May 22, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Prose) Lise Weil’s Requiem: For the Visionaries of the Women’s Movement and Beyond by Sara Wright

“I glimpse lines crazing my face in the windowglass, crone’s bones emerging. My eyes are growing larger; soon they will perch on stalks and swivel, crustacean. The better to see Read More …

May 20, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay) The Ancient Women’s Olympics by Harita Meenee

I’ve never really liked the modern Olympics. Their focus on competition and commercialization, as well as their nationalistic and sexist overtones, are very far away from our vision of a Read More …

May 17, 2019October 2, 2019 Jude Lally2 Comments

(Essay) Scottish Amazons Rising by Jude Lally

I’m telling you nothing new when I say we live in dark times. Each day seems to unleash new unbelievable horrors. I feel overwhelmed and have to balance this madness Read More …

May 16, 2019October 2, 2019 Kaalii CargillLeave a comment

(Photo Essay 12) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting Read More …

May 15, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Visual Art) In Her Image and Likeness By Dr Lila Moore

A woman is seen holding an object in the shape of the ancient Egyptian mirror of the goddess Hathor. She is walking forward in space-time throughout the volatile elements of Read More …

May 10, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 8) From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt by Krista Rodin

[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time Read More …

May 9, 2019October 2, 2019 Deanne QuarrieLeave a comment

The Sacred Yoni, a Ritual for Women by Deanne Quarrie, D.Min.

The word Yoni is a Sanskrit word. Translated, it means womb, origin, source, and vulva. It is also known as the divine passage or sacred temple. The Yoni consists of Read More …

May 8, 2019November 9, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Prose) On Water Science in Childhood Reveries by Swami Pujananda Saraswati

this image reminds me of childhood reveries. I imagined people the size of ants entering waterdrops. Wondered why some waterdrops are smaller than others? What determines the continuum in size Read More …

May 3, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin3 Comments

(Prose & Poem) Surabhi and Nandini by Susan Hawthorne

I have been studying Sanskrit for a little more than decade. I took it up because I love ancient languages. But more than that, I wanted to have direct access Read More …

April 30, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Essay) A Critique of Roller’s Conclusions Regarding the Existence of a Neolithic Mother Goddess Figure at Catal Huyuk Based on Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence by Francesca Tronetti Ph.D.

Marija Gimbutas was perhaps one of the most influential archaeologists of the 20th century. For over two hundred years archaeologists and historians wrote that war and the male-dominated society was Read More …

April 29, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin3 Comments

(Book Review) Helen Hwang’s The Mago Way by Louise Hewett

Sharing the book review I have written for Helen Hye-Sook Hwang’s book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (Volume 1) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. “The beginning Read More …

April 22, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 5) “Placental Thinking: The Gift of Maternal Roots” by Nane Jordan

[This and the previous sequels are from a Chapter from Placenta Wit: Mother Stories Rituals, and Research, edited by Nané Jordan, Demeter Press, 2017, pp. 142-155.] BIRTH GIFTING: MOTHERS AT Read More …

April 19, 2019June 27, 2021 Jude Lally1 Comment

(Essay) A Carrier of the Stream by Jude Lally

She sits on the windowsill above my altar in a gold frame. The image is entitled ‘Wise Woman’ painted by Irish painter Jane Brideson entitled. The Wise Woman is sitting Read More …

(Art 5) Grace, Ishtar, Infancy the very beginning of by Megha

At the center of Life, She dwells From the center of Life, She leads She who embodies darkness and light She Eternal Grace Infancy – the very beginning of Remember the earliest part of your life, when you were a baby!!! It is extremely rare for anyone to remember their own infancy. An amazing amount of growth and development happens during that phase. This collection is aligned with the consciously heightened awakened growth that happened as Meghanaiyegee embarked on her own journey of remembering the Sacred Feminine. A journey to meeting HER, feeling HER, seeing HER, connecting with HER, whispering HER and becoming HER. Meet Mago Contributor Megha
(Video) A Samhain Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRoK2XNeqw The purpose of the video is for ceremony and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have some past photos of yourself, an altar with ancestor photos, a gingerbread snake, some apples sliced up, and some apple juice. The script for this Samhain ceremony is offered in Chapter 4 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. However I want to acknowledge here the inspiration and some text of Robin Morgan’s poem “The Network of the Imaginary Mother” in her book Lady of the Beasts, for which I was given permission in my book. I also acknowledge here the paraphrase of some words by Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance, used in the rite of Sailing to a New World. I also use a line from the poem Song of Hecate by Bridget McKern. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I mention the direction (which I do minimally). For the rite of the Transformation Journey (remembering old selves) I use an adaptation of a children’s game “In and Out the Windows”, where each participant travels in and out of upraised and linked arms of the circle, and when ‘in’ may speak and /or show photos of themselves from the past. Some may choose to remember any self from the entire evolutionary story, with whom they would like to identify. The game seems appropriate to what each being does existentially in so many ways, over the eons as well as in our personal lives. The chant can be found on YouTube. The photos used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Samhain ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Samhain ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. Music credit: All music used in this video is by Tim Wheater, which has previously generously allowed me to use in my work. The pieces used are from Tim’s CD Fish Nite Moon: they are Ancient Footsteps, Fish Nite Moon, Spiritbirth, and Conception. I thank my partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne for his participation in the creation of the video.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Dr. Adrian Cooper

Dr Adrian Cooper was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in September 1999. He has worked as a Consultant to the BBC TV Natural History Unit, and as a Writer / Presenter for the BBC World Service. He was an Associate Research Fellow in the Department of Geography, Birkbeck College, London University between 1992 – 2013.
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 1) The Ancient Korean Whale-Bell: An Encodement of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Myogyeon (Marvelous Sight), Deity of the North Star. Origin of the image is unknown. [Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.] Abstract This essay designates Korean bronze bells as the whale-dragon bell and decodes its matriversal (maternally cosmic) language involved in the indigenous tradition of Magoist Cetaceanism. The whale-dragon bell awakens moderns to what has been forgotten, the interspecific bond, originating from a pre-patriarchal time, between matriarchal shaman head mothers and whales. At the core of Magoist Cetaceanism is the consciousness that the bio-sonic-aquatic-ecological behavior of whales is an indispensable blessing to All on the planet. And the planetary influence of whales is symbolized and revered as a dragon. Commonly known for beomjong (梵鐘 the sacred bell) or dongjong (銅鐘 the bronze bell) today, Korean temple bells have originated from the Silla period (57 BCE-935). Female, dragon, and numeric symbols expressed in the whale names, the whale-shaped striker, and such designs as the Nine Nipples, the Breast Circumferences, the eight-fold designs, the Dragon Loop, and the Dragon Tube sculpted on the bell’s body are hallmarks the Sillan bronze bell. In decoding the matriversal language of the Sillan whale-dragon bell, this essay focuses on the two extant monumental bells, the Bronze Bell of Sangwonsa cast in 725 (the extant oldest bell), and the Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great cast in 771 (the extant largest bell) and discusses their multifaceted features as well as the Name Texts engraved on the bodies. The whale-dragon bell as a time capsule takes its researchers to the forgotten mytho-history of Magoist Korea. The whale-dragon bell was a socio-political-soteriological undertaking of Sillan Cetacean Magoists upon achieving “the One Unified Home,” the Utopian vision of Unified Silla (676-935). Put differently, the whale-dragon bell was the Sillan Magoist manifesto that Sillans became the Mother State and embraced her daughter peoples. Sillans were able to revive the matriversal confederacy of Old Magoist Korea, succeeding the Budo Joseon confederacy of Three Hans (ca. 2333 BCE – 232 BCE) and the Goma’s pre-patriarchal Danguk confederacy of Nine Hans (ca. 3898 BCE – 2333 BCE). However, the achievement of Unified Silla came with the price. The eighth century Sillans were losing the royal matrilineage, which had been the engine of matriarchal politics. In the wake of the disintegration of the major royal matrilineage, which had lasted for nearly five centuries, Regent Queen Mother Manwol (Full Moon) undertook the casting of the Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great. The Divine Bell was born to reenact the salvific vision of Cetacean Magoism, when Sillan politics headed to unprecedented political instability. It summons the Magoist Cosmogony, the matriversal consciousness of the Cosmic Music, an interplay of musically charged nine numbers, which bring forth birth, growth, and transformation to ALL. Keywords bronze bell, Silla, whale, dragon, Magoist Cetaceanism, cosmogony, Korea, Cosmic Music, nine, nona numerology, shaman mothers, Magoism, whale totemism, Silla, royal matrilineage Korean bronze bells, commonly known as beomjong (梵鐘 the sacred bell) or dongjong (銅鐘 the bronze bell), have drawn a broad range of scholarly and public attention for a few decades.[1] Based on these sources, I approach the topic from a yet new perspective of the pre-Buddhist indigenous matriversal (maternally cosmic) Korean tradition, Magoism. This essay brings Korean bronze bells under the limelight of Magoism, the Way of the Creatrix, and explores their origin in the period of Unified Silla (676-935). Magoism refers to the matriversal tradition that ancient Koreans inherited from their ancestors, the People of Mago, the Creatrix. What distinguishes this study of the Korean temple bell from those of other scholars lies in that I define it as the whale-dragon bell, an expression of matriversal cetacean totemism. That Korean bronze bells are designed to represent the calling of whales remains esoteric to this day. In my study of Magoist Cetaceanism, matriversal whale totemism, I use “whales” and “cetaceans” interchangeably. Because the distinctive feature of Korean temple bells originates from the bronze bells of Silla (57 BCE-935), this essay focuses on the Sillan bells, specifically the two bells from the eighth century, “the Bronze Bell of Sangwonsa” (cast in 725) and “the Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great” (cast in 771). The Bronze Bell of Sangwonsa (hereafter the Sangwonsa Bell), the extant oldest bell, is noted for the most beautiful sound, whereas the Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great (hereafter the Divine Bell), the extant largest bell of 366 cm in height, is noted for the Name Text, which is an elegant literary composition. Sillan bells are no mere ritual gong or a timekeeping device. They are not meant to be functional only. If they are not designed to be a ritual gong, what is it that they mean to signify? Why are they called a whale bell? Clues to the answers to these questions are given in the bell’s names. They are addressed as such epithets as the Heavenly Bell (cheonjong 天鐘), the Divine Vessel (singi 神器), the Treasure Vessel (jingi 珍器), and the Divine Body (sinche 神體).[2] In lore, the Sillan bell is called by its whale names, the Whale Bell (gyeongjong 鯨鐘), the Giant Whale (geogyeong 巨鯨), the Eternal Whale (janggyeong 長鯨), and the Splendid Whale (hwagyeong 華鯨). In addition to these divine and cetacean names, the Sillan bell is rife with female and dragon images expressed on the body. The Sillan bell embodies the sound of a dragon, which refers to the “singing” of whales. This essay as well as my research on Magoist Cetaceanism offers an insight that a dragon is a time-old symbol (read pre-patriarchal) for the bio-sonic-aquatic-environmental behavior of whales revered as divine. The Sillan whale bell comes to us as a panacean soteriology. The message is that restoring the pre-patriarchal bond between shaman head mothers[3] and the natural world headed by whales is salvific for all on the planet. …
(Prose) The Day my Father became a Beaver by Sara Wright

The morning my father died I dreamed that he had become a beaver. After the call came and the shock wore off (he had just been operated on apparently successfully and was in his fourth day of recovery in the hospital), the dream still wouldn’t let go of me. The dream wouldn’t let go of me. I kept contemplating its meaning during the following weeks while his maternal family and I planned a memorial service and his ashes were delivered to me.
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 5) The Ancient Korean Whale-Bell: An Encodement of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.] BACKGROUND DISCUSSIONS Neither were Sillans the inventor of the Buddhist temple bell. Nor was Silla the cradle of Buddhism. Pre-Sillan Buddhist bells are found around the world. It is unknown what the exact original model of the Sillan bronze bell was or when the first Sillan bell was cast. What is evident is that Sillans were the originator of the whale-dragon bell. The specific feature of the Sillan bell, which I call the whale-dragon bell, originates from the period of Unified Silla. Noteworthy is that the whale-dragon bell is strikingly distinguished from the counterparts of the world including China and Japan (see Figures 4 and 5). I hold that the whale-dragon bell encodes the Korean identity as the whale-revering matriversal people. The whale-dragon bell embodies the matriversal principle, which is reductively adopted by the Buddhist church today. The topic of Sillan syncretism between Buddhism and Magoist Cetaceanism goes beyond the scope of this essay.[1] The cetacean identity of the Sillan bell opens the door to the Mother World, the reality of an ever-happening beginning. Reinvented in the eighth century of Silla, the Sillan bell invokes the matriversal consciousness in which whales are loved and revered as divine. The whale-dragon bell depicts the bio-sono-ecological behavior of cetaceans, which nurtures all planetary beings by way of managing planetary water, weather, and climate.[2] Upon being struck by the mallet, the whale bell symbolizes the song of whales, which equilibrates the terrestrial sonic resonance in harmony with the Cosmic Music, “the reverberating sound of a dragon,” expressed in the Name Text of the Divine Bell. The whale bell is a sublime representation of the cetacean divine (Nona Dragons) who represents the terrestrial divine as part of the triadic divine together with the heavenly divine, Nona Magos (Cosmic Mothers), and the humanly divine, Nona Gomas (Shaman Queens) (see [Figure 9]). (To be continued) [1] For example, early Buddhist temples of Silla were built on the sacred forest sites, famed from the pre-Buddhist times. These seven sites are Cheongyeongrim (天鏡林 Heavenly Mirror Forest), Samcheongi (三川岐 Three Streams Fork), Southern Dragon Palace, Northern Dragon Palace, Sacheonmi (Sand Stream End), Sinyurim (神遊林 Divine Staying Forest) and Seochengjeon (婿請田 Son-in-law’s Requested Field). Samguk Yusa Book 3, Heungbeop 3. An ancient Korean endeavor to transform Buddhism from the indigenous perspective of Magoist Cetaceanim was not limited to Sillans. Noteworthy is that, among others, early Korean Buddhist temples are associated with the Seon (Magoist) tradition. Goseonsa (高仙寺 Temple of Old Seon/Magoism) founded by Wonhyo (617-686) of Silla and Seonamsa (仙巖寺 Temple of Seon/Magoist Rock) whose old name was Haecheonsa (海川寺 Temple of the Sea and the River) founded by Ado of Goguryeo in 529 during the reign of Seong-wang, Baekje, are the examples. I posit that ancient Koreans were aware of the patriarchal core of Buddhism. They propagated the cetacean faith of Mireuk, the female cosmogonist. Mireuk is not the same as Maitreya, although it is commonly transliterated so. The word, mireuk (미륵 彌勒), is an indigenous word, derivative of mir (미르 the dragon) and mul (물 water) in Korean. Mireuk associated with a dragon is an embodiment of the Magoist Cetacean divine. Korean Shamanic lyrics describe Mireuk as a maternal cosmogonist who could grow flowers from her yoni, whereas Seokga (the Shakamuni Buddha) was a paternal counterpart who could not. Thus, he lied and stole the flowering power from her. Miruek, aware that Seokga was a cheater, retreated herself from the scene. The “flower contest” mythos manifests in East Asia and beyond. See “A map of the ‘flower contest’ motif in East Asian mythology,” accessed March 21, 2023, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Flower_contest_myth.png. As Buddhism enthroned the Shakimuni Buddha arrived at the land of post-Korean states, ancient Magoist Koreans forged the faith of Mireuk to cope with the colonial and patriarchal force backed by Buddhism. Note the two Shaman lyrics (Muga) documented from South Hamgyeong, presently North Korea, the Changsega (Song of Cosmogony) and the Saenggut (Ritual of the Saint). For the Changsega, see https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0055450. For the Saenggut, see https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0029901. I maintain that the Mireuk faith rose as a way of resisting and redefining Buddhism. Buddhism was perceived as a patriarchal religion, reductionist and colonialist, by post-Budo Koreans. A large corpus of Mireuk related sources (written and oral including placenames) accounts for my hypothesis. Construction of Mireuk Temples (Mireuksa) in Baekje (17 BCE-670) was among the examples. [2] Whales are known for stabilizing the global climate. Michelle Carrere in her article, “To fight climate change, save the whales, some scientists say,” underscores the importance of whales in not only fighting climate change but also in stabilizing marine ecosystems and writes: In addition to the carbon dioxide that whales capture in their bodies and store deep in the ocean when they die, they also fertilize the ocean with their feces and urine, leading to large phytoplankton blooms…“We have to minimize every threat affecting whales (and marine ecosystems as a whole) arising from human activities through decisive and concerted actions,” Hucke-Gaete said. Because of their ability to capture and store atmospheric carbon, as well as the many other ways they help stabilize marine ecosystems, he said, “Every whale counts and we should take care of them as if they were the golden goose.” Michelle Carrere, “To fight climate change, save the whales, some scientists say,” trans. Sara Engel, March 1, 2021,https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/to-fight-climate-change-save-the-whales-some-scientists-say/. https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(Essay 3) The Queen of Heaven: Depictions of Asherah in Ancient Israel by Francesca Tronetti Ph.D.

A modern interpretation of an Asherah pole. Image taken from TheBibleNet blog. Women’s Worship of Asherah: The primary source of information regarding the cult of YHWH and the worship of the ancient Israelites is still the Bible. However, the text does not include essential details concerning women’s religious activities. The authors typically denigrate women’s worship and acts of devotion that are described. The Bible does not venerate women’s worship; nevertheless, a close reading of specific passages provides many clues to the queen mothers’ cultic obligations in Judah’s kingdom. According to Ackerman, “…the queen mother did have an official responsibility in Israelite religion: it was to devote herself to the cult of the mother goddess Asherah within the king’s court…the queen mother’s devotions to Asherah stand behind and are fundamental to the role accorded to her in matters of succession”[1]. There is evidence that at least four of Israel’s queen mothers were part of Asherah’s cult and that their worship of her was one of their central roles in the royal court. The queen mother Ma’acah, mother-in-law of Jezebel, is described as worshipping the goddess Asherah and making a cultic statue for her in 1Kgs 15:13[2]. Whether Jezebel devoted herself to the cult of Asherah as entirely as Ma’acah did is still in question. However, there is sufficient evidence to support the belief that Jezebel was an active participant in Asherah’s cult. Jezebel is most noted in the Bible for her worship of the Canaanite god Baal. Still, she likely participated in Asherah’s cult while Ahab’s queen as part of her marital responsibilities and as part of her obligation to the state. We can speculate that Jezebel continued to participate in the cult after Ahab’s death when she became the queen mother[3]. Athaliah, the daughter of Judah and Jezebel, who served as queen regent, was also a possible Asherah follower. Athaliah is believed to have been responsible for the building of a temple to Baal in Judah. If this is the case, then we can presume that Athaliah also aligned herself with other cults that her mother followed. Since Asherah’s worship was a standard part of Yahwistic devotion, we can assume that Athaliah would have been a follower of Asherah as the queen mother. The final queen mother who may have been a participant in Asherah’s cult was Nehushta, Jehoiachin’s mother. Nehushta’s name nehusta’ is most likely derived from the root nahas meaning “serpent.” Also, “…as the ‘serpent lady,’ the gebira Nehushta bears, I would suggest, an epithet of Asherah, whose associations with snakes[4] are attested to in multiple sources.” With numerous sources linking Asherah and serpents, it is very likely that Nehushta, like Ma’acah, Jezebel, and Athaliah, was a devotee of Asherah. In Judean royal ideology, YHWH was believed to be the king’s adopted father; so, if Asherah was considered the consort of YHWH in the state and popular cult, it follows that Asherah was believed to be his adopted mother. Ackerman acknowledges that the language of divine adoption implies that YHWH is a surrogate father and that Asherah was a surrogate mother. If the queen mother was perceived to be the earthly counterpart to Asherah, she might have been considered the human representative or surrogate of Asherah. Such a direct correspondence would explain why those queen mothers in the Bible who are described as having cultic allegiances are depicted to be patronesses of the goddess Asherah. It would be appropriate for these queen mothers to devote themselves to their divine alter-ego. In Judah’s royal ideology, it might have been part of their cultic obligation to the country. It may even have been necessary for the queen mother to make this association because “…if the queen mother is considered the human representative of Asherah in the royal court, she should be able to legitimate her son’s claim to be the adopted son of YHWH. Indeed, the queen-mother, speaking as the goddess and as YHWH’s consort, is uniquely qualified to attest to her son’s divine adoption”[5]. Asherah worship was common among the everyday people of Judah as well. In Jeremiah 14:15-25, the prophet admonishes the people for their worship of Asherah. The men reply, “We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. At that time, we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine” (Jer. 14:17-18). The women then respond, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?” (Jer. 14:1). Asherah’s role in YHWH’s cult lasted for several centuries, but eventually, the people turned to a more monotheistic belief system. The Shift Toward Monotheism: Beginning in Exodus and continuing through Joshua and 2Kings, we see more challenges to alternative divine figures by the ancient Israelites. The different prophets called people away from other gods’ worship, and the Biblical kings are labeled as good or evil based upon their devotion and loyalty to YHWH. In 622 BCE, Josiah’s reforms demonstrate how idolatry had become common in the southern kingdom, even entering the temple precincts and the temple prayers[6]. Josiah is written to have removed Asherah’s vessels as part of her sacrificial cult from the Temple in Jerusalem. He also and tore down the structures within the Temple compound where women wove garments to be draped over Asherah’s cult statue[7]. The removal of Asherah from the lives of the ancient Israelites, like all significant religious reforms, resulted from great upheavals in the people’s lives. In 722 BCE, Judah’s northern kingdom fell, and the southern kingdom followed in 587 …
'My First Metaphysics Lesson' by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

(metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things) In the fall of 1964, I was a freshman scholarship student at a small liberal arts college in the midst of the Iowa cornfields (no drought then — the tall-grass prairie that had been broken to the plow turned green with lustily growing rows of corn from horizon to horizon). I wasn’t paying attention to the surrounding crops, nor even to the weather; I was avidly searching for signs of the life of the mind, which I had imagined would flourish in that place. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but one remark by the professor teaching us “Introduction to Philosophy” did turn my attention in the direction of studying philosophy. We had just spent fifteen minutes of classroom time on the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales, who taught that everything was water, when our teacher said, Consider how extraordinary this is — to look at the multi-form ever-changing world and see flowing through it a single invisible unifying “something.” I considered, and I was hooked. The word philosophy comes from the Greek philos (loving) combined with sophia (wisdom; also the goddess of wisdom), so it means literally “loving wisdom” or “loving Sophia.” But, as I would find out the hard way, academic philosophy in 1960s middle America had strayed far from its roots. There was little love, not much wisdom, and most assuredly no goddess in it. It was not a way into the life of the mind; it was intellectual jousting for the purpose of determining who was the smartest guy in the room (by definition, that wouldn’t have been me). Four years of extreme study in philosophy departments did, however, give me a built-in bullshit-meter — I could tell almost instantly when someone was saying or writing something that made no sense. Through constant use of analytic reason, I learned what a handy-dandy all-purpose tool it can be. But a tool is no more than a tool. It doesn’t guide you, and it doesn’t inspire you. And I was becoming increasingly disillusioned and unhappy. So I gave up my fellowship for graduate study and turned my attention to more pressing matters, like the Henry-Kissinger-instigated bombing of Cambodia. My first metaphysics lesson had to wait for another twenty years, until the mid-1980s, when my friend Debbie and I decided to eat two little dried-up fungus-buttons another friend had passed on to her. We thought we were ingesting the sacred mushroom used by shamans, but who knows what those wrinkly things really were or where they’d come from. We were both, however, all set for our trip into Big Mind. It was a bitterly cold and clear full-moon night, and we were inside Debbie’s cabin, situated halfway up a snow-covered mountain in Vermont, and surrounded by woods. We each ate our “mushroom,” bundled up, and went outside. I looked at the full moon and saw it as I usually did, perfectly clearly, but over it and surrounding it was a see-through diaphanous creamy-pink lotus blossom. I blinked, and saw the full moon as usual. I blinked again, and there was the moon with her see-through lotus-double. I blinked again and again, and the lotus-moon appeared, disappeared, and reappeared in the same way. Then I looked at the bare trees in the moonlight, and saw see-through lithe young women lying along the branches. Only they were too tall and too beautiful to be human. I blinked and they were gone. I blinked again and there they were; I could see the solid branches through their shimmery bodies. I cried out to Debbie, “Metaphors are Real!” and felt as if I’d just made a momentous philosophical discovery. By this time, though, Debbie’s dog was yipping and biting at our heels, having had enough of the great outdoors. We went back inside, and he plopped down on the rug in front of the door. Debbie put another log on the fire, and then I saw her little dog’s see-through body sit up, trot over to the woodstove, and curl up beside it. A split-second later, his wet furry normal-little-dog’s-body sat up, trotted over to the woodstove, and curled up in exactly the same spot. Oh, I thought, so that’s how it works: dream-body leads, touch-body follows. The next morning I woke up feeling as if I’d been kicked all over by a horse, which abruptly ended my enthusiasm for dried-up fungi. But for more than a year afterward I could see the lotus-and-moon on clear nights when the moon was nearly full, if I bent my knees. And since that night, although I’ve managed to doubt almost everything else, I have not doubted that the world is double, and that the more powerful, initiating part of it we have been conditioned not to perceive. Patriarchal religions and their spin-off ideologies tend to split apart “spirit” and “nature,” but when I ate that whatever-it-was, I experienced for myself that “spirit” (the see-through part) and “nature” (the solid part) are so glued together, they can’t be separated. They’re aspects of one another. Nature isenspirited — the cosmos is enspirited — and no reductive set of human beliefs, and no appalling pile-up of human-caused destruction, can alter the first principles of things, the way things are. There is nothing ordinary about reality: that’s what my first metaphysics lesson taught me.
(Essay 1) Embodied Divinity by Luciana Percovich

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

(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!
(Special Post 8) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Marija Krstic-Chin To remember who we really are (nature, cycles, network, creative force, one, infinite…) for the benefit of all of humanity and all living things; and to unite and unify as we broadcast, hand down, protect and defend this truth and each other against the oppressive intentions and actions of patriarchal perpetrators, puppets, and pawns who seek to enslave us by various old and new divide-and-conquer strategies.
(Special Post 2) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

Artwork, “The-great-mother” by Julie Stewart Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Magi/Magus, from Magi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest. Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic, to include astronomy/astrology, alchemy and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for (Pseudo‑)Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words “magic” and “magician”. In the Gospel of Matthew, “μάγοι” (magoi) from the east do homage to the newborn Jesus, and the transliterated plural “magi” entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as “kings” and more often in recent times as “wise men”).[1] The singular “magus” appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician. … An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival magavan meaning “possessing maga-“, was once the premise that Avestan maga- and Median (i.e. Old Persian) magu- were co-eval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit magha-). While “in the Gathas the word seems to mean both the teaching of Zoroaster and the community that accepted that teaching”, and it seems that Avestan maga- is related to Sanskrit magha-, “there is no reason to suppose that the western Iranian form magu (Magus) has exactly the same meaning”[4] as well. But it “may be, however”, that Avestan moghu (which is not the same as Avestan maga-) “and Medean magu were the same word in origin, a common Iranian term for ‘member of the tribe’ having developed among the Medes the special sense of ‘member of the (priestly) tribe’, hence a priest.”[2]cf[3] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gaia, from Gaia (mythology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In Greek mythology, Gaia (/ˈɡaɪə, ˈɡeɪə/ GHY-ə, GAY-ə;[1] from Ancient Greek Γαῖα, a poetical form of Γῆ Gē, “land” or “earth”),[2] also spelled Gaea (/ˈdʒiːə/ JEE-ə),[1] is the personification of the Earth[3] and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess. She is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods) and the Giants, and of Pontus (the sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.[4] … The Greek name Γαῖα (Gaĩa)[5] is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic Γῆ[6] (Gê), Doric Γᾶ (Gã, perhaps identical to Δᾶ Dã)[7] meaning “Earth”, a word of uncertain origin.[8] Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin.[9] In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (transliterated as Ma-ga, “Mother Gaia”) also contains the root ga-.[9][10] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Greek mythology of Gaia’s family tree is remotely evocative of the Magoist genealogy written in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principale text of Magoism. In Korean, “Mama” is also an honorary title referring to the royal family including ruler, ruler’s mother, father, grandmother and so on. This suggests that “ma” means “mother,” “ruler,” and “Goddess” all at once in gynocentric/gynocratic (Magoist/Magocratic) societies, pre-patriarchal in origin. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I came to search the etymology of “montgomery” in relation to Mt. Mago or Mt. Goya and am led to such related terms as Gomer, Gog, Magog. Montgomery (name) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Montgomery or Montgomerie is a surname from a place name in Normandy.[1] Although there are many stories of its origin,[2][3][4][5] An old theory explains that the name is a corruption of “Gomer’s Mount” or “Gomer’s Hill” (Latin: Mons Gomeris), any of a number of hills in Europe named in attribution to the biblical patriarch Gomer,[2] but it does not explain the final -y or -ie (the phonetical evolution would have been *Montgomers) and it does not correspond to the old mentions of the place name Montgommery in Normandie : Monte Gomeri in 1032 – 1035, de Monte Gomerico in 1040 and de Monte Gumbri in 1046 – 1048.[6] More relevant is the explanation by the Germanic first name Gumarik,[7] a compound of guma “man” (see bridegroom) and rik “powerful”, that regularly gives the final -ry (-ri) in the French first names and surnames (Thierry, Amaury, Henry, etc.). Moreover, the name is still used as a surname in France as Gommery,[8] from the older first name Gomeri.[9] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gomer below from Wikipedia. Gomer (גֹּמֶר, Standard Hebrew Gómer, Tiberian Hebrew Gōmer, pronounced [ɡoˈmeʁ]) was the eldest son of Japheth (and of the Japhetic line), and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah, according to the “Table of Nations” in the Hebrew Bible, (Genesis 10). The eponymous Gomer, “standing for the whole family,” as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia expressed it,[1] is also mentioned in Book of Ezekiel 38:6 as the ally of Gog, the chief of the land of Magog. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gog and Magog from Wikipedia. Gog and Magog: They are depicted as monsters and barbarians from the East/Eurasia. Gog and Magog (/ɡɒɡ/; /ˈmeɪɡɒɡ/; Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג Gog u-Magog; Arabic: يَأْجُوج وَمَأْجُوج Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) are names that appear in the Hebrew bible (Old Testament), the Book of Revelation and the Qur’an, sometimes indicating individuals and sometimes lands and peoples. Sometimes, but not always, they are connected with the “end times”, and the passages from the book of Ezekiel and Revelation in particular have attracted attention for this reason. From ancient times to the late Middle Ages Gog and Magog were identified with Eurasian nomads such as the Khazars, Huns and Mongols (this was true also for Islam, where they were identified first with Turkic tribes of Central Asia and later with the Mongols). Throughout this period they were conflated with various other legends, notably those concerning Alexander the Great, the Amazons, Red Jews, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and became the subject of much fanciful literature. In modern times they remain associated with apocalyptic thinking, especially in the United States and the Muslim world. Helen […]

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

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

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

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
Summer Solstice Poiesis by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …
(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 …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 3) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. MAPPING THE MAGOIST CALENDAR According to the Budoji, the Magoist Calendar was fully implemented and advocated during the period of Old Joseon (ca. 2333 BCE-ca. 232 BCE) whose civilization is known as Budo (Emblem City). Indeed, the Magoist Calendar is referred to as the Budo Calendar in the Budoji. Budo was founded to succeed Sinsi and reignited Sinsi’s innovations including the numerological and musicological thealogy of the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji expounds on the Magoist Calendar as follows: The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a cyclic period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds up to 365 days. At the half point after 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. At the half point after the tenth Sa, there is a 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.[12] KEY TERMS Calendric Cycles Jongsi (終是 Ending and Beginning): Cyclic periods Soryeok (小曆 Little Calendar): One year Jungryeok (中曆 Medium Calendar): Two years Daeryeok (大曆 Large Calendar): Four years Names of Year, Month, Day, Week Sa (祀 Rituals, year): One year refers to the time that takes to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month): One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day): One day refers to the sun’s movement due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week): Each weekday is dedicated to seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the Celestial Bodies, completion of a week): One week refers to the veneration of the seven celestial bodies. Names of Monthly Transition Days Hoe (晦 Eve of the first day of the month, 28th) Sak (朔 First day of the month, 1st, the dark moon) Names of Intercalation Days Dan (旦 Morning): Leap day for New Year Pan (昄 Big): Leap day for every fourth year Names of Time Units Gu (晷 sun’s shadow): Time measure, 1/300 Myo Myo (眇 minuscule): Time measure, a total of 300 Gu Myo-Gak-Bun-Si (眇刻分時 minuscule, possibly 15-minutes, minute, hour): Time measure, 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si is equal to a day Names of Three Types of Numbers in Nine Numerology Seongsu (性數Natural Number): 1, 4, 7 in the digital root Beopsu (法數 Lawful Number): 2, 5, 8 in the digital root Chesu (體數 Physical Number): 3, 6, 9 in the digital root THREE SUB-CALENDARS The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). The universe is infinite without beginning and ending. Everything runs the course of self-equilibration in relation to everything else. The Way of Heaven or the Way of the Creatrix circles and makes possible the infinite time/space to be measured and calculated. As the Way of Heaven circles, we are able to perceive Our Universe in finite measures of time/space. Time becomes measurable, as space is stabilized. Seasons and days-nights are demarcated in cyclic patterns, as the Earth makes the three cyclic movements of rotation, revolution, and precession. Calendar, born out of the inter-cosmic time, synchronizes human culture with the song/dance of the universe. The term Jongsi, which means an ending and a beginning, is equivalent to “a cyclic period” that is marked by the beginning and the end. Time (a day, a month, and a year) circles, as space (the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun) spirals. The Magoist Calendar has three sub-calendars: The period of one yearly cycle is called Little Calendar, whereas the period of two yearly cycles is called Medium Calendar and the period of four yearly cycles, Large Calendar. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang) Notes [12] Budoji, Chapter 23. See Bak Jesang, the Budoji, Bak Geum scrib., Eunsu Kim, trans. (Seoul: Gana Chulpansa, 1986).

(2014 Mago Pilgrimage Report 1) Sweat Lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Islands by Helen Hwang

[Author’s Note: Revised verison of this report is published in Celebrating the Seasons of the Goddess (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books, 2017). 2014 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea (Oct. 7-Oct. 20) was participated by a culturally mixed group of pilgrims from the U.S. Australia, and Korea. Among non-Koreans were Dr. Glenys Livingstone (co-facilitator), Mr. Robert (Taffy) Seaborne, and Ms. Rosemary Mattingly. For details, read 2014 Mago Pilgrimage. View the video on our visit to Ganghwa Islands by Robert (Taffy) Seaborne.] 2014 Mago Pilgrimage granted me ever unfolding revelations. The first of them that I would like to mention concerned the sweat lodge called Hanjeung-mak (汗蒸幕, Chamber of chill and steam).[1] Until we visited the traditional sweat lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Island, it did not occur to me that the origin of its modern variations[2] has to do with the rebirthing experience in the Womb of Mago. (Here Mago means the Great Goddess or the Primordial Mother.)
(Essay 1) Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Pod of narwhals, northern Canada, August 2005. Image courtesy of Kristin Laidre. Wikemedia Commons Manpasikjeok (the pacifying flute that defeats all) is a legendary flute, purportedly made from a narwhal’s tusk, originating in the 7th century Silla (57 BCE-935 CE). King Sinmun (r. 681-692) had a revelation concerning “a bamboo tree” growing on a mysterious mountain floating in the Sea of Whales, today’s East Sea of Korea. From this tree, a flute was made with which he was able to protect the whole world. As a national treasure of Silla, this instrument was famed to defeat all enemies at the time of troubles. What we have is the accounts of the pacifying flute recounted in Korea’s official historical texts. Two sources from the Samguk Sagi (Historical Records of the Three States) and the Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three States) shall be examined. Not surprisingly, whales are made unrecognizable not only within the story but also in the official history books of Korea. Magoist Cetaceanism was subjected to erasure in the course of Korean official history, but apparently not in the time of King Sinmun of Silla. The myth of Manpasikjeok testifies to Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism upheld by 7th century Sillan rulers. We are reading a Magoist Cetacean myth, however, told by people of a later time when Magoist Cetaceanism was no longer recognized. The fact that these two official historical texts of Korea recount the narrative of Manpasikjeok speaks to its significance: The story is told with a sense of mystery or suspicion. While the Samguk Sagi overtly treats the author’s sense of disbelief, the Samguk Yusa provides a full narrative in tantalizing but mystified details. How was Manpasikjeok 萬波息笛 created in the first place? Below is the Samguk Sagi version of the story: According to Gogi (Ancient Records), “During the reign of King Sinmun, a little mountain emerged in the East Sea out of nowhere. It looked like a head of a turtle. Atop the mountain there was a bamboo tree growing, which became two during the day and became one at night. The king had his subject cut the bamboo tree and had it made a flute. He named it Manpasik (Pacifying and Defeating All).” Although it is written so, its account is weird and unreliable.[1] Written by Gim Busik (1075–1151), a Neo-Confucian historiographer, the above account betrays an unengaged author’s mind in the story. For Gim, Korean indigenous narratives like Manpasikjeok are anomalous, if not unreliable, by the norms of Chinese history. In contrast to the former, the Samguk Yusa details the Manpasikjeok story in a tantalizing sense of mystery. Its author Ilyeon (1206-1289) was a Buddhist monk, a religious historian who saw the history of Korea as fundamentally Buddhist from the beginning. He elaborates the story with factual data but fails to bring to surface the cetacean underpinning of the myth. It is possible that Magoist Cetaceanism had already submerged much earlier than his time. King Sinmun (r. 681-692) had built the temple, Gameun-sa (Graced Temple), to commemorate his late father King Munmu (r. 661-681) who willed to become a sea dragon upon death. The relic of King Munmu had been spread in Whale Ferry (Gyeongjin 鯨津), also known as the Rock of Ruler the Great (Daewang-am) located in the waterfront of the East Sea also known as the Sea of Whales. Evidence substantiates that King Munmu was a Magoist Cetacean devotee clad in a Buddhist attire. Or today’s Buddhologiests call it Esoteric Buddhism. The Manpasikjeok myth may be called the story of King Sinmun’s initiation to Magoist Cetaceanism. Before explicating the Samguk Yusa account, which is prolix and complex, I have summarized the Samguk Yusa’s account as follows: (Summary of the Manpasikjeok Myth) King Sinmun ordered the completion of Gameunsa (Graced Temple) to commemorate his deceased father, King Munmu. The main hall of Gameunsa was designed at the sea level to allow the dragon to enter and stroll through the ebb and flow of the sea waves. In the second year of his reign (682 CE), Marine Officer reported that a little mountain in the East Sea was approaching Gameunsa. The king had Solar Officer perform a divination. The divination foretold that he would be given a treasure with which he could protect Wolseong (Moon Stronghold), Silla’s capital. This would be a gift from King Munmu who became a sea dragon and Gim Yusin who became a heavenly being again. In seven days, the king went out to Yigyeondae (Platform of Gaining Vision) and saw the mountain floating like a turtle’s head in the sea. There was a bamboo tree growing on its top, which became two during the day and one at night. The king stayed overnight in Gameumsa to listen to the dragon who entered the yard and the substructure of the main hall. Then, there was darkness for seven days due to a storm in the sea. After the sea calmed, the king went into the mountain to meet the dragon. The dragon told him that, if he made a flute out of the bamboo tree, the whole world would be pacified. The king had the bamboo tree brought out of the sea and made it into a flute, which became a treasure of Silla. The mountain and the dragon disappeared. The flute, when played during times of the nation’s trouble, brought peace. Thus comes its name, Manpasikjeok (the pacifying flute that defeats all). During the reign of King Hyoso (r. 692-702), his son, the flute continued to make miracles. Thus it was renamed Manmanpapasikjeok (the pacifying flute that surely defeats all of all). One day, it was reported to King Sinmun that a little mountain was approaching Gameunsa. That mountain had a mysterious bamboo tree atop. On the seventh day from then, he went out to Yigyeondae (Platform of Gaining Vision), the whale watch place near Gameumsa. Then, he stayed overnight in Gameunsa to hear the dragon who entered the temple yard through the ebb and flow of the …
(Art) Nurture by Anna Tzanova

to feed and protect; to support and encourage; to foster and bring up; to train and educate; to develop and nourish; to care for and cherish… Such a multifaceted and meaningful word! It represents to me an essential quality of the Goddess. An aspect I strive to cultivate within, embody, and express externally. I use it to guide all my actions by asking myself, “Is this nurturing?”; “By doing this, what am I nurturing?” Very often, minds have been conditioned to counterpose nature and nurture, creating not only a divide, but also a controversy. The intrinsic feature of Nature is to nurture. The womb not only births, but nurtures. Nothing can be sustained or achieved without nurture. Nature teaches us the lesson of acceptance. Nurture – the lesson of patience. It also provides the opportunity and freedom of choice. Together, they intertwine and weave the entire Creation. What are you nurturing today? From She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 (forthcoming, 2016). See (Meet Mago Contributror) Anna Tzanova.

Category: Goddess feminist activism

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