April 19, 2016November 15, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Tribute) In Loving Memory of Lydia Ruyle (1935-2016) by Mago Circle Members

We posthumously honor Lydia Ruyle (August 5, 1935-March 26, 2016) as Patron of Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality. Mago Circle Members on June 11, 2016. Glenys Livingstone I feel blessed Read More …

(Poem) Being Here Now by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

Midwife clay image from cave-shrine of Eileithyia at Inatos, near Tsoutsouros, Crete, dated 9th-6th century BCE As earth warmsand her ice fields meltand the skeletal bones of her crust shiftand her hot core cooks up something new,human structures collapsealong with the Siberian permafrost. Being here is like being born:everything is dark and tumultuousand you don’t know where you’re headedand you didn’t ask for thisbut this, whatever it is, is already happeningand it’s too late to bail out now. Call the midwife,Call the female shaman,Call 911Multiverse,We have to learn to let go. [Author’s Note: 3 July 2020. Thanks to Jack Dempsey for sending me the photo, which he describes as “a little clay bowl crafted in post-Minoan Crete: likely, a midwife holding and comforting a woman giving water-birth” (from the cave-shrine of Eileithyia, goddess-patron of mothers, at Inatos, near Tsoutsouros, Crete, dated 9th˗6th cent. BCE). His main website on Minoan Crete is Ancientlights.org.] https://www.magoism.net/2013/05/meet-our-contributor-harriet-ann-ellenberger/ (Meet Mago Contributor) Harriet Ann Ellenberger.
(Prose) Lily B, My Telepathic Bird by Sara Wright

Image: Wikimedia Commons Every morning at “first light” Lily B sounds a call to wake up the rest of his family – his human mother – and her current dogs, two small Chihuahuas whose names are Hope and Lucy. The moment he calls – “co coooooo” (accent on the second elongated syllable) Hope and Lucy jump out of bed, with me stumbling behind them in a daze. The dogs insist that it’s time to go out because Lily B woke them up! Occasionally I refuse to get up if I haven’t slept well. When this occurs the dogs come back to bed. But not for long. After repeating his beautiful morning call a few more times, and flying to the lamp that has a good view of the cave that we sleep in, Lily B sails down to the floor and waddles into the dark room. This maneuver always works because Lucy can’t resist chasing him – she leaps out of bed just as Lily soars up to the top of the door. By this time I am fully awake, like it or not. Lily B is an African Collared dove who has lived with me for 24 years. He came to me as a chick and has never been caged. I named him Lily because I thought he was a female and added the “B” for boy when I realized my mistake. I discovered soon after getting him that he preferred to sit on top of the highest furniture in the house so I hung baskets from the ceiling with newspapers inside them. He loved perching on swinging baskets and it solved the problem of cleaning up after him. About six months after getting him I was forced to acknowledge that Lily B literally read my mind. Whenever I had a new insight he would bellow out his song in approval (or validation) repeating his song exactly three times. I listened for Lily B’s commentary as I wrote in my journal each morning, even as the rational part of my mind struggled with incredulous doubt. It was apparent from the beginning that this bird and I had an unusually close relationship. I had always loved doves and had spent many hours watching them as a child and drawing stylized images of them as an adolescent. But it was the sound of their voices that I loved best. I listened with a kind of rapture to their beautiful songs that seemed to flow like water through my body, soothing her through song. It was a relief when I discovered biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s work on telepathy in animals because I no longer felt like I was imagining things. I want to digress from Lily’s story for a few minutes to discuss Rupert’s thesis because it pertains to the relationship between Lily B and myself. Sheldrake postulates that telepathy is a normal ability found in both humans and animals. Telepathy works as a survival mechanism, functioning as a tool of communication between animals and other animals, humans and other humans, or between animals and humans by keeping them connected. Telepathy works best between those that are emotionally intimate or through those who have close familial bonds. For example, if one animal is out of calling range of its mate and danger is perceived, that information can be transmitted via telepathic communication almost instantly to the other. The strength of relationship or kinship is the key. Sheldrake hypothesizes that telepathy works through his theory of morphic resonance, whereby animals and/or people who share an invisible morphic or bodily “field” can tap into thoughts and feelings of others consciously (mind) or on an unconscious (body) level. Telepathy is not distance dependent but works most efficiently through intimate relationship, human or non-human. As soon as I read that Rupert was looking for apparent telepathic experiences between humans and animals, I sent him a letter describing the seemingly extraordinary connection I had with Lily B. He replied that my anecdotes were exactly the kind of information that he was looking for. Lily B’s behavior promptly became part of Rupert’s data bank. It’s important to note that throughout my life I had experienced telepathic behavior between my mother, my brother, my children, various wild and tame animals, plants, and myself, but the Cassandra in me refused to allow me to validate my own experiences because they didn’t fit the current western scientific paradigm. I had no context and secretly thought I might be crazy until Rupert provided me with one. Now, at 45, someone, a scientist no less, actually believed me. I was stunned. Meanwhile my life with Lily B continued to amaze me even as I continued to record it. When Lily was about five years old I noticed that he began to sing a (new) plaintive song to the mourning doves outside our house. This song upset me because I felt his distress resonating through my body. That Lily needed a mate seemed obvious. One day he sailed out the door to chase mourning doves. After the shock wore off I felt deeply conflicted; on one hand I was afraid I’d lost him, but on the other I loved the idea that he was truly free. He spent six weeks in the trees flying after one mourning dove or another but was never able to convince a female to join him. His loneliness broke my heart. Curiously he rarely left the yard and every morning he sang up the sun from a lilac bush outside my window. One day I was leaving for work when he flew into a young apple tree just as I was walking to the car. Astonished, I turned around and opened the door to the house, inviting him to come home, and immediately he flew in of his own accord. The following winter we spent in Tucson, Arizona. By accident or design I met a woman who had many doves in an outdoor cage and she invited Lily to …
Mary Magdalene, the Wound and the Forgery by Joanna Kujawa, Ph.D.

Shrine to Mary Magdalene As the strangeness around continues and the line between what is real and what is not is becoming thinner by the minute, I have been pondering what is the right thing to write about and what is not, and have come across material that has deepened my sense that what we call reality and the authorities associated with it cannot be treated with the same serious rigour that we have given them in the past. But there is a story here that I want to share with you – and it wants to be told. I was reluctant to write about it as it touches in a very painful way on something that I consider very dear – the alternative interpretations of Mary Magdalene. I do not want to delve here into the story of Mary Magdalene as the Grail which has been put forward by Michael Beigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, then by Margaret Starbird in The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and in its fictional thriller rendition The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I have never related well to these stories, although they definitely bring up for scrutiny the traditional version of Mary Magdalene as presented in the canonical gospels and their dogmatic interpretations, even if not really in scholarly terms. (I am much more interested in how the Gnostics portrayed her as a disciple and companion of Jesus. In my research, I have also found symbolic and mythological connections with the goddesses of the past such as Inanna, Isis and possibly even Hathor.) However, these kinds of cultural events (for example, the interest in Mary Magdalene as the Grail) are very powerful and should not be disregarded. Some scholars like to compare them to ‘tectonic shifts in the sacred landscape’ and new spirituality. They emerge in our consciousness and manifest in our reality for good reason and in this case, the revision of Mary Magdalene from the orthodox point of view and its obvious errors (such as the story by Gregory the Great who started the myth of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute). This cultural momentum has a lot to do with the awakening of spirituality which searches for the feminine aspect of the divine, as well as being an expression of a deep psychic rage among women who have felt either left out, repressed or have been presented with limiting versions of the feminine divine which are unacceptable for them. So, in a sense we are living in a time of feminist revisionism of the divine – which I support and even deem necessary for the common evolution of human consciousness which addresses the other half (the feminine) of the divine. The question here is what are we willing to do to correct past errors – and this is where the main topic of this blog comes to light. Here comes a cautionary tale which has been published in the brilliant book by an investigative journalist, Ariel Sabar, Veritas: the Harvard Professor, the Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife published only a month ago. In his book, Sabar follows the controversial story of the famous Harvard professor Karen King, who joined the Harvard staff in 1997 and is a well-known and respected scholar of the Gnostic Gospels. For those who are not interested in the careers of academics, you probably saw her on TV or social media during the peak of interest in the Da Vinci Code, as she was a professor whose opinion was sought on the topic. More recently, the Hay House bestseller, Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson refers to Professor Karen King’s research. So what is the controversy that was worthy of inclusion in Ariel Sabar’s book? In 2012, Professor Karen King presented at a scholarly conference in Rome and announced that she had been given a fragment of a papyrus in which Jesus called Mary Magdalene his wife and his disciple. Although it was only a very small fragment with unknown missing parts, it may change the course of scholarly research on Mary Magdalene. The fragment reads: ‘… The disciples said to Jesus … deny. Mary is (not?) worthy of it … Jesus said to them, “My wife … she is able to be my disciple … Let wicked people swell up … As for me, I am with her in order to … an image … As you can imagine, Professor King’s announcement created a bit of a stir at the conference, as it neatly brought together two theories on Mary Magdalene: one propagated by Holy Grail enthusiasts (Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus) and the other based on the Gnostic Gospels (the theory I am interested in – that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ disciple). Thus, although these two interpretations already existed, they now seem neatly weaved together in this fragment from the papyrus of mysterious origin. Some scholars support Professor King’s claim but most have rejected it and are very skeptical of the papyrus – and with good reasons. For example (and Sabar explains this in a fascinating detail in his book), most of the lines from the papyrus can already be found in the Gospel of Thomas, with the exception of the line ‘my wife’, which in itself Sabar considers suspicious. As if this was not enough, the lines that are also in the Gospel of Thomas were taken from one particular copy of the Gospel of Thomas available online which contained some mistakes. The same mistakes are seen repeated in the fragment of the papyrus which Professor King calls the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Hmmm … right? This observation sent Sabar on a journey first to Florida, then to East Germany to find out who was the possible forger (if there was a forger) that had presented Professor King with the fragment. The story becomes bizarre when Sabar manages to identify the forger as Walter Fritz, a Florida resident, who in his earlier …
Meet Mago Contributor Nané Jordan

I am a scholar, artist, and mother with a working background in midwifery and birth care. I have a life-long concern for women’s empowerment, in particular during pregnancy, birth, early mothering and beyond. I am inspired to re-weave human/ecology interconnections by awakening my own and others’ sense of the sacred. I have long associated with ecofeminist philosophies, and experience a devotional interconnection with the Earth as Mother. I am passionate about freeing creative expression through the arts and co-creating ritual practices. My doctoral studies were in the field of Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. I completed a Master’s degree in Women’s Spirituality at New College of California in San Francisco. Going back and forth from Vancouver to California over a period of years was an ongoing ‘pilgrimage’ for me, into studies of the divine feminine, and S/he of so many names and places. These travels, as well as attending scholarly conferences, fed wonderful connections with women’s spirituality and goddess studies folk in the Bay area and beyond, and opened and confirmed my own Goddess and earth-based spiritual yearnings. My scholarship explores women’s narratives, storytelling, artistic practices, and life writing in navigating life’s highways and byways. My doctoral dissertation inquired into the transformative, Goddess- and women-centred dynamics of the Women’s Spirituality MA in the lives of students and faculty. I found that this inspirited education is inseparable from the yearnings of women to live authentically and with purpose, where women can self-authorize and awaken into feminist consciousness. Women-centred spirituality and education provides a creative means to express and renew one’s whole self, while navigating the many challenges of these still patriarchal times (see: https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/39810). I am a co-founder of Gestare (http://www.gestareartcollective.com/), an artists’ collective whose name means: to carry in the womb. We are committed to process-based artistic practices, Earth communion/healing, living with/in the divine feminine, and the practice of ritual arts such as labyrinth walking. I have published and collaborated on many essays and book chapters, including in journals and anthologies such as: The Journal for Research on Mothering; She is Everywhere! An Anthology of Womanist / Feminist Spirituality, Vol.3; Reconciling Art and Mothering; A Heart of Wisdom: Life Writing as Empathic Inquiry (some papers available at: https://ubc.academia.edu/NanéJordan). I live with my husband and two daughters in Vancouver, Canada—where nurturing my family life is a great source of meaning, adventure, and love.
(Book Excerpt 3) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] Grief for the Mothers Who Lost the Goddess Alison Newvine How do we grieve for our mothers who have lost the Goddess? How do we release the guilt over our own escape, knowing she’s been left behind? How do we relate to her choice to remain within patriarchal belief systems? The Woman Trapped in the Tunnel Imagine you are trapped in a tunnel with no access to or imagination of anything beyond that tunnel. You’ve been there for generations. The options laid before you in this tunnel are virgin, whore or mother, and you are a good Catholic (or Protestant or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu) girl with a strong capacity for connection and nurturance. There is only one “choice” you see. To become a mother. But Mother doesn’t turn out the way you imagined it would. Not within the patriarchal paradigm. On this Mother path you are bound to feel resentment simmer beneath your skin. You’ve lost something, an ancient something you don’t have a memory of, but something to do with your magic, your power. You have become a vessel that is endlessly emptied and never filled, the best parts of you doled out to others, whether you want to or not. The cauldrons in which you brewed elixirs of healing and magic when you were your oldest grandmother are now buried deep in the mud at the bottom of the ocean. You are trying to feed and nurse your sick children with only patriarchy’s poison foods, toxic concoctions and sharp, sterile instruments. There’s a nagging sense of something being deeply wrong. You know you should have the power to make them well, yet they are growing sicker and you are beyond exhausted. There’s a holy rage trying desperately to escape. It has become a caged beast breathing fire from the twisted net of patriarchal suppression, spewing molten spittle upon the skin of your own children in your attempt to express what you know deep in your bones. Something is wrong. Defining Motherhood God defines motherhood very differently than Goddess does. Under patriarchy, mother is synonymous with servant. A good mother is selfless, ever-giving, ever-patient, a bottomless container for everyone else’s pain and tantrums. Who can live up to this? Who should? She subsumes herself to the needs of her children, as well as their father, and this is holy in God’s eyes. She is defined solely by what she provides to others. She must be entirely satiated by the mundane tasks required to sustain young life, and if her husband pitches in from time to time, he is a hero and she should never cease showering him with gratitude. Historically, his participation in child-rearing is insufficiently offered and only guiltily received. Mother is not the head of household, even though it is she who is responsible for running it and seeing that its members flourish. Her innate, sacred impulse towards agency becomes twisted and deformed and winds up harming others and herself. In this she digs herself a deeper hole and she loses the respect and trust of those closest to her. Her attempts at agency instead build the walls of her own coffin. How does Goddess define motherhood? You are Her own majesty reflected back to Her. You are revered for your life-giving and life-sustaining powers. Tens of thousands of archeological artifacts from Goddess-worshiping cultures attest to the reverence with which mothers were treated during an earlier time. Mother is Divine. You are to be supported and nurtured and praised on a regular basis. Perhaps most importantly, Mother is an aspect of your being, not your totality. Your mother aspect functions in harmony with all of your other divine expressions ~ artist, dancer, writer, singer, community organizer, performer, lover, student, teacher, athlete, activist, mystic. Mother isn’t a container you must collapse your entire being into, rather it is one of many powerful expressions of your divinity. As Mother, you are allowed to be imperfect and allowed to say no. You are encouraged to be introspective and evolving. Goddess doesn’t infantilize you. She adores you. She challenges you to continue to grow and change, to desire and create, to heed your soul’s highest calling. Most importantly, She empowers you to define yourself on your own terms. The Daughter of the Goddess Today, there are many daughters who are reaching further back than their own mother’s memory, further back than the memories of all of the grandmothers whose names are still known to them. These daughters are born restless, questioning everything, reacting to what is “normal” in ways their mothers do not understand. These are daughters who refuse to believe what they are told and who spend their lives searching for truth. They act out, go off the rails, cause all manner of chaos and heartache. In contrast to their mother’s engrained self-sacrifice, they seem extraordinarily selfish. These are the daughters who find their way back to the Goddess. Betrayal The Mother of the God and the Daughter of the Goddess do not see eye to eye. They are attempting to relate across paradigms and this can feel like an endless onslaught of betrayals for each of them. The daughter who has recognized patriarchal oppression and actively resists it will feel deeply betrayed by her mother who is loyal to it. She sees her mother as complicit in each of their oppressions and it fills her with horror. She struggles to reconcile the goodness she knows her mother to be with the callousness with which the mother parrots dehumanizing political stances toward those the patriarchy deems “other.” Illegal Immigrants. Drug Dealers. Atheists. Promiscuous Women. Lesbians. FemiNazis. In the early years of their dance, the mother doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know, just how many of those epitaphs belong to her own daughter. As they surface, one by one, the mother feels stabbed in the …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Cynthia Tom

A San Francisco mixed-media artist, painter, and curator of 30+ years, Cynthia’s work is known as an inspiration for healing, empowerment, social change and fostering community. Coming from a Chinese culture that silences women, she has learned to use her visual voice as a tool to help herself and others speak truths about our ancestors and the feminine. As a Cultural Curator | Community Art Activist, she integrates cultural roots and community needs to drive Social Change. She is the Founding Director of A PLACE of HER OWN: An Arts based healing program for women of color and ultimately communities of color. They learn to explore chronic heartache and limiting beliefs due to ancestral trauma and colonization while gaining tools and a path towards resilience. Her work is represented by the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives and permanently part of the “What is Feminist Art?” at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art collection. She guest lectures on topics such as “Trauma Informed Art Practices” for UC Berkeley, UC Davis, SF State ethnic studies and the National Guild for Community Arts Education.
(Prose Part 2) The Bear Goddess in Europe by Sara Wright

The Greek Artemis was the goddess associated with Wilderness and “wild places” once included all animals, birds, and their habitat. Artemis also reigned over childbirth, and was seen to be a protector of women, so we see her here as a Great Wild Mother figure. However, the Greek name Artemis, betrays the goddess’s primary identification with the Bear Goddess as “Art” because the word means bear. The Gaulish name Artio is also the Celtic name of the Bear Goddess and it was the ancestors of the Celts who invented this ancient Vinca script.
(Essay 4) 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, and here. One spring evening, about dusk, reps from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department banged on my door. As I have recounted elsewhere, neighbors used various law enforcement agencies, from dogcatcher to SWAT teams, as a form of targeted harassment toward those of us on “the land.” I probably didn’t look too friendly as I opened the door. The two women explained that there was a gas leak in the area, and they were cautioning residents to close their windows until the source could be determined. “Most of the women living here don’t have windows,” I explained. “Not the kind that open and close. They live in tents or primitive open structures.” Photo: SaperlinedeSaintCharles The deputies had no answer for that one. They said we could evacuate, if we wished, but we would not be allowed to return to the area until the mysterious gas had dissipated. Standing on the porch, I could smell it, too. Since the little trailer I was living in did have windows, I collected the others and we holed up together on the floor in sleeping bags, like we were at a slumber party. The little girls thought it was a hoot; the adults were worried. If you are planning an intentional women’s community, chances are it will be very low tech, constrained by philosophical principles or financial resources, or both. The ramifications of this lifestyle must be soberly explored and thoroughly prepared for. The thought of living without central heating or air conditioning, without wi-fi or cell phones, without electricity, and without running water sounds daunting, but the good news is that you can adjust. You can carry water, you can build fires, you can adjust your daily routine to utilize sunlight and the cool part of the day. There are always women ready to help you make the transition. The slower pace allows daily living to proceed without labor-saving convenience devices, which seem to have functioned mainly to allow the modern woman to cater more completely to the demands of her employer and family. 1902 advertisement from Out West magazine Women coming to the land spoke a lot about feeling “owned by their things.” A strong motivation for returning to the land – for all intentional communities, not just feminist ones – was a desire to break free from long hours of employment geared to paying a mortgage. Large houses mean lots of floor space and many bathrooms to clean; kitchens choked with small appliances feed the pressure to prepare elaborate meals. Home repair requires specialized knowledge that requires money that requires longer hours of work. Coming to the land means letting go of things – clothes, furniture, dishes, books, artwork – and making do with very little. For some women, that’s a huge relief. After withdrawal from television, telephone, coffee shops, nice (clean) clothes, hot showers, favorite foods, and the corner convenience store, the world expands again. By living simply, you begin to understand the difference between wants and needs. The experience is tremendously freeing. Until something goes wrong. An accident, an extended illness, a fire, a psychotic episode, a burst of severe weather: rural life is complicated by all of these potentialities, and they are in turn greatly complicated by primitive lifestyles. These are the things that make rural poverty ugly. We were protected, to some degree, by the extended networks of support within the women’s community, which included women living in town, but there were periods when a low tech lifestyle had its drawbacks, to say the least. When things got difficult on the land, we used to remind each other that “most of the world lives this way.” This was in the twentieth century, and things have changed a bit since then, but one thing that has not changed is that most of the world does not want to “live this way.” Sanitation is compromised when you’re sharing bath water and washing dishes outdoors from a jug. Weather is a greater concern when you’ve built your planned community without regard for building standards and engineering assessments. Photo: Drw25/Wikimedia Commons There are unique challenges to living in a first world country in third world conditions. Much of rural America is struggling to conduct ordinary business without broadband internet and cell phone coverage. Though we rely less on the post office, everyone is still expected to have a physical address where they receive mail. Meeting expectations of cleanliness for even a casual-clothes job can be difficult when you don’t have a washer, dryer, or wardrobe of clothing. When you return from your job, you may be fixing dinner and getting ready for bed in the dark. Many of us started buying packaged cookies and other processed convenience foods, because living simply in a complicated world can be hard. Many reasons that have been postulated for the decline of women’s intentional communities, but two significant ones to consider are 1) the problems with bare-bones living that become apparent over the long term of these experiments and 2) the increase in the cost of land, fueled by income inequality, which has made it difficult to fund new projects. Planned or “utopian” communities, since the Transcendental Movement of the nineteenth century, have had a limited lifespan. New communities, armed with lessons of the old, need to arise to replace those that become defunct. Technology for low-tech living has improved. Clean methods of generating electricity have become more efficient and less costly. There have been significant advances in water collection and waste disposal. Satellite communication can be utilized anywhere. The logistical difficulties for living comfortably in isolated green communities continue to decline. Maybe it’s time to try again. I will conclude this series on wimmin’s land next time with some high points of living on the land and discuss how women’s communities can benefit all women, not just those who choose to adopt the lifestyle full time. https://www.magoism.net/2013/04/meet-mago-contributor-hearth-moon-rising/
2014 in review, our heartfelt thank you to our contributors, readers, and supporters!

Dear Magoists of the world, With your love and support, it has been possible for us to transform our distances into communications–our diaspora into the Diaspora, as Mary Daly wished–for the year of 2014! It is with our great joy, gratitude, and solidarity that we share with you 2014 reports. We, editors, are infinitely thankful for our Mago Contributors and Mago Supporters who have generously and passionately continued to share your talents, visions, hearts, researches, and resources with us. Return to Mago Readers, please join me, Helen Hwang (Founding Director and Co-editor), in giving my special thanks to our Mago editing sisters, Rosemary Mattingley, Mary Saracino, and Donna Snyder, whom I dearly love and respect for their free services and Sisterhood to make Return to Mago possible for another year! We look forward to your continuous love and support for the coming year! Mago blessings to you, your loved ones, and all in WE!

(Special Post) Discussion on Mother-Daughter Wound by Mago Circle Members

[Mago Circle members discussed and answered the question, “What do you think of this (the topic article below)? If you are a feminist, it is something that you would promote? If so, why? If not, why not?” The discussion took place on May 15, 2017 and shortly thereafter in The Mago Circle.] Topic Article: “For The Daughters Who Don’t Love Their Mothers – Screw Mother’s Day” by Sade Andria Zabala Everyone talks about a mother’s unconditional love. But what if it doesn’t exist? Daughters are socially expected to be close with their mothers. But are you one of the women who aren’t? Mother’s Day isn’t just for celebrating moms. It’s a day some of us dread because we are reminded we grew up (or are still) unloved, not good enough. (Read the whole article here.)
(Special Post 8) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?

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

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

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/
(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
A Southern Hemisphere Perspective on Place by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the Introduction to the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which was an outcome of her doctoral research/thesis entitled The Female Metaphor – Virgin, Mother, Crone – of the Dynamic Cosmological Unfolding: Her Embodiment in Seasonal Ritual as Catalyst for Personal and Cultural Change. This doctoral work was in turn a documentation and deeper research of the Seasonal ceremonial celebrations that the author was already engaged in for over a decade. The whole of the process is here named as her “Search”. photo credit: David Widdowson, Astrovisuals. The site of seasonal ceremonial celebrations will always be significant. In my case, the place in which I have created them has been notably in the Southern Hemisphere of out Planet Earth. The fact of my context being thus – the Southern Hemisphere – had contributed in the past to my deep internalized sense of being “other”, and dissociated from my senses, since almost all stories told were based in Northern Hemisphere perspective. Yet at the same time this context of inhabiting the Southern Hemisphere contributed to my deep awareness of Gaia’s Northern Hemisphere and Her reciprocal Seasonal Moment: thus, awareness of the whole Planet. My initial confusion about the sensed Cosmos – as a Place, became a clarity about the actual Cosmos – which remained inclusive of my sensed Cosmos. PaGaian reality – the reality of our Gaian “country” – is that the whole Creative Dynamic happens all the time, all at once. The “other”, the opposite, is always present – underneath and within the Moment. This has affected my comprehension of each Sabbat/Seasonal Moment, its particular beauty but also a fullness of its transitory nature. Many in the Northern Hemisphere – even today – have no idea that the Southern Hemisphere has a ‘different’ lunar, diurnal, seasonal perspective; and because of this there often is a rigidity of frame of reference for place, language, metaphor and hence cosmology[i]. Indeed over the years of industrialized culture it has appeared to matter less to many of both hemispheres, including the ‘author-ities’, the writers of culture and cosmos. And such ‘author-ity’ and northern-hemispheric rigidity is also assumed by many more Earth-oriented writers as well[ii]. There has been consistent failure to take into account a whole Earth perspective: for example, the North Star does not need to be the point of sacred reference – there is great Poetry to be made of the void of the South Celestial Pole. Nor need the North be rigidly associated with the Earth element and darkness, nor is there really an “up” and a “down” cosmologically speaking. A sense and accountof the Southern Hemisphere perspective with all that that implies metaphorically as well as sens-ibly, seems vitally important to comprehending and sensing a whole perspective and globe – a flexibility of mind, and coming to inhabit the real Cosmos, hence enabling what I have named as a ‘PaGaian’ cosmological perspective, a whole Earth perspective. It has also been of particular significance that my Search has been birthed in the ancient continent of Australia. It is the age of the exposed rock in this Land, present to her inhabitants in an untarnished, primal mode that is significant. This Land Herself has for millennia been largely untouched by human war, conquest and concentrated human agriculture and disturbance. The inhabitants of this Land dwelt here in a manner that was largely peaceful and harmonious, for tens of thousands of years. Therefore the Land Herself may speak more clearly I feel; one may be the recipient of direct transmission of Earth in one of her most primordial modes. Her knowledge may be felt more clearly – one may be taught by Her. I think that the purity of this transmission is a significant factor in the development of the formal research I undertook – in my chosen methodology and in what I perceived in the process, and documented; from my beginnings as a country girl, albeit below my conscious mind in the subtle realms of which I knew little, to the more conscious times of entering into the process of the Search. In this Land that birthed me, ‘spirit’ is not remote and abstract, it is felt in Her red earth[iii]. Aboriginal elder David Mowaljarlai described, “This is a spirit country”[iv], and all of Her inhabitants, including non-Indigenous, may be affected by the strength of Her organic communication. It took me until the later stages of my research to realize the need to state the importance of this particular place for the advent of the research: the significance of both the land of Australia, and the specific region of the Blue Mountains in which I was now dwelling, as well as the community of this particular region, which all lent itself to the whole process. The lateness of this perception on my part, has to do with the extent of my previous alienation; but the fact that it did occur, is perhaps at least in part attributable to the unfolding awakening to my habitat that was part of the project/process. The specific region of the “Blue Mountains” – as Europeans have named them – is significant in that I don’t think that this project/process could have happened as it did in just any region. David Abram says, “The singular magic of a place is evident from what happens there, from what befalls oneself or others when in its vicinity. To tell of such events is implicitly to tell of the particular power of that site, and indeed to participate in its expressive potency[v]”. Blue Mountains, Australia: Dharug and Gundungurra Country The Blue Mountains are impressive ancient rock formations, an uplifted ancient seabed, whose “range of rock types and topographical situations has given rise to distinct plant communities”[vi]; and the presence of this great variation of plant communities, “especially the swamps, offer an abundance and variety of food sources, as well as habitats for varied fauna”[vii]. I feel that this is the case for …
(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. …
(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.
Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Day of the Dead altar, via Wikimedia Commons According to Celtic tradition, on Samhain (October 31 for those in the north and April 30 for those in the south) the doors between the human and spirit worlds open. Faeries, demons, and spirits of the dead pour out of the Otherworld to walk the Earth. In the past, some would try to hurry ghosts past their houses or ward off evil spirits by setting jack o’lanterns in their windows. They avoided going outside, especially past cemeteries, lest they be snatched away to the Otherworld. In ancient times, some offered sacrifices to propitiate deities. However, others have invited in the souls of friends and family who have passed away. In Brittany, according to W.Y. Evans-Wentz’s Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, people would provide “a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white tablecloth, and to supply music” which “the dead come to enjoy with their friends” (p. 218). Other cultures also have such welcoming traditions. In Korea, as so beautifully described by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in her posts about her family’s mourning for her father (Part I and Part II), in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, and elsewhere, food and flowers are brought to cemeteries to honor those no longer in the realm of the living. Many of us live in a society where death is pushed out of sight and Samhain’s sacred traditions have devolved into Halloween, a commercialized children’s holiday. Still, it seems to me that the pandemic, climate catastrophes, and war have made death much more present in our everyday thoughts over the past couple of years than before, so perhaps this year’s Samhain offers us the opportunity to re-examine Celtic and other practices of the past and present to see what insights and meaning they may have for us. Jack o lanterns: By Mihaela Bodlovic, via Wikimedia Commons All these ancient practices respect the spirit world and its power. Whether you believe that the Otherworld can wreak havoc on us at Samhain or not, the realm where spirits dwell clearly has power. Its allure can take us away from focusing on mundane, daily challenges or, more positively, open our eyes to the value of relating to forces that can give richness and meaning to our lives. At the same time, we must remember that each domain has its own power. We can use our physical bodies in beneficial ways that those in the Otherworld cannot. We must respect the power of the Otherworld as well as our own. Some kinds of healing are only possible when we welcome those from the Otherworld into our lives in a healthy way, whether through holiday visits or every day through remembrance, meditation, prayer, or other means. I’m of an age when many of my beloveds are in the Otherworld and so I am beginning to find that the idea of being able to sit with someone I have lost is cause not for fear, but rather joy and comfort. Perhaps those who have longstanding wounds from the past can heal by remembering those we have lost at Samhain and forgiving them or ourselves or realizing that we are no longer bound to those who have hurt us and are now gone. Samhain can also reassure us of the truth of our intuitive sense that our beloveds who we grieve are with us still, in some way, on this night and throughout the year. When we participate in the celebration of Samhain’s opening of doors to the Otherworld, if only for a day, we are honoring our own participation into the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth. We are expanding our vision of ourselves to be more than our bodies on the Earth and experiencing ourselves as connected to many realms, seen and unseen, spirit and human. We are accepting that at some time we will also become ancestors, with all the responsibility that entails and the fulfillment of taking our place in the complex matrix of being that is our universe. When we interact with the souls of those we have lost in ways that are healthy for us, however we may choose and believe that happens, we can also better celebrate the realm of the living. Just as we may listen in various ways for positive messages from those whom we have lost, we can ensure that we are expressing important guidance to those who will come after us by who we are and how we live our lives. We can express that life is worth living, even with all its traumas, and that we respect both the boundaries and the doors between the worlds so that we may continue living fully in our physical bodies on our beautiful, awe-inspiring Earth. I hope my message to my descendants will be: Love your lives. Build on what we have done and do better. Leave behind what we left you that no longer serves. If you feel alone, remember that you have thousands of generations of mothers sending you unconditional love and also generations of women coming after you eager to pick up where you left off. According to Mary Condren in The Serpent and the Goddess, in the most ancient times, “Samhain had been primarily a harvest feast celebrating the successful growth and gathering of the fruits of the past year” (p. 36). While we in the north are coming into the season of death, those in the south are experiencing Beltane, the first moments of spring when the doors between the worlds are also open. The eternal cycle of life, death, and regeneration turns again. Whether you are celebrating Samhain or Beltane, know that this holy time offers us all a chance to enter into the task of maintaining harmony with those we have loved before and for bringing balance between life and death, winter and summer, and the realm of the living and …

(Bell Essay 6) The Magoist Whale Bell: Unraveling the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: The part 6 and ensuing sequels are a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Southern right whale from Wikimedia Commons Introduction The Korean temple bell is no mere Buddhist device. Calling it a Sillan Esoteric Buddhist invention in origin only adds to its mystification. Commissioned by Sillan rulers who represented traditional Magoist shaman rulers, Sillan temple bells administer sonic balance within and without all beings once and for all. In short, the Sillan temple bell reenacts the Magost Cosmogony HERE and NOW.[1] Engendering resonance to the self-creative power of cosmic music, Yulryeo (Rhythms and Tones), the Korean temple bell summons the paradisiacal reality of the Creatrix, Mago. Cast in the form of a female body, the bell structurally embodies the gynocentric principle of the Creatrix, the Mago Way. I have discussed earlier such features as nine nipples and apsaras. Here the dragon figure (Yongnyu) and the sound tube (Yongtong or Eumtong) in its head are focused. Multi-functional and polysemic, the dragon is there not only to be the loop for hanging but also to envelop the sound tube, seen below. Among others, the sound tube stands out as a distinctive feature of Korean temple bells that distinguishes them from their Chinese and Japanese counterparts. What is the sound tube of the Korean temple bell? Why do Korean temple bells have a sound tube? Answers to these questions concern a yet-to-be-unraveled undergirding theme of the Korean temple bell, the whale. Although its origin is debated, the sound tube signals Sillan cetacean veneration. In the mytho-history of Magoism, Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) stands as a prominent ancient Korean state, which succeeded and flowered ancient Magoist cetaceanism. Sillan cetacenism defines Silla as a new government that succeeded Old Magoist confederacies. In this context, we can assess a whale-shaped wooden mallet, which is no mere decorative addition to the bell. Nonetheless, the whale-shaped mallet is only a tip of the cetacean meaning of the bell. A whale (고래 Gorae in Korean) is the very model that the Korean temple bell (the bell hereafter) takes after, especially for its vocalizations. The bell mimics the music of whales. While the latter is heard in water, the former is heard in land. Its cetacean names corroborate such an assessment. The bell is called Janggyeong (長鯨 Eternal Whale), Gyeongjong (鯨鐘 Whale Bell), Hwagyeong (華鯨 Splendid Whale), or Geogyeong (巨鯨 Gigantic Whale). As such, the sound of the bell is alternatively called “the sound of whale (鯨音gyeongeum).” Ancient Koreans perceived whales, pre-human in origin and once a land animal, as the messenger of the Creatrix, Mago. In folk traditions, the phrase, “riding the back of a whale,” was widely popularized among East Asians throughout history, which means that one returns to Mago, by riding the back of a whale upon death. That ancient Koreans were cetacean venerators remains esoteric. The cetacean code of Korean temple bells holds the key to unraveling what has gone suppressed in patriarchy, the Magoist Cosmogony. By the Magoist Cosmogony, I mean a systematic origin story of our universe, as is recounted in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City). I have summarized the Budoji’s cosmogonic chapters in my aforementioned book, The Mago Way, as follows: The Magoist Cosmogony highlights the sonic movement of cosmic elements as the Creatrix. In the beginning, there was light. The movement/vibration of light (cosmic music) in the universe caused creation to take place over eons. Stars were born in the previous cosmic era. In due time, Mago was born together with the Earth (the Stronghold of Mago) with her moons. Her (self-)emergence marks the beginning of earthly history. Mago listened to and acted in tune with the cyclic movement of the cosmic music. In further due time, S/HE bore two daughters, Gunghui (Goddess Gung) and Sohui (Goddess So) parthenogenetically. This Primordial Triad laid the foundation for the earthly environment for all species. Mago, assisted by HER two daughters, orchestrated the terrestrial plan to bring acoustic balance in harmony with the cosmic music/sound/vibration. S/HE delegated HER descendants to cultivate and manage the sonic equilibrium of the Earth [Italics added].[2] Precisely, the Sillan temple bell encodes the message that whales are the paragon of Magoists whose mandate is “to cultivate and manage the sonic equilibrium of the Earth.” Restoring Magoist cetaceanism is metamorphic. Antithetical to the very establishment of patriarchy, ancient Magoist Korean cetacean practice unfolds the Other World that has been ever HERE. This essay, assessing the sound tube as a Magoist code of Sillan cetaceanism, aims to delineate how the Magoist cetacean meaning came to be encoded in the sound tube of the bell by the Sillan rulers of the 7th and 8th centuries. In decoding the cetacean message, we are led to the myth of Manpasikjeok (萬波息笛 the pacifying flute that defeats all, hereafter the pacifying flute), a Sillan royal treasure that is hermeneutically construed as made of the tusk of a narwhal. A group of Korean scholars maintain that the sound tube was designed to represent the pacifying flute. The task of this essay is to go further and to re-read the myth of Manpasikjeok—a story of King Sinmun the Great (r. 681-692) of Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) who was told by a sea dragon to create a flute out of a mysterious bamboo tree growing in a mysterious mountain in the East Sea, alternatively known as the Sea of Whales—from the Magoist perspective. This story has been written and misinterpreted as an enigmatic Buddhist story. I hold that “Ruler (King or Queen) the Great (大王 Daewang),” unlike other kings of the ancient world, does not refer to a patriarchal monarch. It is a Magoist cetacean term that is related with “Ruler Whale the Great (Daewang Gorae),” referring to the blue whale for its gigantic size or whales collectively. By adopting the cetacean title …
(Book Excerpt) The Budoji Workbook (Volume 1): The Magoist Cosmogony (Chapters 1-4)

Introduction [Author’s Note: WorkBook, The Magoist Cosmogony Volume 1 (Chapters 1-4): The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City in English and Korean Translations with the Original Text in the East Asian Logographic Language) is a a newly arrived book by Mago Books on June 8, 2020.) It has been 20 years since I first read the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Magoism, a term that I coined shortly after. The Budoji was, reappeared as a book in the 1980s in Korea, largely unknown among Koreans at that time. Primarily based on the Budoji, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the topic of Mago, the Creatrix, in 2003 and 2004. I had gathered a large corpus of primary sources, researched extensively on the topic and its related themes as well as relevant interdisciplinary works. That was to verify and support the Budoji’s validity as a reliable source. I knew that my dissertation marked the onset of my life’s search and research on Magoism. I spent the following sixteen years expanding, deepening and testing the premises that I posited in my dissertation. The subject of Mago became the axis of my life. I found myself a Magoist, following after my predecessors and contemporaries who are countless but mostly forgotten if ever known. I was finally home. The Budoji was at the root of my activities undertaken under the rubric of “The Mago Work” including teaching, publishing, and holding events like Mago Pilgrimages to Korea and Nine Mago Celebrations. The Budoji is the Book of Mago, the Creatrix, written in a systematically cogent narrative. The Budoji testifies to the forgotten mytho-history of Magoism from which modern civilizations are derived. Without the Budoji, the Origin Story of the Creatrix, would have remained unknown today. Without the Budoji, Magoism, the Way of the Creatrix, would have remained unnamed. The Budoji teaches, guides, and awakens people to the metamorphic reality of WE/HERE/NOW. Alleged to have been written in the early 5th century of Silla (57 BCE-935 CE), the Budoji ripe with noble (read matricentric) terms and symbols is salvific, offering matricentric soteriology. My task is to make the Budoji known to the world so that we can dis-cover the story of the Budoji as OUR STORY. In the Budoji, we are told why and how to live peacefully in harmony with all other people and all other species on earth and beyond. It is very slippery to write about it because of its multi-valent meaning, too bedazzling to articulate. Once told, however, the Budoji will begin to ferment something in your mind, something that has been with us all along and everywhere but made unseen. The nine-volume workbook series is an effort to make the unseen seeable and palpable. I must admit that my books, articles, essays, lectures, and events that I wrote and undertook with regards to Magoism for the last two decades are only the footnotes to the Budoji. I could not rely on traditional publications, journals, and educational institutes for my Magoist intellectual/spiritual productions. Out of necessity, I founded Return to Mago E-Magazine, Mago Books, and Mago Academy to build a wheel through which my scholarship on Magoism is interwoven and advocated. Synchronously, the birthing of my dissertation in a book form is approaching in support of the Budoji’s workbook. This book, with a slightly revised title, Seeking Mago, the Great Mother from East Asia: A Mytho-Historical-Thealogical Reconstruction of Magoism, an Archaically Originated Gynocentric Tradition of Old Korea (forthcoming June 21, 2020 by Mago Books)[1], is the thus-far available comprehensive source book to Magoism that I wrote. In 2015, I published The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia Volume 1 (Mago Books, 2015), based on the first two chapters of the Budoji. Since 2017, I have published Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar annually, based on the Budoji’s Chapters 21-23. My other articles include “Mago, the Creatrix from East Asia, and the Mytho-History of Magoism,”[2] “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea, and Her Mythology,”[3] “Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity,”[4] “Making the Gyonocentric Case: Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and her Tradition Magoism,”[5] “Issues in Studying Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia: Primary Sources, Gynocentric History, and Nationalism,”[6] and “The Female Principle in the Magoist Cosmogony.”[7] ……. How to Use the Budoji Workbook? The multivalent meaning of the Budoji’s verses will unravel gradually. At first, you may find the Budoji’s verses too dense or too technical to follow. Even in that case, I encourage you to keep reading the next chapters and the next volumes. Like a night dream, the text of the Budoji will grab your attention. However, its meaning will be slowly unfolding and unveiling in your mind. You may have more questions, as you continue to read. For the Budoji instills in the reader the deepest and broadest vision of the Great Mother, largely forgotten to moderns. The Budoji’s matricentric meaning system (the Way of Mago) takes all into consideration to awaken you including your experience, your interest, your passion, and your intellectual/spiritual aptitude. This workbook aims at initiating the process of knowing the Great Mother, Mago, and the mytho-history of Magoism (pre-patriarchal and trans-patriarchal) from within. In that sense, the Budoji Workbook is a manual with which one learns how to ignite the spark of Life that is inextinguishable and inexhaustible in the mind/heart. The Budoji Workbook allows you to interact with the verses of each chapter. You can take notes, draw images and symbols, or compose songs in the worksheets included after each chapter and in the Appendix. Personalized worksheets can serve as milestones as you proceed in the reading. Ultimately, the Budoji Workbook invites you to write, draw, or sing the storyline of each chapter in your own words and means. No preparation is required to read the Budoji. Once read, the Budoji will begin to speak to you and guide you from within. …
Mago, the First Mother from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Excerpts from “Mago, the First Mother from East Asia,” Creatrix Media Live (CML) Roundtable Radio Talk with Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. May 23, 2011] Jayne DeMente: Welcome Helen, I was fortunate to read some of your research and I applaud you because, we in the Western WSE movement have long needed to hear more from Asian women spiritual leaders and feminists and your reference to the Neolithic timeline… For our listeners and participants online, let’s lead with the question of who is Mago, was she a mother figure, what is Magoism, does any other deity pre-date her? Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: *Mago is the great goddess known to East Asians throughout history. She is the first mother of all, cosmogonist, and ultimate sovereign/ruler. She has many names. Among them are Triad Deity (Samsin), Grandmother (halmi), Auspicious Goddess (Seogo), Evil (Magui), and Old Goddess (Nogo). She is also known as the Giantess who shaped the natural and cultural landscape. Her manifestations are so multivalent that one may think they do not refer to the same goddess. She was well loved, given high esteem, celebrated by East Asians in the past. She was almost completely forgotten, however in modern times, up until the 1980s in Korea, when the principle text of Magoism, the Budoji, re-emerged. *Mago is a mother figure in the sense that she bore two daughters, Kunghee and Sohee, and managed her household called the Castle of Mago, the primordial paradise of humanity. She is the ancestor of all races. She takes care of everything on earth via the equilibrium of cosmic music/sound/vibration. *Magoism is the term that refers to the totality of culture/civilization venerating Mago as the great goddess. It is a tradition largely unnoted but co-opted and distorted in major East Asian religions. The concept of Magoism helps one identify and understand Mago’s multivalent manifestations that are found trans-nationally. It also makes possible to name the female-centered original/primal civilization that gave birth to the forthcoming East Asian civilizations and religions. *Whether Mago is the earliest deity known to East Asia is unknown. In fact, there are goddesses unearthed from “pre-historic” archaeological sites without their names. The life-sized goddess statue was unearthed in the site of Hongshan Culture, northeastern region of present China dating from 4,700 to 2,900 BCE. The heavy use of jade along with the partly bear-figured female icon is congruent with the account of Magoism in the Budoji. Also, of course, there are numerous female figurines called dogu excavated in Japan’s “pre-historic” times. The ancient origin of Mago or Magoism has a merit to explain some facts that remain a mystery, so to speak. Korea is also known as the land of dolmens. Half of the world megaliths are populated in the Korean peninsula. There are numerous pyramids found in mainland China. There is a documentary film about the sunken temple beneath the sea of Okinawa Japan, etc. dating to 10,000 years ago. *Then, how early does Mago date to? It is difficult to date the earliest evidence of Mago or Magoism simply because written history does not exist in pre-patriarchal times. As you see here, when we talk about the earliest of something, everyone assumes it is of Chinese. So let me follow this line of thought: Ge Hong’s record on Magu from China dates to the early fourth century CE (Ge Hong 283—343 CE). However, Daoist scholar Robert Ford Campany states that the cult of Mago dates back to the Stone Age. It is more difficult to date Mago in Korean records simply because ancient written records did not survive. Two books, the Budoji and the Handan Gogi, alleged to have been written in the late 4th or early 5th century and subsequent later times, which refer to Mago otherwise known as Samsin (Triad Deity) remain controversial. Considering that the name Mago is embedded in Korean language as in “gom,” “geum,” and “gam,” whose meaning indicates ruler, sovereign, and head, the origin of Mago is as old as these words. Likewise, most materials that recount Mago as cosmogonist are of folklore, place names, literature, arts, and debris of historical and religious records, most of which are difficult to date for its origin. Anniitra Ravenmoon: Thank you Helen, you have done much academic research and hold several degrees, can you explain to us how your education or experience informed you regarding Mago? Helen: *I would say that encountering Mago as a doctoral research topic is ultimately prompted by my intellectual quest as a Korean feminist. Following radical feminism of Mary Daly, I wanted to seek spirituality that is not only non-patriarchal but also East Asian and Korean. This made me study feminism and East Asian religions, histories, and cultures, etc. I end up with so much to study over the past decade and a half. I did not take up graduate studies as a means to develop an academic career. I loved reading and studies from youth. This kind of attitude is not that practical in the job market. However, I believe this is the right path for me. To look back, I did not follow the ready-made conventional path of life. I was a dreamer and idealist. I still value those qualities in myself and others. I used to think to myself, if I had remained a Christian, I would not have sought Mago. How could I? Likewise if I had resorted to Buddhism, I would not have encountered Mago. Because I wanted to carve out my own spiritual path as a Korean feminist, I was able to encounter Mago. Another factor at work in my study of Mago is the cultural or spiritual tradition of cultivating the Dao, the Way, in East Asia. I wanted to find out what the truth was, how I could make the most out of my life and etc. So I tried the shoes of a Catholic overseas missionary for a while. Leaving Christianity behind, however, helped me realize the cultural heritage that I have within. It was …