July 13, 2015October 2, 2019 RTM EditorsLeave a comment

(Poem) Eritrea My Ithaca by Louisa Calio

(For Kassu Tsadik, courageous Eritrean mother) Khartoum Telatta, a refugee camp (1978) Weeks pass, and the young men and I grow closer. We visit refugee camps regularly, and on Read More …

(Essay) Nine Worlds I Knew by Hearth Moon Rising

The following is an excerpt from Divining with Animal Guides: Answers from the World at Handby Hearth Moon Rising, recently published by Moon Books. It is available online in paperback or ebook and at your bookstore. An earlier essays covered numbers one through six.Our exploration of numbers concludes with seven, eight, and nine.SevenIf you have even a rudimentary understanding of spellcasting, you know that the number seven is important. If you go into an occult shop or a botanica with a problem, you will often be sold a “seven-day candle” in the appropriate color. If your problem is really thorny, the saleswoman will push a multicolored “Seven African Powers” candle, perhaps with a special prayer. What is so magical about the number seven?To begin with, seven is another prime number. Split unevenly down the middle, it is four plus three. This is interpreted as the four directions plus the triple goddess, the four seasons plus the maiden-mother-crone, or any other magical representation of four and three. This is expressed visually by the square with a triangle inscribed.It is believed that the prominence of the number seven is calendrical in nature, corresponding to cycles of the moon and of the star system Pleiades. The moon completes a cycle every 29½ days, and our seven-day week is a moon cycle divided into four parts. It was probably divided into four parts rather than three to chart the two half-moons as well as the full and the dark moon phase. The Pleiades seven-star system can be seen around the world during at least part of the year, and it features prominently in world mythology. The presence and position of this star system has been used from earliest times to orient the yearly calendar. Although there are many stars in the Pleiades system, only seven are visible to the naked eye (and many people can only see six).There are many correspondences to the number seven, too many to list here, but some that come immediately to mind are the seven-note musical scale, the seven color categories, the seven “personal planets” in astrology, and the Seven Wonders of the World. Clusters of seven, so common in Western cultures, usually follow from the preeminence of this number rather than from any intrinsic components of the particular category. Why don’t we have five primary colors or nine? The musical scale does not need to have seven notes, nor does it in every culture.EightIn the earlier tarot decks, those created before the Rider-Smith-Waite and similar twentieth century occult decks, the number eight in the major arcana corresponds to the “justice” card.A bit of background about tarot numerology. The symbolic picture cards numbered 1 to 21, plus the unnumbered “fool” (labeled zero in twentieth century decks) are referred to as the “major arcana,” while the numbered and court cards in the four suits are called the “minor arcana.” The major and minor arcana probably evolved separately. There is a record of a deck painted for Charles VI of France in 1397 (unfortunately no longer extant), so the major arcana dates somewhat earlier than this. It seems to have been a teaching tool for a breakaway Christian sect—the Cathars and the Waldenses have both been proposed—and it conveys conventional Christian symbolism of the time along with the teachings of a sect that incorporated occult beliefs. The origin of the minor arcana is even more obscure, probably originating in an Arabic game brought home by Crusaders. This game may also have originated as a spiritual teaching tool, and there are similarities to Hindu cards that were undoubtedly painted for this purpose. The tarot is often cited as an authority for pagan philosophy of numbers, but the murky history that is undoubtedly rooted in Christian dogma means it should be approached cautiously as a number theory.Eight as a number of judgment puts four on either side of the scale. Remember that four is a number of stability and a number of foundation. While we think of judges as powerful people, judges themselves see their role as circumspect, a mandate to interpret given law with an eye to tradition. This is not a creative number, but one for maintaining existing tradition.It is also a number tied less to the individual and more to higher authorities, a byproduct of its double-four nature. For this reason, eight is the number of the administrator, not just the administrator of justice but any manager obeisant to regulations and material realities. The mineral fluorite often takes the structure of the eightsided octahedron. Holding a fluorite crystal in your hand, you may be able to feel the stimulation in the frontal lobes of your brain, which is the section that separates intellect from instinct and attempts to view a situation rationally. Again, the mirrored pyramidal facets of the octahedron suggest balance, in this case perhaps the balancing of left and right hemispheres of the brain. Katrina Raphaell says of fluorite, “It is the stone that manifests the highest aspect of the mind—the mind that is attuned to spirit. From that exalted state of consciousness comes the intellectual understanding of truth, of cosmic concepts of reality and of the laws that govern the universe.”The symbol 8 comes from the shape of the eight-legged spider. The spider is an accomplished builder, the master of one of the most durable structures on earth. She spends part of each day repairing her web from the vicissitudes of wind, rain, and other creatures, understanding and accepting that a valuable possession requires maintenance. Like the spider establishing structure through her web, the textile weaver gives fabric its structure. This is a number that accepts and utilizes limitations. It is often pointed out that the symbol 8 lying on its side is the symbol for infinity, and this infinity symbol is pictured in the number eight card (strength) in the Rider-Smith-Waite tarot. But 8 the number is finite, not lying on its side. It is proudly upright, limited but all the stronger for it.Eight received …
(S/HE V2 N1 Essay 13) 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.] NAME TEXTS OF THE TWO BELLS In what follows I explore and discuss the name texts of the Sangwonsa Bell and the Divine Bell of Seongdeok the Great. The English translation of these texts with the original logographic script is made available in Appendix III. [1] The Bronze Bell of Sangwonsa The Name Text of the Sangwonsa Bell is short in length, compared to the text of the Divine Bell. Engraved in the two sections on the Heavenly Plate (see Figure 17-1 and 17-2), the right and the left, the text comprises a total of 70 characters. Each section made of four lines consists of 8-9 characters (see [Figure 17-3]). Informative of the year cast, the weight, the names of monks, Danwols (almsgivers), and artisans, the text reads: The text is written on March 8th of the 13th Eulchuk year of Gaewon [725 during the reign of Seongdeok the Great] upon the completion of the bell. It took 3,300 jeongs of bronze. [ab][2] is Bojung, Doyunae is Hye[c], and Jikse is Dojik. Monks are Chungchil, Chungan, and Jeongung. Danwols are Hyudori (Resting Way Mother), Mother of Yuhyu Grand House, Deokhyangsa, and Sangsansa. The artisan is Sa[d] of the Great House in Jonamtaek (House of South Lighted) [a, b, c, and d indicate illegible characters].[3] Given that it was cast in 725 during the reign of Seongdeok the Great (r. 702-737), it is inferred that the bell casting reached Seongdeok the Great is the key figure for both bells. Seongdeok the Great is the 33rd ruler to whom the Divine Bell was dedicated to by his son Geyongdeok the Great and his daughter-in-law Queen Manwol (see [Table 1]). The first three characters are conjectured to be the names of abbots or the owner of the temple. The names of three Buddhist monks are indicated. The names of Danwols (almsgivers)[4] are debated to be two or three. Among them is one female donor by the name of Hyudori (Resting Way Mother), who is the Mother of Yuhu Grand House. (To be continued) [1] All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. [2] The four characters illegible due to erosion are indicated as a, b, c, d in brackets. [3] See Appendix III. [4] The word, Danwol (檀越), referring to an almsgiver or patron, has known as a Buddhist term, a transliteration of dana-pati in Sanskrit. However, I hold that it is, together with such other dan words danmok (檀木 dan tree), danung (檀雄 dan hera), and danmyo (檀廟 dan grave), a Goma word. The character dan (檀 the divine tree or the bright land) indicates the divine tree of Goma and the Danguk confederacy of Nine Hans (3898 BCE-2333 BCE). https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang
(Art poem essay) In Praise of Her by Yvonne M. Lucia

IN PRAISE OF HER I pledged my life to God in the back seat of our ’57 Rambler when I was seven, as my dad drove home from the 6AM Latin Mass. When Sister Renata taught us the catechism in first grade, the Doctrine of Limbo made me cry. That same year she chose me to lead the May Procession – the special girl who got to wear the special dress reserved for the occasion. I crowned the alabaster Mary with a wreath of baby’s breath, then joined the others in the Living Rosary encircling the altar. Today I worship the Feminine Divine – the seeds of my rebellion were sown, it seems, around the age of reason, with talk of “Pygmies” who, unbaptized, upon their death might live happily ever-after but could not meet God. The pastel velvet dress I wore for Mary’s coronation – that domesticated Rite of Spring- was the tiny spore of my unfurling. The child is mother of the woman. Now, I’m whirling in the circle dance in praise of Her. The poem “In Praise of Her” is my attempt to crystalize the experience of my journey with the Divine Feminine, encountered in the figure of Mary, from childhood to the present. I have been a lover of Mary for as long as I can remember. As a young girl I used to recite the prayer “Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue” each night before falling asleep. I felt held and comforted by the words and the images I saw in my mind’s eye. The series of paintings that I began in January 2012, Contemporary Images of the Feminine Divine, is a culmination of many threads of my life being woven together into a public offering of my personal theology. The paintings explore images of the sacred feminine, primarily symbolized in the archetypal figure of Mary. They are visual contemplative prayers offered as a healing balm for our broken selves and for our dying Mother earth. The images are intended as reflections and mirrors of the sacred feminine that resides within each of us, male and female alike.
(Poem) The Listener by Phibby Venable

I would never steal the words out of your mouth, but I am a deceptive listener I notice the laws of gravity when your words drop at the end, swoop around you where your shoulders sag with brave intentions Last week I took the finch that sang a broken song, and today the wildflower seeds struggling in the dirt of poverty Some days I try to nudge a herd of windblown horses into hard plowed pastures I see them kicking rows that have hardened to ruts, until it is all soft earth Some days I take your breaking voice and layer it with feathers I am stealing with the gift of re-giving, again and again https://www.magoism.net/2015/01/meet-mago-contributor-phibby-venable/
(Photo Essay 12) Goddess Pilgrimage 2018

[Author’s Note: In May 2018, I set out on a 3 month pilgrimage to Greece, Turkey and the prehistory sites of “Old Europe”. Once again my main focus was “visiting with the Grandmothers”.] Most of the Grandmother figurines that have been found are now kept in museums, yet we can still stand in the places where people crafted them and lived with them. From the Hohle Fels cave near Schelklingen in the Swabian jura of Germany (c 35,000 BCE) to the temples and caves of Crete (1900-1450 BCE), there are places where we can listen for Her. Alongside the Grandmothers in most of these places, archaeologists have found hundreds of representations of birds and animals. “The animism of primal peoples has been called ‘childish’. In fact, it is a profound experiential perception of the evolutionary relation between all life forms as the manifestation of the original one – the first cell from which all life multiplied, the original cosmic egg. When human survival depends on such a sensitive rapport with the environment – as it always has, and always will – such a conception is not infantile, but crucial.” Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. p. 80. “If the final outcome of the present world system is a general threat to life on planet earth, then it is crucial to resuscitate and nurture the impulse and determination to survive, inherent in all living things . . .” From the introduction to Ecofeminism by Maria Meis and Vandana Shiva, 1993. New edition, 2014: http://zedbooks.co.uk/node/20326 Hohle Fels cave, Southern Germany, c 38,000 – 33,000 BCE. Diving bird Head of horse Vogelherd Cave, Southern Germany, c 33,000 BCE. Mammoth ivory figure of lion Göbekli Tepe, Anatolia, c 9000 BCE. Snake motifs carved on pillars Çatalhöyük, Anatolia, c 7,000 BCE. Leopards beside seated Grandmother These images are from places I have visited, sites where Grandmother figures have also been found. There is older rock art in Australia (estimated c 60,000 years old) with representations of animals and birds. As long as people have been making images, they have been making images of Nature. “When European people were making all those figurines depicting the feminine in Nature, the Goddess Creatrix, there was a deep reverence for the life-giving power of the feminine. This attitude seems to have fostered an equalitarian way of life for thousands of years. There is no evidence that human society ever involved a matriarchy where the feminine dominated and men were subservient or disempowered. The advent of patriarchy (where the masculine dominates and women are subservient) is a relatively recent development and is closely related to the lack of respect for the life-giving power of the feminine and of Nature.” From Don’t Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess, Kaalii Cargill. 2012. Meet Mago Contributor KAALII CARGILL
(Art) Setting the Stories Free, an INTUIT Card collage meditation by Cynthia Tom

Art by Cynthia Tom In case of chronic heartache: Rx – sit quietly and ask who wants your attention. Your little self will metaphorically tap you on the shoulder. Let him/her/they spend time with you to gather a hug and reassurance that you are there for you. Self-sooth your little self to heal into and celebrate who you have become. https://www.magoism.net/2021/07/meet-mago-contributor-cynthia-tom/
(Poem) Tarantella by Susan Hawthorne

Livia’s outdone herselfthe room is aliveleaves shimmer in lightbirds all a-twitterluscious balls of fruit hanging our favourite goddessesappear as plantsquince brings luck in lovepomegranate binds love and deathpoppy a favourite from Eleusis Diana Venus and Ceres are dancingin a circle withHecate Aphrodite and Demeterthe first triad from Romathe second from Greek Sicilia Cybele appearswild iris entwinedin a pine branch processionsome women need pageantryuna processione femminile Diana why the ilexis there something we should know?others enter bearing a veritable pharmacopœia from shrubs and herbs the nieces of Sicilian Medusaand a group of Maori girlsare trading tongue gesturesfor now it is playfulbut each knows how fear can kill Olympias and Agave arm in armsnake-braceleted mænads twirl dust stormsthe world is awhirl Psappha shoutswe are the ones I wrote aboutsomeone in some future time will remember me una processione femminile: Italian: a procession of women Cover art by Suzanne Bellamy, ‘Starship’, porcelain, 1989. Notes The tarantella is an ancient Italian dance possibly connected to Dianic rituals. I first heard about the tarantella when Australian author, Finola Moorhead, was writing her feminist novel Remember the Tarantella in the late 1970s. The novel ends with a dance that takes place in 4553 BC. Fifty women gather under a full moon between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The women dance and at the end of the dance “each woman releases her menstrual flow into the pit of smouldering wheat.” (p. 306). My poem ‘tarantella’ is a memory of a party held by Empress Livia of Rome. The party includes women from many eras, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific Ocean. At this imagined party women share and celebrate their understanding of the universe, of plants and birds and most of all, of women’s history. It is from my collection Lupa and Lamb which was written when I was a Literature Resident in Rome for six months. © on Finola Moorhead, 1987 and 2011 © on Susan Hawthorne, 2014 https://www.magoism.net/2013/12/meet-mago-contributor-susan-hawthone/
(Art & Prose) Understanding Tanit Through Felt Experience by Claire Dorey

Collage by Claire Dorey Tanit’s logo is not an objectified female form so I don’t think patriarchy created it. I’m in Ibiza getting to know this Goddess intending to wind a story through the ‘triangle’ – an anthropomorphic symbol, a ‘circle’ above a ‘triangle’ with outstretched ‘arms’ – that is relatable for women today. Can felt experience and intuition de-code the enigma of this Punic Goddess and is her iconography a simplified female form or is it code for powerful beliefs? “Where there is matter, there is geometry.” – Johannes Kepler. The Phoenicians brought Tanit to Ibiza. According to Temehu she originated in Libya and even before the Egyptian dynasties emerged she was worshiped there as Neith (Tanit / Tinnit – She Of Neith?) – funerary Goddess of creation, wisdom and weaving – weaving implying she is the Divine Mother. On mini pilgrimage, I climb the steep boulder strewn path winding through pine trees and carpets of rosemary towards Es Culleram, also known as Tanit’s Cave. Rippling folds of organic limestone flank the entrance to the eye-shaped, womb space that smells of old books. Someone has placed a terracotta bust of Tanit in her idealised, Romanised guise as Virgo Caelestis on the central altar stone – the Romans and Phoenicians colonised the island. There’s something powerful about being deep inside a hollow earth, cocoon at the top of a mountain so perhaps Tanit’s triangle represents a mountain, after all she is the Goddess who unites Earth with Sky. Or maybe the triangle represents an aniconic form of the Goddess as a venerated stone. In Puig Des Molins, the museum-necropolis, there are countless mould made Tanit votives and icons. Many hold a distinctive pose which I emulate in the musky cave: arms bent at the elbows, forearms forward, thumbs up, palms open facing each other, a position which is quite unlike any hand Mudra I have ever come across. I fail to traverse some spiritual gateway although I imagine how fire, drumming and ecstatic trance would have power here. My clock stops at 11.11. Is this a message about manifesting and time standing still? Some of the larger busts in the museum-necropolis have detachable arms, possibly because jutting appendages are fragile, or maybe they were for specific purposes and ritual. The posture isn’t familiar. The most comparable hand gesture I can think of is when an Energy Ball is created in Qi Gong. Many of the icons and votives are truncated at the sternum, indicating it’s the upper body that is important, so do Tanit’s hands enclose an energetic space, extending from the palms to the crown chakra? The terminology across the ages may have differed but that doesn’t mean this energy wasn’t felt and harnessed. Claire Dorey emulating the arm positions in Tanit’s cave I’m invited to a singing and drumming circle in a teepee. As the vibration of mantra spirals to the apex my mind wanders to North Africa. Tanit was worshiped there by the Imazighen – ’the free people’ – so I wonder if the triangle represents a tent infused with symbolic meaning, as precious language and history, worn by women on tattooed on skin and woven into rugs where bare feet tread. Symbols touching skin must be of significance. Did generations of women pass on their esoteric knowing through touch and sensation? “The tattoo correlates with the Carthaginian goddess Tanit [ ] one of the most beautiful symbols a woman could have on her face.” – Carolina McCabe, Moroccan World News. Without doubt Tanit’s vibration lives on in Ibiza manifesting as a sense of freedom. Women do seem to be liberated from the weight of patriarchal restrictions and judgement here. Historically Ibiza has a reputation for tolerance and acceptance and this embracing of ‘other’ maybe why it was the heart of hippy counter-culture. One theory claims ‘Tanit as Triangle’ originates from ‘aleph’, the symbol for the ox and the first letter in the Phoenician alphabet. Whatever her avatar: Tanit, Ashtarte, Ishtar, Demeter, Juno Lucina, Athena, Virgo Caelestis, Neith, surely the ‘ox’ points to Divine Mother lineage. Do all roads lead to Isis and beyond to Neith? Tanit’s vestigial ‘disc’ and ‘arms’ could be the solar disc and cow horns worn by Isis and Hathor or vice versa. If so the space within Tanit’s triangle could compare to the space beneath the Sacred Cow Goddess Hathor, birther of the sun, nourishing humanity. When the ‘aleph’ is closed with a line at the base it forms a complete triangle, perhaps a sacred womb space or incubating cave. Reverse the triangle and the vulva symbol is revealed! A vulva pointing skywards – how amazing is that! When the ‘aleph’ is closed it resembles the alchemical symbol for ‘air’ – an upright triangle with a horizontal bar. In reverse ‘air’ becomes ‘Earth’. Two triangles form a hexagram, a six pointed star associated with planetary energies. A three-dimensional hexagram set in motion becomes Merkaba, an electromagnetic field believed to connect humans with the Divine. Convoluted coincidence or is there, hidden within Tanit’s iconography, homage to the female light worker alchemists as soul custodians? I’m tempted to say yes because tomb worship was a ‘thing’ and in the graves at Puig Des Molins oil lamps were placed on the root chakras of the deceased, possibly to spark their journey to the afterlife. Tanit’s symbolism can be found within the sacred geometry of the Tree Of Life and Metatron’s Cube and there are similarities with the Ankh, the Kemetic womb space and symbol of everlasting life. As gate keepers, women were on the front line of birth and death. The afterlife and destiny at birth were huge concerns in the ancient world. This was where the power was and it was in women’s hands. See now why patriarchy set about erasing women’s matrilineal power? But how does this relate to modern woman beyond awareness of ancestral female power being empowering? If Tanit held sacred space and generated energy what was it for? I really don’t …
(Art 1) Gather the Women by Pegi Eyers

Gather the Women 1/2 Art by Pegi Eyers The shared support and connection between women allows us to heal from the patriarchy that has waged war on us for millennia, and joining together in the true spirit of sisterhood is a revolutionary act. By forming diverse networks we enhance our own lives, our communities and the earth. The co-creation of women’s culture is a space where we can feel safe, celebrated and empowered, and when we gather together in circles of unity, miracles can happen. (This is included in She Rises: What… Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 3)(Meet Mago Contributor) Pegi Eyers.

(Special Post Isis 3) Why the Color of Isis Matters by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s note: The discussion took place in Mago Circle during the month of July, 2013. Our heartfelt thanks go to the members who participated in this discussion with openness and courage.] Part 3 Isis, Arab Women Revolution, and Black Goddesses Naa Ayele Kumari Going back to the original topic of the post…. Some quotes ” Women are in half the society… How come there are only 7 in the Assembly… and they are all Islamist! ” I can’t beat up my wife and almost kill her and call it discipline… this is not discipline… this is abuse and insanity” http://youtu.be/y4umifTLSII 12-Year Old Explains Egyptian Revolution in Under 3 Minutes www.youtube.com Max Dashu It is tremendously heartening to see these insights being expressed, and spread. The Salafis have made such inroads, and now the pushback is happening. Harita Meenee Dear Naa Ayele Kumari, thank you actually reading my post and commenting something relevant to it. It’s refreshing when someone does hear what we have to say instead of projecting their own notions. Building a solidarity movement with those who are oppressed but fighting is very important during these critical times! Harita Meenee See also: https://www.facebook.co/intifadat.almar2a?fref=ts The uprising of women in the Arab world انتفاضة المرأة في العالم العربي حرية الفكر ، حرية التعبير ، حرية الاعتقاد ، حرية التنقل ، حرية الجسد ، حرية اللب…See More Glenys Livingstone … as you say Max …” way too much of it going on” – amongst people who should know better (I would have thought): “Dark goddess as terrifying, challenging, white goddess as benign; “black magic” as harmful; I see way, way too much of this going on out there.” And related to that in my mind is all the “love and light” business that is so common: the Ground of Being is Dark … it seems to me that mystics have always understood the quintessential darkness of Love/Deity. Max Dashu Sure. I would just like to add that the critique raised here addressed issues much broader than the substance of the article, which made some good points. But once the choice of graphics flagged the issue of representation, people had much more to say about that old yet still very fresh wound which is constantly reopened by the cultural habit of whitening Egypt, or interpreting Africa through a eurocentric lens. It is not on any one person to carry the weight of that; we all have a responsibility to address the issues, but especially those of us of European heritage need to familiarize ourselves with how this plays out over and over. Just as men have a responsibility to speak up in support of women when patriarchal assumptions are on board. We all can learn something from each other, along all the various axes of domination, and overthrow them in coalition. Naa Ayele Kumari I have often considered where the roots of this psychology comes from. It is dualistic thinking that causes us to compare and contrast, then sum up judgement of good or bad and place a value on each. It extends into competition and justification for war. It also doesn’t escape me that often this came with certain civilizations who systematically destroyed others. It didn’t just happen with blacks in Africa… but blacks in Asia and the Indus Valley as well. With the Aryan invasions of India, came the eventual introduction to lighter divinities and more emphasis on male divinities. Southern Indians, Sri Lankans are very dark… even more so than many African Blacks. The caste systems implemented by the Aryan invaders did the same thing to them casting them as “untouchables”. With that came the marginalization of their black female divinities such as Kali. Kali actually has 10-16 forms… from compassionate mother, the fountain of wisdom, to she of great beauty but she is minimized as just destructive and terrifying… especially as Brhaman, Vishnuu, and Shiva grow in popularity. One of Kali’s statues has her black self standing on top of Shiva because she conquered him. Later there is a discussion in on of the Hindu text explaining Kali (as Parvati) after being subdued by Shiva she becomes lighter. Further they have stories about him rejecting her and calling her blackie which made her do austerities to rid herself of her black skin. Naa Ayele Kumari It should not be overlooked that in the Story of Alice in Wonderland… a story intended to keep Goddess elements for future generations, has the Elder sister ( the Queen of Hearts) portrayed as man, ego, and power driven who cuts off heads and has a fierce dragon…a clear reference to Kali. The White goddess as the younger sister is her opponent… and her mission is to usurp the throne of the Queen of Hearts even though she was the rightful heir as the oldest … or primordial. Stories like these also reinforce the stereotypes and negative iconography. Max Dashu Yes, it is pervasive in many cultures of domination. Demons are portrayed as black not only in Europe, which we know well, but also in China and in a lot of Buddhist iconography. In modern India, the sweet goddesses are shown as pink, the wrathful as black; and Krishna (name means “dark”) is turned powder blue. (Another of his titles, s’yam, also meaning dark, is the word translated as “green” in Green Tara.) The countercurrents (Black Mazu, loving Kali – esp in Bengal and south India, Black Madonna) bubbled up from the common people, who knew and longed for something other than the dominant racialized hierarchy. Naa Ayele Kumari I am just discovering Mazu ( Matzu/LuShui) in China today! Never knew about her. This discussion has led me to look deeper for black goddesses in Asia. Max Dashu Taoist spiritual tradition often refers to Xüan Nü, which can be translated in several ways. You’ll usually see it rendered as “the Mysterious Female,” a phrase that occurs in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), and this is a valid translation; but what is less emphasized is that it also means “the Dark Woman.” In […]
(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.
(Special Post 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.

(Essay and Video) Cosmogenesis Dance: Celebrating Her Unfolding by Glenys Livingstone

The dance begins with two concentric circles, which will flow in and out of each other throughout the dance, resulting thus in a third concentric circle that comes and goes. The three circles/layers are understood to represent the three aspects of Goddess, the Creative Triple Dynamic that many ancients were apparently aware of, and imagined in so many different ways across the globe. In Her representation in Ireland as the Triple Spiral motif, which is inscribed on the inner chamber wall at Bru-na-Boinne (known as Newgrange)[1], She seems to be understood as a dynamic essential to on-going Cosmic Creativity, as this ancient motif is dramatically lit up by the Winter Solstice dawn. It seems that this was important to the Indigenous people of this place at the time of Winter Solstice, which celebrates Origins, the continuing birth of all. Thus I like to do this Cosmogenesis Dance, as I have named it[2], at the Winter Solstice in particular. The three aspects that the dance may embody, and are poetically understood as Goddess, celebrate (i) Virgin/Young One – Urge to Be as I have named this quality – the ever new differentiated being (also known as Fodla in the region of the Triple Spiral)[3]. This is the outer circle of individuals. (ii) Mother – the deeply related interwoven web – Dynamic Place of Being as I have named this quality – the communion that our habitat is (also known as Eriu in the region of the Triple Spiral)[4]. This is the woven middle circle where all are linked and swaying in rhythm. (iii) Crone/Old One – the eternal creative return to All-That-Is – She who Creates the Space to Be as I have named this quality (also known as Banba in the region of the Triple Spiral)[5]. This is the inner circle where linked hands are raised and stillness is held. The three concentric layers of the dance may be understood to embody these. The Cosmogenesis Dance represents the flow and balance of these three – a flow and balance of Self, Other and All-That-Is. It may be experienced like a breath, that we breathe together – as we do co-create the Cosmos. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have named the three qualities of Cosmogenesis in the following way: – differentiation … to be is to be unique – communion … to be is to be related – autopoiesis/subjectivity … to be is to be a centre of creativity.[6] The three layers of the dance may be felt to celebrate each unique being, in deep relationship with other, directly participating in the sentient Cosmos, the Well of Creativity. The Cosmogenesis Dance as it is done within PaGaian Winter Solstice ceremony expresses the whole Creative Process we are immersed in. It is a process of complete reciprocity, a flow of Creator and Created, like a breath. There is dynamic exchange in every moment: that is the nature of the Place we inhabit. The dance may help awaken us to it, and to invoke it. The Cosmogenesis Dance on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR73MDMM9Fk For more story: Cosmogenesis Dance for Winter Ritual For Dance Instructions: PaGaian Cosmology Appendix I Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [1] The Triple Spiral engraving is dated at 2,400 B.C.E. [2] This dance is originally named as “The Stillpoint Dance”, or sometimes “Adoramus Te Domine” which is the name of the music used for it. I learned it from Dr. Jean Houston in 1990 at a workshop of hers in Sydney, Australia. I began to use the dance for Winter Solstice ceremony in 1997, and it was only in the second year of doing so that I realised its three layers were resonant with the three traditional qualities of the Female Metaphor/Goddess, and also the three faces of Cosmogenesis. I thereafter re-named and storied the dance that way in the ceremonial preparation and teaching for Winter Solstice. See Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology: pp. 280-281 and 311. [3] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p.192. [4] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [5] Michael Dames, Ireland: a Sacred Journey, p. 192. [6] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story, p. 71-79. I have identified these qualities with the Triple Goddess, and the Triple Spiral in the synthesis of PaGaian Cosmology: see Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, particularly Chapter 4: https://pagaian.org/book/chapter-4/ References: Dames, Michael. Ireland: a Sacred Journey, Element Books, 2000. Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.
The Ceremonial Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. The Cosmos is a ceremony, a ritual. Dawn and dusk, seasons, supernovas – it is an ongoing Event of coming into being and passing away. The Cosmos is always in flux, and we exist as participants in this great ritual event, this “cosmic ceremony of seasonal and diurnal rhythms” which frame “epochal dramas of becoming,” as Charlene Spretnak describes it.[i] Swimme and Berry describe the universe as a dramatic reality, a Great Conversation of announcement and response.[ii]Ritual/ceremony[iii] may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe – an act of conscious participation. Ceremony then may be understood as a microcosmos[iv] – a human-sized replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in. Swimme and Berry describe ritual as an ancient response humans have to the awesome experience of witnessing the coming to be and the passing away of things; they say that a “ritual mode of expression” is from its beginning “the manner in which humans respond to the universe, just as birds respond by flying or as fish respond by swimming.”[v] It is the way in which we as humans, as a species, may respond to this awesome experience of being and becoming, how we may hold the beauty and the terror. Humans have exhibited this tendency to ritualize since the earliest times of our unfolding: evidence so far reveals burial sites dating back one hundred thousand years, as mentioned in the previous chapter. We often went to huge effort in these matters, that is almost incomprehensible to the modern industrialised econocentric mind: the precise placing of huge stones in circles such as found at Stonehenge and the creation of complex sites such as Silbury Hill may be expressions of some priority, indicating that econocentric thinking – such as tool making, finding shelter and food, was not enough or not separate from the participation in Cosmic events. Ritual seems to have expressed, and still does actively express for some peoples, something essential to the human – a way of being integral with our Cosmic Place, which was not perceived as separate from material sustenance, the Source of existence: thus it was a way perhaps of sensing “meaning” as it might be termed these days – or “relationship.” Swimme and Berry note that the order of the Universe has been experienced especially in the seasonal sequence of dissolution and renewal; this most basic pattern has been an ultimate referent for existence.[vi] The seasonal pattern contains within it the most basic dynamics of the Cosmos – desire, fullfilment, loss, transformation, creation, growth, and more. The annual ceremonial celebration of the seasonal wheel – the Earth-Sun sacred site within which we tour – can be a pathway to the Centre of these dynamics, a way of making sense of the pattern, a way of sensing it. One enters the Universe’s story. The Seasonal Moments when marked and celebrated in the art form of ceremony may be sens-ible ‘gateways’ through the flesh of the world[vii] to the Centre – which is omnipresent Creativity. Humans do ritual everyday – we really can’t help ourselves. It is simply a question of what rituals we do, what story we are telling ourselves, what we are “spelling”[viii] ourselves with – individually and collectively. Ceremony is actually ‘doing,’ not just theorizing. We can talk about our personal and cultural disconnection endlessly, but we need to actually change our minds. Ceremony can be an enabling practice – a catalyst/practice for personal and cultural change. It is not just talking about eating the pear, it is eating the pear; it is not just talking about sitting on the cushion (meditating), it is sittingon the cushion. It is a cultural practice wherein we tell a story/stories about what we believe to be so most deeply, about who and what we are. Ceremony can be a place for practicing a new language, a new way of speaking, or spelling – a place for practicing “matristic storytelling”[ix] if you like: that is, for telling stories of the Mother, of Earth and Cosmos as if She were alive and sentient. We can “play like we know it,” so that we may come to know it.[x] Ceremony then is a form of social action. NOTES: [i] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [ii] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 153. [iii] I will use either or both of these terms at different times: I generally prefer “ceremony” as Kathy Jones defines it in Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 319. She says that ritual involves a repeated set of actions which may contain spiritual or “mundane” elements (such as a daily ritual of brushing one’s teeth), “whereas ceremony is always a spiritual practice and may or may not include ritual elements.” The PaGaian seasonal celebrations/events are thus most kin to “ceremony,” although I do not perceive any action as “mundane.” However, “ritual” is more commonly used to speak of how humans have conversed with cosmos/Earth. [iv] Spretnak, States of Grace, 145. [v] Swimme and Berry, The Universe Story, 152-153. [vi] Ibid. [vii] Abram speaks of “matter as flesh” in The Spell of the Sensuous, 66, citing Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Invisible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). [viii] Starhawk used this term on her email list in 2004 to describe the story-telling we might do to bring forth the changes we desire. [ix] A term used by Gloria Feman Orenstein in The Reflowering of the Goddess (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), 147. [x] As my doctoral thesis supervisor Dr. Susan Murphy once described it to me in conversation REFERENCES: Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jones, Kathy. Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess. Glastonbury: Ariadne Publications, 2006. Orenstein, Gloria Feman. The Reflowering of the Goddess. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990. Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

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

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

(Book Excerpt 5) The Mago Way by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note] The following is from Chapter One, “What Is Mago and Magoism and How Did I Study HER?” from The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia, Volume 1. Footnotes below would be different from the monograph version. PDF book of The Mago Way Volume 1 download is available for free here.] How My Education and Experience Helped Me Study Mago The topic of Mago came to me in time for writing my doctoral dissertation for the Women’s Studies in Religion program that I was enrolled in at Claremont Graduate University. My graduate education, which I crafted to be a feminist cross-cultural alchemical process of de-educating myself from the patriarchal mode of knowledge-making, led me to encounter the hitherto unheard-of Goddess of East Asia, Mago. I came to read the Budoji, the principal text of Magoism, in 2000 and did some basic research to find out that Mago was known among people in Korea and that S/HE was also found in Chinese and Japanese sources.
(Photo Essay 4) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hwang

Part IV: Revival of the Gurang (Nine Maidens) Gaeyang Halmi There is more to reveal. As I write this part of the photo essay, I have encountered new information, previously made available online by individuals and organizations. It is reported that the “Suseong-dang” (水聖堂, Sea Saint Shrine) was once called the “Gurang-sa” (九娘祠, Nine Maidens Shine), of which I never heard before.[i] That Suseong-dang is a fake name blew my mind! Note the difference of gender between “the Nine Maidens Shrine” and “the Sea Saint Shrine”! The female-connoted term was stolen just like that! “Gurang-sa,” a female-referenced term as the character “rang” means a maiden, had to go due to its overt female representation. It is not without grounds that I was taken aback to see its present logography, “the Sea Saint Shrine,” on the information board.[ii] I almost heard a voice warning me, “This is not the place that you think it is!” That voice attempted to force me to leave the place without further investigation. However, I intuitively took a mental note, “Something is not correct here.” And I was right! Its name change sheds a consistent light on the meddling of patriarchal distortion/deception done to the tradition of Gaeyang Halmi. Readers are reminded of the lost painting of Gaeyang Halmi, which was replaced by that of the Sea God explicated in Part 2 of this photo essay (also Part 3). Like “the Sea God,” “the Suseong-dang” constitutes no reality. It is not only a conceptual deception but also a theft of the intangible cultural heritage, righteously committed by faceless patriarchal men disappeared into the lapse of time. It is clear that systematic erasure of the Female/Goddess has been in operation. Female power embodied whether in the name of the shrine or in the iconography was stripped away. However, it is proven once again that the Female is immortal because it constitutes the root of patriarchy. People smuggled the forbidden knowledge of the Female to later generations through oral stories. Thus, we find the folklore of the Female subversive.
(K-Drama Review 1) Liminal Space/Time into WE: What Hotel del Luna Displays by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: Hotel del Luna is a 16-episode Korean television drama aired in 2919. Caution is required for the spoiler. This essay is prompted by this drama, which was discussed in a new class, Experience Korean Culture through Film (EKCF) offered by Mago Academy. I am ever grateful for this opportunity to assess matriversal (read Magoist) soteriology, eschatology, and cosmology implicated in this drama. This drama takes viewers to a liminal time/space. At the liminal timespace, we see how one meets the other. Almost all objects of the drama remind viewers of their liminal property. The female main character, neither living nor dead, stands between the living and the dead. The ghost-serving moon lodge she operates is visible to both ghosts and people. So is the tree of the moon spirit, a symbol for the tree of life or the world tree, which summons the moon lodge to take place. And so are all beings with physical forms. The liminal timespace is where we find ourselves in the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW.] Copyright origin unknown. Part I: Introduction with Synopsis Jang Manwol, the female protagonist, is fixated to the tree of the moon spirit (wolryeongsu 월령수) and entrusted as the representative of the moon lodge, which serves ghosts charged with unrelenting resentments, by the Mago Divine. Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Creatrix), by providing new opportunities, awaits Manwol until she takes actions to relieve her unyielding grudge, caused by the complex socio-political misfortunes in the 7th century. Manwol is, currently neither living nor dead, expected to die and take a ride to the realm of after-life (returning to the origin) just like other ghosts in her lodge. Together with her ghost employees, she operates a large luxurious hotel, Hotel del Luna, the latest name of the moon lodge. Standing in the liminal time/space, the hotel is equipped with an elegantly decorated spacious lobby, a sky-viewing terrace, a horizon-surrounded beach, and an amusement park as well as a multiple number of rooms, each of which is catered to serve the special needs of a ghost guest. At the heart of the lodge is the tree of the moon spirit. The hoteliers welcome ghosts, diagnose the story of han (unresolved resentments) that they carry in themselves and its remedy, and execute plots to resolve resentments in a peaceful manner, to be beneficial to ALL. Upon being healed and rejuvenated with a new perspective on their past lives and the Reality of Intercosmic Life, the ghosts leave the lodge to take the ride to the realm of after-life (jeoseung 저승). The dead are supposed to take this ride to the Origin. Ghosts with unrelenting resentments escapes this route and lingers in the in-between reality of the living and the dead. Until accepting the help of the male protagonist, Gu Chanseong, sent by the Mago Divine, Manwol stubbornly continues to roam around her inbetween space/time. Insofar as she holds onto her own oath to avenge, the tree of the moon spirit remains dormant, seemingly dead. The tree, a visual locus reflecting the inner landscape of Manwol (her predecessors and successors alike), connects ghosts and people and reveals the reality of Life to them. The young man, Chanseong, misses no opportunity to choose the good and to right the wrong in ghosts and people, which is the key to straightening up the entangled karmic consequences. He prompts Manwol to heal herself: She realizes the truth about her betrayer (she was consumed by her anger against him so much so that she could not know the truth; he did not betray her but saved her) and let go of her over-1,300 year-long desire to destroy him. Affected by the grudge-releasing actions of Chanseong, she gradually chooses the path to reconcile with her past, as the Mago Divine wishes for her. The tree of the moon spirit, showing a sign of life again by putting out leaves and flowers, harbingers the end of the moon lodge. Manwol and her ghost employees as well as Chanseong reach the timespace of saying good-bye to move on to the next stage of Life’s cycle. Mawol becomes the last ghost who get helped in her lodge. The Mago Divine is seeking a new owner for the lodge so that ghosts with resentments can continue to be served. The drama is potentially transforming the human psyche from within. Tantalizing, heart-breaking, and frightening stories of the dead and the living stretch the horizon to the whole — the realm of physical life (iseung 이승), the realm of afterlife (jeoseung 저승), and the in-between realm of ghosts. In the sense that its narrative structure is built on the Korean folk belief of Mago Halmi (Great Mother, Crone, and Creatrix), and Magoism, the Way of the Creatrix, I find this drama a composite text of Magoist thealogy (a systematic understanding of Mago, the Creatrix) at the core. What the hoteliers are doing is in fact the role of Mudangs (Korean Shamans). Although Mudangs and Muism (Korean Shamanism) are strikingly absent, the drama resonates with the Muist worldview. The core message is to release unrelenting resentments of the dead on the part of the living. Intriguingly, this drama does not speak directly to humans, “Humans, do not create cheok (hatred or suffering in other beings).” Perhaps, such is too clear a message to articulate. At any rate, we are supposed to gain the lesson by listening to the stories of ghosts. What we see is that troubled ghosts with resentment are helped and guided to the journey of afterlife. The dead are expected to take the ride to the realm of after-life immediately. Ghosts are those who would not follow the path of the dead. Viewers are told why some people become haunting ghosts upon death, why ghosts seek to interfere with humans, and why ghosts are tempted to take revenge upon humans. We may say that ghosts are the confused or disrupted souls. Ghosts face extermination by the Mago Divine if they harm humans or assist an evil ghost. Consequently, evil ghosts are precluded from the cycle of rebirth. That is …