January 25, 2017October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Essay) When My Mother was born by Kathleen McKern Verigin

When my mother was born her mother couldn’t vote. My grandmother and mother were both homemakers, raising children while taking in laundry, babysitting and sewing jobs. As a young girl, Read More …

December 17, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kathleen McKern Verigin

Kathleen McKern Verigin is a licensed and ordained interfaith minister with deep roots in Celtic Spirituality and the Divine Feminine. She is founder and director of Anam Cara Connections, a Read More …

(Photo Essay 4) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part IV: Revival of the Gurang (Nine Maidens) Gaeyang Halmi There is more to reveal. As I write this part of the photo essay, I have encountered new information, previously made available online by individuals and organizations. It is reported that the “Suseong-dang” (水聖堂, Sea Saint Shrine) was once called the “Gurang-sa” (九娘祠, Nine Maidens Shine), of which I never heard before.[i] That Suseong-dang is a fake name blew my mind! Note the difference of gender between “the Nine Maidens Shrine” and “the Sea Saint Shrine”! The female-connoted term was stolen just like that! “Gurang-sa,” a female-referenced term as the character “rang” means a maiden, had to go due to its overt female representation. It is not without grounds that I was taken aback to see its present logography, “the Sea Saint Shrine,” on the information board.[ii] I almost heard a voice warning me, “This is not the place that you think it is!” That voice attempted to force me to leave the place without further investigation. However, I intuitively took a mental note, “Something is not correct here.” And I was right! Its name change sheds a consistent light on the meddling of patriarchal distortion/deception done to the tradition of Gaeyang Halmi. Readers are reminded of the lost painting of Gaeyang Halmi, which was replaced by that of the Sea God explicated in Part 2 of this photo essay (also Part 3). Like “the Sea God,” “the Suseong-dang” constitutes no reality. It is not only a conceptual deception but also a theft of the intangible cultural heritage, righteously committed by faceless patriarchal men disappeared into the lapse of time. It is clear that systematic erasure of the Female/Goddess has been in operation. Female power embodied whether in the name of the shrine or in the iconography was stripped away. However, it is proven once again that the Female is immortal because it constitutes the root of patriarchy. People smuggled the forbidden knowledge of the Female to later generations through oral stories. Thus, we find the folklore of the Female subversive.
(S/HE Article Excerpt) Reinstating Matriversal Motherhood by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Available in S/HE V1 N1 [Editor’s Note: This article was previously published and is now available for a free download in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies in Volume 1 Number 1. Do not cite this article in its present form. Citation must come from the published version in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies 1,1 (2022): 115-138 (https://sheijgs.space/).”] This essay undertakes the task of introducing, exploring, and discussing the Magoist infant-rearing custom of traditional Korea known as Dandong Siphun (檀童十訓 단동십훈 Ten Instructions for Dan Children) in its oral and written sources.[1] Dandong Siphun (Ten Instructions for Dan Children) refers to a series of nurturing interplays between the mother and her pretoddler infant, “the Home Interplay,” a concept that this essay entertains. Engineered to care for an infant in the stage from womb to walking, Dandong Siphun (hereafter DDSH) employs such foundational human actions as talking, chanting, cuddling and hugging for the task of providing developmental care for the infant. During this period, a child is prepared for an ability to speak and a mobility to walk around independently. Walking freely marks the developmental goal of infanthood in DDSH. And it does not just mean an ability to use legs for the child’s mobility. It means a walking on the Way of the Creatrix. Implications of DDSH are multilayered and multifaceted. Through DDSH, traditional Magoist Korean mothers have maintained and transmitted the matricentric socio-cultural-spiritual way of living from one generation to another. For new readers of my research concerning Mago, the Creatrix, Magoism refers to the consciousness of the Creatrix expressed through the socio-historical-cultural customs of traditional Korea/East Asia and beyond.[2] Concerning the significance of pretoddler childcare, DDSH’s pre- and proto-linguistic developmental conventions are doubtless foundational in the formation of matricentric personhood. A newborn is newly born as a toddler through DDSH plays. The DDSH interplay, tailored by Magoist mothers, awakens the babies to the matriversal consciousness in the process of growing into an adult human being. DDSH is a practice that shapes the body-mind-soul of an infant. Crystallizing matriversal motherhood, DDSH comes to us moderns as soteriology. Humans must stand on matriversal motherhood for the survival and welfare of all beings. I have recently coined the word, matriverse (the maternal universe), to convey pre-patriarchally originated Magoist motherhood and its worldview. “Matriverse” rearranges the reality with the Creatrix at the center. Matriversal motherhood is not just an expansion of motherhood into outer space. It goes downwards and sidewards too. Matriversal motherhood concerns a total state of life in the matriverse. Its root lies in the inter-cosmic bond between matricentric humans and the natural world headed by whales. Why whales? Humans do not stand alone or outside the natural world cared for by whale mothers. Matricentric humans are backed by matricentric whales from within the natural world. To be noted is that DDSH is aligned with other Korean cetacean folk practices including the postpartum diet of miyeok-guk (the sea mustard “birthday” soup), the podaegi (a baby sling) custom of carrying a baby on one’s back, Samsin-sang (Dinner Altar offered to the Triad Great Mother) for the one hundred day and one year birthday of a baby, all of which comes under Magoist Cetaceanism,[3] which requires an extensive discussion elsewhere. I mean to say that DDSH is not a single isolated peculiar practice of traditional Korea. Ultimately, DDSH is a specific expression of the Magoist belief in which a baby’s birth and mortality are determined by the “decision” of Mago Samsin Halmi, the Mago Birth Great Mother, and in which all beings, upon death, return to where they came from, the Home of Mago the Creatrix, the northern center of the universe. The DDSH custom underwent a brief period of oblivion among the public in the early 20th century. In recent decades, Koreans have rediscovered that DDSH was the traditional infant-rearing custom of their ancestors. Although the term, Dandong Siphun, may still be unfamiliar to many Koreans, some individual instructions such as do-ri do-ri (도리도리), jaem jaem (잼잼), and jjak-jjak-kung (짝짝꿍) would be too easily recognizable for them to mention. That is because those forms of mother-infant play are commonly practiced among Koreans to this day. Almost all Koreans were likely taught them at one point in their infanthood or saw them in dramas and films as well as within the family.[4] Both women and men in Korea are increasingly voicing the benefits of the DDSH custom with a sense of amazement and pride. Young mothers have consciously adopted DDSH techniques. Yet, no one has articulated matriversal motherhood embodied in the DDSH custom. In praising DDSH, male advocates attribute DDSH to the Korean indigenous thought of viewing infants as heaven-given. They don’t seem to see the mother as a representative of the Creatrix or Heaven. In fact, patriarchy does NOT want to see mother as a divine representative. If the mother is not divine, no infant could be deemed divine. Because an infant is issued from its mother. My task in this essay is to provide the Magoist context to DDSH practices. I investigate relevant lore, language, mytho-history, and thought of traditional Magoist Korea. The Dandang Siphun custom of Magoist Korea reenacts the reality of matriversal motherhood through mother-infant interplays conducted during the pretoddling period, creating a postnatal foundation for an infant to grow into a healthy, intelligent, and happy matricentric person. With its semantic origin in the pre-patriarchal times of the Danguk confederacy (3898 BCE-2333 BCE),[5] DDSH has been transmitted primarily by mothers and grandmothers throughout generations.[6] To be completed within an approximately one year scheme, DDSH mothers implement a series of progressive interplays stage by stage in a timely manner. The mother guides her infant to mimic her crafted actions and vocalizations, which are to induce an optimized developmental (physical, cerebral, linguistic, emotional, and spiritual) growth in the latter. DDSH mothers see the period of infant’s dependency as a crucial time to begin a time-old matricentric socio-cultural-spiritual education. During this period of childhood dependency, Magoist mothers intend to …
(Art) Sacred Joy by Elaine Drew

Wishing you all the joy of love and nurturance by the Divine Feminine in 2014. This image, a collage of hand-painted paper, shows the universal Divine Feminine astride the world, triumphantly welcoming us to a New Year. Read Meet Mago Contributor, Elaine Drew.
(Poem) Untitled by Maya Daniel

I heard that there are air bombings In the north and south by state forces People are killed, They are defending their lands And they are being punished, Or just killed as collateral damage In “flattening the hills”… It is true. I heard that mountain people Is rising– there is a call to arms Their bellies are empty And foul breathes are there They are forging stronger resistance Against plunderers and state agents To save their children’s lives It is true. I read that poetry stops time It is not true, it is madness to freeze another thousand lines denouncing unjust violence I have to cry out loud More verses uncut Long live the people’s struggle To be truly free! (Meet Mago Contributor) Maya Daniel.
(Art) ‘How to Express the Divine Feminine?’ by Elaine Drew

About 16 years ago I began working to master painting techniques that I hoped to use to express the divine feminine. The first step was to figure out which particular technique to use. My family was Russian Orthodox, and this exposed me to the beauty of traditional icons. I had worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and there saw examples of every sort of art, but the art that seemed most suited to express divinity resided in the medieval and Renaissance galleries, so I began to experiment with the techniques these early artists used. From books — especially Daniel V. Thompson’s The Practice of Tempera Painting: Materials and Methods — I learned enough to get started with egg tempera painting. This involved learning how to make glue gesso and apply it to a panel and how to make egg tempera paint by grinding pigments and tempering them with egg yolk. I’ve chosen three paintings to show some of the different ways I’ve attempted to depict divinity. My task in these paintings was to portray the sacred quality of the Mother as well as the combined joy and pain that lies at the heart of motherhood. So, in a sense, the paintings are meant to be a tribute to our earthly mothers as well as a meditative object that gives us a window through which we can contemplate the Divine Mother. I started with a traditional model: the first painting, Theotokas and Child, is a traditional Orthodox icon. In order to understand both the techniques and the theology of icon painting I studied with the Prosopon School. The second painting in the series is St. Anne. She is the Virgin Mary’s mother. I created this painting in order to show a mother with a female child, since it seemed to me that we women had been denied a sacred image of a mother devoted to her daughter. My personal reason for creating the image was to “give” a mother to my mother-in-law who, being adopted, had a deep longing for her birth mother. I modeled the infant on my mother-in-law’s baby picture, and I modeled St. Anne on her daughter — reversing the mother / daughter order, but keeping the family relationship. Stylistically this image is based on Renaissance models. In the final image, Egg Mother, I present the sacred mother symbolically. All shapes in the painting are based on eggs, and the decoration is based on Ukrainian Easter eggs.
(Goddess Writing 2) Notes by Kaalii Cargill

Excerpt from my speculative/historical novel Daughters of Time https://www.amazon.com/Daughters-Time-Kaalii-Cargill/dp/1482616971 . . .Haleli frowned. “There is more to this than you know. The prophecy is a warning. Global warming, degradation of freshwater systems, food-producing systems; do you think this is all natural? Our world is being destroyed by greed, and we call it climate change!” Paula’s head was spinning. She agreed that cutting down trees and burning fossil fuels was an environmental disaster, but was Haleli suggesting that the juggernaut of global consumerism was part of a conspiracy? How could any right-thinking academic believe in conspiracy theories? Haleli turned to her computer. She entered a series of passwords that opened a virtual storage cache. Encrypted material appeared. More passwords. She moved the screen so they could see: lines of data, names, dates, documentation of meetings, correspondence, financial transactions. “I have collected evidence.” “I don’t understand,” said Lili. “There are those who would erode the environment to the point of global collapse. The world will be saved by the same ones who destroy it, and they will have the power to do with it as they want. What do they care if millions die?” Paula sighed. Conspiracy theories were always flawed: why did the richest people in the world need to invent elaborate schemes to have more? “Wealth is nothing but a construct,” said Haleli as if she anticipated Paula’s objections. She spoke slowly, emphasising each word, as if talking to children. “A useful construct to disempower entire populaces. But I am not talking about a global coup. The same ones who would be capable of such a thing could not trust each other long enough to bring it about. No, I am talking about the misinformation and deliberate disregard that has allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point of no return; governments, multi-national companies, and thousands of smaller operators all benefit from it.” Lili was biting her lip, her face pale. Haleli sighed. “Let me show you one of the things I found.” She opened more files on her computer. “This is HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.” An emerald green cloud illuminated a field of huge antennae. “What is it?’ asked Lili. “It’s part of the Strategic Defence Initiative. Star Wars, some people call it. HAARP was constructed to investigate the ionosphere and establish whether some of its properties could be used for communication or surveillance purposes, but we now know it has the ability to trigger floods, droughts, hurricanes and earthquakes.” “How?” “HAARP intensively bombards the atmosphere with high-frequency rays. Low frequency electromagnetic waves then bounce back onto earth and penetrate matter. These waves modify the World’s electro-magnetic field, affecting everything from people’s brains to tectonic movements.” Lili whistled through her teeth. Paula sucked in air as if she had been winded. “It’s like a gigantic heater,” said Haleli. “It slices away the protective layer of the ionosphere.” “Can’t it be stopped?” asked Paula. Haleli shook her head. “It has been presented to the public as a program of scientific and academic research. People believe what they are told.” “But it’s a weapon!” said Paula. “We only call them weapons when they are aimed at us,” said Haleli. “When they belong to us we call them protection, or defense, or research.” (Meet Mago Contributor) Kaalii Cargill
(Poetry) A Change in the Air by Deanne Quarrie

A Change in the Air Lying in the cool, green grass, I feel it thick beneath me. I gaze at the clouds in the sky and my mind wanders, drifting out to times remembered and times yet to come. I feel close to the Earth, immanently connected and embraced by the unknown universe above. I have sought to learn the secrets of both and the more I think I know the more I realize how much there is yet to learn. They keep their secrets guarded from inquisitive minds giving a bit at a time, just enough to tempt a hungry mind to search for more. I remember when I used to take a nice thick blade of grass between my two thumbs and raise it to my lips squealing a sound out into the wind. I try it now and there it is, that old familiar sound still there, even now. I see the geese flying overhead the cool air of autumn blew in on the wind today. They are honking their way south. As I think about this time of calm and stillness summer’s end and just now feeling the change moving toward winter, but first a time to watch all the colors change from green to yellows and browns. Trees know that it is time to rest and close down. A time to prepare for the inward journey of the dark. I think I’ll lie here in the grass for a while longer taking in the autumn day and feeling the Earth rich and warm beneath me while my mind wanders with pleasant thoughts that drift and spiral with no purpose but to just be. (Meet Mago Contributor) Deanne Quarrie.
(Art) Sea of Emotions by Susan Clare

The course a Woman charts through life is rich with intense contrasting
(Essay 2) “Click Here” to Download Spirituality by Francesca Tronetti

While taking my deep dive into the world of subscription boxes in the fall of 2021, I became both excited and later depressed. I loved the idea of getting oodles of pagan goodies and crystals each month, but when boxes weren’t coming as fast as I wanted, I began to get bored and anxious. When they did arrive, some were loaded with witch kitsch, a half dozen loose pentacle charms with one tied to a small bottle of rosemary. Pentacles on a patch and buttons with a few black candles, and that was a box. Or they had teas, fancy hot chocolate made with mushrooms, chia additives, or face oils. Items that didn’t seem spiritually important to me, but the Instagram models of Facebook gushed over the offerings. But, the ads had me hooked. I saw the websites’ pictures that depicted boxes filled with fantastic spiritual items. Books, statues, bells, bowls, large crystal spheres, it all looked so wonderful. It was almost a complete altar, delivered to your door. Only, with each disappointment, they moved me away from spirituality and towards just getting things. It’s actually a good business model, and being overwhelmed by Covid, politics, the environment, or a garden that was not growing, the businesses fed on our collective desperation. Collectively we were drained mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and the self-care, self-help, and spiritual boxes were supposed to be the answer. When they didn’t deliver, you could visit online stores, usually with a small coupon, where you could buy what you’d seen in previous boxes or even get a past box. So our on-demand lifestyles could still be on-demand, even when it came to our spirituality. The frustration grew, and I started looking up metaphysical shops near me to shop in person and get the crystals and incense I was wanted. This thankfully helped me pull out of the trap of the boxes. When stores were open, I was able to talk to actual practitioners who had spent years studying and mastering the art, which the boxes promised to give me in a month. One fantastic shopkeeper and I talked about the popularity of crystal mapping, something which I’d seen had been very popular as of late. Talking to an actual person who was living what I was and sharing the same feelings of being overwhelmed made me realize I was acting like those plastic people I’d shaken my head at before. I wanted that spiritual fulfillment that the boxes were supposed to give me but didn’t. Because getting these boxes is like buying a bunch of spiritual self-help and spell-work books at the shop and thinking that will solve your problems. Many of the boxes were geared towards lazy spirituality. Lazy spirituality is a term I created to describe how this kind of capitalist spirituality works. Capitalist spirituality sees spiritual emptiness as something that can be filled using crystals, dreamcatchers, incense, wall hangings, singing bowls, and herbal teas. Buzzwords like meditation and mindfulness, centering yourself, chakras, and engrams are all over the internet, meant to draw you to stores, books, or classes. Capitalist spirituality tells you that you cannot heal your spiritual emptiness yourself, which can be true. However, it also says that you must buy specific items to find your spirituality and creates a competition of who’s got the best stuff between people who will probably never meet in person. You want a singing bowl with beautiful decorations, large selenite towers, fancy Himalayan salt lamps, and giant amethyst geodes for your end tables. It is a new kind of “Keeping up with the Jones” where rather than focusing on cars or gadgets to show off your material wealth, you are supposed to show off your spiritual wealth. You can afford to take a weekend meditation retreat at a spa in the Berkshires or a beach resort. Pictures of your house show every room with lush meditation pillows in bright colors as plants cascade down the walls and from the ceiling. How does all this work? How do these things make you spiritual? Well, this is where lazy spirituality comes in. Chakra Smudge, photo by Francesca Tronetti Lazy spirituality is built on the capitalist spirituality model where you are handed “spiritual” items and told to use them to heal yourself. A collection of seven tumbled square stones is to be arranged to balance your chakras. For $5, you can buy an “Energy Cleansing Smudge Kit ~ With Amethyst~” or Palo Santo sticks painted to match the chakras. Lazy spirituality is the quick fix for your spiritual emptiness because the idea is that having these items will instantly fix your spiritual problems. The smudging kit contains palo santo, sage, and a selenite wand. Burn the sage to cleanse the space, burn the palo santo to refresh it, and use the selenite to keep negative energies from the area and increase your clarity and inner peace. It is a fix it and forget it kit that is supposed to change the feeling of your room or home instantly. The lazy spirituality method is very much about the objects you can display, such as Fung Shui coins, amulets to protect you against the evil eye, and spiral goddess images on stained glass. These items are supposed to instantly bring you peace and balance while making the walls or windows of your home look pretty. And, of course, you need to have at least one display of chakras. Chakras seem to have been the biggest seller on the spirituality market for the past few years, even beating out smudging. The traditional Native American practice of cleansing a home has become so popular that Southwestern tribes now have difficulty obtaining the white sage used in their sacred rituals. Capitalist spirituality is physically robbing Native Americans by denying them their ritual tools. While at the same time leaving those, it was old to hollow and still searching for fulfillment. It is ironic that while we are more aware than ever of cultural …

(Special Post 6) 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.] Esther Essinger “Why Goddess, when “GD” is perpetrating so much grief? 1) First, it’s vital to know that Goddess is NOT “GD” in a skirt. It is demanded of NO one that they “believe” or “have faith”, so there can be no guilt (and no punishment! (No Hell below us, thank you John) in NOT choosing to interest oneself in these particular Stories, myths, legends and tales which center the Cosmic Female, the Universal Mother, Mother Earth /Mother Nature at their core. No evangelism happening here!
(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) Laurie Baymarrwangga, Senior Australian of the Year 2012

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

Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

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

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
Summer Solstice Poiesis by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …
(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 …
(Photography & Poetry) Thoughts of Spring by Deanne Quarrie

Spring At the highest point on the tree, you stretch, reaching for the sun. Your pink petals elegant in their grace, you stand alone. Bravest of all, for leaves have yet to come to offer shade Branches bare except for furry buds that will soon follow in imitation of your daring first move. Intrepid flower of Spring, I feel like you in my yearning for the Sun!
(Prose & Photography) Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.

(Essay 1) How Did I Fall In Love with Korean Historical Drama? by Anna Tzanova, M.A.

Go to online class, Korean Historical Dramas. “To become a kairomancer¹, you need to learn to trust your feelings as you walk the roads of this world, to develop your personal science of shivers, to recognize in your gut and your skin and in free-floating impressions that you know far more than you hold on the surface of consciousness. You need to take care of your poetic health, reading what rhymes in a day or a season. You want to expect the unexpected, to make friends with surprises, and never miss that special moment.” ~ Robert Moss² After a year and a half of work without a day off; driving 100-150 miles every other day; writing past midnight every night; at the end of July 2011, overwhelmed by fatigue, I finally decided to take a weekend off. Little did I know, that time off would last over seven months, during which I would not only change my job, but also acquire a new passion.
(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 …
(Book Announcement 4) Introduction (part 2) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This Introduction is from She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2.] Pre-order available now! The Text of the Primordial Mother/the Creatrix/Mago She Rises Volume 2, like her predecessor, is born out of the Magoist vision.[i] It intends to raise the collective consciousness of WE, a cognitive symbolic system derived from the knowing of the Primordial Mother or the Creatrix. One may call it an embodied knowing or gynocentric epistemology. Our stories shed light on the holistic view in which all parts are revered as a microcosm of the Creatrix. The She Rises book is an emblem of gynocentric cosmology: All contributions are interconnected and the book is enriched by each and all contributions. This book is NOT just about what we have discovered and what we have experienced about Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality but what and how we do with our discoveries and experiences. Where are we heading to with our knowing of S/HE? The collective consciousness of WE summons a gynocentric reality. This book is designed to show our togetherness in our uniqueness. It stands for unity that is enhanced by the diversity of individuals. The key phrase in the subtitle, “Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality,” is a reminder of the all-embracing gynocentric way of our becoming. We ARE committed to the making of the book to reflect the gynocentric principle of unity in diversity. We allow our differences to lead us to a new (read gynocentric) territory without making ourselves fall into factionalism. Competition in a constructive manner helps us grow. But factionalism destroys us. We speak our truths not to argue or win. We speak our truths because they are true to us. Truth speaks, even when we can’t hear. And we trust ourselves to speak our truths in HER. And S/HE shall bring us together in WE. To trust in our contributors is the map that we editors have followed in She Rises collective books. In the process, we have learned that what we really need to be careful of, not the other camp of Goddessians, but what really divides us among Goddessians/Magoists. In my Introduction to She Rises Volume 1, I drew attention to the word “Goddess,” concerning our need to reclaim it despite its linguistic drawback. Summarily, we strategically adopt the word, “Goddess,” knowing its derivative and subsequently dualistic nature from the word “God” in the English language.[ii] We are aware of the functional nature of language, a means for the meaning that we intend to convey. We choose one word over another for our political and utilitarian reasons. Our use of the word “Goddess” has given us a common ground to come together and interweave the She Rises books. The Magoist vision of the book merits the stance that the Goddess is not just the female divine or a sum of female deities but the Great Goddess, the Primordial Mother. It is S/HE who allows us the holistic view of WE/HERE/NOW, the ultimate reality. We who are awakened in S/HE know that we ARE this S/HE reality. In writing my Introduction to the second book, another term has come to my attention, “feminine.” As seen in this book, some of our authors have favorably chosen the word, “feminine” in support of Goddess feminism, activism, and spirituality for reliable reasons. The context wherein the term is used is complex and highly suggestive of the female divine power. In their uses, some make it clear that the feminine refers to the female divine nature/power of women. Others use it in redefining and deconstructing patriarchal definitions of “the feminine.” It is true that “the divine feminine” or “the sacred feminine” has taken on popularity so much so that it appears almost indispensable in the Goddess Talk. Nonetheless, I hold that there is a point that we need to think and explore together the meaning of “feminine.” Linguistically speaking, referring to the gender quality of women, the meaning of “feminine” fluctuates. I find it worth broaching these questions to us: Is the term “feminine” empowering Goddess feminism? Why yes? Why no? These questions can only be answered by our authors and readers. We editors by no means advocate the purge of the term, feminine, from this book. Forcing unity is not gynocentric. We propose the question as an ongoing conversation among Goddessians. Here is my stance to the question, which is yes and no. When the context indicates an ancient (read gynocentric) or feminist meaning, the word “feminine” certainly empowers women. When “the divine feminine” indicates the Primordial Mother within an environment like this book, the word is empowering. Put differently, the meaning of “feminine” can be conveyed as gynocentric, that is, women-empowering, when “the divine feminine” refers to the Creatrix, the Great Goddess. In this case, the gender quality of “feminine” is coherent with the biological quality of “female.” The meaning of “feminine” in such context does NOT reflect the patriarchally-imposed qualities of women; the feminine is gynocentric and sacred. However, when the word “feminine” is used outside the gynocentric context, it becomes dubious in meaning, if not self-defeating, obstructing the impetus of women’s empowerment. Referring to the gender quality (read a social/patriarchal construct), of women, the meaning of “feminine” changes in different times and cultures. It is not free from socio-cultural settings. Being feminine today in the U.S. would be very different from being feminine two centuries ago. Also, being feminine today in one country would be very different from being feminine today in another country. On the other hand, the word, “female,” conveying the biological and biologically-derived quality of women, remains coherent in meaning across times and cultures. “Female” offers us a solid ground to build our feminist activism and feminist spirituality. Thus far, we women still hold the power of female biological and biologically-derived traits. The word, “feminine” alone risks a powerful conceptual ground for Goddess feminism. Precisely, it falls short in capturing the divine power of the Primordial Mother, the Creatrix. For example, I …