July 7, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay 2) Gift Giving and the Goddess, A philosophy for Social Change by Genevieve Vaughan

Meet Mago Contributor, Genevieve Vaughan. Abstract reasoning has been influenced by exchange. It is not a sui generis activity but only a complication of giftgiving and language, which has left Read More …

(Art) Painting the Goddess: Working with Symbols by Elaine Drew

In a previous post I showed my earliest attempts to depict the divine feminine. While I agree with Tolstoy that the most important thing about a work of art is that it transmit the feeling of the artist to the viewer, that is not something I can measure or control; that part of the communication is in your hands. So I’m left to talk about what can be verbalized: the mechanics of putting a painting together. In this post I’ll limit myself to one of the mechanics of getting feeling across, and that is the use of symbols. Medieval painting has been a big influence in my work in terms of its content (religious), its technique (egg tempera, gold leaf), and its use of symbolism. In this group of paintings I combined the sorts of historiated (decorated) letters you might find in an illuminated manuscript with symbols of the particular goddess or divine process I was attempting to portray. The interesting thing about symbols is that they can function on several different levels at once. The letter forms create a space for the deity to inhabit and also echo something about the meaning of the painting – perhaps the name of the goddess, perhaps her function. In the painting D for Doris we see the goddess of the littoral, the place where the sea meets the land. The form of her letter, besides being her initial, reflects the spiral of the cosmos, and the shape of the d’s ascender echoes a fish tail. The d is bounded by an area of roiling sea, the primeval soup of life. Inside the d, Doris lives in her own universe of ocean, sand, and sparkling stars; she enables life and creativity. Her skirt is made of waves whose motion is the breathing of the sea. Her shirt is decorated with plankton, and she is surrounded by her creatures. A group of clams form a scepter in one hand, a seabird sits in the other. G for Goddess: This painting of the soul (anima) depicts our own interior divine force, the inner goddess. Bird symbolism is often associated with both the soul and the ancient goddess of life, death, and rebirth venerated in neolithic Europe. The vegetation symbolizes the life force, and the little celestial bodies on the periphery point us to an unknowable reality beyond ourselves. Circular forms point to the perfection our souls long to attain. The Egg and I contemplates our place, as women, in the cycle of creativity. An ancient bird goddess represents our ancestral mothers from time immemorial and observes us from the very center of the “I.” She lives in us at the core of our being. Life and fertility unfold around her. The egg that “I” hold is the symbol of my potential as a person and as a woman to pass forward the gifts of our mothers. The Portal: The life force is symbolized by the goddess appearing in both the vesica and the U. The U stands for the Uterus, the sacred place where life begins, and also for the Universe, a place of infinite potential. The goddess, surrounded by the richness and fertility of vegetation, offers life to those brave enough to accept the challenge. Her pale face hints that she rules both life and death, and that the two cannot be separated. She offers the women below a symbolic umbilical cord, and their nakedness emphasizes the vulnerability of those who accept life, in its beauty and terror. (See “How to Express the Feminine Divine?” and “Painting Taera, Goddess of the Earth.”)
(Photo Essay) Sisterhood in OZ by Leslene della-Madre

I am so grateful that my four-part essay on Awe/stralia was posted here on the Mago blog. It was such an a-mazing journey in so many ways and will always stay with me as a life-changing event for me. I am delighted to be able now to offer another kind of view of this wonderful adventure. This photo journal is a focus on sisterhood. I was blessed and fortunate to cross paths with over 150 women; this is a tribute to them and is dedicated to the Indigenous Aboriginal women who remain the gatekeepers of the wisdom of the Universal Feminine. I was so deeply moved by the support, love and presence of the women I had the honor of working with. For me, restoring sisterhood is the medicine that will heal us all. These are some of the remaining women elders in Balgo in Western Australia of the Kapululango Aboriginal Women’s Association. They are “pre contact” women who were born before the “whitefella” came. While I was not able to go and be with them during Women’s Law Camp after touring in OZ, I still feel a profound connection with them. I encourage any of you lovely women to go and be with them if you can during their annual teaching camps. More about them can be learned here: http://www.kapululangu.org Embarking on a sacred journey of reclaiming Sacred Womb Wisdom, the Shamanic Path of Re-membering. Co-creating a sacred altar allows us to share our invocations and focuses our attention and intention for our time together. Our altar inside the Red Tent. In our first workshop, we learned how the body of woman is the holograph of the YoniVerse and how womb wisdom is the root of all knowing. Women’s shamanic mysteries are the holiest of the holies. While they have been usurped and co-opted for the last 5000 years, the secrets remain in our DNA. It is time to re-member them and to trust our sovereignty as daughters of the Great Mother.
(Art) Renaissance Woman by Janie Rezner

Painting: The Renaissance Woman – The figure, 6 ft tall and wide “With her feet planted firmly on the ground, her breasts and womb for all to see, her womb with its new creation, her right hand holding the moon and stars, her left arm, strong and earthy, her ‘motherly side,’ cutting through the chaos as she rises up out of Hell!”
Autumn as a Time of Rebirth and Renewal by Francesca Tronetti

From Wikimedia Commons Autumn has always been described as the end of the life cycle. The harvest must be collected before the plants wither back and die. Seeds are gathered and stored in a cool, dry, dark place until it is time to return them to the soil. The leaves fall, leaving the trees bare and dead-looking. Many birds migrate to spend the winter in a warmer climate. Where I live, I say goodbye to the hummingbirds and the turkey buzzards. The rest will gather around my bird feeders every day, looking for the food they need to survive. The days get shorter and cooler, and while I still do have some trips planned to enjoy the beautiful autumn foliage, it’s not the same as in summer. I plan more day trips to walk on trails that would typically be too hot during the summer. But most of the small towns I like to visit have closed down, and the beach shops and restaurants are boarded up, waiting for Memorial Day and the return of the summer tourists. Even if some shops or eateries are open, they sit along deserted roads once thronged with people and families. It is a depressing site to go along with the damp chill that blows in off the lake. In Greek mythology, the dying of the plants is a sign of Demeter’s mourning for the loss of her daughter, who must return to Hades in the Underworld. As her daughter descends into the realm of the dead, the earth’s vegetation joins her. Some plants die off, dropping their seeds so their descendants may rise next spring. Others wither back while in the soil, hibernating under the ground. Their roots remain active, spreading and growing to help them survive quietly until it is time to bloom again. Across the globe, autumn has the same meaning to human lives. It is when we must bring in the harvest and prepare to wait out the long, cold winter. Or some would follow the example of the birds and move further south, where they could continue to hunt and would not have to worry about the dangers of ice and snow. Either option meant a change in people’s lives and schedules dictated by the early darkness and the cold days. Most of us don’t move with the seasons anymore; we stay put and endure, but we plan for the winter, stocking up like our ancestors did. We ensure we have fuel to heat our homes, pellets for the stove, or propane deliveries. We stock the pantry with pasta, soups, and sauces to make hearty, filling meals. Other necessities are bought and stored in case we get stuck inside for several days due to a blizzard. It’s our version of hibernation; the house is full of food and warmth, and we are ready to Netflix our way into spring when we can get outside again. While I understand why autumn is the beginning of an extended downtime from an agricultural point of view, I also think that autumn can be a starting time and a time of renewal for our more creative side. During the summer, we want to be out and about, visiting places and enjoying nature and people. In America, summer is a time for many gatherings to share food and fun with family and friends. And while autumn and winter also have gathering times, they are often limited to a few weeks for parties. But, for the artistic person, autumn is when you can return to your creative mindset. While some see themselves as being trapped inside by bad weather, we see it as uninterrupted hours or even days we can dedicate ourselves to our craft. During fall, we pull out the projects we didn’t finish before the summer, writing projects, quilts that need finishing, or knitting we put on hold because who wants to work with a heavy afghan on their lap when it’s 90 degrees out? Autumn marks the beginning of the ‘me time; for the creative. Holidays follow one after the other quickly, and the warm colors of red and orange are soon covered by an icy blanket of snow, which can be menacing or nostalgic, depending on your artistic mood. This mood can inspire poetry and short stories or encourage us to take up a new hobby, to make a blanket against the cold. From Wikimedia Commons It is also when many return to their kitchens to recreate the foods they grew up on. Autumn and winter are when most people will try their hand at baking bread for the first time. Or they will enter a sugary wonderland of more than 200 Christmas cookie recipes to give to others this season. It is a rebirth into the traditions of our mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who taught their daughters how to make the bread they grew up eating. Or it is where we create new traditions with our daughters or friends and family who gather around the stove’s warmth. Autumn is when we renew the promises we made to complete projects, literary, artistic, or crafty. It is no wonder to me that November is National Novel Writing Month. This long month of cold, wet days, with snow at the end, is the perfect time to sit down and write the stories that have been bubbling up in our psyches and filling our notebooks all year with scenes and dialogue. Do not mourn the passing of Persephone into the Underworld nor the end of the warmth of summer. Embrace autumn as a time to renew your commitment to your creative and spiritual side. Write poems, prose, and stories. Create art even if only you see its beauty or fully understand its meaning. Autumn may be the end of the plant’s life cycle, but for humans, it can be the beginning of our creative one. https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/
(Poem) Amber/honey/river/mirror by Donna Snyder

Amber drips from her ears and wrists like honey I hear the sound of brass bells She dances me up into a fog of purple smoke I see a hall of mirrors and as I pass by each mirror I see not my face but the face of all my loves I find myself beside a dying river “From my mouth to yours” I say it out loud as I drip honey into the water lick my own sweet fingers I hear wind through the cane It sounds like laughter The river accepts the honey dripping from my flesh and is gone I am on a desert mountain rough and dry I find a pot of sweet water and know that today I will not die With a needle I stitch together the fabric of my life and yours I look into the mirror and I see your face Published in Matrix, June 1999
Paganism and American Folk Magic Traditions by Francesca Tronetti

Wikimedia Commons Pagans are people seeking spirituality. Not always religion, but true spiritual growth and freedom. Due to this desire, many seek out and learn from older cultural traditions, viewing these practices as purer and more in tune with the universe. This has led to multiple clashes between pagans and those whose cultures they seek to draw from. This is called cultural or spiritual appropriation, and there are dozens of articles, and probably a book or two, on the subject already. To avoid this conflict, many white spiritual seekers have begun looking to older European traditions such as those of the Celts and the Norse. However, worship of the ancient Norse deities has been linked to white supremacy in the last decade, so understandably many avoid the label. In the United States, there has been a steady resurgence of interest in American Folk Magic Traditions, especially those of the Appalachians, known as hoodoo, conjure, and rootwork. However, pagan interest in this folk magic is not always welcome and can bring them into conflict with practitioners of the craft. Until the 1960s, there were few studies of the lifestyles and traditions of Appalachian people. Then in 1966, the magazine Foxfire was first published. Proposed as a writing project by teacher Elliot Wigginton at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in Georgia, students collected stories from relatives and neighbors about how people had lived in their area. The magazine published these stories about the crafts, skills, and lifestyles of the people in their area, everything from lessons on raising and butchering hogs to how to build a spinning wheel. The magazine was an immediate success, partially owing to the interest in communes, the back to the land movement, and organic farms developing in the United States. Today for $15 a year, you can subscribe to the magazine, which has been in publication since 1966, and in 1972 the first of the Foxfire books was published. These books remain popular and are still sought after by collectors and enthusiasts today; I have six of the original books and one of the more recent publications in my library. Foxfire is also a museum of Appalachian history whose members continue to record the area’s oral history. It also serves as a classroom where people come to learn homesteading and traditional medicine using herbs. The work of the Foxfire group inspired others to take an in-depth look at the culture and traditions of the mountain people, rather than labeling them simple backwoods folk who need to be taught, not learn from. Because of the work of the Foxfire group and other dedicated researchers, we now have a better understanding of the folk magic traditions of the area. Hoodoo, conjure, rootwork, mountain magic, and granny magic are African-inspired religious practices that are sometimes called mountain magic. Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created and concealed from slaveholders by enslaved Africans in North America. Many of these enslaved people attempted to escape, and some, unwilling to risk the long trek north, headed deep into the Appalachian mountains. In this area, already established groups of Native Americans and small settlements of formerly enslaved people began to take shape. The Native Americans, having no love for the white man who also enslaved them, lived in relative peace alongside their neighbors and taught them the herbs of the land. Eventually, European immigrants settled in the area and soon discovered that the promised land was not a fertile plain where life came easy. Mountain life is tough, and you need to depend on your neighbors to survive, especially if you have never lived in an area before and do not know which herbs and roots you can eat, which will heal, and which will kill. When members of the Pennsylvania Dutch arrived, they had their own folk magic traditions, already influenced by their interactions with the Native American groups who lived in PA. The formerly enslaved people and their descendants incorporated some of these traditions into their belief practices and created what we today call hoodoo. Still, this knowledge was shared with their neighbors, which is why you will find white people who claim their families have practiced hoodoo for generations. Because they probably have. Hoodoo and conjure are uniquely American magical traditions, born out of the intersection of at least three, and possibly more, cultures who all wished to live their lives and remain free. The spells and incantations are in English, the herbs used are those which grow locally, and practitioners for centuries have been white. For those seeking a spiritual path linked to herbalism and one in which a charge of cultural appropriation cannot be made against Appalachian folk magic would seem to solve their problems. However, they would be mistaken in thinking this type of magic is open to everyone regardless of background. Hoodoo and conjure are not pagan, and many practitioners are Christian. While there is a belief in spells, curses, and evil spirits, the people have a solid Christian belief as their bedrock. The spells are based on Psalms and Bible passages, and invocations are made to Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, and the Saints. Appalachian folk magic is a branch of Christianity for all intents and purposes. Perhaps not one which many Christians outside of the geographic area would acknowledge, but it is still deeply rooted in the Christian faith. This has led to some online conflict between those who see this tradition as one which can be incorporated into the umbrella term pagan and those who resist their beliefs being placed alongside those of admitted witches. American folk magic occupies a unique place, being at the interception of Christianity and magic, but this does not mean that their beliefs and practices are open for anyone to use. To claim it as one’s own could be a type of cultural appropriation, on par with claiming the spiritual traditions of Native Americas or Afro Caribbean practices without understanding the deep cultural …
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 3) The Ancient Korean Whale-Bell: An Encodement of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.] How I Study and Discuss the Whale-Dragon Bell? Personally, I began to explore the Korean temple bell as a matricentric symbol with regards to the Magoist Cosmogony, the cosmogonic account of the Budoji, the principal text of Magoism.[1] Apparently, its distinctive feature including the Nine Nipples in a Breast Circumference as well as its protruding body resembling a pregnant woman’s belly did not accord with the central teaching of Buddhism (see [Figure 10]). I intuited that the bell’s sonic-visual-artistic language was an expression of the Magoist Cosmogony. However, the female or matricentric perspective did not lead me further. Shortly after, I realized that the Sillan bell was not about women or mothers in separation from the natural world headed by whales. It was not about women versus men. It led me to a pre- and trans-feminist perspective. While searching for the origin of these female and numeric symbols of the bell, I came to pay attention to the dragon expressed in the Dragon Loop and the Dragon Tube. Some scholars in Korea indicate that the bell’s dragon image is associated with myth of the Pacifying Flute that Defeats All (萬波息笛 Manpasikjeok), hereafter the Pacifying Flute.[2] Some of them maintain that the Dragon Tube is the replica of the Pacifying Flute. To my astonishment, I learned that the myth of the Pacifying Flute concerns not only the dragon but also the tusk of a narwhal, which was made into the Pacifying Flute. In the myth, the dragon is identified as the sea waves that carried the “singing” of whales from the sea. I soon learned that whale totemism is not limited to the whale bell or the Pacifying Flute. The cetacean symbol of a dragon opened my eyes to see how individual themes can fit within the span of Magoism. I sensed that cetacean totemism underlies the very consciousness of the Magoist Cosmogony. Within the hypothesis of Magoist Cetaceanism to be originated from Goma’s Danguk confederacy of Nine Hans, seemingly isolated or odd pieces of data began to fit the whole picture.[3] My research on Magoist Cetaceanism has expanded with an overwhelming volume of data.[4] Some of them are shared below in the Introduction as a background discussion. That Magoism is inseparably tied with cetacean veneration remains codified. And both, Magoism and cetacean totemism, are not registered in the conscious mind of mainstream academics and the public. This essay carves out a new method, a simultaneous de- and re-construction of currently endorsed data and their interpretations concerning early Sillan history and early Buddhism. For example, I have grouped the history of Silla into three periods based on the royal matrilineages (see Appendix I and II). Also, I rely on the insight that Sillans intended to redefine Buddhism within the scope of Magoist Cetaceanism. The whale-dragon bell was a new soteriological apparatus invented by Cetacean Magoists of Unified Silla to invoke the matriversal consciousness of the Magoist Cosmogony. The Sillan whale-dragon bell is a total package. The very feature, which this paper discusses for the two bells, is rife with the maternal-sono-aquatic-numeric symbols, which unfold the matriversal reality of WE/HERE/NOW.[5] Finally, the whale-dragon bell displays a pre- and trans-feminist perspective in which the issue of equality between women and men poses no conflict. The matriversal bond between humans and whales embraces all entities as interdependent beings. The task of unravelling the meaning of the Sillan whale-dragon bell is daunting in that we moderns have lost the language of matriversal whale totemism, Magoist Cetaceanism, which undergirds ancient Korean culture and history. In the figures below (Figures 5, 6, and 7), this essay employs three simultaneous approaches in examining the semantics of the whale-dragon bell. Apparently, a linear model falls short. The first approach, a matriversal approach, considers and explores the three arenas, Magoist Cetaceanism, Sillan Magoist Political Vision, and the Magoist Cosmogony ([Figure 5]). The second multi-semantic approach unpacks overlapping sub-categories, each of which is unfolding to new meanings ([Figure 6]). The last mytho-historical approach begins with Unified Silla to her predecessors, Budo Joseon, Danguk, to the Magoist Cosmogony, and to the Cosmic Music (Sonic Numerology) ([Figure 7]). By crisscrossing these three approaches, I weave the sections with sub-sections in the order of Introduction, Background Discussions, and the Two Bells: The Sangwonsa Bell and The Divine Bell. (To be continued) [1] See Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, “Unveiling,” 4-70. [2] For the discussion of the Pacifying Flute from the perspective of Magoist Cetaceanism, I began to write and published as three parts (ongoing). See Helen Hye Sook Hwang, “Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok),” Return to Mago E-Magazine, October 29, 2019, https://www.magoism.net/2019/10/essay-1-magoist-cetaceanism-and-the-myth-of-the-pacifying-flute-manpasikjeok-by-helen-hye-sook-hwang-ph-d/. [3] That Goma is deemed as the progenitor of Korean Shamans/Mudangs is the premise that many Koreanists would agree. See Neunghwa Yi in Joseon Musokgo (Investigation of Joseon Muism), quoted in Young-Jin Kim, “Accepting Shamanism and Reconstructing Sacred Space in Silla Buddhism (신라불교의 무격 수용과 신성공간의 재구성),” Bulgyoe Hakbo (불교학보), 68 (2014), 165. The whale veneration, pre-patriarchal in origin, undergirds the matriversal civilization of Goma at the time of the Danguk confederacy of Nine Hans (c. 3898 BCE-2333 BCE). Put differently, whale totemism constitutes the foundation of Goma’s matriversal civilization from which modern civilizations are derived. [4] I organized and held Mago Whale Pilgrimages for two years during the Covid years of 2021 and 2022. One Pilgrimage comprises three Tours and each Tour includes six daily meetings for one week. [5] The matriversal reality of WE/HERE/NOW is a concept unfolded in the Magoist Cosmogony. See Hwang, The Mago Way, Chapter 8. https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
A Scottish Photo Essay by Jude Lally

A collection of photos from the Isle of Eigg, in the lands of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland Guided by the bones Yellow iris Window view from Croft #6 – a historic croft Inspired by the lands of the Mother Honoring the Cailleach Honoring the ‘Big Women’ of the island. The Gaelic name of Eilean Nam Ban Mora translates to the English, Isle of the Bg Women At the Well of the Holy Women The Gloaming (Scottish twilight) On shell beach at 10.45 pm Looking out from the Oracles Chamber Watching seals play in the water A little Hebridean scene in needle felting it might be the middle of summer but chilly nights require a rather lovely woodier My clay woman – connecting me to the generations and generations of women who created figurines as they petitioned the Great Mother (Meet Mago Contributor) Jude Lally.
(Essay 2) A Mixteca Woman Saving the Lives of First Peoples in the Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copalá, Oaxaca, Mexico by Swami Pujananda Saraswati

[Author’s Note: Initially submitted in 2012, as part of the course material for the Master’s Program in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies. At the time of this publication, thanks to the efforts of this remarkable woman and others who have kept their unflinshing and caring commitment for the human rights of Indigenous People, the Autonomous Community of San Juan Copalá thrives and celebrates it sacred Earth-based and stars embodied cultural legacy. This is my small contribution in telling the story of Betty Cariño—herstory and history.] The title where the image appears translates:”The release of convicts accused of the assassination of activists in San Juan Copalá, Oaxaca”El caso de Alberta Cariño, van dos liberados Humanitarian Spirituality in Action —Or Integrating Fragmented Identities Everyone experiences loss, but how can the personal losses experienced in my life, as a panentheist, ecofeminist woman, relatively safe in the urban U.S., be of any significance while others, who are an extension of who I am, who constitute my own larger body (Virat),[19] inseparable from this interconnected breathing System-Universe called me and/or Earth, confront ethnic cleansing, the genocide of first peoples, bleeding communities displaced from one place to another, and women that lullaby their children going to sleep in hunger night after night, and without water for basic hygiene or medicine for their elders? How do I put the luxury of my peaceful life to work for those for whom peace is not available and have little or no choices? Even in my dreams, I hear their voices sobbing in a simple and honorable desire to live. The work of Bety Cariño was spirituality in action, whether her activism was fueled by a spiritual calling or not. He life was dedicated to protecting the lives and living conditions of those who were less fortunate. The so called First World and its leaders keep expanding the projections for consumerism, militarization, while corporate occupations and governments keep funding paramilitaries to carry out genocidal attacks against indigenous people (ethnic cleansing), while most of the people of the United States live in the midst of an economic collapse. In the midst of the present chaos, “First World” people, have much to learn from people who protect a small autonomous territory and farm their land, hold meetings of elders to keep the social order, support each other by celebrating and consuming the healing plants of the earth, and indigenous women can teach us much about sustainable ways of living, healing and dying in peace. In what ways is our need for spiritual activism hampered by participating in a society which promotes the social club called churchgoers’ religion? Can one even be a mediocre Christian, Jew or Hindu and still support a status quo and ethnic cleansing so close to us, right in our back yard, in the southern tip of Mexico? It is in this context that the ongoing repression and displacement of the people of San Juan Copala becomes an affront to the humanity of all freedom loving people. The assassination of first peoples, reasserted on April 27, 2010, with the ambush and shooting of human rights Mixteca activist Bety Cariño and Finnish human rights activist Jyri Jaakkola in La Sabana, a region controlled by the armed group Unión de Bienestar Social de la Región Triqui (UBICORT), a name which roughly and euphemistically translates as, “Social Welfare Union for the Triqui Region.” The Nordic male invaders that swept over egalitarian agricultural matrilineal societies, as detailed in the work of Marija Gimbutas, and the Spanish Conquerors who invaded the peoples of the original nations in the “New World,” are still informing the psycho-pathological attitudes of “divide and conquer” that the Eurocentric ruling patriarchal societies keep perpetuating for centuries and are again enacted in the massacres and murderous attacks, another form of “ethnic cleansing” against the Triqui indigenous people of the Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copala. Reading some of the works by Cherie Moraga, I am made aware of the tremendous need for women activists in the Oaxaca region and elsewhere in Latin America to unite. At a time when Moraga “began to make political the fact of being a Chicana”[20] she recalls her brother mentioning that he never felt “culturally deprived.” Moraga goes on to describe what many so called Latina women can relate to, how males in the household are served, sure with privileges like this there is no reason why males would feel culturally deprived. The one parallel that I find between Bety Cariño and Moraga’s feminism is the way in which each broke away from being the witness to atrocities, and worked for creating their own vision of what a more just world can be. Unlike Moraga, Cariño lives in a heterosexual family environment, but much like Moraga, she had a vision of how women can help each other beyond the socially acceptable normative values of kyriarchal society. Philosophical ethnocentricity has served to silence the voices and positions of indigenous women. Feminist Sylvia Marcos gives greater emphasis to decolonizing efforts which, according to her, “should be grounded at the epistemological level.” This is precisely the context in which Bety Cariño challenged an establishment that perpetuates the colonization of indigenous people. Through her efforts at CACTUS (Spanish language acronym for the non-profit founded by Ms. Cariño) she and others in the second caravan, challenged the colonizing stance of the government supported guerrillas, and this cost her her life. Like Cariño, many indigenous feminist women impose their efforts in ways that effectively correct what Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak calls “the international feminist tendency to matronize the Southern woman as belonging to gender oppressive second-class cultures.”[21] What is seen as by others as imposing, may be precisely what Marcos and other authors suggest by “decolonizing efforts […] grounded at the epistemological level.”[22] How else can one present a silenced, distorted and rejected indigenous epistemology to those who have imposed their culture and epistemology in your own land other than by being even more imposing, more persistent? The …

(Special Post 6) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hwang Without knowing nine numerology, it is NOT possible for us to understand the depth of Magoism, an anciently originated tradition of Old Korea/East Asia that venerated the Creatrix. “Giants” are the hallmark for the Goma, the people of Danguk (nine-state confederacy led by Goma, the Magoist Shaman queen). Those giants are not described as a singular people. They come in “81 brothers,” as mentioned below. We know what “brothers” mean, it is 81 sisters! Changing or translating a female-connoted term to the male proves its agent to be patriarchal. And Chiyou or Chiu (in Korean) is the ruler of Nine Ris (Guri), another name for Nine Hans (Guhan). Check this out: “Chiyou (蚩尤) was a tribal leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎) in ancient China.[1] He is best known as a king who lost against the future Yellow Emperor during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in Chinese mythology.[1][2][3] For the Hmong people, Chiyou[4] was a sagacious mythical king.[5] He has a particularly complex and controversial ancestry, as he may fall under Dongyi[1]Miao[5] or even Man,[5] depending on the source and view. Today, Chiyou is honored and worshipped as the God of War and one of the three legendary founding fathers of China.” “According to the Song dynasty history book Lushi, Chiyou’s surname was Jiang (姜), and he was a descendant of Yandi.[6]According to legend, Chiyou had a bronze head with a metal forehead.[1] He had 4 eyes and 6 arms, wielding terrible sharp weapons in every hand.[7] In some sources, Chiyou had certain features associated with various mythological bovines: his head was that of a bull with two horns, although the body was that of a human.[7] He is said to have been unbelievably fierce, and to have had 81 brothers.[7] Historical sources often described him as ‘cruel and greedy’,[6] as well as ‘tyrannical’.[8] Some sources have asserted that the figure 81 should rather be associated with 81 clans in his kingdom.[5] Chiyou knows the constellations and the ancients spells for calling upon the weather. For example, he called upon a fog to surround Huangdi and his soldiers during the Battle of Zhuolu. TRIBE Chiyou is regarded as a leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎, RPAWhite Hmong: Cuaj Li Ntuj) by nearly all sources.[1] However, his exact ethnic affiliations are quite complex, with multiple sources reporting him as belonging to various tribes, in addition to a number of diverse peoples supposed to have directly descended from him.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiyou Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Below is from my article, “Goma, The Shaman Ruler Of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea, And Her Mythology,” included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018). Goma is also credited for designating queens of the bear clan to state rulers. Another account of the Goma myth reads, “She looked after numerous spiritual persons and wise persons. Accepting women of the bear clan, Hanung made them rulers (后). Goma chose queens of the bear clan to make them nine state rulers. Note that Danguk is a nine state confedearcy. That Danguk’s nine states were headed by the queens of the bear clan is, among others, corroborated by Chinese mythological accounts. Chinese myth informs that Chiu, Huangdi’s opponent in an epic war, was aided by “a tribe of giants from the far north.”[1] In Chinese mythology, Gonggong and her minister, Xiangliu, symbolized as a dragon with nine heads in the body of a snake, are depicted as an enemy of Emperor Yu of Xia (ruled c. 2200–2100 BCE). Such a story is aligned with Sinocentrism inscribed in Chinese mythology that antagonizes pre-Chinese history of Old Magoist Korea/East Asia. In Chinese mythology, Gonggong (龔工) is described as a sea monster whose minister Xiangliu (相栁 Mutual Willow) is told to have been defeated by Yu, the Great.[2] Assuming the character hu (后 xia in Chinese pronunciation) to mean a male ruler’s wife, androcentric scholars have translated the above account as “Hanung received his queen from the bear clan. And he instituted the rite of matrimony.” This proves to be a modern androcentric bias in that hu originally means a “ruler.” This is the case of the logographic character whose original meaning has changed from “a female ruler” to “a male ruler” and to “the wife of ruler” over time. Ancient Chinese texts betray ample evidence. For example, Xiahou (夏后 Ruler of Xia) and Houyi (后羿 Ruler of Yi) respectively refer to a male ruler. Xiahou refers to Yu of Xia. Other ancient Chinese texts include the Classic of Poetry (詩經商頌玄鳥), the Zuozhuan (左傳) and the Book of Document (書經).[3] [1] C. Scott Littleton, ed. Mythology: The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth & Storytelling (San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2002), 414. Cited in Hwang, Finding Mago, 239 in note 494. [2] Lihui Yang, Deming An and Jessica Anderson Turner, Handbook of Chinese Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 214-5. [3] Goma, “Goma, The Shaman Ruler Of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea, And Her Mythology” Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018), 272. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang I am realizing that even ancient Chinese people depicted Chiyou as female. When her image is cropped from the whole frame, it is hard to tell. But see her in the attached image of the whole frame. In comparison with Chinese heroes (supposedly including Yellow Emperor) on the left side, she and her ally are depicted as a figure in a curvy body line. Of course, Chiyou was pejoratively depicted as she was an opponent to the future Chinese emperor, […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 1) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in […]
(Special Post 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.

(Essay) Contemplating How Her Creativity Proceeds by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the conclusion of chapter 5 of the author’s book, PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. It is a chapter on the process of the Wheel of the Year. for the Northern Hemisphere version: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems to me that the main agenda of the Cosmos is ongoing Creativity, “never-ending renewal” it may be termed, and that this is expressed in Earth’s Seasonal Wheel through the transitions of Autumn,Winter, Spring, Summer; and in the ubiquitous process of a Cosmic Triplicity of Space to Be, Urge to Be and this Place of Being, a dynamic that has often been imagined as the Triple Goddess. In the flow of the PaGaian Wheel of the Year, the Seasonal transitions of the Wheel and the Triplicity of the Cosmos come together. There are two celebrations of the Old One/Crone or the Cosmogenetic quality of autopoiesis creating the Space to Be; and they are Lammas/Late Summer and Samhain/Deep Autumn, which are the meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing dark phase. At Lammas, the first in the dark phase, we may identify with the dark and ancient Wise One – dissolve into Her; at Samhain, we may consciously participate in Her process of the transformation of death/the passing of all. The whole dark part of the cycle is about dissolving/dying/letting go of being – becoming – nurturing it (the midwifing of Lammas/Late Summer), stepping into the power of it (the certain departure of Autumn Equinox/Mabon), the fertility (of Samhain/Deep Autumn), the peaking of it (at Winter Solstice). The meridian points of the two quarters of the waxing light phase then are celebrations of the Young One/Virgin or the Cosmogenetic quality of differentiation, the new continually emerging, the Urge to Be; and they are Imbolc/Early Spring and Beltaine/High Spring. At Imbolc, the first in the light phase, we may identify with She who is shining and new – as we take her form; at Beltaine, we may consciously participate in Her process of the dance of life. The whole light part of the cycle is about coming into being: nurturing it (the midwifing of Imbolc/Early Spring), stepping into the power of it (the certain return of Spring Equinox/Eostar), the fertility (of Beltaine/High Spring), the peaking of it (at Summer Solstice). In the PaGaian wheel of ceremony there are two particular celebrations of the Mother, the Cosmogenetic quality of communion; and they are the Solstices. If one imagines the light part of the cycle as a celebration of the ‘Productions of Time’, and the dark part of the cycle as a celebration of ‘Eternity’, the Solstices then are meeting points, points of interchange, and are celebrations of the communion/relational field of Eternity with the Productions of Time. This is a relationship which does happen in this Place, in this Web. This Place of Being, this Web, is a Communion – it is the Mother; the Solstices mark Her birthings, Her gateways. The Equinoxes then – both Spring and Autumn – are two celebrations wherein the balance of all three Faces/Creative qualities is particularly present: in the PaGaian wheel, the Equinoxes have been special celebrations of Demeter and Persephone – echoing the ancient tradition of Mother-Daughter Mysteries that celebrate the awesomeness of the continuity of life, its creative tension/balance. Both Equinoxes then are celebrations and contemplations of empowerment through deep Wisdom – one contemplation during the dark phase and one during the light phase. The Autumn Equinox is a descent to Wisdom, the Spring Equinox is an emergence with Wisdom gained. I like to think of the Equinoxes, and of the ancient icons of Demeter and Persephone, as celebrations of the delicate ‘curvature of space-time’, the fertile balance of tensions which enables it all. Her Creative Place The Mother aspect then may be understood to be particularly present at four of the Seasonal Moments, which are also regarded traditionally as the Solar festivals; and in this cosmology Sun is felt as Mother. I recognize these four as points of interchange: at Autumn Equinox, Mother is present primarily as Giver – She is letting Persephone go, at Spring Equinox, She is present primarily as Receiver – welcoming the Daughter back, at Winter Solstice the Mother gives birth, creates form, at Summer Solstice, She opens again full of radiance, and disperses form. The Mother is Agent/Actor at the Solstices. She is Participant/Witness at the Equinoxes, where it is then really Persephone who is Agent/Actor, embodying an inseparable Young One and Old One. The Old One is often named as Hecate, who completes the Trio – all seamlessly within each other. Another possible way to visual it, or to tell the story, is this: The Mother – Demeter – is always there, at the Centre if you like. Persephone cycles around. She is the Daughter who returns in the Spring as flower, who will become fruit/grain of the Summer, who at Lammas assents to the dissolution – the consumption. At Autumn Equinox She returns to the underworld as seed – Her harvest is rejoiced in, Her loss is grieved, as She becomes Sovereign of the Underworld – Her face changes to the Dark One, Crone (Hecate). As the wheel turns into the light part of the cycle She becomes Young One/Virgin again. Persephone (as Seed) is that part of Demeter that can be all three aspects – can move through the complete cycle. The Mother and Daughter are really One, and embody the immortal process of creation and destruction. Demeter hands Persephone the wheat, the Mystery, and the thread of life is unbroken – it goes on forever. It is immortal, it is eternal. Even though it is true that all will be lost, and all is lost – Being always arises again: within this field of time there is never-ending renewal, eternity. This is what is revealed in the ubiquitous three faces of the Creative Dynamic/ She of Old, the Triplicity that runs through the Cosmos. The Seed of Life never …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 3) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. MAPPING THE MAGOIST CALENDAR According to the Budoji, the Magoist Calendar was fully implemented and advocated during the period of Old Joseon (ca. 2333 BCE-ca. 232 BCE) whose civilization is known as Budo (Emblem City). Indeed, the Magoist Calendar is referred to as the Budo Calendar in the Budoji. Budo was founded to succeed Sinsi and reignited Sinsi’s innovations including the numerological and musicological thealogy of the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji expounds on the Magoist Calendar as follows: The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a cyclic period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). A cycle of Little Calendar is called Sa (year). One Sa has thirteen Gi (months). One Gi has twenty-eight Il (days). Twenty-eight Il are divided by four Yo (weeks). One Yo has seven Il. A cycle of one Yo is called Bok (completion of a week). One Sa (year) has fifty-two Yobok. That makes 364 Il. This is of Seongsu (Natural Number) 1, 4, 7. Each Sa includes a Dan of the big Sa. A Dan is equal to one day. That adds up to 365 days. At the half point after the third Sa, there is a Pan of the big Sak (the year of the great dark moon). A pan comes at a half point of Sa. This is of Beopsu (Lawful Number) 2, 5, 8. A Pan is equal to a day. Therefore, the fourth Sa has 366 days. At the half point after the tenth Sa, there is a Gu of the big Hoe (Eve of the first day of the month). Gu is the root of time. Three hundred Gu makes one Myo. With Myo, we can sense Gu. A lapse of 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si makes one day. This is of Chesu (Physical Number), 3, 6, 9. By and by, the encircling time charts Medium Calendar and Large Calendar to evince the principle of numerology.[12] KEY TERMS Calendric Cycles Jongsi (終是 Ending and Beginning): Cyclic periods Soryeok (小曆 Little Calendar): One year Jungryeok (中曆 Medium Calendar): Two years Daeryeok (大曆 Large Calendar): Four years Names of Year, Month, Day, Week Sa (祀 Rituals, year): One year refers to the time that takes to complete the cycle of rituals. Gi (期 Periods, month): One month refers to the period of the moon and menstruation cycle. Il (日Sun, day): One day refers to the sun’s movement due to Earth’s rotation. Yo (曜 Resplendence of seven celestial bodies, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, week): Each weekday is dedicated to seven celestial bodies. Bok or Yobok (曜服 Duties of the Celestial Bodies, completion of a week): One week refers to the veneration of the seven celestial bodies. Names of Monthly Transition Days Hoe (晦 Eve of the first day of the month, 28th) Sak (朔 First day of the month, 1st, the dark moon) Names of Intercalation Days Dan (旦 Morning): Leap day for New Year Pan (昄 Big): Leap day for every fourth year Names of Time Units Gu (晷 sun’s shadow): Time measure, 1/300 Myo Myo (眇 minuscule): Time measure, a total of 300 Gu Myo-Gak-Bun-Si (眇刻分時 minuscule, possibly 15-minutes, minute, hour): Time measure, 9,633 Myo-Gak-Bun-Si is equal to a day Names of Three Types of Numbers in Nine Numerology Seongsu (性數Natural Number): 1, 4, 7 in the digital root Beopsu (法數 Lawful Number): 2, 5, 8 in the digital root Chesu (體數 Physical Number): 3, 6, 9 in the digital root THREE SUB-CALENDARS The Way of Heaven circles to generate Jongsi (a period, an ending and a beginning). Jongsi circles to generate another Jongsi of four Jongsi. One cycle of jongsi is called Soryeok (Little Calendar). Jongsi of Jongsi is called Jungryeok (Medium Calendar). Jongsi of four Jongsis is called Daeryeok (Large Calendar). The universe is infinite without beginning and ending. Everything runs the course of self-equilibration in relation to everything else. The Way of Heaven or the Way of the Creatrix circles and makes possible the infinite time/space to be measured and calculated. As the Way of Heaven circles, we are able to perceive Our Universe in finite measures of time/space. Time becomes measurable, as space is stabilized. Seasons and days-nights are demarcated in cyclic patterns, as the Earth makes the three cyclic movements of rotation, revolution, and precession. Calendar, born out of the inter-cosmic time, synchronizes human culture with the song/dance of the universe. The term Jongsi, which means an ending and a beginning, is equivalent to “a cyclic period” that is marked by the beginning and the end. Time (a day, a month, and a year) circles, as space (the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun) spirals. The Magoist Calendar has three sub-calendars: The period of one yearly cycle is called Little Calendar, whereas the period of two yearly cycles is called Medium Calendar and the period of four yearly cycles, Large Calendar. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang) Notes [12] Budoji, Chapter 23. See Bak Jesang, the Budoji, Bak Geum scrib., Eunsu Kim, trans. (Seoul: Gana Chulpansa, 1986).
(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
(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
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.
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. 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 that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/

(Book Announcement 4) Introduction (part 2) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This Introduction is from She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2.] Pre-order available now! The Text of the Primordial Mother/the Creatrix/Mago She Rises Volume 2, like her predecessor, is born out of the Magoist vision.[i] It intends to raise the collective consciousness of WE, a cognitive symbolic system derived from the knowing of the Primordial Mother or the Creatrix. One may call it an embodied knowing or gynocentric epistemology. Our stories shed light on the holistic view in which all parts are revered as a microcosm of the Creatrix. The She Rises book is an emblem of gynocentric cosmology: All contributions are interconnected and the book is enriched by each and all contributions. This book is NOT just about what we have discovered and what we have experienced about Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality but what and how we do with our discoveries and experiences. Where are we heading to with our knowing of S/HE? The collective consciousness of WE summons a gynocentric reality. This book is designed to show our togetherness in our uniqueness. It stands for unity that is enhanced by the diversity of individuals. The key phrase in the subtitle, “Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality,” is a reminder of the all-embracing gynocentric way of our becoming. We ARE committed to the making of the book to reflect the gynocentric principle of unity in diversity. We allow our differences to lead us to a new (read gynocentric) territory without making ourselves fall into factionalism. Competition in a constructive manner helps us grow. But factionalism destroys us. We speak our truths not to argue or win. We speak our truths because they are true to us. Truth speaks, even when we can’t hear. And we trust ourselves to speak our truths in HER. And S/HE shall bring us together in WE. To trust in our contributors is the map that we editors have followed in She Rises collective books. In the process, we have learned that what we really need to be careful of, not the other camp of Goddessians, but what really divides us among Goddessians/Magoists. In my Introduction to She Rises Volume 1, I drew attention to the word “Goddess,” concerning our need to reclaim it despite its linguistic drawback. Summarily, we strategically adopt the word, “Goddess,” knowing its derivative and subsequently dualistic nature from the word “God” in the English language.[ii] We are aware of the functional nature of language, a means for the meaning that we intend to convey. We choose one word over another for our political and utilitarian reasons. Our use of the word “Goddess” has given us a common ground to come together and interweave the She Rises books. The Magoist vision of the book merits the stance that the Goddess is not just the female divine or a sum of female deities but the Great Goddess, the Primordial Mother. It is S/HE who allows us the holistic view of WE/HERE/NOW, the ultimate reality. We who are awakened in S/HE know that we ARE this S/HE reality. In writing my Introduction to the second book, another term has come to my attention, “feminine.” As seen in this book, some of our authors have favorably chosen the word, “feminine” in support of Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality for reliable reasons. The context wherein the term is used is complex and highly suggestive of the female divine power. In their uses, some make it clear that the feminine refers to the female divine nature/power of women. Others use it in redefining and deconstructing patriarchal definitions of “the feminine.” It is true that “the divine feminine” or “the sacred feminine” has taken on popularity so much so that it appears almost indispensable in the Goddess Talk. Nonetheless, I hold that there is a point that we need to think and explore together the meaning of “feminine.” Linguistically speaking, referring to the gender quality of women, the meaning of “feminine” fluctuates. I find it worth broaching these questions to us: Is the term “feminine” empowering Goddess feminism? Why yes? Why no? These questions can only be answered by our authors and readers. We editors by no means advocate the purge of the term, feminine, from this book. Forcing unity is not gynocentric. We propose the question as an ongoing conversation among Goddessians. Here is my stance to the question, which is yes and no. When the context indicates an ancient (read gynocentric) or feminist meaning, the word “feminine” certainly empowers women. When “the divine feminine” indicates the Primordial Mother within an environment like this book, the word is empowering. Put differently, the meaning of “feminine” can be conveyed as gynocentric, that is, women-empowering, when “the divine feminine” refers to the Creatrix, the Great Goddess. In this case, the gender quality of “feminine” is coherent with the biological quality of “female.” The meaning of “feminine” in such context does NOT reflect the patriarchally-imposed qualities of women; the feminine is gynocentric and sacred. However, when the word “feminine” is used outside the gynocentric context, it becomes dubious in meaning, if not self-defeating, obstructing the impetus of women’s empowerment. Referring to the gender quality (read a social/patriarchal construct), of women, the meaning of “feminine” changes in different times and cultures. It is not free from socio-cultural settings. Being feminine today in the U.S. would be very different from being feminine two centuries ago. Also, being feminine today in one country would be very different from being feminine today in another country. On the other hand, the word, “female,” conveying the biological and biologically-derived quality of women, remains coherent in meaning across times and cultures. “Female” offers us a solid ground to build our feminist activism and feminist spirituality. Thus far, we women still hold the power of female biological and biologically-derived traits. The word, “feminine” alone risks a powerful conceptual ground for Goddess feminism. Precisely, it falls short in capturing the divine power of the Primordial Mother, the Creatrix. For example, I …
(2014 Mago Pilgrimage Report 1) Sweat Lodge in Gyodong, Ganghwa Islands by Helen Hwang

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

[Author’s Note: Year 4’s Mago Almanac celebrates the birth of Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey. The Magoist 13 month 28 day calendric movement has grown steadily and we welcome the public as well!] PREFACE: What Mago Almanac Planner Offers The Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey enchants people and our societies to live with a sense of the natural timespace patterned by the luni-menstrual rhythm in company with the earth’s song and dance. This is not a statement of poetic fancy unsupported by science or mathematics. We are invited to walk through the matrix of Sonic Numerology, the organizing force of Life. The 13 month 28 day Magoist Calendar returns calendric regularity to us. Calendric regularity is the very vision that unfolds the metamorphic reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Unlike the 12 month irregular day calendar that modifies the natural rhythm to serve the purpose of controlling people, the Magoist Calendar guides human activities within the natural rhythm to harmonize the human world with the natural world. The Mago Almanac Planner is built to provide flesh to the bones of the Mago Almanac. Taking the latter as foundation, Mago Almanac Planner partitions a year into the units of weeks and days. The regularity of 28 days makes it possible to lay out 52 weeks and 364 days with one or two extra days seamlessly. The rhythm of nine numbers becomes transparent. Each day of a year is named accumulatively in order i.e. the first to 364th. Likewise, each week of a year is named accumulatively in order i.e. Week 1 to Week 52. Each day is given the daily number, the moon phase, and/or 24 Seasonal Marks. Special days include such double dates as New Year (1st Moon 1st Day), double second (2nd Moon 2nd Day), double third (3rd Moon 3rd Day), and so forth. By writing the Mago Almanac Planner, I have observed that Double Ninth (9th Moon 9th day) overlaps with the 16th mark of 24 Seasonal Marks, Ipchu (立秋 Entering Fall) or Lammas in the Northern Hemisphere. The day of Double Ninth is indeed the center point of a year! Also the interval of 24 Seasonal Marks is about every 15 days, whereas that of 8 Seasonal Marks is about every 45 days. In three Appendixes, I have provided a traditional style of one year calendar, Year 4’s 364 Days (52 Weeks) with 2 Extra Days and their Gregorian Dates or the conversion chart, Large Calendar 1 (Years 1-4) marked in Gregorian C. Dates, and Year 4 Lunar-Menstrual Chart in which one can add their menstrual dates in relation to the moon phases and seasonal marks. As a whole, the Mago Almanac Planner is designed to personalize one’s own celebratory or commemorative days in tune with nature’s rhythm. This Planner marks the 4th year (Volume 4) of the revived Magoist Calendar, Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar. We are about to complete the first Large Calendar, which refers to the first four years (Years 1-4). We set the new moon date (December 18) before Winter Solstice in 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere as the first lunation of the revived Magoist Calendar. If we count the year from the onset of the nine-state Danguk confederacy (3898 BCE-2333 BCE) founded by Goma, Magoist Shaman Queen Mother, our Year 1 would be 5916 ME (Magoma Era). Technically speaking, the Magoist Calendar formed at the time of our beginning came to be reincarnated on December 18, 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere (hereafter it implies the Northern Hemisphere otherwise indicated.) The year 2018 for the rebirth of the revived Magoist Calendar was arbitrary in that it could have been in 2017 or 2019. In retrospect, I must say that we are lucky to set the time of our first lunation on December 18 2018 because it makes the calendric migration process the smoothest. This means that our Magoist Calendar runs as less as 13 days behind the Gregorian Calendar. If we had begun in 2017, our New Year would have been December 17. Only one day difference. However, if we had begun in 2016, our New Year would have been on November 29. Likewise, if we had begun in 2019, our New Year would have been on November 26. These dates are the new moon date before Winter Solstice, the New Year day. The Magoist Calendar charts the human world into the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW. The Magoist Calendar needs to be in use today, which means that it has to be translated into the language of the Gregorian Calendar. For we have lost the actual counting of the Magoist Calendar into our days in the course of patriarchal history. Mago Almanac serves the purpose of making our calendric migration possible from the 12 month Gregorian Calendar to the 13 month Magoist Calendar. It guides our collective journey in the Mother TimeSpace interwoven by the cosmogonic force of Sonic Numerology, the musical interplay of nine numbers, which gives birth, nurtures, and transforms all beings in the cosmos. Intriguingly, I have realized only last year that the Magoist Calendar is identical with “the 13 Moon Turtle Calendar,” the calendar of North American indigenous peoples, which adopts the turtle shell that has 13 inner sections and 28 outer sections for the calendar of 13 moons and 28 days (see figure). This speaks volumes that the 13 month 28 day calendar was once widely known among peoples of the ancient world. The Magoist Calendar restores the link between lunation and menstruation as a 28 day monthly cycle, a topic that I have discussed in my essay, “Introducing the Magoist Calendar: Original Blessing of the Womb Time,” included in this planner. Why do we need to reinstate the calendar that is based on the luni-menstruation rhythm? That is because the Magoist Calendar is in accordance with Sonic Numerology. Put differently, the moon-women duet inscribed in the 13 month 28 day calendar is given by the Natural World. In fact, the Magoist Calendar is the first and …