August 1, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin12 Comments

(Essay 1) Kinship and Power of Place by Sara Wright

What do I mean by the word kinship? I believe that kinship is the idea, and the belief that all aspects of nature from photons to galaxies are connected to Read More …

[Photo Essay] Everything She Touches by Kaalii Cargill

Three years ago in late Spring, I moved into my new home. The two storey house is surrounded by trees, shrubs, and rock-walled paths. Over a century ago, the land was cleared of magnificent mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) trees, and the first European trees were planted. Today there are ash, beech, birch, cedar, dogwood, elm, flowering cherry, ginkgo, laurel, maple, oak, poplar, and tulip trees, with only a few eucalypts remaining. Beneath the canopy are camellias, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, and other flowering plants. One of the ways I am engaging the land is to note the flowering plants through the seasons. I am slowly learning their names, their colours and scents, their seasonal timing. Something is always blooming. Something is always changing. She changes everything she touches. And everything She touches changes . . April – season of Mabon (Autumn Equinox) Honeysuckle Wind flowers Seaside daisy Pelargonium Cyclamen Fuchsia Heal-all Roses Hydrangeas Rhododendron May – season of Samhain Campanula Camellias June – season of Winter Solstice Chinese lantern Camellias July Camellias Violets Winter roses Azaleas Rhododendron Jonquils Daffodils Snowdrops August – season of Imbolc Daphne Camellias Winter Roses Azaleas Daffodils Jonquils Zygocactus Epimedium Japanese Laurel September – season of Spring Equinox Winter Roses Azaleas Midnight Lady (Gularia) Camellias Forsythia Hyacinths Acanthus Iris Forget Me Not Magnolia Bluebells Common Bugle (Ajuga reptans) Viola Flowering Cherry blossoms Mexican Orange blossom Waxflower Lawn daisies Polygala Vinca Lamium Veronica Callianthe Evergreen candytuft Salvia Borage Fuchsia Campanula October Japanese snowball Camellias Bluebells Symphytum grandiflorum Clivia Veronica Clematis Snowball Honeysuckle Aquilegia Violets November – season of Beltane Camellias Jerusalem Sage Crassus multicava Rhododendron Azaleas Guelder Rose Geranium robertianum Clivia Aphelandra Roses Iris Lilac Laurel Hydrangeas Begonia Polygala Campanula December – season of Summer Solstice Climbing roses Jasmine Iris Grevillia Rhododendron Azaleas Hydrangeas Fuchsias Pelargonium Callianthe Walnut blossom Peachleaf Bellflower Dogwood Flowering Cactus Alstroemeria Clematis virginiana Chinese lantern Salvia Delphinium Evening Primrose Clematis integrifolia January African Iris Hydrangeas Evening Primrose Roses Fuchsias Crocosmia paniculata Pelargonium February – season of Lughnasad Tasman Flax Lily Common Lilac Himalayan Honeysuckle Rose glory bower March Honeysuckle Windflowers Cyclamen Meet Mago Contributor Kaalii Cargill https://www.magoism.net/donate/
(Essay) Gratitude Stalks You by Hearth Moon Rising

Gratitude stalks you Unawares you are ambushed Smile in surprise Earlier this week I was in the woods at a stream swollen with spring, and a familiar situation overtook me. It’s similar to coming upon a beautiful scene by surprise or having an unusual interaction with an animal–and of course you left the camera at home. This is the situation of coming upon a sublime space, maybe in some ordinary place where you’ve been many times, and your heart is unexpectedly opened and full to overflowing. Perhaps you can hear the voices of water, rocks and trees. This is the time for ritual, but you have no offering. A simple thank you does not seem like enough. What gift can you leave to signify the importance of this moment?
(Poetry & Photo Essay) Pongal by Susan Hawthorne

I am a secularist rather than a ritualist, but I can’t help but be drawn into the celebrations that people make when they honour the passing of the seasons. Even as a child I felt the disconnect between Christmas and the hot dusty days of summer. When Christians invaded and colonised Australia they brought their holidays but did not consider changing the dates to match the seasons. I was in India recently, invited as a speaker at the Hindu Lit For Life Festival in Chennai where I had lived ten years ago. The last day of the festival was the first day of Pongal. A friend, feminist economist Devaki Jain, who had grown up in Chennai eighty years earlier invited me to join her in a car ride to see Pongal celebrations in the streets. This is a Tamil festival dating back at least a thousand years, a sun festival, welcoming the next six months of the sun’s journey, also a harvest festival. During this time many women produce beautiful drawings, known as kolam. In my book Cow I wrote a poem about kolam which I think says more than I can explain here. what she says about kolam where they are drawn and when is all important early morning is auspicious it sets the shape of the day the hard ground is cleaned points of white grain sprinkled she works quickly she knows her design for the day runs the powdered grain from point to point it is a mandala a yantra a sign so the forces of the universe align themselves with her intentions Back to Pongal. The festival goes for four days. On the first day, which is called Bhogi, people are on the streets with the fruits of harvest, piles of tumeric and stacks of sugar cane tied in bunches. My friend, Devaki, bought flowers to take back to her room in the hotel. The second day, called Thai Pongal, I was invited to a harvest lunch at the house of my friend Mangai who is a playwright, theatre director and human rights activist. The word ‘pongal’ means ‘boiling over’ or’ overflow’ and I saw this in the cooking of the sweetened rice dish into which each of the twelve people present poured some water and milk as it almost overflowed the pot. This sweet rice dish was added to the collection of other dishes on the table. I cannot tell you what they were, but the meal was delicious. After lunch everyone relaxed, someone sang, we talked and caught up on news. The third day, is called Maatu Pongal, and cattle are at the centre of celebrations on that day. I don’t know if this line up of cattle had anything to do with the day’s celebration but there they were tied up alongside a very busy main road. These were not cows and I did not see any cows with decorated horns and flowers on their heads. on that day as I have on other occasions. On the fourth day, Kaanum Pongal, things begin to wind down. One of my co-speakers at the festival said she would be visiting family members on that day. The kolams are drawn again, sugar cane is consumed and people go back to their daily lives. What I liked about being in Tamil Nadu during the Pongal festival is that it felt absolutely right. The time of the year, the connection with harvest, so I did not feel the discomfort I so often feel in the midst of the out-of-season commercialised holidays as they are celebrated in Australia. Susan Hawthorne’s book Cow is available worldwide from distributors in USA, Canada, UK, from all the usual online retailers or from Spinifex Press. http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/book/id=215/ © Susan Hawthorne, 2019 (Meet Mago Contributor) Susan Hawthorne.
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 15) The Ancient Korean Whale-Bell: An Encodement of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.] Manwol (Full Moon) and Suro (Water Path) The Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great cast in 771, the masterpiece of the extant Sillan bell, was brought forth at the time when the royal matrilineage just declined. The court of Queen Mother Manwol, the Regent of her son 36th ruler Hyegong the Great (r. 765-780), was the force behind its birth. Doubtless that the Divine Bell was her political achievement. Following the footsteps of her predecessor rulers, she held onto the legacy of Magoist Cetaceanism to consolidate her political power and to bring all members of the royal house under the vision of “the One Unified Home.” The idea of casting the Divine Bell was originally conceived by her deceased consort, 35th ruler Gyeongdeok the Great (r. 742-765), which was to commemorate his deceased father, the 33rd ruler Seongdeok the Great (r. 702-737). Manwol resumed and completed the casting of the Divine Bell. And she had her message heard to the world by endorsing the Name Text engraved on the bell’s body. The Name Text that this essay has discussed conveys her standpoint, which ties the divine cetacean vessel with the royal Magoist mandate of Unified Silla. Manwol herself did not come from the major matrilineage, the Sulrye line, (see [Table 7] or Appendix I). We are not informed of her mother but her father, a high-ranking official. Nonetheless, her maternal grandmother, Mother Suro (水路 Water Path), is traceable. Manwol was the second queen of Gyeongdeok the Great. His first queen, Sammo, was discharged for not having a male heir. Sammo was a daughter of Suro. Given that Sammo was the daughter of Mother Suro and the maternal aunt of Queen Mother Regent Manwol, it is likely that the aunt and the niece were married to Gyeongdeok the Great. And both were involved in two major bell casting projects, the Great Bell of Hwangrongsa and the Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great. Noteworthy is that both queens were the descendants of Mother Suro. The name, Suro (Water Path), which means Water Path, suggests that she is associated with cetaceanism. Furthermore, Suro is the protagonist of her eponymous myth, which involves the dragon. The summary of her myth goes: Mother Suro was the wife of the Honorable Sunjeong. She is the protagonist of the Song of Dedicated Flower and the Song of the Sea… One day a dragon appeared on the shore and took her to the sea. People rescued her by composing and singing the Song of the Sea. She told the story of being in the deep sea, “Food in the Seven Treasure Palace was sweet and fragrant.”[1] In the details of the account, she was sexualized as a beautiful woman who was desired by an old man who dedicated a flower and the song to her and a male dragon in the sea who abducted her, which conveys the patriarchal perspective of the Buddhist author of the thirteenth century.[2] Beneath the thick layers of sexualization, the myth conveys that Mother Suro was venerated as an embodiment of Yonggung Buin (Mother of the Dragon Palace) (see [Figure 1]). Doubtless that she stood for the royal legacy of Magoist Cetaceanism. Mother Suro is commemorated today in the east coastal city of Samcheok, Gangwon Province Korea (see [Figure 30]). CONCLUDING REMARKS The whale-dragon bell is an ingenious cultural heritage of ancient Korean Magoists, which encodes the matriversal consciousness of cetacean totemism cultivated and bequeathed by pre-patriarchal Magoist shaman head mothers once and for all. Recognizing the cetacean identity of a Korean bronze bell is a doorway to the ancient Korean indigenous tradition of Magoist Cetaceanism. In decoding the language of the Sillan whale-dragon bell, I have discussed (1) The calling of whales in tune with the Cosmic Music, the creative force of the matriverse, nurtures all planetary beings. (2) Sillans as the descendants of the pre- and proto-Chinese matriversal confederacies, Danguk (ca. 3898 BCE-2333 BCE) and Budo Joseon (2333 BCE-232 BCE), achieved the long-anticipated political vision of “the One Unified Home,” ultimately the planet Earth. (3) The system of a matriversal confederacy in which shaman mothers in alliance with divine cetaceans represent the sovereignty of Mago, the Creatrix, is salvific. The whale-dragon bell replicates the aqua-sonic-atmospheric behavior of whales, which is deemed to circulate planetary water (clouds, storms, and bodies of water) and aid the process of birthing, growing, and transforming of all beings on Earth. Whales are not only “singing” in the oceans but also causing sea waves, winds, and storms to rise by their bio-habitational behaviors. The perception that the aqua-environmental influence of whales on the planet is divine undergirds the Magoist Cosmogony, the matriversal consciousness of the ever-unfolding reality of WE/HERE/NOW or “the Unhindered Sound of the One Ride,” envisioned as the paradisiacal home of Mago Stronghold, the planet Earth. Precisely because whales resound the Cosmic Music on behalf of all on the planet Earth, they are venerated as the terrestrial divine. The whale-dragon bell conveys the ancient consciousness that whales are the exemplar of humans in generating terrestrial resonance to the Cosmic Music. Understanding the bio-sonic-ecological behaviors of cetaceans, that is matriversal cetology, is ultimately thealogical and soteriological. Escaping the human standard, cetaceans have set the human mind to forge the symbolic language of a dragon, which represents the grace of divine cetaceans. Through cetacean thealogy, we humans perceive the inter-cosmic supervision of Mago, the Creatrix. (End of the Essay). For the three Appendixes, see the original article published in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). [1] Samguk Yusa, Gii, Mother Suro Chapter. [2] The myth of Suro is a popular topic among scholars and experts in Korea, whose views tend to be from the two perspectives, the sexualized male perspective …
Jude Lally

View all posts by Jude Lally. Jude Lally is an artist, a writer and holder of sacred space. She grew up a few miles from Loch Lomond, where the river Leven meets the mighty River Clyde, on the West Coast of Scotland. She gained her masters degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) with her thesis ‘Fire in the Head, Heart and Hand: A Study of the Goddess Brigit as Goddess Archetype and her Relevance to Cultural Activists in Contemporary Scotland’.
(Essay 1) Body Prayer by Mary Petiet

‘All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.’ Julian of Norwich I am laying in shavasana, corpse pose, the final assimilating pose of any Hatha yoga practice. I am sprawled on my back on my yoga mat and my right hand receives a pleasant weight that I can wrap my arm around. I hold this weight and I know suddenly in that inner way of knowing that I am holding my own soul. I come back from shavasana slowly and look at my friend on the mat beside me. She is near tears. She says, “I held my father in my right hand.” We regard each other across our mats, slowly, slowly, coming back to ourselves. I have practiced yoga for eight years with the same teacher. In that time we have left the YMCA, where we used to practice, for the far more intimate church hall where we now meet. The core of our group consists of about eight women, and we gather twice weekly. My teacher is not a guru, she does not foster dependence. Rather she leads, and she gives us the tools to possibly lead ourselves.
(Prose) The Rose by Louise M Hewett

A little girl brought me a rose and it seemed to be magical. I saw in it not simply a rose but a cry and a smile, a prophecy, and a question: what has become of my future? I saw in this intricate, sublime and holy pattern of petals, like vulva upon vulva so delicately perfumed so as to haunt body and mind, a vessel created out of its own being, each curve, each fold, each particularity perfect in a dance as whole, as a symbol of all that is worth dreaming of and living for – the ground wherein the rose will grow. And as I beheld the flower, tears were drawn up from a well inside me, a swelling, soaring crying inside of me. I had been holding on for days, and at that very moment, at my hand, an open page, my mind and body an open book, I read of a memory, a memory of ten million fish that would churn and arouse the waters for a long day as they came in. And in the sound of that in-coming memory a doorway was opened inside of me, body and mind, and the vast everything reached in and took my hand. What has become of my hope? The red rose, too pink to be a symbol of the blood I no longer bleed, its magenta akin to the laughing smile of a child, or a bleeding heart, the ache of the wound and the tending of which can become a great power of love, this rose spoke to me of another memory: that there would be some who would take that feeling, these words, this hope, my intention, and still twist it all into a sadistic need to justify the ritual pain and destruction. To destroy the whole through the part, as if the biome of our being was just a state of mind and not an earthy, moist and feeling, gasping, loving animal reality. And there, the rose showed me her sorrow. The little girl grown, aging, decaying. The rose opening, bursting, seeding, decaying. For some, that was terrifying, so terrifying it must be rendered, essentialised, the life extracted, the body controlled, squeezed, tested, made subordinate, spiritual, its shifting forms punished and denied, starved, desensitised. No. My tears silvered the velvet of her petals. My rose would not sit here gathering dust. She, and the little girl who gave her to me, and the little ever-living girl inside of me, would open and bloom and give and sigh and decay, and together we would inhale the perfume of the dance and die back, back, again and again, spiralling into the greater body, enlarged, giving and growing, back, back, returned to the origin, to the ground, the body, the great giving body – the one reality we all know and have denied. If a rose can whisper, she whispered to me, her hope carried in perfume: ‘Do not be afraid. I enfold your wounds. Breathe, unfold, and bloom. Give. Love.’ To give and to love are the dreams of Earth living through us. Let us dream, and love. Together. (Meet Mago Contributor) Louise M Hewett.
(Essay 3) Reinterpreting Female Figures in the Bible by Francesca Tronetti

[Author’s Note; I am going back to feminist reinterpretations of the Bible, this one focusing on the work of Alice Bellis. I especially love her reexamination of Ruth. I remember watching the movie on TCM when I was in middle school, and it stuck with me. Even in the movie, made in 1960, Ruth is an active character, choosing her destiny and not passively accepting men’s plans for her. That is a definite lesson many interpretations of the story leave out, focusing instead on Boaz as the hero and YHWH’s protection.] While we can name many female figures in the Bible, often, we ascribe names to unnamed women, not realizing until we go back and read the story that we have been taught wrong. While growing up Catholic, I remember being told that Mary Magdelene was the adulturass woman who was to be stoned in John 8: 1-11. Even when she wasn’t being called Mary, we were told she was a prostitute. But, rereading the passage, all we know is that she had committed adultery. That is not the same as prostitution, adultery being a crime reserved for married persons. She might have been recast as a prostitute because, in our contemporary world, cheating, while never good, is not that big of a deal to many. When a spouse or partner cheats, there are excuses, and blame is thrown that the other person wasn’t meeting their needs, but aside from negating a prenup, there are no legal consequences. Long gone are the days when women could be thrown into asylums for hysteria or nymphomania. So when adultery lost its social stigma, a new crime had to be ascribed to the woman. However, prostitution is still a crime, and prostitutes are looked down upon by the self-righteous; prostitutes are viewed as dirty, irredeemable, and used by many men and thus worthless to society. As a young person, you don’t ask why a woman is a prostitute; now, with study, we know women can be victims of trafficking, abusive partners, can have lost their jobs, be supplementing their incomes, or become addicted to substances—all caveats which can apply throughout time, not just in contemporary America. Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ by Henry Ossawa Tanner, Wikimedia Commons Another unnamed woman, identified as Mary Magdelene or as a prostitute, is the woman who washes Jesus‘ feet at the home of the Pharisees Luke 7:36-50. Again, while in Church and Bible study, we were told the woman was a fallen woman, and sometimes she was described as the woman Jesus saved from stoning. But we don’t know what she did. All we know is that the host described the woman as a sinner, and to our contemporary minds, anything sexual is sinful. But we need to remember that in Jesus‘ time, there were a lot of behaviors that were considered to be sinful. Eating bacon, not going to the temple, wearing too much makeup or jewelry, wearing garments of different materials, sleeping with a woman or man out of wedlock, etc. The stories of the Bible that have named women or unnamed women as central characters garner a lot of attention from feminist authors because we are looking for female figures to look up to and aspire to be. Or to give ourselves a place in biblical literature beyond women’s relationships with male figures. Often overlooked, however, are passages that discuss women’s actions. In “Daughters of Your People,” Nancy Bowen, a professor of the Old Testament, draws our attention to a little-studied passage that can greatly impact our understanding of women’s power and responsibilities in Ancient Israel. While feminist biblical scholars have reinterpreted many books and Bible passages, one text that has not received much attention is Ezekiel 13:17-23, which deals with female prophets. Written during the time of the Babylonian exile the common biblical interpretation is that these women were witches who cast harmful spells which hurt the people of Israel. However, Bowen offers a different interpretation of the women and their place in Israelite society. She first reminds us that distinctions between religion, magic, divination, and prophecy are modern and should not be put back into a society in which there were no such distinctions. In fact, the idea of the witch is fairly modern. Historically, a person who wielded magic and performed rituals and spells could use their power to help or hurt, depending on how the petitioner or community treated them. In American Folk Magic traditions, there are very few references to people who solely do evil, and these people are the ones you have to draw attention to yourself and make them want to curse you. There were not people who randomly cast curses and hexes because of general misanthropy; rather, you angered them, and they made you regret your actions. In the passage, Ezekiel rails against women who prophized from their own imaginations. Not because they act as oracles, but because they were charlatans, claiming to speak for YHWH. Bowen writes that this passage “…is not telling us anything about the beliefs and practices of Israelite female prophets.” And she is correct; nowhere in the condemnation is sorcery or prophecy denounced, only liars whose lies have caused deaths in the community. To a contemporary reader, it seems more like a warning to those who preach the prosperity gospel and ask followers to send them money that it is against an astrologer or tarot reader. In fact, when Ezekiel describes the actions of these women, their roles appear to have been very important, including acting as decision-makers in legal matters. Bowen argues that these women were part of an old established practice and that is what drew condemnation from Ezekiel. The exile was seen as punishment from YHWH for Israel’s breaking of the covenant, and the only way to seek the forgiveness of YHWH was by abandoning the old ways of the people and embracing a stricter set of teachings. Miriam, the sister of Moses, leads the Israelite women in celebration as they leave …
(2022 Pilgrimage 2) A visual Journey of the Goddess as Protectress from the Neolithic to Present in Eastern Europe by Krista Rodin

The transition from the 6th to 5th millennium BC opened the era of metal/copper ore processing. Simultaneously, archeological evidence suggests that there was an increase in the use of personal household shrines. The Vinča civilization was part of this transition; they were the proto-Europeans along the Danube, so their culture and their art were important for later European developments. The Vinča archeological site near Belgrade was used from ca. 5,700 BCE to 1,600 CE. The Neolithic lasted until ca. 3,200, followed by the Bronze Age with the Vatin culture, which used metal tools. The archeological dig relating to f the last period ca. 800-1,600 has uncovered the largest Serbian necropolis. The Vinča Culture is somewhat earlier than the Varna’s that I had mentioned in the Bulgarian blogs. Early on, the Vinča main import was obsidian or volcanic glass from the Carpathian Mountains in Slovakia, Spondylus and Glycymeris shells from the Aegean Sea and salt from the Carthathians. Salt was the most precious commodity in the ancient world, but obsidian was prized as it was hard enough to use as an efficient tool and weapon. The shells were used for jewelry and ornamentation. Ornamentation was an important facet of Vinča art. The Vinča votive figures have sculpted faces with pronounced eyes and noses. They are moulded in clay according to fixed patterns and frequently have birdlike stare, which is very similar to those of the Varna culture in Bulgaria from approximately the same timeperiod. They too have explicitly depicted sexual traits, curly female locks, are naked or dressed, some have engraved hair, and some are without a clearly discernable gender. The figurines are an expression of the Neolithic spiritual life along the Danube. At the peak of the development of the Vinča world, in the Bronze Age, when the “baroque” aesthetic became ubiquitous, the sculpted art yielded figurines with bodies entirely covered by ornaments. Some figurines were given distinct facial characteristics. Over time, however, the detailed artistic expressions disappeared and more mask-like faces appeared. (Borić-Breškovič 37) Vinča Civilization – Serbia Vinča Neolithic goddess, Vinča Museum, Serbia Vinča Neolithic figurines, Vinča Museum, Serbia Neolithic Serbia, Kosovo and North Macedonia Neolithic figurines, Kosovo Museum, Kosovo Neolithic Figurines, Kosovo Museum, Kosovo (To be Continued) Meet Mago Contributor, Krista Rodin Ph.D. https://www.magoism.net/2018/09/meet-mago-contributor-krista-rodin-ph-d/

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

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

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

The Passing of Last Summer’s Growth by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ as is experienced and contemplated in the Season of Deep Autumn/Samhain, may be a metaphor for the passing of all/any that has come to fullness of being, or that has had a fullness, a blossoming of some kind, and borne fruit; and in the passing it has been received, and thus transforms. The ‘passing of last Summer’s growth’ may be in hearts and minds, an event or events, a period of time, or an era, that was a deep communion, now passed and dissolved into receptive hearts and minds, where it/they reside for reconstitution, within each unique being. Samhain is traditionally understood as ‘Summer’s end’: indeed that is what the word ‘Samhain’ means. In terms of the seasonal transitions in indigenous Old European traditions, Summer is understood as over when the Seasonal Moment of Lammas/Lughnasad comes around; it is the first marked transition after the fullness of Summer Solstice. The passing and losses may have been grieved, the bounty received, thanksgiving felt and expressed, perhaps ceremonially at Autumn Equinox/Mabon; yet now in this Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn it composts, clearly falls, as darkness and cooler/cold weather sets in, change is clearer. In the places where this Earth-based tradition arose, Winter could be sensed setting in at this time, and changes to everyday activity had to be made. In our times and in our personal lives, we may sense this kind of ending, when change becomes necessary, no longer arbitrary: and the Seasonal Moment of Samhain may be an excellent moment for expressing these deep truths, telling the deep story, and making meaning of the ending, as we witness such passing. What new shapes will emerge from the infinite well of creativity? And we may wonder what will return from the dissolution? What re-solution will be found? We may wonder what new shapes will emerge. In the compost of what has been, what new syntheses, new synergies, may come forth? Now is the time for dreaming, for drawing on the richness within, trusting the sentience, within which we are immersed, and which we are: and then awaiting the arrival, being patient with the fermentation and gestation. Seize the moment, this Moment – and converse with the depths within your own bodymind, wherein She is. Make space for the sacred conversation, the Conversing with your root and source of being, and take comfort in this presence. We may ponder what yet unkown beauty and wellness may emerge from this infinite well of creativity. The Samhain Moment in the Northern Hemisphere is 17:14 UT 7thNovember this year. Wishing you a sense of the deep communion present in the sacred space you make for this holy transition.
(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
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from the Introduction of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Meditation cushion in circle of decorated stones My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars.[i] They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It was obviously very important to them to have the stones of a particular kind, in the right positions according to position of the Sun at different times of the year, and then to celebrate ceremony within it. I have for decades had a much smaller circle of stones assembled. I have regarded this small circle of stones as a medicine wheel. It is a portable collection, that I can spread out in my living space, or let sit in a small circle on an altar, with a candle/candles in the middle. Each stone (or objects, as some are) represents a particular Seasonal Moment/transition and is placed in the corresponding direction. The small circle of eight stones represents the flow of the Solstices and Equinoxes and the cross-quarter Moments in between: that is, it represents the “Wheel of the Year” as it is commonly known in Pagan traditions. I have found this assembled circle to have been an important presence. It makes the year, my everyday sacred journey of Earth around Sun, tangible and visible as a circle, and has been a method of changing my mind, as I am placed in real space and time. My stone wheel has been a method of bringing me home to my indigenous sense of being. Each stone/object of my small wheel may be understood to represent a “moment of grace,” as Thomas Berry named the seasonal transitions – each is a threshold to the Centre, wherein I may now sit: I sense it as a powerful point. As I sit on the floor in the centre of my small circle of stones, I reflect on its significance as I have come to know the Seasonal transitions that it marks, over decades of celebrating them. I sense the aesthetics and poetry of each. I facilitated and was part of the celebration and contemplation of these Moments in my region for decades. It was always an open group that gathered, and so its participants changed over the years but it remained in form, like a live body which it was: a ceremonial body that conversed with the sacred Cosmos in my place. We spoke a year-long story and poetry of never-ending renewal – of the unfolding self, Earth and Cosmos. We danced and chanted our relationship with the Mother, opened ourselves to Her Creativity, and conversed with Her by this method. All participants in their own way within these ceremonies made meaning of their lives – which is what I understand relationship to be, in this context of Earth and Sun, our Place and Home in the Cosmos: that is, existence is innately meaningful when a being knows Who one is and Where one is. Barbara Walker notes that religions based on the Mother are free of the “neurotic” quest for indefinable meaning in life as such religions “never assumed that life would be required to justify itself.”[ii] I face the North stone, which in my hemisphere is where I place the Summer Solstice. From behind me and to my right is the light part of the cycle – representing manifest form, all that we see and touch. From behind me and to my left is the dark part of the cycle – representing the manifesting, the reality beneath the visible, which includes the non-visible. The Centre wherein I sit, represents the present. The wheel of stones has offered to me a way of experiencing the present as “presence,” as it recalls in an instant that, That which has been and that which is to come are not elsewhere – they are not autonomous dimensions independent of the encompassing present in which we dwell. They are, rather, the very depths of this living place – the hidden depth of its distances and the concealed depth on which we stand.[iii] This wheel of stones, which captures the Wheel of the Year in essence, locates me in the deep present, wherein the past and the future are contained – both always gestating in the dark, through the gateways. And all this has been continually enacted and expressed in the ceremonies of the Wheel of the Year, as the open, yet formal group has done them, mostly in the place of Blue Mountains, Australia. PaGaian Cosmology altar/mandala: a “Womb of Gaia” map Over the years of practice of ritually celebrating these eight Seasonal Moments – Earth’s whole annual journey around Sun, I have been held in this creative story, this Story of Creativity as it may be written – it is a sacred story. Her pattern of Creativity can be identified at all levels of reality – manifesting in seasonal cycles, moon cycles, body cycles – and to be aligned with it aligns a person’s core with the Creative Mother Universe. I have identified the placing of one’s self within this wheel through ceremonial practice of the whole year of creativity, as the placing of one’s self in Her Womb – Gaia’s Womb, a Place of Creativity. All that is necessary for Creativity is present in this Place. All may come forth from here/Here – and so it does, and so it has, and so it will. NOTES: [i] See Martin Brennan, The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland (Rochester Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1994). [ii] Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 693. [iii] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 216. REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Brennan, Martin. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland.Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1994. Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: …
(Essay) Conceiving, Imagining the New at Samhain by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

It is the Season of Samhain/Deep Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. In the PaGaian version of Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony participants journey to the “Luminous World Egg” … a term taken from Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance[i], where she also names that place as the “Shining Isle”, which is of course, the Seed of conception, a metaphor for the origins of all and/or the female egg: it is the place for rebirth. Artist: Bundeluk, Blue Mountains, Australia. The “luminous world egg” is a numinous place within, the MotherStar of conception: that is, a place of unfolding/becoming. The journey to this numinous place within requires first a journey back, through some of each one’s transformations, however each may wish to name those transformations at this time. The transformations for each and every being are infinite in their number, for there is “nothing we have not been” as has been told by Celts and others of Old, and also by Western science in the evolutionary story (a story told so well by evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, particularly in her video Journey of a Silica Atom.) Ceremonial participants may choose selves from biological, present historical self, or may choose selves from the mythic with whom they feel connection; from any lineage – biological or otherwise. Selves may also be chosen from Gaia’s evolutionary story – earlier creatures, winged or scaled ones … with whom one wishes to identify at this time. Each participant is praised for their “becoming” for each self they share. When all have completed these journeys/stories of transformation, the circle is lauded dramatically by the celebrant for their courage to transform; and she likens them all to Gaia Herself who has made such transitions for eons. The celebrant awards each with a gingerbread snake, “Gaian totems of life renewed”[ii]. gingerbread snakes Participants sit and consume these gingerbread snakes in three parts: (i) as all the “old shapes” of self that were named; and (ii) remembering the ancestors, those whose lives have been harvested, whose lives have fed our own, remembering that we too are the ancestors, that we will be consumed; and (iii) remembering and consuming the stories of our world that they desire to change, the stories that fire their wrath or sympathy: in the consuming, absorbing them (as we do), each may transform them by thoughts and actions – “in our own bodyminds”. When all that is consumed “wasting no part”, it is said that “we are then free to radiate whatever we conceive”, to “exclaim the strongest natural fibre known” – our creative selves, “into such art, such architecture, as can house a world made sacred” by our building[iii]. This “natural fibre” is a reference to the spider’s thread from within her own body, with which she weaves her web, her home; and Spider has frequently been felt in indigenous cultures around the globe as Weaver and Creator of the Cosmos. Spider the Creatrix, North America, C. 1300 C.E., Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.13 In the ceremony, participants linked with a thread that they weave around the circle, may sail together for a new world “across the vast sunless sea between endings and beginnings, across the Womb of magic and transformation, to the “Not-Yet” who beckons”[iv]: to the Luminous World Egg whereupon the new may be conceived and dreamed up. Samhain/Deep Autumn ceremony is an excellent place for co-creating ourselves, for imaginingthe More that we may become, and wish to become. This is where creation and co-creation happens … in the Womb of Space[v], in which we are immersed – at all times: and Samhain is a good season for feeling it. References: Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. NE: iUniverse, 2005 Sahtouris, Elisabet. Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution. Lincoln NE:iUniversity Press, 2000. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. NY: Harper and Row, 1999. Swimme, Brian. The Earth’s Imagination.DVD series 1998. NOTES: [i]p.210 [ii]a version of this Samhain script is offered in Chapter 7 PaGaian Cosmology [iii]These quoted phrases are from Robin Morgan, “The Network of the Imaginary Mother”, in Lady of the Beasts, p.84. This poem is a core inspiration of the ceremony. [iv]“Not-Yet” is a term used by Brian Swimme, The Earth’s Imagination, video 8 “The Surprise of Cosmogenesis”. [v]note that creation does not happen at the point of some god’s index finger, as imagined in the Sistine Chapel – what a takeover that is!
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 …
(Essay) The Emergence celebrated at Spring Equinox by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

The Spring Equinox Moment occurs September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere, March 21-23 Northern Hemisphere. The full story of Spring Equinox is expressed in the full flower connected to the seed fresh from the earth; that is, it is a story of emergence from the dark, from a journey, perhaps long, perhaps short, through challenging places. The joy of the blossoming is rooted in the journey through the dark, and an acknowledgement of the dark’s fertile gift, as well as of great achievement in having made it, of having returned. Both Equinoxes, Spring and Autumn, celebrate this sacred balance of grief and joy, light and dark, and they are both celebrations of the mystery of the seed. The seed is essentially the deep Creativity within – that manifests in the Spring as flower, or green emerged One. the full story: the root and the flower As the new young light continues to grow at this time of Spring, it comes into balance with the dark at Spring Equinox, or ‘Eostar’ as it may be named; about to tip further into light when light will dominate the day. The trend at this Equinox is toward increasing hours of light: and thus it is about the power of being – life is stepping into it. Earth in this region is tilting further toward the Sun. Traditionally it may be storied as the joyful celebration of a Lost Beloved One, who may be represented by the Persephone story: She is a shamanic figure who is known for Her journey to the Underworld, and who at this time of Spring Equinox returns. Her Mother Demeter who has waited and longed for Her in deep grief, rejoices and so do all: warmth and growth return to the land. Persephone, the Beloved Daughter, the Seed, has navigated the darkness successfully, has enriched it with Her presence and also gained its riches. Eostar/Spring Equinox is the magic of the unexpected, yet long awaited, green emergence from under the ground, and then the flower: this emergence is especially profound as it is from a seed that has lain dormant for months or longer – much like the magic of desert blooms after long periods of drought. The name of “Eostar” comes from the Saxon Goddess Eostre/Ostara, the northern form of the Sumerian Astarte[i]. The Christian festival in the Spring, was named “Easter” as of the Middle Ages, appropriating Goddess/Earth tradition. The date of Easter, which is set for Northern Hemispheric seasons, is still based on the lunar/menstrual calendar; that is, the 1st Sunday after the first full Moon after Spring Equinox. In Australia where I am, “Easter” is celebrated in Autumn (!) by mainstream culture, so we have the spectacle of fluffy chickens, chocolate eggs and rabbits in the shops at that time. There are other names for “Eostar” in other places …the Welsh name for the Spring Equinox celebration is Eilir, meaning ‘regeneration’ or ‘spring’ – or ‘earth’[ii]. In my own PaGaian tradition, the Spring Equinox celebration is based on the Demeter and Persephone story, the version that is understand as pre-patriarchal, from Old Europe. In the oldest stories, Persephone has agency in Her descent: She descends to the underworld voluntarily as a courageous seeker of wisdom, and a compassionate receiver of the dead. She represents, and IS, the Seed of Life that never fades away. Spring Equinox is a celebration of Her return, Life’s continual return, and thus also our personal and collective emergences/returns.We may contemplate the collective emergence/returns especially in our times. I describe Persephone as a “hera”, which of old was a term for any courageous One. “Hera” was a pre-Hellenic name for the Goddess in general[iii]. “Hera” was the indigenous Queen Goddess of pre-Olympic Greece, before She was married off to Zeus. “Hero” was a term for the brave male Heracles who carried out tasks for his Goddess Hera: “The derivative form ‘heroine’ is therefore completely unnecessary”[iv]. “Hera” may be used as a term for any courageous individual: and participants in PaGaian Spring Equinox ceremony have named themselves this way. The pre-“Olympic” games of Greece were Hera’s games, held at Her Heraion/temple[v]. The winners were “heras” – gaining the status of being like Her[vi]. At the time of Spring Equinox, we may celebrate the Persephone, the Hera, the Courageous One, who steps with new wisdom, into power of being: the organic power that all beings must have, Gaian power, the power of the Cosmos. This Seasonal ceremony may be a rejoicing in how we have made it through great challenges and loss, faced our fears and our demise (in its various forms), had ‘close shaves’ – perhaps physically as well as psychicly and emotionally. It is a time to welcome back that which was lost, and step into the strength of being. Spring Equinox/Eostar is the time for enjoying the fruits of the descent, of the journey taken into the darkness: return is now certain, not tentative as it was in the Early Spring/Imbolc. Demeter, the Mother, receives the Persephones, Lost Beloved Ones, joyously. This may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the sixty-five million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. They describe the Ecozoic Era as a time when “the curvature of the universe, the curvature of the earth, and the curvature of the human are once more in their proper relation”[vii]. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning” of our times[viii]. Collectively we have been away from the Mother for some time and there is a lot of pain. At this time we may contemplate not only our own individual lost wanderings, but also that of the human species. We are part of a much bigger Return that is happening. The Beloved One may be understood as returning on a collective level: …

(2018 Mago Pilgrimage) Peak of Nine Wells in Yeongam (Spiritual Rock), South Jeolla by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This essay comprises a summary report and its unfolding awakenings to be unraveled in sequences. I dedicate this essay to my 2018 Mago Pilgrimage companions, Narayani Ankh, Kate Besleme, Hyunsuk Jee, and Julie Jang. Learn more about Mago Pilgrimage.] Hike Report The town, Yeong-am (Spirit Rock), emanates an aura from its Magoist natural, historical, and cultural legacies. Among them, what grabbed my attention include Wolchul-san (月出山 Moon Rising Mountain), Dogap-sa (Dogap Temple), and Gurim Village, known for the birth place of Doseon Guksa (State Master Doseon), a prominent Buddhist monk, the 9th century of Silla (827-898). I was most attracted to the Peak of Nine Wells (九井峰 Gujeong-bong) as well as the Loom Cave shaped in the form of a vulva, part of the Moon Rising Mountain ranges. Our goal was to hike the Peak of Nine Wells (hereafter Gujeong-bong). We took the seemingly shortest trail, through Cheonwang-bong (Peak of Heavenly Ruler), the highest peak of Moon Rising Mountain, 809 km above sea level. It took about 8 hours for the entire hike took about 8 hours and it was one of the two most strenuous and significant ones that I have taken. About 30 years ago, I climbed Mt. Halla in Jeju Island and had received the vision of my life. No longer a youth, I had a much clearer vision about my life and the act of high altitude hiking this time. With my two companions, Narayani Ankh and Kate Besleme, who showed no sign of hesitation or tiredness in the beginning and throughout the course, I embarked my day’s journey. With occasional breaks, we were able gain distance and progress. Beautiful streams adorned the valley. Rocks were emitting the oldest song of the earth. Our talks continued and deepened, when we had breath to spare. It was such a blessing that I had these two co-hikers from elsewhere! My mind zoomed in and worked in detail. All thinking and feeling became registered. Impromptu, I began to count my steps up on stiff wooden stairways. My counting one, two, three… and thirteen carried me to the top of the stairs. The 13 counting chant worked; There was no medium between me and WE/HERE/NOW. We were gifted a 360-degree bird’s eye view on Cheongwang-bong. Several ridges with the depth of Magoist history came within a vision. We took a small lunch break. On a high mountain top wherein all remains visibly related, everyone becomes kin. On Cheongwang-gong, we were instructed by the rangers we met along the journey about the ridge path to Gujeong-bong. Gujeong-bong would be about another one and half hour hike away from us. We passed by a few masses of gigantic boulder formations for which Wolchul-san is known for. Among them was the standing stone called the Phallic Rock, a name that I suspected to be original. For standing stones are called the Rock of Mago Halmi in other regions of Korea. In any case, the very existence of the Phallic Rock (남근바위 Namgeun Bawi) heralded the appearance of the Loom Cave, a misnomer for the Yoni Cave (여근바위 Yeogeun Bawi). Heart beatings escalated as we approached our destination. We finally reached the Loom Cave, which closely resembled the vulva. The cave was made of a huge boulder, three times taller than an average person in size. A small pond sat inside the entrance made the cave a real yoni of nature. I was pulled into the state of trance, as we made a final climb up the stairs around the left side of the Loom Cave. I was able to see that the Peak of Nine Wells is located on the top plain of the Loom Cave. It is part of the yoni cave! I saw a number of wells pocketed in various sizes of ponds. They numbered more than nine, about 13, variable in number in that a couple of them were made in between adjacent boulders. The biggest well was larger than one meter (3.3 feet) in diameter. Moderns do their typical things in a time like this, indeed odd out of other options or necessity to share with others: I took photos of the wells and my companions, which were absolutely beautiful as they were. However, mental imprints were not able to be contained then and in nature. WE/HERE/NOW embraced all on the spot, perhaps like a black hole. Casual conversations wouldn’t continue. The silence and the oneness fast permeated our time/space. Our minds worked on layers. The deepest mind was stored in the reservoir of the unspoken. Descending is good as a time/space of tuning/balancing oneself to the power of WE/HERE/NOW. There wasn’t much time left for us to return, while the sun was still out. We hurriedly descended a different tail. I was no longer the same person I was prior to the experience of hiking Gujeong-bong. No need to dig up and count the number of branches in one’s root. To live means to grow and evolve, as we are meant to be. To be continued. (Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.
(Essay 1) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] Magoist Calendar is the inter-cosmic genealogical chart of the Creatrix in which all is found kindred. It unfolds the one standard unified time, which I call the Cosmic Mother’s Time or the Mago Time, wherein all beings in Our Universe from microcosmic quarts to macrocosmic celestial bodies are perceived in continuum. The Cosmic Mother’s Time is an inclusive time in which everyone is re-membered and celebrated. It is revelatory for its numinous nature, which some may call a mystery. The Mago Time is happening
(Budoji Essay 5) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 5: Magoist Cosmology “The primary aim of Magoist cosmology lies in lifting up the conceptual veil in people’s mind so that they can see what is given at birth.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] Magoist cosmology: Magoist cosmology, knowing of the female principle of Magoist cosmogony (story of the Female Beginning), reconstitutes, heals, and maintains the original vision of gynocentric soteriology. Its primary function is to guide humanity according to the law of nature whereby all things are born and evolve into their greatest potential. In short, Magoist cosmology is a gynocentric mode of thinking that shows the Way of all beings. By extension, it is an inherent principle of nature- and women-honoring civilizations. I suggest Magoist cosmology, underpinning of the Magoist cosmogony, as an antidote to the detriments of patriarchal consciousness. Its female principle restores the original unity among all entities, which has been thwarted by patriarchal cosmologies. Comprising the most foundational program of human consciousness, so constitutive that no one is born without it, Magoist cosmology is ever active and accessible to people. Nonetheless, it is made dormant in the conscious mind of people under patriarchal cultures. Thus, the primary aim of Magoist cosmology lies in lifting up the conceptual veil in people’s mind so that they can see what is given at birth.