June 6, 2019October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poetry) A Cactus Made of Rainbows by Sara Wright

Raspberry spines prick my skin but do not harm me as I gently dislodge you from stones and soil, praying out loud for permission. You thrive here as the Bears Read More …

(Art) Nuestra Senora La Virgen de Guadalupe by Lydia Ruyle

Nuestra Senora La Virgen de Guadalupe is the present name of the Great Mother Goddess of Mexico. The Spaniards brought Black Madonnas with them to the western hemisphere where they joined Mayan Ixchel and Aztec Tonantzin of earlier Pre-Hispanic cultures. La Virgen spoke to Juan Diego, a simple peasant, asking him to build a church to her on Tonantzin’s hill at Tepeyac. Miraculously, La Virgen’s image appeared on his tilma wrapped around many red roses as proof of his vision. It hangs in the Cathedral today. Guadalupe is the Goddess of the Western Hemisphere, Central and South America, and the southwestern United States. Painting on cloth, c.1534, Guadalupe Cathedral, Tepeyac, Mexico City Read Meet Mago Contributor Lydia Ruyle.
(Photo Essay 4) 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”.] Temple of Hecate – Lagina, southwestern Turkey The current temple ruins were build around 200 BCE, although most temples of this era were built close to or over preexisting sacred sites. Sign at the Temple site The caretaker at the site talked about current rituals held at the Temple and brought out a Lydia Ruyle banner he was given at one of the rituals. The ritual includes a procession from nearby Stratonica to Lagina, carrying the “key” to the Hecate Temple. Stoa of Temple The sacred spring still flows, albeit fitted with a modern tap! Meet Mago Contributor Kaalii Cargill
Keening for the Rebirth of the World by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Woman Keening: Sdoknfonfosijogij, via Wikimedia Commons A woman Keening at a wake County Kerry in the early nineteenth century, drawn by an artist from the memories of Samuel Carter Hall. Beginning in pre-Christian times, the dead in Ireland and Scotland were accompanied on their physical and spiritual journey from life to death by keening mourners, according to Irish singer, songwriter, and teacher Mary McLaughlin. She notes in her article Keening the Dead: Ancient History or a Ritual for Today? that keening was, and is, not simply impassioned cries of grief, but “a sacred improvised chant that evolved over many centuries. It was traditionally sung over a corpse and was intrinsic to the ritual of the wake and funeral obsequies. (p. 1)” The keening song included an introduction, dirge, and cry and “reflects the life and passage of the individual who has just died. (p. 2)” Often keening was done by women who were professional ritual keeners at wakes and in the procession from dwelling to grave. The keening woman, or bean chaointe, was essential to the well being of her community. Scholar and musician Narelle McCoy says in her article Madwoman, Banshee, Shaman: Gender, Changing Performance Contexts and the Irish Wake Ritual “the community could resume its normal pattern of life once the funerary rites were concluded having expressed its grief through the intercession of the bean chaointe.” She notes that “The bean chaointe (keening woman) inhabited a liminal state between the living and the world of the dead for the duration of the mourning period, entering a kind of ‘divine madness’ which allowed the keener to express the collective outpouring of grief through her voice and body, leading the community in a public expression of sorrow and lament.” What is less known is that the bean chaointe also ushered new souls into life. McLaughlin says the bean chaointe was also often a midwife who may have also chanted at births (p. 11). Thus, it seems to me, keening was not only an expression of grief, but a reverberation that enabled individual and community transformations through the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Aiding life transitions at death and birth through cries, songs, and chants is, of course, not limited to the Celtic world. Keening still takes place all over the globe, but for millions of people in the west and elsewhere it is a lost tradition. McCoy notes that keening was largely discarded in Ireland and Scotland by the mid-twentieth century, having been discouraged by the Church for centuries. This expression that was practiced by women out of the control of male authorities was not to be tolerated. As I witness the pandemic’s trauma of the past two years, the environmental desecration of the past centuries, humanity’s violence of the past millennia, and more, I wonder what our world would be like if every community had keeners or others of similar traditions to lead us as a global village through grief, to transform our despair into wiser sojourns so that we may birth a better future? Some musicians and scholars, like Mary McLaughlin, Narelle McCoy, Maeve Gavin, and others, are raising awareness of and reviving the old songs and practices of Celtic keening, making them available for all. Perhaps you come from a different but similar ancestral tradition that you can bring to public and private ceremonies. Bloodroot by Carolyn Lee Boyd Maybe some of us will explore new ways to dive deep into the most profound depths of our human sorrow that has been unkeened and uncleansed for generations to create healing and wholeness. Then, we can be nurturing midwives to encourage us all to arise like the green shoots among the brown leaves in spring. Spread among all those with many talents, our regenerative artistry may come not only from singing and chanting but pour out of our fingers as we write or paint, our feet as we dance, our hands as we coax music from our instruments, and our minds as we remake myths and stories that will root and nourish us. To she whose heart has broken and whose body bleeds, Stumbling over ungathered shards, unhealed, Silent but powerful as the stars, our unembraced grief burgeons. Despair’s daily violence, greed’s insatiable gloom, every day’s misty sadness Dims our inborn exuberant wildness to gray Till our confining, protecting eggshell bursts and keening emerges unbidden, unconstrained, free. Join with me and pound your feet on the holy soil, wail into the wind Keening’s power is even now reaching towards us. The sound waves will echo and come back to us with all we need. The reverberations connect us to our deep-rooted Divinity. Our dreamed of sighs of sorrow are labor pains of rebirth. Our connection to lost beloveds is not severed but remade. We stretch out our arms, sing lullabies to draw them close in spirit, Hold our planet’s sputtering soul for She, too, is dying to us. Come dive deep, even deeper, into our own wells of humanness Here we will find the quake’s rumble, the lava’s hiss, the tsumani’s wave, the violet petal’s unfurling, the soft wind against the feathers of a baby chickadee The purple, red, green, and blue of memories sweet and sad. So much swirling and emerging from our mouths and our bodies, We bind ourselves to each other and the Earth with our willingness To be a vessel for all that needs to be released and reborn. Keen and I will hear you, truly hear you. Keen and we will witness for each other. Keen and the Earth will recognize Her voice in us. Keen and all we love will be set aflame with life anew. To hear a BBC4 radio documentary about keening including old recordings, click here. Sources: McCoy, Narell., “Madwoman, Banshee, Shaman: Gender, Changing Performance Contexts and the Irish Wake Ritual.” Musical Islands: Exploring Connections Between Music, Place and Research, edited by Elizabeth MacKinley, Byrdie-Leigh Bartlett, and Katelyn Barney, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. McLaughlin, Mary, Keening …
(Book Excerpt 5) Rainbow Goddess: Celebrating Neurodiversity ed. by K. L. Aldred, P. Daly, T Albanna, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This anthology was published by Girl God Books (2022).] “Neurodiversity Holds Keys to Unlock Patriarchal Prisons” by Trinity Shea Thomas Great news! Neurodiversity (ND) holds keys to unlock patriarchal prisons. What has been used against us can be turned inside out to set us free. ND codes safely unzipping in our neurology escort us from apologies to superpowers. The challenge for me in writing about this was to talk myself off the ledge of entirely earned outrage and stay firmly in the increasingly familiar realm of celebration, where all the many Truths retain their capitals and we are securely positioned to win the race of human. I will be taking full advantage of neurodivergent license, a step or twirl beyond poetic license. I didn’t have a word for how I am designed for a long time. I knew I was different, definitely one of those who was not like the others. I lived my life as an apology. The word neurodiversity was created in 1996 to describe diagnosed deficits in learning and thinking processes on the autism spectrum. I prefer Harvard Health’s recent definition: “Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one ‘right’ way…” This ‘no one right way’ business is the patriarchy’s worst nightmare, as it should be. The neurodiverse are uncontrollable by design. It’s our superpower. But I’m getting a bit ahead of my tale. My Own Neurodiverse Design My brand of neurodiversity is the extra-sensory sort. I was born with enhanced senses, as if I had less filters or had a blowhole open in the top of my head that let more in. I saw, heard, felt, and knew things that no one around me could verify. And these abnormal sensings were the favorite parts of my life. I found real companionship and truth there. I still do. Tragedy struck when I realized I could not share them. This confused me! Why would I see, hear, feel, and know all of these marvelous things if they were not to be shared with my family and friends? Was I just simply flawed? ‘Twas a mystery that required discovery. I was convinced, over the first dozen years of my life, to keep quiet about everything outside the reality most people lived in. I apologized continuously for all that I saw, heard, felt, and knew. For all that I was. I was shamed into silence. My life became about exploring how to move from shrinking from my differences to putting them to work in service. I began to look for the others who did not fit in. I found that my ND, before I ever heard the word, was neither a deficit nor a disorder, but rather a power of a higher order. Occasionally it even saved a life. Eventually, I stopped hiding and apologizing and got to work. Now I know there are many of us. And we hold crucial keys. I must admit I was relieved when Malcolm Gladwell published his book, “Blink,” in 2007 about how we often ‘know without knowing.’ He provided a case study of an expensive museum statue that turned out to be fake. The many experts hired to assess it did not agree about whether it was or was not. The ones who ‘knew’ it was fake could not say how they knew. They just did. And they were correct! My people! Extreme sensitivities often accompany our higher order powers. As a child it was nearly impossible, for example, for me to cut roses for the dinner table. I heard their cries. No one could convince me it didn’t hurt them. I learned to mask my reactions to pass for normal. Usually. Particularly in women, masking leads to a loss of sense, of self, with an increased vulnerability to patriarchal control. We accept the stigma and gaslight ourselves, incrementally dismantling our truth in exchange for acceptance, sanctuary, and belonging. It’s a survival strategy and a recoverable error. As my accumulated life experience and research yielded success, I felt most at home in the arms of nature and the rainbow goddess, the self-sustaining natural wells of love and truth. When I found myself at my wit’s end, I would wrap myself around a tree until I was better. It always works. I found myself regularly at odds with the dominant paradigm. One of its names is Patriarchy. Patriarchal Prisons – Misogyny and Anecdotal Evidence I don’t have enough pages to catalogue the abuses of the patriarchal system. And I’m committed to staying out of the Outrage Zone. I’m focusing on my top two. Misogyny and the invalidation of individual truth are patriarchal plot lines designed to enforce powerful prisons. They target agency. A famous example of this was the women who knew too much and bowed too little – being burned as witches, among other things. And even more astonishing, a successful campaign through history to make us fear the witches rather than their murderers. This became a tried-and-true Formula: Step One: Label something to create fear or discredit it. Step Two: Ostracize or destroy it. Step Three: Absolve or even glorify the perpetrators. Misogyny The assault on the feminine, misogyny, is not new. It’s thousands of years overdue for a rewrite. Ironically, ancient patriarchal cultures conspired to deprive women, the natural heiresses to goddess culture, of the right to any religious leadership. The Council of Nicea, a Council of Christian Bishops in Turkey in 325 AD, removed women from the priesthood despite women being equally honored as the original apostles of Christ. In about 400 AD, the Oracles of Delphi closed their well of inspiration and walked away after more than a thousand years when the Priests of Apollo began telling them what to say based on who would pay the most to fill their coffers. Until recently, the patriarchy successfully conspired to deny woman all sorts of everyday rights. Women were not allowed to own …
(Art) ‘Nu Gua’ by Lydia Ruyle

Nu Gua creates the world as a serpent Goddess. The tree of life grows from her and seven suns. Two of her animal spirits are the crow for death in the sun and the toad for rebirth in the moon. She created humans from clay which she baked in the oven. Some were overdone accounting for the black race and some were underdone accounting for the white race. Nu Gua invented the mouth organ and the flute. On the bottom is the Tao symbol of Yin Feminine and Yang Masculine.The Pa Kua Eight Diagrams, also known as the I Ching, is a Chinese system for accessing the intuitive energies of chi. Source: Funerary silk painting, Han dynasty tomb of Lady Dai, 2nd century, Mawangdui. Changdu (Meet Mago Contributor) Lydia Ruyle.
(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] Magoist Calendar is the inter-cosmic genealogical chart of the Creatrix in which all is found kindred. It unfolds the one standard unified time, which I call the Cosmic Mother’s Time or the Mago Time, wherein all beings in Our Universe from microcosmic quarts to macrocosmic celestial bodies are perceived in continuum. The Cosmic Mother’s Time is an inclusive time in which everyone is re-membered and celebrated. It is revelatory for its numinous nature, which some may call a mystery. The Mago Time is happening
(Quilt Art) Artemis or Juksakka, the Mysterious Bow-Woman of Astuvansalmi rock carvings by Kaarina Kailo

Kaarina Kailo, “Artemis or Juksakka, the Mysterious Bow-Woman of Astuvansalmi rock carvings,” 2020. Photo by Alpo and Arja Huhmarniemi. This intriguing image in Finland has led to much speculation that it is a Sami goddess since the timing of this rock art goes back to an era when Finland obviously did not exist and the Sami were among the oldest inhabitants. It challenges patriarchal biased views according to which women did not hunt. We now have more knowledge that indeed, they did hunt alongside the men in matriarchal cultures of prehistor. https://www.magoism.net/2016/03/meet-mago-contributor-kaarina-kailo/
How do you say what The Mago Work is? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang & Mago Circle Members

It took many years for me to pronounce the communal nature of the Mago Work. Defining the Mago Work necessarily endows us with the bird’s eye view of the Great Goddess, the primordial consciousness of WE in S/HE. Early this year, I asked people to define the Mago Work and their definitions are illuminating about what this book ultimately seeks to achieve.[1]
Mayflower Crowning by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright I sit under the snowy crabapple as fragile flower petals drift one by one to the ground, covering my hair in white butterflies, soon to become the first mulch of the year. Our Lady is always nourishing new life… The hum of a thousand bees is deafening – bumblebees – glorious golden rotund bodies swarming from one tree to another with so many relatives – everyone seeking sweet nectar. The scent is beyond description – intoxicating – a poignant perfume lasting only a few days and keeping me rooted to my bench every single morning to soak in the sweetness under impossible heat. Heavily polluted air is thick and metallic but here I inhale a plethora of fragrances so intense they drown out poisoned air. One rose breasted grosbeak is hidden in the deep vermillion of the fruit tree that bears his name. No wonder he sings his heart out. A red eyed vireo’s musical trill provides striking counterpoint even at noon. Phoebes chirp as they gather feathery mosses for their nest above my door. I gather more and add strands of my hair depositing both gifts on the ground in front of their flowering crab situated just outside my door. In moments both treasures are gone, swooped away by nesting parents The Flower Moon has just passed and many spring wildflowers have come to crown the Queen of the May who is dressed in her glorious cherru, apple, pear, crabapple finery. Swaying wild grasses hold spikes of lavender, blue, and purple ajuga, periwinkled mrytle is festooned with liny gold bees. Violets of every conceivable shade cover the ground along with astonishing neon yellow dandelions. Solomons seal arc so gracefully bending pendulous bells to the ground. Chartreuse and lime paint a ground cover named charlie, a sinuous serpent creeper that slithers across the uncut grass seemingly choosing every direction at once. No mow sparks endless creativity. I am poised, a lady in waiting for relief. And then they come! The Thunders. Rumbling sky gods split and sever dead air in hope. Many fruit trees have weeping leaves that droop under a brutal noonday sun. Cracked brown earth opens her slumbering eyes. Earthworms driven deep in this intolerable heat, hide among delicate mycelial threads who are funneling nitrogen potassium, water, minerals and other nutrients to those that need them… Tree roots are singing songs to this tubular informational highway lightly hidden underground. Ah, and so it begins, the deluge, sheets of silver hitting the ground in a fury… the sound of ionized water slapping roof and tree sooths my aching head still pounding from metallic air and merciless heat. I become this storm all senses on fire with longing. Presence. Rain, a blessing for all, even the flowers bend their heads in prayer. Photo by Sara Wright During breaks in the torrent Hummingbirds zoom in to the feeder. One chickadee appears from a tangle of fruit tree branches, grabs a seed and disappears Another follows suit. After the Thunder gods move on a female rain begins (as Indigenous folks say) falling in time with fluttering petals, crimson, rose, burgundy, pale pink, mauve and pearl. How gently all spiral earthward. Too soon the storm is over, but the Mayflower Queen has reigned in flowery splendor for a week that ends in a nourishing watery reprieve. She will soon retire for another year after the last blushing pink crabapples fade ending the Celebration of the Trees in this hollow on a waning moon. And leaving the earth to celebrate more stars, spiked jewels, and impossible fragrances for another month The solstice fire may burn them out but not until most have set seed before summer begins! https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright

(Special Post 3) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Helen Hwang I study and advocate Goddess feminism or Magoism because it is a way of living for me. I find myself in Mago (the Great Goddess) who in turn leads me to the Way wherein I learn how to become the person who I can be. It has to be Mago, the Female Divine, because She is real! She is the Primordial Mother who is the Beginning and the End of everything to us on the planet Earth. She teaches me the real. I can’t negotiate Her to anything less. Helen Hye Sook Hwang, Ph.D. California http://magoism.net Bridget Robertson A Goddessian I was introduced to a form of meditative journeying by a resident in my grandmother’s retirement community. She approached to me. I know she was at least part Native American, and that alone made her the topic of much gossip in the building. Her Rose colored lipstick, deep brown eyes, wrinkles that only helped illuminate her face and a chiffon scarf that matched none of her clothes. I thought she needed help with her groceries. She didn’t. She had me stop the elevator. and directly asked about my looking tired. My response was about being, busy balancing all the areas of my life. In fact I was exhausted doling out time like pieces of pie.
(Special Post 8) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. Special thanks to Trista Hendren, founder and author of The Girl God, who passionately and painstakingly promotes the message of each contributor via Facebook’s memes. Without Trista’s devotion to the advocacy, this collective effort would not have continued. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Marija Krstic-Chin To remember who we really are (nature, cycles, network, creative force, one, infinite…) for the benefit of all of humanity and all living things; and to unite and unify as we broadcast, hand down, protect and defend this truth and each other against the oppressive intentions and actions of patriarchal perpetrators, puppets, and pawns who seek to enslave us by various old and new divide-and-conquer strategies.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

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

(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 as a child I felt the disconnect between Christmas and the hot dusty days of summer. When Christians invaded and colonised Australia they brought their holidays but did not consider changing the dates to match the seasons. I was in India recently, invited as a speaker at the Hindu Lit For Life Festival in Chennai where I had lived ten years ago. The last day of the festival was the first day of Pongal. A friend, feminist economist Devaki Jain, who had grown up in Chennai eighty years earlier invited me to join her in a car ride to see Pongal celebrations in the streets. This is a Tamil festival dating back at least a thousand years, a sun festival, welcoming the next six months of the sun’s journey, also a harvest festival. During this time many women produce beautiful drawings, known as kolam. In my book Cow I wrote a poem about kolam which I think says more than I can explain here. what she says about kolam where they are drawn and when is all important early morning is auspicious it sets the shape of the day the hard ground is cleaned points of white grain sprinkled she works quickly she knows her design for the day runs the powdered grain from point to point it is a mandala a yantra a sign so the forces of the universe align themselves with her intentions Back to Pongal. The festival goes for four days. On the first day, which is called Bhogi, people are on the streets with the fruits of harvest, piles of tumeric and stacks of sugar cane tied in bunches. My friend, Devaki, bought flowers to take back to her room in the hotel. The second day, called Thai Pongal, I was invited to a harvest lunch at the house of my friend Mangai who is a playwright, theatre director and human rights activist. The word ‘pongal’ means ‘boiling over’ or’ overflow’ and I saw this in the cooking of the sweetened rice dish into which each of the twelve people present poured some water and milk as it almost overflowed the pot. This sweet rice dish was added to the collection of other dishes on the table. I cannot tell you what they were, but the meal was delicious. After lunch everyone relaxed, someone sang, we talked and caught up on news. The third day, is called Maatu Pongal, and cattle are at the centre of celebrations on that day. I don’t know if this line up of cattle had anything to do with the day’s celebration but there they were tied up alongside a very busy main road. These were not cows and I did not see any cows with decorated horns and flowers on their heads. on that day as I have on other occasions. On the fourth day, Kaanum Pongal, things begin to wind down. One of my co-speakers at the festival said she would be visiting family members on that day. The kolams are drawn again, sugar cane is consumed and people go back to their daily lives. What I liked about being in Tamil Nadu during the Pongal festival is that it felt absolutely right. The time of the year, the connection with harvest, so I did not feel the discomfort I so often feel in the midst of the out-of-season commercialised holidays as they are celebrated in Australia. Susan Hawthorne’s book Cow is available worldwide from distributors in USA, Canada, UK, from all the usual online retailers or from Spinifex Press. http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=215/ © Susan Hawthorne, 2019 (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne.
Beltaine/High Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 8 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Beltaine/High Spring are: Southern Hemisphere – October 31st or 1st November Northern Hemisphere – April 30th (May Eve) or 1st May though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, thus actually a little later in early November for S.H., and early May for N.H., respectively. The twin fires lit in older times on hilltops in Ireland for Beltaine likely represented the two eyes of night and day.[i] With this vision, Goddess as Sun and Moon sees Her Land, and with the power of Her eyes (Sun and Moon) brings forth life and beauty. With the fire eyes, Goddess“reoccupied and saw her whole land…”[ii] The twin fires later came to be used to run cattle between as they headed out to Summer pasture, for the purpose of burning off the bugs and ticks of Winter; the fires may thus be understood to serve a cleansing effect and likely the origins of the tradition of the ceremonial leaping of flames by participants in Beltaine festivities. In PaGaian Cosmology this is poetically expressed as the Flame of Love that burns away the psyche’s “bugs and ticks,” and sees the Beauty present, and calls it forth. The Beltaine flames may be a celebration of Sun entering into the eye, into the whole bodymind: a powerful creative evocation upon which the Dance of Life depends, and as the cleansing power of love and pleasure. PaGaian focus for Beltaine is on the Holy Desire/Passion for life, and it may be accounted for on as many levels as possible … the complete holarchy/dimensions of the erotic power. On an elemental level, there is our desire for Air, Water, the warmth of Fire, and to be of use/service to Earth. There is an essential longing, sometimes nameless, sometimes constellated, experienced physically, that may be recognized as the Desire of the Universe Herself – desiring in us.[iii] We may remember that we are united in this desire with each other, with all who have gone before us, and with all who come after us – all who dance the Dance of Life. Beltaine is a time for dancing and weaving into our lives, our heart’s desires; traditionally the dance is done with participants holding ribbons attached to a pole or tree (a Maypole in the Northern Hemisphere, which may be renamed as a “Novapole” in the Southern Hemisphere), wrapping the pole with the ribbons. This is not simply the heterosexual metaphor as is thought in modern times (thanks largely to Freudian thinking) – it is deeper than that. As Caitlin and John Matthews point out: it is symbolic of a far greater exchange than that between men and women – in fact between the elements themselves. … the maypole, a comparatively recent manifestation in the history of mystery celebrations, can be seen as the linking of heaven and earth, binding those who dance around it … into a pattern of birth, life and death which lay at the heart of the maze of earth mysteries.[iv] Beltaine is a celebration of Desire on all levels – microcosm and on the macrocosm, the exoteric and the esoteric.[v] It brought you forth physically, and it brings forth all that you produce in your life, and it keeps the Cosmos spinning. It is felt in you as Desire, it urges you on. It is the deep awesome dynamic that pervades the Cosmos and brings forth all things – babies, meals, gardens, careers, books and solar systems. We have often been taught, certainly by religious traditions, to pay it as little attention as possible; whereas it should be the cause of much more meditation/attention, tracing it to its deepest place in us. What are our deepest desires beneath our surface desires. What if we enter more deeply into this feeling, this power? It may be a place where the Universe is a deep reciprocity – a receiving and giving that is One. Brian Swimme says, in a whole chapter on “Allurement”: You can examine your own self and your own life with this question: Do I desire to have this pleasure? Or rather, do I desire to become pleasure? The demand to ‘have,’ to possess, always reveals an element of immaturity. To keep, to hold, to control, to own; all of this is fundamentally a delusion, for our own truest desire is to be and to live. We have ripened and matured when we realize that our own deepest desire in erotic attractions is to become pleasure … to enter ecstatically into pleasure so that giving and receiving pleasure become one simple activity. Our most mature hope is to become pleasure’s source and pleasure’s home simultaneously. So it is with the allurements of life: we become beauty to ignite the beauty of others.[vi] Beltaine is a good time to contemplate this animal bodymind that you are: how it seeks real pleasure. What is your real pleasure? Be gracious with this bodymind and in awe of this form, this wonder. Beltaine is also a good time to contemplate light, and its affects on our bodyminds as it enters into us; how our animal bodyminds respond directly to the Sun’s light, which apparently may awaken physical desires. Light vibrates into us – different wavelengths as different colours – and shifts to pulse. It is felt most fully in Springtime (“spring fever”), as light courses down a direct neural line from retina to pineal gland. When the pineal gland receives the light pulse it releases “a cascade of hormones, drenching the body in hunger, thirst, or great desire.”[vii] We respond directly to Sun as an organism: it is primal. NOTES: [i] Michael Dames, Ireland, 195-199. [ii] Ibid., 196. [iii] I have been inspired and informed by Swimme’s articulations about desire, particularly in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 2 “The Primeval Fireball,” video 5 “Destruction and Loss,” and video 10 “The Timing of Creativity.” [iv] Matthews, The Western Way, 54. And for more, see “Creativity …
(Video) A Samhain Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 9 of the author’s book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The dates for Summer Solstice/Litha are: Southern Hemisphere – December 20-23 Northern Hemisphere – June 20-23 A Summer Solstice altar The ‘moment of grace’[i] that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its ‘decline’: that is, its movement back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere, and back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere. This Seasonal Moment is polar opposite Winter Solstice when it is light that is “born,” as it may be expressed. At the peak of Summer, in the bliss of expansion, it is the dark that is “born.” Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, that may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios. Summer Solstice is a time for celebrating our realized Creativity, whose birth we celebrated at Winter Solstice, whose tenderness we dedicated ourselves to at Imbolc/Early Spring, whose certain presence and power we rejoiced in at Spring Equinox, whose fertile passion we danced for at Beltaine/High Spring. Now, at this seasonal point, as we celebrate light’s fullness, we celebrate our own ripening – like that of the wheat, and the fruit. And like the wheat and the fruit, it is the Sun that is in us, that has ripened: the Sun is the Source of our every thought and action. The analogy is complete in that our everyday creativity – our everyday actions, and we, ultimately, are also “Food for the Universe”[ii] … it is all how we feed the Universe. flowers to flames – everyday creativity consumed Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames.[iii] We, and our everyday creativity, are the “Bread of Life,” as it may be expressed; just as many other indigenous traditions recognize everyday acts as evoking “the ongoing creation of the cosmos,”[iv] so in this tradition, Summer is the time for particularly celebrating that. Our everyday lives, moment to moment, are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of the ancestors and ancient creatures that went before us; and so the future is built on ours. We are constantly consuming the work and creativity of others and we are constantly being consumed. The question may be asked: “Who are you feeding?,”[v] and consideration given to whether you are happy with the answer. It is the Sun that is in you. See how you shine. Summer Solstice is a celebration of the Fullness of the Mother – in ourselves, in Earth, in the Cosmos. We are the Sun, coming to fullness in its creative engagement with Earth. We affirm this in ceremony with: “It is the Sun that is in you, see how you shine.” It is the ripening of Her manifestation, which fulfills itself in the awesome act of dissolution. This is the mystery of the Moment. Brian Swimme has described this mystery of radiance as a Power of the Universe, as Radiance: the shining forth of the self is at the same time a give-away, a decline of the self – just as the Sun is constantly giving itself away. This Solstice Moment of Summer is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. Summer and Winter Solstices are Gateways – between the manifest and the manifesting, and Summer Solstice is a Union/Re-Union of these, a kind of meeting with the deeper self. Winter Solstice may be more of a separation, though it is usually experienced as joyful, because it is also a meeting, as the new is being brought forth. The interchange of Summer Solstice may be experienced as an entry into loss – the Cosmological Dynamic of Loss, as manifestation passes. Beltaine, Summer Solstice and Lammas – the next Seasonal Moment, may be felt as the three faces of Cosmogenesis in the movement towards entropy.[vi] The light part of the annual cycle of Earth around Sun is a celebration of the Young One/Virgin quality of Cosmogenesis, with Her face gradually changing to the Mother/Communion quality; and through the Autumn, the dark part of the annual cycle, it is a celebration of the Old One/Crone quality, whose face will gradually change also, back to the Mother/Communion. They are never separate.In this cosmology, desire for full creativity has been celebrated as the allurement of the Cosmos, and being experienced as gravity, as relationship with Earth, our place of being, how She holds us. At both Solstices there is celebration of deep engagement, communion. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series. CA: Tides Foundation, 1990. NOTES: [i] As Thomas Berry named the Seasonal transitions. [ii] Swimme uses this expression in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.” [iii] This is based on the traditional Litha (Summer Solstice) rite described by Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 206. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 95. [v] As Swimme asks in Canticle to the Cosmos, video 5 “Destruction and Loss.” [vi] Just as Samhain, Winter Solstice and Imbolc may be felt as the three faces of Cosmogenesis in the movement towards toward form – syntropy.
(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

(Bell Essay 8) The Magoist Whale Bell: Decoding the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This and ensuing sequels are excerpts of a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Singing Humpback Whales, wikimedia commons Whales as the Cosmic Music Maker That whales (Gorae in Korean) are foundational to the Korean temple bell remains subliminal to this day. How do we assess the cetacean code of the Korean temple bell? What is the relationship between these two seemingly unrelated objects? We are given the whale-shaped mallet of the bell to begin with. Intriguingly, two Buddhist temples are noted today for the wooden whale-carved mallet of their bells: Sudeok-sa in Yesan, South Chungcheong, and Seonam-sa in Suncheon, South Jeolla.[1] Other temple bells reportedly have the whale mallet as well, although not as much distinctly carved as the two. The Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great is known as such. What is the significance of the Korean temple bell that has a whale as its striker? However, the whale-shaped wooden mallet is only a visible symbol of Sillan cetacean veneration. The whale motif is not just physically present in the mallet but also signified in its name or title. Among many alternative names of the Korean temple bell are cetacean names; Janggyeong (長鯨 Eternal Whale), Gyeongjong (鯨鐘 Whale Bell), Hwagyeong (華鯨 Splendid Whale), and Geogyeong (巨鯨 Gigantic Whale). Here the character “gyeong 鯨” means a whale.[2] These whale names suggest that the bell itself is conceived as a whale. Korean temple bells are the code of Magoist cetaceanism. By the very nature of a temple bell that is to awaken all beings to put it bluntly, we can establish that the sound of a whale is elevated to the purpose of a temple bell. Or vice versa. The sound of a temple bell is identified as that of a whale. At the outset, suffice it to say that whales are admired and revered for their vocal behaviors so much so that they are represented in Sillan temple bells. The cetacean representation of the Korean temple bell comes unexpected to us. Why is the song of a whale not the song of a bird or another animal? And what does it mean that the Korean temple bell employs cetacean names? These are no small questions. Answering them requires digging into the deepest layer of what has gone under the surface about Magoist Korean whale culture. I have discussed elsewhere in detail about how Korean cetaceanism is steeped in linguistics, myths, place-names, and custom.[3] For the immensity and complexity of the topic, this essay leaves out the discussion of such salient features of whales as their pre-human origin, evolution from land to sea, sizes and trans-oceanic migratory journeys. Summarily, whales connect and bridge the human mind beyond anthropocentrism. Here we will focus on how cetacean veneration is encoded in the Korean temple bell, in particular the sound tube. Ancient Korean Magoists deemed whales as the cosmic music makers. The cetacean names of Korean temple bells redefine the bell as the acoustic instrument that conveys the music of whales. Note the plural in bells and whales. Korean temple bells are meant to be recognized as a chorus, like whales in the sea, to respond to the sonic property of all beings. In fact, the Korean temple bell is never an isolated single sound wave, to be discussed below. What is emitted from both is harmonized music. It is noted that the music of whales can travel hundreds of kilometers underwater.[4] That the song of whales travel as far as hundreds of kilometers underwater is juxtaposed with the sound of the Korean temple bells that travel far. The former is transmitted through water waves, while the latter is transmitted through air waves. Humpback Whales Whales compose music. Among cetacean species, known for their vocalizations are the blue whale, the fin whale, the humpback whale, the minke whale, and the killer whale.[5] In particular, such baleen whales as humpback whales and blue whales have been relatively well studied for their vocalizing behaviors. The range of humpback whales’ sound frequencies is known as follows: The range of frequencies that whales use are [sic] from 30 Hertz (Hz) to about 8,000 Hz, (8 kHZ). Humans can only hear part of the whales’s songs. We aren’t able to hear the lowest of the whale frequencies. Humans hear low frequency sounds starting at about 100 Hz.[6] In comparisons, the vocalizations of blue whales are known to range from 10 to 40 Hz at a fundamental frequency (the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform). It is also noted that blue whales off the coast of Sri Lanka make music of “four notes duration lasting about two minutes each, reminiscent of the well-known humpback whale songs.”[7] To be discussed below, the frequencies of the two most noted Korean temple bells range from 65 Hz to 103.02 Hz, which fall within the range of these whales’ vocalizations. A significant volume of scientific research has been harvested on the music of humpback whales. Katy and Roger Payne are, according to an article by Bill McQuay and Alison Richards, the first scientists who identified the calls of male humpback whales as songs.[8] They report that humpback whales do not merely sing but compose music. McQuay and Richards describe the song of humpback whales as follows: Surprisingly researchers have noted that at any given moment all males in a group will sing the same version of a song, even when separated over large distances, while whales in another region or hemisphere will sing a completely different song, but in unison with other whales in their area. These sounds are loud, deep and low-frequency (20Hz – 10 kHz). They can be heard many miles away and may go on for hours or even days. Individual songs can last anywhere from a few minutes up to a half hour at which point they may then be repeated again. …
(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.
(Mago Essay 1) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Introduction: Why Inaugurate the Great Goddess Consciousness? The Great Goddess is known by many names around the world. “Mago” is one known by East Asians from time immemorial. As such, the term “Mago” is a common noun referring to the Great Goddess rather than the name of a particular goddess. According to my assessment of a large volume of primary sources that I have documented, Mago’s divine nature is characterized as the progenitor, creator, and ultimate sovereign. In short, Mago is supreme as the Creatrix. That does not mean that there is nothing before or even after Her. In fact, according to the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism, Mago was born into the cosmic era prior to our cosmic era by the music/vibration/movement of the universe. Being the Creatrix, She is the beginning and the end. She is the Origin of humankind. She will be with us insofar as humanity continues to exist on its cosmic journey. She is the Great Ancestor of all humans as well as goddesses and gods. Furthermore, She is “the Cosmic Great Mother” from whom everything is derived. “Mago” is eponymous of human civilization. With regard to the world, She is immanent and transcendent at once. Standing at the threshold of the world, She embodies the world. She is the Channel that connects humanity with nature and the universe. She is the Lens through which we humans perceive Ultimate Reality. To be precise, She is the Cause for human consciousness. Through Her, we enter the world. She is self-sustained, as symbolized in the ouroboros. The beginning and the end for the world relies on Her. While holding the key to eternity, She shares the rise and fall with humankind. Here is Her intimacy with humanity: We are part of Her and She is in our DNA. My reconstruction of Mago and Magoism did not begin with a teleological scheme. No pre-measured outcome was there to motivate my undertaking of the research project. On the contrary, the topic was a serendipitous yet timely encounter, which I had never consciously expected. Nonetheless, I was not in a vacuum. As a self-identified radical feminist, I sought a new mode of knowing within my own cultural roots that can remedy Eurocentric, nationalist, colonialist, racist, and ethnocentric knowledge. The years of my graduate studies were spent in exploring such possibilities. Only after furthering my research of Mago and Magoism for over a decade, I began to grasp something at which my intellectual/spiritual voyage is destined to arrive. It was this phrase, in fact a very old mandate that ancient Magoists self-identified with, “Return to the Origin of Mago (Mago Bokbon, 麻姑複本),” that surfaced over the horizon with clarity. How do we return to Mago’s Origin? Do we return to Her Realm or invoke Her Reality to our time? Time is one seamless measurement. No need to go there or bring it here. The fact that “Mago” refers to the Great Goddess rather than an individual goddess intimates an implication at the level of consciousness. Talk of Mago invokes the Great Goddess consciousness, primordial unity/oneness. A “new” mode of knowing is re-birthed once and time and time again. Individuals are placed in unity with the whole. Each shares with the subject position, WE. After all, everyone is progeny of the Great Goddess! We are re-stored within the scheme of old knowing that the whole (universality) comprises parts (particularities) and that they are organically interconnected. Complexity and precision of the way microcosmic entities work in harmony with the cosmos are beyond the human grasp. However, we know that an assault on a part affects the whole. And vice versa. This is why I study Mago and Magoism: Reenacting the Great Goddess consciousness is the ultimate antidote to the patriarchal consciousness. WE learn how to see things beyond the isolated position of an “I,” the notion of the self molded to stand against its environments (the other) by the patriarchal mastermind. The separated “I,” implanted in one’s psyche from birth through patriarchal institutions such as the state, religion, family, and heterosexuality, conjoins the new awareness of WE. The Mago consciousness is the original, pristine perspective prior to the split of the patriarchal consciousness. It is an undifferentiated state of mind that underlies patriarchal socialization. Ancient cultures had an understanding of the mysterious working of Mago. With Mago, WE Re-Turn to the Origin! The Female is epistemically invincible, nullifying the assaults of the patriarchal “I.” The power of the Mago consciousness is well depicted in the icon of Durga defeating the patriarchal demon. One should not be mistaken that the Mago consciousness is just another form of patriarchal thinking with reversed gender. It fundamentally differs in nature from the latter. Suffice it to say that “the Almighty God,” unlike the Great Goddess, does not share the same DNA with humans. In fact, He has no DNA! The monotheistic god rules over and against the world in protection of himself. He is needy. He isn’t even transcendent but disconnected from primordial unity. He can’t be “He” but only he of She. He can’t be the representative of the world because he is biased against the female principle. Ultimately, he is incapable of embracing everyone, unlike the Great Goddess. To hide the fact that the monotheistic god leads only to the abyss of self-destruction, patriarchal religions have created dogmas to indoctrinate people. The Great Goddess consciousness exposes the patriarchal deception. As patriarchy developed over the course of history, Mago was made unintelligible. People lost the Original Knowing! The Paradise was gone not only in a physical manner but also epistemically! That may as well be a corollary in that patriarchy precludes the concept of the Great Goddess by definition. It is not patriarchy if a society upholds the female as supreme. Nonetheless, patriarchy could not get rid of the manifestation of Mago in history, culture, and the collective consciousness of people. In fact, the ancient cultures, histories, myths, topographies, religions, and memories …