August 12, 2016November 15, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

Update & Happy 4th Birthday to Return to Mago E-Magazine!

Happy 4th Birthday to Return to Mago E-Magazine!

April 23, 2016October 2, 2019 Mago Work AdminLeave a comment

(Meet Mago Volunteer) Spider Redgold

Spider Redgold is a Caucasian lesbian woman of spirit, descended through her motherlines from Travellers and through her fatherlines she can trace her blood to the Viking invasions of Yorkshire Read More …

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kushal Poddar

Born in a warm corner of India, Kushal Poddar, a lone child brought up with only his shadow mates, began writing verse at the age of six. He adopted English, his second tongue, as the language to dream on. Widely published in several countries in prestigious anthologies such as Men In The Company of Women, Penn International MK, and Van Gogh’s Ear, he was also featuredby Tupelo Press in the Poem-a-Day project for the month ofDecember in 2013. He has been interviewed and read his work in various radio programs in Canada and the United States. Poddar collaborated with photographers for an exhibition in Venice, Italy, and with performers for several audio publications. He has said that he believes “Poetry is a tool to arrest the vast beyond within the canvas of personal experience. To limit the limitless so our thirst and longing for it remains unquenched.” Poddar currently lives in Kolkata and writes poetry, fiction and scripts for short films when not engaged in his day job as a counsel/lawyer in the High Court At Calcutta. Forthcoming books are The Mood Study Of A Cold Cup and A Place For Your Ghost Animals.
(Mago Almanac Basics 1) What is the Magoist Calendar? by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: I have created 13 basics of Mago Almanac, which are included in Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Volume 6), Year 6 or 5920 MAGOMA ERA (Equivalent to 2023 CE). These 13 basics constitute the backbone of Magoist Cetaceanism as well.] It is a 13 month 28 day luni-menstrual-solar calendar of Old Magoist Korea. Insofar as one year marks about 365.25 days, a time taken for the earth to revolve around the sun, it is a solar calendar. The fact that both the moon and the female menstruation cycle mark 28 days, which makes 13 months or 364 days for one year. This makes approximately 1.25 a surplus. Thus, we have days outside the calendar grid. Each year has one extra day on the day before the New Year’s day. The New Year of Year 1 or 5915 Magoma Era was set on the new moon date before Winter Solstice in 2018 by the Gregorian Calendar. With one extra day, the year makes 365 days. Given that the actual period of the Earth’s revolution is approximately 365.25 days, we have the second extra day every fourth year. Setting aside the extra days, we have 364 days for one year. 364 days divided by 28 days is 13. That is how we have 13 months in a year. The Magoist Calendar championing the matricentric worldview is the very indication that our Mother Earth is stabilized in her own voyages. https://www.magobooks.com/update-on-mago-books/mago-almanac-13-month-28-day-calendar-book-a/ https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(Mago Almanac Planner Year 5 Excerpt 3) 13 Month 28 Day Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This and its sequences are a newly added portion in the Mago Almanac Planner Year 5, equivalent to the Gregorian Year 2022. Because the Budoji did not explain further about time units smaller than 1 day, I did not follow through some possible implications in previous Mago Almanac volumes. Next year’s Mago Almanac Planner for Personal Journey: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar Year 5 or 5919 MAGOMA ERA is forthcoming in Mago Bookstore (October 25, 2021). PDF version is available for purchase.] We set the new moon day of the Winter Solstice month in 2017 as the New Year of Year 1. With that, we are able to tap Magoist days into Gregorian days that we moderns use. Then, how do we bring down a Magoist time in the scheme of the Gregorian time? How do we determine the onset of New Year in the Magoist Calendar? When would be the midnight of New Year in Year 1? That requires a translation of Mago time into Gregorian time. We can designate midnight as a midpoint in time equidistant from the sunset of New Year’s Eve to the sunrise of New Year. As local times vary around the globe, the midnight of New Year varies in states and cities. In Los Angeles, California USA, the first Magoist midnight falls on 23:29 on December 17, 2017 for Year 1. That would be 07:29 on December 18, 2017 in UTC. Year 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Midnight12/17/2017 23:2912/17/2018 23:2912/17/2019 23:2912/16/2020 23:30Sunset16:45, 12/1716:45, 12/1716:45, 12/1716:44, 12/16Sunrise6:53, 12/186:53, 12/18 6:53, 12/186:53, 12/17 (Sunset and sunrise times in Los Angeles, USA) The below table shows the first Magoist midnight (around 0.33 AM) falls on December 18, 2017 in Gyeongju, South Korea. That would be 15:33 on December 17, 2017 in UTC. Year 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Midnight12/18/2017 0:33.512/18/2018 0:32.512/18/2019 0:32.512/17/2020 0:32.5Sunset17:11, 12/1717:11, 12/1717:11, 12/1717:11, 12/16Sunrise7:28, 12/187:27, 12/18 7:27, 12/187:27, 12/17 (Sunset and sunrise times in Gyeongju, South Korea) We can imagine a spiral progression of years from Little Calendar (one year) to Medium Calendar (two years) and to Large Calendar (four years). Every year has one leap day, whereas every fourth year has another leap day in the middle of the year. Cyclic time, as it progresses, creates rhythm and harmony in the human world. Little Calendar (1 year)13×1=13 months364 days+1 leap day=365 daysMedium Calendar (2 years)13×2=26 months2x(364 days+1 leap day) =730 daysLarge Calendar (4 years)13×4=52 months4x(364 days+1 leap day)+1 leap day=1,461 days (End of the series) https://www.magoacademy.org/virtual-midnight-vigil-to-new-year/ https://www.magoism.net/2013/07/meet-mago-contributor-helen-hwang/
(Videos) The Mago Work and 2016 Plans of Mago Academy/Mago Books

Happy New Year to RTM Contributors and Readers around the globe! We are happy to announce what The Mago Work entails and 2016 Plans/Visions of Mago Academy. What is The Mago Work? Who are making it possible? https://youtu.be/2UPle8SNwiw?list=PL-hbgxa5v1IcZH-Q1Bo3o-5GhUj1_HgLK See Editorial Collectives of Return to Mago E-Magazine: Mary Saracino (Editor-in-Chief), Rosemary Mattingley (Admin Editor), and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (Director and Editor) See Faculty of Mago Academy including Dr. Glenys Livingstone, Hearthmoon Rising, Anna Tzanova See Editors of Mago Books including Dr. Kaalii Cargill and Dr. Mary Ann Beavis
(Essay 6) The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen

[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.] Travelling into World of the Vanir Mothers Fig. 15. Old forest lake, Sweden The mythological world of the Eddas was inhabited also by the Vanirs, and also many other explicit groups like the Jättar (Giants/Jotnar) and Elver/Alfer (Elvens).[1] In the Eddas, these groups most often came to represent the opponents to, or enemies of Asgård. The Asirs fought them to control or destroy them, and always kept a distance from them, unless profiting from any interrelations or intermarriages with them. If not in some way useful for the Asirs, they were generally seen as negative beings. In their original animistic contexts these groups may have represented something quite different. By means of general features of the animistic world view, and with the specific, but mostly unintended left-overs and information in the Eddas, combining it with archeological findings and general rules for the patriarchal shift, we have allowed a glance at the inhabitants of the old mythological world with positive glasses, and to let quite a different world shine through. JÄTTAR — the Giants Fig. 16. The Old Lady of the Forest, over 3 m high. Giants/ Jotnar (Jättar or Gyger) were born before beginning of time.[2] They were the oldest of all beings. In our understanding these first beings typify or metaphorically personify the basic physical elements. When they appear in their most compact and dense form, the primordial forces are almost uncontrollable; Earth materializes as rocks and mountains; Water as oceans, blizzards and hail; Fire as the heat of the sun and blazing fires, volcanoes and thunderstorms; and Air as hurricanes and gales. The names of the Giants, the “Big Ones” testify their connection to basic nature elements; they are Frost, Hoarfrost, Snowdrift, Snow, Sea, Shower, Flame, Thunder-flash, Fire, Gust, Storm, etc. In Ragnarök, the Fire-Giant Surt (Black) will lick the earth with his ravaging fire. Humanizing the Giants in the Eddas, the Asirs saw them as lumpy, heavy-sized, and incredibly strong beings. They lived their hard and raw lives in the far North, in Jotunheim, where the elements rage and the chaos forces; ice, gales, wild oceans, volcanoes and naked rocks reigned. Sometime records of their damaging strength will know that this Giant was only three days old – a lot though, if this giant is signifying or personalizing a rising hurricane or fire. Giants, in Asir optics, were entirely physical, totally lacking divinity, and having no glory from battlefield fighting attached to them. Therefore, in his spare time Asir-Thor was frenetically occupied with hunting them, especially the females,[3] to either break them, or to control them and their forces. ELVER and ALFER — the Elven Fig. 17. Glittering Elven Water. Photo: S. Rudehill In the Icelandic Sagas, the epithets Elven and Vanir are often interchangeable. The fair, shimmering Elven people are most often thought to be connected to and metaphors for the moving of elements – light (fire), water and air. We have come to conclude that the specific Elven feature is that of adding an energizing and moving, flowing, streaming or even electrifying aspect to the basic physical elements. The energizing of light would cause sunbeams streaming (Alf-röd-ul, a Vanir figure) and be connected to the continuous progression of light at dawn, day and dusk. The energizing of water makes rivers to flow, vapor to rise, and hazes to dance. It would add sharpness to the air (Egil, Egg-ilning, a Vanir figure)[4] and cause winds to blow. And for the moving of water, the Nordic word for crystal flowing rivers is elve or älvar. Rivers are surely Elven domiciles. The energizing of the physical elements may actually even mirror the archaic and classic understanding of the not four but five elements, co-creating our world; fire, air, water, earth, and ether.[5] Ether was traditionally understood as life-breath/living spirit, wit and consciousness, and thus not included in the element, air and wind. Elven energy will also cause affections to move. VANER – the Old Vanirs If Giants represent the basic physical elements, and the Elven, like electricity, set a moving energy (and life) to the physical elements, then Vanir entities give the impression to represent and personify abstract phenomena and conditions of life, meaning; fertility (the ability to grow), mating (the urge or force of love), warmth (phenomenon of kindness), beauty, death and re-incarnating (the ability to die and re-generate), etc. The regular cycles of seasons; winter, spring, summer, and fall – the on-going cycles of changes shared with organic life in the physical world; plants, humans, animals and stars. The old emblem of the Life-circle is personified in the maiden-mother-crone triad, throughout the old world, and in the Vanir world. But the word, Vanir, what may the very word denote? Academically, the explanation of the specific word vaner (Vanir) has not yet reached fully consensus. What is clear is that the word itself belongs to the Old Scandinavian domain. Scandinavian landscapes have hundreds of geographical Van-Vaner-names: Vansbro, Vanered, Vanatjärnen, Vantinge, Vansø, Vanhøje, and Vänern, testifying old presence. A sidelong glance will spot the many van-vaner-words in modern Scandinavian languages, the meaning of which most often lie within the sphere of “common, plain, non-admirable, powerless, wrong, distorted, customs and old habits, old ways”, etc. (Sw. vanlig, vanmakt, vantro, vanskapt, vantro, vansinne, vana, etc.). The Asir believing nobility may well have thought of the rural peasants of Vanir believers as people sticking to their old habits/ways (Sw. vanor), as well as even being unbelievers or wrong-believers (vantro), and thus twisted any van-words into negative connotations. The alleged natural beauty of the Vanirs on the other hand may be preserved in words like vän, vänlig, vän, etc. (beautiful, …
(Essay 2) The Role of Castration in the Worship of the Great Mother Goddess Cybele by Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: This essay and its sequels are part of a longer chapter for a book I am working on. The book is based on my dissertation research at the Maetreum of Cybele in Palenville NY. I wanted to share some of my historical research and I will be presenting more essays on Mother Goddess worship in the ancient world and contemporary interest in the Feminine Divine.] Attis, the son/lover of Cybele was not part of her mythology until around 1000 BCE. It was after this time that the vegetation god Attis was introduced and became part of the legends. The legends which reference Attis are primarily found in the Anatolian worship of Cybele and are believed by Stone to be surviving remnants of the earlier Goddess religion when she was the unnamed Great Mother.[1] While there are multiple variations of the myth of Attis, the most common tale concerning the death of Attis is this. Statue of Galli priest from late 2nd century CE Rome. Wikimedia Commons For Attis, the princely young shepherd of the fields had once been set upon by a lustful monster and, in revulsion and lest he be forced into unfaithfulness to his Holy Mother, tore his genitals from his body and died beneath an evergreen tree while his fallen blood nourished flowers beneath him. There his fallen body lay lifeless until Cybele herself came upon it. She wrapped his mutilated body in mourning cloth and took him, and the tree near which he had died, to the deep, dark cave where she lived on the summit of Mount Ida.[2] In a later myth, Attis resurrects after three days and becomes Cybele’s lover. The Romans were so enamored with Attis that each year they held a festival celebrating Attis’ death and resurrection. However, Attis was not the only figure who underwent castration to show his devotion to his deity. Castration appears in many ancient writings regarding Goddess religions, and there are repeated references to eunuch priests in ancient Sumer, Babylon, Canaan, and Anatolia.[3] The classical texts put the number of eunuch priests as high as five thousand in some cities.[4] In Anatolia, the eunuch priests referred to themselves as Attis to signify their commitment to the Goddess.[5] There are representations of priests in female clothing, such as the eunuch priests are said to have worn, found throughout the Near East. Stone quotes Stylianos Alexiou, former Curator of the Antiquities of Crete, who believes that: The priests and musicians wearing long feminine robes fall into a special category. This practice has led to the surmise that perhaps owing to Syrian influence; there existed companies of eunuch priests in the Cretan palaces. During a later period, the eunuch priests of Cybele and Attis in Asia Minor formed a similar class.[6] According to this theory the males castrated themselves in service to the Goddess. However, some scholars disagree with this interpretation. Stone theorizes that as men began to gain power, possibly as society shifted from egalitarian or matrifocal customs and became more patriarchal, they replaced priestesses even in Goddess religions. The priests may have initially earned their place in the temple by identifying with the Goddess’ castrated son/lover and undergoing castration themselves. Their castration may also have been an attempt to imitate the female priestesses who held power in the temples.[7] G. R. Taylor, who wrote the abridged version of Briffault’s The Mothers, agrees with this interpretation. Taylor writes, “The first step in the limitation of the status of women was to take over from them the monopoly of the religious function.”[8] Graves points out that “All priestly robes, skirts, aprons, sottanas are indeed everywhere of an essentially feminine character.”[9] Another possibility, one supported by the modern Cybeline priestesses, is that some of these men were what we today identify as transsexual or transgender. These men removed their maleness through ritual castration in order to identify as a woman and wear women’s robes. For whatever reason the priests castrated themselves, they did eventually take much of the power from the female priestesses during the Classical Period. However, even as the introduction of the Indo-European sky gods usurped the place of the Goddesses, which were diminished and sometimes changed into evil monsters,[10] humankind could not eliminate the feminine from this new version of the cosmos. The Goddess was kept alive by her inclusion in the male-centered religious pantheons as mothers, wives, daughters, and consorts. Though her ancient function as Mother of All Things was temporarily eliminated during this patriarchal period, mystery cults devoted to the worship of Demeter, Isis, and Cybele did remain active during this time until the rise of Christianity and the closing of the shrines and temples to the Goddess by the fourth century CE.[11] (To be continued) (Meet Mago Contributor) Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D. [1] Stone, When God was a Woman, 146. [2] Leeming, The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, 82–83. [3] Ovid, “Book 4: April 4, The Megalesian Festival of Cybele”; Borgeaud, Mother of the Gods, 48–49; Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis, 115; Stone, When God Was a Woman, 149; Catullus, “The Adventures of Atys” 1894. [4] Stone, When God Was a Woman, 149. [5] Ibid., 149. [6] Ibid., 149. [7] Ibid., 149. [8] Ibid., 150. [9] Briffault, The Mothers, 276. [10] Lemming, The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, 133. [11] Ibid., 133
(Prose) The Resting Place by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright I am writing from land that loves me as I am. Inside, the log cabin’s walls weep, as do I. We have both been abandoned. Outside, diversity reins as royalty – this forest helps me breathe more deeply. Every leaf glows, waving translucent hands. A multitude of shades of green. Sweet moist air fills my lungs, the music of rushing water calms my fears. The brook meanders towards the sea through unfurling ferns and wild sprigs of lily of the valley that are springing up under a woodland carpet, a pine – needled floor. With each deep breath I pray to be re-united with the terrified body I left behind almost two years ago when I escaped into thin dry mountain air and fierce and deadly west winds to survive the snow. At dusk last night for a timeless moment I became the snowy crabapple while a few petals drifted towards the ground – an early summer benediction. When the baby bear lumbered up the path my heart split open. A few days earlier I listened to pitiful wailing from the white pine, the bear’s grief spilling over into my own. Eventually, the baby’s heartrending cries were answered by a casual mother who approached her youngster briefly. The yearling scrambled down the tree only to be left behind again as the mother strode across the grass on a quest of her own. I thought I was observing “family break up,” a normal black bear process, albeit a brutal one to witness. After a four day absence the mother appeared with another adult bear, perhaps a future mate. The yearling was gone as I expected. Tonight, the little bear I named Rosy Marie ambled up the path much to my bewilderment. She approached the seed can but seemed unable to open it, returning to the bird feeder to feast on sunflower seed that I had also scattered under the birdfeeder. I felt such relief seeing her. Perhaps the too little yearling would stay around to feed while mother and male companion were otherwise occupied mating? It was almost dark and suddenly there were two bears feeding on scattered seed. Although one was larger than the other, both were yearlings. Shortly thereafter an adult, obviously the youngsters’ mother, appeared and opened the can before striking out on her own. No other adult bear emerged. I was baffled. At this point I am just grateful to have a bear story unfolding, just as I am thankful for these glorious fruit trees into whose blossoms I can almost disappear. Trees and Bears – Wild Nature incarnates still. The last three months have been psychically brutal; I have been walking on air. Perhaps the earth is round so that we don’t have to meet the future, face to face, except through dreams? Mine forecast the story I am presently living. Two violent weeks of traveling across country, returning to ‘my’ beautiful land in crisis and in betrayal have left me reeling. Like Rosy Marie who I hope will stay to be nourished by supplemental feeding so that she can develop into a bear who can survive hibernation (if she alludes the hunter’s gun), I hope to find a place on this patch of earth to re-attach myself to this abandoned body before moving on from here. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.
(Photo Poem) A Prayer to Divine Mother Within by Amina Rodriguez

Divine Mother within; show me what I have been, What I am and what I shall become Divine Mother within, show me all the pain I carry, For all women in my lineage before me I release all of their pain and in the process all of my future selves will now know freedom. Divine Mother within; show me all who lived before me, Show me any pain left to be released Show me who we will be, show me what we shall become For within us I know lies the key to our freedom.
(Art Prose) Painting for the Earth by Jassy Watson

I have spoken about the social responsibility of the artist on numerous occasions. This blog approaches a similar topic but in direct relation to using art as a potent tool for change and as a platform for raising awareness of important environmental and ecological issues that all of humanity is currently faced with. All forms of art have the potential to be tools for healing and transformation. I believe that through the creative process the relationship with self and the environment can be transformed. Why? Because when creative work is approached from a place of passion and purpose and art is brought to life with intention, great shifts can occur, not only for the artist, but also for the viewer. I believe wholeheartedly that I can approach the canvas and paint intentionally to deepen my connection to my inner and outer landscapes, and in doing so inspire others to deepen and honour a connection to the earth creatively. There are many contemporary artists who are agents of environmental change and who are using their creative gifts and talents to build awareness and provoke thought through their work and process. Many artists, such as myself, are working with transformative approaches and processes towards a new vision that is ecological and participates with the living cycles of nature. Many topics are approached such as ocean health, climate change, water quality, recycling, water purification, natural disasters, de-forestation, endangered species and more. Artists today are finding all sorts of inventive ways to call attention to the problems facing our environment, as corporate greed and profit impose destruction on our planet. While each artist works very differently and explores diverse territories, they share awareness about the critical loss of natural resources and a desire to save the planet from human destruction. Take the words of Nigerian painter Jerry Buhari: “Today the talk of the world is about an endangered Earth. One often wonders how much of the talk is backed with genuine concern and the will to take positive steps. But it should not surprise the world that artists are in the forefront of the discussion on the environment.” Eco-feminist artist Ann T. Rosenthal and activist artist Steffi Domike have been collaborating on environmental installations for years. Their wall installation, Watermark: Wood, Coal, Oil, Gas (2011), consists of four panels that illustrate an evolutionary timeline of energy resources—wood, coal, oil and natural gas. Dominique Mazeau is a poet and artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has made an exquisite journal of poems and drawings of cleaning up the Rio Grande River over many years. She has made sculptures from the trash and she teaches school children about the river with her poems and her art. There are many more Eco-feminist and Environmentalist/Activist artists such as Charla Puryear and Helene Aylon using their art to raise awareness of ecological issues. These few examples alone demonstrate that art, in its myriad of forms, has the capacity to effect positive change on the earth and its environments. Artists are catalysts for change, and this “change” takes place when we feel deeply for a precious cause. I feel deeply for the state of the earth and feel that it is largely humanity’s spiritual disconnection from the earth and from the earth as sentient that has contributed to the current state of not only the health of the earth body, but also the health of our bodies. Coming up in October 2016 I will be presenting an exhibition ‘Voices for the Earth’ in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia. This exhibition will feature the works of select regional artists who are using their art to speak for the earth. It is held in conjunction with RONA-16-Earth Arts Festival as part of the The Rights of Nature Tribunal that is taking place the same month. Artists of all genres from around Australia are participating in creative activities to raise awareness of the urgency required to make the necessary changes that the health of the planet becomes an absolute priority. I know that more has to be done, and some might see ‘art’ as a hedonist, self-absorbed way to attempt to bring about change – but the power of image should NEVER be underestimated. I am Painting for the earth. This Earth is my sister I love her daily grace Her silent daring And how loved I am. How we admire this strength in each other All that we have lost All that we have found We are stunned by this beauty, And I do not forget What She is to me And what I am to Her. (from Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature – The Roaring Inside Her, p.219, caps added). See Meet Mago Contributor Jassy Watson.

(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 Mother Teresa 1) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Part I: Why are we talking about Mother Teresa? [The conversation began among Anne Wilkerson Allen, Helen Hwang, and Wennifer Lin in a personal message and editor’s group. We agreed that Mother Teresa’s Western (Albanian) identity is hardly taken into consideration in the public perception of her as a secular and religious leader. Then, we decided to bring the topic to the Mago Circle.] Anne Wilkerson Allen: [A] posted this today and I think it is discussion worthy. Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint… scienceblog.com The myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa is dispelled in a paper by Serge Larivée and Genevieve Chenard of University of Montreal’s Department of Psychoeducation and Carole Sénéchal of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Education… http://scienceblog.com/60730/mother-teresa-anything-but-a-saint/#IdkpoWrDtMAAVCAg.99 Anne Wilkerson Allen: It is not my desire to bash the Church – I think everyone here is fully aware of the evils of patriarchy and the way the Church has used women, abused and killed women…but Teresa is an icon in the West, in particular, of saintliness. Even non-Catholics love her. Why? And is what she did really worthy of role modeling? Anne Wilkerson Allen: This was also on the thread. Not a huge fan of Hitchens, and I think calling her work a “death cult” is extreme, but I am interested in your opinions please. Christopher Hitchens – Mother Teresa: Hell’s Angel [1994] In 1994, three years before her death, journalist Christopher Hitchens made this documentary asking if Mother Teresa’s reputation was deserved… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_qL6fiyDw Anne Wilkerson Allen: I would also like to talk about altruism and some of the areas we have touched on before…at what point is my “help” an imposition in a third world country? Is my desire to “help” spurred by years of programming or heart? I honestly don’t know anymore. Anne Wilkerson Allen: There is also a part of me that wonders if this deflection of blame and highlighting of Teresa’s faults now is yet another “Let the women take the fall” action. Anne Wilkerson Allen: NOT that I find her blameless – her advocacy against contraception and abortion is decidedly anti-female, but there is so much focus on the Pope and the priests now….I keep wondering when the abuses of the nuns is going to come to light. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think Ireland recently had something in the news about this… Ireland apologizes for Catholic laundry scandal Ireland’s premier has issued a state apology to the thousands of Irish women who spent years working without pay in prison-style laundries run by Catholic nuns. Former residents of the now-defunct Magdalene Laundries have campaigned for the past decade to get the government to apologize and pay compensation to an estimated 1,000 survivors of the workhouses. Two weeks ago the Irish government published an investigation into the state’s role in overseeing the laundries. It found that more than 10,000 women worked in 10 laundries from 1922 to 1996, when the last Dublin facility closed down… http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57570107/ireland-apologizes-for-catholic-laundry-scandal/ Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of my friends was one of these girls. [Z]: I have wanted to bring attention to this issue for a long time but did not have a chance or was biting my time. Now Anne is pointing out some of the crucial issues about her, Mother Teresa, I am so thankful for this opportunity for us to sort out and think collectively. Thank you Anne! [Z]: Yes, the Catholic Laundry Scandal was shared here too!!! Anne Wilkerson Allen: It’s hard. She is iconic for many women. I did not know the sordid details or the horrors – not that it excuses anything….but when I was young, I saw her as someone to emulate….and thus became immolated…. [Z]: I have been thinking all along the way that she should not be a role model for women. Can you believe that I did even as a once Catholic Sister?!!! I know that many religious women out there will agree with me too. [Z]: My critique is not much on her as a person. But the fact that she represents morality for especially women makes me mad. Oh, there seems a lot more about reasons why we should debunk the mystique of Mother Teresa. Anne Wilkerson Allen: One of the things Hirchens pointed out was that it made Westerners feel good that this wonderful white woman was helping the poor in Calcutta….though she rarely seemed to be in Calcutta. Another friend told me that he knew one of the sisters of charity and that she told him they were encouraged to flog themselves on a regular basis….sick sick sick Anne Wilkerson Allen: This is why I have a problem with the mentality that says evil exists to teach us something…..that suffering exists to highlight our joy….there is just something WRONG with that. Anne Wilkerson Allen: We are all dark and light and in-between. [Z]: I am not surprised. Yes, definitely. What a waste of time and intelligence if not already damaging many turning the navigation backward!!! [Helen Hwang calls out the individual names to join the discussion, and is responded by what follows.] [B]: In Minneapolis there is a charity founder, Mary Jo Copeland, who helps the homeless & hungry. She just received an award from the President. She seems selfless, like Mother Teresa did (at least in […]
(Special Post 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.

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.
(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: …
(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Sekhmet by Katlyn Each year between December 20-23 Sun reaches Her peak in the Southern Hemisphere: it is the Summer Solstice Moment. Poetry of the Season may be expressed in this way: This is the time when the light part of day is longest. You are invited to celebrate SUMMER SOLSTICE Light reaches Her fullness, and yet… She turns, and the seed of Darkness is born. This is the Season of blossom and thorn – for pouring forth the Gift of Being. The story of Old tells that on this day Beloved and Lover dissolve into the single Song of ecstasy – that moves the worlds. Self expands in the bliss of creativity. Sun ripens in us: we are the Bread of Life. We celebrate Her deep Communion and Reciprocity. Glenys Livingstone, 2005 The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express Her fullness of being, Her relational essence and Her Gateway quality at this time. And also for consideration, is the fact that most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Summer Solstice. As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable, that which can only be known in body, below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syTBjWpw3XU Shalako Mana Hopi 1900C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess), Corn Mother. Food is a miracle, food is sacred. She IS the corn, the corn IS Her. She gives Herself to feed all. The food/She is essential to survival, hospitality and ceremony … and all of this is transmuted in our beings. Sekhmet Contemporary image by Katlyn. Egyptian Sun Goddess. Katlyn says: Her story includes the compassionate nature of destruction. The fierce protection of the Mother is sometimes called to destroy in order to preserve well being. And Anne Key expresses: She represents “the awesome and awe-full power of the Sun. This power spans the destructive acts of creation and the creative acts of destruction.”- (p.135 Desert Priestess: a memoir).A chant in Her praise by Abigail Spinner McBride: Sheila-na-gig 900C.E. British Isles. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). From Elinor Gadon The Once and Future Goddess (p.338): “She is remembered in Ireland as the Old Woman who gave birth to all races of human…. In churches her function was to ward off evil”, or to attract the Pagan peoples to the church. From Adele Getty Goddess (p.66): “The first rite of passage of all human beings begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. In India, the vulva “known as the yoni, is also called cunti or kunda, the root word of cunning, cunt and kin … (the yoni) was worshipped as an object of great mystery … the place of birth and the place where the dead are laid to rest were often one and the same.” Getty says her message here in this image “is double-edged: the opening of her vulva and the smile on her face elicit both awe and terror; one might venture too far inside her and never return to the light of day …” as with all caves and gates of initiation. In the Christian mind the yoni clearly became the “gates of hell”. And as Helene Cixous said in her famous feminist article “The Laugh of the Medusa”: “Let the priests tremble, we’re going to show them our sexts!” (SIGNS Summer 1976) Kunapipi (Australia) “the Aboriginal mother of all living things, came from a land across the sea to establish her clan in Northern Australia, where She is found in both fresh and salt water. In the Northern Territory She is known as Warramurrungundgi. She may also manifest Herself as Julunggul, the rainbow snake goddess of initiations who threatens to swallow children and then regurgitate them, thereby reinforcing the cycle of death and rebirth. In Arnhem Land She is Ngaljod …” (Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller – thanks to Lydia Ruyle). More information: re Kunapipi. NOTE the similarity to Gobekli Tepe Sheela Turkey 9600B.C.E., thanks Lydia Ruyle.Lydia Ruyle’s Gobekli Tepe banner. Inanna/Ishtar Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E. (Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature) She holds Her breasts displaying her potency. She is a superpower who feeds the world, nourishes it with Her being. We all desire to feel this potency of being: Swimme and Berry express: “the infinite striving of the sentient being”. Adele Getty calls this offering of breasts to the world “a timeless sacred gesture”. Mary Mother of God 1400 C.E. Europe (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A recognition, even in the patriarchal context that She contains it all. Wisdom and Compassion Tibetan Goddess and God in Union. This is Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle). Sri Yantra Hindu meditation diagram of union of Goddess and God. 1500 C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, p.75). “Goddess and God” is the common metaphor, but it could be “Beloved and Lover”, and so it is in the mind of many mystics and poets: that is, the sacred union is of small self with larger Self. Prajnaparamita the Mother of all Buddhas. (The Great Mother Erich Neumann, pl 183). She is the Wisdom to whom Buddha aspired, Whom he attained. Medusa Contemporary, artist unknown. She is a Sun Goddess: this is one reason why it was difficult to look Her in the eye. See Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! REFERENCES: Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1990. Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess.Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990. Katlyn, artist https://www.mermadearts.com/b/altar-images-art-by-katlyn Key, Anne. Desert Priestess: a memoir. NV: Goddess Ink, 2011. Mann A.T. and …
(Music) Songs for Samhain by Alison Newvine

The season of Samhain is upon us. This playlist is an offering for this descent into the sacred darkness, and a companion for the journey into the underworld. Invocation of Witches features music by Loreena McKennitt, Marya Stark, Inkubus Sukubus, Wendy Rule, my band Spiral Muse, and many others. It is a soundtrack for ceremony and each song expresses a different face of the spirit of the witch. May this Samhain season guide you gently into the dissolution of what no longer serves, the honoring of what is complete and the cultivation of the inner space that will gestate what is yet to come. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CFNoH9exhloz3w95P3Rlb?si=270cf01fabb8421c https://www.magoism.net/2023/10/meet-mago-contributor-alison-newvine/
(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: …
Happy New Year, Year 2/5916 Magoma Era! by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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

(Book Excerpt 3) The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia

[Author’s Note: The following is from Chapter 8, The Consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW.] The Budoji stories the primordial drama of Mago’s beginning. It furnishes a yet-to-be-heard story of the beginning of the Great Goddess, the taboo story in patriarchy. It is the story of the Creatrix that patriarchy has attempted to erase. It can be temporarily forgotten but can never die because it is the story that is at the root of patriarchy. Ultimately, it is The Story that is happening HERE and NOW. The merit of the Magoist Cosmogony lies in the fact that it, through storying, restores the view of the whole, the macrocosmic view of the All. The holistic view necessarily involves the Great Goddess or the First Mother in that S/HE is the Creatrix. Time is not a linear concept, flowing from one end to the other. Time is the unified Present, happening NOW. It may be said that time is circular or cyclic, as all beings are constantly in motion to enhance the process of self-creation, which causes the whole to change ceaselessly. The Present hosts an infinite number of stories that take place in the undividable One Space HERE. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still happening and we are invited to re-cognize HER STORY in the HERE and NOW. The beginning is a process, not a single isolated event that took place in the remote past.[i] All things exist in the process of becoming HERE and NOW as part of WE. Put differently, the beginning of the Great Goddess is the LIVE SCENE/DRAMA/STORY. We are part of HER STORY. Mago’s beginning is the heart that pumps fresh blood to the body of the terrestrial becoming. The beginning of the Great Goddess is still taking place HERE/NOW. The terrestrial beginning is attributed to the Great Goddess who is self-born through the sonic movement of cosmic light. The beginning story of the Great Goddess is no ordinary one. It is of power and truth, that is, metamorphic. It provides the original text to the meaning of “salvation.” HER Beginning that is happening HERE/NOW holds all from falling into cacophony. For one thing, it delivers us from the patriarchal misconception of ultimate reality that does away with the Creatrix. The holistic view of the Creatrix is capable of saving us from misconceptions and misconduct. Ultimately, it guides us to live our life in harmony with the whole, HERE/NOW. The Magoist Cosmogony engenders the consciousness that WE ARE HERE/NOW. The universe is existent without beginning or end. In one ever-existing reality, things ceaselessly appear and disappear in relation to one another on all levels. All things are in the constant movement of autogenesis striving to arrive at a new position of balance. S/HE IS HERE/NOW telling us the STORY of WE. That is the source of our metamorphosis. Notes: [i] Process thought founded by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John B. Cobb shares a common premise on that regard, although it does not associate ultimate reality with the Creatrix. (See Book Excerpt 1 and Book Excerpt 2. Available in Mago Bookstore.) Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
(Essay) Reviving and Celebrating the Nine-Goddess Symbolism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

In my ongoing research on the Great Goddess known as Mago, I have discovered the number nine gynocentric symbolism as the most prominent current that constitutes Magoism and named it the Nona (Number Nine) Mago religion/civilization/mythology. Like other civilizational inventions such as the calendar and musicology, numerology is an intellectual system of knowing the Way of Nature/Universe/Creatrix. And the number nine is no arbitrary number but is the numeric code of the Creatrix or the Primordial Mother. It codifies the cosmogonic beginning of the Primordial Mother, that is, the Primordial Mago Household. It refers to the primordial principle of the solar/terrestrial beginning.
(Essay 4) Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s note: This paper is published in the journal, the Gukhak yeonguronchong 국학연구론총 (Issue 14, December 2014). Here it will appear in five sequels including the response by Dr. Glenys Livingstone. Numbers of end notes differ from the original paper.] (Part 4) Parallels between Magos and Matrikas The numeric fluidity of a particular pantheon of Goddesses from three to nine is no isolated phenomenon in Western Muse tradition only. Laura K. Chamberlain’s research on the Hindu Goddess Matrika, one of the major manifestations of Durga, bears a close resemblance to the counterpart in Magoism.[1] In the story of Mago Halmi, Mago had eight daughters and dispatched seven daughters to seven regions/islands who respectively became the shaman progenitor of the region. She lived with the youngest daughter, whose region was the center of Magoism.[2] The Mago pantheon is also addressed as Gurang (Nine Goddesses) in the case of Gaeyang Halmi (Sea Goddess/Grandmother).[3] Among others, a parallel between Chamberlian’s delineation of the worship of the Asta Matrikas (Eight Mother Goddesses) and folk rituals concerning Mago is striking with regards to the aniconic rituals offered at “crossroads, rivers, the sea, and mountains” to Matrika. In the case of Magoism, the veneration of rocks and mountains that may be seen as “animistic beliefs” is widespread throughout the Korean peninsula. The linguistic resemblance is also present between Matrikas and Magos. According to Chamberlian, Mai (mother) and Ajima (grandmother) are the “two of the oldest names for the goddess in Nepal.” [4] They appear analogous with the Korean words Eomma 엄마 (Omai 오마이, Omasi 오마시, and etc. for mother) and Ajime (아지매, a female relative or aunt), a dialect from which the modern term Ajuma (아줌마, neighbor woman often pejoratively referring to a housewife) is derived. Chamberlain also notes the varied number of Matrikas and writes: The inconsistency in the number of Matrikas found in the valley [Indus] today (seven, eight, or nine) possibly reflects the localization of goddesses [ ] Although the Matrikas are mostly grouped as seven goddesses over the rest of the Indian Subcontinent, an eighth Matrikas has sometimes been added in Nepal to represent the eight cardinal direction. In Bhaktapur, a city in the Kathmandu Valley, a ninth Matrika is added to the set to represent the center.[5] On the one hand, it is true that the indeterminate number of Matrikas, as Chamberlain points out, explains localization of Hindu Goddesses in the Indian Subcontinent. On the other hand, it is equally possible to posit that there was a Goddess myth once shared by the members of mother community in a remote past. A daughter community, which resided in the mother community, came to migrate farther away from the mother community. She herself became a mother and was known as the mother community by her own daughter communities. From the perspective of the original mother community, the memory of the original myth by granddaughter communities would be fragmented and flavored with their own cultural, historical, and linguistic backgrounds. After many generations passed, granddaughter communities would lose the memory of the original myth and that they would not recognize kindred communities all over the world. However, the first mother was wise. She chose one daughter to carry on the legacy of the original myth. This is exactly what Mago stories tells us. When all is said and done, the numeric similarity of three, seven, eight, or nine and the inconsistency of the number are only some of the fragmented testimonies by granddaughter communities. Under such circumstances, Mago’s lineage, especially the first three generations, works as a blueprint of the family tree lost among granddaughter communities. (Read Part 3, to be continued in Part 5, Dr. Glenys Livingstone’s response to this essay.) References: Bak, Geum (Bak, Jesang). Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City). Eun-Soo Kim, translated and annotated. Seoul: Hanmunhwa, 2002, 1986c. Baring, Anne and Julies Cashford, eds. The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. London: Viking Arkana, 1991. Chamberlain, Laura K. “Durga and the Dashain Harvest Festival: From the Indus to Katmandu Valleys” in ReVision (vol. 25, no. 1, Summer 2002), 24-32. Chung, Yenkyu. Ancient Korea and the Dawn of History on the Pamirs. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2007. Daly, Mary. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1984. Davis, Elizabeth Gould. The First Sex. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971, 33. Hwang, Helen Hye-Sook. “Issues in Studying Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia: Primary Sources, Gynocentric History, and Nationalism,” in The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia, eds. Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis Herman (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008), 10-33. ____________________. “The Female Principle in the Magoist Cosmogony.” Ochre Journal of Women’s Spirituality, (Spring 2007) [http://www.ochrejournal.org/2007/scholarship/hwang1.html]. ____________________. Seeking Mago, the Great Goddess: A Mytho-Historic-Thealogical Reconstruction of Magoism, an Archaically Originated Gynocentric Tradition of East Asia. Ph.D. Dissertation: Claremont Graduate University, 2005. Kim, Busik. The Samguk Sagi (History of Three Kingdoms). Translated and annotated by ByongSu Lee. Seoul: Elyu Munhwasa, 1977. Lee, Ki-baik. A New History of Korea. Translated by E. Wagner and E. Shultz. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. Smith, Barbara. “Greece” in The Feminist Companion to Mythology. Carolyne Larrington ed. Hammersmith, London: Pandora Press, 1992. Yoon, Thomas. BuDoZhi: The Genesis of MaGo (Mother Earth) and The History of the City of Heavenly Ordinance. Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publications, 2003. Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983. [1] Levy 1990; Slusser 1982, cited in Laura K. Chamberlain, “Durga and the Dashain Harvest Festival: From the Indus to Katmandu Valleys” in ReVision (vol. 25, no. 1, Summer 2002), 24-32. [2] See Tales [9-1] and [5-3] in the Appendix, Hwang (2005), 391-8. [3] I was able to join a field research trip organized by the research team of Kunguk University’s Korean Literature Graduate Studies to collect the folk stories of Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess, in Buan-gun (Buan County), North Jeolla Province, South Korea July 10-12, 2012. Only after the trip, I realized Gaeyang Halmi with her eight daughters was …