June 27, 2018October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Poetry and Photography) Midsummer Eve by Sara Wright

It sounds so appealing a time of revelry, crackling bonfires, staying up all night to witness the dawn. Why do we celebrate this longest day of the year as Read More …

(Review) Journey to the Heart Waters by Louisa Calio, reviewed by Karen Tintori

In the late 1970s, a journey of the heart tugged American-born Louisa Calio to Africa to reunite with a young man she’d met and loved several years prior in the US. The two friends shared a connection to Eritrea. He was born in Asmara, considered the “Rome” not only of Eritrea, but of Italy’s total African empire. His was a city built by Sicilians and, as WWII began, more than half of its residents were Italians. Now a different war was ravaging his country. Colonized first by Italy, then by Great Britain, and finally ceded to Ethiopia, Eritrea was then 17 years into a war for independence. Louisa, an Italian-American with Sicilian roots, felt profound empathy for the plight of the refugees fleeing the bombs pummeling their country, just as she still felt a profound pull to her beloved.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Kaalii Cargill

Kaalii Cargill lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She is a mother and grandmother and has been engaged for 50 years with women’s consciousness raising groups, sacred ritual spaces, home birth, attachment parenting, home and parent-run schooling, and mindbody healing. In the 1980s she co-developed Soul Centred Psychotherapy, a therapeutic modality based on the feminine principle. Kaalii inherits a sense of mystery from Calabrese, ‘strega’ grandmothers and a healthy resistance to enculturation from her Romany ancestors. Kaalii’s speculative/historical novel, DAUGHTERS OF TIME, follows a line of daughters through ancient Sumer, Egypt, and Jerusalem, and into the modern world, as they carry the memory of Goddess through time and across continents to the present day where three women come together to save the world from environmental catastrophe. Her non-fiction book DON’T TAKE IT LYING DOWN: LIFE ACCORDING TO THE GODDESS is based on her PhD thesis in which she explored women’s reproductive autonomy.
(Tribute 1) My Loving Father Hwang Jong-Hwan (黃鍾煥 7/31/1935-10/10/2020) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Dad in 2020 My Father and His Return to WE/HERE/NOW My loving father passed on Oct. 10, 2020 in South Korea. It feels like a big portion of my core is torn away. In memories and sorrows, I thank him for his love for me, comfort him for the pains and sufferings his life caused, and celebrate the gift of himself to the world. I unite with him in spirit, as he has embarked his eternal journey of being beyond the visible world. I send him off to WE/HERE/NOW in a traditional Magoist Korean way, which I have encountered through my research. He seems gone from the physical world but is fully HERE/NOW with All in WE, the Mother World!My task is to pave his way as much as possible. So I begin with a little about the life he had in this fragile visible world: Dad in Youth Hwang Jong-Hwan (黃鍾煥 July 31 or July 2 on Lunar, 1935-October 10, 2020) was a gifted man, a proud father, and a devoted husband. His name Jong-Hwan, which means the Splendid Bell, was given by his father according to the naming custom of the Hwang clan. His childhood name was Yong-Hwan (the Splendid Dragon). Born and grew up under the Japanese colonial rule, survived the Korean War, and endured the harsh reality of modern Korea’s economic re-building in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the first of four siblings (three sons and one daughter). He was born as the promising son of a self-made businessman (my grandfather) who owned a bike store (sales and repairs) in a historical township, Seonsan in North Gyeongsang Province. However, his happy childhood could not last long. His father’s sudden death (my father was seven-year old) left his wife and children unprotected and in poverty. As his mother (my grandmother) returned to her in-law’s village (I was born there too) with her children and lived as a farmer in the household of her mother-in-law, he grew up as the young widow’s oldest son. Wasn’t able to pursue his educational dream beyond primary school, which hit him hard throughout his life. He kept a drawing journal with a beautiful color drawing (the moon, the village surrounding, and the hind view of a lady with a long braided hair dangling on her back dressed in Korean traditional clothes depicted in a pastel tone, as I recall; its serenity and beauty mesmerized me as a child) and poetic verses during his youth years and carried it with him until his 30s, a book which his children were able to see. In fact, that may have been my first book to read. He was an artist and a poet, I gather now. Married a woman (my mother) from a well-off family in the same village. My maternal great-grandfather had chosen him for his granddaughter (my mother). He was 6 years older than her. They had three children (a daughter and two sons). Together with his wife and with the support of his in-laws family, he began as a vendor in Seoul to support his family but was not successful at all. That made my mother stronger. He was supportive of his wife and later opened a grocery store, owned a family tailor shop making himself a tailor, and conducted clothing business on and off. He was gifted in repairing household appliances and enjoyed providing his family with external wound care. He even enjoyed cooking for the family especially during family trips in nature. He designed and built a two-story family home in his 50s. He lived frugally and diligently so that they (my parents) could put their three children through prestigious private universities. Two of them achieved a doctoral degree and beyond. He was very proud of his children and enjoyed their successes on many levels. Loved traveling nationwide and listening to songs. Liked many things among which are gardening, biking, and outdoor-exploring. He held the city’s chess championship and continued to enjoy watching and playing chess matches till his last year. He was diagnosed with kidney failure in his 60s and under dialysis for 16 years. He endured it with an amazing spirit and tenacity for which we, his family, admired and respected him. He had undergone a series of near death crises over the years. Each time he returned with his mind intact and with his body functional. I called him the phoenix. We in our family knew that the farewell was approaching but did not know how soon. He left the visible world at 4:52 AM on Saturday October 10. On the same day, his body was moved to another hospital for the funeral. My mother had hoped to bury him so my brothers honored her wish. Survived by his spouse, three children, and three grandchildren as well as his brothers and their in-laws. We who are his family, relatives, and have known him are grateful for his life of caring, enduring, and giving. His funeral organized by my younger brother’s family was attended by many under the courteous observance of the Covid19 order. Funeral altar at Seoul National University Hospital in Bundang. Flower stands sent by visitors His grave yard, October 13, 2020 First visit to my father’s grave by my younger brothers (mother next to them invisible) Through the passing of my father, our family members bonded anew and exchanged one another heartfelt sorrows and encouragements, a huge comfort for me. I could not but thank my brothers and their families for I wasn’t there at all physically. And I couldn’t contribute to the expense monetarily. Everyone in the family knows my lifestyle, which barely makes my own living, while leading the life that I am called to. Alas, I am broken-hearted by not being able to see him in his last days and moments. It seems a bit too late to realize that I have taken his love for granted. I, his first and only daughter, am indebted for his love and the …
(Essay 1) From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt by Krista Rodin

[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time and culture, remain relevant today.] From Cosmos to Mother The goddess in Ancient Egypt had many pictorial and ideological forms that changed according to era and location. She was the goddess of the sky, harboring the sun during the night and giving birth to the day; she was the mother of creation; the queen of the stars, while at the same time the avenger of Ra, destroying humanity on the great god’s order. She was the protector of childbirth as well as the queen of the Underworld and Afterlife. She protected those who followed Ma’at’s laws of universal justice and order, through the deceased’s ability to accurately respond to her 42 Negative Confessions. She was the winged woman, the lioness, the cat, and the hippopotamus. She was wisdom and cunning. One of the earliest Ancient Egyptian creation legends explain how air and moisture in the forms of the god Shu and the goddess Tefnut unite. The universal order and justice established in this process is overseen by the goddess Ma’at. The first couple’s offspring, Nut as sky, and Geb as earth, are held apart by Shu to form the world. Shu is depicted with an ostrich feather, as is the goddess Ma’at, showing their primordial connection. Over time, the sky mother Nut became associated with Hathor as the mother of humankind. Hathor takes a number of forms including a sun disk, a cow, or in her angry form, a lion, which is also one of Tefnut’s symbols. Hathor’s role changes depending on what she is needed for, from the vengeful Eye of Ra to the protector of childbirth. Isis, an ancient goddess who came into her own in the late Middle Kingdom and was prominent during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, merged with Hathor in the iconography in the New Kingdom. She is primarily seen as the protecting mother watching out for the faithful in this life and the afterlife along with her sister, Nephthys. Isis, Orisis and their son, Horus form the Egyptian Holy Family. Isis with baby Horus is one of the most common models for Mary and the baby Jesus, but Isis is also the goddess who tricked Ra into telling her his secret name. She is the goddess of magic along with Heka. This dual role, that of mother protectress and cunning magician who understands and manipulates her opponent’s psychological makeup, is also seen in the legends and iconography of Greek goddesses, especially Athena, Aphrodite, Hera, Demeter, Persephone and Hecate. While there is not a direct correlation between the goddesses in the two traditions, the ideas they represent and the transition from sky goddesses to those of the Underworld through a psychological journey into unknowable and invisible worlds is similar and relates to the portrayal of modern day witches. This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time and culture, remain relevant today. There are three main creation stories from ancient Egypt, the oldest of which was recorded in the Pyramid Texts, the hieroglyphic and pictorial inscriptions in 5th-6th Dynasty Old Kingdom pyramids in Sakkara (ca. 2600-2200 BCE). In these early texts there are different versions for the appearance of the first god, but they all agree that the Sun-god emerged out of primeval chaos. The names of the primordial god differ by time and location. In one temple the text speaks of Ptah, who arose out of an egg, while others mention him as the winged beetle, Khepri; most commonly, though, he is Atum, who in later texts is also known as Ra, or Re, and even later as Re-Atum. Regardless of the particular name and attributes, the primordial Sun-god formed two children, Shu, air, and Tefnut, moisture. There is also a belief that Tefnut should be associated with fire rather than moisture, or both. The first pair, i.e., the combination of air, heat and moisture, gave birth to two children, Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky. As Geb and Nut were inseparable, Atum insisted that Shu separate the two. In the inscriptions, Shu stands or kneels on Geb while supporting Nut’s arched body. Nut is the mother sky that eats the night giving birth to the day. Her body is illustrated as covered with stars indicating the Milky Way as a passageway through time and space. She is also likened to a cow, giving birth to life sustaining forces. Geb lies fallow until brought to life by Nut. Shu sustains the cycle by separating the two and supporting the heavens. Shu is usually depicted with an ostrich feather on his head, the symbol of Ma’at, which represents universal justice and order, which appeared at the creation of the world. This early legend clearly shows that ancient Egyptians understood the cycles not just of night and day, but also of the interaction of air, heat and moisture as elements of creating life on earth. They didn’t necessarily relate to these concepts as abstract ideas, however, as Lurker states: “The majority of ancient Egyptians didn’t live in a world of abstract concepts, they used images to convey their ideas of the cosmos, much the way modern Hindus do with their deities.”1 The ostrich feather as a symbol of justice is particularly interesting as ostrich parents share in the responsibility of caring for the eggs and the young. As ostrich eggs are the largest bird eggs, they represent wealth and fertility. This came to be seen as the symbol for renewal and rebirth. Shu and Ma’at’s ostrich feathers not only represent air, as many feathers in mythology do, but also the universal world order that holds the elements of the cosmos in place. If the elements become imbalanced, …
(Essay) Guadalupe by Sara Wright

Last year on December 12th, Guadalupe’s Feast Day, I lit the retablo that sits in the one dark corner of the living room, yet I couldn’t feel Her Presence, this Lady who unites all peoples and is often called the Mother of the Americas. As I gazed up at her dark Indian face sculpted out of wood, cloaked in a blue green garment and held aloft by what appeared to be a young Indian boy (this figure was an angel, I learned later), a profound yearning sprung out of the deepest recesses of my heart, much as I imagined the spring that had once bubbled out of the barren ground at Guadalupe’s feet.
(Essay) A Gallery of Toxic and Pornified “Goddesses” by Max Dashu

I can’t stand it. For some time I’ve been thinking that something needs to be said about the the toxic femininity scripts creeping into “Goddess” imagery, mass-media contamination, and all in the name of women’s empowerment. These posed, stilted, playmate-like “goddesses”, sticking their breasts out and pouting like lipstick models are all over the net. You’ve seen them – on Youtube, on Facebook, in comix and videogames. Oh, let’s not forget video games and virtual world avatars. They’re proliferating like mad. This is not empowerment; it is monoculture, limiting, plastic, soul-less, and lacking in the relaxed boldness of real power. See what you think. I can’t stand it. These posed, stilted, playmate-like “goddesses”, sticking their breasts out and pouting like lipstick models are all over the net. You’ve seen them – on Youtube, on Facebook, in comix and videogames. They’re proliferating like mad. This is not empowerment; it constrains the female to the same toxic scripts as the mass media. I would’ve liked this painting if he had just left out that poor, contorted woman, with a head bigger that her waist. And what is she doing with her right leg? This artist does the same model-type over and over in different haircolor and fashions. Bizarrely, he calls it “Mythic Naturalism.” OH! I am so demure, so fair, and my proportions conventionally Barbie-like. My leg is drawn up in the obligatory bent-knee pose, and my gaze downcast. I am ready to do thy bidding. I show that even Nike, valiant winged goddess of Victory, can thrust her breasts out and arch her back as much as any pinup girl. I gaze fixedly at my ulna, which somehow inspires me. And I can fly! even though one of my wings is attached to my shoulder and the other to my kidney. This alone makes me a goddess. Another waste of talent: there’s some beauty here, the leggings are kind of cool, but the stereotypical pose ruins it. I am the Prom Queen Goddess (see my tiara?). I carry paganish symbols but never forget to point my toes and keep my legs together. Oooh. Coy much? This simpering ninny with the batwings is titled “Morrigan.” Wait til the real Morrigan, the Irish goddess of battle, gets her claws on the artist. Yes, arched back, butt out, that’s required, and so are the tiny waists and stick-arms. It’s all about display, never embodied Presence. Good luck dancing on those rocks with the stilettos. This one at least has muscles! though her body type otherwise fits the mold. Still, the muscles lend a little dynamism, even if she looks like she’s about to expire from sucking in that belly. What is it with the pointed toes? Pornified goddess template. “Flashbunny,” nuff said. It’s not just the “goddesses”: meet the “shamans.” “The Return” (of worshipping the blonde? creepy) And it’s not just the “goddesses.” They do the same to the “shamanesses,” “witches,” and even “Amazons.” Check it out. I first noticed a strong trend on Pagan YouTube videos toward soft-porn imagery of witches, but it goes well beyond that. Several months ago, I did a web search for images of “woman shaman,” “medicine woman,” etc., and this is some of what turned up. What’s sad is that people think they are reaching for a more powerful image of women, while conforming to the same old tired, limited ideas. Nearly all are glamour girls of the same body size and (often impossible) proportions. Virtually none represent old or middle-aged women, few are muscular, none are fat or even husky. Their stance and expressions are predictably uniform and modeled on porn archetypes. If you’ve already looked at the first two pages, I’ve reorganized them and added several more pages as of April 25: A Gallery of Phony “witches” A Gallery of Fake “Amazons” The Toxic Feminine Template: Video Games and Virtual World Avatars Enough! what women need is the Real Thing. (Meet Mago Contributor) Max Dashu.
What is Rematriation? by Sara Wright

Circles of Water, photo by Sara Wright “Rematriation centers Indigenous Women’s leadership for the restoration and regeneration of land and water. By revitalizing Indigenous knowledge, honoring traditions and renewing annual cycles of life, rematriation directly addresses harms caused by patriarchal extraction and violence.” (Bioneers) Bioneers, is a FREE online publication that has been around since 1990. in addition to its weekly programs this organization is now introducing the ‘Leading from the Feminine’ newsletter whose intent is to bridge divides and to celebrate connection invoking the feminine as leaders. This newsletter exists to bridge divides and celebrate connections within the rich tapestry of visionary women and men who are evoking/ invoking the feminine to lead with courage, vulnerability, intuition and empathy. Rematriation focuses on Indigenous knowledge and directly addresses the harm done by patriarchal extraction and violence. I don’t know why Indigenous Peoples ideas continue to be invisiblized (my made up word) by feminists and the culture at large but my hypothesis is two – fold. The first idea that comes to mind is we have never acknowledged let alone made reparation for the horrors that colonists enacted on the Native Peoples that were the first inhabitants on this continent. Atrocities continue to be enacted today. Most of us live on stolen land. Those that don’t are stuffed onto reservations. I also believe that the collective is so used to seeing nature as a dead/mindless resource to be used that it’s inconceivable to most that all aspects of nature are alive and sentient. The Indigenous belief that nature is not only sentient but also a powerful teacher and all individuals are relatives is usually dismissed as nonsense, unless westerners choose to appropriate some Indigenous ideas into their own rituals to legitimize themselves. We see this behavior occurring most frequently with new age shaman types of one sort or another. They are everywhere. Our profound disconnect from natural cycles has created a sense of isolation and a loneliness and that has driven us into a way of being that invites addiction at every level – be it to substances, information, rampant consumerism, traveling – well the list goes on. Ironically, if there is a way to move into a truly feminized future, we need to incorporate Indigenous science and the practices that are associated with them into our present lexicon. These people have been in a respectful, loving and reciprocal relationship with nature since the beginning – long before Neolithic times. These people are literally our foremothers/forefathers. This attitude has now become critical for survival of all human species so it’s time to incorporate Indigenous wisdom and knowledge into our lexicon but we must do so legitimately giving credit to “The People” (all Indigenous peoples have a word that means original people) There are excellent western scientists who are turning to Indigenous folks for ancient knowledge. Yet not surprisingly most of these cutting edge scientists are marginalized. Suzanne Simard posited some 50 years ago that all trees were in relationship with one another ( her work has been replicated repeatedly). Recently she created the 100 Year Tree Project that will continue to study the relationships between communicating trees, humans and animals and the mycelial fungal network that supports all plant life on earth. Suzanne not only uses Indigenous science but has incorporated it (along with Native scholars) into all of her work, making it clear that the original inhabitants of this land have access to knowledge that westerners know nothing about. The latter have become trusted leaders. One more recent example that might be opening a crack in the fabric of dismissal/denial is Merlin Sheldrake whose work on the role of fungal mycelial networks incorporates Indigenous science and guidance into global research putting the power of discovery into the hands of Indigenous people around the globe. A third example might be physicians like my friend Gary who incorporates holistic medicine into his practice, using Indigenous and Asian remedies, all of which focus on the person acknowledging the profound reciprocal relationship between humans and the rest of nature. Let me make it clear that I am not criticizing any woman or groups of women who seek the wisdom of the goddess because this too can be a way in. I certainly am one such person. Having grown up as a westerner it was only my childhood love affair with nature that taught me that all nature was alive, educating me into the reality of relational interconnection. I think It’s important to acknowledge that Indigenous women are creating their own word for restoration and that this definition is not about separation but used to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples exist – are alive and well and that the women stand at the forefront of protesting, seed saving and healing ecological damage. Bioneers seeks a ‘both and’ perspective, one that includes Indigenous peoples as an equal partner. Although I think it’s important to understand what we know about the beginnings and more recent history of “herstory” because these journeys into the past provide us with a working framework, today we need more than scholarship to move feminism into a new relationship with the dominant culture. More information taken from the Bioneers website: “Bioneers is an innovative nonprofit organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet. Founded in 1990 in Santa Fe, New Mexico by social entrepreneurs Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, we act as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges. A celebration of the genius of nature and human ingenuity, Bioneers connects people with solutions and each other”. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright
Meet Mago Contributor, Mary Saracino

MARY SARACINO is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her most recent novel, Heretics: A Love Story (2014) was published by Pearlsong Press. Her novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was named a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the Spirituality category. She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University. For more information about Mary, visit www.marysaracino,com and http://www.pearlsong.com/mary_saracino.htm
(Poem) All My Relations by Mary Saracino

All my relations hail from Puglia and Tuscany their bodies rooted to ancient hillsides, sacred ruins forests filled with wild cinghiali, fallen chestnuts fields bursting with red poppies, stone menhirs All my relations flew through the night skies their souls danced with stardust, cradled by the wind and the voluptuous arms of the full moon secret-keepers, storytellers, healers bakers, winemakers, farmers, musicians, poets

(Special Post 2) 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.] Harriet Ann Ellenberger I got involved with women’s liberation in the early 1970s, so involved that it became my life for many years. During those beginnings of what is now called “the second wave of feminism,” everything was new to us and everything was mushed together — the political, the economic, the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual. I liked that a lot; it felt as if all the parts of myself were coming together. During that time, I learned something crucial the imagery and concepts of patriarchal religion justify and are embedded in the material structures of oppression. I don’t know which came first, institutionalized oppression (of everyone; I’m not speaking here only of women) or the religious expression of that oppression. All I’m certain of is that patriarchal religion permeates, for example, the Oxford English Dictionary, which I use all the time, in conjunction with Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, conjured by Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi.
(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.
(Special Post 2) "The Oldest Cilivization" 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.

Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion. The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period. When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe. Synodic Lunar Track (Patriarchal) Sidereal Lunar Track (Magoist) Focus Moon’s phases Moon’s motions Days of month 29 or 30 (irregular) 28 (regular) No. of months in a year 12 13 Women’s menstrual cycle Assumed sync Synced Luni-centric Astolonomy Unknown 28 Constellations Intercalations 11 days annually, a total of 44 days for 4 years 1 day annually & 1 day every 4 years, a total of 2 days for 4 years Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in …
A PaGaian Wheel of the Year and Her Creativity by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. for larger image see: https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ Essentially a PaGaian Wheel of the Year celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, none of which is separate from the unfolding of each unique place/region, and each unique being. This creativity of Cosmogenesis is celebrated through Earth-Sun relationship as it may be expressed and experienced within any region of our Planet. PaGaian ceremony expresses this with Triple Goddess Poetry understood to be metaphor for the creative dynamics unfolding the Cosmos. At the heart of the Earth-Sun relationship is the dance of light and dark, the waxing and waning of both these qualities, as Earth orbits around our Mother Sun. This dance, which results in the manifestation of form and its dissolution (as expressed in the seasons), happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: because this effects the intensity of regional receptivity to Sun’s energy over the period of the yearly orbit. This tilt was something that happened in the evolution of our planet in its earliest of days – some four and a half billion years ago,[i] and then stabilised over time: and the climatic zones were further formed when Antarctica separated from Australia and South America, giving birth to the Antarctica Circumpolar Current, changing the circulation of water around all the continents … just some thirty million years ago.[ii] Within the period since then, which also saw the advent of the earliest humans, Earth has gone through many climatic changes. It is likely that throughout those changes, the dance of light and dark in both hemispheres of the planet … one always the opposite of the other – has been fairly stable and predictable. The resultant effect on flora and fauna regionally however has varied enormously depending on many other factors of Earth’s ever-changing ecology: She is an alive Planet who continues to move and re-shape Herself. She is Herself subject to the cosmic dynamics of creativity – the forming and the dissolving and the re-emerging. The earliest of humans must have received all this, ‘observed’ it in a very participatory way: that is, not as a Western industrialized or dualistic mind would think of ‘observation’ today, but as kin with the events – identifying with their own experience of coming into being and passing away. There is evidence (as of this writing) to suggest that humans have expressed awareness of, and response to, the phenomenon of coming into being and passing away, as early as one hundred thousand years ago: ritual burial sites of that age have been found,[iii] and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found.[iv] The ceremonial celebration of the phenomenon of seasons probably came much later, particularly perhaps when humans began to settle down. These ceremonial celebrations of seasons apparently continued to reflect the awesomeness of existence as well as the marking of transitions of Sun back and forth across the horizon, which became an important method of telling the time for planting and harvesting and the movement of pastoral animals. It seems that the resultant effect of the dance of light and dark on regional flora and fauna, has been fairly stable in recent millennia, the period during which many current Earth-based religious practices and expression arose. In our times, that is changing again. Humans have been, and are, a major part of bringing that change about. Ever since we migrated around the planet, humans have brought change, as any creature would: but humans have gained advantage and distinguished themselves by toolmaking, and increasingly domesticating/harnessing more of Earth’s powers – fire being perhaps the first, and this also aided our migration. In recent times this harnessing/appropriating of Earth’s powers became more intense and at the same time our numbers dramatically increased: and many of us filled with hubris, acting without consciousness or care of our relational context. We are currently living in times when our planet is tangibly and visibly transforming: the seasons themselves as we have known them for millennia – as anyone’s ancestors knew them – appear to be changing in most if not all regions of our Planet. Much predictable Poetry – sacred language – for expressing the quality of the Seasonal Moments will change, as regional flora changes, as the movement of animals and birds and sea creatures changes, as economies change.[v]In Earth’s long story regional seasonal manifestation has changed before, but not so dramatically since the advent of much current Poetic expression for these transitions, as mixed as they are with layers of metaphor: that is, with layers of mythic eras, cultures and economies. We may learn and understand the traditional significance of much of the Poetry, the ceremony and symbol – the art – through which we could relate and converse with our place, as our ancestors may have done, but it will continue to evolve as all language must. In PaGaian Cosmology I have adapted the Wheel as a way of celebrating the Female Metaphor and also as a way of celebrating Cosmogenesis, the Creativity that is present really/actually in every moment, but for which the Seasonal Moments provide a pattern/Poetry over the period of a year – in time and place. The pattern that I unfold is a way in which the three different phases/characteristics interplay. In fact, the way in which they interplay seems infinite, the way they inter-relate is deeply complex. I think it is possible to find many ways to celebrate them. There is nothing concrete about the chosen story/Poetry, nor about each of the scripts presented here, just as there is nothing concrete about the Place of Being – it (She) is always relational, a Dynamic Interchange. Whilst being grounded in the “Real,” the Poetry chosen for expression is therefore at the same time, a potentially infinite expression, according to the heart and mind of the storyteller. NOTES: [i] See Appendix C, *(6), Glenys Livingstone, A Poiesis of the Creative …
(Art & Poem) Spring Equinox by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

A SEED FOR SPRING EQUINOX . . . till I feel the earth around the place my head has lain under winter’s touch, and it crumbles. Slanted weight of clouds. Reaching with my head and shoulders past the open crust dried by spring wind. Sun. Tucking through the ground that has planted cold inside me, made its waiting be my food. Now I watch the watching dark my light’s long-grown dark makes known. Art and poem are included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(Slideshow) Beltaine Goddess by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRoK2XNeqw The purpose of the video is for ceremony and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have some past photos of yourself, an altar with ancestor photos, a gingerbread snake, some apples sliced up, and some apple juice. The script for this Samhain ceremony is offered in Chapter 4 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. However I want to acknowledge here the inspiration and some text of Robin Morgan’s poem “The Network of the Imaginary Mother” in her book Lady of the Beasts, for which I was given permission in my book. I also acknowledge here the paraphrase of some words by Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance, used in the rite of Sailing to a New World. I also use a line from the poem Song of Hecate by Bridget McKern. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I mention the direction (which I do minimally). For the rite of the Transformation Journey (remembering old selves) I use an adaptation of a children’s game “In and Out the Windows”, where each participant travels in and out of upraised and linked arms of the circle, and when ‘in’ may speak and /or show photos of themselves from the past. Some may choose to remember any self from the entire evolutionary story, with whom they would like to identify. The game seems appropriate to what each being does existentially in so many ways, over the eons as well as in our personal lives. The chant can be found on YouTube. The photos used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Samhain ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Samhain ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. Music credit: All music used in this video is by Tim Wheater, which has previously generously allowed me to use in my work. The pieces used are from Tim’s CD Fish Nite Moon: they are Ancient Footsteps, Fish Nite Moon, Spiritbirth, and Conception. I thank my partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne for his participation in the creation of the video.

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

[Author’s Note: This essay was first included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, published in 2018 by Mago Books.] This essay may be called a Magoist study of the Korean foundation myth, also known as the Dangun myth. It reinstates Goma, better known as “Ungnyeo (Bear/Sovereign Woman),” the shaman ruler of pre-patriarchal Korea, who is the main character of the Korean foundation myth. Here “Mago” stands for the Creatrix and “Magoism” for pre-patriarchally originated indigenous tradition of East Asia that venerates the Creatrix.[1] Identifying Goma as the ruler Goddess of Old Korea/East Asia is by no means a new effort. She is, although few in number, alluded to the eponymous Goddess of ancient Korean States (Goma State, for example) in both historical sources and modern research. In fact, “Ungnyeo” is one of the most studied topics by Korean linguists, mythologists, and historians for it concerns the identity of the Korean people. Nonetheless, those studies tend to be monodisciplinary or androcentric in their approaches and consequently fail to assess her full-fledged supreme identity as the ancestor ruler of East Asian nations. This chapter engages in transdisciplinary, comparative, and feminist approaches to elucidating the Goma myth. At the outset, we will rename “the Korean foundation myth” “the Goma myth.” That is corollary in that she is the central figure of the story. Also it introduces Old Korea as the One People of the Creatrix, anciently known as Nine Hans (九桓 Guhan). The Goma myth restores the gynocentric multi-meaning of “Nine Hans” and “Magoist Koreans/East Asians,” which is non-ethnocentric and supra-nationalist in origin. The character, “Han (桓),” in “Nine Hans” and “Hanguk,” is complex in meaning as it connotes “one,” “whole, “great,” “good,” “same,” “bright,” “many,” “correct,” “middle,” “full” and the like. Thus, “Nine Hans” refer to the People of the Creatrix who have those qualities of the character “Han.” Koreanists have designated as Hanism (the Han thought) this inclusive and polysemic nature of the word “Han” characteristic of traditional Korean worldview.[2] Although naming it Hanism is insightful, it may be misleading without a full-fledged hermeneutics of Goma mythology. Goma, known as Ungnyeo or Gom, remains underestimated and misrepresented among modern Koreans. A common understanding of the Korean foundation myth goes that she was the bear who became a woman and married Hanung, the divine sage ruler of Old Korea, and gave birth to a son, Dangun, the founder of the proto-Chinese Joseon dynasty (2333 BCE-232 BCE). Goma is diminished to the role of a mother of an assumed male hero at best. Consequently, she is redacted from the mytho-historical context of Old Magoist Korea/East Asia (the pre-patriarchal gynocentric people of the Creartrix), and divested of her supreme identity as the dynastic founder of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE). Given the immensity and complexity of the topic and its data, it is admittedly impossible to treat them comprehensively within a chapter. While many salient themes are discussed, many others are not treated. Among the untreated are Nine Numerology and its cross-cultural manifestations beyond East Asia. This essay aims the following: (1) It provides some pivotal background discussions as well as overall characteristics of the Goma myth. (2) It introduces and delineates the four narratives of the Goma myth selectively chosen from various written texts. The fact that the topic of Goma has rarely been brought to light in its own right in the West adds to the difficulty. This has to do with the fact that pre-Chinese Korean/East Asian history is deemed heterodox, if recognized, in mainstream (read Sinocentric and patriarchal) East Asian Studies. Not only her supreme identity but also her Magoist mytho-historical context remains as non-data in the institutionalized practice of Korean Studies. Our task necessarily involves a controversial feminist methodology, debunking conventional interpretations as a product of Sinocentrism. Mainstream Koreanists have endorsed or internalized the Chinese ethnocentric worldview that is patriarchal and imperialist. Reversing the multiple reversals, the current work, as a result, exposes what is written out of the official East Asian mytho-historiography. Summary of the Goma Myth Goma had a great spirit from birth. Because of her vision of “benefiting the human world widely,” she was entrusted by the last shaman queen, Hanin of Hanguk (桓國 State of One People, c. 7199 BCE – 3898 BCE), with the task of restoring the Reign of the Creatrix. Toward the end of the Hanguk confederacy, clan names and their customs grew apart. And a belligerent tiger clan rose. They raided and plundered neighboring tribes. Goma conceived a will to pacify a social problem caused by this unruly patrilocal clan. Determined to constrain the tiger clan, she requested Hanin to send her to the troubled region. Hanin granted her wish and sent her to the region, Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence). Leading the royal bear clan of 3,000 people, Goma arrived at Mount Taebaek and settled adjacent to the tiger clan. Rather than a military solution, she proposed a covenant for both the bear clan and the tiger clan to observe. Both clans underwent a trial, which was to dwell in a cave hall and endure 100 days without seeing the sunlight, living on mugwort and chive. I call her proposal the cave initiation, a socio-spiritual pledge to undergo the ordeal of the cave environment in order to tap into one’s innate power of restoring true human nature. The cave is a physical and metaphorical place for the womb of the Primordial Mother, the sacred space/time of unity, wholeness, and rebirth, wherein everyone once dwelt. The cave initiation represents a returning to the knowing of the common origin of all beings, the Crearix. Goma proffered the tiger clan an option of changing their predatory behaviors but they could not endure the cave initiation. The bear clan endured for three seven days (21 days) and attained the female character, the true human nature. The tiger clan was expelled to a remote designated land outside Four Seas, the territory of Old Magoist East Asia, by verdict of the law that Goma legislated. …
(Photo Essay 5) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part 5: Gaeyang Halmi, How Does She Relate with Mago? The field research concerning Gaeyang Halmi was undertaken with the thought that Gaeyang Halmi is related to Mago in some way. Such assumption is on the grounds that the folktales of Gaeyang Halmi and Mago Halmi substantively share the same motifs. In fact, I had thought Gaeyang Halmi is another name of Mago Halmi. A scrutiny has proven that the picture of their correlation is far more complex than I first envisaged, exposing the hidden nexuses of Old Magoism. This last part aims at disentangling the grips. It is indispensable for me to invite my readers to the task of reconstructing ancient East Asian mytho-history. Gaeyang Halmi embodies a partial manifestation of Mago as the Sea Goddess. Nonetheless, such a statement lacks complex subtexts that this topic involves. The Gurang (Nine Maidens) mytheme of Gaeyang Halmi sheds light on the mytho-history of Old Magoism (read Magoism in pre- and proto-Chinese times characterized by shaman rulers). To be specific, Gaeyang Halmi in the gurang pantheon suggests a yet-to-be-known shaman ruler, “Ungnyeo” (Bear/Sovereign Woman), founder of the confederacy of the nine states, which I call Danguk (ca. 3898 BCE-2333 BCE). The gurang represented by Gaeyang Halmi is no small clue to the pervasive yet misunderstood civilization of Ungnyeo. “Ungnyeo” is eponymous of the female symbolism of nine, such as the nine-tailed fox in East Asia and the nine muses and the nine forms of Durga beyond East Asia mentioned in Part IV. In short, Gaeyang Halmi oscillating between “Mago” and “Ungnyeo” in Her identity testifies to the suppressed history of Old Magoism. Methodically, I have two types of mythological texts to decipher the overtones of Gaeyang Halmi’s mytheme: folklore (oral narratives) and the written myth. Goddess mythemes, malleable yet immortal, constitute the grammar blocks of the gynocentric language that often appears “awkward” if not “ridiculous” to moderns. They need to be analyzed and interpreted. Feminist techniques are apt to sort out the sediments and decipher the diastrophic disturbances caused by patriarchal advances in the course of time. Some parallels between Gaeyang Halmi and Mago Halmi folk stories are overt. Their stories are so similar that they appear to be an identical goddess: A: The motif that Gaeyang Halmi walks on the sea, often described as wearing namak-sin (wooden shoes) or only beoseon (Korean traditional socks), is also commonly told in Mago stories especially from Jeju Island[i] and other coastal regions. B: That Gaeyang Halmi walks around in the sea to measure its depth is also told in the stories of Mago from other coastal regions. C: The mytheme that Gaeyang Halmi had eight daughters recurs in the stories of Mago, especially from the region of Mt. Jiri. Mago is said to have had eight daughters and sent them to eight provinces. Given the above, it is evident that Gaeyang Halmi lore resembles that of Mago. Were the populace confused about these two goddesses? I hold that the confusion was not a mistake but a way to convey that Gaeyang Halmi is related to Magoism rather than Mago Herself. In folklore, “why” and “how”are the questions to be interpreted, not to be read.
(Mago Stronghold Essay 3) The Forgotten Primordial Paradise by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Part 3: Indelible Old Magoism Encrypted in China’s “Mago Stronghold” The Mago word “Mago Stronghold” has narrowly survived patriarchal linguistic censorships. Sometimes it is preferably or deliberately employed as a euphemism. Other times, it is replaced with random words. But it has never been completely wiped out from written and oral texts. The Mago term, constituting the very foundation of patriarchy, is indestructible. Having survived, the term “Mago Stronghold” debunks the plot intent to magna-matricide. It unearths the buried and re-members the severed. Extant Mago Strongholds in Korea and in China differ not only in number but also in implication. Just like Magoist data in general, Korea surpasses China by a large number of extant Mago Strongholds. It is a corollary that China does not have much to do with Mago words in that ancient China “entered the stage of the patriarchal society around 5,000 years ago”.[1] Magoist materials are systematically dismissed as dubious or apocryphal data, as pre-Chinese Old Magoist Korea remains uncharted in Sinocentric East Asian historiography. Readers are reminded of the meaning of Old Magoist Korea, the socio-political-religious conglomeration of the People of the Great Goddess originated from pre-Chinese times. It is by definition non-ethnocentric and pre-nationalist.[2] Magoism substantiates the derivative nature of ancient Chinese history from Old Magoist Korea. It unveils that Old Korea was there long before the establishment of the Chinese patriarchal rule. The Mago Stronghold talk debunks the fantasy of ancient China as the forerunner rule. It is unknown how many Mago Stronghold places may have existed before or survived today in present China. One I found is located in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, according to the Atlas of Heavenly Harbor Government (天津府總圖, Tianjinfuzongtu) published in 1805. The historical accuracy of this place is backed by an earlier account in the Records of the United Great Ming (Damingyitongzhi 大明一統志), a fifteenth century geography book from the Ming dynasty. Its brief record concerns the visit of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) to Mago Stronghold, as it reads: Mago Stronghold is located in Cangzhou on the border of old Qingchi-xian (Clear Lake County). Emperor Wu of Han took an administrative tour to this place and offered rites. Thus came the place-name, Mago Stronghold.[3] The Cangzhou Mago Stronghold, noted for the second century BCE anecdote, makes its history two millennia old at the least. When Magoism is made invisible, however, the long history or the royal association of Mago Stronghold is systematically censored as non-data in official historiography of China, which is the norm for East Asian historiographies. Given that Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) of Han is known as one of the most accomplished rulers in Chinese history, it may appear odd that he is associated with the Mago term, “Mago Stronghold.” Indeed, the account may seem to mismatch Emperor Wu of ancient China with Mago Stronghold. And Chinese scribes would not have fabricated the anecdote. It is indeed a rare case that the Mago term has survived in Chinese official documents. That said, we want to ask if the two terms, Emperor Wu of Han and Mago Stronghold, are irreconcilable per se? My answer is no. They appear to be at odds only to the modern Sinocentric mind. In fact, the above anecdote is highly evocative of the concept of Heaven (天 Tian) worshipped by ancient Chinese rulers. Emperor Wu’s visitation and officiation at Mago Stronghold, which may have been known as Heavenly Stronghold (天城 Tiancheng),[4] account for the ancient ruler’s worship of Heaven. It is of utmost importance for Chinese rulers to observe rites and customs that venerate Heaven, for it is deemed that Heaven selects rulers and endows them with the right to rule. Accordingly, ancient Chinese rulers are known to have taken the title of “the Son of Heaven 天子” and ruled with “the Mandate of Heaven 天命.” Nonetheless, the problem with the Chinese thought of Heaven lies in the fact that Heaven is equated with the supreme god (上帝, Supreme Emperor) or an impersonal quality of the divine. That Heaven is a euphemism for “Mago” was known to the populace. In various sources, Mago is referred to as “Heavenly Deity.”[5] S/HE and Magoism are sometimes equated with the impersonal term, “Heaven.” For example, Mago Lake (Maguji in Chinese) is also called Heavenly Lake (天池 Tianchi in Chinese) in oral tradition.[6] The fact that, according to the Budoji, Heavenly Mountain is known as the residence of the Hwanggung, the eldest clan community in the post-paradise world, is no accident. When its semantic tie to “Mago” is lost, “Heaven” is stripped of the Magoist implication. The surviving term, “Mago Stronghold,” however, debunks magna-matricide in the modern mind. It is inferred that Emperor Wu officiated the Magoist rite at Mago Stronghold as the Son of Heaven according to the Mandate of Heaven. The scheme of Old Magoism puts the above anecdote into a context: Emperor Wu emulated the royal tradition of ancient Magoist shaman queens, the representative of the Great Goddess who is the ultimate sovereign of the Earth, Mago Stronghold. Emperor Wu and Mago Stronghold were not at odds with each other in an earlier time of ancient Chinese history. Written together, they indicate that Magoism was acknowledged by Emperor Wu of Han. Put differently, magna-matricide was not committed or completed in the second century BCE China. Were ancient Chinese rulers including Emperor Wu of Han Magoist? This question is difficult to answer, for each ruler of ancient China may have taken an ambivalent attitude toward Magoism to a varying degree. Some may have been pseudo-Magoists. Ancient Chinese rulers, representing the establishment of Chinese monarchy, which marked the onset of patriarchal history in East Asia, are distinguished from traditional Magoist shaman queens who defended the Magoist confederal system of Old Korea. Nonetheless, they needed the Oracle of the Great Goddess to legitimize themselves as rulers. In pre-patriarchal East Asia, Old Magoist Korea was the source of power, technology, and civilization for any ruler to draw from. Evidence shows that …