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Support RTM (Return to Mago) E-Magazine in your own way

Dear Contributors and Readers, Thanks to you who read this post, Return to Mago (RTM) E-Magazine has grown to a solid wheel that carries new and prominent researches, writings, artworks, Read More …

(Novel 1) Demimonde, The Other Story by Marla J. Selvidge

Part 1 An Ancient Cleansing It was in the thirty-third year of the gracious Emperor Caius Octavius Caepias Augustus that a woman and a man-child were brought into the world by two Roman subjects of high distinction. The father was brother to the Emperor, senator and world-renowned general. The mother was said to be a mistress-queen belonging to the house of Ptolemy of Egypt. Their love for each other ended the night Augustus burned them alive before the Coliseum doors for their treasonous crime of passion. It was reported that the male child was sacrificed to the Gods as a peace offering between Egypt and Rome. The woman-child was taken into the house of the Emperor and raised as his own. He named her Magdala, which meant “adulterer.” Prologue: Ephesus C.E. 75 “Ephesus was a city full of strangers these days. In the old days no one was a stranger.” Long ago the first worshippers of the thousand-breasted Artemis, patron fertility Goddess of the city, called themselves Amazons. These women took no husbands. Yet once every year, usually in the spring, like a herd of thirsty cattle, they made their way down from the mountains to the streets of Ephesus. For that night and that night only, they would seduce all the healthy, young men they could find. For some strange reason, men always gave into their advances. Some young men claimed they were forced to have sex with several of the women at the same time. Whatever the true story, each year the Amazons conquered Ephesus. They took nothing back with them except the hopes of bearing a child. Before the end of the year, abandoned male babies, often dead or dying, were found on doorsteps throughout the city. Amazons kept only the female babies. In spite of the sexual raids in the spring, Ephesus had flourished under a strong Roman infrastructure that fostered peace. There was time to enjoy life. Since the time of the ancients, cultic prostitution had been a central part of its splendid culture. Daily, both priests and priestesses stood or sat on the steps of the temple waiting anxiously to bring pleasure to the next lonely devotee Times were changing. The massive stone structures of the city, like its never-ending spring fed water below its streets, had always been invincible. Now amidst the turmoil of an influx of refugees from the wars in the East, less support from the wealthy aristocrats within the Roman guard, and a weakened priesthood, Ephesus was crumbling. She was dying from within. Some said that Zeus had put a curse on the city. He was angry with the Amazons because they had kept all the female babies for themselves. The Amazons had stolen the heart of Ephesus. The discarded souls and deaths of the male children were bringing vengeance on the city. With tears streaming down her golden-covered breasts, Artemis no longer hailed every passing ship inviting them to visit her temple and city. Sadly, she sat near the edge of the water and watched her playground for the rich become a dangerous infested swamp. Chapter One C.E. 81 “In Ephesus the nights are dark and women who are alone do not stay that way for very long.” Magdala’s heart burned for her lover, John. She had spent the last year of her life and most of her great fortune scouring the coasts of the Mediterranean in search of both John and her beloved, Phoebe. Imprisoned during the devastating siege of Judea by the Romans under Titus, Magdala had lost contact with her loved ones who had been living in the north, in Galilee. While the devastation was not as great in the north, people had been burned or uprooted from their homes and taken as slaves by the Romans. Some escaped into the hills. After thousands of faces and almost as many letters, Magdala’s persistence was rewarded. Only a few days ago, a private courier had delivered a hand-scratched message from John.
(Call for Contributions) We'd love to hear from you!

Dear friends, From your many comments and the ongoing statistics, it is clear how much the Return to Mago blog means to you. To keep it flowing regularly, we love receiving submissions of relevant poetry, art, essays, films, music, or any other genre that we haven’t thought of. It can be something new, or it can be something you’ve already published, stand-alone, part of a series, an extract. Actually, you don’t need to have published previously. Why not start exploring your Mago-given talents by submitting a contribution? Check through your drawers for that poem or drawing you thought wasn’t good enough or you set aside for lack of further inspiration; clean up your computer to find that lurking file with the brilliant seed idea. Don’t be shy, we’ve posted most submissions we’ve received. We’d love to hear from you! Here’s a guide to what we’re broadly looking for: http://magoism.net/people/call-for-contribution/
(Meet Mago Contributor) Nicola Lilly

Nicola is a Mother, writer and artist based in Kildare, Ireland. Feeling unfulfilled in an accountancy career, Nicola began to explore alternative therapies which have been the catalyst for rekindling her creative spark. Nicola has spent the last 10years being a fulltime Mother, alongside getting to know herself as a creative woman once again. A contributor in the “Weaving Our Way Beyond Patriarchy” compendium by Lucy H. Pearce/ Womancraft Publishing, Nicola has written 2 manuscripts of her own which have yet to be published. Nicola’s vision is for a world that reveres and supports all Mothers to mother as Nature intended. Committed to her personal healing, Nicola has seen her connection to the Great Goddess strengthen and alongside that, her creativity. Through her Mandala practice Nicola has grown in awareness and vision for what she hopes to create alongside other trailblazing women committed to making a difference on this planet. My instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/nicolalillyartist?igsh=MXZ3Y2NqMmUxY2JsZw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
(Prose Part 1) Spiral Movements by Nané Jordan

I love this question: “How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?” These are continuing threads woven throughout my daily life. I weave these threads through midwifery, the arts, scholarship, and writing, and especially as the mother of two daughters. In spiral-movements, I yearn for integration of all aspects of my life, seeking connection of inner and outer worlds, body, mind, and spirit. I say “spiral movements” because I love spirals. They are such a dynamic, ancient Goddess symbol of the life force and awakening growth. Spirals express fluid transformations and regeneration of all through large and small cycles of life on Earth. Goddess spirituality is my way to live from the knowledge that there is no division between the sacred and the profane. In these still patriarchal times, with ignorance of our human depths and capabilities, and ongoing devastations of war, violence, and loss of ecology, “How Goddess” is my spiral journey of making-sacred. I follow my divine yearning through activism, sisterhood, healing, scholarship, and mothering. Midwifery spiral: Witnessing a home birth as a teenager, I quickly leaped into the re-birth of midwifery in 1980s North America. Midwifery was the genesis of my awakening to the hidden power of women, Goddesses, and healing. Attending mothers giving birth, midwives held wise and loving spaces for their vital labours. Hidden powers are definitely the scope of goddesses, and midwifery! Goddesses, like birth-power, have been hidden or ignored over millennia through patriarchal culture and male god-concepts. Women giving birth are an expression of the divine life force, which is Goddess herself. It took me many years to articulate this, to be able to link women’s loss of birth-power with the loss of female spiritual authority, goddess- and Earth-consciousness (see: https://magoism.net/2014/03/17/essay-1-nane-jordan/) . Through natural birth, women follow their internal sense of birth-giving rather than having this dictated to them by external technologies and authoritative caregivers. Women need a safe and loving space in which to do this. I experienced over and over how the force of birth released women to themselves—raw and uncensored. Giving birth, women surrender to an innate and generative power, experiencing combinations of overwhelming pain, sensation, and ecstasy. Walking the line between life and death, this is what makes birth such a fearful, yet potent life experience. The arrival of a baby into his/her mother’s arms is birth’s ecstatic gift of life, and should not be interfered with—this moment belongs to the mother, baby, and father/other-mother themselves. Healing is even possible for aspects of women’s lives beyond birth. Healing was something I experienced in holding and caring for women and babies, which was like holding and caring for myself. Supporting the release of the mothers’ love hormone, oxytocin, during birth-giving, supports this experience in one’s own life and society at large. Honouring and protecting the very real, physiologic mother-baby bond, during and after birth, this is Goddess activism—the circulation of LOVE itself! Ancient mother spiral: I was sucked in like a magnet when I first saw archaeologist-folklorist Marija Gimbutas’ book, Language of the Goddess. Her uncovering and interpretation of ancient female icons, symbolic inscriptions, and sacred places spoke to me at a visceral level. Here was a world I knew in my cellular memory, and Gimbutas was reclaiming its lost stories. All the pain, fear, and degradation of being female, of being ignored or not central, was peeled away to expose the female source at the roots of human life on Earth, in the language of the Goddess. In this way, Gimbutas vindicated what I had experienced in attending births. Women were central to life and its meaning. We could re-claim more joyful ways of life, and a culture of celebration that loves and lives in reciprocity with Mother Earth. Women’s circles spiral: I thus discovered “How Goddess” and the sacred feminine was and is out there in women themselves. I have attended and led various forms of women’s spirituality and Goddess circles from the 1990s onwards. We called in the four directions, created blessings, sang songs, and shared about our lives through storytelling. We honoured the phases and journeys of women’s lives. We blessed houses and pregnant mothers. We sang, drummed, cried, laughed, danced, and heard each other to speech. My friends and I would basically make things up, as well as studying from books and teachers in the field. I took affordable workshops with those wonderful, educational hallmarks of the goddess movement—beloved teacher-leaders travelling around the country in the 1980s and 1990s. In this way, I learned from Vicki Noble and Starhawk when they came through town. These women were travelling priestesses, bringing the Goddess news to all corners of North America. Attending and creating women’s circles was a truly centring aspect of “how” I brought Goddess feminism and spirituality into my life and that of others. I became part of a planning team for a large, yearly multi-faith gathering called the “Women’s Spirituality Celebration” in Vancouver, Canada. I used to think I needed to be somewhere else to be “really” doing this work, as if only famous teachers were bona fide. In hindsight, I was in the midst of making it happen with others. Goddess spirituality has been such a hidden and emergent tradition. We’ve had to recover and uncover so much in our knowledge and practices. It can be hard to know when we are on or off the path. In fact, we are making and walking this path, drawing from resources and research to create what we need, learning what does and doesn’t work. I love this balance of learning and knowing, while unfolding my mystical sense. Author’s note: This essay series was written in response to the question, “How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?” I love and appreciate this question, and the chance to articulate and share some of my story. I hope it may be of benefit to others. I envision “How Goddess” in my life as a weaving of spiral movements. Spirals are dynamic, ancient Goddess symbols of the life force and …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Nuit Moore

Nuit Moore is a priestess & wise woman witch, ceremonial creatrix & ritual artist, and eco-feminist activist. She has offered classes and ceremony on women’s mysteries, Goddess rites, the trance arts, women’s healing arts, pharmakeia, ceremonial movement and sound, liminal magick and ritual theater, etc for over 25 years, and travels frequently bringing temple and ceremony to festivals and communities. Nuit has been a visionary red thread weaver of the Blood Mysteries and an activist-educator in the eco-menstruation movement since 1991. Much of her path is rooted in women’s rites/rights, which is also embodied in her work as an herbalist of the Wise Woman tradition focusing on herbals for women, as well as her work as an artist of various mediums. http://www.shaktistudios.etsy.com http://www.scarletshakti.com
(Poem) The GODDESS in Transit by Abigail Ardelle Zammit

Photo by Abigail Ardelle Zammit [Author’s Note This poem is from the sequence You May Touch If You Like, published in Portrait of a Woman with Sea Urchin (SPM: London, 2015), which was the second prize winner of the Sentinel Poetry Book Competition. The Maltese Venus is a fertility Goddess variously known as ‘The Sleeping Lady’ and ‘The Fat Lady’, statues and figurines of which have been found in many Maltese Neolithic temples, amongst which, the Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, a sanctuary and necropolis located in Paola, the earliest remains of which date back to 4000BC. You may read the whole Goddess sequence, as well as other poems set in Malta during WWII by purchasing the collection online: https://abigailardellezammit.net/poetry-books/] https://www.magoism.net/2023/05/meet-mago-contributor-abigail-ardelle-zammit/
(Video) Female Futures by Lila Moore

The presentation is based on excerpts from the Cybernetic Institute’s Letter of Letters Manifesto dedicated to the study of technoetic arts, consciousness and the spiritual in art.
(Prose) January 6, A New Year Begins by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright This morning at dawn I quartered the ripe pomegranate that had been sitting in the center of my wreath since early in December, remembering the night my dad brought one home when I was a small child. I swallowed my first seeds feeling a child’s sense of awe and wonder that any fruit could taste so bitter and so sweet. Crimson bedded in pearl. I have a vivid memory of sensing the importance of the act although I couldn’t have been five. I say this because my little brother wasn’t with us. He was almost four years younger than me. Once mobile, Davey, became the love of my life; we were inseparable. How could I know then that I had entered the myth, and like Persephone would make periodic descents into the underworld throughout my life? Once I understood, I resisted identification with this mythical figure. This resistance lasted throughout my forties and fifties, but eventually I became reconciled to the Fate that was mine to own. As soon as pomegranates began to appear in stores, I bought one each autumn (for many years reluctantly), understanding that I was repeating a mythical contract and choosing my story at the same time. I still experience a sense of inevitability. Now in my late seventies I pick out my pomegranate with care holding the smooth rounded fruit lovingly before buying it, knowing that soon I will settle it into the center of my homemade balsam wreath. I always buy more than one. On January 6th I burn my balsam branches in the fire. Then I cut the fruit out of its nest in the center of my wreath to leave an offering for the animals… this year the first recipients were wild turkeys. Like blood, I thought this morning as I cut open the pomegranate thinking about the child who once made a contract with the Beyond through my dad. As the crimson juice flowed, I ate one seed from each section before offering the quarters to the turkeys outside my window. Seconds after swallowing the first seed pulsing energy streamed through my body; something important had just happened. Moments later the reasons for eating four seeds surfaced from deep within – a seed for each of the Four Sacred Directions, Four Sacred Seasons. Accepting the bitter and the sweet. I am always learning. It’s January 6th, Epiphany in the Christian calendar, and the day my dreams celebrate ‘the first of year’. Today’s dream informs me that I am releasing old stones… am I letting go of whatever left might be ‘cast in stone’? Possibly. Dreams are so complex that only more living will reveal the dream’s intent. Yesterday I spent the day with my elf scientist friend, a man who is capable of bridging the world of science and mysticism with ease, a man who has been adopted into the Oglala Sioux, a Medicine man who wears only egg yellow Hawaiian shirts because when Katrina devastated the lives of so many people, he hoped to bring color into a world made of mud… mud that has only become more oppressive ever since, spreading over entire continents. Compassionate witnessing is as natural to Al as breathing, and in his presence, I am both seen and heard for exactly who I am. A powerful healer in his own right, I am healed by simply being around him. And so grateful to have this man as a friend. Without the usual male agenda. Al loves pomegranates too! Last night after our visit I slept deeply and well. An unusual gift, for this chaotic, most frightening year has also been the most exhausting I can remember. I am thankful that it has finally come to a natural end. A new cycle begins on a slate gray day when the snow etches bare deciduous tree branches in eggshell, evergreens in powdered sugar, a day when wind sleeps, and the polypores on dying birch trees act as shelves piling up their bounty. Although I don’t consider myself a Christian, I am aware that my Indigenous ritual life intersects with my old religion and ‘her story’ in peculiar ways, and I am finally accepting that the blending of the two is a positive marriage. It has taken a lifetime. I have begun a new year and have grounded my intention. I have eaten the four seeds. I am ready to engage with the future with an open but wary heart. https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/
(Poem) In the Spirals of Dialectics by Maya Daniel

Here, in summer, the mountains Waterfalls, rivers and creeks— The waters are silent and tranquil The peasants are here. We are here. Here in this mountains Struggling in the spirals of dialectics; Knowing that monsoon rains Turn waterfall, rivers and creeks Like dragons cleansing all debris Headlong to melt with the open sea People in the mountains are patriots They are responsible of history Of their own making In the spirals of dialectics; And when an enemy comes our way Offering a hand of peace as an ally, On the bases of our people’s interests We can restrain our fire and make peace with him For we have a bigger common enemy He gives, and we too give for common benefit, But, when he unsheathes half his sword against us We, too, unsheathe half of our sword– this is In the process of unity and struggle And this will go on as long as the bases of unity exist In the spirals of dialectics. (Meet Mago Contributor) Maya Daniel.

(Special Post) To Contributors: Strengthening Our Roots by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Dear Contributors, Do you know that Return to Mago (RTM) E*Magazine is entering its fifth year this fall? And, thanks to our collective effort, we are still growing! As of today, our contributors have grown to more than 130 in number and our readership is from about 140 countries around the world. We have some hundred email followers as well as Wordpress blog followers. We draw 3000-4000 clicks per month on average; that is no small accomplishment for a Goddess blog that is named after a yet-to-be heard word, Mago (the Great Goddess), and that began from scratch.
(Special Post) Why I choose to be an RTM contributor by Glenys Livingstone

The contribution of my writing to Return to Mago E-Magazine has evolved since it began four years ago, into a deeply mutually enhancing relationship. The time and effort taken to write carefully and in alignment with my heartfelt passions and insights, and then to be able to publish to a receptive audience, has always been rewarding – for me personally and apparently for many who received it.
(Special Post 2) Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, or Spirituality? A Collective Writing

[Editor’s Note: This was first proposed in The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, on March 6, 2014. We have our voices together below and publish them in sequels. It is an ongoing project and we encourage our reader to join us! Submit yours today to Helen Hwang (magoism@gmail.com). Or visit and contact someone in Return to Mago’s Partner Organizations.] Harriet Ann Ellenberger I got involved with women’s liberation in the early 1970s, so involved that it became my life for many years. During those beginnings of what is now called “the second wave of feminism,” everything was new to us and everything was mushed together — the political, the economic, the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual. I liked that a lot; it felt as if all the parts of myself were coming together. During that time, I learned something crucial the imagery and concepts of patriarchal religion justify and are embedded in the material structures of oppression. I don’t know which came first, institutionalized oppression (of everyone; I’m not speaking here only of women) or the religious expression of that oppression. All I’m certain of is that patriarchal religion permeates, for example, the Oxford English Dictionary, which I use all the time, in conjunction with Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, conjured by Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi.

(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: …
(Essay) Ceremony as “Prayer” or Sacred Awareness By Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ The Wheel of the Year in a PaGaian cosmology essentially celebrates Cosmogenesis – the unfolding of the Cosmos, in which Earth’s extant Creativity participates directly, as does each unique being. The Creativity of Cosmogenesis is expressed through Earth-Sun relationship as it may manifest and be experienced within any region of our Planet. In PaGaian tradition this is expressed with Triple Goddess Poetry, which is 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 it does in the Seasons, happens because of Earth’s tilt in relationship with Sun: and that is because this tilt 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, 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[i]. 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 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[ii], and more recently a site of ongoing ritual activity as old as seventy thousand years has been found[iii]. 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. https://pagaian.org/pagaian-wheel-of-the-year/ 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 our 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[iv]. 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. At the moment the dance of dark and light remains predictable, but much else is in a process of transformation. As we observe and sense our Place, our Habitat, as our ancestors also did, we can, and may yet still make Poetry of the dance of dark and light, of this quality of relationship with Sun, and how it may be manifesting in a particular region and its significance for the inhabitants: we may still find Poetic expression with which to celebrate the sacred journey that we make everyday around Mother Sun, our Source of life and energy. It has been characteristic of humans for at least several tens of thousands of years, to create ceremony and symbol by which we could relate with the creative dynamics of our place, and perhaps it was initially a method of coming to terms with these dynamics – with the apparently uniquely human awareness of coming into being and passing away[v]. Our need for sacred ceremony of relationship with our place, can only be more dire in these times, as we are witness to, and aware of, …
Summer Solstice Poiesis by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Seasonal Wheel of Stones Both Summer and Winter Solstices may be understood as particular celebrations of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Creative Triplicity of the Cosmos (often named as the Triple Goddess). The Solstices are Gateways between the dark and the light parts of the annual cycle of our orbit around Sun; they are both sacred interchanges, celebrating deep relationship, communion, with the peaking of fullness of either dark or light, and the turning into the other. The story is that the Young One/Virgin aspect of Spring has matured and now at Summer Solstice her face changes into the Mother of Summer. Summer Solstice may be understood as a birthing place, as Winter Solstice may also be, but at this time the transiton is from light back into dark, returning to larger self, from whence we come: it is the full opening, the “Great Om”, the Omega. I represent the Summer Solstice on my altar wheel of stones with the Omega-yonic shape of the horseshoe. I take this inspiration from Barbara Walker’s description of the horseshoe in her Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets, as “Goddess’s symbol of ‘Great Gate’[i]”; and her later connection of it with the Sheil-na-gig yoni display[ii]. Sri Yantra. Ref: A.T. Mann & Jane Lyle, p.75 Summer Solstice is traditonally understood as a celebration of Union between Lover and Beloved, and the deep meaning of that is essentially a Re-Union: of sensed manifest form (the Lover) with All-That-Is (the Beloved). This may be understood as a fullness of expression of this manifest form, the small selves that we are, being all that we may be, and giving of this fullness of being in every moment: that would be a blissful thing, like a Summerland as it was understood to be. The boundaries of the self are broken, they merge: all is given away – all is poured forth, the deep rich dark stream of life flows out. It is a Radiance, the shining forth of the self which is at the same time a give-away, a consuming of the self.In traditional PaGaian Summer ceremony each participant is affirmed as “Gift”[iii]; and that is understood to mean that we are both given and received – all at the same time. The breath is given and life is received. We receive the Gift with each breath in, and we are the Gift with each breath out. As we fulfill our purpose, as we give ourselves over, we dissolve, as the Sun is actually doing in every moment. The “moment of grace”[iv]that is Summer Solstice, marks the stillpoint in the height of Summer, when light reaches its peak, and Earth’s tilt causes the Sun to begin its “decline”: that is, its movement back to the South in the Northern Hemisphere (in June), and back to the North in the Southern Hemisphere (in December). Whereas at Winter Solstice when out of the darkness it is light that is “born”, as it may be expressed: at the peak of Summer, in the warmth of expansion, it is the dark that is “born”. Insofar as Winter Solstice is about birth, then Summer Solstice is about death, the passing into the harvest. It is a celebration of profound mystical significance, which may be confronting in a culture where the dark is not valued for its creative telios; and it is noteworthy that Summer Solstice has not gained any popularity of the kind that Winter Solstice has globally (as ‘Christmas’). The re-union with All-That-Is is not generally considered a jolly affair, though when understood it may actually be blissful. Full Flowers to the Flames Summer is a time when many grains ripen, deciduous trees peak in their greenery, lots of bugs and creatures are bursting with business and creativity: yet in that ripening, is the turning, the fulfilment of creativity, and it is given away. Like the Sun and the wheat and the fruit, we find the purpose of our Creativity in the releasing of it; just as our breath must be released for its purpose of life. The symbolism used to express this in ceremony has been the giving of a full rose/flower to the flames. Summer is like the rose, as it says in this tradition[v]– blossom and thorn … beautiful, fragrant, full – yet it comes with thorns that open the skin. All is given over. All is given over: the feast is for enjoying With the daily giving of ourselves in our everyday acts, we each feed the world with our lives: we do participate in creating the cosmos, as many indigenous traditions still recognise. Just as our everyday lives are built on the fabric of the work/creativity of all who went before us, so the future, as well as the present, is built on ours, no matter how humble we may think our contribution is. We may celebrate the blossoming of our creativity then, which is Creativity, and the bliss of that blossoming, at a time when Earth and Sun are pouring forth their abundance, giving it away. In this Earth-based cosmology, what is given is the self fully realized and celebrated, not a self that is abnegated – just as the fruit gives its full self: as Starhawk says, “Oneness is attained not through losing the self, but through realizing it fully”[vi]. Everyday tasks can be joyful, if valued, and graciously received: I think of Eastern European women singing as they work in the fields – it is a common practice still for many. We are the Bread of Life Summer Solstice celebrates Mother Sun coming to fullness in Her creative engagement with Earth, and we are the Sun. Solstice Moment is a celebration of communion, the feast of life – which is for the enjoying, not for the holding onto. We do desire to be received, to be consumed – it is our joy and our grief. Brian Swimme says: “Every moment of our lives disappears into the ongoing story of the Universe. Our creativity is energising the whole[vii]”. As it may be ceremoniously affirmed: we are (each is) …

(Essay 3) The Magoist Calendar: Mago Time inscribed in Sonic Numerology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is my latest research that has led me to restore the 13-month, 28-day Mago Calendar, which will be included at the end of its sequels. See Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), published in 2017.] THE SECOND CALENDAR Then, the Earth had increasingly so much work in all regions. Biodiversity went overboard. The terrestrial song became uncontrollable. The initial calendar became defunct. Lifeforms were left uncoordinated. The Earth fell into disorder, as she had no one to tune the song of earthlings in harmony with the cosmic music of creativity. The Earth was in need of sentient beings who could undertake the task. Mago’s descendants were to be born. Humans were entrusted to cultivate the earthly sound property by the Nine Mago Creatrix. The Budoji writes:
(Video) 2013 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s note: The first Mago Pilgrimage to Korea took place June 6-19, 2013. We visited Ganghwa Island, Seoul, Wonju, Mt. Jiri, Yeong Island (Busan), and Jeju Island.] Read Mago Pilgrimage Essay 1 and Mago Pilgrimage Essay 2. See Meet Mago Contributor, Hae Kyoung Ahn for “Ma Gaia Womb” chant music and Meet Mago Contributor, Helen Hwang Ph.D.
(Art) Mago by Lydia Ruyle

Mago of old Korea and East Asia, also known as Magu, Mako, Samsin Halmeoni (Triad Grandmother Goddess) and Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), is the Great Goddess. Mago is the progenitor, creatrix, and ultimate sovereign. Early gynocentric cultures venerated Her in many forms. Her multivalent identities include an immortal, mendicant, crone, shaman, and/or nature-shaper of mountains, rocks, caves and seas. In art, Mago often carries a basket of lingzi mushrooms, medicinal herbs and flowers–all symbols of immortality. Source: Painting c. 1400 CE by Seokgyeong. Joseon Dynasty. Korea Meet Mago Contributor, Lydia Ruyle.