November 26, 2012January 20, 2020 Mago Work1 Comment

(Essay 2) Through a Darkened Door—Light by Mary Ann Ghaffurian PhD

Between the beginning-story and now, at different times, a great numinous proximity welled. It was then that I knew I was onto one or other of the great vital puzzle Read More …

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:
(Art Poem) O fruitful like the olive tree by Yvonne M Lucia

O fruitful like the olive tree, you stand strong and resilient though gnarled from age and the ravages of merciless storms. Your face, a storied map, guides me to the truth of Wisdom’s price. In spite of all, your withered limbs bear fruit. May I be so rooted and grounded in the orchard of your generative love that my true worship is a harvest of justice, integrity, and compassion. Meet Mago Contributor Yvonne M Lucia
(Tribute) In Memory of Barbara Mor by Harriet Ann Ellenberger and others

From Harriet Ann Ellenberger: TO BARBARA MOR — BRAVE CAPTAIN, FAITHFUL FRIEND March 8, 2015 International Women’s Day Dear Barbara, Now that you’ve flown free of your body, I won’t bother with e-mail — I’ll just talk to you. Listen, Barbara, you fought the good fight for women and for earth and for all of earth’s children. What that English soldier said of Jeanne d’Arc, I say of you: you were a brave captain.
The Gifts of the Winter Solstice Goddesses by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Holde, the good protectress, By Friedrich Wilhelm Heine (1845-1921) – Wägner, Wilhelm. 1882. Nordisch-germanische Götter und Helden. Otto Spamer, Leipzig & Berlin. Page 117., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5254373 In the midnight hour of the darkest night, they ride through the magic forest, bells jingling, alone or leading a wild entourage, giving gifts and sometimes punishments. Holle, Frau Gode, Perchta, La Befana, and Lady Hera have made their raucous spirit rides between Winter Solstice and Epiphany for centuries or even millennia. What, good or bad, will they bestow upon us this year? On the Winter Solstice, Patricia Monaghan says, Holle (also known as Holda and other names) “traveled the world in her wagon” and “checked the quality of each woman’s (spinning) work and offered rewards or punishments” (288). Who was She? Max Dashu reminds us that Holle was an Earth goddess and “the ‘Mother of All Life’ and ‘The Great Healer’ (256-257). However, Holle was also originally the Death Goddess and “she controls …the regeneration of nature…For Holle as the Mother of the Dead, bread was baked at Christmas time called Hollenzopf, meaning “Holle’s bread” (243), according to Marija Gimbutas. Meanwhile, Frau Gode, another form of Holle, rode in a wagon drawn by dogs, sending one into any house with an open door to bark for a year. “The next year, the beleaguered residents could relieve themselves of the pet by firmly closing the door as Frau Gode rode by” (288), according to Monaghan. Frau Gode, Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Holle’s sister Perchta also rode and punished spinners who wasted wool, “stuffing the remnants” into the spinner’s torn-open stomach. January 6 was “Perchta’s Day” when “everyone ate pancakes of meal and milk in her honor” and “left bits for Perchta” (290-291), Monaghan wrote. More benevolently, Italy’s La Befana is an old woman who rides her broomstick on the night of January 5th, the eve of Epiphany, giving gifts to good children and “coal, garlic, and turnips” to those who were bad, according to Lydia Ruyle. Finally, Dashu tells us that Rhinelanders “into the early 1400s” believed that Lady Hera (not the Greek goddess of the same name) “flew through the air between Christmas and Epiphany” with bells and gave “an abundance” of gifts (252). These goddesses are sage guides as we traverse this liminal Solstice when the sun stands still; a season when, to our ancestors who revered or placated them, death from cold or starvation as well as the promise of spring was always present. Who are they and what gifts of guidance do they bring us now when dire environmental and other crises as well as radiant opportunities for individual and global healing are on the horizon? These goddesses are old, fierce, insightful, and commanding. Some were associated with witches. They unapologetically flex their might. We grow their kind of sagacity and self-confidence only through decades of navigating traumas and victory but rarely do we see role models like this for our own old age. Their gift is to show us how to not only revere them, but be them when we need to do so. The goddesses are intensely passionate about what they do and stand for, whether it is respect for doing daily work well, the moral education of children, or generosity as a way of life. These aspects of every day life are to be honored. Their gift is to remind us that the effects of our choices of who to be, what to value, and how to live every day will reverberate throughout time as we influence those of the next generation and offer them our own gifts. The goddesses are not judgmental, not delighting in finding fault, but are, instead, truthful. They reward or punish both women and children based on what has been done well or not without excuses or favor. This gift is the understanding that insight into the reality of our actions is necessary for our own growth and effectiveness and to best decide our next course wisely, personally and collectively. The nearness of the goddesses during this season forces us to realize that the human and spirit worlds are just a breath away from one another, something our ancestors understood as a fact of every day life. This gift is a deeper understanding that we can be grounded in our everyday world while being open to the influence of these and other goddesses on ourselves and our world. At the same time, we can heed Frau Goude’s warning about carelessly leaving the door between our realms open when it is time for the gateway between them to close. Finally, remember that these goddesses had their origin in the Death Goddess and are associated through spinning to fate. They offer us the essential truth that letting go and endings are necessary for life to regenerate. In addition, the goddesses remind us that this regeneration happens through the miracle of gifts, whether that is the Earth renewing Herself each spring so that living beings can thrive, or of the compassion and love of humanity these goddesses show by traveling through our world each year bestowing abundance, or our own acts on behalf of others that create hope for the future. These gifts are so much more meaningful than the toys in Santa’s pack, given for conforming to society’s norms of “goodness.” The true gift of these goddesses is our and our world’s wildness and wholeness: our respect for our fierce selves and life experience, our participation in life with untamed and undomesticated passion, our ability to see ourselves and our actions truthfully and accept either congratulations or consequences, and our giving of our own spiritual and creative largesse. This Solstice, or, for those in the South, at the next Winter Solstice, let’s join the wild ride with our sisters across the Earth in our own time, giving our own wisdom and abundance to ourselves, each other, and our planet. Sources: Dashu, Max. Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk …
(Art) Winter Solstice by Yvonne Lucia

Longest Solstice night Shepherds, kings and angels’ wings herald newborn light Winter Solstice is the darkest time of the year in the northern hemisphere. But no matter where one lives, the deepening darkness of humanity’s hubris penetrates to the bone. Any hope for peace on earth, goodwill to all has been debunked as dishearteningly as a maturing child’s belief in Santa Claus. Like our ancient ancestors, we feel an unsettling anxiety as we wonder when…how…if …the light will return.
(Poem) Dear Goddess by Andrea Nicki

Dear Goddess, please forgive my sins. I have been too loving, too generous, too meek and mild, too sweet. I have been too many offerings of wine-blood and bread-body. I have been nailed to too many crucifixes, have forgiven too many Judahs, too many Pontious Pilots. I have had too many resurrections from the dead. O Goddess, please help me to be more self-serving, more human.
(Poem) Red Tent Rising by Andrew Guervich

Daughter of Jacob, Who was it that dragged you to the underworld, And forced you eat the pomegranate seed? Seed of a thousand stillborn tomorrows, Emblem of your silent bondage, Red with the fire of regeneration, Bursting with the fullness of life and the Torrential murmur of Encroaching, eternal Void. Was it the One who let Orion Loosen his belt, devour your seven sisters and Turn your protectors into captors? Sister of Joseph, What invisible hand bound you with the Rusted chains of mistrust and indifference? Chains linked to Father sky by the tragedy of birth, Forever judged by that all-seeing eye which penetrates and Dominates but never understands, Never embraces. Who yearns to create, to clot, to nurture, But can only watch, absent and blue with disapproving rage. Was it the One who called you vain for embracing Your reflection in the abysmal waters and Declared your purity the source of his newfound power? Mother of the Living, Were the mists of Avalon blown Crimson by the shadow of your shifting, original Self as you Gathered the winds to honor the mysteries of Demeter? These Eleusinian gusts of passion, breath and bodies in motion which filled The Holier Grail with sacred wine, The blood of maiden martyrs, and Gushed from the fountain of a Forgotten, severed truth. Grandmother of the gods, Your tent sits outside of the city. The color of fire. Of change. Of madness. Inside, the contours reveal origins. Scorn transformed, now blooms acceptance. Identification the currency. Wisdom the reward. A beacon of hope in a desert of parched oppression. First time on the outside, Sky calls for more suspicion, more control. Earth responds with shattering, blissful silence. What was meant to separate has brought together. What was pushed down has come back up. What was bleached white has been reborn in the ripened red flesh of her cosmic emergence.
(Prose) Feeding the Dead by Deanne Quarrie

Most people love this time of year and I share much of that. Living in South Central Texas we only have two seasons, with a perhaps two to three weeks in between what we laughingly call spring and fall. Because the winters are not harsh here, the step into spring feels different from those whose winters are frozen for months on end. We do experience some relief when our temperatures finally drop a bit in October. Even then those drops are only teasers. When we do finally get a briskness in the air in the wee, early morning hours of dawn but when the sun rises overhead, any memory of that coolness is forgotten. This morning at 5:30 am, when I woke, it was 54 degrees. I stepped outside to smell and feel the air, so clean and cool. And yet, now it is 85 degrees and rising, it once more feels like summer. We don’t have the sudden frosts that turn our trees to vibrant reds, yellows and browns. Yes, the leaves eventually turn and fall to the ground, but we have no heavy freeze and so our colors are pale compared to those in the North and colder climates.
(Poem) Mother is Water by Alex Purbrick

“Healing Water,” photo work by Alex Purbrick SHE is my Mother. SHE welcomed me to her desert home and offered me an oasis when I was parched and alone. “Come into my arms, bathe with me, let my hot water heal your pain, your sadness, your loss.” she whispered. Her water was hot. SHE made me sweat as I sat in her arms but her touch was like silk. SHE wrapped herself around me, comforting and soothing me. My tears fell on her body, they became one with her, my salt merging with hers. I cried and cried as I spoke to her of my grief, my longing for my mother, for a love that would soothe my pain. “Sing to me”, SHE would whisper, “so I can hear your sweet voice and the love from your songs.” I sang melodies, chants, harmonies and tunes, all from my heart. No words just sounds. SHE enjoyed my songs. “Keep singing”, SHE would say, “your voice will heal you.” For four years I bathed in her body and drunk her sweet nectar, her water of life. SHE was my sanctuary. The bath house was her womb where I could be one with her and all my pain washed away in the heat of minerals and salt water. SHE became my mother. The mother I had lost whose heart now returned. Returned to me as the water, Returned life to my lost soul. I wanted to stay in her arms forever. Now I had found her, I didn’t want to lose her again. But one day SHE sang a song to me in words I did not recognise. “Ishq ana poo” Those three words SHE sang and sang in repetition, a melody that seemed beautiful but also confusing to my ears. “ishq ana poo”, “ishq ana poo” “Mother I do not understand,” I cried. “What is your song?” “Go home,” SHE sighed. “Go home to the waters of Danu.” “Carry my songs, my love to your home. Danu needs your prayers. Her waters are lonely, she sings alone.” I wrestled with her song. I denied her truth, refused to believe SHE wanted me to leave. Leave her watery womb, return to the bleakness and isolation of a land I had desperately tried to escape from. But deep down in my heart I knew she was singing a truth as I started to hear a different song blowing in from over the ocean calling me home, to northern lands, far away from hot southern desert. Danu is singing. Her people no longer hear her voice. SHE is also my mother and she is alone. I return to moorland, wind, rain and grey, heavy skies. Danu’s waters are cold in dark, mysterious lochs and bubbling, winding streams. I sing songs of the desert, of heat, life and prayer And Danu is now my mother SHE nestles me in heather and moss, her clear, healing waters springing from underneath my feet Cleansing me with her heavy rains, her gift from the heavens that brings new life to my soul. Her salty waves crashing around me welcoming me to my new island home. Water is life. Danu’s songs are mine but they are also yours Come sing with me to Danu “ishq ana poo” Let her songs call you home.(Meet Mago Contributor) Alex Purbrick https://www.magoism.net/2015/07/meet-mago-contributor-alex-purbrick/

(Special Post 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.
(Special Post 1) 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.] Introduction by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Wennifer Lin-Haver Helen Hye-Sook Hwang I am asking each of us to consider writing a sentence or paragraph on “Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality?” This idea is prompted by Wennifer Lin-Haver, Founder of Mother Tree Sanctuary, and I agree that we need to and can create a sort of collective writing on the topic. What we write below will be included and published in The Girl God, Mother Tree Sanctuary, and Return to Mago. As a subaltern minority as we seem at the current point of time, Goddessians/Magoists [the term Mago means the Great Goddess] need to make extra efforts to make our voices and presences exposed to the public and inner circles. Length and style are open. Please also include your name, region/state/country, title, and/or website URL. We strongly encourage you if you are located in a place where Goddessians are rarely around. We intend to make a collective testimonial tapestry of WE as Goddessians/Magoists! Please keep this in your mind and join us in this collective effort. Thank you in advance. March 6, 2014 AF (Archaic Future)! Wennifer Lin-Haver Our “call” started as a conversation between Helen and me where I was expressing to her the real need for Mother Tree Sanctuary to be more articulate with exploring the significance and importance of Goddess in our lives. I was prompted to give such a response, when asked “why” we had to differentiate God and Goddess. “Isn’t everything God?” She asked. And “Isn’t Goddess also God?” “Isn’t it all the same as long was we’re all coming from our ‘higher’ self?” she asked. So I saw this warranted a longer and much deeper discussion. I initially thought I should formulate a response and post it as a Page or Tab in our website, but after some reflection with Helen, I saw how much better it would be if we replied to this question as a diverse and creative collective. I surely do not have all the answers as an individual but perhaps together, we can come up with something more whole, colorful and satisfying. I do hope you will contribute a little something! We are always grateful for all that you have to share.
(Special Post) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE FOR EL PASO ARTIST MARIO COLÍN by Donna Snyder

Born in Juárez in 1959, Mario Colín lived his entire life in the Five Points area of Central El Paso, where he attended Houston Elementary and Austin High School. From the age of fifteen, he worked as a construction worker, building silos and other large construction projects across the U.S.A., at some point hitch hiking from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic shores. In his late twenties, he began to focus all his attention and energy on art, which had been an interest since early childhood, working as a muralist and portrait painter. Much of his art is of a religious nature, although he also painted secular art, portraits, and historical scenes. Colín painted his first mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe in collaboration with deceased artist Chuck Zavala in 1987 at Esparza’s Grocery, a small store in Central El Paso. It has now become a shrine, with community members building a stone arch and bringing flowers and candles, and has been pronounced a religious site by the parish church. Since that first mural, Colín has painted over 40 pieces of public art, many of which have become landmarks. Many of those murals are in that same Central El Paso neighborhood, on or near Piedras, including the House of Pizza, Los Alamos Grocery, The Elbo Room bar, the former Sanitary Plumbing at Piedras and Fort Boulevard. Colín twice painted a 25 foot mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe, at Alameda and Zaragoza, across from the Ysleta mission. The first version, painted in 1997, became decayed, but was a popular landmark. That mural has appeared in periodicals, art books, calendars, many newspaper articles, and in photographs exhibited in the El Paso Art Museum and galleries. In 2004, Señor José Villalobos donated and members of the community contributed money to pay laborers to replaster the wall of the century-old adobe building where it is located, and Colín repainted the entire mural for donations from passers-by and community members. Colín’s work has also been featured on the International History Channel and Canal 44, XHUI TV, in a Ford television commercial, and numerous times in the El Paso Times and the defunct El Paso Herald-Post, as well as in periodicals such as Texas Monthly, Dallas Morning News, Texas Observer, Austin American Statesman, Stanton Street magazine; literary journals such as Mezcla and GypsyMag.com; in documentaries including Walls that Speak: El Paso’s Murals, directed by Jim Klaes; in art books such as Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso and Texas 24:7, and in various editions of Chicano Studies: Survey and Analysis, a text book used throughout the country.

(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
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) Ceremony as “Prayer” or Sacred Awareness By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. MoonCourt Ceremonial Space set for Autumn Equinox ceremony, 2013 Ritual/ceremony is often described as “sacred space.” I understand that to mean “awareness of the space as sacred”: all space is sacred, what shifts is our awareness – awareness of the depth of spacetime, and of the depth of all things and all beings. I understand “sacred awareness” as an awareness of deep relationship and identity with the very cosmic dynamics that create and sustain the Universe; or an awareness of what is involved in the depth of each moment, each thing, each being. Ceremony is a space and time given to expression, contemplation and nurturance of that depth … at least to something of it. Ceremony may be both an expression of deep inner truths – perceived relationship to self, Earth and Cosmos, as well as being a mode of teaching and drawing forth deeper participation. Essentially, ceremony is a way of entering into the depth of the present moment … what is deeply present right here and now, a way of entering deep space and deep time, which is not somewhere else but is right here. Every-thing, and every moment, has Depth – more depth than we usually allow ourselves to contemplate, let alone comprehend. This book, this paper, this ink, the chair, the floor – each has a history and connections that go back, all the way back to Origins. This moment you experience now, in its particular configuration, place, people present, subtle feelings, thoughts, and propensity towards certain directions or outcomes, has a depth – many histories and choices that go back … ultimately all the way back to the beginning. Great Origin is present at every point of space and time – right here. In ceremony we are plugging our awareness into something of that. In this holy context then – in this mindframe of knowing connection, everything one does is a participation in the creation of the Cosmos: for the tribal indigenous woman, perhaps the weaving of a basket; for another, perhaps preparing a meal; for you, perhaps getting on the train to go to a workplace. It is possible to regain this sense, to come to feel that the way one breathes makes a difference – that with it, you co-create the present and the future, and you may even be a blessing on the past. In every moment we receive the co-creation, the work, of innumerable beings, of innumerable moments, and innumerable interactions of the elements, in everything we touch … and so are we touched by them. The local is our touchstone to the Cosmos – it is not separate. Ceremony may be a way into this awareness, into strengthening it. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[i] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[ii] Ceremony then is a form of social action. I have found it useful to describe ceremony using and extending words used by Ken Wilber to describe a “transpersonal practice,” which is needed for real change: he said it was a practice that discloses “a deeper self (I or Buddha) in a deeper community (We or Sangha) expressing a deeper truth (It or Dharma).”[iii] My extension of that is: ceremony may disclose a deeper beautiful self (the I/Virgin/Urge to Be/Buddha), in a deeper relational community (the We/Mother/Place of Being/Sangha), expressing a deeper transformative truth (the It/Old One/Space to Be/Dharma). This is the “unitive body,” the “microcosmos” that Charlene Spretnak refers to in States of Grace.[iv] Since ceremony is an opportunity to give voice to deeper places in ourselves, forms of communication are used that the dreamer, the emotional, the body, can comprehend, such as music, drama, simulation, dance, chanting, singing.[v] These forms enable the entering of a level of consciousness that is there all the time, but that is not usually expressed or acknowledged. We enter a realm that is ‘out of time,’ which is commonly said to be not the “real” world, but it is more organic/indigenous to all being and at least as real as the tick-tock world. It is a place “between the worlds,” wherein we may put our hands on the very core of our lives, touch whatever it is that we feel our existence is about, and thus touch the possibility of re-creating and renewing ourselves. NOTES: [i] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [ii] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation. [iii] Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996), 306-307. [iv] 145. [v] As Starhawk notes, The Spiral Dance, 45. REFERENCES: Livingstone, Glenys. A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Girl God Books: Bergen, Norway, 2023. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Starhawk. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. New York: Harper and Row, 1999. Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1996.
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(Prose) Desire: the Wheel of Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from the concluding chapter (Chapter 8) of the author’s book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Place of Being is a passionate place, where desire draws forth what is sought, co-creates what is needed[1]; within a con-text – a story – where love of self, other and all-that-is are indistinguishable … they are nested within each other and so is the passion for being. I begin to understand desire afresh: this renewed understanding has been an emergent property of the religious practice of seasonal celebration: that is, the religious practice of the ceremonial celebration of Her Creativity. It has been said She is “that which is attained at the end of desire[2].” Within the context of ceremonial engagement and inner search for Her, I begin to realize how desire turns the Wheel. As the light part of the cycle waxes from Early Spring, form/life builds in desire. At Beltaine/High Spring, desire runs wild, at Summer Solstice, it peaks into creative fullness, union … and breaks open at that interchange into the dark part of the cycle – the dissolution of Lammas/ Late Summer. She becomes the Dark One, who receives us back – the end of desire. It has been a popular notion in the Christian West, that the beautiful virgin lures men (sic) to their destruction, and as I perceive the Wheel, it is indeed Virgin who moves in Her wild delight towards entropy/dissolution; however in a cosmology that is in relationship with the dark, this is not perceived as a negative thing. Also, in this cosmology, there is the balancing factor of the Crone’s movement towards new life, in the conceiving dark space of Samhain/Deep Autumn – a dynamic and story that has not been a popular notion in recent millennia. Desire seems not so much a grasping, as a receiving, an ability or capacity to open and dissolve. I think of an image of an open bowl as a signifier of the Virgin’s gift. The increasing light is received, and causes the opening, which will become a dispersal of form – entropy, if you like: this is Beltaine/High Spring – the Desire[3]that is celebrated is a movement towards dis-solution … that is its direction. In contrast, and in balance, Samhain/Deep Autumn celebrates re-solution, which is a movement towards form – it is a materializing gathering into form, as the increasing darkness is received. It seems it is darkness that creates form, as it gathers into itself – as many ancient stories say, and it is light that creates dispersal. And yet I see that the opposite is true also. I think of how there is desire for this work that I have done, for whatever one does – it is then already being received. Desire is receiving. What if I wrote this, and it was not received or welcomed in some way. But the desire for it is already there, and perhaps the desire made it manifest. Perhaps the desire draws forth manifestation, even at Winter Solstice, even at Imbolc/Early Spring, as we head towards Beltaine – it is desire that is drawing that forth, drawing that process around. Desire is already receiving; it is open. Its receptivity draws forth the manifestation. And then the manifestation climaxes at Summer and dissolves into the manifesting, which is perhaps where the desire is coming from – the desire is in the darkness, in the dark’s receptivity[4]. It becomes very active at the time of Beltaine, it lures the differentiated beings back into Her. So the lure at Beltaine is the luring of differentiated beings into a Holy Lust, into a froth and dance of life, whereupon they dissolve ecstatically back into Her – She is “that which is attained at the end of Desire.” And in the dissolution, we sink deeper into that, and begin again. All the time, it is Desire that is luring the manifest into the manifesting, and the manifesting into the manifest. Passion is the glue, the underlying dynamic that streams through it all – through the light and the dark, through the creative triplicities of Virgin-Mother-Crone, of Differentiation-Communion-Autopoeisis[5]. Passion/Desire then is worthy of much more contemplation. If desire/allurement is the same cosmic dynamic as gravity, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests[6], then desire like gravity is the dynamic that links/holds us to our Place, to “that which is”, as philosopher Linda Holler describes the effect of gravity[7]. Held in relationship by desire/allurement we lose abstraction and artificial boundaries, and “become embodied and grow heavy with the weight of the earth[8].” We then know that “being is being-in relation-to”[9]. Holler says that when we think with the weight of Earth, space becomes “thick” as this “relational presence … turns notes into melodies, words into phrases with meaning, and space into vital forms with color and content, (and) also holds the knower in the world[10].”Thus, I at last become a particular, a subject, a felt being in the world – a Place laden with content, sentient: continuous with other and all-that-is. Notes: [1]“…as surely as the chlorophyll molecule was co-created by Earth and Sun, as Earth reached for nourishment; as surely as the ear was co-created by subject and sound, as the subject reached for an unknown signal.” As I have written in PaGaian Cosmology, p. 248. [2]Doreen Valiente, The Charge of the Goddessas referred to in Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, p.102-103. [3]I capitalize here, for it is a holy quality. [4]Perhaps the popular cultural association of the darkness/black lingerie etc. with erotica is an expression/”memory” of this deep truth. [5]These are the three qualities of Cosmogenesis, as referred to in PaGaian Cosmology, Chapter 4, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor”: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ [6]Brian Swimme, The Universe is a Green Dragon, p.43. [7]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”, Hypatia, Vol. 5 No. 1, p.2. [8]Linda Holler, “Thinking with the Weight of the Earth: Feminist Contributions to an Epistemology of Concreteness”,Hypatia, Vol. …

(Poem) Just Remember WE in S/HE by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Just Remember WE in S/HE Remember the Universe is without the beginning or the end. Remember the Creatrix is the Music of the Universe.
(Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part I The bell as both a percussion instrument and an idiophone is one of the most pacific, sublime, and ingenious human inventions. It appears cross-culturally from the remote past. Its artistic and ritualistic aspects are fairly well recognized by many. However, many overlook that the bell is a female icon with functionality. Put differently, the bell symbolizes the Goddess, the female who has the purpose. This essay, to be written in parts hereafter, will examine the symbology of ancient Korean bells and explore its implications with regard to Magoist history, cosmogony, and soteriology. At the outset, I posit that ancient Korean bells cast in the form of a woman’s body are there to awaken humanity to the arcane reality of the Female, that is Mago. In East Asia, bell connotes two distinct types, the open ended and the enclosed. In Korean, the open ended bell is called jong (鐘, Chinese zhong), whereas the enclosed one is called bang-ul or ryeong (鈴, Chinese ling). Jong and bang-ul are also distinguished by size. While the former tends to be larger, the latter are commonly used by a shaman or diviner to hold and shake (a group of bang-uls) to invoke the spirit. However, these differences are not unbridgeable. Some bang-uls are open-ended, like jong. By definition, jong is a bell made of metal not stone. (The character jong 鐘 has the radical (basic element) of geum 金, metal or gold. The stone bell is called gyeong.) When jong is used in music, in particular as a musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze bells, it is called pyeon-jong (編鍾, Chinese bianzhong). Perhaps the invention of pyeon-jong follows pyeon-gyeong (編磬, Chinese bianqing), a stone musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped stone chimes. Discussing the differences between the two instruments goes beyond the purpose of this essay. Suffice it to say that jong was likely a metallic replica of gyeong presumably first introduced in the Bronze Age. (See the images below for comparison.) My primary focus in this essay is on jong, in particular the Korean bells cast in the 8th century CE and thereafter. The beauty and significance of ancient Korean bells shed a new light on ancient Korea to be re-dis-covered in relation to Magoism. Both scholars and the public appear to be unaware that the ancient bells of Korea symbolize the female principle as well as woman’s body. It is my hope that this essay allows the ancient bells of Korea to reverberate through time and call people to return to the female origin. Ancient Greek Bells as Woman’s Body A variety of jong from the ancient world appears across cultures. The most explicitly rendered bells which mirror the female form are the terracotta bell figurines of Greece (Thebes) dated circa the 8th century BCE. Both are housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Protruded breasts are placed on the upper part of the bell. The body of the bell is sculpted to resemble the skirt that she is wearing. Two arms annexed from her shoulders appear to be aesthetic rather than functional. The elongated neck is made as a handle to be held. Her neck is adorned with elaborate necklaces. Geometrical designs and swastikas are compelling in both figurines — rife with arcane meanings. The legs are made as mallets. Imagine, then, where the sound comes from upon being shaken! It is her belly, more precisely the vulva from which the sound originates. In the first, above, icon of the Greek bell, women are drawn on the bell’s body in a simplified and exaggerated manner. They are connected with each other hand in hand forming a circle, perhaps dancing a circle dance. As a whole, the bell depicts a dancing woman with her arms raised, standing on her toes. The women painting befits the spirited nature of the bell. In the second, above, icon of the Greek bell, 39.5 cm in height, her breasts are highlighted, encircled by the drawing of two circles. Thus, they appear to be more nipples than breasts. Her arms are laid downward as if pointing to the birds standing below on each side. Each bird is holding an elongated earthworm-like swirling thing at the tip of its beak. Geometric designs in the center of her body are catchily inviting to interpretations. The symmetrical balance is heightened. She appears to stand firmly or be ready to walk. As shown below, one leg when placed out to the side conveys to its viewer that the legs are mallets and at once creates a look that she is real, in motion. In my documentation, the Greek bell idols and ancient Korean bells are the only two groups that are explicitly made in the shape of a woman’s body. Yet, as to be shown shortly, these Greek bell idols, far smaller in size, date about a thousand years earlier than the ancient Korean bells. Furthermore, there is a vast geographical distance between the two bell icons. In comparing them, however, I have no intention to assume that the ancient Greek bell figurines are the earliest of their kind. (It is difficult to discuss the origin of bell as a woman’s body due to the nature of the task, too complex and daunting. It suffices to say that the Chinese bells, dated older than the Thebes bell figurines, have relevance to ancient Korean bells, a point to be discussed at a later part.) Ancient worlds appear not too heterogeneous to say the least, as moderns tend to think. Sillan Bells Let me begin with introducing some ancient Korean bells from the Silla period (57 BCE-935 CE) and their major features that are also uniquely ancient Korean (read Magoist). They sound beautifully and deeply when struck. Sounding waves are calculated in the structure of the bell upon being cast. It is known that there are eleven jongs extant from the United Silla period. Only five of them are currently located in Korea, whereas the rest are in Japan. These bells are known as beomjong, a term referring to a bell in Buddhist temples used for Buddhist …
How do you say what The Mago Work is? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang & Mago Circle Members

It took many years for me to pronounce the communal nature of the Mago Work. Defining the Mago Work necessarily endows us with the bird’s eye view of the Great Goddess, the primordial consciousness of WE in S/HE. Early this year, I asked people to define the Mago Work and their definitions are illuminating about what this book ultimately seeks to achieve.[1]