October 9, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 3) Discovering the Gift Paradigm by Genevieve Vaughan

Subjectivities The two logics, exchange and gift giving, also produce different kinds of subjectivities. The practice of exchange creates an ego-oriented ego according to its logic of self-interest while the Read More …

September 11, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 2) Homo Donans: For a Maternal Economy by Genevieve Vaughan

Discovering the Gift Paradigm The exchange paradigm Patriarchal Capitalism justifies itself by a worldview I call the ‘exchange paradigm’, which frames everything in terms of the exchange logic, from the Read More …

(Essay) The Divine Mother and the Holy Child: The Inner Meaning of Christmas by Harita Meenee

A female figure tenderly holding a baby in her arms, offering her breast: an image so familiar and yet so magical at the same time! It recalls our own infancy as it carries a subconscious nostalgia of the sweet moments that we lived in Mother’s embrace. This is a truly universal experience recurring through countless millennia of our species’ existence on the planet. Mother and Child, two intertwined figures depicted countless times in stone and clay or on the colored surfaces of temples and tombs. Over the centuries they have been vested with a number of meanings and symbolisms; they even acquired a divine quality as they never ceased to speak to the human soul. For those of us raised within Christianity, the sweet face of the Virgin Mary holding little Jesus spontaneously comes to mind. Yet, if we look deeper in time, we’ll see a variety of pre-Christian “Madonna and Child” images. The Courotrophos and the Nursing Isis One of these images comes from the Neolithic settlement of Sesklo, in Thessaly, in central Greece. It is a clay figurine of a woman seated on a stool, holding a baby in her arms. Archaeologists date this fascinating find to 4800-4500 BCE. Equally ancient, perhaps even older, are certain figurines from Mesopotamia. One of these portrays a woman with a reptilian face, an unmistakable sign that it was intended to convey multiple meanings [1]. A similar artifact unearthed in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus has a bird’s face. The combination of human andanimal features in art indicates the mythic dimension of these beings – these are not human women, but most probably goddesses with their divine offspring. The goddess holding or nursing an infant was given the epithet courotrophos in ancient Greek. The word derives from the verb trepho, “nourish” or “raise”, and the noun, couros, “boy,” or coure (alternately spelled core or kore), “girl” or “maiden.” This title was attributed to a variety of goddesses; one of them was Artemis, in her capacity as protectress of children; another one was Eileithyia, the patron of childbirth. One can hardly consider it a coincidence that the same title was also given to the Virgin Mary. A famous Byzantine hymn in her honor, known as the Akathist, which is still in use by the Greek Orthodox Church, addresses her as follows: “Hail, fair courotrophos of virgins” [2]. However, the most widespread courotrophos image before Mary came along was that of Isis, who was often shown holding or breastfeeding the young Horus. She is the archetypal Mother, radiating affection, compassion, and kindness. Her origin is lost in the depths of time—she dates from predynastic Egypt (known as Kemet in ancient times), i.e., prior to 3100 BCE. In Hellenistic and Roman times, the worship of Isis spread around the Mediterranean as she was identified with a host of other goddesses. Her Mysteries magnetized emperors, intellectuals, such as Plutarch, Apuleius, and Herodes Atticus, as well as ordinary people. It has become a common secret that the iconography of the Madonna and Child is based on the depiction of Isis and Son. Yet their similarities don’t end there. For example, the Egyptian Mother was called “Queen of Heaven,” a title which was later attributed to the Virgin by the Roman Catholic Church. Interestingly, Mary also found herself in Egypt, along with little Jesus, in order to avoid the “massacre of the innocents,” according to the Gospel of Matthew (2.13-23). So, what if the historicity of these events is disputed by experts? Every religion is a blend of history and myth; thus, biblical narratives must be examined not only from a literal but also from a symbolic perspective. Let us not forget that the Virgin has sometimes been honored as a goddess, a phenomenon that some have called “Mariolatry.” One of the early groups that venerated her as Divine Mother was called “the Collyridians” by Epiphanius (315-403 CE), a Christian bishop who wrote against various “heresies” of his time in his work Panarion or Medicine Box (78-79). The collyris, from which the sect got its name, was the sacred bread they offered to the Mother of God. It is worth noting that this cult appeared in Arabia during the 4th century CE and was particularly popular with women—as a matter of fact, it even included female priests. Maybe Arabia sounds like a faraway place to the Western reader, yet according to Epiphanius, the Collyridians’ teachings originated from Thrace, an area to the north of Greece, where powerful goddesses were once worshipped. Naturally, the kind bishop makes sure to inform us that the Collyridians’ ideas are nothing but “womanish madness.” In his words, “the female sex is easily mistaken, fallible and poor in intelligence. It is apparent that through women the devil has vomited this forth” [3]. However, although the Church has used all fair and unfair means to eliminate such forms of Mariolatry, it hasn’t quite achieved its purpose. The figure of the Virgin, although marginalized in Protestantism, has left an indelible mark on both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic faiths. The endless miracles attributed to her, the countless churches named in her honor, and the innumerable images of her all bear witness to that. The crowds of pilgrims that flock to her famous church on the Greek island of Tinos, as well as those that journey to Notre Dame in Paris or to any other place of her worship don’t allow room for much doubt. Incidentally, it is worth asking how many of these sacred Christian sites were once dedicated to goddesses in ancient times. The Goddess Demeter and the “All Holy” Priestesses By tracing the figure of the Mother and the Divine Child through the centuries, we can see Christmas taking on a different, archetypal dimension. This holiday can turn into an initiation into the mysteries of the human mind, which outwardly projects its timeless symbols. If we accept the theories of C. G. Jung, the father of archetypal psychology, religion and myth are …
(Poem) Butterflies, Goddess, Love, and Freedom by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Photo credit: By Michele Castagnetti, CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons This poem revolves around three actual events: a couple of months ago I was lying under a rose scented geranium when what looked like a caterpillar dropped into my hair (though inside in winter, which means it couldn’t have been an actual caterpillar and I still don’t know what it was, rather than outside in summer), while I was sitting at my mother’s bedside as she was dying I heard the melody from Madama Butterfly and felt deeply comforted, and, finally, a friend told me the story of how she was watching a monarch butterfly fly for the first time and, just as it lifted off, a flock of monarchs arrived and they all flew off together. When I put the three events together, the message of this poem appeared. In a bold moment, risking oblivion for being’s adventure,The milky caterpillar unfurled her grasp on the leaf,Her emerald rose geranium nursery, and flung herselfLike a trapeze artist, into the swirling maelstrom of my hair, My Medusa’s snake strands winding and waving even at rest to catch herAs I lay on the cool, verdant Earth watching the roiling clouds. I had called the butterflies, the dragonflies and damselflies, the beesTo my garden, enticing with fragrant, nutritious milkweed, motherwort, Jerusalem artichoke.The mother butterfly answered with the gift of her larvae before heading home.I promised her I would lie on the ground, her child in the tangle of my hair,The place where women’s spiritual power nests.I promised her I would be still and comforting until the baby’s summer birth,My hands reaching into the soil and clasping fingers with the mycelium,Sending out the message that I am here for the duration.My eyes dim from the sunlight. My water evaporates to the heavens. To the ancient Greeks, the butterfly is the goddess Psyche, the soul,Essence of beauty and mother of joy.To the Nahua people in Mexico, the butterfly is the goddess Itzpapalotl, the soul,Who wears the symbols of death tattooed on Her face. Many years ago, as I sat vigil at my mother’s side while she was dying,I heard the melody from opera Madama Butterfly.It originated not from this realm,But from the portal opening for her to pass through,A leaving from this life that she loved but which was hers no more.Love is eternal. From that time, butterflies have symbolized to me grief and lossEven as I have craved witnessing their wings beating the air,Circling the garden’s blooms and berries.For years I have tried in vain to lure butterflies to my garden.Did they sense my bereavement and feel unwelcomeUntil now, right at this very moment? Outstretched on the embracing wet soil,The breath of herbs and grass soothing me,I have finally gained the message that my mother tendered to meIn the melody that had brought to my mind in that sad moment the flight of butterflies.“Freedom, freedom,” she had coaxed the angels to sing to me,In words untranslated for me till now.Like the butterflies breaking out of their cocoons,“With a mother’s love, with a Goddess’s love, with the Earth’s love,You are free. We could want no more and no less for you.” A butterfly rises from my hair, fluttering against my cheek.For one moment we see each other. She has human eyes,My mother’s eyes that are also my eyes,So that my mother lives on in me.The baby-no-more dries her wings as a flock of sister butterflies surrounds us.They fly away together and none looks back. I try to fly with them by willing my feet to rise into the skyBut I am heavy and earthbound.Now I am fully human, my fingers no longer part of the mycelium,My eyes no longer dim from the sunlight, my body no longer wet from dew.I take up my life again, myself but also more,With dried wings made not of filament, but of flesh and soul. Hello? Have you come to visit? Please, sit in my garden. We’ll have a cup of tea. We’ll chat. How are you? Did you know that butterflies have just come back to my garden this year? I welcome them when they come and wish them adieu when it is time for them to fly away. What else can I do? https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
(Poem) Summer Solstice by Mary Saracino

On this longest day of the year I long for more time to write more poetry sing more songs, eat more chocolate cake, laugh more often I long to dance in the daylight, scooping the sky into my arms as summer shines its abundance on everything it touches I long to live more whole-heartedly, embracing love and hope surrendering to risk and vulnerability On this longest day of the year I long for more courage and perseverance, more chances to savor the joy that leaps from every blossom the sunshine that shimmers on every leaf, on every tree I long to be more generous and kind, to play with abandon, like a wild-eyed child sliding down slides, swinging on swings, prancing across the playground On this day longest day of the year—and every day, short or long— I long for more time to be, see, celebrate the many ways—big and small—that everything is of the One the One the only One. Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet and memoir-writer who lives in Denver, CO. The anthology, She Is Everywhere! Volume 3 (iUniverse 2012) that she co-edited was awarded the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University. Mary’s most recent novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Her short story, “Vicky’s Secret” earned the 2007 Glass Woman Prize. For more information, visit www.marysaracino.com.
(Tribute 3) In Loving Memory of Eve Helene Wilkowitz by Jack Dempsey, Ph.D.

From there, through the next 42 years of travail—Why is this my culture’s “norm”?—there’s not a day or step or book of mine that isn’t hers. I have curled my strength around her sleep. She led me to the earliest art-history I could find, and there were the stunning “unknown” Minoans of ancient Crete: a woman-centered, joyful, dynamically creative and peaceful people without predatory “kings,” and they revel in life at the root of Western civilization for centuries longer than Rome or any period since. Such is the genesis of every work in these pages of Ancientlights.org today: a life’s work to document that we have other teachers, smarter ancestors, better choices—that The Garden is remembering we’re in it. For the record (see for yourself with Links below), this Minoan world—a dynamically creative well-being in Nature’s eternal present, bound together by trade and intermarriage (and protected by strict limits on executive power)—was still going strong when natural disaster and war-loving, self-wrecking clowns (the mainland’s Mycenaeans) combined to take them down. This was the historical emergence of patriarchy, the rule of autocratic men, whose rape for profit and rage for power they sell to us with gods and goods as normal: “Homeric glory.” He cannot control himself, and rather than learning, wallows in degenerate all-controlling fear of anything more powerful. So it is She who must cover herself, numb herself, be invisible, silent, obedient, pure yet alluring, please him in all things and, “ideally,” die. Books, bricks and walls of “his-story” bear down to bury our original Minoan success in nihilism, desperate to convince us that we’re cursed and trapped, while a toxic edifice from blood-exploiting media to crime-fiction and movies gives the lie—as a blossoming young woman who “must” be repeatedly cruelly killed. After an age when our brilliance sang the sanctity of women (hence, of Life), this is daily eucharist, central sacrament in the ritual murder of the best in us. Try counting how many times per day we fakely face the “tragedy” of her annihilation. The last 42 years of this faded Eve’s murder into one among thousands and thousands of Cold Cases round the world that men wish for and pretend to rule. Always a fresh “compelling” scenario round the same murder takes us worse than nowhere. Pornographic culture (turning Life into dead commodity) soaks the nervous system in erotic indulgence, but leaves us not with deeper more miraculous perception: instead, dis-spirited, de-moralized, numb and ever-more hungry for true ecstatic consummation. That is, to live and evolve our souls in this living flesh in a living world and universe. Hollow grifters rob us daily of real eternal life. It seems erotically urgent that we accept this. Publishers and agents “don’t even want to look at it” if you’re going to make people feel something, while farming out millions to any who can “entertain” with the sick aesthetic of an Edgar Allan Poe—who declared “the death of a beautiful woman” as “the most poetical topic in the world.” Love’s deep disturbance is the sham values of patriarchy built on the profits and rewards of psychotic dysfuntion: ignorance, fear and hatred of Earth, of women and peace. Of Life, in a word. If this seems too polemical, look around: Earth dying faster than ever, rights and human institutions crumbling, and the greatest investments by far in soldiers, weapons, and destruction on a planet still with plenty for everyone. The verdict of 2022 is that we’ve learned nothing, and fake necessity prevents it under the rule of men who lack only the courage to feel, question, control themselves, find another smarter way. Yet, there are ways out. Consider the “logic” shared between Eve’s murderer and the global gangsters stumbling toward suicide, anatomized by Susan Griffin’s brilliant Pornography and Silence. For all that we refuse to feel, change and evolve, Life (the Erotic) just keeps coming back to demolish adolescent wishes. The psychotic spiral accelerates, for the rituals of fear increase it: “the mind that believes in delusion must still face reality.” So comes a choice: come to terms with reality, or force the world to resemble the delusion. And where can we look for the quintessential expressions of our choice so far? The daily murder, conquest, exclusionary walls and never-enough-weapons of Zionist apartheid Israel are its failing monuments, maintained by a senile Zero-Sum American Empire, in whose (wishful) world only more death-machines can bring peace, and there can be only one all-controlling power. What can we positively do? Peace is not the absence of war, nor does a practical problem-solving global family happen by default. Those long-gone Minoans actively fostered both with their heterarchia, a nature-based cyclic round of festivals promoting the sharing of power across differences. (The elements of this in Calendar House.) This was so fundamental to their long success that we find it inscribed 1,000 years after them on the wheels of the world’s first computer, the Antikythera Mechanism. The answers are behind and before us. Pornographic patriarchy ends when each of us feeds it no more of our daily life-sustaining labor—and learns to share the world again. *** I cried every day for the first two wretched years of losing Eve (for as Dante said in La Vita Nuova, “how she has been among us, and is not”). It ate me alive that I hadn’t ignored Eve’s wishes and seen her safely home; and that her gentle soft-spoken father let me ride with his shattered family from funeral-home to the grave, while holding me rightly responsible. At last one day I broke open as wide as the morning when we shared that luminous breakfast. This is how much I can love, and now I cannot lose, because this feeling is to win. Another desperate day, Dante’s Comedy cracked open to the very page (Canto V, Inferno) where it seemed Eve was speaking to me still: Love, that in gentle heart so quickly wakes, took him with this fair body, which …
(Prose) The Goddess and the Song of the Universe by Mary Petiet

Mystics, poets, and scientists have long suspected that the universe is singing to us. Last September, scientists proved it when they recorded the sound of two black holes colliding billions of years ago. The sound is the energy rippling from the crash, proving Einstein was right about both space ripples and the existence of black holes. The ripples sing in a C chord, and they are energy in motion, which scientists say will never cease travelling the universe.
(Book Excerpt 5) How to Live Well Despite Capitalist Patriarchy by Trista Hendren

Don’t Buy into Patriarchal Beauty Standards Many of the beauty products we use are slowly killing us without our knowledge or explicit consent. While I identify strongly as a feminist, it is still hard to part with the privilege of being considered “pretty.” As I grow older, I am beginning to calculate what pretty costs. At 37, I dyed my hair for what I promised myself would be the last time. If you research the negative effects of hair dye, it is not something you would willingly use on any part of your body. And then we digress to the issue of body hair; I won’t go into pubic hair because that seems to be discussed everywhere lately. Underarm hair seems to carry even more of a taboo, likely because it is more visible. For years, I maintained the ritual shaving and putting on deodorant each morning, knowing that it was not good for me. All of that came to an end when my six-year-old daughter stopped me while I was putting on my usual brand and asked when she would start to wear deodorant. I told her, “Hopefully never, it’s poison.” She asked, “Then why do you wear it, Mommy?” I promised her I would stop. She looked me dead in the eye and demanded to know, “When?” That was it for me. The indoctrination begins early; it starts with those of us who are mothers. Our daughters watch our every move, how we treat ourselves. I realize now I failed my daughter in some ways, by going along with a system that I didn’t even believe in. Why is how other people perceive us more important than how we feel? Is looking and smelling “good” more important than that? At one point, I had to ask myself, ‘Am I really spending all this time trying to eat healthy, organic food only to ingest toxins via my personal care products?’ The same toxins that we are absorbing into our bodies are often made in poor countries, bringing disastrous consequences for the local environment as well as the individual health of millions of inhabitants. As Kathleen Dean Moore stated, “We believe we can destroy our habitat without also destroying ourselves. How could we be so tragically wrong?”35 You can’t do something to/for yourself that simultaneously hurts another being without an additional adverse effect. So why do we continue to buy into a system that hurts women everywhere? And here is one more thing to consider: In a world where we don’t think our choices matter, they can. Consider the cost of grooming your hair. The average American woman will spend over $55,000 over the course of her lifetime on her hair.36 How many women die completely broke? (The answer is more than half of us!) Whenever I post about this on social media, it always becomes divisive, so here is where I will leave it. Shaving or not shaving—or wearing or not wearing makeup or deodorant—does not make you less or more of a feminist. Sometimes I still shave if I get a wild hair. I sometimes wear makeup, especially when I am feeling really tired and want a little pick-me-up. It is more about how I feel. My children, interestingly enough, hate it when I wear makeup. My husband doesn’t notice one way or another. But I don’t spend money on makeup or shaving. I rarely purchase it—maybe a lipstick every 5 years and an occasional tube of mascara. As with any purchase, I am very intentional about how I will spend my money. The way we groom our hair is probably not a life-changing event for most of us, but that small everyday choice can have an economic impact on our net worth. It can also change what we can afford to contribute to the world at large. Riane Eisler stated: “Women represent 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people in our world who live in absolute poverty. Consequently, as Joan Holmes, president of the Hunger Project, points out, any realistic efforts to change patterns of chronic hunger and poverty require changing traditions of discrimination against women.”37 When we give up the idea that our primary importance is based on how we look, we stop buying all the makeup, hair products, new clothes, etc. that can cost us thousands of dollars every year. We are talking about a $7 billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States alone that profits from women feeling bad about themselves. That is a serious amount of money that could change a lot for females worldwide. I don’t spend money on most of that any more. I spend any extra money I have on supporting women’s projects, books and CD’s—or reinvesting in my own projects. As Lucy Pearce notes, “Society INVESTS in us hating ourselves, one of the most powerful ways to stick it to the system is to decide that’s just not an option, that hate is a waste of time and you’ve got bigger things to do.”38 I don’t want to continue to support a system where women are sliced and diced on Photoshop and still only make 77 cents on the dollar. As women, we cannot afford to support beauty expectations that harm us both collectively and individually. Find more info on this book here.(Meet Mago Contributor) Trista Hendren.
Mother Wash it all Away by Frances Tronetti, Ph.D.

Wikimedia Commons image Watching the rain fall Pouring down on the windshield My day is not over, and it just has gotten worse The week started with a joke about getting a new job as a game warden And then yesterday happened And it wasn’t a joke. Everything’s crashing down, so much extra work I get told to do more while my resources are cut in half A friend said they want my job when I leave I asked if they thought I would quit They said yes I have that look. That look they’ve seen before The dead eyes of people who keep working When they have nothing left to give Sitting in the car in the rain Waiting for the pick-up. Watching the little drops of water collect on the windshield One drop hits another, then another, before it becomes a stream going down Letting that wash over me The healing, soothing rain of the mother The rat tat on the window and the car frame. Mother take it Just take that negative energy, take that pain Take that desperation and despair and hopelessness Just let it wash away. I can’t be outside but I can become refreshed by the rain By looking at still green grass, at a pine tree By watching a bird fluff itself to keep warm. Mother just take it Just take the stress, take everything Wash it all away Leave me feeling like I can do this again As I get back to work. Midway through last week, the state department which oversees my program’s grant made a decision that essentially doubled part of my workload. In a few hours, all our plans for the summer program were altered and I felt completely dead. I’d been working so hard to build my program and make it work. I balanced the educational requirements with our desire to give the students an enjoyable experience. As I sat having a panic attack/breakdown, I watched the rainstorm happening outside the van. I pictured the stress, and the negative feelings, and my anger washing away as I watched water droplets hit, collect, then stream down the windshield. A feeling of peace washed over me and I was able to get through the day, teach my students, and get home. Sometimes we can’t do a full ritual or cleansing, was have only a few moments to gather ourselves before we need to get back to work. But, sometimes those few moments are all that we need, to ask for a little help to control ourselves and our emotions so we can get home safe. https://www.magoism.net/2018/11/meet-mago-contributor-rev-francesca-tronetti-ph-d/
(Prose) What is Apple Branch Dianic Witchcraft? By Deanne Quarrie, D. Min. HPS

Dianic Witchcraft For every woman who calls herself Dianic, you will receive a different response to that question. Rather than quote other sources, let me just create for you who we are. We are a Goddess-centered, earth-based, feminist denomination of the Wiccan religion revived and inspired both by author and activist, Zsuzsanna Budapest. In addition, we find tremendous value in a structure founded on ancient teachings learned from our kindred on the web of life, and material which comes from Druidic sources and The Ogham, Her Sacred Alphabet. Our beliefs include: Belief in female divinity, who we call “Goddess.” Celebration of eight solar celebrations and thirteen lunar cycles. A solid foundation of feminist ideology. A belief in the sacredness of our bodies. An understanding that the patriarchy we live in does not accurately reflect authentic experience. The basic beliefs of Dianics are shared by most Wiccans. Belief in the Wiccan Rede. We hold the principle of cause and effect as a foundational principle. We celebrate the holiday’s common to Wiccans. Mark Roberts and Morgan McFarland created a mixed-gender tradition that also identifies as Dianic and is Goddess based. At its inception, it was simply called “Dianic, but in 1999 the name McFarland Dianic was adopted. We also include the Mysteries offered by Mark Robert in his Faerie Faith Tradition. We believe that the teachings honoring the Earth by living in a holistic way, in harmony with the Earth are critical in these times. The rituals and practices are based on teachings from the Ogham, an ancient magical alphabet used by the Druids. All rituals honor Woman as Sacred as unto the Goddess. From these roots, our rituals have been adapted and expanded, as we believe nothing in life is static. There are many who identify as Dianic. You will find quite a list at Witches Voice on the Internet. (www.witchvox.com ) There is no one Way. There is no right Way. The Apple Branch is a tradition within Dianic Witchcraft. Within our women only circle, we honor our Women’s Mysteries as well as the seasons and cycles of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. We, as women, require our woman only space in which to heal and come into our own fullness. Both men and women have grown up in and are living in a patriarchal society. We have been taught both overtly and subvertly, behavior patterns that apply to how we interact with each other. The true value of woman only space is that it gives women a venue to just “be” – to be themselves, without the role playing inherent in our interaction with the opposite gender. Isolate us from those gender roles and we are more able to tap into our authenticity. By looking into the eyes of our Sisters and seeing Goddess and reflections of ourselves, we strip away those societal norms and come to our true nature and find our Sacred Center. It is a healing we can find nowhere else as spiritual beings. It also serves as an authentic support system giving us much needed affirmation, energy and love. Regardless of spiritual beliefs and practices, women, in time honored tradition have always come together in woman only space for the sharing and telling of our stories. We have come together to honor the Mysteries of our bodies in ways that only women can fully appreciate. As women, it is imperative to reclaim our bodies as sacred. As women, it is imperative that we reclaim our personal power and work together to overcome thousands of years of oppression. We understand that we do not live in a world made up of women only and know that our relationships are critical to our lives. We take time to honor our friends and family by coming together where men, women, children are all welcome. In these Rites, we make no separation as to gender, age, or sexual identity. This is our family, or Clan. We come together at such times to celebrate the Sabbats of the Year or other life events where we would wish to share with all. These are our family gatherings. In my heart of hearts, I choose to believe that there is much beauty in both men and women and that all are of Goddess. Our conditioning and ways of being, for both, have been twisted and formed, and shaped by the patriarchy in which we live. But deep within the core, both are beautiful. We already know that those difficulties in relationships do not seem to be associated with the sex of the parties. The same difficulties arise with same sex and opposite sex unions. We both have so much to learn and one day I trust we will all be learning how to be together in harmony. I chose women only space for my deep work with Goddess because that is where I can open and be true to my most holy center. I chose that arena to offer myself in service to women around the world. I could just as easily have stayed in mixed gender groups. However, as my love for Goddess grew, I knew that my work had to be with Her women. It is in this sacred space that we create together, that we women become whole, trusting, and healed. Ultimately however, for most women it is critical that we then take this whole and divine woman back out into the world where men and women need to learn to be together in healing and trusting ways. We will always need and return to our woman only space for replenishment. There is inherently something very special and unique in women’s magic. Women’s Mysteries belong to women and are held sacred in women only space. To be Dianic is to be empowered by the Goddess in all that is. We know that time moves in a never-ending spiral of energy and love. We see the Mother’s face in the world all around us, in the Original Earth Mother, in the wild, independent Virgin …
(Book Summary) Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Bringing the world back into balance means creating equilibrium and peace at every level: between the genders, the generations, different social groups, and different peoples. Over the past decades a new socio-cultural science offering definitive insights for this process has been developed: research on matriarchal societies, known as modern Matriarchal Studies. Widespread misconceptions about matriarchy notwithstanding, women’s strong position does not mean that matriarchies are women’s autocratic rule. Contrary to this, matriarchal societies are based on gender equality. Their social rules have developed out of thousands of years of experience, and demonstrate a perfectly balanced relationship between women’s and men’s spheres of action. All political decisions are reached through consensus among community members, and insightful, thoroughly worked out principles and social guidelines ensure that unanimity will eventually be achieved on each issue. The resulting social structure is non-violent, and enables a good life for all. This book is the basic mainwork on modern Matriarchal Studies. It gives the philosophical and theoretical foundation of this new field of knowledge, the matriarchy paradigm of human history and society. At first the history of research on matriarchy is briefly given, in its various contexts and academic disciplines. It sheds new light on old theories, and re-evaluates newer theories in light of modern Matriarchal Studies. The chapter ends with a brief review of various feminist and indigenous approaches to matriarchy research. They differ fundamentally from traditional matriarchy research, both in their ideological criticism of patriarchy and their liberative context. In the main part, the complete and detailed new definition of matriarchy, which presents the deep structure of this form of society, is given, a definition which was missing in traditional research on this subject. Based on a vast case-by-case cross-cultural research, the structures and guidelines that function across all levels of matriarchal societies are elaborated. This has been done by investigating and presenting most of the still existing matriarchal societies across the continents of Asia, South and North America, and Africa, which exhibit a fascinating richness of matriarchal forms and patterns. The focus is not only on the microstructures of matriarchal societies, i. e. the guidelines and customary practices that make up family and clan systems, but also on their macrostructures, i.e. the institutions that refer to larger social structures, which can even extend beyond one single matriarchal people to encompass connections of several matriarchal peoples. Topics include: Introduction: Philosophy and Methodology of Modern Matriarchal Studies Part I Chapter 1: A Critical History of Perspectives on Matriarchy Chapter 2: Matriarchy in North-Eastern India Chapter 3: Matriarchal Cults in Nepal Chapter 4: Ancient Queens Realms, and Group Marriage in Tibet Chapter 5: Matriarchal Mountain Peoples of China Chapter 6: Women Shamans in Korea Chapter 7: The Islands of Japan: Women’s Cultures of the South and North Chapter 8: “Alam Minangkabau” – the world of the Minangkabau in Indonesia Chapter 9: Matriarchal Patterns in Melanesia Chapter 10 Pacific Ocean Cultures Part II Chapter 11: Matriarchal Cultures in South America Chapter 12: The Spread of Matriarchy to Central America Chapter 13: North America: Matriarchal Immigrants from the South Chapter 14: North America: At the Cultural Crossroads of South and North Chapter 15: Matriarchy in South India Chapter 16: Ancient Matriarchy in Central Africa Chapter 17: Matriarchal Queen-Kingship in West Africa Chapter 18: Matriarchal Pastoral Peoples in North Africa Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a German philosopher and researcher of culture and society, she is a founder of modern Matriarchal Studies. She taught at the University of Munich and was visiting professor at the University of Montreal, Canada, and the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She guided two World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies in 2003 and 2005, and a third large congress on Matriarchal Politics in 2011. She was nominated as one of the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize” in 2005. Voices on the book “Matriarchal Societies”: With the publication of this important book, Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s brilliant critical conceptualization of the deep structures shared by matriarchal societies around the world becomes fully available in English. Her theory has developed, not abstractly, but inductively from the analytical investigation of numerous societies by non-indigenous and indigenous researchers. It provides the basis for a full fledged interdisciplinary and cross-cultural field of Matriarchal Studies where previously only isolated studies were possible. Matriarchal Studies is a deeply political and liberatory field grounded in an understanding that the destructive patriarchal power structures pervasive today are a historically recent development. Scholars of matriarchy, some of whom are members of remaining matriarchal societies, are uncovering and reclaiming cultures created mainly by women. Their research offers support for indigenous peoples’ struggles on every continent for land and cultural rights and brings hope to us all that we can build a better world. – Angela Miles, Professor of Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. If in the millenium of women, future generations look back to find the origin of their peaceful societies, they will find that the work of Heide Goettner Abendroth opened the way. Modern Matriarchal Studies break through patriarchal capitalist ideology, and provide the new/old models for viable ways of life of which our present globalizing market is only a destructive abberation. – Genevieve Vaughan, Author of the books For-Giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange and Women and the Gift Economy: A Radically Different Worldview is Possible, and Founder of the International Feminists for a Gift Economy. For decades, Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth has worked as a serious scholar on the deep history and on-going traditions of matriarchy in Europe. Her extensive research has taken her through strong, historical matriarchies, both on her own continent and on other continents, drawing together the research of the most modern, international scholars on matriarchy. Her book now brings to undeniable light the matriarchal alternatives available to humanity. Dr. Goettner-Abendroth should be on the reading list of every Women’s Studies program. – Barbara Alice Mann, Ohio Bear Clan Seneca, Assistant Professor at the Honors College, University of Toledo, Co-director of the Native American Alliance of Ohio. …

(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] [C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments: To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do. [C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented! [Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope. I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system? Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there. Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be. [C]: On this […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 1) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in […]
(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

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

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

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …
(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. …
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 …
(Slideshow) Beltaine Goddess by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

Tara, Hallie Iglehart Austen, p.122 On November 7th at 22:56 UTC EarthGaia crosses the midpoint in Her orbit between Equinox and Solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere it is the Season of Beltaine – a maturing of the Light, post-Spring Equinox. Beltaine and all of the light part of the cycle, is particularly associated with the Young One/Virgin aspect of Goddess, even as She comes into relationship with Other: She remains Her own agent. Beltaine may be understood as the quintessential annual celebration of Light as it continues to wax towards fullness. It is understood to be the beginning of Summer. Here is some Poetry of the Season: Earth tilts us further towards Mother Sun, the Source of Her pleasure, life and ecstasy You are invited to celebrate BELTAINE the time when sweet Desire For Life is met – when the fruiting begins: the Promise of early Spring exalts in Passion. This is the celebration of Holy Lust, Allurement, Aphrodite … Who holds all things in form, Who unites the cosmos, Who brings forth all things, Who is the Essence of the Dance of Life. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express this quality of Hers. 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 Beltaine. 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=SKGRoVjQQHY Aphrodite 300 B.C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). This Greek Goddess is commonly associated with sexuality in a trivial kind of way, but She was said to be older than Time (Barbara Walker p.44). Aphrodite as humans once knew Her, was no mere sex goddess: Aphrodite was once a Virgin-Mother-Crone trinity – the Creative Force itself. The Love that She embodied was a Love deep down in things, an allurement intrinsic to the nature of the Universe. Praised by the Orphics thus: For all things are from You Who unites the cosmos. You will the three-fold fates You bring forth all things Whatever is in the heavens And in the much fruitful earth And in the deep sea. Vajravarahi 1600C.E. Tibetan Tantric Buddhism (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A Dakini dancing with life energy – a unity of power, beauty, compassion and eroticism. Praised as Mistress of love and of knowledge at the same time. Tara Contemporary – Green Gulch California ,Tibetan Buddhist. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). “Her eroticism is an important part of her bodhisattvahood: the sweetpea represents the yoni, and she is surrounded by the sensual abundance of Nature. One of Tara’s human incarnations was as the Tibetan mystic Yeshe Tsogyal, “who helped many people to enlightenment through sacred sexual union with her”. – Ishtar 1000 B.C.E. Babylon (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Associated with passionate sexuality (and with Roman Goddess Venus) – which was not perceived as separate from integrity and intelligence … praised for Her beauty and brains! Her lips are sweet, Life is in Her mouth. When She appears, we are filled with rejoicing. She is glorious beneath Her robes. Her body is complete beauty. Her eyes are total brilliance. Who could be equal to Her greatness, for Her decrees are strong, exalted, perfect. MESOPOTAMIAN TEXT 1600 B.C.E. Artemis 4th Cent.B.C.E. Greece. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess) – classic “Virgin” image – wild and free, “Lady of the Beasts”, Goddess of untamed nature. As such, in the patriarchal stories She is often associated with harshness, orgiastic rituals but we may re-story “wildness” in our times as something “innocent” – in direct relationship with the Mother. She is a hunter/archer, protector, midwife, nurturing the new and pure essence (the “wild”) – in earlier times these things were not contradictory. The hunter had an intimate relationship with the hunted. Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. Tibetan Goddess and God in Union: it could be any Lover and Beloved, of same sex. Image from Mann and Lyle, “Sacred Sexuality” p.74. Sacred Couple –Mesopotamia 2000-1600 BCE “Lovers Embracing on Bed”, Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth, Diane Wolkstein and Samuael Noah Kramer. Represents the sacred marriage mythic cycle – late 3rd and into 4th millennium B.C.E. (See Starhawk, Truth or Dare). This period is the time of Enheduanna – great poet and priestess of Inanna. Xochiquetzal 8th century C.E. Mayan (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). Her name means “precious flower” – She is Goddess of pleasure, sexuality beauty and flowers. Sometimes represented by a butterfly who sips the nectar of the flower. “In ancient rituals honouring her, young people made a bower of roses, and, dressed as hummingbirds and butterflies they danced an image of the Goddess of flowers and love.” Her priestesses are depicted with ecstatic faces. (called “laughing Goddesses” !!) She and Her priestesses unashamedly celebrated joyful female sexuality – there is story of decorating pubic hairs to outshine the Goddess’ yoni. https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/meet-mago-contributor-glenys-livingstone/ REFERENCES: Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Mann A.T. and Lyle, Jane. Sacred Sexuality. ELEMENT BOOKS LTD, 1995. Starhawk. Truth or Dare. San Fransisco:Harper and Row, 1990. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983. Wolkstein,Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth. NY: Harper and Rowe, 1983. The music for the slideshow is “”Coral Sea Dreaming” by Tania Rose.
Beltaine/High Spring within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

(Goma Article Excerpt 1) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was first included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books.] This essay may be called a Magoist study of the Korean foundation myth, also known as the Dangun myth. It reinstates Goma, better known as “Ungnyeo (Bear/Sovereign Woman),” the shaman ruler of pre-patriarchal Korea, who is the main character of the Korean foundation myth. Here “Mago” stands for the Creatrix and “Magoism” for pre-patriarchally originated indigenous tradition of East Asia that venerates the Creatrix.[1] Identifying Goma as the ruler Goddess of Old Korea/East Asia is by no means a new effort. She is, although few in number, alluded to the eponymous Goddess of ancient Korean States (Goma State, for example) in both historical sources and modern research. In fact, “Ungnyeo” is one of the most studied topics by Korean linguists, mythologists, and historians for it concerns the identity of the Korean people. Nonetheless, those studies tend to be monodisciplinary or androcentric in their approaches and consequently fail to assess her full-fledged supreme identity as the ancestor ruler of East Asian nations. This chapter engages in transdisciplinary, comparative, and feminist approaches to elucidating the Goma myth. At the outset, we will rename “the Korean foundation myth” “the Goma myth.” That is corollary in that she is the central figure of the story. Also it introduces Old Korea as the One People of the Creatrix, anciently known as Nine Hans (九桓 Guhan). The Goma myth restores the gynocentric multi-meaning of “Nine Hans” and “Magoist Koreans/East Asians,” which is non-ethnocentric and supra-nationalist in origin. The character, “Han (桓),” in “Nine Hans” and “Hanguk,” is complex in meaning as it connotes “one,” “whole, “great,” “good,” “same,” “bright,” “many,” “correct,” “middle,” “full” and the like. Thus, “Nine Hans” refer to the People of the Creatrix who have those qualities of the character “Han.” Koreanists have designated as Hanism (the Han thought) this inclusive and polysemic nature of the word “Han” characteristic of traditional Korean worldview.[2] Although naming it Hanism is insightful, it may be misleading without a full-fledged hermeneutics of Goma mythology. Goma, known as Ungnyeo or Gom, remains underestimated and misrepresented among modern Koreans. A common understanding of the Korean foundation myth goes that she was the bear who became a woman and married Hanung, the divine sage ruler of Old Korea, and gave birth to a son, Dangun, the founder of the proto-Chinese Joseon dynasty (2333 BCE-232 BCE). Goma is diminished to the role of a mother of an assumed male hero at best. Consequently, she is redacted from the mytho-historical context of Old Magoist Korea/East Asia (the pre-patriarchal gynocentric people of the Creartrix), and divested of her supreme identity as the dynastic founder of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE). Given the immensity and complexity of the topic and its data, it is admittedly impossible to treat them comprehensively within a chapter. While many salient themes are discussed, many others are not treated. Among the untreated are Nine Numerology and its cross-cultural manifestations beyond East Asia. This essay aims the following: (1) It provides some pivotal background discussions as well as overall characteristics of the Goma myth. (2) It introduces and delineates the four narratives of the Goma myth selectively chosen from various written texts. The fact that the topic of Goma has rarely been brought to light in its own right in the West adds to the difficulty. This has to do with the fact that pre-Chinese Korean/East Asian history is deemed heterodox, if recognized, in mainstream (read Sinocentric and patriarchal) East Asian Studies. Not only her supreme identity but also her Magoist mytho-historical context remains as non-data in the institutionalized practice of Korean Studies. Our task necessarily involves a controversial feminist methodology, debunking conventional interpretations as a product of Sinocentrism. Mainstream Koreanists have endorsed or internalized the Chinese ethnocentric worldview that is patriarchal and imperialist. Reversing the multiple reversals, the current work, as a result, exposes what is written out of the official East Asian mytho-historiography. Summary of the Goma Myth Goma had a great spirit from birth. Because of her vision of “benefiting the human world widely,” she was entrusted by the last shaman queen, Hanin of Hanguk (桓國 State of One People, c. 7199 BCE – 3898 BCE), with the task of restoring the Reign of the Creatrix. Toward the end of the Hanguk confederacy, clan names and their customs grew apart. And a belligerent tiger clan rose. They raided and plundered neighboring tribes. Goma conceived a will to pacify a social problem caused by this unruly patrilocal clan. Determined to constrain the tiger clan, she requested Hanin to send her to the troubled region. Hanin granted her wish and sent her to the region, Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence). Leading the royal bear clan of 3,000 people, Goma arrived at Mount Taebaek and settled adjacent to the tiger clan. Rather than a military solution, she proposed a covenant for both the bear clan and the tiger clan to observe. Both clans underwent a trial, which was to dwell in a cave hall and endure 100 days without seeing the sunlight, living on mugwort and chive. I call her proposal the cave initiation, a socio-spiritual pledge to undergo the ordeal of the cave environment in order to tap into one’s innate power of restoring true human nature. The cave is a physical and metaphorical place for the womb of the Primordial Mother, the sacred space/time of unity, wholeness, and rebirth, wherein everyone once dwelt. The cave initiation represents a returning to the knowing of the common origin of all beings, the Crearix. Goma proffered the tiger clan an option of changing their predatory behaviors but they could not endure the cave initiation. The bear clan endured for three seven days (21 days) and attained the female character, the true human nature. The tiger clan was expelled to a remote designated land outside Four Seas, the territory of Old Magoist East Asia, by verdict of the law that Goma legislated. …
(Book Excerpt 6) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] Magoism, East Asian Religions, and Magoist Mudangs As mentioned above, Magoism refers to the totality of human civilization that is ultimately gynocentric. Speaking from a narrow perspective, Magoism is the primordial matrix from which such East Asian religions as Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were derived. In the light of Magoism, a patriarchal religion is redefined as a pseudo-Magoism that which has co-opted the Way of the Great Goddess (Magoism) with the androcentric reversal of the female
(Essay) Reviving and Celebrating the Nine-Goddess Symbolism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

In my ongoing research on the Great Goddess known as Mago, I have discovered the number nine gynocentric symbolism as the most prominent current that constitutes Magoism and named it the Nona (Number Nine) Mago religion/civilization/mythology. Like other civilizational inventions such as the calendar and musicology, numerology is an intellectual system of knowing the Way of Nature/Universe/Creatrix. And the number nine is no arbitrary number but is the numeric code of the Creatrix or the Primordial Mother. It codifies the cosmogonic beginning of the Primordial Mother, that is, the Primordial Mago Household. It refers to the primordial principle of the solar/terrestrial beginning.