July 17, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

(Art) Crown of Isis by Julie Stewart Rose

The role of the mother is very evident as Isis, being the Queen of Heaven and Earth in Egyptian mythology. Isis represents the divine in women, she is a creator Read More …

(Book Review) Kommentar zu Graebner/Wengrow: A critical appraisal of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021) by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

A great title and a great book; the entire history of humankind in a single volume! This arouses curiosity, especially since the two authors are experts in their respective fields: Graeber is an anthropologist and Wengrow an archaeologist. Hence the praise in the general press is not long in coming. Nevertheless, this book also deserves a critical appraisal. What is valuable about this book is not only the expertise of the two authors, who have incorporated the latest archaeological findings, but also that they fundamentally show that egalitarian societies make up the vast majority of human history and not infrequently re- established themselves by breaking away from societies based on domination. The authors therefore contradict the view that egalitarian societies and democracies are rare exceptions in a history characterised by kingdoms, empires and repressive states. They refute the view that domination has always existed everywhere and forms part of “human nature”, so to speak. This view of an endless history written by the victors is overturned by their work and that’s a good thing! For if domination from the top down had always existed, it would make no sense to rise up against it – something which is in the interest of those representing the history of the victors. According to this “history of victors” belief, indigenous peoples and women as a whole fall by the wayside. It is therefore fascinating to read how the authors reverse this view and place the wisdom of Indigenous peoples at the centre, using the example of the political criticism of the Iroquois against the white Europeans, whose society was characterised by egotism, competition and private ownership, lack of individual freedom and arbitrary violence. The authors also emphasise how much the egalitarian constitution of the League of the Five Nations, or the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, influenced the constitution of America’s Founding Fathers and later the French Revolution, a fact that is all too readily denied by white Americans and Europeans. Equally revealing is the description by the two authors of how criticism by Indigenous people was answered and counteracted by the European elite. They were degraded to the status of “noble savages” and theories of the unilineal development of history (“stage theories”) were invented in which, for instance, the inferior stage of “barbarism” was attributed to their social order while only the Western social order had risen to the level of “civilisation”. These stage theories of history were the intellectual ideology used in colonial times to justify the conquest of other peoples and the destruction of their cultures, with noticeable repercussions to this day. With their decisive inclusion of the Indigenous perspective, the authors critically question this Euro-American history of victors and expose its unenlightened arrogance. But what about the inclusion of women’s perspectives? They are generally also the victims of the history of victors because they simply do not exist in it. Although they are far from a marginal group, making up half of humanity, in this “new history of humanity” they only sporadically appear and then in an unrelated context. However, at least they do appear, something which distinguishes this “new history” from other histories written by males. But their significance is not grasped, as if they had not achieved anything throughout the millennia of human history that would have been worthy of detailed mention and, above all, systematic inclusion. This “new” history is strangely incomplete when it comes to the activities and inventions of women and their shaping of social orders. Yet it is precisely the situation of women, their freedom or lack of freedom, that reflects the state of a society as a whole. This significance of women in the history of humanity is one of the burning questions we want to explore. The other burning question is: where does humankind’s striving for equality and happiness come from? By “equality” here I don’t mean egalitarianism or formal equality but an understanding that each individual has the same value in spite of the countless differences between people. When each and every individual has the same value, they are given personal dignity and freedom of choice in acting together with others. This aspiration is deeply rooted in human beings but what is its origin? We learn nothing about this in this book, except that the notion of an original state of equality in human history is rejected as a relic of the old stage theories. Yet the question remains: why do humans strive so intensely for happiness and equality and how have they managed to live egalitarian lives in such long and different periods of history? This seems contradictory, and it has to do with the fact that the fundamental importance of women and mothers does not feature in this work. Consequently, despite the authors’ honest attempt at balance, the work remains male-oriented and therefore limited. For the fundamental importance of women and mothers in the humanisation of Homo sapiens, we will only briefly refer to the work of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, who has shown that it’s precisely the care, attention and capacity for empathy of mothers that distinguishes the human species from the animal world. This ability was passed on to the whole community as other women and also men adopted this original maternal attitude and empathy with other people and beings and it became a characteristic trait of the human species. Human infants in indigenous societies grew up, and continue to grow up today, in an environment of universal care and empathy that makes them aware of their personal value, no matter how different one child is from another. This means that, from the very beginning, they experience equality as equal value and derive feelings of happiness from this. Childhood is therefore the origin of this striving for happiness and equality and, in human history, this was due to mothers and these maternal values, as is still the case today, individually with every mother who has the same attitude for her children and their needs. For without this no child …
(Art & Prose) She Who Runs With the Herds by Jude Lally

My dolls are born on the thresholds, one foot in this world and a foot in the otherworld. As I create a doll and build up the layers of wool and fabric I am also digging down to her bones, hearing her stories of her people and the landscape. The inspiration for this doll was born in a time of ice, a time when great herds of reindeer were able to cross from mainland Europe across to Britain. She was there with her people guiding them as they tracked the reindeer. The female reindeer, like the male, grows antlers. She is the leader of the herd, following the ancestral deer paths over the land that her mother led the herd on and her mother before that – stretching back thousands of years.There is an ancient connection between women who led her people and these female reindeer – one which has been honored and respected. The wise women of these clans were the women who went into trance to contact this Great Mother of the herds to ask for a sign of where to find the herds and in ritual gave thanks for using them for food, shelter, for sacred objects and clothing. Even today many women see the wisdom in this great Mother of the Herds, they search out her knowledge, dream of their foremother’s rituals and ceremonies. Visiting the Cairngorm Reindeer herd, Scotland Our spiritual journeys, too, take us through bogs of unconsciousness. We too must pass through raging rivers of grief, tread carefully over areas of icy despair, cross craggy ravines that reflect our terror of the unknown, and face feared enemies that threaten to devour us, like hungry wolf packs. As the earthly reindeer struggles to dig up grass and lichen for food to fuel her journey, so we must strive to find what nutures our spirit’. Linda Schierse Leonard. Creation’s Heartbeat. Following the Reindeer Spirit. It is not hard today to lose hope, to be overwhelmed by all that is unfolding and sink into despair and apathy. Wherever you are in the world we can be inspired by the Wise Woman who led her people and when they lost the herd it was she, She Who Runs WIth the Herd that moved into the threshold, shapeshifted into deer and ran through the snowfields of the otherworld to find the herd. Once she found them she ran with the reindeer, body running with body, heels clicking in the noise they make which allows them to hear where each reindeer is. She runs with them through valley, through forest recognizing both the reindeer and the terrain so she can return to her people and know which path to take. Transforming hopelessness into faith requires digging into the depths of the soul, just as the reindeer must dig deep in the snow for lichenLinda Schierse Leonard. Creation’s Heartbeat. Following the Reindeer Spirit. Yet running with the herd also allows you to dig deep for what is required to nourish your soul. To find that much-needed magic, the fodder that feeds the soul for this dark journey offers a rebirth of the soul. Click on the file below to take this journey to run with the herd. Perhaps take some time before you make the journey – consider your intention for your journey. Take some time to journey alone and keep a journal and pen by your side to record any insights or inspirations. (Meet Mago Contributor) Jude Lally https://soundcloud.com/sisterhood-of-the-antlers/she-who-runs-with-the-herds
(Art) Breath of Heaven by Susan Abbott

Breath of Heaven, done in radiant watercolor, started out as a meditative cosmos dot painting innocently enough. But going along as I often do especially with the undergirding, usually looser lighter layers of color, things emerge, shapes show up. Here it was a woman’s facial profile with hints of garment in the mix. I planned for a bright big sun-like yellow orb which was there a bit across from her mouth – a basic yellow circle. But then I had a hankering for a little wisp of green. The yellow circle wasn’t quite as dry as I had thought and my little drop of green kind exploded that sun! Oops! I watched that yellow orb become something else, tell another story – like a big bang was happening right before my eyes! It was kind of cool to watch it happen and just let it be. Meanwhile the female figure loomed as such a powerful presence that I decided to take of some of the dark paint from her mouth to the orb so it looked like her breath. Her breath was the cause of that explosion, her breath making some big changes, some new life – an imaginary of how creation works. The next day I came back to the studio and saw the painting all dried and decided that this “oops” was a happy accident, a teaching in the art of letting go that watercolor does so well – if you let it. (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Abbott.
(Tribute 2) In Loving Memory of Eve Helene Wilkowitz by Jack Dempsey, Ph.D.

Eve is on the verge of her 21st birthday that Spring: a smart strong happy outgoing person grown up in Oakdale, Long Island, and moving now from Bay Shore into dynamic relation with the world, through her college-course pursuit of a career in social work. She loves her Jewish family, old friends from Connetquot High School, home-cooked meals, horses, stupid movies, music (most lately, The Beatles): the first thing they love together is walking the great city streets holding hands, and talking and talking. “Eve and I were not what anyone would consider popular at Connetquot,” writes a close girlfriend (posted among other fond comments with “Eve, Spring, Flowers” at Wordpress). “Other girls were sometimes mean to her,” and although Eve is “rather shy and fragile,” people close to her know “one of the sweetest people I ever met.” “I always felt she would contribute a great deal to society” because “she had such a lovely personality…from deep within.” “She seemed to have blossomed after high school.” Eve’s love for her family and her own life’s hopes are a painful mix these days. Just a year ago, her mother has died young of cancer, and Eve hides the grief still in her heart. As she lives now to honor and care for her father and younger sister, she also “just has to get out” of their devastated home awhile, to find her way. And out comes her current situation—for she had jumped too fast into living with a boyfriend who, she avers, is boyfriend no more. She’s stuck in a very uneasy living-space and longs to break out in new directions. Weekly February dates for lunch become home-cooked dinners at the writer’s midtown mouse-hole, and always a fresh red rose sprayed with baby’s breath in his hand or on the table. He’s holding back most of a million kisses as Eve urges him, “Go slow, go slow”: she says the last thing she wants is new commitment, even as a girlfriend recalls that at the time, “she seemed the happiest I had ever known her to be.” To him she seems endearingly grateful for any little kindness, such as taking her by crosstown taxi to the evening’s last Long Island Railroad train, and constant offers (staunchly declined) to see her all the long way home. “There’s nothing to worry about, I know everybody,” she protests. Eager to show what a patient, understanding fellow he could often pretend to be, he croons a few after-dinner songs with acoustic guitar. “Like James Taylor?” “Some,” Eve shrugs. So, he plays, and as sure as it happens that two people instantly know they belong together, he can see her slowly melting toward the world he longs to give. Well the sun is surely sinking down but the moon is slowly rising so this old world must still be spinning round and I still love you It won’t be long before another day we gonna have a good time and no one’s gonna take that time away you can stay as long as you like Soon, one mid-week morning, Eve rides into Manhattan early and just shows up with breakfast at the writer’s door. Spring sunshine pours down through tall windows onto his ratty little table where they sit (talking, talking), and life between them is in full bloom. Her planned spontaneous visit happens in the same days when Eve starts a diary (later shared with the writer by authorities): I bought this book to write in because I am very confused with the things I’ve been doing and feeling lately….I think I have a problem with guys and love. I don’t want to fall in love and don’t want a commitment. But it seems as if they do….I definitely don’t. I do want a guy to care….I really don’t know what exactly I want out of a relationship. I know that right now I like Jack….I know that he likes me too, but I told him not to push….But so far he seems like a nice guy. He is honest, and he thinks that I am funny. Although Eve hates and dreads office-gossip, she stops by his Macmillan writer’s desk as work allows, and there one morning he invites her on a writing-trip to talk with his WWII-veteran uncle in Asheville, North Carolina. “What? When are you going? All that for a stupid book?” “Stupid book? I think you should go away now,” he says with obviously fake umbrage. Within hours an enormous red rose lands on his desk, with a card: Jack, Sorry. Hope this helps, Eve. He brings the bloom home and it unfolds like no rose he’s ever seen. March 12 1980. I think I am in trouble now. I think I am really starting to like Jack more than I wanted to. I have a feeling that this time I am the one who is going to be hurt. I asked him if he dates other girls and he said yes. And that bothers me, but I can’t show it. I don’t want him to think I care too much, or too little. I really don’t want to lose this guy. He is really good to me and makes me feel good, I’m glad we’re taking it slow like I said. But now I think about him more than I want to. I am afraid. I really don’t want to fall in love with him, and I am so scared of being hurt. Nine days later—Friday March 21st—they glide down Third Avenue from Macmillan to his place on 36th Street. Under red evening sky young street-poplars bloom out yellow and purple. Sharing wine, laughing, kissing, talking challenges and hopes: he’s rolling a smoke, Eve comes from behind to wrap his neck and nuzzle, and the man dissolves. “Eve, don’t be afraid. But I love you. I love you and I …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Noris Binet

A native of the Dominican Republic, Ms. Binet is an artist, author and spiritual teacher. Her background is as a sociologist and she holds an honorary doctorate in counseling and philosophy from the IIHS in Montreal, Canada. She offers retreats, workshops and Satsangs, wherein she facilitates meditation and self-inquiry through her dharma poetry and the sound of the zither. She founded Women on the Inner Journey Foundation dedicated to providing a safe space for reclaiming the sacred feminine through art, movement and silence. Based upon her work of healing racial wounds in Nashville, TN, she published Women on the Inner Journey. A member of the Sonoma Writers Alliance (http://sonomawriters.blogspot.com), she lives in Sonoma, CA and Ajijic, Mexico. Selected artwork can be seen at www.norisbinet.org.
(Poetry) woman by Maya Daniel

she went through them–twisting her spine, bleedingand the baby’s cry is getting louderher journey has come to thisshe’s awake and the wilds followed herthe seed grows on her handshe is a silent warrior it is beautiful to live. (Meet Mago Contributor) Maya Daniel
(Art Poem) O fruitful like the olive tree by Yvonne M Lucia

O fruitful like the olive tree, you stand strong and resilient though gnarled from age and the ravages of merciless storms. Your face, a storied map, guides me to the truth of Wisdom’s price. In spite of all, your withered limbs bear fruit. May I be so rooted and grounded in the orchard of your generative love that my true worship is a harvest of justice, integrity, and compassion. Meet Mago Contributor Yvonne M Lucia
(Book Excerpt 3) The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia

[Author’s Note: The following is from Chapter 8, The Consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW.] The Budoji stories the primordial drama of Mago’s beginning. It furnishes a yet-to-be-heard story of the beginning of the Great Goddess, the taboo story in patriarchy. It is the story of the Creatrix that patriarchy has attempted to erase. It can be temporarily forgotten but can never die because it is the story that is at the root of patriarchy. Ultimately, it is The Story that is happening HERE and NOW. The merit of the Magoist Cosmogony lies in the fact that it, through storying, restores the view of the whole, the macrocosmic view of the All. The holistic view necessarily involves the Great Goddess or the First Mother in that S/HE is the Creatrix. Time is not a linear concept, flowing from one end to the other. Time is the unified Present, happening NOW. It may be said that time is circular or cyclic, as all beings are constantly in motion to enhance the process of self-creation, which causes the whole to change ceaselessly. The Present hosts an infinite number of stories that take place in the undividable One Space HERE. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still happening and we are invited to re-cognize HER STORY in the HERE and NOW. The beginning is a process, not a single isolated event that took place in the remote past.[i] All things exist in the process of becoming HERE and NOW as part of WE. Put differently, the beginning of the Great Goddess is the LIVE SCENE/DRAMA/STORY. We are part of HER STORY. Mago’s beginning is the heart that pumps fresh blood to the body of the terrestrial becoming. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still taking place HERE/NOW. The terrestrial beginning is attributed to the Great Goddess who is self-born through the sonic movement of cosmic light. The beginning story of the Great Goddess is no ordinary one. It is of power and truth, that is, metamorphic. It provides the original text to the meaning of “salvation.” HER Beginning that is happening HERE/NOW holds all from falling into cacophony. For one thing, it delivers us from the patriarchal misconception of ultimate reality that does away with the Creatrix. The holistic view of the Creatrix is capable of saving us from misconceptions and misconduct. Ultimately, it guides us to live our life in harmony with the whole, HERE/NOW. The Magoist Cosmogony engenders the consciousness that WE ARE HERE/NOW. The universe is existent without beginning or end. In one ever-existing reality, things ceaselessly appear and disappear in relation to one another on all levels. All things are in the constant movement of autogenesis striving to arrive at a new position of balance. S/HE IS HERE/NOW telling us the STORY of WE. That is the source of our metamorphosis. Notes: [i] Process thought founded by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John B. Cobb shares a common premise on that regard, although it does not associate ultimate reality with the Creatrix. (See Book Excerpt 1 and Book Excerpt 2. Available in Mago Bookstore.) Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
(Essay 5) Future of Identity: Reclaiming the Northern Pagan Tradition by Jillian Burnett

Art by Jillian Burnett Freedom of Thought Northern pagan values include independent thought. This is completely at odds with a traditional education system as it is found in the modern world. Part of the mechanics of a post-industrial capitalist society is training children to obey. They passively listen to authority and by rote learn things and then are tested. The method does not engage critical thinking or creativity; nor collaboration with peers and others—as is desperately needed in today’s society. Kids for the most part learn to sit and listen to lectures in school from childhood. Furthering they then study empirical data and repeat what they have been taught, and then follow up with rigorous exams.When polls such as happiness indices are self-reported, there is often a positive correlation that supports that an individual who has the capacity to fully express themselves and process emotions fully, and is creative—has a happier life outcome. Today in America at least every week there is a shooting. Unhappy children turn to violence to seek answers from a broken society. Gun laws are a hot topic on capitol hill. Politicians with an ever growing death toll wrangle voting blocks over the possibility of metal detectors in public places and schools. A solution could be to overhaul this post-industrial Christian system—that focuses on conformity and economic productivity rather than individual realization. Their focus is on obedience rather than ascension into the most creative consciousness and life. Parents have started turning away from what they now call ‘government schools’. The public schooling system has defectors—home school is the new way for pagans and parents who see the inherent flaws in the old education framework. Preparing the youth for the modern world and today’s global marketplace is challenging. The world is increasingly interconnected with semi-open borders and exceptional visas for competitive employment. With the current economy, rising inflation, and more automation stifling the job markets, things will only become more competitive. While vocational training is available in some places, in America that option is decades dead, and schooling is merely a funnel to jobs that soon will be outsourced, or automated. There is no focus on the individual learning and growth—beings are just a means to an end in producing value for the shareholder. Today we all have our place to consume income, provide taxation for the state, and to reflect the values we imbibe from media driven culture. Statistics in the United States also show fewer and fewer young men engaged in higher education; this tells us that the system has failed. We have no choice but to reboot. The northern pagan response to these phenomena is to truly unplug. Off-grid culture rejects endless consumerism which prioritizes economic output over environmental conservation and welfare of people or their culture. Living off the grid provides an opportunity to truly embraces the northern pagan values of self-reliance, harmony with nature, and silent time to reflect so as to offer meaningful and wisdomous communication when needed, along with a healthier and more natural lifestyle. Of course, as can be expected with migration demographics, as the majority of the populations live in cities, so access to rural plains forest and grasslands is extremely limited. Instead, gatherings tend to be at a single shrine. Pagans in New York City meet in great public parks. Others meet privately behind closed doors. Personal access to large swathes of untamed wilderness is outside of the reach of most folk. But few are those even in concrete metropolises who don’t have access to a public park. Tree removals in the greying of places have long since seen counter movements such as the 1 million trees project, which made efforts to bring green to urban slums. Pagans will always find a way to reach into their core consciousness states via nature, trance, and communication with the supernatural. The northern pagan mystical practice of seiðr utilizes the natural world, its elements and materials. The practitioners may know each herb and its association, they may also contemplate within the forests. The reverence for nature is seen in the activity of communicating with spirits and meditating. In today’s pagan community, the cultural continuity includes meditators or herbalists-intuitives, tree hugging naturalists, plant medicine practitioners, or simply folk with garden apothecaries or kitchen witcheries. The practice of incorporating nature as a partner in this shared and co-created experience of presence and consciousness—is at the heart of the practitioner’s path. The systems of sympathetic understanding or astrological associations with plants, berries, trees, shrubs and flowers is as ancient as mankind’s desire to understand cause and effect and action at a distance. The great Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer is one early scholar who spoke at length of this; where early tribes all knew the interdependence of phenomena. Their ritualistic efforts at what later was called sympathetic magic demonstrated belief that no one was an island—that all was connected. This interconnection at the clan and tribe level extended itself and evolved into the practice of exchange of goods as people moved from semi-nomadic to permanent and stable farming communities. While history teaches us that some ancient Germanic tribes were more nomadic than others, across Europe the agrarian lifestyle was adopted as time progressed. With cold winters, trade was a stable way to have access to things needed. Without currency, people exchanged things as they liked using their best judgement. Ports up and down all major river outlets of inland Europe and coastal Europe generally have northern place names or port names because of the heavy historical trading in the area. Looking to the past, the system of exchange of goods and services used by the northern pagans was trade through bartering. Kennings such as oath taker and ring giver tell us a little bit about the tradition of generosity and the cultural and social value of maintaining relationships within members of the clan and tribe through exchange. Marriage-promises, favors and gifts as well as wealth would be traded and locked into family …

(Special Post 4) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Yvonne Lucia: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” -British suffragist and journalist Rebecca West “When the God is male, the male is God.” -Mary Daly Yvonne Lucia sacredartportal.com Lila Moore: My first piece of performance art was a ritual inspired by Isis. However, as a young artist, my interest in combining art and ritual was devalued by my teachers and critics alike. I felt isolated and persecuted. Only after relocating to London was I able to gradually understand that my personal and creative aspiration was integral part of a collective and global feminine and feminist awakening. I realised that personal experiences of women have political perspectives, and that being a contemporary woman artist positions me in the midst of historical and cultural enterprise. As an artist-film-maker and scholar, I have regarded my work as a spiritual quest, exploring through dance-ritual and art films the interaction of the body and psyche with the natural environment and technology. In the 21st century, my interest in the healing and transforming aspects of images on screen has been combined with a growing sense of activism. It seems inconceivable to take images of nature out of context by ignoring the ecological holocaust which is evident everywhere. I have felt compelled to ask whether the needs of the body and mind can be separated from the needs of the Earth?
(Special Post 5) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I have come across the origin of the Dokkaebi (image, Heavenly Ruler Chiu, 14th Hanung of Danguk. Chiu represented the Magoist rule aided by her 81 giant sister clan allies (nine groups of Nine Hans) fought Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), one of the ancient rulers of pre-historic China. Chiu is known as the empeor of Guri-guk or Guryeo-guk (Nine Ri State or Nine Ryeo State), which is alternatiely referred to as Goryeo-guk and Goguryeo-guk by East Asians. She was worshipped as the deity of war and remembered/depicted for her helmet made of copper and iron. Records about her war against Hungdi inundates ancient Korean and Chinese texts and myths. About Chiu or Chiyou, it is too complex to discuss here. It is a topic to be treated in its own right. Suffice to say that even some of basic information from Wikipedia is illuminating. “Chiyou (蚩尤) was a tribal leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎) in ancient China. He is best known as a king who lost against the future Yellow Emperor during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in Chinese mythology. For the Hmong people, Chiyou was a sagacious mythical king. He has a particularly complex and controversial ancestry, as he may fall under Dongyi, Miao or even Man, depending on the source and view. Today, Chiyou is honored and worshipped as the God of War and one of the three legendary founding fathers of China.” “According to the Song dynasty history book Lushi, Chiyou’s surname was Jiang (姜), and he was a descendant of Yandi. According to legend, Chiyou had a bronze head with a metal forehead. He had 4 eyes and 6 arms, wielding terrible sharp weapons in every hand. In some sources, Chiyou had certain features associated with various mythological bovines: his head was that of a bull with two horns, although the body was that of a human. He is said to have been unbelievably fierce, and to have had 81 brothers. Historical sources often described him as ‘cruel and greedy’, as well as ‘tyrannical’. Some sources have asserted that the figure 81 should rather be associated with 81 clans in his kingdom. Chiyou knows the constellations and the ancients spells for calling upon the weather. For example, he called upon a fog to surround Huangdi and his soldiers during the Battle of Zhuolu.” “Chiyou is regarded as a leader of the Nine Li tribe (九黎, RPA White Hmong: Cuaj Li Ntuj) by nearly all sources. However, his exact ethnic affiliations are quite complex, with multiple sources reporting him as belonging to various tribes, in addition to a number of diverse peoples supposed to have directly descended from him. Some sources from later dynasties, such as the Guoyu book, considered Chiyou’s Li tribe to be related to the ancient San miao tribe (三苗). In the ancient Zhuolu Town is a statue of Chiyou commemorating him as the original ancestor of the Hmong people. The place is regarded as the birthplace of the San miao / Miao people, the Hmong being a subgroup of the Miao. In sources following the Hmong view, the “nine Li” tribe is called the “Jiuli” kingdom, Jiuli meaning “nine Li”. Modern Han Chinese scholar Weng Dujian considers Jiuli and San Miao to be Man southerners. Chiyou has also been counted as part of the Dongyi.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiyou Above all, her depiction by ancient China is of a pejorative one. As we will see in the next part, she is contrasted with her opponent Huangdi (Yellow Emperor), a triumphantly depicted ancient hero of ancient China. Above Wikipedia. See her images created by ancient Koreans, the middle one in the three figures, depicted as a woman with female breasts, one of Dokkaebi images. There are other records that describe one of her allies. as one adorned with snakes in the head, which reminds me of Medusa. Silla (left), Baekje (Center), Goguryeo (right) http://lasvegaskim.com/Etc_Poem_55.htm Max Dashu: Oe-ri, Buyeo, in the Baekje period. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: That is where the rooftile at the center is excavated. That is the original image of Dokkaebi that Lydia Ruyle chose and depicted in her banner work. I could not connect this image with Chiu until now. We have the female ruler who subdued the patrilocal force of Yellow Emperor, the forebear of ancientChinese emperors. There are lots of myths and data that I have found on them. Chiu is also numerously depicted as Dokkaebi faces, which makes me think of its connection to the iconography of Medusa and Gorgon (who comes as Three Sisters). Eight-snake-headed Medusahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa Gorgon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon https://www.magoism.net/2013/06/art-dokkaebi-by-lydia-ruyle/ Lizzy Bluebell: ‘Gonggong’ is not a far stretch phonetically from ‘Gorgon’ – I note. Briefly here – because it is a complex explanation – much more can be said about the etymology. For example, “gorge” relates to deep mountain passes with water flowing through them as well as the human throat or gullet, (relating the word to both speech and eating) and mountains are/were Goddess terrain, later usurped by MON-A-Ster-ies. The masculine name Ge-Orge is code which relates to GE/Gaia/Gay as well as to ‘orgy’. Sanskrit “garg” begets English ‘gargle’, and a guttural (gut-her-all) sound. I’ve always seen the archetypal Medusa/Gorgon’s ‘snaking curls’ as the energy emmitted from her head by her Wild I-Deas, which returns us to the theme of the Pythia/Oracle/Snake connections too. “In Greek mythology, a Gorgon (/ˈɡɔːrɡən/; plural: Gorgons, Ancient Greek: Γοργών/Γοργώ Gorgon/Gorgo) is a female creature. The name derives from the ancient Greek word gorgós, which means “dreadful”, and appears to come from the same root as the Sanskrit word “garğ” (Sanskrit: गर्जन, garjana) which is defined as a guttural sound, similar to the growling of a beast,[1] thus possibly originating as an onomatopoeia. While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters […]
(Special Post) Why I choose to be an RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone

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

(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: …
The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

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

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 10 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd These dates are traditional, though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox, thus actually a little later in early February for S.H., and early August for N.H., respectively. a Lammas/Late Summer table The Old One, the Dark and Shining One, has been much maligned, so to celebrate Her can be more of a challenge in our present cultural context. Lammas may be an opportunity to re-aquaint ourselves with the Crone in her purity, to fall in love with Her again, to celebrate She Who creates the Space to Be. Lammas is a welcoming of the Dark in all its complexity: and as with any funerary moment, there is celebration of the life lived (enjoyment of the harvest) – a “wake,” and there is grieving for the loss. One may fear it, which is good reason to make ceremony, to go deeper, to commit to the Mother, who is the Deep; to “make sacred” this emotion, as much as one may celebrate the hope and wonder of Spring, its opposite. If Imbolc/Early Spring is a nurturing of new young life, Lammas may be a nurturing/midwifing of death or dying to small self, the assent to larger self, an expansion or dissipation – further to the radiance of Summer Solstice. Whereas Imbolc is a Bridal commitment to being and form, where we are the Promise of Life; Lammas may be felt as a commitment marriage to the Dark within, as we accept the Harvest of that Promise, the cutting of it. We remember that the Promise is returned to Source. “The forces which began to rise out of the Earth at the festival of Bride now return at Lammas.”[i] Creativity is called forth when an end (or impasse) is reached: we can no longer rely on our small self to carry it off. We may call Her forth, this Creative Wise Dark One – of the Ages, when our ways no longer work. We are not individuals, though we often think we are. We are Larger Self, subjects within theSubject.[ii] And this is a joyful thing. We do experience ourselves as individuals and we celebrate that creativity at Imbolc. Lammas is the time for celebrating the fact that we are part of, in the context of, a Larger Organism, and expanding into that. Death will teach us that, but we don’t have to wait – it is happening around us all the time, we are constantly immersed in the process, and everyday creativity is sourced in this subjectivity. As it is said, She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire:”[iii] the same Desire we celebrated at Beltaine, has peaked at Summer and is now dissolving form, returning to Source to nourish the Plenum, the manifesting – as all form does. This Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Late Summer celebrates the beginning of dismantling, de-structuring. Gaia-Universe has done a lot of this de-structuring – it is in Her nature to return all to the “Sentient Soup” … nothing is wasted. We recall the Dark Sentience, the “All-Nourishing Abyss”[iv] at the base of being, as we enter this dark part of the cycle of the year. This Dark/Deep at the base of being, to whom we are returned, may be understood as the Sentience within all – within the entire Universe. The dictionary definition of sentience is: “intelligence,” “feeling,” “the readiness to receive sensation, idea or image; unstructured available consciousness,” “a state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness.”[v] The Old Wise One is the aspect of the Cosmic Triplicity/Triple Goddess that returns us to this sentience, the Great Subject out of whom we arise. We are subjects within the Great Subject – the sentient Universe; we are not a collection of objects, as Thomas Berry has said.[vi] This sentience within, this “readiness-to-receive,” is a dark space, as all places of ending and beginning are. Mystics of all religious traditions have understood the quintessential darkness of the Divinity, known often as the Abyss. Goddesses such as Nammu and Tiamat, Aditi and Kali, are the anthropomorphic forms of this Abyss/Sea of Darkness that existed before creation. She is really the Matrix of the Universe. This sentience is ever present and dynamic. It could be understood as the dark matter that is now recognized to form most of the Universe. This may be recognized as Her “Cauldron of Creativity” and celebrated at this Lammas Moment. Her Cauldron of Creativity is the constant flux of all form in the Universe – all matter is constantly transforming. We are constantly transforming on every level. a Lammas/Late Summer altar These times that we find ourselves in have been storied as the Age of Kali, the Age of Caillaech – the Age of the Crone. There is much that is being turned over, much that will be dismantled. We are in the midst of the revealing of compost, and transformation – social, cultural, and geophysical. Kali is not a pretty one – but we trust She is transformer, and creative in the long term. She has a good track record. Our main problem is that we tend to take it personally. The Crone – the Old Phase of the cycle, creates the Space to Be. Lammas is the particular celebration of the beauty of this awesome One. She is symbolized and expressed in the image of the waning moon, which is filling with darkness. She is the nurturant darkness that may fill your being, comfort the sentience in you, that will eventually allow new constellations to gestate in you, renew you. So the focus in ceremony may be to contemplate opening to Her, noticing our fears and our hopes involved in that. She is the Great Receiver – receives all, and as such She is the Great Compassionate One. Her Darkness may be understood as a Depth of Love. And She is Compassionate because of …
(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.

(Art) Nurture by Anna Tzanova

to feed and protect; to support and encourage; to foster and bring up; to train and educate; to develop and nourish; to care for and cherish… Such a multifaceted and meaningful word! It represents to me an essential quality of the Goddess. An aspect I strive to cultivate within, embody, and express externally. I use it to guide all my actions by asking myself, “Is this nurturing?”; “By doing this, what am I nurturing?” Very often, minds have been conditioned to counterpose nature and nurture, creating not only a divide, but also a controversy. The intrinsic feature of Nature is to nurture. The womb not only births, but nurtures. Nothing can be sustained or achieved without nurture. Nature teaches us the lesson of acceptance. Nurture – the lesson of patience. It also provides the opportunity and freedom of choice. Together, they intertwine and weave the entire Creation. What are you nurturing today? From She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 (forthcoming, 2016). See (Meet Mago Contributror) Anna Tzanova.
(Poem) Just Remember WE in S/HE by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Just Remember WE in S/HE Remember the Universe is without the beginning or the end. Remember the Creatrix is the Music of the Universe.
(Mago Essay 3) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hwang

[The following sequels including this one are a modified version of my paper presented to Daoist Studies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2010.] Part 3 Daoist Rendition of Mago, the Great Goddess Being the creatrix, progenitor, and ultimate sovereign, Mago has been addressed by many names. Her derivative names include Samsin Halmeoni (Triad Grandmother/Goddess), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Daejosin (Great Ancestor Deity), Nogo (Crone/Grandmother), Gomo (Goddess Mother), Magui (Devil), Seogo (Auspicious Goddess), Seonnyeo (Female Immortal), Seonja (Immortal Person), and simply Halmi (Grandmother/Crone/Goddess) especially in Korea. To say the least, these names, respectively embedded in a particular cultural and historical background, reflect a complex and enduring feature of Magoism. One may wonder: How is it possible to assess that these goddesses with different names refer to the same goddess, Mago? While such a query is legitimate, its answer entails a prolix explication of inferences based on the comprehensive analysis of a large volume of data, a technique that requires all human faculties, not just rationality. Foremost, the name “Mago” is the primary defining factor to identify Her transnational manifestations in East Asia. This name crisscrosses otherwise seemingly unrelated data including folklore, arts, literature, poetry, and religious and historical records. Such toponyms as Mt. Mago, Rock of Mago, and Cave of Mago presently extant in Korea, China, and/or Japan further substantiate the coherence of Magoism in East Asia. Having established the patterns and styles of Mago stories, the researcher is able to identify a common motif that is shared by the stories and place-names of the goddesses with derivative names. In short, these stories are organically interconnected, reflecting the universality and particularities of Magoist theism. As with Her many names, the researcher or art historian requires the same technique to assess a broad range of Her visual representations. One can begin with a good number of paintings whose colophons designate Mago. Two of the most conspicuous colophons are “Magu gathering medicinal herbs” and “Mago presents longevity.” However, many icons including sculptures and embroideries do not have such an indication. In that case, one can tell the Mago icon by its pictorial themes recurring in the images that are identified as Mago. That said, there is no doubt that the Mago icon stands as the prototype of its numerous variations, which are beyond my documentation at this point. A large portion of Mago visual representations I have documented is casually referred to as “The Immortal Magu (麻姑仙, Magu Xian or Mago Seon)” by moderns. As such, it is assumed that She is a Daoist goddess. Would the Daoist appropriation of Mago’s visual images be accurate? I hold that the Daoist rendition of Mago is a specious stopgap, leaving many issues unattended. When B is derived from A, B alone can explain neither A nor B. Not only Her pre-Daoist origin but also Her supreme divinity as the Great Goddess remains unexplained. Furthermore, Daoism has offered no framework to explain the transnational dissemination of Magoist material culture in Korea, China, and Japan.