November 4, 2019November 15, 2019 Glenys D. Livingstone2 Comments

The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ as is experienced and contemplated in the Season of Deep Autumn/Samhain, may be a metaphor for the passing of all/any that has come to Read More …

September 25, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection 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 Read More …

May 6, 2019November 15, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

(Essay) Conceiving, Imagining the New at Samhain by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

It is the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. In the PaGaian version of Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony participants journey to the “Luminous World Egg” … a Read More …

February 4, 2019November 15, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

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 – Read More …

February 1, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin1 Comment

(Poetry & Photo Essay) Pongal by Susan Hawthorne

I am a secularist rather than a ritualist, but I can’t help but be drawn into the celebrations that people make when they honour the passing of the seasons. Even Read More …

December 19, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice Read More …

December 17, 2018October 2, 2019 Deanne QuarrieLeave a comment

(Prose) Halcyon for the Season by Deanne Quarrie

A bird for this season is the Kingfisher, also known as the Halcyon. The Kingfisher is associated in Greek myth with the Winter Solstice. There were fourteen “halcyon days” in Read More …

November 5, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. LivingstoneLeave a comment

(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where Read More …

October 23, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(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 Read More …

June 28, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(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. Read More …

June 22, 2018November 15, 2019 Glenys D. Livingstone1 Comment

(Essay and Video) Cosmogenesis Dance: Celebrating Her Unfolding by Glenys Livingstone

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. Read More …

June 11, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay) Walking with Bb by Sara Wright

Walking with Bb: a story exploring the psychic connection between one woman and her bear. Preface: The black bear – hunting season in Maine is brutal – four months of bear Read More …

April 26, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(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? Read More …

Glenys Livingstone

Read all posts by Glenys Livingstone. Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. (Australia) Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Social Ecology) has been on a Goddess path since 1979: her path has included diverse spiritualities and a scientific perspective, inner work as well as academic scholarship. Her studies have been in theology, ritual, archaeomythology, social ecology, psychology, sociology and education. Glenys is the author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which fuses the indigenous traditions of Old Europe with scientific theory, feminism and a poetic relationship with place. She lives in the Blue Mountains, Australia, where she has facilitated Seasonal ceremony for almost three decades, taught classes and mentored apprentices. In 2014, Glenys co-facilitated the Mago Pilgrimage to Korea with Dr. Helen Hwang. Glenys is a contributor to Foremothers of Women’s Spirituality: Elders and Visionaries, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Vicki Noble (2015), and also to Goddesses in World Cultures, edited by Patricia Monaghan (2010). She has recently produced a set of PaGaian Cosmology Meditation CDs, which may support and nurture a healing connection with Larger Self in the full cycle of Earth’s seasonal and cosmic creativity. Recently published posts:
(Video 7) Genevieve Vaughan & Chiquie Estrada in Maternal Gift Economy: Breaking Through by Genevieve Vaughan

[Words of Invitation] Drawing on Maternal Gift Economy theory, the suppressed wisdom of women, and the traditions and ethics of Indigenous societies, this integrated programme of presentations sponsored by the International Feminists for a Gift Economy Network will offer new insights, perspectives, and challenges to the underlying market-based mentality of the dominant world order. In this time of crisis and systemic upheaval, the model of the Maternal Gift Economy on which our survival depends at the beginning of life, is being revealed and celebrated. The interdependence of all living beings can now be made visible and honored. Mother Earth provides the model of an economy based on gifting that we receive as young children from our nurturers—before we are alienated into market exchange. We must make the transition from the exploitive Euro-American patriarchal/dominating and capitalistic ideology to a gift-based economy and culture grounded in the values of nurturing and care rather than competition and greed. We invite you to join us in exploring the possibilities in this series of presentations and dialogues that bring together those who have been laboring to articulate the principles of the Maternal Gift Economy, protect Indigenous values, and practice peaceful and just community building. The time is now for all humans to cooperate rather than compete. Please join us! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpU98jhCmmw For more information on the Maternal Gift Economy, see here. https://www.magoism.net/2014/06/meet-mago-contributor-genevieve-vaughan/
(Poem) Goodbye D.C. by Francesca Tronetti

Lincoln Memorial, WASHINGTON, Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images The nation’s capital stands empty today No throngs of politicians, aides, and lobbyists Fill the streets with cars, buses, and taxis No snarled traffic fills the freeways Would that image have shaken America awake? Would people have then finally realized this is real? That there is a sickness destroying our lives? A desolate city, the Capital has gone quiet I doubt it, I doubt it because this has happened Because the news is full of business owners Complaining that people refuse to work for starvation wages Instead workers are demanding shares of record profits News of the pandemic deaths are so old now Like shootings at schools, they aren’t reported The deaths have become an everyday report Check the weather, check the traffic, check the death total But now the monuments and museums of DC stand empty Or they would if Covid was limited to only one city If deaths and shortages stopped at the city limit Then we could truly see the scale of devastation We seem to have moved on to the question of jobs An increase in wages for “essential workers” And the return of low pain child labor on school nights Sighing and shaking our heads as our eyes skim past red maps We have moved on to more important topics. (Meet Mago Contributor) Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D. https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/
(Essay 1) Is Mary Magdalene the same woman as Mary the Jewess? by Dr Joanna Kujawa

When I explored the possibility of a connection between Mary Magdalene and Egypt I did so as though on some wild adventure. Originally, as a scholar and student of the Gnostic Gospels related to Mary Magdalene, I had quietly assumed that Mary Magdalene’s life in Egypt was a figment of literary imagination, just as her status as a prostitute was. Also, my earlier assumptions came from my past conviction that both Mary Magdalene and the Gnostics had their sources deep in early Christianity. My only problem at the time with the official sources of information was that Mary Magdalene had been misrepresented, just as her role as a prostitute had been fabricated – both with the intention of removing a wise and powerful feminine figure from the official version of the scriptures. In the meantime, recent scholarship began to consider that the origins of the Gnostics might be much earlier and more complex than their connection with early Christianity and often lead back to Egypt. Thus, as I began to explore some sources in my blog ‘In the Footsteps of Mary Magdalene: Alexandria’, the possibility that there might be a connection between Egypt and Mary Magdalene became more real. The whole narrative of Mary Magdalene is so steeped in myth that sometimes it takes a genuine detective investigation to untangle the possible from the imaginary and from that which is simply historically untrue. Having said this, myth and imagination often carry hidden and repressed truths and require a sincere seeker (and spiritual detective) to consider them fully. And, although in ‘Mary Magdalene in Alexandria’ I write about discovering the genuine possibility that Mary Magdalene did live at some point in Egypt and I note that the right environment for her presence there did exist, I did not associate her with any women living in Egypt at the time. So here I would like to disentangle and assess (as unromantic as that sounds) an additional possibility for the presence of Mary Magdalene in Egypt – the possibility which I have not discussed in my blog on Mary Magdalene in Alexandria or in its video version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb1SfMvff4E. They pertain to one historical figure, who could be associated with Mary Magdalene and her Egyptian connections. Following the intuitive link between alchemy and Mary Magdalene, as well the Gnostic idea that Mary Magdalene was the most advanced and cherished disciple of Jesus/Yeshua, I began searching for examples of educated women, with a leaning towards mystery and the ineffable. And in my searching I stumbled upon Mary the Prophetess, or Mary the Jewess. As a name, ‘Mary the Jewess’ makes perfect sense to me, as I tend to believe that Mary Magdalene was Jewish. At that time, there was a large community of highly educated and Hellenised Jews in Alexandria, with the most prominent example being Philo of Alexandria. However, the second name by which she was known, Mary the Prophetess, emphasises her spiritual gifts – which also connects her to the Gnostic version of Mary Magdalene as the ‘learned one’. So who was Mary the Prophetess/Mary the Jewess? Mary the Prophetess is quietly acknowledged as the Mother of Alchemy proper. ‘Quietly’ because, as history has been often written with complete disregard for women’s accomplishments, the focus has usually been on male alchemists and the fathers of Alchemy. Although, in the mythological sense the source of Alchemy comes from Hermes the Thrice Great (Trismegistus), its known human origins had their beginnings with the priests and priestesses of Ancient Egypt. One of the great alchemists was Zosimos of Panapolis (present-day Akhmim), who was, of course, Egyptian, and who died around 251 AD (all a bit later). It is Zosimos who mentions Mary the Prophetess as ‘one of the sages’ and places her as his predecessor. Mary the Prophetess invented many alchemical instruments which were later used by all alchemists and described by Zosimos. In the National Library of Israel open sources also suggested that she was interested in the spiritual aspect of Alchemy, as ‘the creation of pure gold was considered a transmutation towards Heaven’ and thus also contained a spiritual aspiration. The goal of this process was ‘combining within Itself the powers of both the Above and the Below’, as is written in the Emerald Tablet attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Interestingly, ‘As above so below’ is the key and most essential teaching not only of the Alchemists but also of many esoteric teachings around the world, including Hermeticism, and is encoded in the Christian Lord’s Prayer as ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. (Mystical truths are often hidden in plain sight.) But back to Mary the Prophetess, about whose life little or almost nothing is known. Apart from the information sourced through Zosimus of Panapolis, the only additional information about her I found was (again) in the open sources of the National Library of Israel. They state that Mary the Prophetess did live in Alexandria and even opened an Academy there to teach Alchemy. This suggest that Mary the Jewess was financially independent. Interestingly, recent scholarship on Mary Magdalene suggests that she, too was an independent woman with her own financial means. Jane Schaberg, for example, argued that Mary Magdalene was never called someone daughter or wife as was then customary. Candida Moss also reached a similar conclusion that Mary Magdalene was a financially independent woman who helped to support Jesus’ movement along with another disciple – Joanna the wife of Chuza who was connected to the court of Herod Antipas (as mentioned in Luke 8). At this point I became really excited because this creates a beautiful possible connection between Mary the Prophetess and Mary Magdalene – as I argue in one earlier blog, Alexandria was the perfect place for Mary Magdalene to escape after the events of the Crucifixion. In my opinion, Mary the Prophetess’ connection with Mary Magdalene (if there is one) lies entirely in the dating of the former’s life. When did Mary the Prophetess live? For Zosimos, she …
(Essay) The Gift Alternative by Genevieve Vaughan

[Editor’s Note: This essay is based on Vaughan’s speech delivered at EWHA University July 2014.] Although the South Korean economy is flourishing, the economic (and environmental) situation worldwide is worsening and many people are now convinced that a radical alternative to capitalism is necessary. Most people believe that the Communist experiment failed, so they are looking elsewhere for models. I believe that an alternative model already exists although we have been taught not to see it. It is based on mothering and being mothered, the central social interaction of childhood, which, because it is necessary for children’s survival, may be considered a cultural universal. Some suggest (Liebermann 2013) that evolution, through the adaptation of our species to sociality, hardwired our brains in ways that make us disadapted to the ego oriented cultures of loneliness in which our competitive market economies have thrust us. Darcia Narvaez (2012:197) talks about ” the parenting practices that emerged with social mammals some 30 million years ago”, and that “mostly match up with the common practices for infants and young children recorded among foraging hunter-gatherers who live in small, cohesive communities representing the lifestyle of over 90% of human genus history… Ancestral childrearing practices include extensive, on-demand breastfeeding, constant touch, responsiveness to needs of the child, natural childbirth, and multiple adult caregivers” The multiple caregivers ensured support for the birth mother, a characteristic that is sorely missing in our society. Although some hunter-gatherer groups have trade, most are societies of generalized reciprocity, where everyone gives to everyone. That is, they are societies of generalized nurturing that Narvaez calls “companionship societies”. In our market based society, nurturing has mainly been assigned to the birth mother, who receives support only if she is lucky enough to have an available grandmother or if she has the money to pay for childcare or if she has a feminist husband. Nurturing young children requires unilateral giving because although they actively and creatively receive, children cannot exchange, that is they cannot give back an equivalent of what they have been given. Unilateral giving is the only way to make human infants survive. Unlike most other mammals they are born vulnerable and dependent and require intense unilateral care for many years. The unilateral identification and satisfaction of their needs by adults and children’s reception of these need-satisfying gifts and services, create relationships of mutuality and trust and form the basis of later relations of community. In fact giving and receiving is a kind of glue that holds communities together. Giving to satisfy the needs of another also gives value to her or him. It implies the other is important to the giver and is registered in the self esteem of the receiver. I call this implication ‘gift value’. As the child grows h/er needs diversify and change. Sometimes s/he needs independence and the mother has to be sensitive to this and other psychological needs, calibrating her giving. Exchange changes this original logic. In fact, the doubling of the gift in exchange changes the relationship entirely, from other oriented to ego oriented. The attention of the ‘giver’ is no longer focussed on the need of the other but on the need or desire of the self. Gift value is cancelled by the equal return and is transformed into exchange value while, after the exchange is concluded, the use value of the product is seen as a ‘property’ of the object without human relational implications. Cancelling the gift transaction in this way creates a whole area of life, the market, that functions according to exchange and exchange value and is based on a quantitative equation between what is given and what is received. In this way mothering, assymmetrical unilateral giving, is left out of the interaction. The main motivation of the market, profit, is actually made up of gifts. Marx’s idea of surplus value shows how the labor time of workers in excess of the amount covered by their salaries is captured by the market. This extra time is given free to the capitalists but is forced from the workers. To this we should also add free housework and care work that pass through the surplus value in that they diminish the monetary cost of reproduction of the workers and of all the members of society. In fact unremunerated labor in the home would add some 30% to 40% to the GDP in most countries if calculated in monetary terms We should add the gifts that are ‘given’ by nature, that are also unmonetized. In 1997 ‘eco system services’ were calculated at $33 trillion as compared to global GDP in of $18 trillion (Costanza et al.1997). These free gifts are not recognized as such but they nevertheless unconsciously confer value on the receiver by implication. That is in this case they give gift value – importance – to the market and its protagonists as well as to its values and thought processes. They collaborate in maintaining the dominance of the market over the gift economy. To the gifts just mentioned can be added the gifts that are extracted through the differences in level of life between countries, in that the livelihood of the worker costs less in developing countries than it does in dominant capitalist countries. There is therefore a greater gift margin that comes from the gifts of women and of the developing society as a whole, which is monetized through the portion of the salary of the workers in the developed country, which is used to buy the imported product. Thus the gifts of workers from both hemispheres flow towards the capitalists but particularly towards those in the Global North. One more recent development is the commodification of the free gifts of nature and culture, water, seeds, fertilizer and indigenous knowledges and the seizure of those gifts by Northern corporations. In this perspective it is clear that the market is floating on and permeated by a sea of gifts. In fact the market is a mechanism for channelling gifts away from …
(Essay) The Moon Goddess and the Bull by Helen Benigni

“The Lunar Creatrix” The human mind has forgotten that the patterns of the year as well as those patterns that go beyond the year are relevant and worth forming into archetypes that aid our understanding of our relationship with the Natural World. The archetypes of the precessional cycles of the moon, numerous as they are and yet buried as they are in myth and culture, have revealed themselves with the most obvious cycle first: the cycle of the ever-changing moon and the Goddess as Creatrix of that cycle. It is here where humans in Paleolithic times first began to count and conceptualize how the changing moon would affect their lives. Amazingly, our ancestors this far back in time, at the beginning of our realization of the connection between the starry dynamo and ourselves, came to the awareness that beyond the twelve cycles of the lunar year are the nutation cycle of the moon, where the moon rises in a different place on the horizon for 18.6 years and then returns forming a cycle of life. Added to this concept is the discovery that at nineteen years the sun meets the moon in its journey. Moreover, three of these lunar and solar cycles made up the lifetime of prehistoric humans. The archetype of these cycles of renewal upon which human life is based became paramount and was assigned to the Creatrix of life, The Goddess, and her consort, the bison, or later, the domesticated bison, the bull. In the Paleolithic Era, The Goddess of Laussel holds a bison horn which marks the cycles of precession. In the Neolithic Era, The Goddess has many symbols of regeneration to accompany her Bucrania or bull’s horns, and The Horns of the Bull become consecrated in the Neolithic temples of The Goddess. The emerging archetype of the Bronze Age Goddess and the Bull, which is measured on the Bucrania or The Horns of Consecration of the Mediterranean peoples, is paramount to the Minoan-Mycenaean culture. In the Knossos temple-complex of the Mother Goddess of Crete as well as in the temple-complexes of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture on the mainland in Greece, The Goddess and the Bull reach heights of importance and dominate the iconography. In the Bronze Age at this time in Europe and the British Isles, The Goddess and the Bull are prevalent in the iconography but relatively less important than the celestial events that accompany the archetype, which are measured on the stones of time. The amazing feats of the megalithic stone constructions of Bronze Age Europe and the British Isles, such as the building of the Aubrey Circle at Stonehenge, emphasize the advancement of the science and technology as well as the worship of The Goddess and the Bull in this culture. Because the archetype of The Goddess and the Bull was of such great importance to the Bronze Age peoples of the Mediterranean, they chose to use it as a central image in their religious practices. The modern interpretation of the disciplines as separate and the emerging ideology of the patriarchy where female deities were of secondary importance prevented a complete study of this archetype. Sir Arthur Evans and Martin P. Nilsson in the first half of the Twentieth Century did extensive excavations of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture, faithfully recording the details of their studies as archeologists yet ignoring the celestial alignments and the importance of The Goddess in the culture. Unfortunately, the seven-volume set of Evans’ work is now out of print and not accessible to the modern reader. By examining Evans’s study as well as the works of Nilsson and by visiting the sites, the iconology of The Goddess and the Bull became evident to me and could be put in perspective emphasizing the role of the Goddess as Creatrix. Evans records the archeological data of The Mother Goddess but ignores the role of the Astronomer Priestesses in the religion. Furthermore, he sees the temple complex as a king’s palace, an Iron Age concept that evolved much later with the emergence of the patriarchy. The absence of a divine king or priest is evident in the archeological data; however, in his era, Evans viewed data through the eyes of the firmly established patriarchy of the Mid-Twentieth Century. The Mother Goddess of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture emerges from the dust of ages and astounds our imagination, which has been throttled by the possibility that anything but a monotheistic father-God might exist. Without a father god or a king, the Mother Goddess, her young male consort, her Astronomer Priestesses, and the energies of the earth and heavens represented in the sacrifice of the Bull come to light as genuinely central to the culture. Moreover, in the nineteen-year cycle of the moon and the sun, The Goddess is represented as a mother with the obvious capabilities to regenerate and continue the cycles of the earth as they correspond with the cycles of the heavens. Seen as a source for renewal, she is rarely personified on a grand scale and subsequently remains a representative force of Nature. Only one massive statue has been un-earthed from the Minoan-Mycenaean temple-complexes that demonstrate her presence on a large scale as compared to the many large statues of goddesses in later civilizations, such as the Greek and the Celtic cultures. In Minoan-Mycenaean culture, her iconology takes the form of many small goddess figurines among countless artifacts with her image as a seated, maternal figure much like later representations of Hera, in the Greek Iron Age, and the Matrona, in the Celtic Iron Age. Furthermore, in Minoan-Mycenaean culture, her surname remains “Po-ti-ni-ja”, and her forenames are listed according to her attributes as Bird and Snake Goddess in the Mycenaean Linear B tablets; as further evidence of the Goddess’ presence, it is notable that the tablets at Knossos only mention priestesses and not priests. Again, her common surname as a pre-Hellenic goddess emphasizes her tendency to be seen as seemingly almost monotheistic rather than polytheistic and …
(Book Review) Myths Shattered and Restored, editors Marion Dumont & Gayatri Devi, by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

What a pleasure to read this collection of diverse scholarly voices who speak of global mythological/spiritual traditions from within a Goddess frame: that is, from within a frame where She is understood as primal in an organic way, and without any apology. This is Volume 1 of proceedings from an annual conference of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. It is a documentation of the papers from the 2014 gathering that many (who read this blog) would love to have been able to be present to: this book makes all this research and thoughtful presentation accessible, and expands the conversation that so many of us thirst for. On page 1 the editors describe: Mythology is the branch of knowledge or field of study of the important stories we tell ourselves that enable us to gather meaning in our daily lives … myths are cultural and spiritual stories that arise out of humanity’s experience of life on earth. Myths speak to a deep and real desire in us to understand our context here on earth while yearning to comprehend our connection to our ancestors and our roots, to share experiences that transcend binaries and boundaries, and to envision the future from a liminal present. Myths allow us to see ourselves as both timeless and historical beings. Through awakening belief, mythic stories afford us an opportunity to participate in a non-material realm, a realm of sacred, creative power, whose intimations we experience in our encounters with ourselves and with the world around us through a multitude of modalities, such as ritual, art, storytelling and dance. They are the threads that link our present with our past and serve to shape our future. As I began reading, I kept thinking of women who would like to read the specific essays, and of my own hunger for the integrity and wholeness of the female (my self and my kind) that set me on the Goddess path almost four decades ago, of my passion to know Her and express Her – in a world/context where She was silenced, always seen as a problem. Though I have done much research and practice in these past decades, I found that this volume fed and fired my ongoing hunger to know more of Her. In the first essay by Mara Lynn Keller, there is a very useful and succinct analysis of the unique contribution and significance of the work of Marija Gimbutas, to the fields of knowledge. A little further along Mara offers a wonderful explanation of the use of the term “Goddess”, quoting Charlene Spretnak; an explanation that is so much richer and Earth-based than much of current superficial use of the term. This essay offers a quote from Marija Gimbutas of the true nature of “civilization”, what it is not, and what it is; and discusses some of the resistance to the metanarrative of “a goddess-revering civilization at the root of European culture”[1]. The next essay by Joan M. Cichon[2]begins with a succinct appraisal of archaeomythology, which is Marija Gimbutas’s method, and the precise nature of the worldview developed by this methodology. This essay begins with the question of whether “a Goddess was worshipped in ancient Malta”, and in the answering of that question and a few related others, develops a useful comparison of previous archaeologists’ worldviews and theories with that of Marija Gimbutas: thus offering clarity about what that difference is. She also describes how unfamiliar the language of the Goddess has been to many archaeologists, how interpretations have been made from minds committed to defence and authority as essential to social structure, rather than ceremony and celebration of life cycles and being. In the process Joan Cichon refers to texts that would provide a rich resource for further independent study, if desired. She also uses Marija Gimbutas’s method to analyse the icon and worship of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa in Poland, and Her link “to Old Europe, to Isis, and to the ancient Great Mother Goddess”[3]. In “Honoring the Web: Indigenous Wisdom and the Power of Place”, which was the keynote address and dedicated to co-founder of ASWM Patricia Monaghan, Arieahn Matamonasa-Bennett discusses and expands the definition, use and implications of the term indigenous. She speaks of the “collective grief of humanity”[4], the legacy of colonization and that “all of our ancestors were from earth-based cultures”[5]. She refers to the importance of understanding our oldest mind, the “metaphoric mind”[6], and refers also to the work of Thomas Berry, Joanna Macy, Brian Swimme and other significant scientists and ecologists who contribute to the “understanding of life as a web of interconnected, interdependent relationships”[7]. Arieahn speaks of the shared values of indigenous peoples around the world, and a primary one being the preserving of their stories, languages, customs, songs and philosophies: she expands the concept of activism to include the remembering of the sacred, to using your breath to speak and educate, using your particular gifts as medicine for the world. “Ariadne, Mistress of the Labyrinth: Reclaiming Ariadnian Crete” by Alexandra K. Cichon was a wonderful read, of re-storying Ariadne’s “imperishable thread” and her labyrinth; experienced as uniting the visible and invisible worlds, embodying the goddess’s “vision of life as a living unity”[8]. I loved Mary Beth Moser’s “Wild Women of the Waters: Remembering the Anguane of the Italian Alps”; impressed yet again to see such scholarship dedicated to the female point of view, the studious regard for matrifocal priorities. We (globally) hardly have a language to speak of such priorities, because our minds in general have been formed by patrifocal and industrialised, mechanistic frames. This essay is such a beautiful placement of the female as agent, grounded in the traditions and folk stories of Mary Beth’s ancestral place of the Italian Alps. It deserves much contemplation, to re-invoke this authentic magic, manifest in the cycles of life, represented in the hag/witch; a wisdom that had almost disappeared over time largely due to christianisation. Reading the essay on “Artemis as Protectress of Female …
(Book Except) Blood and Honey The Secret Herstory of Women by Danica Anderson, Ph.D.

Mother’s Day- Invisibility & Transparency The girl child was barely five days old when I first saw her on the mountainside facing the town of Novi Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her mother, a young eighteen-year-old, proudly held her first child in her arms as we walked by the hidden town dump. The young mother declared in a proud voice that carried across the road and stopped us in our tracks that her sister-in-law, a mature twenty-two-year old, was her midwife. Poverty-ridden Romany, also called Romano or Gypsies, are shunned by the Bosnians. They make camp next to their dilapidated van just outside Novi Travnik, where everyone throws away their refuse. The mountainside is breathtakingly beautiful, covered with thick cords of birch tree stands and fir trees, but the copses cannot disguise the garbage. The view from the mountain’s slope during our hike was a suffused palette of vibrant greens and blue like oil paints depicting a lush valley dotted with red-tiled roofs and white-plastered houses. Smoke was bubbling from the distant chimneys in what looked like low, transparent cloud banks. I turned around from the spectacular view to see an old rubber tire containing a crackling fire cooking dinner. As I looked about, I saw rags full of whatever edible waste could be scavenged from the Novi Travnik dump. The evening meal consisted of handpicked leftovers from the garbage and smelled surprisingly good. The eldest matriarch offered me a plate with such a heartfelt invitation that could hardly justify refusing on the grounds that my stomach might heave later. In the end, though, I simply could not ingest the plate of scavenged food, but I did metabolize the duality of the scene playing out before me. The polar opposites of the landscape and the dump, along with the parallel images of Romano people and Bosnians, glared at me as I took in the situation. Beauty was transposed with ugliness, neighbors with enemies, poverty with deprivation so abject that it survived on the refuse of the poor. Frothy and full, the sylvan mountainside created a dichotomy with the garbage dump, assaulting the senses and raising questions. Two things became apparent to me as I took in the Romany camp. First, a hot, fragrant, delicious meal had been selected from the garbage and cooked in an old rubber tire by a woman who, like any other woman, wanted only to feed and nurture her family. Second, an exquisite, doll-like female infant was born in the back seat of the rusted-out shell of an old car on the mountainside where refuse is pitched. The insight torched my heart and my gullet like the caustic battery acid dripping in the nearby car carcasses. Book is available in Amazon and The Kolo Women’s Cross-cultural Collaboration. (Meet Mago Contributor) Danica Anderson.
(Photo Essay 9) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting with the Grandmothers”.] I went to Vienna to see the “Venus of Willendorf”, the iconic figure of Great Mother found in 1908 at a Paleolithic site in Lower Austria. She is carved from oolithic limestone tinted with red ochre, and is 11.1 centimetres tall (4.4 inches). Estimated to be about 30,000 years old, the sculpture is displayed in the Naturalhistoriches Museum in Vienna in a small, dark room much like a shrine. The terminology “Venus” would be laughable if it didn’t also reflect patriarchal assumptions about women, power, and so-called “primitive” people. I prefer to call her “Grandmother” as a term of respect. This beautiful sculpture is one of many figurines from Paleolithic Europe. In the Museum, the sculpture stands out against a black background, as if She is looking at us from 30,000 years ago. The prehistory section of the Naturalhistoriches Museum also displays bone beads and shell pendants from 30,000 years ago. Imagine people shaping, drilling, and wearing these . . . Meet Mago Contributor KAALII CARGILL

(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, Facebook group.]Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I am writing an entry on “Mago” for the Glossary of my book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia:Mago (麻姑): East Asian word for the Great Goddess. Read “Ma” as in “Mama” and “Go” as in “to go.” The logographic characters are pronounced/romanized as Mago in Korean, Magu in Chinese, and Mako in Japanese. When it is used in historical contexts, “Mago” refers to the Great Goddess AND HER cultural matrix, Magoism (Magoist shamans/priestesses/rulers and/or the bygone mytho-history of Old Magoist Korea). S/HE represents Ultimate Reality as One Undividable Unity. The Great Goddess embodies the Creatrix, the cosmic sonic system of Life. Through HER, we enter the view of the whole, the consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW. Also known to have originated from the Big Dipper (Seven Stars) in lore—part of the Big Bear constellation—the Guardian of the Polaris, S/HE is the Guardian of the solar system. S/HE causes the stabilization of the solar system. In that sense, S/HE is the Sun Deity or Heavenly Deity. Self-emerged with Mago Stronghold (Earth) and two moons of the Earth through the sonic movement of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones), the Great Goddess oversees the cosmic music of Yul-ryeo (Rhythms and Tones), another term for the sonic movement of the universe. Mago gives birth to two daughters (Gung-hui) and (So-hui) parthenogenetically. Thus, they form the Mago Triad (Samsin). S/HE delegates HER two daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Oeum-chiljo (Five Pitches and Seven Tunes). Gung-hui and So-hui respectively give birth to four daughters parthenogenetically. The Primordial Mago Clan forms the Nine Magos, the archetype of Gurang (Nine Goddesses). Mago delegates eight (grand)daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones). S/HE causes the self-evolution of the Earth through which all terrestrial beings are brought into existence. In that sense, S/HE is the Earth Deity. As Samsin Halmi (Triad Grand-Mother), S/HE controls the birth and illness of children. Mago allows the Early Mago Clan in the paradise of Mago Stronghold to procreate progenies and entrusts them to take in charge of the terrestrial acoustic equilibrium. Revered as the Cosmogonist, Progenitor, and Ultimate Sovereign, Mago delegates the Mago Descent, the entirety of the divine, human ancestors, and humans, to oversee the acoustic harmony of the Earth in tune with the cosmic music. Hereupon, the paradisiacal Home of Mago Stronghold is established. S/HE is called by many names. Among them are Samsin (Triad Deity), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Halmi (Grandmother/Goddess), Nogo (Ancient Goddess), and Seongo (Immortal Goddess). Also referred to as Mugeuk Nomo (None-Polarized First Mother) or Musaeng-nomo (Non-birthed First Mother) in Daoism. Mago appears resembling many Goddesses from around the world by way of such mythemes as the triad, parthenogenesis, cosmic music, animal companions, and the cosmogonist. “Mago” is linguistically identical or similar with “Mago” in Italian and Portuguese, “Magus/Magi” in Latin, “Magos” in Greek, “Maka” in Mycenaean Greek, “Magus” in Old Persian, and “Ma Guanyin” in East Asian languages, to name a few. Brian Kirbis: Funny, despite my fondness for language, I never made the connection. Though I have explored the lineage potential between naga and Nuwa 女娲. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: What did you find the linkage between naga and Nuwa, Brian? There is sometimes linguistic linkage relevant and other times mythological linkage… Brian Kirbis: Linguistic, iconographic, and mythological links are all available to us within a broad cross-cultural frame. My own analytic tendency is to see such mirror-image male-female representations as matrilineal and patrilineal essences which, in Chinese energy theory, reside in the kidneys (ancestral qi).Consider the Adam and Eve myth, for instance, with the figures on either side of the tree (spine, cosmic pivot, Milky Way), within which is contained the serpentine energy. There is ample information extant on such Tree of Life symbolism, all of which illustrates the inner energy body. The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.As you know, my area of interest is in the underlying cultural complex of tea-growing peoples located in Southwest China and upland Southeast Asia, an area replete with serpent mythology. Brian Kirbis: Comparison of Indian and Chinese representations of the Naga-Nagini and Fuxi & Nuwa. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Yes, indeed, there is similarity between the two. Interesting! Thanks for sharing them. Lizzy Bluebell: Brian Kirbis – fascinating – any idea what kind of tool each is holding in the sculpture? I see a chevron or M to the right of the Nagini’s head; (M and MA are fairly universal root symbols for Mother; Latin M encodes breasts, mounds, mountains, paps, tophets, etc. plus a general historical dispute over the importance of hills versus valleys.)I also note the inversion of right/left positions in the Nu Wa image.In terms of your statement – “The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.” — My thought: Have you ever considered it otherwise – that humanity has actually EXTERNALIZED chi energy into the form of the snake as a means of expressing it in non-vocal (sonic) symbolism which also manifests form via means of visualization as opposed to sonic/vocalizations or cymatics which creates form via RESONANCE.Helen – note that the tails are knotted – very important symbolic notion of ‘tying things’ as in the Shen Ring and Ankh – a masonic motif – related to measuring and containing within an Ouroborus SYSTEM which is closed, not cyclic or spiraling vis a vis Nature’s Way. It is the CLOSED CIRCLE as Plato’s “perfect form” which traps us in the flaws of re-peating and re-petitioning any ‘his-story’ we follow which does NOT HONOUR AND REVERE MAGO or hold her values close to HEART, as HEARD, in the HERD.Your original post (O/P thereafter) is fascinating and revealing and provides much to discuss on the topic of Zoroaster/Zarathustra and the Persian/Arabic/Semitic invention of Algebra and Astrology. In […]
(Special Post) Why I choose to be an RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone

The contribution of my writing to Return to Mago E-Magazine has evolved since it began four years ago, into a deeply mutually enhancing relationship. The time and effort taken to write carefully and in alignment with my heartfelt passions and insights, and then to be able to publish to a receptive audience, has always been rewarding – for me personally and apparently for many who received it.
(Special Post 2) "The Oldest Cilivization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.

(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.
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

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

Walking with Bb: a story exploring the psychic connection between one woman and her bear. Preface: The black bear – hunting season in Maine is brutal – four months of bear hell – five if one includes the month where hunters can track bears for “practice” with hounds – separate mothers and cubs, terrorize them, tree them and do anything but legally kill them. During the legal slaughter, Hunters bait bears with junk food by putting old donuts etc. in cans and shoot the bear while he or she is eating. Most bears (82 percent) are slaughtered in this manner, the rest are killed by hounding and trapping. The season begins in August and lasts through December. Trapping, by the way, is illegal in every state but Maine. Black bears are hated, and that hatred will, of course, eventually result in their extirpation. I had a shy (male) year old black bear visiting my house this past summer with whom I developed a friendship, and what follows is part of our story: Last Saturday I was walking down the road when I remembered that I had not done my daily “circle of protection” imaging for Bb (standing as he was the day he visited me at the window early in August). When I began to do this another picture of Bb moving on all four feet with his face turned towards mine super-imposed itself over his standing image. I could almost see his expression, but not quite. I didn’t know what this imaging meant beyond that we were communicating in some unknown way, and he was in the area (not a good thing on hunting Saturdays). He had not been coming in most nights and I was worried… That night he came. He is still making nightly visits five days later, the most sequentially consistent visits since September 15th, the day I believed that he had been shot. This experience prompted me to write about telepathy and precognition. It is close to All Hallows and the full Hunter’s moon (Nov 3). I keep listening to Charlie Russell’ story which reminds me that loving bears (especially male bears) is hard, almost a sure recipe for disaster, and that I was not alone in this deep concern for and fear of losing Bb. I can barely stand to remember my other bear losses and I can’t stand feeling them. Even after I wrote about the incident with Bb, the experience seemed to carry a charge that didn’t dissipate. Had I missed something? Next I wrote “Root Healer,” exploring the possibility that as I continued to act as Bb’s “little bear mother” now employing psychic techniques to keep him safe (in some desperation as it was the only means left open to me to protect this very vulnerable yearling), that Bb’s presence might also include a gift for me and that it might involve some kind of root healing for my body because Nature thrives on reciprocity. One idea I missed completely, for it was so obvious. Bb’s image was communicating to me that we were having a psychic conversation in that very moment. It was the first time in three months of imaging protective circles that moved with him that I had confirmation from him that we were communicating effectively in this unknown way. This rarely happens. Normally when I do this kind of work, I just do it. I don’t get direct confirmation that it’s working from the animal itself (except with Lily b). Knowing this helped me make another decision I might not have made so intentionally. The hunting season will last into mid December, and I will be traveling during that last month. I keep thinking that putting actual physical distance between Bb and I might pose more of a threat for his life and I have to remind myself that psychic phenomena are not distance dependent. I should be able to image that protective circle every day and feel that it is working. Bb has already shown me that it can but I fear adding distance because I don’t completely trust my own perceptions.* I suspect believing might be an additional dimension of ensuring success when it comes to psychic protection for this bear. But how do I incorporate belief into a picture that is so clouded with personal/cultural doubt? Half the time I don’t believe myself and virtually no one except Rupert Sheldrake, Iren and Harriet have ever taken my experiences seriously. I have to remind myself that I have done this work many times dealing with doubt and it worked anyway. The point of writing this reflection might be to put me on a new edge of increasing Bb’s odds of survival. If it’s possible that an attitude that embraces believing in what I do could help me protect Bb more effectively until hunting is over and its time for him to den in peace I want to claim it. The question I need to answer now is how to go about moving into a more trusting self as a woman who continues to walk with a bear at her side? The night after I wrote the above paragraph I dream of the doubters in the roles of my parents, and in a friend. I take these dreams seriously as doubters inside me and out. These dreams may be telling me that it is unreasonable to expect me to believe that what I do works when no one else does? The problem with this idea is that on some level I do believe. I feel as if I am walking with this bear, every single day. I think about him constantly. The only thing that got me out of the house yesterday was that he was out of chocolate donuts. Something is intensifying my relationship with Bb although I never see him. I am caught in a field of bear energy and information, perhaps through some version of beauty and the beast. That an archetype is …
(Essay) The Emergence celebrated at Spring Equinox by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Spring Equinox Moment occurs September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere, March 21-23 Northern Hemisphere. The full story of Spring Equinox is expressed in the full flower connected to the seed fresh from the earth; that is, it is a story of emergence from the dark, from a journey, perhaps long, perhaps short, through challenging places. The joy of the blossoming is rooted in the journey through the dark, and an acknowledgement of the dark’s fertile gift, as well as of great achievement in having made it, of having returned. Both Equinoxes, Spring and Autumn, celebrate this sacred balance of grief and joy, light and dark, and they are both celebrations of the mystery of the seed. The seed is essentially the deep Creativity within – that manifests in the Spring as flower, or green emerged One. the full story: the root and the flower As the new young light continues to grow at this time of Spring, it comes into balance with the dark at Spring Equinox, or ‘Eostar’ as it may be named; about to tip further into light when light will dominate the day. The trend at this Equinox is toward increasing hours of light: and thus it is about the power of being – life is stepping into it. Earth in this region is tilting further toward the Sun. Traditionally it may be storied as the joyful celebration of a Lost Beloved One, who may be represented by the Persephone story: She is a shamanic figure who is known for Her journey to the Underworld, and who at this time of Spring Equinox returns. Her Mother Demeter who has waited and longed for Her in deep grief, rejoices and so do all: warmth and growth return to the land. Persephone, the Beloved Daughter, the Seed, has navigated the darkness successfully, has enriched it with Her presence and also gained its riches. Eostar/Spring Equinox is the magic of the unexpected, yet long awaited, green emergence from under the ground, and then the flower: this emergence is especially profound as it is from a seed that has lain dormant for months or longer – much like the magic of desert blooms after long periods of drought. The name of “Eostar” comes from the Saxon Goddess Eostre/Ostara, the northern form of the Sumerian Astarte[i]. The Christian festival in the Spring, was named “Easter” as of the Middle Ages, appropriating Goddess/Earth tradition. The date of Easter, which is set for Northern Hemispheric seasons, is still based on the lunar/menstrual calendar; that is, the 1st Sunday after the first full Moon after Spring Equinox. In Australia where I am, “Easter” is celebrated in Autumn (!) by mainstream culture, so we have the spectacle of fluffy chickens, chocolate eggs and rabbits in the shops at that time. There are other names for “Eostar” in other places …the Welsh name for the Spring Equinox celebration is Eilir, meaning ‘regeneration’ or ‘spring’ – or ‘earth’[ii]. In my own PaGaian tradition, the Spring Equinox celebration is based on the Demeter and Persephone story, the version that is understand as pre-patriarchal, from Old Europe. In the oldest stories, Persephone has agency in Her descent: She descends to the underworld voluntarily as a courageous seeker of wisdom, and a compassionate receiver of the dead. She represents, and IS, the Seed of Life that never fades away. Spring Equinox is a celebration of Her return, Life’s continual return, and thus also our personal and collective emergences/returns.We may contemplate the collective emergence/returns especially in our times. I describe Persephone as a “hera”, which of old was a term for any courageous One. “Hera” was a pre-Hellenic name for the Goddess in general[iii]. “Hera” was the indigenous Queen Goddess of pre-Olympic Greece, before She was married off to Zeus. “Hero” was a term for the brave male Heracles who carried out tasks for his Goddess Hera: “The derivative form ‘heroine’ is therefore completely unnecessary”[iv]. “Hera” may be used as a term for any courageous individual: and participants in PaGaian Spring Equinox ceremony have named themselves this way. The pre-“Olympic” games of Greece were Hera’s games, held at Her Heraion/temple[v]. The winners were “heras” – gaining the status of being like Her[vi]. At the time of Spring Equinox, we may celebrate the Persephone, the Hera, the Courageous One, who steps with new wisdom, into power of being: the organic power that all beings must have, Gaian power, the power of the Cosmos. This Seasonal ceremony may be a rejoicing in how we have made it through great challenges and loss, faced our fears and our demise (in its various forms), had ‘close shaves’ – perhaps physically as well as psychicly and emotionally. It is a time to welcome back that which was lost, and step into the strength of being. Spring Equinox/Eostar is the time for enjoying the fruits of the descent, of the journey taken into the darkness: return is now certain, not tentative as it was in the Early Spring/Imbolc. Demeter, the Mother, receives the Persephones, Lost Beloved Ones, joyously. This may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the sixty-five million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. They describe the Ecozoic Era as a time when “the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation”[vii]. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning” of our times[viii]. Collectively we have been away from the Mother for some time and there is a lot of pain. At this time we may contemplate not only our own individual lost wanderings, but also that of the human species. We are part of a much bigger Return that is happening. The Beloved One may be understood as returning on a collective level: …
(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: …
(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/

(Pilgrimage Essay 2) Report of First Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen 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.] Part 2 Traditional Korea and the Primordial Home of Magoism It was the time for the sacred, ancient mystery of Magoism to be reenacted once again for the Race of WE! Mago Pilgrimage was an open invitation to the deep knowing that Korean Magoism unfolds beneath the surface of patriarchal consciousness. It was a call from the Background [to borrow Mary Daly’s term, which, I explicate, refers to the biophilic reality wherein the deep memories of Goddess are alive, unfettering from the foreground, patriarch reality] to be present with Mago, the Great Goddess, Here and Now! Third eyes flashed, while open hearts unlocked the doors to the path. We heard the whisper, the chorus of the natural, cultural, and historical landscapes of Korea, the arcane music of the Female Beginning. The magic worked its own feats. As could be expected, undertaking the Mago pilgrimage entailed daunting tasks for me. Nonetheless, it was proven to me time and again that the purpose creates the means. The Korean saying, “Where there is a will, there is a way,” spoke to it well. We, the intercontinental pilgrims, were made welcome by supporters, organizers, and volunteers from the locale. We attracted fabulous scholars, teachers, artists, administrators, and activists along our paths. It was the first cross-cultural and cross-gender goddess event to be held in Korea in modern times! Excitement and anticipation were high. As a researcher of Mago and Magoism, I knew the Mago pilgrimage was the right thing to do. In fact, I had been faithfully following the direction that my heart beckoned to throughout my life. The consequences were the actions that I took. This time, however, I was rewarded with the fate-ful encounter; the very research of Mago came as a revelation to me. The topic of Mago emerged from nowhere at the juncture of my labyrinthine journey to non-patriarchal [gynocentric] consciousness. I was a student of feminist studies in religions. Without knowing what was in store for me, I knew that I was not content with the feminist theology of patriarchal religions of the West and the East. If any theme of these religions had appealed to me — I wished at times, to confess to my readers — during those years, my path would not have crossed with Magoism. My radical feminist quest was the cause for encountering Mago.
(Photo Essay 2) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

[Author’s Note: This essay was first included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books.] This essay may be called a Magoist study of the Korean foundation myth, also known as the Dangun myth. It reinstates Goma, better known as “Ungnyeo (Bear/Sovereign Woman),” the shaman ruler of pre-patriarchal Korea, who is the main character of the Korean foundation myth. Here “Mago” stands for the Creatrix and “Magoism” for pre-patriarchally originated indigenous tradition of East Asia that venerates the Creatrix.[1] Identifying Goma as the ruler Goddess of Old Korea/East Asia is by no means a new effort. She is, although few in number, alluded to the eponymous Goddess of ancient Korean States (Goma State, for example) in both historical sources and modern research. In fact, “Ungnyeo” is one of the most studied topics by Korean linguists, mythologists, and historians for it concerns the identity of the Korean people. Nonetheless, those studies tend to be monodisciplinary or androcentric in their approaches and consequently fail to assess her full-fledged supreme identity as the ancestor ruler of East Asian nations. This chapter engages in transdisciplinary, comparative, and feminist approaches to elucidating the Goma myth. At the outset, we will rename “the Korean foundation myth” “the Goma myth.” That is corollary in that she is the central figure of the story. Also it introduces Old Korea as the One People of the Creatrix, anciently known as Nine Hans (九桓 Guhan). The Goma myth restores the gynocentric multi-meaning of “Nine Hans” and “Magoist Koreans/East Asians,” which is non-ethnocentric and supra-nationalist in origin. The character, “Han (桓),” in “Nine Hans” and “Hanguk,” is complex in meaning as it connotes “one,” “whole, “great,” “good,” “same,” “bright,” “many,” “correct,” “middle,” “full” and the like. Thus, “Nine Hans” refer to the People of the Creatrix who have those qualities of the character “Han.” Koreanists have designated as Hanism (the Han thought) this inclusive and polysemic nature of the word “Han” characteristic of traditional Korean worldview.[2] Although naming it Hanism is insightful, it may be misleading without a full-fledged hermeneutics of Goma mythology. Goma, known as Ungnyeo or Gom, remains underestimated and misrepresented among modern Koreans. A common understanding of the Korean foundation myth goes that she was the bear who became a woman and married Hanung, the divine sage ruler of Old Korea, and gave birth to a son, Dangun, the founder of the proto-Chinese Joseon dynasty (2333 BCE-232 BCE). Goma is diminished to the role of a mother of an assumed male hero at best. Consequently, she is redacted from the mytho-historical context of Old Magoist Korea/East Asia (the pre-patriarchal gynocentric people of the Creartrix), and divested of her supreme identity as the dynastic founder of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE). Given the immensity and complexity of the topic and its data, it is admittedly impossible to treat them comprehensively within a chapter. While many salient themes are discussed, many others are not treated. Among the untreated are Nine Numerology and its cross-cultural manifestations beyond East Asia. This essay aims the following: (1) It provides some pivotal background discussions as well as overall characteristics of the Goma myth. (2) It introduces and delineates the four narratives of the Goma myth selectively chosen from various written texts. The fact that the topic of Goma has rarely been brought to light in its own right in the West adds to the difficulty. This has to do with the fact that pre-Chinese Korean/East Asian history is deemed heterodox, if recognized, in mainstream (read Sinocentric and patriarchal) East Asian Studies. Not only her supreme identity but also her Magoist mytho-historical context remains as non-data in the institutionalized practice of Korean Studies. Our task necessarily involves a controversial feminist methodology, debunking conventional interpretations as a product of Sinocentrism. Mainstream Koreanists have endorsed or internalized the Chinese ethnocentric worldview that is patriarchal and imperialist. Reversing the multiple reversals, the current work, as a result, exposes what is written out of the official East Asian mytho-historiography. Summary of the Goma Myth Goma had a great spirit from birth. Because of her vision of “benefiting the human world widely,” she was entrusted by the last shaman queen, Hanin of Hanguk (桓國 State of One People, c. 7199 BCE – 3898 BCE), with the task of restoring the Reign of the Creatrix. Toward the end of the Hanguk confederacy, clan names and their customs grew apart. And a belligerent tiger clan rose. They raided and plundered neighboring tribes. Goma conceived a will to pacify a social problem caused by this unruly patrilocal clan. Determined to constrain the tiger clan, she requested Hanin to send her to the troubled region. Hanin granted her wish and sent her to the region, Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence). Leading the royal bear clan of 3,000 people, Goma arrived at Mount Taebaek and settled adjacent to the tiger clan. Rather than a military solution, she proposed a covenant for both the bear clan and the tiger clan to observe. Both clans underwent a trial, which was to dwell in a cave hall and endure 100 days without seeing the sunlight, living on mugwort and chive. I call her proposal the cave initiation, a socio-spiritual pledge to undergo the ordeal of the cave environment in order to tap into one’s innate power of restoring true human nature. The cave is a physical and metaphorical place for the womb of the Primordial Mother, the sacred space/time of unity, wholeness, and rebirth, wherein everyone once dwelt. The cave initiation represents a returning to the knowing of the common origin of all beings, the Crearix. Goma proffered the tiger clan an option of changing their predatory behaviors but they could not endure the cave initiation. The bear clan endured for three seven days (21 days) and attained the female character, the true human nature. The tiger clan was expelled to a remote designated land outside Four Seas, the territory of Old Magoist East Asia, by verdict of the law that Goma legislated. …

Category: Seasonal

The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Like this:

(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

Like this:

(Essay) Conceiving, Imagining the New at Samhain by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Like this:

Lammas/Late Summer in PaGaian tradition By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Like this:

(Poetry & Photo Essay) Pongal by Susan Hawthorne

Like this:

Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Prose) Halcyon for the Season by Deanne Quarrie

Like this:

(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Like this:

(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

Like this:

(Mago Almanac Excerpt 7) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Like this:

(Essay and Video) Cosmogenesis Dance: Celebrating Her Unfolding by Glenys Livingstone

Like this:

(Essay) Walking with Bb by Sara Wright

Like this:

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

Like this:

(Search) Co-editors for the textbook: The Divine Mother, Nature and Matriarchal Societies

Mago Almanac Year 8 (for 2025)

S/HE: IJGS V3 N2 2024 (B/W Paperback)

Mago Pod Bulletin #74 December 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: