September 9, 2020August 25, 2020 hearthrisingLeave a comment

(Essay 5) What It’s Like to Live on Wimmin’s Land by Hearth Moon Rising

These essays don’t have to be read in order, but previous ones are here, here, here, and here. Thus far, I’ve confined my series on wimin’s land mainly to the hardships. It is Read More …

July 8, 2020June 25, 2020 hearthrisingLeave a comment

(Essay 4) What It’s Like to Live on Wimmin’s Land by Hearth Moon Rising

These essays don’t have to be read in order, but previous ones are here, here, and here. One spring evening, about dusk, reps from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department banged on Read More …

(Solstice Poem) O Mother Sun by Glenys Livingstone

O Mother Sun who is with me wherever I am. May I always remember your presence surging through my nerve fibres breathing in my body. Present in the forms all around me. May I remember to be gracious For Thine is the planet. O Mother Sun You are Daughter too – Child of Something Bigger. Given life by the primordial cosmic dynamics. We share the same Great Source from whence all Form comes. We … are Awesome. All praise be. 1998 C.E. Read Meet Mago Contributor, Glenys Livingstone.
(Poem & Photography) The Doorway by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright When I look into his face I wonder what he is thinking as he loses himself in sweet mountain mist. He’s alone now. His fear of the unknown keeps him vigilant ears erect, mouth tasting air standing on two legs to see beyond summer’s diaphanous veil. No wonder he climbs trees. He’s not yet two. Did she warn him about the others before she left? Two legged threats armed with hatred, the need to destroy life men addicted to power, who will gladly spew fire through his gut, strike out an eye, maim a paw so he cannot flee? He slaps at chipmunks in repose, scents fragrant white lilacs clasps a metal can to his belly, kicks it down the hill in play. He bounds towards the brook for a bath, circles back for protection takes a nap in a thicket of young pines. He tolerates me if not as friend at least as one who wishes him no harm. He peers around rough bark like a child playing hide and seek. He’s curious to identify to whom I am speaking. He listens intently when I caution him like an anxious mother. Do not trust. Do not trust them. I am the exception to the rule. Most want him dead Skinned and hung – a furry black skeleton – a shroud on the wall, his jaws forever frozen in an impossible roar. Always present, Death stands at his door. Working Notes: Black bears are much maligned and when one befriends one it is hard to understand why these animals are so feared. They evolved with trees as a prey animal and remain this way today. In truth they are immensely curious and shy animals and the hardest part of trying to study them in the wild is finding one who will tolerate my presence. Early in the spring the young – yearlings – are tolerant of me, but by this time of year they have had enough terrifying experiences with the men around here to turn them into “night bears”. They no longer trust me. In between there are moments of grace. TB loves to smell lilac blossoms, and gets irritable when brazen chipmunks or mice wish to share his food. He loves rubber balls but punctures them immediately. He plays with sticks and pulls tree branches up on his belly, plays hide and seek with me. Although the transition from day to night bears signifies the negative experiences these animals have had with others – around here – men who use semi-automatic blasts to terrify and wound them illegally – and hunting season draws near, I have at least had moments that we shared in peace, and for that I must be grateful. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Poem) Carthage, Tunisia: Santa Perpetua by Susan Hawthorne

Perpetua as depicted in the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, Croatia. Wikimedia Commons Notes There are arguments about dates of Santa Perpetua’s death with some putting it at 203 CE. What is not in dispute is the authorship by Perpetua of her first-person account which details her visions. It is one of the earliest works by a Christian female writer to have survived. Her account is bolstered by an eyewitness who records her death. I was reminded of my poem about Perpetua when I read an article about Perpetua in The Conversation on 8 Feb. When I wrote my poem, the strong devotion between Perpetua and Felicity struck me as a possible lesbian relationship – and if not that, then a strong emotional attachment. It is hard to know when reading old texts which are contained in a patriarchal framework and about which silence is the norm. She was obviously something of a rebel and rebellious women are important to the history of women. © Susan Hawthorne, 2014 From Lupa and Lamb https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
(Art) The Midwives by Lucy Pierce

This image is an offering of immense gratitude to all the amazing sisters who have midwifed me through my life as woman birthing herself into being. Our capacity as women to hold space for each other, to hold and nurture, encourage and stretch, nourish and behold one another is an almighty magic which is changing the vibration of the planet. I feel so deeply indebted to all the midwives in my life, in whose reflection I have learnt to become ever more deeply and authentically my own self, deepening through the layers of cultural oppression and personal suppression of the truly awesome power, profound love and holy eroticism that lies at the heart and deep within the womb of each and every one of us as woman.
Meet Mago Contributor Barbara Mor

[Editor’s Note: With sadness and gratitude, we share with our readers that Ms. Barbara Mor passed away on Jan. 24, 2015. We are grateful and privileged to have published three of her poems in Return to Mago. Thank you, Barbara Mor for your life and work as Goddess Feminist! Rest in peace and love.] Barbara Mor is from Southwest US coast & desert; she is the author of The First God (unhelpfully retitled The Great Cosmic Mother, co-authored with Monica Sjoo, 1987, 1991 by HarperCollins) & The Blue Rental, Oliver Open Press 2011, a collection of texts. Her work has appeared in print in MS., Trivia, Sulfur, BullHead, Mesechabe & OrpheusGrid in US; in Spectacular Diseases, Ecorche & Intimacy, UK; online at www.CTheory.net, www.TriviaVoices.net, www.TriviaVoices.com. DarkMatter/WALLS, a new blog, at barbaramor.blogspot.com, contains links to some of this work & new texts also. Published posts from the recent:
(Essay) MoonCourt: Goddess Ceremonial Space by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

MoonCourt is dedicated ceremonial space created for the celebration of Her Creativity, as this manifests in the Seasonal Moments, which are holy days of Earth, points of transition marking Earth’s orbit around our mother Sun. MoonCourt as it has been named, is sacred space for celebrating Earth’s everyday sacred journey, our everyday pilgrimage – where we actually are. It is a Goddess safe space where She may be spoken and announced in all Her beauty and power. MoonCourt is the emergent home of PaGaian Cosmology. There are three seasonal markers on the wall: the window for the Winter Solstice dawn, the window for the Summer Solstice dawn, and the Equinox marker in between them. I found the simple placement of these markers in themselves to be mind-altering. I wrote soon after living with them for a while: “It is placing me in a new way.” The Winter Solstice window is vulval in shape, designed and made especially, an open space with a wrought iron Triple Spiral held in its centre. The Summer Solstice window is a round plate of thick glass with a diamond shaped pattern centrally embedded in it. The marker for the Equinoxes, which has the same position on the horizon for both Spring and Autumn, is a downward pointing triangle, a classic Goddess pubic shape; at first with an image from Loughcrew Ireland included within it, then later and presently with an image of Demeter and Persephone within it. The floor of MoonCourt is embedded with a thirty metre brass spiral which represents the unfolding Universe, from the Original Flaring Forth to the present moment: there are forty brass pins embedded along its length at appropriate measured distances, representing moments considered significant by present scientific and cultural understandings, and I always tell the story inclusive of Goddess perspective. The foundations for MoonCourt began in early January of 2008; its advent was an organic process. The only certainties were (i) that the space would be home to the seasonal ceremonies that I had hosted for years, frequently in hired locations and only recently coming back to this ground, and (ii) that it would be made of earthen materials. We did not actually have a plan to go by, other than beginning with the noting and marking of the sunrise on the horizon for the Summer Solstice, the Equinoxes, and the Winter Solstice. My partner Taffy (Robert) Seaborne initiated and took an active role in MoonCourt’s construction, though it was my story, my cosmology (which did not yet have a name), which informed the design. As we reached for a name for this sacred space we wrote: “It is a place for getting caught by the Moon, where Her law/lore is laid out. The seasonal rituals as we do them are a celebration of the dance of Light and Dark – the rhythm of waxing peaking and waning, as Moon holds them within Her round face. It is to be a place for courting the Mother.” We did also think about naming it a MoonAsylum … as it is a “refuge for learning and celebrating Her Wisdom” and we often playfully regarded ourselves as Lunatics! MoonCourt is the name that emerged, partly due to a white marble that was found mysteriously placed exactly in the centre of the rubble of the foundations. I continued to hold the all the seasonal ceremonies on the site as it was built … Earth does not stop turning; the celebration of Her Creativity, the sacred conversation, must always go on. Herewith a photo as it was for Autumn Equinox of 2008, when MoonCourt was the site for the Underworld part of the ceremonial process. I include it for the purpose of showing that one does not have to wait for magic to happen. There are photos here in this link of MoonCourt’s beginnings, and all the way through to the present: https://pagaian.org/articles/mooncourt/ and also links there to three YouTube videos of MoonCourt’s construction. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone
(Prose) Mary’s Return by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Yesterday I learned (NPR) that a third of the oak trees in this country will be dead within 50 years; I also read that our sugary harbingers of spring, the Maples, are dying confirming my own observations. I try to imagine what fall will be like without fire on the mountain. When I heard that pink dolphins, those denizens of the fresh waters of the Amazon are going extinct, I remembered their gift to me, grateful that I had been present as a receiver. On the last day of a three – year research journey (early 90’s) I was with my guide returning to a place on the river that I loved. It was absolutely calm; my guide and I drifted along a serpentine tributary curtained and dripping with scarlet passion flowers, when a circle of pink dolphins surrounded the dugout. “I love you,” I repeated the words over and over in a trance-like state glued to the rippling brown water. Round and round they came surfacing inches away from the side of the boat. Flippers splashing shades of pink and gray. The Circle of Life was being inscribed in the water. Now, many years later I am saying goodbye to an enduring friendship with a species I adored… Around the world, and especially here in the ‘United’ (?) States the virus continues to spike and another strain has been identified, more contagious than the first. Two million people are dead… So many in this country have chosen individualism, bullying and brutality over caring for others. This attitude of entitlement/cruelty has split our country in two. Surrendering ego opens the door to relationship with others who are different than we are creating genuine community, but creating this bridge cannot happen unless we have the desire to care for and be with one another – regardless of difference. Bullies hide behind bluffing and guns – cowards at heart – they lie, live in fear, and do not compromise. Meeting in the middle in a respectful way seems to be an anathema to many. I confess that I do not know how to wrap my mind around the culture we have created or how to start a genuine conversation with people who despise me for who I am. That my grief overflows is reality. And yet…Perhaps the waxing winter Snow Moon is pulling me with her tides into a blue -green alignment…. because with all this horrific news and corresponding grief on so many levels, I continue to renew my commitment to the Earth, my home, and to the Circle of Life. Living with ‘what is’ (for me) involves coming to terms with the loss of non – human species, our own, and learning to live with uncertainty without too much anxiety or fear. I enter this state every day when I breathe deeply into my belly, and focus on a precious moment in time like the one last night… It is Christmas Eve and I open the door to two masked loved ones that enter my fragrant candle lit living room. We share laughter, words, and stories and my dearest young friend offers me a gift. When I open the box a hand carved Standing Bear looks up at me. “Oh, he’s a male Brown Bear” the child cries out in excitement. Bears are some of her very best friends. The adult is astonished at the depth and skill of the carving; it’s as if the bear has come to life. I light the candle in the center of the wreath as I welcome my new friend into our home… Later, after the two have gone, I reflect upon my joy. “This is the best Christmas ever”, I hear myself say. I have been given precious gifts – people to love and be loved by, the Brown Bear as talisman. I am aware that it is my natural leaning and genuine need, as well as my responsibility, to reciprocate. And I do, by offering my deepest gratitude to my friends, the tender night, and Mary who has joined me in the room. She, who taught me how to be a receiver a long time ago, and then allowed me to move on… Photo by Sara Wright Working notes regarding Mary as Goddess Mary was my first love. I adored this blue robed Madonna with her cloak of moon and stars when I visited her in secret at the monastery on my way home from school. It wasn’t until I reached adolescence that I feared that She would reject me. After all, she was virgin – pure and I was made of fire. At that point Mary Magdalene entered my life. For a few years I carried the split Mary’s within. With my brother’s suicide I gave up religion. When I began to deal with my grief, Mary re-entered my life as the Mater Dolorosa. After my children left home I discovered feminism, learned of the Black Madonna, Tara and many other female deities. Once again, Mary faded into the background. As my relationships with my adult children began to disintegrate I turned more and more towards Nature for sustenance. The non-human world seemed to help diffuse pain that just wouldn’t quit. When my youngest son turned his back on me for reasons I cannot explain I became suicidal, while desperately attempting to create a bridge to an adult who now treated me as badly as my mother once did. I endured and eventually became sick with a debilitating stomach disorder and then emphysema. I learned that toxic relationships can make a person ill. I tried physical distance; it didn’t help. Eventually the North Country Woman called me home. How would I manage the winters? One day last spring a boy came into my life, a boy that talked to trees, a young man who was barely 21 years old… We had so much in common we couldn’t stop conversing even as we explored the woods, …
(Book Review) Susan Hawthorne’s Dark Matters: a novel by Harriet Ann Ellenberger

LOVE IN THE CROSSHAIRS Reflections on Susan Hawthorne’s Dark Matters: A Novel I am asking myself what accounts for the haunting power of Dark Matters, this latest in a long line of books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by Susan Hawthorne. One clue may simply be the length of that trail of published work which precedes Dark Matters. No one creates a profound work of art by staying on the surface of life, but it is equally true that no can do it before they’ve taught themselves to be at home in their own language. Each sentence of Susan Hawthorne’s Dark Matters says what it says — and it also says, “my writer knew what she was doing.” Dark Matters vibrates through time, in part because the line of writing which leads to it includes more than Hawthorne’s own: that line begins with Sappho, the tenth muse, the rockstar of the Mediterranean, of whose multitudinous lyrics only fragments have survived the attempts to eradicate them, along with the memory of her and her companions. A whole machinery of cultural destruction has been brought to bear on the poet of love, and we are left with bits and pieces that nonetheless retain their power to evoke and to move. Like the remnants of Sappho’s lyrics, the novel Dark Matters itself is made up of fragments. Its structure echoes the story being told as well as the background story of lesbian history, a zigzag trail through landscapes and timescapes of erasure and memory. Telling the love story of Kate and Mercedes in fragmented episodes allows for intensity (both in the scenes of beauty and in the scenes of terror), alternating with relief from intensity. And the fragments are arranged in such a way that the reader, along with Kate’s niece Desi, gradually moves through a mist of unanswered questions and mysterious gaps toward a feeling for what drew Mercedes and Kate together and a comprehension of the forces that tore them from each other’s arms. The love story that is the heart of Dark Matters begins with Mercedes teaching Kate the tango, and from there they dance their way into a shared life. Mercedes’ family has fled torture in Chile to resettle in Australia, but when things go bad politically in her new home, the torturers show up again. In a dawn raid, armed and hooded intruders kill Priya (Kate and Mercedes’ beloved dog), shoot Mercedes, and seize Kate, transporting her to a remote detention center, where she is subjected to the textbook methods of torture, which few survive. For Kate, the lesbian and feminist, however, there is an added twist. The most sophisticated of the torturers, the one she calls Velvet Voice, is a man who has gone beyond his job description. He’s been tracking Kate as obsessively as a rejected suitor bent on revenge: he’s read her poetry and her political writings; he’s gone through her library and studied her performances. When he grinds his heel into her left hand, breaking the bones, he calls her “sinister sister.” He knows Kate, and breaking her spirit along with her body is not only his work, it’s his pleasure. He intends to turn everything she’s ever loved against her. Kate doesn’t know where she is, why she’s there, who authorized her being there, who else is being held in the building nor what is being done to them. She doesn’t know if Mercedes has survived. She doesn’t know what to expect next. She has been systematically robbed of situational awareness, the cues to orient herself in time and space blocked by her captors. All she has is her mind and her memory. And this is where the great richness of Dark Matters comes in because, as it turns out, Kate’s mind is very full. There are the memories of her life as a child, memories of her travels to her mother’s Greek homeland, later memories of journeys and conversations with Mercedes, and then there are the memories extending back thousands of years, to the time of the Eleusinian rituals, to a time when women had not yet been de-authorized, to a time when the old goddesses were a living presence in the life of the Mediterranean peoples. Memory is the mother of the muses, and as Kate remembers, she begins to write archaic-sounding poems in her head and one night she dreams, like her grandmother, in the old language of Classical Greece. To tell more of Dark Matters might be to ruin it for new readers, so I’ll stop here with one last thought: there is so much wisdom woven into this book, you can spend weeks teasing out the strands and pondering them. As Desi says, “Those goddesses are not dead. I mean not dead-dead! Not really dead! They keep coming back in cycles. It all depends on who you talk to.” Meet Mago Contributor, Harriet Ann Ellenberger
The Forest Queen: Mielikki and the Bear by Hearth Moon Rising

We are joyfully anticipating thunderstorms where I live, the reprieve from a rare drought. As the dryness has delayed summer berries, bears have raided campsites and cabins for food. If the bears don’t get fat enough over the summer, they will starve during hibernation. Though I eagerly await the storm, I am prepared to spend time comforting a frightened cat. The instinctual fear of thunder seems to afflict most animals. The goddess Mielikki (MEE-uh-lick-KEY) used this fear to her advantage when putting the finishing touches on her prize creation, the bear. She made the trembling animal kneel before Ukko (OO-koh), the sky god who wields his hammer so sharply that light flashes. She told the bear she would not give him claws or teeth unless he swore to Ukko that he would never misuse them. The bear made his vow to the terrible Ukko. Mielikki is not only guardian of the bear, but of the whole forest. Finnish hunters used to pray to Mielikki for all types of game. If the timing of the hunt was auspicious, Mielikki would appear wearing gold bracelets, gold earrings, and her signature gold buckle. If the hunt was ill-advised, Mielikki appeared to the petitioner in rags. Mielikki holds the wealth of the forest — not only the animals but the trees and all the plants. With her child gods and her husband Tapio (TAH-pee-oh), who has a twig hat and a moss beard, she manages the health of the forest. Mielikki undoubtedly favors the bear of all her creatures. Bears are called “Mielikki’s dogs” because they are so dear to her, and because only she can truly control them. Mielikki traveled far into the sky, far past the moon, to gather the materials from which she made the first bear. She sewed the fragments of wool together and placed the bundle in a birch basket, which she tied with gold chains to the highest pine tree. There she rocked the basket back and forth until the little bear stirred with life. The idea of the bear coming from the sky is the opposite of the Greek story of Callisto, who was banished to the sky after breaking her vow of chastity to Artemis. She became the Ursa Major or Great Bear constellation, and her child became Ursa Minor. Many have wondered at the similarities between Artemis and Mielikki. I think forest goddesses naturally develop a special relationship with the bear. If the lion is “King of the Jungle,” the bear is Queen of the Forest. She stands regally on two feet when she chooses, and she has a mighty roar. She is large and scary, with no predators in adulthood, other than humans. Her main enemy is hunger. That and maybe lightning, if she isn’t careful about those claws… Sources Abercromby, John. Magic Songs of the West Finns, vol. 2. 1898. At Sacred Texts. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ms2/index.htm Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. London: Penguin Books, 1960. Lonnrot, Elias. The Kalevela. John Martin Crawford, trans. 1910. At Sacred Texts. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvtitle.htm Stone, Merlin. Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.

(Special Post 3) 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.] Helen Hwang I study and advocate Goddess feminism or Magoism because it is a way of living for me. I find myself in Mago (the Great Goddess) who in turn leads me to the Way wherein I learn how to become the person who I can be. It has to be Mago, the Female Divine, because She is real! She is the Primordial Mother who is the Beginning and the End of everything to us on the planet Earth. She teaches me the real. I can’t negotiate Her to anything less. Helen Hye Sook Hwang, Ph.D. California http://magoism.net Bridget Robertson A Goddessian I was introduced to a form of meditative journeying by a resident in my grandmother’s retirement community. She approached to me. I know she was at least part Native American, and that alone made her the topic of much gossip in the building. Her Rose colored lipstick, deep brown eyes, wrinkles that only helped illuminate her face and a chiffon scarf that matched none of her clothes. I thought she needed help with her groceries. She didn’t. She had me stop the elevator. and directly asked about my looking tired. My response was about being, busy balancing all the areas of my life. In fact I was exhausted doling out time like pieces of pie.
(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) To Contributors: Strengthening Our Roots by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Dear Contributors, Do you know that Return to Mago (RTM) E*Magazine is entering its fifth year this fall? And, thanks to our collective effort, we are still growing! As of today, our contributors have grown to more than 130 in number and our readership is from about 140 countries around the world. We have some hundred email followers as well as Wordpress blog followers. We draw 3000-4000 clicks per month on average; that is no small accomplishment for a Goddess blog that is named after a yet-to-be heard word, Mago (the Great Goddess), and that began from scratch.

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

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

Traditionally the Seasonal transition of Imbolc/Early Spring, celebrated in early February in the Northern Hemisphere, and in early August in the Southern Hemisphere, has been a time of nurturing the new life that is beginning to show itself, around us and within. It is a time of committing one’s self to the new life and inspiration – in the garden, in the soul, and in the Cosmos. We may include in our celebrations and contemplations of this Season the beginnings of the new young Cosmos as She was, that time in our cosmic story when She was only a billion years old and galaxies were forming; and also the new which has continually emerged throughout the eons, and is ever coming forth. The flame of being, as it has been imagined by many cultures, within and around, is to be protected and nurtured: the new being requires dedication and attention. In the early stages of its advent, there is nothing certain about its staying power and growth: it may flicker and be vulnerable. There may be uncertainties of various kinds. There is risk and resistance to coming into being. The Universe itself knew resistance to its expansion when it encountered gravitation in our very beginnings, in the primordial Flaring Forth[i]. The unfolding of the Universe was never without creative tension. The Universe knows it daily, in every moment: and we participate in this creative tension of our place of being. Urge to Be budding forth Imbolc/Early Spring can be a time of remembering personal vulnerabilities, feeling them and accepting them, but remaining resolute in birthing and tending of the new, listening for and responding to the Urge to Be[ii]of the Creative Universe within. Brian Swimme has said (quoting cultural anthropologist A.L. Kroeber) that the destiny of the human is not “bovine placidity” but the highest degree of tension that can be creatively born[iii]. many flames of being, strengthening each other These times are filled with creative tension, collectively and for most, personally as well; there is much resistance, yet there is promise of so much good energy arising. We may be witness to both. This Season of Imbolc/Early Spring may encourage attention, intention and dedication to strengthening well-being: in self, and in the relational communal context, and opening to our direct immersion in the Well of Creativity. We may be strengthened with the joining of hands, as well as the listening within to the sacred depths, in ceremonial circle at this time. NOTES: [i]As our origins (popularly named as “the Big Bang”) are named by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme in The Universe Story. [ii]As I name this determined Virgin quality in PaGaian Cosmology. [iii]The Canticle to the Cosmos, DVD #8, “The Nature of the Human”. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Swimme, Brian. Canticle to the Cosmos. DVD series, 1990.
Imbolc: Through Goddess Eyes by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Photo by Carolyn Lee Boyd In times past, Creation’s Winter cupped me in her icy hand of sanctuary Gathered in, I sucked dormant life, and slumbered Till Earth’s rebirthing groans awakened my new body Now, older and full of life’s weeping and wondering awe At all that has happened in my decades on Earth I must shake myself into consciousness My seed’s opaque, blinding hull disintegrates and Bodyless, at last I can see through Goddess eyes I ache as my blood paints each flower petal I spin the whirlwind that cannot stop creating abundance I push the seasons through the year that mortals believe revolve of their own accord. Through Goddess eyes I can see me, I inhabit Winter’s hand as my own. I make the cold to slow creation of outside of me To gather the seed into fertile stillness within. That burgeons in my own time. https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/
Samhain/Deep Autumn within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

“The Bell of King Seongdeok, known as the Emille Bell, a massive bronze bell at 19 tons is the largest in Korea.” Wikimedia Commons. Cast in 771, the bell reenacts the music of whales to remind people of the Female Beginning, the self-creative power innate all beings. Today is Day 2 of the New Year in the reconstructed Magoist Calendar characterized by 13 months per year and 28 days per month. We are heading toward the Solstice that falls on Dec. 21/22 (Day 5 of the first month in the Magoist Calendar), which happens to be the day of the first full moon of Year 2. Below is the details about the Magoist Calendar. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/03/27/magoist-calendar-13-month-28-day-year-1-5915-me-2018-gregorian-year/ The Gregorian year 2018 marks a watershed in that we began to implement the Magoist Calendar. The Magoma Era is based on the onset of the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of Dan, the Birth Tree) traditinally dated 3898 BCE-2333 BCE. We just passed Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era (the Gregorian 2018). For Year 1, we had the New Year Day on December 18 of 2017, the first new moon day before the December Solstice. That makes December 18 of 2017 our lunation 1, the first lunar year that the reconstructed Magoist Calendar determines its first day of the Year 1! Although relatively short in history, the Mago Work began to celebrate the Nine Day Mago Celebration on the day of December Solstice annually since 2015. With the reconstructed Magoist Calendar, we placed it in its due timeframe, the Ninth Month and the Ninth Day, which fell on August 8, 2018 (US PST) and celebrated it for the first time according to the Magoist Calendar. Apparently, this had to be a mid-Summer event. This left us with another seasonal event, the New Year/Solstice Celebration. For Year 2, we hold the 3 Day New Year/Solstice Celebration on December 20, 21, and 22 (December 22 to be the Solstice Dat in PST) and the Virtual Midnight Vigil as a precussor to the New Year Day. http://www.magoacademy.org/2018/07/17/2018-5915-magoma-era-year-1-nine-day-mago-celebration/ https://www.magoacademy.org/home-2/new-year-solstice-celebrations/ We just greeted the Year 2 by holding the event called Virtual Midnight Vigil during which we sounded the Korean temple bell, in particular the Emile Bell or the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, to the world. A few from around the globe (Germany, Korea, Italy and the US) participated in it or hosted their own local vigils. The Korean temple bell is the key symbol for the Magoist Calendar as well as the Magoist Cosmogony. It is not a coincidence that it is struck on the midnight of the New Year’s Eve. It is Korean tradition that even modern Koreans gather at the bell tower in Seoul to hear the sound of the bell at midnight. And these bells are gigantic weighing 19 tons in the case of the Emile Bell. That this convention has an ancient Magoist root remains esoteric. For not only they strike the bell 28 times in the evening indicating the 28 lunar stations that the Moon stops by in the sky throughout the year (please read below what the 28 day lunar journey means and how it is represented by women). But also the Korean temple bell is no mere acoustic device to play the beautiful sound only. It is designed to reenact the Magoist Cosmogony. https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/14/virtual-midnight-vigil-dec-17-2018-to-new-year-year-2-5916-magoma-era/ That said, that is not what’s all about the Korean Magoist convention of welcoming the New Year by sounding the temple bell, however. That the bell sound is a mimicry of the music of whales has been in the hand of wisdom seekers! Ancient Korean bells testify that whales are with us in the journey of the Moon and her terrestrial dependents headed by women. You may like to hear the sound of the Magoist Korean whale bell included in the Participation Manual for Virtual Midnight Vigil below. Happy New Year to all terrestrial beings in WE/HERE/NOW! https://www.magoacademy.org/2018/12/16/participation-manual-for-virtual-midnight-vigil-year-2/
(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.
(Book Excerpt) The Budoji Workbook (Volume 1): The Magoist Cosmogony (Chapters 1-4)

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

Prologue By writing this, I do not intend to defend Mary Daly’s position in any dispute. A controversial figure, Mary Daly never let go of her fight with those whom she thought on the other side of her feminist war. Like anyone else in history, Mary Daly belonged to her time and culture, and I leave her unresolved issues up to her. What I write here is my fond memory of her, whose feminist thought left an indelible mark on my being as well as humanity as a whole. Daly’s contribution remains to be reassessed from the fresh eye of new generations. In the meantime, I begin to speak for my part. Without Mary Daly’s thought, I would not have been in this place where I stand right now. It has empowered me to actualize my dreams to the fullest as a wo/man who was born and raised in Korea but had come from the One Home in origin. I first hear of the hedge school “Have you heard of the hedge school, Hye Sook?” asked Mary. “No, I haven’t heard of it,” I answered. This conversation took place during the conference called the Feminist Hullaballoo held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2007. We met there and spent three days as chums. Mary was with another friend, Yvonne Johnson, so the three of us hung out together. It was a very special time for me – I felt as if I were wrapped up in the eye of the storm. (In fact, my life feels so.) At the conference, someone asked me how I came to be invited as a featured speaker. I was among such renowned feminist speakers as Sonia Johnson, Paula Gunn Allen, and Mary Daly herself. They felt like giants to me. I told her that Mary Daly invited me. Mary had asked me if I would like to go and speak at that conference. I did not have an inflated ego. I would not have been hurt if I were not chosen. But I said “Yes” without hesitation. At the time, it felt like another one of the many “outlandish” adventures that I had undertaken throughout my life. In retrospect, however, this was a very special “Yes” to the beginning of my life’s new phase. It was my debut as a radical feminist, so to speak – the first time I spoke to such a large number of radical feminists. Mary sat in the front row and listened to my talk. She nodded her head saying “It was great,” when I finished and came down to sit next to her. Mary was just getting to know my research on Mago in that year; that was what she was referring to. Nonetheless, what mattered to me was not how well I presented my research, but that I managed to do it! The jitters were over! I was returning Home and had just been baptized in public as a Wo/man, the whole being. [This talk was later published in Trivia: Voices of Feminism.] My two dreams When I accepted Mary’s invitation, I was thinking of my two dreams. I am a dream-listener. Or to be more accurate, my dreams have led me through. These dreams with regard to Mary Daly are in fact old; I dreamt them before my arrival in Claremont, California, in 1997. In the first dream, I was in the crowd when Mary spoke to a large audience. The venue was an open plaza and the stage was far away from where I was standing. Then, out of the blue, Mary called my name and asked me to come up to the podium. It sounded like a call to my soul. So I did. Then, she passed the microphone to me. I blacked out, not knowing what to say, and woke up. This dream told me what I lacked, a message to deliver to the world, which I did not have for some years. The second dream was a brief but sweet one. Mary and I were standing in an old-style classroom as co-teachers. The dynamic between us was intimate and enjoyable. Honored and proud, I felt in the presence of my old friends. The classroom was a dream-like space within a dream, as if we were in a time machine! More than two decades have passed since I had those dreams, and now I see that they were indeed self-fulfilling dreams. The first dream was fulfilled through the event of my speech to the Feminist Hullaballoo conference. By then, it was clear that I was going to speak about the topic of Mago, which I had encountered for my Ph.D. dissertation. It was the topic that I had searched for without knowing and I found it. Now I see that it found me! It is the tradition of my ancestors that has beckoned me to come Home. In Mago, I found an anciently originated gynocnetric reality, which encompasses everyone regardless and named it Magoism. Mary and I meet in person The first time I met her in person was in early April of 1999, in Claremont, California. I had been in contact with Mary Daly for about four years before then. We had spoken over the telephone, faxed, and snail-mailed across the Pacific Ocean while I was living in Korea from 1994 to 1997. Mary was invited to speak by the committee of Claremont Colleges programs including the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Claremont Graduate University, the program I was studying in. In fact, that was the program that Mary had suggested I apply for, and she had written a recommendation letter on my behalf. My first meeting with her is imprinted on my soul, and it feels as fresh as ever. It was an unusually cold spring day in Claremont. It even sprinkled some rain. She was staying at the Claremont Inn, only a couple of blocks away from my dormitory apartment. She had phoned me the day before her arrival. She called me …