January 17, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay) Abandoning the Goddess: Men’s Ending of Ecogynocentrism by Moses Seenarine

The Goddess is Earth. Humans cannot remove divinity from Earth. To do so is treason punishable by extinction. Belief in a male savior in the sky prevents us from saving Read More …

January 12, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) Solstice Flight by Andrea Nicki

I fly on my bike through the streets following a four-foot wide path between ice and snow a snowy owl’s wingspan my eyes level with the new Sun Read More …

November 17, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) Autumn Leaves by Andrea Nicki

This tree has completely lost its pride and joy, now lying across the wet ground, an intricate, golden mat for others to step on. Things that you do that are Read More …

November 10, 2017October 2, 2019 RTMeditorsKGLeave a comment

(Art) Yemaya by Susan Clare

Great Goddess of the Western Seas, bless us and send us your cooling, soothing waters. Protect all

September 20, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work1 Comment

(Art & Poem) Autumn Equinox by Sudie Rakusin and Aphrodite Rose

Autumn Equinox by Aphrodite Rose Pomegranates and persimmons And fruits from the vine Persephone yields As we ponder the Divine Meet Mago Contributor Sudie Rakusin and Meet Mago Contributor Read More …

September 12, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Three Golden Rings by Jassy Watson

She emerges into full bloom at Spring and is reminded of the circle of life and her part within it.

August 21, 2017October 2, 2019 Deanne Quarrie4 Comments

(Prose) Dog Days, Holly, Spears and Swords by Deanne Quarrie, D.Min.

We are in what are called the “dog days” of summer. Imagine that the ancients thought that Sirius (one of the dog constellations) was the cause of the extra hot Read More …

August 18, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Poem) Daffodils by Andrea Nicki

Their heads hang low from weeks of battering rain. They must find it hard to trust, meet the gaze of the new sun. Still, they hold their mouths open– a Read More …

August 14, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(Poem) Changing Woman Speaks by Sara Wright

The two climbed steep hills and rubble to reach the meadow. The flat-topped mountain peered down at the women gathering stones (from her body) as if they were diamonds. Amber, Read More …

July 21, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poem & Art) Caterpillar by Andrea Nicki and Liz Darling

You’re back to caterpillar going inch by inch but this time you have a strut bolder colours, bristles are less appetizing for predators You have more courage to be out Read More …

July 14, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art) Gaia#72: Benediction – We Who Are All Bless-ed by Deborah Jane Milton, Ph.D.

Life’s mandate: Everything created here over billions of years interconnected inextricable beholden one to the other. all sacred all hallowed all revered all sanctified No separation Holiness everywhere. (Meet Mago Read More …

July 12, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Video) The Dreaming Tree of Life Sisterhood Daily Meditation by Shekhina Weaver

Our theme this third Moon after Winter Solstice is: The rape of Wild Earth Life – the Triple Goddess, the Maiden, Mother and Crone This rape/war has many aspects: the Read More …

June 20, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Art & Poem) Summer Solstice by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kerryn Coombs-Valeontis

Kerryn Coombs-Valeontis is an art and horticultural therapist working in mental health in Australia.. She is just emerging as a poet and is studying poetry therapy. Her poems and art are a response to life; nature as a healing force and a return to the feminine, are recurrent themes in her exploration. She is traversing more confidently the nexus between the two, and feels ready to share this now. You could say she is a late bloomer, but then again, we can only bloom when we are ready! She has a B. Ed. and Masters in Social Ecology.
(Essay 2) Con-Text: Personal/Cultural/Cosmic Stories by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

This essay is a version of an excerpt from Chapter 2 of her book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Further to my unfolding awareness of the nature of my cultural con-text, the androcentric nature of the stories in which I grew, was the perceiving of my identification as sex object … with no subjectivity, no space to Be. I remember pornographic magazines from my childhood, depicting women being constantly pursued by salivating men – either there was an assumption that she desired this, or they did not care to ask her. And Christian cosmology, which saturated my context, appeared to condone the imposition of a dominant will upon another – at the very heart of it is “the sacrifice of the lamb”. Women have been especially vulnerable, with their submission openly advocated. They sometimes called me “Marilyn” (for Marilyn Monroe), simply because of my babyhood platinum hair. I was not particularly cute as I grew up, on the contrary, I was skinny, had buck teeth, freckles and a bad haircut. But Marilyn was suggested to me by this naming, as someone I could model myself after. I don’t remember any other significant famous women in the first decade or two of my life. As a child I was very conscious of being looked at, and perhaps on reflection, it was because I was female. I felt transparent and vacuous. The Great Male Metaphors of the day – God and Santa – knew everything about me. The male humans imitated the Deity with constant Gazing, in magazines, movies, wall calendars. I could only hope to be chosen to be worthy of his desire, yet at the same time it was known and told that he could be dangerous. I felt acutely the identification of myself with the “inanimate” world, as it was understood to be – dead and inert: though I had no words for it. Ursula Le Guin says, We are told in words, and not in words, we are told by their deafness, … (that) … the life experience of women, is not valuable … to humanity. (We have been valued by the patriarchal viewpoint) as an element of their experience, as things experienced.[1] The male in this worldview was also “inanimate”, albeit the machine that was expected to perform. I began to find words, and consciousness of my assigned cultural destiny as sex object. I wrote: What did it take to move from that, to develop a shell, a protective boundary, to pull the shades on the imposing mostly male Gaze, to allow a fertile darkness within my being, where ‘I’ could begin? What did it take to create this kind of darkness, a safe place to Be, to shut out the world and scream ‘I’? … A sex object has to completely fall apart before she can rebuild herself in her own image. She has to fall into the mud, begin again, perform her own acts of Creation, mold herself of this solid material. It is out of the mud that the lotus blossoms. It does not grow on some pedestal, under the light of the eternal Gaze. … How ironic that our paternal mythmakers made Medusa’s gaze the deadly one!
(Poem) Persephone by Mary Saracino

[Author’s Note: Originally published in TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism, Issue 6, September 2007, www.triviavoices.net.] Red Poppies Manfredonia Puglia, by Mary Beth Moser She returns each spring to her mother’s wailing arms, hair unkempt after months beneath Earth’s layered loam, where she reigned upon a throne of amethyst and opal. No underworld combs untangled the want of sunlight from her tresses, no brushes rid her curls of the endless nights that denied her the solace of her mother’s fierce eyes. For weeks after her descent, her dress retained the scent of September roses, the metallic fragrance of autumn leaves, of acorns. But time stole such comforts, dimming her memory of the place of birds and poppies, mountains and seas, clouds and laughter. A sunless realm gathered the darkness round her, silencing her smile. Three seeds of ruby pomegranate tamed her tongue. Three seeds of knowledge call her back to light sky and spring soil. From beneath Pergusa’s waters she rises, as waves unlock the gates of winter releasing their Dark Queen. Persephone’s unruly hair flows loosely in the arms of the wild wind. Her feral eyes scour the hills as she cries her mother’s name. From the olive groves, Demeter emerges, waning torch in hand to kiss her long-lost daughter. Flowers bloom along her path, fields thaw in her wake, rousing life in every dim corner https://www.magoism.net/2013/05/meet-mago-contributor-mary-saracino
(2015 Mago Pilgrimage) Triad Seonghwang Shrines in Gangmun by Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Our visit as well as my lecture in the northeastern coastal region of South Korea was arranged by Ms. Eungyeong Kim. Ms. Kim, lecturer at Gangneung Wonju University, had contacted me three years prior and requested me to visit her region during Mago Pilgrimage. We visited several cultural and natural sites including the three Seonghwang Shrines, Buddhist temple, Rock of Mago Halmi, and Rock of Mago. Traditionally, this region is famed for high Neo-Confucian culture during the last Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897). That meant we were stepping into the area wherein male leadership characterized the local culture for the last few centuries. I could sense that highly valued order, balance, and accuracy were embedded in the life of people. The triad symbol was strikingly visible all around us. Not only the three Seonghwang Shrines but also the female triad divine venerated in them. The Seonghwang Shrine refers to a Korean indigenous shrine. And the shrine comprised the three chambers. The triad symbol goes on: The origin story of the shrine involved three geese. Sotdae (the wooden pole that symbolizes Magoism) had the carving of three geese atop. Ancestral tablets came in three. At another level, the Female Seonghwang Shrine was balanced with the Male Seonghwang Shrine. One may assume that the male-female balance follows the Chinese heterosexual model, a patriarchal device that subjugates the female to the male principle. Intriguingly, however, such female-male balance did not render the pantheon of the female triad divine in the case of Gangmun Seonghwang shrine! We found female triad ancestral worship in the Male Seonghwang Shrine as well! Their ancestral tablets bespoke that villagers deemed themselves as the descendants of the female triad. We were given their titles, the Deity of Seonghwang at the center flanked by the Deity of Earth and the Deity of Disease or Smallpox. That substantiates difference between traditional Korean society and Chinese patriarchal society, an insight that Matrina Deuchler maintains.[1] Deuchler, having researched familial institutions and inheritance customs during the late period of Goryeo (918-1392) and the early period of Joseon, shows that traditional Korean society, unlike China, operated a gender-balanced system in which women held equal rights as men. When it comes to gender principle, Korean traditional society, as the whole world fell under patriarchal history, accepted a form of patriarchy on the outlook. Facing the pressure of patriarchal culture from China and India in particular, however, traditional Koreans were able to shape a gynocentric form of gender-balanced society in which preserved the female principle, the legacy of ancient Magoists. In short, villagers of Gangmun sustained the female-male balance of Magoism to this day throughout the vicissitudes of misogynist cultural inventions spawned by the Neo-Confucian social order that took root in the late Joseon period and was consolidated during the Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War. [1] See Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University; Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1992). Cited in Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, “Korean History and Religion Viewed from a Gender Perspective 성의 관점에서 본 한국역사와 종교 (I): Korean Women during the Koryo and early Choson periods 고려말 조선초 한국 여성들,” in Segyeo-ui Sinhak (Theology of the World) Vol. 52 (Fall 2001), 175-208” and “Korean History and Religion Viewed from a Gender Perspective 성의 관점에서 본 한국역사와 종교 (2): Medieval Korean Women’s Movements of Tantric Buddhism and Korean Alphabet 중세 한국 여성들의 탄트릭 불교와 한글운동,” in Segyeo-ui Sinhak (Theology of the World) Vol. 54 (Spring 2002), 247-282. The first place we visited was the old town of Gangmun in Gangneung (강릉) City. Gangmun is known for her ancient faith practice of Seonghwang (城隍, Moated Stronghold), whose origin I trace in the Magoist Budo civilization in the third millennium BCE.[i] Unfortunately, the topic of the Seonghwang Shrine remains largely misrepresented and its discussion is complex. Suffice it to say that it refers to a Magoist Shamanic shrine and a village center wherein villagers practiced and preserved Magoism throughout generations. We were there to visit what Gangmun is best known for: The three shrines, the Female Seonghwang Shrine, the Male Seonghwang Shrine, and the outdoor place of Jinttobaegi Seonghwang (진또배기 성황). The Female Seonghwang Shrine (여성황당, Yeo Seonghwang-dang) sits on the ground under the Peak of Juk-do (Big or Bamboo Island), a low hill by the seashore. Below the peak amidst its waist, nettle trees are lined up, looking down the roof of the shine. The shine building, small in size, exudes a swirl of high energy in the air. Having three chambers, it enshrines the female triad in the middle chamber. Our guide, Mr. Yeongmok Jang (80 year-old), an elder of the village, told us the origin story of the shrine. About four hundred fifty years ago, three geese flew from Mongolia and sat on the current spot. Villagers deemed the place sacred and began to offer rituals. At the beginning, the shrine had no structure but was marked by a rock and a small edifice made from rice-straw. The present shrine building was from two hundred some years ago, the late Joseon period (1392-1897). The next shrine, Jinttobaegi Seonghwang, was an outdoor open space made into a park wherein numerous jinttobaegis better known in other regions as sotdaes (솟대 wooden poles with carved three geese atop) stood in different heights. This place is deemed as one of the three shrines in Gangmun together with the Female Seonghwang Shrine and the Male Seonghwang Shrine. All three are located in proximity within 100 meters from each other. According to Mr. Wongeun Kim, a representative of the Gangmun Fishing Community, the tallest sotdae is re-constructed every three years upon the ritual of Pungeo-je (calming the wind for sea voyagers). Other data show that the tallest sotdae is designated as the focus of worship in this outdoor shrine. The third shrine, the Male Seonghwang Shrine (숫성황당, Sut Seonghwang-dang or 남성황당, Nam Seonghwang-dang), was of a small hut-like structure with only one chamber. It was …
(Poem) Birth of Aphrodite # 3 by Donna Snyder

I. a golden frame empty upon an aqua wall an empty gold frame on an aqua wall embellished with a subtle vignette the same color of gold creamy rich mat frames nothing just a piece of the delicate aqua enclosed with that golden line the image supplied as in all instances of beauty beheld projected visions from the mind of the beholder the empty wall the aquaeous amniote Beauty perfect and entire unto itself since Time severed Heaven’s cock the golden vignette on the golden frame the froth of waves golden in the sunlight the birth of Beauty free of the ownership of Gods or Fathers the sea’s amniote the sun-gilded waves swelling and receding a promise of ceaseless pleasure the psychopomp’s offer of exotica and adventure to no avail as Beauty need travel no where infinitely available and infinitely varied not even the sturdy arms of the artisan husband the husband’s creation of the artifacts of fat life the rich treasure of his own opened veins a volcano with expectations to hold–no behind the golden frame the aqua wall no one captured Beauty neither ransomned nor bought nor yet possessed the aspect of the great divine trinity–Beauty, Passion and Pleasure She there inside the empty golden frame visible to any eye could look at a plane of aqua and see her face II. a plate of pits the morning after the grape skin peeled by teeth suckled by tongue and lips sweetness rolling down throat and chin the swallowed moment the moment spent the moment remembered Obviously this is about the birth of Aphrodite from the foam that gathered about the severed genitals of Uranus thrown into the sea, making her not born of a father, limitless like the sea. As well, it is about the attempts of other gods to possess her, including her husband, the smithy of the gods. (Go to Birth of Aphrodite #1 and #2 by Donna Synder)
Wisdom of my Grandmothers: Evolving Feminist Spirituality by Jillian Burnett

[Editor’s Note: This piece was presented during the first and inaugural S/HE Divine Studies Forum held on September 7th, 2024.] I was raised by my grandmother. She is full of wisdom and humor at 90. She taught our family and in my mothers’ generation we were with 50 others of our cousins and extended family sharing our culture. Today my own grandmother shares joy and laughter. I write this to create a bridge from before till now in sharing this journey Ive taken. In the beginning all of my friends in my neighborhood were south and east Asian, and they taught me individually and shared their culture with me. My family’s immigration and assimilation left me with little cultural ties or stories. We were cut off in what seemed a cultural desert. Only what remained was a rich culinary tradition, and a stark tradition of devotion and song. Not relating to the staunch catholic traditions however, I denied confirmation, and leaned in closer to the shared cultural experiences of my childhood and teenage friends. I visited infinite temples over thousands of days and got involved in communities with wonderfully ancient philosophies of mind and body. Later as an adult I married into an Indian family and continued learning those traditions including understandings the vast pantheon of powerful goddesses of the traditions of Indian subcontinent.But as I grew in my experience as a music teacher, across various schools, I started to gain further curiosity of my own roots. With the heyday of DNA testing come, I did one of the first kits more than a decade ago. Surprised I was to see that I am 100% indigenous, completely native American. I was complete shocked at the time, and my own family denied it. That wasn’t a part of anyone in my immediate family’s experience or their narrative. Only one member of the family was ready to learn more. Decolonization is a long and slow process of unravelling. Fighting the erasure narrative on a family level and opening up to my own ancestry took precedence—I did this by starting to investigate the rituals and traditions of those who were keeping the practices of the beliefs alive. Having heard of sacred medicines, herbology or plant spirituality, Rapé Cohoba, Ayuhuasca and frog toxin, I thought those spiritual practices were linked to beliefs of those tribes of the Caribbean—their culture and agricultural reality. So I started to learn about their crops, and plants the natural fibres and dyes they used and their food. I love food and herbal medicines, and I use indigenous cures for everything that I possibly can now, and cultivating the understanding of plants is helpful in supporting a strong body and mind. I wanted to understand their view and what they knew; how they planted with the Pleiades, and how the dry season was their period of resting. Understanding their agricultural cycles let me in to their world of what they saw as being quick with life. During this winter period of January and February is when Humpback, Grey and Right whales come for their calving season to give life to their next generation in the warm Caribbean breeding grounds. Just as this period of gestation for whales was seen by my ancestors, in the same way the yuka plant gestates in the ground until spring. This fertile plant has several harvests a year and was the calorie dense nutritional staple providing all the energy for the nomad people who became farmers of the Caribbean. This tuber-starchy vegetable has folate, vitamin C, minerals, and potassium, along with corn, beans, squash, sweet potatoes, nuts and seeds gave amino acid using complimentary proteins. The yuka was sewn when the whales would come to calve, showing the interconnected life cycles on land and sea. Learning in this way I began to circle back to my own contemplation of my own indigenous roots and family, hailing from Puerto Rico. With learning their flowers and crops I decided to learn the recipes of my ancestors as well. I started buying foreign sounding ingredients and incorporating them. I learned the old ways of food making and learned new ones too. I also started respected the complex proteins that were incorporated in new ways that my ancestors knew- things like quinoa bread and chia pudding. Small seeds with so much nutritional value that make quite a difference. Our indigenous food however—and that connects us deeply as the same crops grown all over the Antilles connect the same culinary traditions. And festivals, and some spirits as well. Being an immigrant, struggling with dual identity and language, leaving behind a deeply religious and ceremonial culture for a scant and secular one, as well as leaving rich and densely populated community to live in cultural deserts. Puerto Ricans are old immigrants now, but we score highest on the dissimilary index—and remain in separate enclaves. We come from tribes but are detribalized. Next on my journey into finding out the wisdom of my grandmothers was first searching for songs. This was naturally the first thing I came to search for—the sacred songs, the names of what our grandmothers knew to be their spirits. I looked for an invocation, a calling song, a way into the spirituality, a way to reach my ancestors. I wanted to seek for wisdom, and understand my own ancestry and lineage. With meditations I tried reaching into the memories of my bloodline. I saw some visions and I saw them. Several times I saw hidden mountain places and steep valley overlooks — the fabled lands of immortality, with infinite healing waters, or cities of gold as was sought by Cortez. In this way, I used meditations to understand what I envision in connecting to my own bloodlines. This all ties together the disparate lines that exist in the present; used as a means to realize the wisdom of my grandmother. https://www.magoism.net/2020/08/meet-mago-contributor-jillian-burnett/
(Art) The beginning of Wisdom by Susan Abbott

Much of my art attempts to be in a space of beginning, the imagined consciousness of creation, the religious imagination of reconnecting with the place/being from which I came. In this life I came from a household of two mothers, my mother and her mother. I was also inspired by the idea from some astrophysicists that creation in the cosmos was caused by twin black holes (similar) spinning, dancing magnetically, and their collision (or could it be collusion?) led to our creation. However it happened, for me it is the understanding of the generative force of women united that is the beginning, barely the beginning, of wisdom. (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Abbott.
Hemlock Haunting by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright When I stand under one of these giants I sink into the dark spiraling into Deep Time. If Hemlock does not succumb to insects a poisoned sky this tree might live out a natural life… 800 years is eight to ten times longer than this piercing pain of mine – So why is anguish stretching me into ‘forever’ mourning trees without hope? One difference is that Hemlock lives in community with others that care – the kindness of kin both young and old Roots entwine, support… communicate. Comfort seeds the air. Hemlocks can tolerate the darkest forest gloom, the sparse spongy needle strewn floor stores a multitude of seeds… for hundreds of years… Witch hobble thrives above, golden beech composts future… 400 million years of Life buried a few feet deep…. If nature’s patterns wed to genes story a future when Earth is ready to birth, these trees might rise again as Blessed Green Beings once despised and rejected insect infected Now thriving in Balance with All That Is… _____________________________________________________________________ Tree of Life? Every culture has a creation myth about the “tree of life” except the western one unless we include the Christmas tree which today is often made of plastic. As we approach the holiday season I am sickened by the thought of more live trees being cut down, only to be thrown out the door as soon as the presents are opened. I see the tree as a kind of backdrop for the human drama. The Christmas tree seems to be a symbol for excessive consumption. Contrast this with the Indigenous Skywoman’s story in which the tree of life holds every aspect of the living natural world in her arms including the mosses that live in the tree’s knotholes! Nature no longer structures our collective reality in any meaningful way, and trees if they are noticed at all viewed as a kind of indoor or outdoor wallpaper. Trees were once considered to be protectors. In Greek mythology they saved women from rape. Witches once danced around trees under the full moon, held rituals underneath them. These customs have been revived today by some but are still considered suspicious, ‘cultish’, dangerous by the dominant culture. Even the word ‘ritual’ has negative connotations. Indigenous peoples continue to honor trees as wisdom – keepers and elders. These people still know how to listen to trees and to follow their instructions. Scientists like Suzanne Simard teach us about the importance of trees and forests for human survival, but few are listening. Like Rachel Carson who wrote Silent Spring 60 years ago forecasting the loss of non – human species due to pesticides – Simard (Finding the Mother Tree) and others like her -especially women scientists – are simply dismissed. Irrelevant. It might be argued that women and trees belong together. Both are seen as decorative wallpaper, raped routinely, and easily replaced. Because trees are fundamental to my well being I am always in relationship with forests as a whole, and cyclically move through periods where a particular tree becomes my tree of life. This year the tree that emerged out of the forest is the hemlock. How this happens is always a bit of a mystery but what captured me this year was noticing that hemlocks seem to embody a powerful charge that I could feel in their presence. The more time I spent with them the more I questioned their role in the forests they lived in because in healthy hemlock areas there is tremendous diversity not seen elsewhere. It wasn’t until I did some research that I learned some amazing facts. I want to include some here because so often a tree is pictured as symbol or background; rarely do we actually bring a tree to life. In addition to being the most shade tolerant tree, eastern hemlocks are also the most patient of trees. When a space in the canopy opens even a tree that is already 75 – 100 years old will shoot up to the sky, branching its ladders to reach the sun. A pencil thin hemlock can be 100 years old! Tiny flat forest green needles create and layer their own canopy in a patterned way that allows every stream of light to be maximized by the tree – an incredible strategy to make the most of low light. Animals thrive in hemlock territory; the red eft (salamander) is one that appears regularly after a rain. Deer browse and seek cover under hemlock boughs. Red squirrels and mice feast on hemlock seeds. Bears den under snowy boughs. Hares like the foliage. Many insects inhabit the rich humus under hemlocks and in the branches of these trees songbirds flourish. Blue throated green warblers, blackburnian warblers, Acadian flycatchers, hermit thrushes, winter wrens, nuthatches are just a few examples. The blackburnian warbler nests nowhere else. Most of the warblers that I heard this summer were hiding in hemlocks! Ruffed grouse, barred and saw whet owls roost in hemlocks branches. Hawks like them too. Brook trout need hemlocks to keep the water pure and cool. Hemlocks can also photosynthesize at very low temperatures – just above freezing. In the spring before leaf out the hemlocks absorb high light creating optimal conditions for growth. Besides pine, beech and oak, in untrammeled forested areas hemlocks are also peppered with mountain laurel, hobblebush, and witch hazel, understory plants that can also tolerate lower light. Hemlocks make remarkable parents – their ability to seed themselves so close to adults – within a hundred feet – allows the seedlings to be nourished through roots from the mother trees (both male and female reproductive structures are found in each tree). Hemlock roots are attached to a complex underground mycorrhizal (symbiotic) mycelial network that stretches across the forest floor. When adult trees die their nutrients seep into the ground because this tree decays very slowly nourishing the rest of the trees and plants of the forest around them. Many mushrooms, fruiting …
(Art) March 2003 Ouyen Women’s Rain Dance (with Dorothea Mackellar) by Eileen Haley

Women of the Mallee district of Western Victoria dance for rain during the long drought of the early years of this century. They are accompanied by Dorothea Mackellar, Australia’s foremost and most popular poet of the land.

(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 […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 1) 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 I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] [C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments: To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do. [C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented! [Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope. I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system? Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there. Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be. [C]: On this […]

(Art & Poem) Spring Equinox by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

A SEED FOR SPRING EQUINOX . . . till I feel the earth around the place my head has lain under winter’s touch, and it crumbles. Slanted weight of clouds. Reaching with my head and shoulders past the open crust dried by spring wind. Sun. Tucking through the ground that has planted cold inside me, made its waiting be my food. Now I watch the watching dark my light’s long-grown dark makes known. Art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(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
(Video) An Autumn Equinox Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Autumn Equinox/Mabon Northern Hemisphere – September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere – March 21-23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRJNY1LSvIs&t=1175s …oOo… The purpose of this 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. The script for this Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony is offered in Chapter 11 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. In particular I mention here, credit for the story of Demeter and Persephone as told by Charlene Spretnak in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have one or more stalks of wheat or native grain tied with a red thread/ribbon, a garden pot with soil, a small garden trowel, a flower bulb (daffodil type), food and drink, that may represent your “harvest” – ready for eating and drinking. 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). The images used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Autumn Equinox ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Autumn Equinox ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. My partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne who has participated in all the Seasonal ceremonies since Samhain 2000, adds his voice to this video. Image credits: Demeter and Persephone (500 B.C.E. Greece). Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.72. Art of Demeter and Persephone on MoonCourt wall: Cernak Herself Music credit: “Gentle Sorrow” by Sky: which he has previously allowed me to use in my work. This piece of music is also used in the Autumn Equinox meditation on my PaGaian Cosmology Meditations published 2015.
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(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 …
(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.

(Essay 2 Part 2) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

Part 2 ENGAGING THE MIND It makes me cringe every time someone calls Korean drama, especially the historical genre, a soap opera. The fact that they are TV series doesn’t necessarily make them foamy. Quite the contrary, they are full of substance. They don’t go on and on for years, season after season. On average, most of them are 24 to 60, one-hour-long episodes. Some have fewer episodes, some have more episodes, but after they are done—we move on. It’s a good way to learn non-attachment. Korean historical drama is thought provoking. It is multidimensional in the way it presents characters and stories. Plots are well developed, intelligent, intriguing, and entertaining. Yes, there are some predictable outcomes, but there is also a lot of substance and artistic craftiness, as well as clever twists and fascinating surprises. Sageuk (Korean Historical Drama) can teach about history and culture, and also about mythology, philosophy, and spirituality. It reminds us of the values that are fading or have vanished in Western culture in the 21st century. The importance of subtleties in life is shown through plot development, rhythm, and acting. Reoccurring themes convey lessons like patience, acceptance, forgiveness, trust, integrity, perseverance, and courage… That is, the true meaning and practice of those. There is depth in the understanding of the writers, as well as in the corresponding depiction by actors. There is profundity, which evokes a reciprocal reaction in the viewers’ mind. The characters are likable—and their outlook on life and their behavior are admirable. They evolve and influence each other and their environment. There is this definitive sophistication in expression of emotion. Something akin to meditation. In Sageuk, “silence speaks”. Thus, the experience is not only pleasant, relaxing and/or exciting, but many times healing and enlightening. Confucian ideas mixed with Buddhist and Daoist ideals motivate the protagonists’ kind and considerate actions. A particularly valued quality in Korea is “착하다/착한 [chakhada/chakhan]”. I first heard it mentioned in an interview[i]/book[ii] presentation of Euny Hong. The translation in the dictionary reads, “good, nice, good-natured, kind-hearted, meek, obedient, docile, gentle, quiet.” Actually, it is all this and much more. It is a trait that when faced with, being cynical—as we often are in the 21st century—we can easily dismiss as being naive, gullible, submissive, and even foolish. However, in the words of Rumi, “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: at the first, you ask yourself, ‘Is it true?’ At the second gate ask, ‘Is it necessary?’ At the third gate ask, ‘Is it kind?’”. The heroines and heroes in Korean historical drama follow this teaching in words and action. Most epitomize pure heartedness. There is a child-like sweetness about many of them—come to think of it, by losing innocence, has humanity really gained wisdom? In the online edition of Entertainment Weekly, I encountered a quote by Jacqueline Sia, Director of Video Operations of New York based DramaFever—one of the largest databases of subtitled Asian films and TV programs. In speaking about Korean drama she states: “Portrayal of love is a little more PG,”[iii] an observation that strikes any novice in the genre. We have become used to quick climaxes, crash-and-burn liaisons, as well as media glorified dysfunctional relationships. The predominant understanding of sex (and certainly the one staring at us from the TV and cinema screens) is hurried, flat, and linear. There is a disconnect between sex and love. Profanity and violence pour daily from everywhere. Exhibiting symptoms of an empath can easily be diagnosed as a psychiatric condition, and yet we are conditioned to be less and less sensitive. In this background, complex and refined emotional states, longing, embodied sacredness, and the act of leaving much to the viewers’ imagination, seem to be suitable only for children. Are we awake and mature enough to realize that all the psychological and social implications of the well-manipulated programming we are subjugated to is already bearing fruit in ‘real life’? (Read Essay 2 Part 1. To be continued in Essay 2 Part 3.) Notes: [i] The Korean Society, “Euny Hong discusses with WSJ columnist Jeffrey Yang her first nonfictional book,” YouTube (November 6, 2014). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxHv2gT539o [ii] Euny Hong, “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture,” Simon and Shuster (2014). [iii] Hillary Busis, “Korean Dramas: A Beginner’s Guide,” Entertainment Weekly (April 11, 2014). Description of Korean Historical Dramas: This course offers a series of Korean Historical TV-dramas or Sageug (사극) and discusses the traits of female characters as well as general features of Korean history, culture, art, aesthetics, thought, customs, and people. What makes Korean drama so unique? What is the “secret recipe” that makes it so popular internationally? Why is it that, after a few episodes, one can‘t wait to see the next one or the next new drama? Those questions have made many wonder, from audiences to journalists and critics. Participants are invited to explore answers to these questions and more. Our emphasis is on woman’s place in history, as well as her role as creator, healer and leader; her strife to discover and reinvent herself, her inherent wisdom, her abilities to surrender, without giving up, and her potential to adapt, thrive, and ultimately transform the world she is in. Our selection of dramas qualifies high criteria in story content, character development, actor portrayal, multiplicity of ideas and values, and abilities to educate, while engaging and entertaining the viewer. Facilitators (Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Ms. Anna Tzanova) will provide articles and audio-video materials concerning salient themes. (For more, see here) Info on online class, Korean Historical Dramas. See Meet Mago Contributor Anna Tzanova.
(Book Excerpt 6) 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, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] Magoism, East Asian Religions, and Magoist Mudangs As mentioned above, Magoism refers to the totality of human civilization that is ultimately gynocentric. Speaking from a narrow perspective, Magoism is the primordial matrix from which such East Asian religions as Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were derived. In the light of Magoism, a patriarchal religion is redefined as a pseudo-Magoism that which has co-opted the Way of the Great Goddess (Magoism) with the androcentric reversal of the female
(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, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] This chapter,[i] interweaving the personal (how I came to study Mago) and the political (why I advocate Magoism), informs the general and particular tenets of Magoism. My study of Mago was, although it took the form of a doctoral dissertation, ultimately motivated by my self-searching quest as a Korean-born radical feminist. I came to encounter the Great Goddess known as Mago in East Asia by way of several detours on my life’s journey. Like my non-Western and

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