April 28, 2017December 19, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Read More …

April 3, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

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

[Author’s Note: This poem was an offshoot of an essay on Magoist Calendar and Nine Numerology, to be included in the forthcoming anthology, Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, Read More …

February 11, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 4) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Read More …

November 17, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin3 Comments

(Essay) Cook, Eat, Celebrate, Heal Lessons from the Yakbab by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

“Glutinous rice is mixed with oil and honey, pine nuts and dates. Families in the neighborhood share bowls of this rice with each other as the magpie awakes, seduced by Read More …

May 18, 2015October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Essay 1) Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first published in Trivia, Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007.] I come from Korea. When I say I came from Korea, I do not Read More …

December 22, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Essay 1) Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s note: This paper is published in the journal, the Gukhak yeonguronchong 국학연구론총 (Issue 14, December 2014). Here it will appear in five sequels including the response by Dr. Glenys Livingstone.] Magos, Read More …

July 4, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(Video) Gurang (Nine Goddesses), Gaeyang Halmi (Grandma Gaeyang), and Goddess Gom: Exploring Old Magoism in Korea by Helen Hwang

Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. Read (Photo Essay 5) Gaeyang Halmi, Sea Goddess of Korea.

May 9, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Budoji Essay 5) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 5: Magoist Cosmology “The primary aim of Magoist cosmology lies in lifting up the conceptual veil in people’s mind so that they can see what is given at birth.” Read More …

March 24, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Read More …

February 24, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin6 Comments

(Budoji Essay 3) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“Reintroducing the concept of the Mago Species has a profound implication, compelling one’s vocabularies to be changed to the Mother’s Tongue.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji Read More …

January 17, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Video) 2013 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s note: The first Mago Pilgrimage to Korea took place June 6-19, 2013. We visited Ganghwa Island, Seoul, Wonju, Mt. Jiri, Yeong Island (Busan), and Jeju Island.] Read Mago Pilgrimage Read More …

January 7, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(Budoji Essay 2) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“Mago, the eponymous Goddess, is the head, ruler, and guardian of Mago-seong. She represents the eco-community of the Earth in the intergalactic universe.” [Author’s Note: This and subsequent essays are Read More …

(Art & Prose) A Glorious Catastrophe by Lucy Pierce

Art by Lucy Pierce I never asked for it,the box you gave to me at my birth,the ask that my vast, wild, eternal nature should squeeze itself insideand make a home for itself.So excruciatingly crippling,the conditions of service.Maybe it never really mattered after allthat I wasn’t ever quite lovable enough,or desirable enough for you.Not pleasing or pretty enough,never quite malleable and subservient enough to win the prize of your gaze.Maybe I was really just born to bethis glorious catastropheof heat and hairand blood and sweat,trying to hide itselffrom the cruel gaze of the predator,swirling through time like a force of nature,untamable, unknowable, unpossessable,sovereign and free, if only she knew.Maybe I don’t care anymore,that I don’t actually want what you’re selling,that I am not and never was for sale,that I have nothing to sell that you would want to buy.Unwanted, unhinged from the world,an act of revolution,like a thunderstorm or a wildfireor a weed that sprouts in the gaps of the pavement.Because I always was and ever will be a little piece of everything.I am birth and death and all that comes between,the amniotic fluid and the first breath,the black shroud and the dark earth,exquisitely grotesque,primal and fierce, delicate and fine.Maybe I don’t even want you to love me any more.Maybe I just want to find the wayto claim a greater playing spherethan the one you allocated to me.One that has a place for all the parts of me,unbound from the contortions of suppression.If you only knew how big I was,if only I could let myself truly know that unfathomable fact,unshackling the edicts of safety you placed on me.I am not safe,I am a turbulent channel of rampant love and pain,a catastrophic deluge of compassionate rage and sensual harbor.I am unfurling my torrential magnificence into the co-creative field of the universe,I am weeping in the darkness of my exile.I am a grief-stricken burgeoning,a primal harbor for lost partsand misplaced dreams,I am big enough to hold all the brokenness and all the hope,a majestic annihilation of reason,a formidable imperative of tenderness.I do not fit in your box and I have all the scars to prove it.I will not prune myself for you,be clipped by your infantilising whim.I am hair and juice, snot and tears,blood and bone, woman born,all the years my age and powerful,unkempt and fertile, life-giving warrioress,bloodcurdling protector of the vulnerable and the weak.No I am not pretty and I will not be shamedand as you cast me asideI feel the primal undercurrents of creationscoop me up and feed the ancient rivers within,of this formidable longing to unshackleHer vibrant potency,Her ferocious transmutation,transcending the captivity of feminine identity,the psychic imprisonment of fear and belittlement,that a colonizing culture enforced upon Her.I exalt the mossy crevices you would manicure and poison,I relish the succulent decay you would sanitize and bleach,I trust in the blood-swelling, bone-crunching,nectar-flowing, sweat-drenched brutality of her primordial love,so tender and fierce.I will make of Her my home.I don’t want to please you anymore,I just want to love myselfand breath my devotion,in all my magnificent messiness,a potent mix of all the things a life can be,born only this once,as this particular catastrophe of love and grief,untamable after all the trying,only able to be loved completelyby a consciousness as vast and unknowable as it’s own self.I can rest there, in that knowing,that even though the world would not have me as I truly am,I know that the place from which I came will take me back,unapologetic and shining.She will understand that I was just an uglinesstoo exquisite for the world of small boxes,a beauty too primal and pungent,too real and honestfor the world of masks. (Meet Mago Contributor) Lucy Pierce.
Vision at Dawn: A Reflection on Time by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Brigid, goddess of Fire and Light has another aspect – that of water. One legend has it that a crystal drop from Brigid’s mantle touched the earth and became a deep clear lake. I love this image. I think of Brigid’s blue lake as a kind of mysterious bowl that holds different ways of experiencing time. If I throw in a hook I might catch time in the round as I experience it as seasonal cycles. Ah, I have caught a January feeling through a partridge. One more hook brings up a childhood loss – memory of a loved one that has become a beloved forest bathed in peace. Am I reeling in a future that releases me from a haunted house? A beloved cousin has suddenly surfaced from the deep. In Brigid’s Lake time does not flow like a river even when I experience it that way – Time is simply there as unexplored potential waiting to be lived. The following poem was written just after I had an experience with Turkeys that pulled me out of my mind – totally embodied – I lost all sense of Time and differences. The Present and Oneness was all there was. Vision at Dawn In the gray Dawning, emptied and forlorn, she spies First Turkey strutting by the window – beaded ebony eyes, a flash of crimson. Six more follow, heads held high, serpentine necks, feathered chests, bobbing bodies, talons spread to break a fall. Gathering at the feeder she joins the group. Only this Vision Matters – Mind is still. Body sings. Transformed, mighty wings appear. Turkeys chortle, welcoming her home. Yesterday at dusk the deer appear at the edge of a frozen brook; they find a crack in the ice – a pool of open water. This morning a thaw, temporary respite. Ashes melt old ice. No wind. The moment I see the first turkey I become one, casting off my bone weary winter self. A miracle of sorts, that one can shed mind’s conditioning even for a moment, to join these gentle birds.
(Call for Contributions) Story Your Goddess Feminist “Me Too” Insights for the coming year!

Dear RTM recurring and prospective contributors, We seek your storytelling of “Me Too” broadly understood. The catchphrase “Me Too” can apply to the very collaborative effort of speaking up against not just physical sexual assaults but also other patriarchal oppressive practices. It can be in the form of poetry, art, prose, research and other creative medium. The second half of 2017 has witnessed how our “Me Too” stories crumble down the muppets of modern patriarchal capitalist engines literally everywhere. It is still growing to a wild fire that knows no boundaries across social sectors, cultures and nationalities. And we are learning that it is never be a better time to tell our stories than NOW. And WE will do it HERE. Let us remove the remnant of the patriarchal residue within ourselves by telling our stories that transform us all from the victimhood to the agency for social change. RTM is here to interweave your threads for the coming year! Return to Mago E-Magazine is created to serve as a venue (1) that visualizes the community of writers, researchers, advocates, poets, artists, and activists who are committed to Goddess-centered/Magoist feminist social change, to be discovered, and (2) that shares, networks, and celebrates of our ontological togetherness across species. And our readers from around the world get to participate in the unfolding of our gift-sharing practices. After all, we are restoring the paradigm/consciousness of WE in S/HE. We seek your essays, prose, poetry, art, and creative works! Your contributions will work a double-edged sword. It creates a new space for all in WE, while undermining the patriarchal ground. With your contributions, RTM CAN bring change to this world! We also seeks editors on the executive level (see below). We seek out contributions that can visualize our connections, struggles, and visions. We welcome the following perennially: Introduction of Goddess from around the world (the great goddess in priority) and her history, myth, material cultures; Feminist issues; Structural/institutional issues (racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, and nationalism, etc) that hinder the goddess consciousness and activities; Spirituality, religion, history of a particular people that revere the female divine; Cosmology, ecology, and nature in relation to the female divine; Song/dance of life-searching and life-loving work, project, and expression; We also seek seasonal themes such as equinoxes and solstices, feast and holiday messages. By contributing to Return to Mago, you are participating in WE, the Current of Connecting with All Beyond Differences, the Way the Universe Is as our ancestors did. Please send an email for submission inquiry or more information to Dr Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (magoism@gmail.com, Founding Director and Co-editor). Don’t be shy, we’ve posted most submissions we’ve received. We’d genuinely like to hear from you, and we respond personally to submissions. Here’s a guide to what we’re broadly looking for: http://magoism.net/people/call-for-contribution/
(Essay) The Descent – Another Initiation by Bridget Robertson

I would say that my heart has been breaking but in truth it actually broke. It was the third story this week. Stories of another woman murdered. Each one was senseless, marginalized, disowned and disregarded. In any given week I am sure that I hear thousands of these stories. But those numbers become too large to make an impact. They get rolled and curled into statistics, the greatest lies of all. No, it is the ones about an individual that have the most affect. Leave a mark. The way out is an old one, a descent. A journey into the Sacred Cave of Darkness once again and each time is unique. There are a few things in common with the descent of Goddess Inanna/Ishtar. At each step I must give up something. My defenses, comforts, protections, rhythms, righteousness, certainty, and finally my beliefs and values including my Cronehood are taken from me. I am laid bare, alone, wounded and exposed. All of my tears have already been shed. What is left is emptiness, the final price of entry. Having been here before will not matter. This is not a place of comfort. Nor is it a punishment. It is another initiation, held in a place of complete darkness.
(Book Excerpt 1) How to Live Well Despite Capitalist Patriarchy by Trista Hendren

Why I wrote this book… an Introduction Capitalist Patriarchy sucks for women. Two years ago, I almost died. Eight weeks before that, the father of my children died suddenly—or rather not-so-suddenly for those who knew his struggles with addiction well. It was, I suppose, a long-time-in-the-making filled with pain and consequences for those who knew (and loved) him best. I decided promptly before my emergency surgery that I could not die. For the sake of my children, I had to get through it—and I had to get better. I called them—fighting back tears that I vowed not to let them hear—to tell them I had to go in immediately. My son stuttered, “Wait, what? ” “I will be OK,” I told him—perhaps a little too harshly. “You can come see me afterwards. I love you.” It was too late in the evening for them to come by the time I was out of the recovery room. I was very happy to find myself awake however—and able to call them. I broke down and cried like a baby several times that day. I made it through the next week in the hospital with endless YouTube healing meditations and comedies. I will never forget the kindness of the Norwegian doctors and nurses. The doctor who broke the news to me about the tumor looked just like my beloved friend Elisabeth Slettnes, who illustrated the first three Girl God books. “Don’t worry,” she comforted me—as if she were my dear sister and not a total stranger. “We will take care of you just like you were one of our own.” A nurse took my hand as they were putting me under and asked how old my children were. She gave me a knowing look while stroking my arm and telling me hers were the same age. I drifted off knowing she understood exactly what was at stake. The thought has never left me that had I been ‘home’ in America then, I would have been left to die—or at least bankrupt by that week in the hospital, given that they did catch it just in time. In fact, I probably would not have gone to the doctor at all. I could barely stay above water as it was. There was no option for a hefty hospital bill. I left the United States broke, after years as a single mother. I did not have health insurance for a long time. In America, I was not even worthy of receiving child support. I was a nothing. Just another mother forced to figure out how to take care of her children—with little help from anyone, except my own mother. I had done nothing to earn the kindness of these Norwegian doctors and nurses. I had not paid into their system. I was simply a human being, deserving of care on that basis alone. This is the Socialist system so many Americans are taught to be afraid of. Angela Davis once said, “I still believe that capitalism is the most dangerous kind of future we can imagine.” I finally heard her—loud and clear—laying in that hospital bed. I had spent the prior years on auto-pilot after 6 months of family court with my ex, and then a move to Norway. Despite our ecstasy at finally being able to move abroad, it took some time for my nervous system to relax again. In my heart, I did not believe that my ex-husband would ever recover from his additions, which would enable him to have parenting time again. However, being that he came from a family with money, I also worried that we might be pulled back into some sort of family court drama again. The stress of having little say in protecting my children all those years had taken an enormous toll on me. Before and during my 2nd marriage, I had lived in relative comfort and wealth—wanting to believe that I had somehow made it out of the confines of patriarchy. I thought I was safe as someone with an MBA, good income, marriage to a wealthy partner—and all the perks that come with that. But as Nawal El Saadawi reminds us, there are much larger structures at play than our individual (and sometimes privileged) lives. “The most dangerous shackles are the invisible ones, because they deceive people into believing they are free. This delusion is the new prison that people inhabit today, north and south, east and west… We inhabit the age of the technology of false consciousness, the technology of hiding truths behind amiable humanistic slogans that may change from one era to another… Democracy is not just freedom to criticize the government, or to hold parliamentary elections. True democracy obtains only when the people—women, men, young people, children—have the ability to change the system of industrial capitalism that has oppressed them since the earliest days of slavery: a system based on class division, patriarchy, and military might, a hierarchical system that subjugates people merely because they are born poor, or female, or dark-skinned.”1 I used to blame myself incessantly for everything that was wrong in my life. As I grew older and began to speak more openly and honestly with other women, I began to connect the dots that make so many of us miserable. My hope is that as more women begin to wake up and share with each other, we will heal ourselves and weave our way out of this hellish maze together. Capitalist Patriarchy thrives when women shut up and do as they are told. While it would appear (for some of us at least) that if we play by the rules, we will be safe—those of us who begin to rock the boat with our questioning and refusal to STFU know how easy it is to be thrown off the boat altogether—children and all. Everything within Capitalist Patriarchy is designed to keep your inner-knowing and body wisdom suppressed. Therefore, in order to thrive despite this system, you must come …
(Essay 3) Enchanting Christianity: Christian Goddess Thealogy by Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.

[Editor’s Note: This essay is from the same title, “Enchanting Christianity: Christian Goddess Thealogy” by Mary Ann Beavis included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018).] Vincett raises the question as to whether “fusing” is a permanent spiritual option, or whether it constitutes a transitional phase between Christianity and full-blown Goddess Spirituality.[1] She tentatively suggests that this depends on the individual, contrasting “June,” an Anglican woman training for the priesthood, and “Jan,” a former minister (both Baptist and United Reformed) who expressed an interest in joining an “exclusively Goddess oriented” spirituality group.[2] She notes that “it would be interesting to know whether in 10 years’ time, participants such as Jan have moved entirely out of the Church,” citing the example of Rose, a woman who “moved in and out of the Church before finally identifying as pagan,” and of Kate, who attests that she doesn’t know anyone who has left paganism to become Christian.[3] My findings imply that the situation is more complex. Indeed, some of my respondents had left the church definitively, and were on the extreme end of CGS, identifying more strongly as Goddessian, but integrating compatible Christian values such as egalitarianism, social justice concerns, and inclusiveness, and including among their images of deity biblical figures such as Jesus, Sophia, the Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. More, however, were more-or-less regular churchgoers in various denominations who had no compunction about participating in Goddess-oriented activities, and who related to the divine primarily as female; a significant number were ordained ministers or seminarians in a variety of denominations. Several were married to ordained Christian ministers. Others had left the church, but not Christianity, i.e., they remained Christians, but not churchgoers. As Vincett suggests, it depends on the individual who will continue to pursue the CGS path, who will leave Christianity altogether for Goddess Spirituality, and who will forsake CGS for more “traditional” forms of Christianity. However, the question of whether those on the CGS path will leave (or have left) Christianity also has an important ecclesiological dimension: churches that are able to provide congenial and compatible environments for those on the CGS path—and for a distinctively Christian thealogy—will be more likely to retain and attract CGS practitioners. As Vincett observes,[4] the question as to whether the church—or at least parts of it—have the ability to “incorporate alternative spiritualities into itself” has important ramifications for the future of Christianity. (End of the essay) [1] Vincett, “The Fusers,” 136. [2] Ibid., 136. [3] Ibid., 136. [4] Ibid., 136. [Author’s Note: This essay is a revision and update of my article “Christian Goddess Spirituality and Thealogy,” Feminist Theology 24,2 (2016): 125-38; for the complete study, see my Christian Goddess Spirituality: Enchanting Christianity (New York: Routledge, 2015).] (Meet Mago Contributor) Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D. https://www.magoism.net/2014/02/meet-mago-contributor-mary-ann-beavis/ https://www.magobooks.com/textbooks/goddesses-in-myth-history-and-culture/
(Poem & Art) Medial Woman by Arlene Bailey

Art, Between the Worlds” by Arlene Bailey ©2018 We are now in the time of the Medial Woman. She comes in my dreams beckoning me come walk between the worlds. Beckoning me keep my promise made before coming to this world. To live strongly. To live wildly. To live deeply. She lives in the light. She lives in the dark. An Edgewalker hovering in the liminal places of our psyche, she both sees and hears what is between the worlds. No longer constrained by society’s expectations of what a woman is, the Medial Woman is free to move as she is called. Feral and Wild and standing always in her sovereign knowing of Divine Female Power, the Medial Woman Calls. Are you Listening? _____________________________________ Medial Woman by Arlene Bailey, ©2020 https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
(Human Rights Day poem) A maid for Mrs X by Ruma Chakravarti

I wait for her to come each day. Always worried beyond belief That the trains may not run, That there may be a cow on the tracks, Or a lover gone wrong, something or the other To keep, my maid from cleaning my floor. Keep her from folding my clothes, stop her dusting my door Nothing must keep her, from cleaning my already clean floor But when she arrives, a lean machine, dusty hair and clothes windblown I forget to ask how come she is there on time Despite the crowd of women who fight to keep a toehold On the Lokkhikantopur Local, at least I think That was the name she gave as the name of her train Despite the crowd of groping hands, despite her man’s drunken roar Nothing must keep her from cleaning my marble floor I push her into the kitchen, almost shove her to the floor Where last night’s biryani and rezala congeals in yellowing pools On the plates I paid excess baggage for on a trip to Phuket. I give her the special cup that sits, alone on the shelf Far from things that we, the others, use In the dim light of a zero energy globe, I can barely see The cracks that leak tea, onto her roughened hands. I somehow forget the dry chapatis that I have saved from the weekend My plan is to turn generous as she is finishing for the day With a little week-old potato curry it should be enough To induce her to stay late on the weekend Such a boring life I lead, another party at the club The only thing that can brighten up this existence Is a trip to Park Street, or perhaps I will go ethnic Byloom seems all the craze, their mutton chops are to die for Said the skinniest of my friends. The b_! I am so sure she hopes to shimmy up to X Show off her perfectly sculpted stomach and get him to play I look at my maid and think if only I had her regime I would look like a million pounds too Instead of reading that on my bathroom scales. From my kitchen she must rush to sweep up nonexistent dust Mop the floors, do the washing, hang it out At least I am considerate, I have bought myself a washing machine At lunch I eat too much, make a mountain of fish bones by my plate She sits half asleep by the sofa on the floor, unseeing eyes fixed On an educational serial on vernacular television I know all the big words to use, I am about to cut a disc Of poems, songs and ramblings set to techno-jazz Ten percent of the profits I have chosen to give To a women’s shelter that sells the most exquisite Chikankari work to outlets abroad As I get up to wash my hands, I notice something that makes me see red A hand-print, five fingers, on the brushed steel fridge, that looks like dried blood I call her sharply, I feel like slapping her stupid face, I ask her how she got mud Near the water dispenser tap. Have you been drinking my ice cold water? You are such a spoiled cow I yell, you are completely useless See what you have done! Now I will go to the shops With a bloody raging migraine.
(Music) We Are the Women Who… by Alison Newvine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozrupNDrbS0 “We Are” is a tribute to the healers, midwives and other women who were persecuted and killed during the centuries of European witch hunts. This piece honors the sacred wisdom held by women that patriarchal religious forces were determined to destroy. This sacred season of the witch is also a season of reclamation. We are reclaiming our wisdom, our power, our sacred worth, our interconnectedness. We are reclaiming our darkness and our light. Spiral Muse creates music exploring the exquisite pain and beauty of the human experience. We are guided by Spirit and the awe inspiring power of the Sacred Mother on our quest for healing. We write and produce songs of praise, protest and healing, centering around Goddess and women’s lived experiences. This song appears on our most recent album Fire of Hope. Our song writing process is highly collaborative. The lyrics for “We Are” were written by Lana Dalberg, published author and the band’s violinist. The melody was written by myself and the choral arrangement by Kathleen Neville-Shinn, founder of Brigid’s Flame, a center for Goddess-centered healing services. The piece weaves together three voices and the violin to create a haunting four-part harmony. This song is an early release from our upcoming album, “Fire of Hope,” coming out this winter. All of our music is available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Youtube and other electronic music platforms. Lyrics We are the women who mixed the herbs Our wisdom Earth, our knowledge it’s plants We are the midwives who shepherded life We moved in darkness to bring forth the light We are the ones with hearts on fire Burned at the stake, our wisdom seemed lost We are the ones who grow from ashes And now, anew, our wisdom arises https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/

(Special Post 7) 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.] Kaalii Cargill: Life emerges from the Feminine: Woman, Nature, Goddess. When we value the life-giving power of the Feminine we are less likely to kill other human beings who have been held in a mother’s arms.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 2) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[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.] Part II: We Disagree! Stand up for what you believe but be open-minded! Naa Ayele Kumari: I am going to step away from the common responses and say this… Binary is only no in betweens if you choose sides and can’t see the whole. I have been a part of black consciousness movements and women’s movements and both have the capacity for progress as well as extreme viewpoints. Both have the capacity to become so hypercritical that the movement itself transcends common human compassion and understanding. Mother Teresa was a human being with flaws and goodness. She had a public image and private fears and insecurities.. l like all of us. She lived her life the best way she knew how.. Like all of us. She made mistakes.. misjudgments.. Like all of us. But she also DID help and inspire others to help too. It is this dualistic thinking that forces people to feel like they have to assign the label of good or bad and no in between. None of us are all good or all bad.. so it seems to me that to label her has an evil traitor who let people die is no better than labeling her an Angel of god who did no wrong. She was a woman who lived her life and managed to come to worldwide fame and inspire others to love at a time and in an institution that was highly patriarchal and women were not raised up at all. Mother Goddesses in Africa were known for great nurturing and care symbolized by carrying a baby and also carried a machete on the other side for justice. This was the fine balance of wholeness…she was the gentle rain and the storm.. This was binary, but not one or the other but both.. Opposite ends of the same pole. [H]: I’m having a powerful visceral effect from this conversation. I feel as if I’m going to vomit violently. Mother Teresa comes to me in dreams and meditations. Makes me wonder what kind of person I’m seen as if I attract her energy. I have always felt so much love for her. Naa Ayele Kumari: If she comes in your dreams and it has been healing for you… Allow it/ her to continue to be healing for you. Its all about love and anything that is not love… Leave it be.. Vomiting is rejecting something that doesn’t belong with you. Embrace love my sister. Antonia McGuire: I think we may all agree that all belief systems initially began to promote a sense of goodness or fairness to some degree, but over time they are corrupted and produce both advantages and disadvantages. Donna Snyder: Yes, Gandhi, too. Back in the 90’s when I was in a band/performance art troupe called Central Nervous System, I shocked all the guys in the band coming out with an improv in response to a melody played on a banjo tuned like a sitar, called exactly that-Yes, Gandhi. Now make no mistake, he is one of my heroes, devoid of the falsified sentimentality that clings to MT. Gandhi’s work was for the world, for the masses, not for the appropriately humbled. Yet I spoke out about his sexual practices, his use of female bodies. Telling the truth about a hero requires courage. Retreating into a blind defense of a myth is a form of ethical cowardice. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Strangely I had a discussion with someone about the “hero’s journey” moving from metaphorical to physical being part of the problem…..when the “demons” are human instead of our own flaws, there seems to be a tendency to point the finger (and gun barrel) elsewhere. [B]: Fascinating & thought-provoking conversation, all. I think the biggest stumbling block I have with MT is how her acceptance of the dogma of the Catholic church blinded her to seeing and then being moved by the suffering of others enough to do something to alleviate & not vicariously celebrate it. No wonder she “suffered a lack of connection with the Divine”. This crisis with her spirituality seems to have been divorced from her and others’ body wisdom. Self-abnegation (perhaps not the same as “sacrifice”) ultimately backfires because some small part of us insists, “I am worthy!” To which I say, “We are all worthy!” [H]: I do not see or feel that she vicariously celebrated the suffering of others. I feel that she devoted her life to deeply loving and serving the poorest of the poor. I have not been to Calcutta and I have also seen some unimaginable poverty in India that is not like anything that I’ve been exposed to before. I truly believe that she had a very deep way of working with suffering that is not necessarily visible to those more accustomed to modern medical intervention and the resources available for such. I have participated in a very small amount of poverty medicine and the resources that we take for granted are just not readily available to MANY. I learned very powerfully from my experience how blessed and fortunate and often very careless we really are with our precious resources. This discussion has been a learning experience for me. I am trying to not take the critical comments […]
(Special post) The Goddess Inanna: Her Allies and Opponents by Hearth Moon Rising

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

(Mago Almanac Excerpt 5) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion. The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period. When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe. Synodic Lunar Track (Patriarchal) Sidereal Lunar Track (Magoist) Focus Moon’s phases Moon’s motions Days of month 29 or 30 (irregular) 28 (regular) No. of months in a year 12 13 Women’s menstrual cycle Assumed sync Synced Luni-centric Astolonomy Unknown 28 Constellations Intercalations 11 days annually, a total of 44 days for 4 years 1 day annually & 1 day every 4 years, a total of 2 days for 4 years Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in …
Lammas/Late Summer in PaGaian tradition By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 5 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Traditionally the dates for this Seasonal Moment are: Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd however the actual astronomical date varies. See archaeoastronomy.com for the actual moment. Lammas table/altar Lammas, as it is often called[1], is the meridian point of the first dark quarter of the year, between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox; it is after the light phase has peaked and is complete, and as such, I choose it as a special celebration of the Crone/Old One. Within the Celtic tradition, it is the wake of Lugh, the Sun King, and it is the Crone that reaps him. But within earlier Goddess traditions, all the transformations were Hers[2]; and the community reflected on the reality that the Mother aspect of the Goddess, having come to fruition, from Lammas on would enter the Earth and slowly become transformed into the Old Woman-Hecate-Cailleach aspect …[3] I dedicate Lammas to the face of the Old One, just as Imbolc, its polar opposite on the Wheel in Old European tradition, is dedicated to the Virgin/Maiden face. The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again. I state the purpose of the seasonal gathering thus: This is the season of the waxing dark. The seed of darkness born at the Summer Solstice now grows … the dark part of the days grows visibly longer. Earth’s tilt is taking us back away from the Sun. This is the time when we celebrate dissolution; each unique self lets go, to the Darkness. It is the time of ending, when the grain, the fruit, is harvested. We meet to remember the Dark Sentience, the All-Nourishing Abyss, She from whom we arise, in whom we are immersed, and to whom we return. This is the time of the Crone, the Wise Dark One, who accepts and receives our harvest, who grinds the grain, who dismantles what has gone before. She is Hecate, Lillith, Medusa, Kali, Erishkagel,Chamunda, Coatlique – Divine Compassionate One, She Who Creates the Space to Be. We meet to accept Her transformative embrace, trusting Her knowing, which is beyond all knowledge. Lammas is the seasonal moment for recognizing that we dissolve into the “night” of the Larger Organism of whom we are part – Gaia. It is She who is immortal, from whom we arise, and into whom we dissolve. This celebration is a development of what was born in the transition of Summer Solstice; the dark sentient Source of Creativity is honoured. The autopoietic space in us recognizes Her, is comforted by Her, desires Her self-transcendence and self-dissolution; Lammas is an opportunity to be with our organism’s love of Larger Self – this Native Place. We have been taught to fear Her, but at this Seasonal Moment we may remember that She is the compassionate One, deeply committed to transformation, which is actually innate to us. Whereas at Imbolc/Early Spring, we shone forth as individual, multiforms of Her; at Lammas, we small individual selves remember that we are She and dissolve back into Her. We are the Promise of Lifeas was affirmed at Imbolc, but we are the Promise of Her- it is not ours to hold. We identify as the sacred Harvest at Lammas; our individual harvest isHer Harvest. We are the process itself – we are Gaia’s Process. Wedo not breathe (though of course we do), we borrow the breath, for a while. It is like a relay: we pick the breath up, create what we do during our time with it, and pass it on. The harvest we reap in our individual lives is important, andit is for us only short term; it belongs to the Cosmos in the long term. Lammas is a time for “making sacred” – as “sacrifice” may be understood; we may “make sacred” ourselves. As Imbolc was a time for dedication, so is Lammas. This is the wisdom of the phase of the Old One. She is the aspect that finds the “yes” to letting go, to loving the Larger Self, beyond all knowledge, and steps into the power of the Abyss; encouraged and nourished by the harvest, She will gradually move into the balance of Autumn Equinox/Mabon, the next Sesaonal Moment on the year’s cycle. References: Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess.Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990. Gray, Susan. The Woman’s Book of Runes.New York: Barnes and Noble, 1999. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. McLean, Adam. The Four Fire Festivals. Edinburgh: Megalithic Research Publications, 1979. Notes: [1]See note 3. [2]Susan Gray, The Woman’s Book of Runes,p. 18. This is also to say that the transformations are within each being, not elsewhere, that is the “sacrifice” is not carried out by another external to the self, as could be and have been interpreted from stories of Lugh or Jesus. [3]Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, The Year of the Goddess, p.143, quoting Adam McLean, Fire Festivals,p.20-22. Another indication of the earlier tradition beneath “Lughnasad” is the other name for it in Ireland of “Tailltean Games”. Taillte was said to be Lugh’s foster-mother, and it was her death that was being commemmorated (Mike Nichols, “The First Harvest”, Pagan Alliance Newsletter NSW Australia). The name “Tailtunasad” has been suggested for this Seasonal Moment, by Cheryl Straffon editor of Goddess Alive! I prefer the name of Lammas, although some think it is a Christian term: however some sources say that Lammas means “feast of the bread” which is how I have understood it, and surely such a feast pre-dates Christianity. It is my opinion that the incoming Christians preferred “Lammas” to “Lughnasad”: the term itself is not Christian in origin. The evolution of all these things is complex, and we may evolve them further with our careful thoughts and experience.
Imbolc: Through Goddess Eyes by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Photo by Carolyn Lee Boyd In times past, Creation’s Winter cupped me in her icy hand of sanctuary Gathered in, I sucked dormant life, and slumbered Till Earth’s rebirthing groans awakened my new body Now, older and full of life’s weeping and wondering awe At all that has happened in my decades on Earth I must shake myself into consciousness My seed’s opaque, blinding hull disintegrates and Bodyless, at last I can see through Goddess eyes I ache as my blood paints each flower petal I spin the whirlwind that cannot stop creating abundance I push the seasons through the year that mortals believe revolve of their own accord. Through Goddess eyes I can see me, I inhabit Winter’s hand as my own. I make the cold to slow creation of outside of me To gather the seed into fertile stillness within. That burgeons in my own time. https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …
(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.
A PaGaian Wheel of the Year and Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry 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 expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this 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,[i] 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.[ii] 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 (as of this writing) 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,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] 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. 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 anyone’s 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.[v]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. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …

(Budoji Essay 1) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Great Goddess Myth is the first and last revelation to humankind. Where the Primordial Mother is, there is Home!” Part 1 Introduction When I first read the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principal text of Magoism, my life journey took an unexpected turn. The power of the Magoist cosmogony began to work on me, and suddenly I was returning Home with/to/in Mago, the Great Goddess! Before, “Home” had seemed an unreal destination, a mirage that lured voyagers to its abyss of nowhere. I had been stripped of “Home.” The Magoist cosmogony gifted me with a vision of what I had been seeking as a feminist voyager. I meant to return Home. In Mago, I felt no longer free-floating, but this was not without its price. My radical feminist searches brought me no material benefits; rather, to become Myself was the reward. Layer after layer of patriarchal deception had to be peeled off. And for women who, like me, came from the non-Western, formerly colonized world, reversing the reversals required a deeper analysis of racism, ethnocentrism, and colonialism. I underwent the process of becoming Me, a process which also led me to WE. Personally, Homecoming means an integration of myself within the mytho-historical-cultural context of Magoism. However, Homecoming in the Great Goddess can never be an isolated individual act. Magoism unfolds the Primordial Home wherein all beings are kindred. The Primordial Home is for everyone. Everyone is destined to return Home in the Great Goddess because She is Here for us all. She will be Here for as long as humanity survives. Homecoming is a harbinger; it signals the arrival of WE, a very old concept that was misconstrued if not tabooed in patriarchy. The nature of my life has changed. “I” is no longer in the way of “WE.” “I” and “WE” do not stand against each other. Furthermore, “I” is transformed by “WE,” just as are all things in the universe. Scalar turns to vector. Chaos yields to order. The labyrinth leads to the Source. My feminism is rewarded with gynocentrism, the Goddess Matrix in which the female principle by far surpasses patriarchy. As many admit, Myth, the story of the divine, is etiological, meaning it explains the origin of things. I hold that only the gynocentric cosmogonic myth can be fully etiological, shedding light on the primal beginning. Myth is inherently gynocentric, for it is derived from the perception of the Primordial Mother, the oldest divine in human history. Put differently, Myth tells us that the Divine is She, that Female is the original divine. Myth is ultimately inseparable from the Great Goddess. The Primordial Mother is the macrocosmic translation of a mother. She is the Metaphor for life-giver and life-raiser. Divinity issues from Her. In Her, everything, including the God, is endowed with divinity. The etiological and metaphoric nature of Myth is fully illumined only in the story of the female beginning. The Goddess Myth told to/by us testifies to what patriarchy can’t or doesn’t tell. It is a language distinguished from that of patriarchy, dominating if not violent. The nature of Its language is persuasive and pacific. The truth It tells awakens one to Home. It is intrinsically soteriological, and herein lies the urgency of Myth: It shows the Way that humanity needs to know and follow in order to survive and flourish. The Great Goddess Myth is the first and last revelation to humankind. Where the Primordial Mother is, there is Home! Mago is not necessarily the “creator” of things. In the Magoist cosmogony, there is no one who created or creates anything alone. (I have used the term “cosmogony” in place of “creation” to avoid the conflation of Magoist thought with the origin-stories of patriarchal religions.) Instead, all things are interdependent and the power of auto-genesis is embedded within the universe itself. In explaining that, the Magoist cosmogony does not employ a magical or a logical jump. In the time of beginning, cosmic rays dance in accordance with the law of nature. Mago and primordial matter are self-born through the movement of cosmic music. Mago is, above all, the Cause of human existence. All things on Earth are indebted to Mago for She initiated the process auto-genesis of the Earth itself. In short, She is the Source of Life on Earth. Without Her, nothing is possible for us.
(Mago Pilgrimage video 2) Ganghwa Island by Robert (Taffy) Seaborne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ANT2cPDN-g The first day of Mago Pilgrimage 2014 to Korea, organised by Dr.Helen Hwang, was to Ganghwa Island, starting actually on Gyodong Peace Island: the group included locals, and together we walked up to the Rock of Constellation Marks located atop the Ruin of Hwagae “Castle”/Stronghold. The scenic view up there is from the Ruin of Gwanmi Stronghold (not a fortress, as present minds may think, but a “strong” place). I state all this here about the name because there was a bit of confusion in my mind when making the video. Along our way we came across an ancient sweat lodge – named Hanjeung-mak – shaped like a womb and similar to ancient constructions in other lands. As we walked we could also at some points, see across to the Demilitarized Zone and North Korea, and some in our group expressed deep distress about the loss and splitting of families, with this division.
(Photo Essay 4) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

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

Category: Magoism, Consciousness of WE in S/HE

(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

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

Like this:

(Book Excerpt 4) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Like this:

(Essay) Cook, Eat, Celebrate, Heal Lessons from the Yakbab by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

Like this:

(Essay 1) Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Essay 1) Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Like this:

(Video) Gurang (Nine Goddesses), Gaeyang Halmi (Grandma Gaeyang), and Goddess Gom: Exploring Old Magoism in Korea by Helen Hwang

Like this:

(Budoji Essay 5) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Budoji Essay 3) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Video) 2013 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Budoji Essay 2) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

S/HE: IJGS V3 N1 2024 (B/W Paperback)

Happy 9th Anniversary to She Rises Trilogy

Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism

Mago Pod Bulletin #72 October 2024

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: