well as on elevated hummocks. Geese need good visibility to protect their eggs and young goslings. The male defends their territory with elaborate displays well worth watching! Some geese don’t migrate at all and live year-round in the southern part of their breeding range, which includes both coasts and parts of northern Mexico. When the geese fly over in their characteristic “V” shaped patterns I am compelled to stop to watch this astonishing sight. If they do migrate, geese tend to breed in northern areas in the US and Canada. Sometimes geese fly to Alaska or the sub – arctic to raise their families. When migrating, if one Canadian goose falls injured, immediately two companions accompany the goose to the ground and do not leave until the bird either recovers or dies. I have observed evidence of this kind of animal compassion throughout nature in every species I have ever studied. The geese that migrate return to the exact nesting and overwintering locations every year. In fact, migrating geese use various stop-off resting points when they travel, and these remain largely the same, too. When geese fly south to overwinter, they usually settle somewhere in the middle or southern continental US. The geese that you see every spring or fall are probably the same geese that were around your home the year before. Since my return a week ago I have seen a few more geese – not the V shaped skeins but small groups that are flying or swimming in nearby ponds. During the late spring I look forward to seeing the parents with their fluffy waddling toddlers feeding at the water’s edge. I am perpetually amazed at how fast the youngsters grow. Geese have beautiful feathers and every summer I collect a few. This year when I find my first flight feather I will be thanking Old Mother Goose for her help. Postscript: What is goddess spirituality? “Goddess spirituality understands nature (or the world) to be the body of the goddess and affirms this world as our true home. This world is understood to be an interconnected web of life shared by humans and other than human beings.” (International scholar/writer Carol Christ) This earth -based way of being in the world allows us to be present for human and non – human species in a compassionate way – a way that is not based on ‘power over’ and privilege but on respect and equality. The Indigenous Way. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/
(Book Excerpt) Resiliency, Renewal and Love: The Sacred Legacy of The Ancestral Mothers by Pegi Eyers

Art, “Sacred Legacy of Ancestral Mothers,” by Pegi Eyers “Are you, like me, feeling that the mythology of your life is now divided between the eras of pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19?” When I wrote those words at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I was experiencing moments of confusion and unease, in what felt like a menacing new reality. Being part of a “lockdown” was totally surreal. Was this really happening? Did our public health authorities actually have the power to shut down our civic spaces and amenities, and to restrict our movements? Apparently so. For most of us, this was a totally new phenomena. And to top it off, how could a “state of emergency” be declared on my very own birthday, and what was I doing enjoying a celebration in a restaurant that should have already closed their doors? It’s now a full year later, my solar return is coming around again, and the entire world has been forced to reconcile with great tragedies, disruptions and impossible events. Like everyone else, I’ve been stripped down to the essentials of refuge, food, medicine and other basic needs, with the comfort of social life relegated to the sidelines. Even going for a walk is daunting, with the potential of a deadly virus waiting around the corner to contaminate our lives. And how disempowering to think of the people, places, and objects of our desire, as hidden sources of danger! New words are part of our vocabulary too – terms like “self-isolation,” “shelter in place,” “quarantine,” “essential workers,” “community spread,” “flatten the curve,” “online reality,” and “covidiot” (a covid denier). Instead of café culture, bookstore browsing, visiting art galleries or going to spiritual gatherings and conferences, we now spend our days in our homes – humble or palatial as they may be. Except for the super-rich, everyone is suffering an economic hit, and the ability to keep a roof over our heads is in jeopardy. Knowing how capitalism is structured, without the daily intake of profits our beloved community restaurants and shoppes will never rise from the ashes. And right now, it’s hard to imagine what the world will look like, in a post-COVID era. Intellectually I understand that the virus will run its course – some will catch it, others never will; some will die and others recover. These are plain truths I can deal with, and not that difficult to accept. But still, there is stress in the disruption of my daily routine, plus the ongoing worry of falling ill. COVID-19 has changed our world on a scale never seen before, and yet we had so much to begin with! Until 2020 I had been feeling the irony of living in an era of cultural renaissance and hope, at the same time that western civilization seemed to be collapsing under its own weight. For many years I’ve been watching for apocalyptic omens, and as a society, we’ve been comfortable with “the sky falling” for decades now. Warnings of monumental change and the breakdown of ecosystems have been part of the public discourse for my entire adult life. A civilization that destroys the natural world to live, will destroy itself. It’s a given. And altering the balance of nature by massive deforestation and the annihilation of natural habitat, can unleash viruses like COVID-19 on the world. During the summer of 2020 as the pandemic set in, and after a proper time of adjustment and bemoaning, I finally went, “wait a minute!” As a Celtic Animist with a focus on Matriarchal Studies, I had an epiphany that the clanswomen in my ancestral motherline would also have endured times of dire deprivation, as no era is exempt from the cyclical forces of birth, life, death and rebirth. They would have found their ingenuity and strength when the rains did not come, when the ground was barren, when the forests were on fire, when the storms lashed the valley for days, when the river flooded the land in the middle of the night, when disease was gripping the babies and the Elders, when a horde of marauding horse-men threatened the borders, or when the cold and ice was so unrelenting they thought it would never end. And to withstand all this, and more, without electricity, hot baths, craft rooms, Netflix or gourmet food delivery! Our Ancient Mothers love us so much, they are always there to support us, and to patiently guide us. Working from an eternal place of continuity and care, our motherlines have also prepared us for this great “time of awakening,” when the power of the Eternal Feminine is rising once again. The gifts of the Ancestral Mothers are manifesting in every sphere – in the urgency of women’s leadership, the revival of the gift economy and egalitarian social organization, the blood mysteries and the centering of the womb as divine, the emphasis on the “we” instead of the “me,” the supremacy of unconditional love, the double roles of the birth and death doula, the need for wise Grandmothers and mentors, and the passion for venerating our Beloved Ancestors in the here and now. As in ancient times, on the rise today are the green seers, mystics and spirit-walkers, women skilled with oracles, the dream and vision interpreters, the storytellers, dancers, musicians, gardeners, artisans, warriors and guardians. We have re-discovered our skill with animist lifeways, interspecies communication, plant-spirit medicine, important rites of passage, magical intuitive “knowing,” turning the wheel of destiny, honoring the sacred in all life, reciprocity with Earth Community – and finally, making decisions that honor the Seven Generations before us, and the Seven Generations yet to come. Drought, fire, flood, hurricane, war, famine, disease – all this and more we have endured and will endure again. Keeping the times in perspective, there is also a “destroyer” aspect of feminine deity, and goddesses worldwide like Kali and Coatlique bequeath the land and all beings with cataclysmic events in the “great rebalancing” – era upon era and …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Julie Stewart Rose

Julie Stewart Rose is a Singer-Songwriter, Artist and businesswoman based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Julie’s artistic expression comes from a desire to explore mythology and spirituality as an expression of the feminine. Her art typically is multi-layered and loaded with symbolism and a beautifully complex, textured colour palette. Julie works primarily in the spiritual realm when she paints. Julie’s passionate interest in feminine energy is expressed as forms of spirituality. To build up the texture of Julie’s work, her mixed media approach includes hidden photos, underlying symbols and outlines, plaster, glues and acrylic paints built up in layers over time. Her website is: http://www.juliestewartlive.com/
(Essay) Time Unbound: Fate Goddesses, Physics, Nature, and the 21st Century by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Dancing Cailleach: By JamesIlling – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, The Apache and Navajo Changing Woman1 and Celtic Cailleach2 are endlessly young, then old, then young again. The Delphic Oracle prophecies the future of empires3. The European Fates spin each child’s destiny at birth4. Mortals journey to the Celtic Underworld where days become centuries on their return5. The understanding of time in these myths and traditions, what we might call “goddess time,” is profoundly different from our own daily experience. Our everyday perceptions of time, constructed by our brains in order to help us function in day-to-day life, tells us that time flows in a line from a remembered and unchangeable past to a present that is the same throughout the universe to the unknowable future6. Yet, for more than a century since Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, we have known the time, when observed on the level of atoms, fields, quanta, and such, also does not match our human perception7. Contemporary physicists have confirmed or hypothesize a number of surprising characteristics of time. Time moves more slowly or quickly depending on where you are in relation to mass8. There is no “now” that is the same throughout the universe, or even a few centimeters away9. On an atomic level, the concepts of “past” and “future,” defined as events that happen only before or after one another, are meaningless10. When electrons are moving from one place to another, they are in a space where anything resembling the flow of time is replaced by “clouds of probability,11” with all possible outcomes of where the electron might go present all at once, until the electrons reappear after interaction with an object like a screen. Whether describing a view of time where past, present, and future behave in strange, nonlinear ways, or noting that time moves at different rates depending on your closeness to a mass like the Earth, I see echoes of these discoveries in “goddess time” — do you? And what can we learn from observing how goddesses and heroines express a different perspective of time about navigating our own century? Einstein says that time moves more slowly the closer you are to Earth12. Oddly enough, time also moves more slowly in the Celtic Underworld, often understood to be under the earth’s surface and closer to Earth’s central core13. Adherents of the Fairy Faith accept without question that time moves more slowly depending on where you are. Perhaps they can model for us the ability to live comfortably with both our daily perception of time and “goddess time” when that benefits how we think about our world. Delphic oracle: By Zde – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 The goddesses of fate and holy women oracles constantly challenge us as we consider predestination. If an oracle tells us what may happen in the future, do we have the capacity to change it? While what happens in the quantum sphere is not the same as the human sphere, can the “cloud of probabilities”14 be a possible paradigm for our realm to cast off limiting beliefs that we do not have the agency to make a future better world? The Oracle of Delphi thinks so. After a king lost everything by making war after the Delphyne told him his attack on another kingdom would mean the fall of a great empire, she said he should have asked which empire would be lost. If he had changed his mind based on her counsel he would still have been king15. So, too, should we have the courage to believe that our lives are not an inevitable slog from the present to a predestined future and use our wisdom and common sense to make the choices that can bring about peace, love, and compassion, even when positive change may seem impossible. Changing Woman and the Cailleach who move back and forth between youth and age represent a cyclical rather than linear view of reality. Similarly, at the elemental level, the meaninglessness of past and future also speaks to a view of time that, at least at that level, is similarly non-linear. To me, when we stop thinking in linear terms, we lose the sense that there will be an end to existence and our lives will no longer have had meaning. Each generation, including our own, becomes part of the great story of the the universe, connecting ourselves to both our ancestors and descendants. This also encourages us further to align ourselves with the seasons and nature, to take responsibility for gifting a healthy, bountiful earth to those who will come after us as well as to learn from those who came before us. Finally, we come to our own aging, a source of fear and shame in our culture. From their cycling from youth to age and back, Changing Woman and the Cailleach teach us that while aging certainly creates changes in our bodies and minds, and we need to be accepting of both positive and negative effects, we are still fundamentally ourselves no matter what our age. And, in a universe in which we age at different rates depending on our position in space16, perhaps we can be no longer restricted by society’s assumptions of who we should be and what we should be doing at particular chronological ages. Why does “goddess time” seem to reflect elements of new revelations about time? It may be that before the invention of the mechanical clock, people had a less rigid understanding of time as time mainly measured changes between day and night or the seasons and was very local since noon, for example, was based on position of the sun where you were at any given moment17. Or it may be that ancient people used observation and intuition in the absence of today’s precise instruments to come to similar conclusions about time as modern physicists. Or it could be something else or all coincidence. For whatever reason, both modern physics and “goddess time” give us a …
(Essay 3) The Animal Mother Goddess by Hearth Moon Rising

Excerpt from Invoking Animal Magic: A guide for the Pagan priestess Animal deities were once worshiped in caves, and the Anatolian goddess whose cult eventually dominated Rome has a name that translates as “cave.” We know her as Cybele. The Greeks put her birthplace on Mount Ida east of Troy, but she is associated with other mountains as well, including another Mount Ida on Crete. Her titles are Mother of the Mountain, Great Mother of the Gods, Nourishing Lady, Most Holy Lady and Queen of the Wild Beasts. Cybele is usually portrayed with a pair of lions seated beside her or pulling her chariot. She is associated with bees, and the Greeks referred to her priestesses as Melissae, or bee nymphs. The bees link Cybele with a special pine tree that bees love to swarm. This pine thrives in the low to mid elevations in Asia Minor and produces a sticky sap that aphids feed on. The aphids in turn sweat sweet nectar that attracts the bees. The honey produced from the pine nectar is still prized for its flavor, but in ancient times it was valued for its medicinal qualities. The love of the bee for this pine is the source of the myth of Cybele and her honey-man, Attis. Attis is the grandson of Cybele, who conceived his father when the god Zeus tried unsuccessfully to rape her. He ejaculated on the ground when he could not enter the goddess’vagina, but since she is also the stony soil of the mountain, she conceived anyway. The son of Cybele became an almond tree, and a river nymph conceived Attis when she ate an almond from that tree. Attis was abandoned by his mother and raised by a billy goat. Cybele fell in love with Attis when he matured, and at first he returned her love. Eventually, however, his eye wandered to another, and Cybele attacked him in fury, until he tore off his genitals in despair, bleeding to death under a pine. With much sorrow, Cybele wrapped the body of Attis in wool and took his body and the pine tree to the mouth of her cave, where she planted both. Cybele’s maddening attack on Attis is obviously bee-like, but his self-castration has other parallels in the life of the bee, as the sexual organs of the drone are torn when he completes his copulation with the queen. Attis the drone dies and is reborn as an evergreen tree, which the bees dote upon.
(Intercosmic Kinship Conversations) Ancestors, Runes and Interdimensional Communication with Jillian Burnett by Alison Newvine

https://youtu.be/drcHjtBDekM Jillian Burnett’s mind is a fascinating multi-verse of language, symbolism and mystery. I knew this going into our conversation, having read her chapter, “Runes in Ancestor Work,” and communicated with her via email leading up to our interview. What struck me even more than this during our time together was the unbounded loving nature of her heart. Available at Mago Bookstore This conversation series is a spinoff of the anthology, Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess, published by Mago Books in 2023. “Intercosmic Kinship Conversations” are heart-centered exchanges exploring how the themes of interconnectedness and intercosmic consciousness weave through the lives of some of the anthology’s contributors. In our interview, Jilly provides a primer on what the Runes are and how they connect to ancestor work. She also brings us into the kinship practices of the ancient Norse and Anglo-Saxon peoples who held such intimate relationships with the runes. She describes the role of parties, celebratory gatherings and gift-giving in binding communities together. We muse on the role of virtual “clans” today, in the absence of the tight-knit networks of kin that our ancestors enjoyed. This interview includes an experiential component in which Jilly leads us all in an embodied Ancestor~Rune practice (Rune Yoga), singing us into an altered state and guiding us to open our consciousness to the presence of our ancestors. Jilly and I then talk about our encounters in this interdimensional space and move on to explore the role of song and music in ancestor work. The interview closes out with her reflections on her journey within the Mago community and the role it has played in her journey of uncovering her hidden (erased) indigenous ancestry. The episode ends with a sweet and soothing flute piece she recently recorded during one of her meditations. A particularly powerful moments in our conversation was when Jilly spoke the words, “the way to bind people (together) is to constantly feed them with love.” This led me to wonder, in our virtual, global network of Mago/Goddess/S/He kin, how can we maximize the joy and love we bring to one another? One way that stands out to me is in the reciprocity of offering our gifts and lovingly bearing witness to one another. There is such complex beauty and unique expression of the divine emanating through each of us. It is my hope that we continue to deepen into this appreciation of our collective treasures as we nurture and expand our sacred kinship. https://youtu.be/drcHjtBDekM https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine
(Call for Contributions) On the Coronavirus and Your Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality

October 14, 2021 Update: Dear ongoing or new contributors, Hope this finds you well and safe. It feels like we have been passingthrough a long tunnel. It’s been nearly 2 years since we fell underthe covid pandemic rule globally. When survival is the primary goal,it is really hard to push for an accomplishment. Maybe survival itselfis an accomplishment. Hope you did not stop writing or creating duringthis challenging period! Please consider resuming your ongoing or newcontributions if you haven’t submitted in a while. Share your pains,worries, and nightmares as well as wisdom, revelation, and discoveriesthrough RTM! Your struggle and experience when shared spark a new firein us and around us. And I, as an editor representative, can’t stophere, when our collective voices need to say in unison, “The RealMother Time is just beginning HERE/NOW!” Once we are newly settledpast the pandemic, I would like to pass the office of the RTM editorrepresentative. Please let me know if you are interested and can serveRTM as the editor representative. Till then, I will be standing hereto hold down the stronghold! Thank you and blessings! https://www.magoism.net/people/call-for-contribution/ I look forward to hearing from you soon,Helen The coronavirus outbreak is changing human behaviors on a global level, marking a watershed in which individuals, organizations, and states/nations no longer lead the same lifestyle as before the covid19 world. Where are we, humans, heading to? What are our concerns among Goddess feminists, activists, and spiritual practitioners, broadly defined? The Return to Mago E-Magazine Editorial seeks contributions on your response to the changes manifesting on any level. Please don’t hesitate to share your insights or observations in a form of art, poetry, prose, essay or project with our international readers and to the world. Following questions may help guide one: How does the coronavirus outbreak affect you, your work, and your attitudes toward life?What changes do you see taking place in people, culture, state, religion, environment, and/or the natural world? How do you see animals and plants respond to human quarantines? Where and how do you draw strength at this time?What are my insights or observations? How to submit your contribution, please see here, Call for Contributions.

(Special Post 4) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing eight sequels (all nine parts) 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 how Goma is known among the ancient Chinese. She is called The Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian xuannu). Nine Heavens refer to the confederacy of nine states, Danguk or Nine Hans. Statue of Jiutian Xuannü, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiutian_Xuann%C3%BC Another icon of Jiutian Xuannu below. https://www.tinyatdragon.com/blogs/spiritual/jiu-tian-xuan-nu-mysterious-lady-of-the-nine-heavens?fbclid=IwAR0n1Ld6tmxqTec23Pzg3DxRjEQ-DbjdGF1DU_Jjlt4eMbHdTOO9Jd7ePnc Lizzy Bluebell: Oh – now I see what the Buddha riding the deer was carrying; her Gourd. A very interesting link, thanks.”…these statues in Taoism are not for worshipping or praying. They are like a container, a magic tool, which is used to program the energies into profiles and be used for different things in Taoist magic. The outsiders cannot understand too much, and so these “Taoist secrets” are often hidden from the public in the old days or even today.” Lizzy Bluebell: Very informative passage on the power of the NINE:”Nine is the pattern of giving off power, or using up the energies of things to give off powers, just like a flashlight burning it’s battery up for the light. Sky is the pattern that relates to any pool of resources or elements that are considered the proactive party that is “starting” something or the giving side of a situation.Remember that we talk about patterns in Taoism, and it applies to everything including our FU talismans words and these special terms like Jiu Tian / Gau Tin.A practical example for this term can be used as in if you are trying to go to the kitchen and cook something for lunch. Your “sky” here is all the things in the kitchen, and ground is the kitchen itself where you put the food into “process” them. So the 9-sky stage is to have picked out the food you like and let them show themselves to let you know which one is the best to use, maybe some just smell better or some look fresher to you. Nothing has been done yet, but you are now able to “start” something because you can at least feel and sense the food’s potentials and power.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, Oh it is gourd. Yes, I forgot about the gourd symbol for Mago/Magu. It is a container for the elixir from which one drinks. It is a common pictographic/literary theme and I have images of Magu with the gourd. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, this is one heuristic analogy. Ancient Magoists depicted/perceived the universe as Nine Heavens, an equivalent to Nine States on earth for it is the lens of Nine Numerology through which they saw everything. Because ancient China removed the history of Goma, they spiritualized/philosophized the teaching of Nine Numerology. If we have Goma’s history (and the mytho-history of Old Magoism), we can perceive the meaning of Nine Heavenly directly (not through theories or analogies). Wherever and whenever the consciousness of Nine Numerology surfaces is a manifestation of Goma’s rule/civilization/religion. This will remain forever insofar as humanity continues because Nine Numerology is the principle of nature including humans. I would say that the teaching/principle of Nine Numerology is Goma’s self-redemptive soteriological gift. Insofar as we understand and honor the Nine Mago Creatrix/Nine Numerology (the female divine in general), we are endowed with the power of self-redemption. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Lizzy Bluebell, the character “Xuan or Hyeon 玄” refers to the quality of gynocentric spirituality, which has been made esoteric or mystic. It refers to the spirituality of the Great Goddess (Magoist spirituality). Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Nine Hans or Nine Heavens manifests in such place-names as Kyūkoku (九国, Nine States). Kyushu (Nine Provinces) Island, Japan, seemingly a replica of Danguk (confederacy of nine states) representing the Nine Mago Creatrix, reflects the ancient glory of the Goma’s gynocentric rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyushu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Doumu (Mother of the Northern Dipper) also comes in the icon of eight arms. Doumu, Song Dynasty, Wikimedia Commons Domu, Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doumu Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: She is often conflated with Marici seated on a boar in her iconography (affine to Gemu of the Mosuo and Durga on a tiger/lion). Here Marici is depicted as four-headed and eight-armed. Marici, Wikimedia Commons Marici (Buddhism) – Wikipedia Judy E Foster: So similar to the Indian Goddess… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Indeed! I am afraid that we may not be able to feature some of the nine forms of Durga from “Hinduism”. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang There is more, Marici. Marici, Wikimedia Commons File:Marichi, Buddhist Goddess of Dawn, China, Qing dynasty, 18th… Marichi, Source below. Marichi (Buddhist Deity) – Kalpoktam (3 faces, 8 hands)… Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: This is new info. on the nine tripod caldrons of ancient China. “The Nine Tripod Cauldrons (Chinese: 九鼎; pinyin: Jiǔ Dǐng) were ancient Chinese ritual cauldrons. They were ascribed to the foundation of the Xia (c. 2200 bce) by Yu the Great, using tribute metal presented by the governors of the Nine Provinces of ancient China.[1] At the time of the Shang Dynasty during the 2nd millennium bce, the tripod cauldrons came to symbolize the power and authority of the ruling dynasty with strict regulations imposed as to their use. Members of the scholarly gentry class were permitted to use one or three cauldrons; the ministers of state (大夫, dàfū) five; the vassal lords seven; and only the sovereign Son of Heaven was entitled to use nine.[2] The use of the nine tripod cauldrons to offer ritual sacrifices to the ancestors from heaven and earth was a major ceremonial occasion so that by natural progression the ding came to symbolize national political power[3] and later to be regarded as a National Treasure. Sources state that two years after the […]
(Special Post 5) 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.] Annie Finch For me, Goddess is completely different from God–Goddess means acceptance of the sacred WITHIN the physical instead of transcending the physical; acceptance of death and life as equally sacred; and the holiness of changing cycles…. Annie Finch, Maine anniefinch.com Marie de Kock Why Goddess spirituality? Goddess spirituality is crucial for our survival and the survival of our planet. I’m referring to every woman’s connection and relationship with her own Spirit which resides in her heart, and her own divine ability to create, which springs from her womb. The womb is infinitely more than a reproductive organ; it is a replica of the Cosmic Womb or Mago. From that profound pool of infinite silent knowledge, women can access the solutions so urgently needed to recover the equilibrium the world with its God spirituality has lost, and women can dream the solutions into being. It is the intelligence of the heart and intelligence of the womb that humanity needs in order to balance out the ill effects of our noisy ‘rational’ left brained society. Women carry the keys to the wisdom within them. Female spirituality is the door. Marie is in Chile for now http://ninenormalwomenwithwings.com Leslene Della-Madre Goddess among many things to me is a verb–Goddessing. “Goding” isn’t the same. She is Love in action in all things–she is the cosmic gen-Her-ator bringing life into form from primordial chaos, the twin serpents of coming and going. She is the plasMA of the YoniVerse filling space with her divine essence creating great beaded necklaces of galaxies all connected to each other by electric pathways. She is the All and Eternal. Leslene Della Madre, California USA midwifingdeath.com Diane Horton Sacred Goddess Sisterhood Each of our stories as women who have come to embrace the Goddess are varied and interesting. Certainly interesting to each other, as our spirits long to resonate with another who has had a similar journey. Mine began while I was still a member of the Episcopal Church and a Christian. But relative to many, it was not that long ago, just 18 years. Some women have been knowing and worshiping the Goddess for more than 30 years, some have only just come to the reawakening and re-membering recently. Some of us call ourselves witches, some priestesses, or both. Some do not identify with either of those words and simply say they have immersed themselves in the Divine Feminine, or that they worship the Goddess. Some will say they are Pagan or Wiccan or Dianic Wiccan. Whatever we call ourselves, or do not call ourselves, we are all Sisters in Goddess, those who worship the Great Mother. And though our numbers are growing, seemingly almost daily, we are still in a minority. We need those who are articulate to voice our views and we need wise teachers who can share practices, philosophy and knowledge with those who are eager for such spiritual food. One of the great things about this Goddess Path is that, although there is much written and oral knowledge to be had for those who seek it, the deepest part of this path is experiential. Personal experience with Goddess, deep within ourselves, and having our eyes opened to Her all around us all the time, seeing and feeling Her magic in our lives, knowing Her love and nurturance in our hearts. We have no dogma, no set of rules or commandments, no rigid ideology. We have our own hearts to guide us into all acts of love and pleasure, compassion, humility and reverence which are Her rituals. When we express strength, hold our power and honor life, as well as giggle and laugh, those are Her rituals, too. There are the Women’s Blood Mysteries, which set women apart from men who worship the Goddess, but that should serve to unite women in a strong eternal bond, not alienate men. There is no place for hierarchy. We are all women equal to each other as daughters of the Goddess. We cannot, we must not, allow the patriarchal mindset to contaminate Feminine Spirituality. No hierarchy, no duality, no controlling others. If we want to see a world in which the Divine Feminine is prominent, the world that many of us believe is coming, we need to take a good, hard look at ourselves in the mirror of our Sisters’ eyes and all of us individually commit ourselves to Unity, Sisterhood and Unconditional Love. That does not mean we will never disagree, and sometimes disagree vehemently, but it does mean we do not allow those disagreements to fracture us as a body of women or to damage or destroy our Sisterhood. There are many teachers who have their own followings of students, their own coursework, their own publications and newsletters, their own festivals they work all year to organize and make manifest. This is a good thing! Especially with the national economy the way it is now many, many women cannot afford to travel very far from their homes, so the fact that there are festivals in diverse parts of the country is no doubt just as the Goddess desires. Those who know of Her and hear Her call are greatly benefited by all of these in mind, heart and spirit. We all need each other. We who can spread this information far and wide need to do so, not just think of and promote the one group or project we are involved in ourselves individually. This is the BIG PICTURE. This is how the movement moves forward. This is how the Goddess gathers Her women (and men). Unification of purpose. Standing together. Supporting each other in concrete ways. We are Women of Goddess. Her spirit […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.

(Essay) The Wheel of the Year and Climate Change by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ The Wheel of the Year in a PaGaian cosmology essentially celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, in which Earth’s extant Creativity participates directly, as does each unique being. The Creativity of Cosmogenesis is expressed through Earth-Sun relationship as it may manifest and be experienced within any region of our Planet. In PaGaian tradition this is expressed with Triple Goddess Poetry, which is understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution, as it does in the Seasons, happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: and that is because this tilt effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago, and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago[i]. Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it, in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found[ii], and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found[iii]. The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as our ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change[iv]. In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done; but it will continue to evolve as all language must. At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make everyday around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming into being and passing away[v]. Our need for sacred ceremony of relationship with our place, can only be more dire in these times, as we are witness to, and aware of, …
(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.
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.

(Essay 2 Part 1) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova

Part 1 Fans, journalists, critics, and academia in multiple fields have studied this world phenomenon; have written blogs, articles, books; and presented in conferences, dissecting, and making predictions. Still, the magic and mystery of its success persists to be as thrilling as ever. This is the way I see it: DELIGHTING THE SENSES
(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/
(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.