July 24, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

(Poem) The Gudrun of El Paso by Gloria Manthos

She sits half listening to the sing song of Spanish words that flit so easily from birds who never left their nest. Happily caged. Her mind conspires against itself, her Read More …

August 20, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poem) Embedded in the Turquoise Bands by Gloria Manthos

Coral snake slithers Circling corazón sangrante; Squeezes – to cauterize the wound.

August 19, 2014October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin2 Comments

(Meet Mago Contributor) Gloria Manthos

Gloria Denice Manthos travels by any means necessary. She writes, sings, dances, plays music, and climbs trees. She lives without air conditioning and chain smokes while contemplating love. She reads Read More …

(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 4) 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.] Whale-Dragon Bells and Unified Sillan Politics The whale-dragon bell is no mere spiritual device. It embodies a political vision of ancient Sillans. Restoring “the One Unified Home,” to quote from the Name Text of the Divine Bell, was the self-missioned political task for the Sillan matriversal ruling house.[1] While upholding the legacy of Magoist Cetaceanism, Sillans shaped their own destiny as the People of Mago, the Creatrix (Magoists). History has it that Silla annexed Gaya in 562 and brought demise to Baekje in 660 and to Goguryeo in 668. The Sillan matriarchal republic finally achieved the goal of becoming the mother state and embraced her daughter states, commencing Unified Silla (676-935).[2] However, the Sillan victory was not the same as the one achieved by their ancestors in pre-patriarchal (read pre-Chinese) times. No same history repeats. Sillans, together with other post-Budo daughter states of ancient Korea, were left without the mother government in the post-Budo period (see [Figure 9]).[3] The post-Budo period marks a watershed wherein the political system of matriversal confederacies was no longer available. No post-Budo states were free from the threats of patriarchal conquerors, the derivative but distortive patriarchal rule of ancient China. International politics dominated by ancient patriarchal China took over “the foreground,” ever debilitating the efforts of post-Budo Koreans to restore the matriversal confederacy.[4] The era of Unified Silla began with the 29th ruler Taejong Muyeol whose matrilineage came from the main royal matrilineage, the Sulrye line (see [Table 4] and Appendix I). The 30th ruler Munmu the Great completed the military task of defeating enemies and opened the new era, Unified Silla. Ironically, however, Unified Silla marked a transition wherein the matriarchal leadership was losing its political power. Royal mothers were placed on the periphery. Rulers of Unified Silla were in need of the religious, cultural, and spiritual means to proclaim the self-defined identity as the People of the Creatrix. For the first century of Unified Silla, we have noteworthy Magoist Cetacean rulers including Munmu the Great, Sinmun the Great, Seongdeok the Great, Gyeongdeok the Great, and Regent Queen Mother Manwol (see [Table 1]). Their major Magoist Cetacean achievements including Gameunsa (Graced Temple), Sea Tomb, Pacifying Flute, Hwangryongsa (Yellow Dragon Temple) Great Bell are discussed later in the paper. Among them was Munmu, a remarkable ruler with a monumental achievement for his Magoist Cetacean policies.[5] As international politics fell to the hand of non-Korean patriarchal conquerors in the post-Budo period, Sillan rulers were increasingly under the pressure of adopting the Chinese monarchical system for survival.[6] They faced multiple challenges from inside and outside. Consequently, the royal matrilineage, which previously provided queens to male rulers, was under threat. Ironically, what made Silla the self-identified Mother State, the royal matrilineage (see [Table 4], was losing gravity. In the wake of the disintegration of the royal matrilineage, Queen Mother Manwol (Full Moon) undertook the casting project of the Divine Bell. The Divine Bell was born as her last stand to hold onto socio-political stability and the matriversal Sillan identity. Sillans no longer maintained the royal matrilineage after the 37th ruler Seondeok (r. 780-785), marking the Late Period of Silla (785-935) (see Appendix I). History proves that Sillan court politics fell to chaos and instability. While the reigns of rulers were cut short, short-lived patrilineages began to surface. Meanwhile, whale-dragon bells continued to be cast by the hand of people and the court till the end of Silla and thereafter to this day. In that regard, the whale-dragon bell filled the void created by the fallen matriarchal leadership among Koreans throughout generations.[7] The eighth century Silla when the extant whale-dragon bells were cast faced queens either of the last in lineage or isolated from the royal matrilineage. As shown in [Table 1], many names of queen’s mothers are unknown, which is a striking contrast to the list of the second major royal matrilineage (see [Table 4]), which lasted for the seventeen generations of queens and queen mothers, approximately six hundred years. “Queen Mothers” refers to the mothers of rulers. The second major royal matrilineage (the Sulrye line) ends with the Queen Mothers, Cheonmyeong, Munmyeong, Jayi, Sinmok, and Saso, as indicated in [Table 4]. Queen Mother Manwol, posthumously addressed as Queen Mother Gyeongsu, was from a new lineage and the last of that lineage. Lineage & Reign (Years)RulerRuler’s MotherQueen ConsortQueen’s Mother Magoist Cetacean Expressions29 r. 654-661 (8)Taejong MuyeolCheonmyeongMunmyeongManmyeong Bohui30 r. 661- 681 (21)MunmuMunmyeongJayiBoryongGameunsa, Sea Tomb at Whale Harbor in the Sea of Whale (East Sea)31 r. 681-692 (12)SinmunJayi?YoseokPacifying Flute, Gameunsa (completed)Sinmok32 r. 692-702 (11)HyosoSinmokUnknown?Pacifying Flute 33 r. 702-737 (36)SeongdeokSinmokSeongjeong,?Sangwonsa Bell (725)Sodeok?34 r. 737-742 (6)HyoseongSodeokHyemyeong?Sea Tomb in the Sea of Whales (East Sea)35 r. 742-765 (24)GyeongdeokSodeokSammoSuro Hwangryongsa Bell (completed in 754), Manbulsan (762-5)Manwol?36 r. 765-780 (16)HyegongManwol (Regent)Sinbo?Divine Bell of the Seongdeok the Great (771)Changchang?37 (5) r. 780-785SeondeokSasoGujok? [Table 1: Rulers of Unified Silla with their Matrilineages and their Magoist Cetacean Achievements] (To be continued) [1] Sillans were not the only ancient Koreans who self-identified with the goal of restoring “the One Unified Home.” It is conjectured that post-Budo Koreans of Goguryeo (37 BCE-668) and Baekje (18 BCE-660) were also under the same political zeal to re-establish the pre-patriarchal matriarchal confederacy. See the Budoji Chapter 27. [2] Sillans took the concept of Iltong Samhan (一統三韓), the unification of Three Hans. Here Three Hans refers to the descendants of Three Hans of the Budo Joseon confederacy (2333 BCE-232 BCE), better known as Old Joseon. I have named the early Silla the matriarchal republic. See Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, “Unveiling an Ancient Silla Korean Testimony to the Mother World: An Introductory Discussion of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the Principal Text of Magoism,” S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, Vol 1 No 2 (2022), 49-50. [3] I have grouped into six …
(Poem) Omen by Sara Wright

This morning as I walked I saw an owl veer into the hemlocks, just above my head. Chestnut patterns stenciled on her feathery breast, powerful barred wings soaring in flight.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Shireen Qudosi

Storytelling on seismic cultural issues through the lens of the sacred, Shireen Qudosi looks at the space between things or within the Dark to map a new understanding of the human experience. Through that journey, she found a lost Islam. Shireen Qudosi is the author of The Song of the Human Heart: Dawn of the Dark Feminine in Islam, which speaks to the theologically-sound parallel reality of the world’s third-largest religion. Since 2015, Shireen has worked in a variety of settings to build story arcs rooted in belonging as a healing balm to the rising tide of polarity and extremism. Through multimedia projects, speaker series, workshops, curriculum, art, and story, Shireen connects with audiences simply and creatively in the language of the heart. She is devoted to creative storytelling as a modality for change, and to helping others find the stories that are uniquely their own. “The world we live in is growing more complex with newer challenges. These times are an invitation for us to step into our gifts. To do that, we need to remember the song of our hearts and the stories that are our own. My gift is in alchemizing chaos and confusion into song. I inspire others to believe it is possible to go within and below the surface layer of their identity to find the mystery, a wonderful complex constellation that is beautiful and uniquely their own.” Shireen is devoted to mapping figurative landscapes, and inviting others to go into unknown places not as a tourist, but as a child exploring the world for the first time filled with wonder and curiosity. As a daughter of refugees across three continents, as a mother to a son with Autism, and as an explorer in the wilderness of the heart, she believes that the mystery of being is often nested within the composite of our entire life experience, that we can find the sacred in the mundane nestled like a jewel in the rock. For more, visit https://www.shireenqudosi.com
(Essay 5) What It’s Like to Live on Wimmin’s Land by Hearth Moon Rising

These essays don’t have to be read in order, but previous ones are here, here, here, and here. Thus far, I’ve confined my series on wimin’s land mainly to the hardships. It is vital that women exploring this adventure recognize the pitfalls before committing time, energy, resources, and sacrificed opportunities to the endeavor. I do not intend to recount my experiences as a cautionary tale, however, so I will conclude this series by describing some of the wonderful things about wimmin’s land. Photo: Brocken Inaglory The best part is all the women. All the women you meet who share your beliefs and all the women who are different from you. Women who validate you and women who broaden your thinking. Even if there are only half a dozen women who call the land home, many more pass through. As I mentioned earlier, my perspective of wimmin’s land was partially informed by visiting other lands, and denizens of wimmin’s land were enthusiastic visitors as well as hosts. Some women spent years just traveling from land to land. Some would summer in Vermont and winter in Tucson, like old rich folks, only young and poor. Some women who worked regular jobs and had regular houses would spend their week’s vacation on wimmin’s land, arriving in their campers with the kids. Photo: g’pa bill Women in cities and towns close by would visit for a weekend, a day, or an evening event. While some women on the land wanted nothing to do with Goddess worship, women in the surrounding area would arrive at the solstices and equinoxes to participate in ritual. There was a symbiotic relationship between women in town and women on the land. Town women would provide respite, labor, or material resources. Women on the land would housesit and carpool to creative or political events. Some women on the land were healers, offering services for donation or barter. The land was also a low cost option to hold a workshop, albeit without the amenities. You could always find someone on the land to pat your back or listen when you felt frustrated or sad. There were always women up for deep discussions about politics or spirituality or books. These were real discussions, where you explored areas of agreement, listened to other perspectives, and allowed yourself to be persuaded, not the competitive debating style of communication favored by most men. In the evening, at least a few times a week, there would be campfires and singing. Some women brought instruments, but we had a supply of rattles and drums. Potlucks might be impromptu or planned, attended by town women who had real kitchens. Photo: Tkkk Children loved the drumming sessions, campfires, and ritual, but they also created their own entertainment. They liked to write and perform plays, and they would write their handbills on scraps of paper and pass them around. Like parents summoned to the school play, women would obediently turn out for the performance. There were a lot of hard times on the land, as I’ve described elsewhere, but calamity can occur in other places, too. If we had more than our share of hardship, we never went through anything alone. Always there were women around to celebrate and women to share the load. https://www.magoism.net/2013/04/meet-mago-contributor-hearth-moon-rising/
(Essay 1) Gaia as a Cosmic Name by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

[This essay is part 1 of an edited excerpt from Chapter 1 of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion.] For years I described my spiritual practice as Gaian, perhaps encouraged by Charlene Spretnak’s use of the term for an article in 1991.[1] It is an Earth-based spirituality, which requires only birth, not baptism, for belonging. We are all native to Gaia; all humans are indigenous to Her, though as Primordial Mother She may have other names. All humans can lay claim to relationship with Air, Fire, Water and Earth and to the Mystery at the Centre of it all. We do all issue forth from the same Origin – this is not just poetic flourish, this is biologically and cosmologically true. Gaia, as I understand Her, is not only Earth; She is Cosmos. Earth is that particular manifestation of Her with whom we are most intimate, and with whom all humans participate, whether conscious or not. The same Creative Dynamic (capitalized because it may be a name for the Sacred) that flourishes in Earth is assumed to be the same Creative Dynamic present throughout the Universe. Earth-Gaia is Seed and Jewel of a larger living Organism. Earth-Gaia is our Mother, but She is Daughter too, of an essential sentience that seethes through the Universe. Inasmuch as I am sentient, and I arise out of Earth, and Earth arises out of Universe, then Universe-Gaia is alive and sentient.[2] She is the eternal pulse, in which each one of us flows. Gaia is Earth, is Universe, is Ultimate Mystery, is you, is me – She is multivalent. The only faith required in this spirituality is in the Teeming Abundant Creativity (another Name?) that has been manifesting now for some thirteen point seven billion years, and which has survived on this planet in particular for millions of years. This is not a flimsy track record! Perhaps, as James Lovelock has said, this is “as near immortal as we ever need to know”;[3]or as Susan Griffin said more poetically, “at no instant does She fail me in Her presence.”[4]
(Prose) Angrboða, Her Children, and Our Shadow Selves by Deanne Quarrie

In the land of the Northern Europeans, the very first beings were the giants and giantesses. I call them the Jötunn folk for they come from the realm of Jötunheimr. One story that I find particularly fascinating is that of Angrboða and her three children. She is known as the Hag of Iron Wood, one of the witches of Iron Wood who are a group of giantesses that gave birth to fierce wolves. Angrboða took Loki as her consort, and as a product of that union, gave birth to Fenrir, Jormungandr, and Hela. Angrboða was called Hag, but this comes to us in the same way as Hagia, meaning wise. She was the tribal wise woman of the Nine Clans of Iron Wood, often referred to as the chief of chieftains. The Iron Wood Clan were known to be werewolves – some staying in animal form, others shapeshifting at will to other forms, some were feathered and some scaled. So it comes as no surprise that the children of Angrboða were a wolf, a serpent, and a woman, half-dead/ half-alive. Angrboða is a grief-giver. Her name means “foreboding” and she ultimately functions as the giantess who undoes creation or brings about destruction through each of her children Angrboða reveals herself to us primarily as a mother figure through the stories of her children. She is however, much more. In her stories we can find all aspects of the Goddess in her. In the time that these stories originated, marriage was not as we know it today. It is often thought that she was married to Loki but in fact, he was her consort. She is a perfect example of independence and our right to choose, her choice of a consort. She was a tribal wise woman referred to as chief of chieftains, her strength and wisdom honored by her people. She chose to bring three children into the world and no more. Angrboða’s children give us a great opportunity to explore our own shadow nature – that which we hide in all its perceived ugliness. And Angrboða, as their mother, gives us a beautiful example of unconditional mother love, a mother loving her children in the darkest of ugliness. Fenrir is a terrible monster in the shape of a wolf. There was a story that one day, Fenrir would be responsible for the destruction of the world, and so they did everything in their power to destroy him before he could. After many attempts to chain him, with each chain being too weak to hold him, they appealed to the dwarves to create a chain that could contain him. And so they did. In the process of getting this chain on him, Fenrir bites Tyr’s hand off and ultimately consumes Odinn—the wise one. From Dungeons N Dragons Website Fenrir serves as the raw, passionate power of women from which we may feel overwhelmed by or deny or suppress. When we read of Fenrir’s passion, his fierceness, and his raw power, we can look within our own lives for this, living in a patriarchal society in which so much of who we are is, or can be, suppressed. Through Fenrir the patriarchal-based Norse cosmology ends—Fenrir cannot ultimately be contained no matter how hard Odinn tries. This tells us that no matter how hard we try to suppress this power and passion, it is there and something we need to learn how to be comfortable with, for within it is a divine creative ability, meant for us to use. At one time, Jormungandar lived in Asgard, another realm of the Norse. He was cast out by Odinn and banished to the sea surrounding Midgard (the home of humans) and it was Odinn’s hope that he would be consumed in the waves. However, rather than be consumed, Jormungandar thrived and pretty soon all the fish had been eaten and the water levels fell so low that Jormungandar encircled the entire planet. He is the serpent that wraps around and contains Midgardr. Jormungandar holds the world together preventing disorder and chaos from ensuring, until Thor comes along and disrupts everything; the serpent rises and unleashes poison into the world and the world fragments. Again we see the ugliness of shadow and the suppression of the energy available for creative uses. In learning of his story we need to ask, “How do I feel that I hold things together in my life and for those around me? What would happen if I let go? What “poison” do I fear they have or might become unleashed if that were to happen? And lastly, we have Hela, who is the half-living/half-dead goddess. She was cast into the netherworld to care for those souls who did not die in battle. Her realm is called Helheim. She accepts all into her realm and is who decides what is to become of each soul who arrives. Helheim is a shelter rather than a “hell” as often portrayed by Christians. It is where souls gather until they reincarnate. As the keeper of the dead, she is always in a state between the light and the dark. Many believe that our shadow nature is made up of those negative traits we wish to hide and not acknowledge. However, the other side of that, also a part of our shadow, are all of those brilliant things we could do – the talents and gifts that we have that we do not use. And so like Hela, we live between light and dark. We need to ask ourselves, what aspects of our lives that we carry around and are afraid to let go of are no longer breathing life into us? How do these aspects also give us power and discernment? What aspects of ourselves do we fear to develop or push aside for less important things? These are all the parts of us. We are both light and dark. We would not be who we are without every aspect of our being. …
(Essay 1) Blossoms in Dark Times – Triads of Women Saints in Catholic tradition by Angelika Heike Rüdiger

When I was a little girl I used to look forward to one special day soon after the first candle on the green Advent wreath had been burning. One of my grandmothers or my great-grandmother went out into our little orchard in the garden and cut a branch from the plum tree covered with hoar-frost, brought it into the house and put it into a bowl of water. I knew the branch would blossom on Christmas Eve. I knew that it was cut in honor of a virgin, in whose dress wintry branches caught ere she was led to prison to suffer for her faith, but the branches blossomed. I had learned that she had been jealously guarded by her father and had been closed up into a tower. But she had three windows made in the wall through which light fell into her dark prison.
(Art) “and you will be like God [sic]” from the Genesis of the Bible by Liz Darling

Artist’s Note- These paintings encompass ideas about female sexuality, the divine feminine, and religion. The experience of becoming a mother transformed the way I view the female body and the creation of life. Inspired by performing in Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, I use the vulva as a symbol of female power.
(Prose) Memory by Susan Hawthorne

I’ve been reading for this E-Magazine for years. The subject of memory is frequently in my thoughts. On occasion during my life I have had memory loss as a result of epileptic seizures. It is a strange experience to not know who you are and why you are in a place you don’t know. But what I am really interested in is not loss of consciousness but methods for increasing the possibilities of memory and how different cultures do this. Susan Hawthorne, Ph.D. In the early 1980s I read Frances Yates book, The Art of Memory (1966) and that answered some of my questions. In 2016, I discovered Lynne Kelly’s Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies: Orality, Memory and the Transmission of Culture (2015). Since then she has published The Memory Code (2016) and Memory Craft (2019). Each book has become more populist and in some ways loses the huge insights of the first. At the same time, it makes the ideas more accessible and broadens the examples. It was a trip to Stonehenge that set Lynne Kelly on her journey and from there she has examined the memory techniques used not only in prehistory, but also among Indigenous cultures on every continent and in Medieval Europe. I was familiar with these ideas because in the 1980s I read a great deal about Indigenous cultures and thought about the ways in which this might apply elsewhere. For example, the jumpers that sailors on the west coast of Scotland wore were knitted with very specific clan patterns. In the event of the body of a sailor washing up on the coast, there was a good chance that he would be recognisable by his patterned jumper. In Australia stories that include features of the landscape become important mnemonics for stable and accurate memory. These memories are critical to survival in order to find water, food and shelter in inhospitable environments. What the memories encode are the means for making the environment a relation. The following is from my novel written between 1982 and 1991. You are teaching me the ancient iconography of this land: the coils, circles, spirals, figures and shapes drawn in the sand. You are teaching me the language of the landscape: to follow the routes to waterholes and hilltops. Later you will teach me how to find my way across the desert. I draw shapes in the sand, reciting stories of the land in my head. The earth is my paper, my hand the pen. I am learning the ancient art of memory. (The Falling Woman. 1992, p. 189). I wrote my novel in place of a PhD on ‘The Structure of Belief Systems in the Ancient World’. My supervisors tried, instead, to turn me into a postmodernist. I gave up that PhD, but now and then I consider what I might have written given a more friendly environment. Back to Lynne Kelly’s work; it is fascinating and I hope that her ideas are taken up. In this short-term memory world of Google, of everything just a click away, we really need people with long and accurate memories. Her books give lots of examples of ways to create stable memory meaning that maybe you won’t need your phone, just your brain. Some links: The Art of Memory: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Memory-Frances-Yates/dp/1847922929 Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies: https://www.amazon.com.au/Knowledge-Power-Prehistoric-Societies-Transmission-ebook/dp/B00Y37ZDJ4 The Memory Code: https://www.amazon.com.au/Memory-Code-traditional-Aboriginal-Stonehenge/dp/1525226487/ref=pd_sim_14_1/355-1490613-6365339?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1525226487&pd_rd_r=7caa49a8-9fc1-11e9-8a7a-bf6b2e57366a&pd_rd_w=4fnqC&pd_rd_wg=CKI7L&pf_rd_p=f09e5598-fbdb-4712-af44-62e0022496fc&pf_rd_r=TKE51NPFQYXTPVXM2E8Q&psc=1&refRID=TKE51NPFQYXTPVXM2E8Q Memory Craft: https://www.amazon.com.au/Memory-Craft-Improve-powerful-methods-ebook/dp/B07P529LZ2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Memory+Craft&qid=1562398946&s=books&sr=1-1 The Falling Woman: http://spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=64/ © Susan Hawthorne, 2019.(Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne.

(Special Post 2) Multi-linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

Artwork, “The-great-mother” by Julie Stewart Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Magi/Magus, from Magi – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest. Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic, to include astronomy/astrology, alchemy and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for (Pseudo‑)Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words “magic” and “magician”. In the Gospel of Matthew, “μάγοι” (magoi) from the east do homage to the newborn Jesus, and the transliterated plural “magi” entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as “kings” and more often in recent times as “wise men”).[1] The singular “magus” appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician. … An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival magavan meaning “possessing maga-“, was once the premise that Avestan maga- and Median (i.e. Old Persian) magu- were co-eval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit magha-). While “in the Gathas the word seems to mean both the teaching of Zoroaster and the community that accepted that teaching”, and it seems that Avestan maga- is related to Sanskrit magha-, “there is no reason to suppose that the western Iranian form magu (Magus) has exactly the same meaning”[4] as well. But it “may be, however”, that Avestan moghu (which is not the same as Avestan maga-) “and Medean magu were the same word in origin, a common Iranian term for ‘member of the tribe’ having developed among the Medes the special sense of ‘member of the (priestly) tribe’, hence a priest.”[2]cf[3] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gaia, from Gaia (mythology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In Greek mythology, Gaia (/ˈɡaɪə, ˈɡeɪə/ GHY-ə, GAY-ə;[1] from Ancient Greek Γαῖα, a poetical form of Γῆ Gē, “land” or “earth”),[2] also spelled Gaea (/ˈdʒiːə/ JEE-ə),[1] is the personification of the Earth[3] and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess. She is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods) and the Giants, and of Pontus (the sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.[4] … The Greek name Γαῖα (Gaĩa)[5] is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic Γῆ[6] (Gê), Doric Γᾶ (Gã, perhaps identical to Δᾶ Dã)[7] meaning “Earth”, a word of uncertain origin.[8] Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin.[9] In Mycenean Greek Ma-ka (transliterated as Ma-ga, “Mother Gaia”) also contains the root ga-.[9][10] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Greek mythology of Gaia’s family tree is remotely evocative of the Magoist genealogy written in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principale text of Magoism. In Korean, “Mama” is also an honorary title referring to the royal family including ruler, ruler’s mother, father, grandmother and so on. This suggests that “ma” means “mother,” “ruler,” and “Goddess” all at once in gynocentric/gynocratic (Magoist/Magocratic) societies, pre-patriarchal in origin. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I came to search the etymology of “montgomery” in relation to Mt. Mago or Mt. Goya and am led to such related terms as Gomer, Gog, Magog. Montgomery (name) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Montgomery or Montgomerie is a surname from a place name in Normandy.[1] Although there are many stories of its origin,[2][3][4][5] An old theory explains that the name is a corruption of “Gomer’s Mount” or “Gomer’s Hill” (Latin: Mons Gomeris), any of a number of hills in Europe named in attribution to the biblical patriarch Gomer,[2] but it does not explain the final -y or -ie (the phonetical evolution would have been *Montgomers) and it does not correspond to the old mentions of the place name Montgommery in Normandie : Monte Gomeri in 1032 – 1035, de Monte Gomerico in 1040 and de Monte Gumbri in 1046 – 1048.[6] More relevant is the explanation by the Germanic first name Gumarik,[7] a compound of guma “man” (see bridegroom) and rik “powerful”, that regularly gives the final -ry (-ri) in the French first names and surnames (Thierry, Amaury, Henry, etc.). Moreover, the name is still used as a surname in France as Gommery,[8] from the older first name Gomeri.[9] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gomer below from Wikipedia. Gomer (גֹּמֶר, Standard Hebrew Gómer, Tiberian Hebrew Gōmer, pronounced [ɡoˈmeʁ]) was the eldest son of Japheth (and of the Japhetic line), and father of Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah, according to the “Table of Nations” in the Hebrew Bible, (Genesis 10). The eponymous Gomer, “standing for the whole family,” as the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia expressed it,[1] is also mentioned in Book of Ezekiel 38:6 as the ally of Gog, the chief of the land of Magog. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: On the word, Gog and Magog from Wikipedia. Gog and Magog: They are depicted as monsters and barbarians from the East/Eurasia. Gog and Magog (/ɡɒɡ/; /ˈmeɪɡɒɡ/; Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג Gog u-Magog; Arabic: يَأْجُوج وَمَأْجُوج Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) are names that appear in the Hebrew bible (Old Testament), the Book of Revelation and the Qur’an, sometimes indicating individuals and sometimes lands and peoples. Sometimes, but not always, they are connected with the “end times”, and the passages from the book of Ezekiel and Revelation in particular have attracted attention for this reason. From ancient times to the late Middle Ages Gog and Magog were identified with Eurasian nomads such as the Khazars, Huns and Mongols (this was true also for Islam, where they were identified first with Turkic tribes of Central Asia and later with the Mongols). Throughout this period they were conflated with various other legends, notably those concerning Alexander the Great, the Amazons, Red Jews, and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and became the subject of much fanciful literature. In modern times they remain associated with apocalyptic thinking, especially in the United States and the Muslim world. Helen […]
(Special post) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

Posted with permission in Return to Mago on ‘Australia Day’, 26 January 2014 (Australian time), in recognition of the ill-treatment and misunderstanding of Aboriginal people that was set in train when, in 1788, white people first settled in the land now known as Australia.
(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.

(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
(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Sekhmet by Katlyn Each year between December 20-23 Sun reaches Her peak in the Southern Hemisphere: it is the Summer Solstice Moment. Poetry of the Season may be expressed in this way: This is the time when the light part of day is longest. You are invited to celebrate SUMMER SOLSTICE Light reaches Her fullness, and yet… She turns, and the seed of Darkness is born. This is the Season of blossom and thorn – for pouring forth the Gift of Being. The story of Old tells that on this day Beloved and Lover dissolve into the single Song of ecstasy – that moves the worlds. Self expands in the bliss of creativity. Sun ripens in us: we are the Bread of Life. We celebrate Her deep Communion and Reciprocity. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express Her fullness of being, Her relational essence and Her Gateway quality at this time. And also for consideration, is the fact that most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Summer Solstice. As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable, that which can only be known in body, below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syTBjWpw3XU Shalako Mana Hopi 1900C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess), Corn Mother. Food is a miracle, food is sacred. She IS the corn, the corn IS Her. She gives Herself to feed all. The food/She is essential to survival, hospitality and ceremony … and all of this is transmuted in our beings. Sekhmet Contemporary image by Katlyn. Egyptian Sun Goddess. Katlyn says: Her story includes the compassionate nature of destruction. The fierce protection of the Mother is sometimes called to destroy in order to preserve well being. And Anne Key expresses: She represents “the awesome and awe-full power of the Sun. This power spans the destructive acts of creation and the creative acts of destruction.”- (p.135 Desert Priestess: a memoir).A chant in Her praise by Abigail Spinner McBride: Sheila-na-gig 900C.E. British Isles. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). From Elinor Gadon The Once and Future Goddess (p.338): “She is remembered in Ireland as the Old Woman who gave birth to all races of human…. In churches her function was to ward off evil”, or to attract the Pagan peoples to the church. From Adele Getty Goddess (p.66): “The first rite of passage of all human beings begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. In India, the vulva “known as the yoni, is also called cunti or kunda, the root word of cunning, cunt and kin … (the yoni) was worshipped as an object of great mystery … the place of birth and the place where the dead are laid to rest were often one and the same.” Getty says her message here in this image “is double-edged: the opening of her vulva and the smile on her face elicit both awe and terror; one might venture too far inside her and never return to the light of day …” as with all caves and gates of initiation. In the Christian mind the yoni clearly became the “gates of hell”. And as Helene Cixous said in her famous feminist article “The Laugh of the Medusa”: “Let the priests tremble, we’re going to show them our sexts!” (SIGNS Summer 1976) Kunapipi (Australia) “the Aboriginal mother of all living things, came from a land across the sea to establish her clan in Northern Australia, where She is found in both fresh and salt water. In the Northern Territory She is known as Warramurrungundgi. She may also manifest Herself as Julunggul, the rainbow snake goddess of initiations who threatens to swallow children and then regurgitate them, thereby reinforcing the cycle of death and rebirth. In Arnhem Land She is Ngaljod …” (Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller – thanks to Lydia Ruyle). More information: re Kunapipi. NOTE the similarity to Gobekli Tepe Sheela Turkey 9600B.C.E., thanks Lydia Ruyle.Lydia Ruyle’s Gobekli Tepe banner. Inanna/Ishtar Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E. (Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature) She holds Her breasts displaying her potency. She is a superpower who feeds the world, nourishes it with Her being. We all desire to feel this potency of being: Swimme and Berry express: “the infinite striving of the sentient being”. Adele Getty calls this offering of breasts to the world “a timeless sacred gesture”. Mary Mother of God 1400 C.E. Europe (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A recognition, even in the patriarchal context that She contains it all. Wisdom and Compassion Tibetan Goddess and God in Union. This is Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle). Sri Yantra Hindu meditation diagram of union of Goddess and God. 1500 C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, p.75). “Goddess and God” is the common metaphor, but it could be “Beloved and Lover”, and so it is in the mind of many mystics and poets: that is, the sacred union is of small self with larger Self. Prajnaparamita the Mother of all Buddhas. (The Great Mother Erich Neumann, pl 183). She is the Wisdom to whom Buddha aspired, Whom he attained. Medusa Contemporary, artist unknown. She is a Sun Goddess: this is one reason why it was difficult to look Her in the eye. See Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! REFERENCES: Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1990. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess.Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Katlyn, artist https://www.mermadearts.com/b/altar-images-art-by-katlyn Key, Anne. Desert Priestess: a memoir. NV: Goddess Ink, 2011. Mann A.T. and …
(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …
The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ as is experienced and contemplated in the Season of Deep Autumn/Samhain, may be a metaphor for the passing of all/any that has come to fullness of being, or that has had a fullness, a blossoming of some kind, and borne fruit; and in the passing it has been received, and thus transforms. The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ may be in hearts and minds, an event or events, a period of time, or an era, that was a deep communion, now passed and dissolved into receptive hearts and minds, where it/they reside for reconstitution, within each unique being. Samhain is traditionally understood as ‘Summer’s end’: indeed that is what the word ‘Samhain’ means. In terms of the seasonal transitions in indigenous Old European traditions, Summer is understood as over when the Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Lughnasad comes around; it is the first marked transition after the fullness of Summer Solstice. The passing and losses may have been grieved, the bounty received, thanksgiving felt and expressed, perhaps ceremonially at Autumn Equinox/Mabon; yet now in this Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn it composts, clearly falls, as darkness and cooler/cold weather sets in, change is clearer. In the places where this Earth-based tradition arose, Winter could be sensed setting in at this time, and changes to everyday activity had to be made. In our times and in our personal lives, we may sense this kind of ending, when change becomes necessary, no longer arbitrary: and the Seasonal Moment of Samhain may be an excellent moment for expressing these deep truths, telling the deep story, and making meaning of the ending, as we witness such passing. What new shapes will emerge from the infinite well of creativity? And we may wonder what will return from the dissolution? What re-solution will be found? We may wonder what new shapes will emerge. In the compost of what has been, what new syntheses, new synergies, may come forth? Now is the time for dreaming, for drawing on the richness within, trusting the sentience, within which we are immersed, and which we are: and then awaiting the arrival, being patient with the fermentation and gestation. Seize the moment, this Moment – and converse with the depths within your own bodymind, wherein She is. Make space for the sacred conversation, the Conversing with your root and source of being, and take comfort in this presence. We may ponder what yet unkown beauty and wellness may emerge from this infinite well of creativity. The Samhain Moment in the Northern Hemisphere is 17:14 UT 7thNovember this year. Wishing you a sense of the deep communion present in the sacred space you make for this holy transition.
(Essay) The Wheel of the Year and Climate Change by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ The Wheel of the Year in a PaGaian cosmology essentially celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, in which Earth’s extant Creativity participates directly, as does each unique being. The Creativity of Cosmogenesis is expressed through Earth-Sun relationship as it may manifest and be experienced within any region of our Planet. In PaGaian tradition this is expressed with Triple Goddess Poetry, which is understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution, as it does in the Seasons, happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: and that is because this tilt effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago, and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago[i]. Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it, in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found[ii], and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found[iii]. The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as our ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change[iv]. In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done; but it will continue to evolve as all language must. At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make everyday around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming into being and passing away[v]. Our need for sacred ceremony of relationship with our place, can only be more dire in these times, as we are witness to, and aware of, …
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 Winter Solstice is a celebration of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Triple Goddess in particular – as both Solstices may be, as dark or light come to fullness. Winter Solstice Moment celebrates the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb, and the gateway from that fullness back into new growing light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being, and Her birthing happens in every moment in the breath, and is seamlessly connected with all layers of being – of self, Earth and Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsVZzXtoyM The Text in the Meditation[i] Take a deep breath and let it go. Notice the Void at the bottom of emptying your breath … feeling it, and feeling the Urge to breathe as it arises. And again … feeling it over and over – this breath that arises out of the full emptiness in every moment, birthing you in every moment. – Recall some of the birthings in your life, your actual birth – see it there in your mind’s eye … you coming into being – your Nativity, your Nativity. Recall projects you have brought into being, new beings within yourself, perhaps children, new beings in others, how you have been Creator and Created – even at the same time … who was birthing who? Staying for a while with the many, many birthings in your life. – recalling now Earth-Gaia’s many birthings out of the Dark everyday … the dawn is constant as She turns. See Her in your mind’s eye – the constant dawning around the globe, the constant birthing. Recall Earth’s many births right now of all beings – as day breaks around the globe – the physical, emotional, spiritual births. Her many, many birthings everyday, and throughout the eons. recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. – recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. Come back to your breath – this wonder – none of it separate … the Origin Ever-Present, birthing you in every moment – out of Her Fertile Dark, in real time and space. Feeling this breath, Her breath. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, Winter Solstice ceremonial script, p. 195-196. Reference: Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology. Music: Fish Nite Moon by Tim Wheater, permission generously given Images: – Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pl. 155. See https://pagaian.org/book/cover-goddess-image/ – Winter Solstice window, MoonCourt Australia 2016 – some sources unknown

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

[Author’s note: This paper is published in the journal, the Gukhak yeonguronchong 국학연구론총 (Issue 14, December 2014). Here it will appear in five sequels including the response by Dr. Glenys Livingstone.] Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity[1] Abstract: This paper discusses the gynocentric principle in the Magoist cosmogony embodied in Cosmic Music and compares it with the traditions of Muses in ancient Greco-Roman culture and Matrikas in Hindu cultures. Methodologically, being the first research of its own kind, my study of Magoism takes a path led by the peculiarities of primary sources from Korea, China, and Japan. As a result, a feminist, transnational, multi-disciplinary, and comparative approach is employed to dis-cover otherwise irrelevant or isolated materials that include written texts, folktales, art, literary and place-names. The Magoist cosmogony characterized by Cosmic Music as ultimate creativity and Mago lineage of the first three generations known as Gurang (Nine Goddesses), the Mago Triad (Mgo and Her two daughters) and eight granddaughters strikes a strong resonance in Muses and Matrikas. In the latter two traditions, not only linguistic and numerical evidence but also the gynocentric (read female-centered) principle represented by parthenogenesis, matri-lineage, and cultural manifestations appear akin to the Magoist cosmogony. From the perspective of Magoism, such multifaceted unity is not surprising. Precisely, traditional Magoists self-proclaim as the memory-bearer of the original narrative of the Primordial Mother. Keywords: Mago, Mago Stronghold, Budoji, Parthenogenesis, Muse, Matrika, Goddess, Cosmic Music, Music of the Universe, Nine Goddesses, Triad, Matrilineal, Korean Goddess, Mago lineage, Greek Goddess, Indian Goddess, Hinduism
(Mago Almanac Planner Year 5 Excerpt 1) 13 Month 28 Day Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This and its sequences are a newly added portion in the Mago Almanac Planner Year 5, equivalent to the Gregorian Year 2022. Because the Budoji did not explain further about time units smaller than 1 day, I did not follow through some possible implications in previous Mago Almanac volumes. Next year’s Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar Year 5 or 5919 MAGOMA ERA is forthcoming in Mago Bookstore (October 25, 2021). PDF version is available for purchase.] Angbuilgu (仰釜日晷 Concave Sundial) dated in 1434 of Joseon Dynasty Korea (13 horizontal lines are engraved, indicating 24 seasons and 7 vertical lines indicating times of a day) UNITS OF TIME MEASURE At the half point of the eleventh Sa, there is one 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. 1 Gu (approx. 3.71 miliseconds) refers an infinitesimal discrepancy that occurs every eleven years or every ten and a half years precisely. Because Gu (a noncognitive time unit) is a time too small to count, Gu can only be treated as 1 Myo, equivalent to 300 Gu. As shown in the below table, Myo is still a tiny unit of time. 9,633 Myo equals 1 day, which is 288,990 Gu (300×9633=288,990). Because of this, there will be one extra day (9,633 Myo) every 31,788,900 years. This means, the Magoist Calendar has another (the third) leap day every 31,788,900 years (11 x 300 x 9,633). 31,788,900 years is a long time, which we will presumably not take into consideration for the Magoist Calendar dating 3898 BCE (the beginning year of Goma’s Danguk confederacy) that we are under. Because the units of Gak, Bun, and Si are not further explained in the Budoji,[1] it is difficult to designate what they indicate. Although the terms of Gak, Bun, and Si are familiar to moderns as time indicators, what each unit indicates is unknown. Given that 9,633 Myo (Gak-Bun-Si) equals 1 day (1 Il 日 일), it is conjectured that Gak-Bun-Si refers to time segments equivalent to hours, minutes, and seconds in today’s 24 hour a day scheme. 1 Myo is approximately 1.115 seconds, as 9,633 Myo is approximately 8,640 seconds. If we project the time of 1 day into a circle, the whole circle indicates 1 day. Doing this implies that time/space is inseparable in a circular notion of timespace. To specify a size of time smaller than 1 day, we can first divide the circle into two halves. Let’s call the half circle or a half day A. A (equivalent to 12 hours) equals 4,816.5 Myo or 1,444,950 Gu. Then, we divide the half circle into two halves. And let’s call it B. B refers to a quarter of 1 day or B (equivalent to 6 hours), which equals 2,408.25 Myo or 722,475 Gu. Likewise, C refers to one eighth of 1 day, equivalent to 3 hours), which equals 1,204.125 Myo or 361,237.5 Gu. A subsequent division by 2 aligns with the Physical Numbers, 3, 6, 9 in the digital root.[2] Given one sidereal day to be 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.0916 seconds or 23.9344696 hours, 1 A would be 11 hours, 58 minutes, and 2.0458 seconds. 1 B would be 5 hours, 59 minutes, and 1.0229 seconds. 1 C would be 2 hours, 59.5 minutes, and 0.51145 seconds. The circle represents the sidereal day of 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.0916 seconds. Note that the time divisions of 1 day (A, B, and C) follow the order of 1, 2, 4, and 8. Precisely, this is what the Magoist Genealogy of the first three generations that I illustrated above and elsewhere: The Magoist Cosmogony recounts that from one (Mago, the Great Mother) born are the two daughters (Gunghui and Sohui), which makes the triad. From the two daughters born are the four twins, which makes eight. This is observed in meiosis (cell division for sexually reproducing organisms) from one to two and to four and to eight and so forth. The Mago triad and the eight granddaughters are called Nine Magos.[3] The calendar is not just an indication of times or seasons. It is an indication of the life-organizing principle. The Magoist Calendar is a summary of cosmic and planetary life systems. From a microcosmic entity to a macrocosmic universe, all runs by the same force of Sonic Numerology, the metamorphic reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Beings, time, and space are the three inseparable aspects of one reality.(To be continued) [1] It is indeed regretful that the sequence book of the Budoji, Yeoksiji (Book of Calendar and Time), that treats calendar and time has been lost. We have only the Budoji available, the first book of 15 books of the Jingsimnok (Record of Cleansing Mind/Heart), a compendium of 3 volumes that have 5 books in each. Doubtless that the Yeoksiji (Book of Calendar and Time), the third book of Volume 1, would detail the rest of time measures and sub-calendars. [2] D would refer to one sixteenth of 1 day, equivalent to 1.5 hours, which equals 602.0625 Myo (3 in the Digital Root) or 180,618.75 (9 in the Digital Root). If we divide one eighth of 1 day by 3, it is one twenty-fourth of 1 day or E (equivalent to 1 hour). A total of 24 segments. E equals 401.375 Myo or 120,412.5 Gu. These numbers do not follow the suit of 3, 6, and 9, Chesu or Physical Numbers. 401.375 is 2 in the Digital Root and 120,412.5 is 6 in the Digital Root. [3] See this book, 112. https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Species, comprised of the divine, demigods, and humans.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] Magoist Origin of Immortals: All in the Mago Species are given the original nature of immortality or transcendence. Readers are advised to set aside the literal meaning in the English language of the words immortals or transcendents. Immortals is a translation of the East Asian term seon (仙, xian in Chinese). I choose the translation immortals over transcendents not because it is a better translation but because it is the most commonly used term by Western Daoist translators.[i] Although it is known as a Daoist term, I hold that it is pre-Daoist, namely Magoist, in origin. Primarily, it refers to the Mago Species (Mago and Her descendants) who dwelt in Mago Castle, the primordial home, to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Likewise, historical figures known as Immortals are Magoist rather than Daoist.