June 10, 2013October 2, 2019 Mago Work Admin4 Comments

(Poem) To Titian's Ariadne by Donna Snyder

My body twists & turns in naked sorrow My love gone on his strange and lonesome journey without me I am left exposed vulnerable to passion & dissolution I grasp Read More …

(Poem) Too Dark My Darling This Dementia by Phibby Venable

I meant to say good morning but a gray fox crossed my eyes in a crazed gait toward nightfall How could I sleep knowing the day had been stolen My eyes gritty with darkness I walked all night to prove it was really day There was a banquet of delirium and rivers of new wine spilling into my youth I could not make it stop My hands were defenseless My eyes cried out to the people but they said I should use my lips Each thing I saw disappeared into moments and the moments hid behind a large wall I wanted the ones who loved me but my words fell into reversals On days like this I remember something, I see how the world tilts and I try to speak quickly There is something urgent I need to say Don’t let me fall something important is missing from the upper floor I love you something is gone a gray fox a banquet a large wall (Meet Mago Contributor) Phibby Venable
(Book Announcement 3) Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. & Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.

Available now @ Mago Bookstore. Editors: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Mary Ann Beavis Introduction (continued) SOCIAL MEDIA AND GODDESS FEMINIST ACTIVISM The wheel of Goddess feminist activism by nature stands on the boundaries of patriarchal identities/definitions/institutions, which I call the Wilderness. The Wilderness, a space wherein patriarchal grips are loose is indeed a place for us, Goddess feminists/activists. In the Wilderness, we encounter the Creatrix and are empowered by HER. The Wilderness has been associated with individuals who are in search of a divine revelation; seekers/seers stand in the Wilderness alone, separated by distance in time and space. However, what if a community of people stand together in the
(Essay 1) The Queen of Heaven: Depictions of Asherah in Ancient Israel by Francesca Tronetti Ph.D.

The image is a Pillar figurine of the goddess Asherah. Judea, 8-6th c. BCE. Eretz Israel Museum. Terracotta Christianity teaches its followers about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The deity is described as a father to his children and the world. In churches across America, the people are taught that there are no female aspects of the Divine. There is an overall lack of independent feminine presence in the teachings of the biblical texts. That is not to say that there are no female characters in the Bible; there are many named women in the books. Still, these women are rarely discussed as central characters, and instead, they are referenced in context with their male family members or husbands. This male-centered reading of the Bible makes it the perfect instrument of patriarchy. It becomes a sacred text and guide which has ignored or downplayed the very existence of women. However, dedicated scholars of the Bible know that there are independent women in the Bible and that some of these women are what we identify as demi-gods. In a class I took, we discussed passages of the Bible dealing with the creation of humans and the nature of the Divine. The discussion which most impacted me was about Asherah, a Goddess who some scholars assert is the wife of YHWH. Asherah or the asherah is mentioned approximately 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, most often in connection with YHWH. I will discuss several aspects of Asherah in this article: the worship of Asherah alongside YHWH, the portrayal of Asherah as the consort of YHWH, worship of Asherah by the queen mothers. I want to understand whether Asherah was viewed as a goddess in her own right, or if the name refers to a cultic symbol of a goddess associated with YHWH. A close reading of the biblical texts and recent archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Israelites did not initially follow a monotheistic religion. It is logical to assume the if the people worshipped a pantheon of deities, a few would likely be female. Based on other polytheistic beliefs, we can conclude that one of these goddesses would have held the position of Mother Goddess. There also exists archaeological and literary evidence suggesting that Israelite women held a significant position in the religious practices of their communities through their cultic worship. To understand what position Asherah occupied in the religious beliefs of the ancient Israelites, we first need to know where the goddess Asherah came from. Asherah in the Ancient World Asherah is believed to be one of the names given to an ancient and widely worshipped goddess. Wiggins found evidence of Asherah and a similar goddess in Ugaritic, rabbinic and biblical sources, South Arabian, Mesopotamian and Hittite material, and Aramaic, Hebrew, and Phoenician inscriptions. The essential Northwest Semitic source of writing concerning Asherah is the Ugaritic texts from Ras Shamra located on the Syrian Coast. These texts refer to Asherah as ‘atrt’ which is pronounced as Athirat. In these writings, Athirat is the consort of the supreme god El. Supported by evidence from the Ugaritic texts, it has been suggested that the Canaanites worshipped a goddess called Asherah. And this worship was separate from their worship of the goddess Astarte. These texts do indicate that Asherah was one of the primary female deities worshipped in ancient Canaan. Scholars have generally accepted that it is the Canaanite goddess Asherah who is referred to in the Jewish Bible and the Christian Old Testament. There are references to a goddess found in the Elba text (ca. 2350 BCE). P. Matthiae, who has studied the writing in detail, claims that Asherah is a “lesser but well-attested” deity. However, the name Asherah does not appear in any of the Elba texts published so far. This has led other scholars to dispute Matthiae’s claim that the goddess is Asherah; instead, the book could refer to an unnamed Goddess or female Deity. During the first Babylonian dynasty (1839-1531 BCE), there existed a goddess Asratum who was the consort of the god Amurra. If Matthiae was correct in his supposition, and if there exists a phonetic link between the names Asratum and Asherah, then we can presume that Asherah is a recent name for a more ancient goddess. The goddess is called Asherah by scholars because this is the name used in the biblical texts. The Bible is a central religious text and has been read and studied by billions of people. Therefore, it is not surprising that she is known to many laypeople and scholars. The next question to consider is that of Asherah’s supposed connection to the Hebrew God YHWH. Current belief holds that the ancient Israelites worshipped a single god YHWH. Scholars have determined that there was instead a pantheon of deities worshiped by the people of ancient Israel. However, there was no centralized or systematized religious authority. The deities were worshipped following the local tribal system and the ethnic identity of the people. Mesopotamia was the homeland of Abram, later called Abraham, and was the home of the ancient Israelite people. There the people worshipped multiple deities associated with many aspects of nature and creation. It can be assumed that the ancient Israelites continued to worship several gods for some time after they left Mesopotamia. Zevit’s analysis of the ancient Israelite religion determined that worship included “the commonality of intercessory prayer, the adoration of El, Baal, YHWH, and Asherah, the notion of divine causality in history, and the use of hymnic snippets in liturgical, cultic contexts.” The Ugaritic texts and other extra-biblical sources assert that the ancient Israelites worshipped YHWH in addition to El, Asherah, Baal, and other deities. The earliest Israelite cult was centered on a divine royal household that had a similar order to the Ugaritic pantheon. This pantheon was headed by the god El while his consort Asherah, Baal, YHWH, and other deities held secondary rank. When Israel became a monarchy, YHWH, now …
(Dual-language Essay 1) The Goddess of Spirals by Noris Binet

Art by Noris Binet I began a drawing about the great Mother Goddess. The drawing was calling me. It wanted to be born. The goddess’ body is a swirl of spirals. I felt navigating the waters of reconnection with the feminine. I felt reverence and recognition of the importance and necessity of redirecting the attention to revindicating, restoring, and re-enthroning the Mother Goddess in her rightful place.Restoring the Mother Goddess to her rightful place is crucial to every human psyche. Instead of being constantly tangled in conflicts between opposites, it allows us to embrace the complementarity of opposites: the union of masculine and feminine energies—which is nature’s way of coming to fruition. The historical dethroning and devaluation of the feminine for the sake of reason, intellect, and mind, has left us with a linear approach to life—an approach which has lost sight of a cyclical and regenerating vision of life, and which demands unbridled growth in all aspects of life.If we take stock of this historic moment in the 21st century, we have to acknowledge that we have been in a crisis for quite a while—a crisis that includes all of society and the health of the planet: the food industry, the medical system, the economy, religious systems, politics, education, out-of-control use of land, mental health, wealth distribution—even the human condition is deteriorating at an alarming rate.The environmental impact of this neoliberal tendency towards unbridled growth alerts us to the fact that we need to find the way to rebalance all aspects of our existence. Reality calls on us to assume individual and collective responsibility for redirecting our orientation towards a future of sustainable progress, instead of suicidal progress. Individual responsibility begins with ourselves. We have to start by examining how we are living according to the conditions of a linear approach that has disconnected us from the cyclical regenerative world of the feminine.The feminine is the opposite of unbounded and thoughtless action. It is the cyclical part that stops, does nothing, and waits for energy to redirect itself to where it needs to go. It is the part that recognizes the regeneration necessary for existence to be sustainable.We operate according to an accelerated pattern of productivity: do more, want more, get more, improve more, demand more. We cannot tell when we have enough—when we don’t need more stuff, a better standard of living, more parties, more followers, a better image, or more outfits. The cyclical feminine aspect is like the moon—not always bright, not always dark. It goes from one end of the spectrum to the other, and periodically gives us a great display of light. The energy that emanates from this cyclical light pattern has had great cultural importance for centuries in the fields of language, calendars, art, and mythology. Its gravitational force creates tides and influences the length of our day. The moon’s influence affects agriculture, fishing, and the human psyche. If the moon were always full, it would produce tremendous disorder in our system. It would probably be a fatal catastrophe, as everything would be in such disarray that we would perish. The same pattern occurs when we damage the environment through the unmitigated destruction of wild animal and plant life, as we domesticate them to excess. It also happens when we destroy jungles, forests, and lakes in order to build more recreational areas or to produce oils for the cosmetics industry.Global warming is the result of climate change spurred by the excesses of a greedy, linear approach, where we all act as if conditions were mechanical, not organic—as if nature does not need to regenerate itself to be self-sustaining.The cyclical pattern of nature is key to sustainable equilibrium—not only for plants, but also for the animal world of which we are a part. Humans are the most powerful animal on the planet. We have proliferated massively and we have subjugated all animals. Thus, it is incumbent on us to redirect our actions and recover the balance we’ve lost. The revalorization of feminine characteristics is one of the ways in which we can regain that balance. This does not require big moves, but simply minimal changes in ourselves. It calls for small achievements, not large ones. It does not call for sudden changes overnight, but for slow movement—like the moon, which does not become full all of a sudden. Darkness lifts slowly, light increases gradually, until one night we have a full moon. Cycles are processes of return, repetition, reconnection, re-experimentation, reevaluation, reinterpretation. Cycles are aspects of nature that repeat over and over, and create opportunities for sustainability. Now we are in a stage in which we need to recover the incorrectly forgotten, disqualified, buried, suppressed feminine—so that we can go back to a cyclical consciousness, like our planetary system, and recover the ecological balance. For women, reconnecting with the feminine begins by discovering when and where in our lives we lost that union with the feminine. When did we find we had to reject the feminine in order to survive in the patriarchal world—where boys are valued more highly than girls; where men’s values and achievements are considered more important than women’s; where women are subjugated and denied the rights to control their own bodies, their freedom and their own minds, and have to submit to the canon established for them?This subjugation is totally dehumanizing, cruel, and traumatic. Almost every woman has to undertake a healing process in order to reclaim her rights to education, voting, and building the life she wants for herself.Since the late 20th century, we have seen some changes in this direction as a result of women’s initiative to struggle, protest, and demand the rights that belong to us. Women are still subjugated in all social systems, with some differences by country and culture. In so called first-world countries, women still earn less than men for the same work. It’s hard to believe that in the 21st century women’s contributions in all intellectual areas are not accorded the same value. …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Nicole Schwab

Nicole Schwab is author of The Heart of the Labyrinth, a young woman’s poetic journey across the Andes, in search of our lost connection with the sacred feminine. It has been acclaimed as a beautiful exploration of deep mind, offering a message of Earth-centered wisdom. She wrote it in the foothills of Delphi, inspired by the shrine to Gaia. Nicole is also co-founder of EDGE Certified – a global scheme certifying organizations for closing the gender gap in the workplace – and a trustee of TreeSisters. For more information about Nicole visit: http://nicoleschwab.com
(Meet Mago Contributor) Camelia Elias

Camelia Elias, PhD, Dr.Phil., is a professor, writer, and cartomancer. Her research interests are in esoteric movements, occult, and the folk practices of reading and producing spiritual texts. She blogs at Taroflexions and has recently published a book on divination with the Marseille cards: Marseille Tarot: Towards the Art of Reading.
(Essay 2) Con-Text: Personal/Cultural/Cosmic Stories by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D.

This essay is a version of an excerpt from Chapter 2 of her book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Further to my unfolding awareness of the nature of my cultural con-text, the androcentric nature of the stories in which I grew, was the perceiving of my identification as sex object … with no subjectivity, no space to Be. I remember pornographic magazines from my childhood, depicting women being constantly pursued by salivating men – either there was an assumption that she desired this, or they did not care to ask her. And Christian cosmology, which saturated my context, appeared to condone the imposition of a dominant will upon another – at the very heart of it is “the sacrifice of the lamb”. Women have been especially vulnerable, with their submission openly advocated. They sometimes called me “Marilyn” (for Marilyn Monroe), simply because of my babyhood platinum hair. I was not particularly cute as I grew up, on the contrary, I was skinny, had buck teeth, freckles and a bad haircut. But Marilyn was suggested to me by this naming, as someone I could model myself after. I don’t remember any other significant famous women in the first decade or two of my life. As a child I was very conscious of being looked at, and perhaps on reflection, it was because I was female. I felt transparent and vacuous. The Great Male Metaphors of the day – God and Santa – knew everything about me. The male humans imitated the Deity with constant Gazing, in magazines, movies, wall calendars. I could only hope to be chosen to be worthy of his desire, yet at the same time it was known and told that he could be dangerous. I felt acutely the identification of myself with the “inanimate” world, as it was understood to be – dead and inert: though I had no words for it. Ursula Le Guin says, We are told in words, and not in words, we are told by their deafness, … (that) … the life experience of women, is not valuable … to humanity. (We have been valued by the patriarchal viewpoint) as an element of their experience, as things experienced.[1] The male in this worldview was also “inanimate”, albeit the machine that was expected to perform. I began to find words, and consciousness of my assigned cultural destiny as sex object. I wrote: What did it take to move from that, to develop a shell, a protective boundary, to pull the shades on the imposing mostly male Gaze, to allow a fertile darkness within my being, where ‘I’ could begin? What did it take to create this kind of darkness, a safe place to Be, to shut out the world and scream ‘I’? … A sex object has to completely fall apart before she can rebuild herself in her own image. She has to fall into the mud, begin again, perform her own acts of Creation, mold herself of this solid material. It is out of the mud that the lotus blossoms. It does not grow on some pedestal, under the light of the eternal Gaze. … How ironic that our paternal mythmakers made Medusa’s gaze the deadly one!
(Prose) Portals by Sara Wright

Lately, as I meander around the Bosque and down the paths to the river I am seeing portals everywhere I look. I walk under one made of golden cottonwood boughs, another graced by willows, a few created by rusty iron or wooden gates – all pathways to the beyond. Portals are gateways or doorways into other worlds, or a different way of seeing and it is not lost on me that perhaps I am “seeing” portals everywhere in Nature because according to the Celtic/Native American calendars we are approaching the end of the wheel of the year here in Northern New Mexico as well as elsewhere. Perhaps I need to discover a new way of seeing. I can set this intention for the coming year even as I pass through each gate…Climbing through this mountainous twelve month cycle of steep ascents/descents has exhausted my soul, body, and spirit. All Hallows, the Feast of the Dead, All Souls day mark the end of the yearly cycle for many including me. Then we will enter the space in between. Although Indigenous people’s calendars are more fluid, around here, for example, the Tewa speaking peoples will tell you that in November “they do nothing” as one man from Santa Clara Pueblo recently quipped to me. The Harvest is in. Frost is on the horizon. There are no tribal dances until the winter solstice. Around us our beloved Cottonwoods are slowly losing their golden canopies. The owls are silent. Migrating Sand hill cranes serenade us with their haunting collective cries. Only the tracks and scat of animals remind us that our wild companions are still out and about. Some Indigenous peoples from the north call this full moon “the leaves falling moon” or “the white frost on grass moon” names that seem particularly apt when describing what is happening. I could also name this moon “making tracks in the mud moon.” The period that we are about to enter in about a week is a space where the veil lifts… It is a time of rest and reflection, a time to dream the world (and ourselves) into another way of being, perhaps. A mystical time for those of us who are sensitized to All That Is. It is my favorite time of year. In Northern New Mexico it is also the ‘season of light’. The dance between the sun star and her mountain shadows is a source of ongoing amazement, exhilaration, and deep wonder, peaking at dawn and at eventide with each becoming a portal into the other. As scalloped hearts and bear paw leaves drift to the ground and branches (some curved like claws), stretch their fingers and limbs towards an ever deepening blue or shark gray sky, I watch juncos, sparrows, and nuthatches feasting on fluffy chamisa and golden aster seeds. Last night the almost full moon hid her face behind rose pearled clouds. I create a conscious intention beginning with this poignant and oh so beautiful, so poignant “leaves falling in drifts” moon to find a way to move through this next year with more grace and less chaos in my life acknowledging that I am not certain how to Earth myself in a more generous way except by developing a new way of seeing. Extremes of every sort have defined my days this year with me plunging into despair and grief over climate change and woman hatred. Eerily, my concern for the Earth has often been mirrored by personal crisis. The veil between Earth and self seems to have evaporated like the mist that rises over the river in delicate plumes reaching towards a now golden sun or ever deepening dusk. I can’t help wondering if this merging might be a natural response to aging and/or my heightened sensitivity, a result of being in such an intimate relationship with Nature? Perhaps as Earth Chaos intensifies I will continue to experience my own extremes even more deeply? If the latter is the case my hope and intention is to carry the awareness that this state is “natural” under the circumstances. To accept what is, might be I the greatest challenge I face. One portal to acceptance as I already mentioned might be to shift my awareness into a different way of seeing. I can create this intention without knowing exactly what I mean… As I pass under the portal of the end of this year entering “the space in between” my earnest hope is that I will not lose myself, even when I stand alone in a sea of humanity whose (personal and political) behavior mystifies me, or that I will not succumb to despair, or make an unnecessary descent into rage or sorrow. I remind myself that to stay with the truth of what is, as I experience it, is also heroic (although I never feel this way) and that others who cannot be present to their lives in a meaningful way will try to dismiss my life as inauthentic (too emotional, too sensitive, too fill – in – the blank, blah, blah, blah,) because witnessing human horrors with great compassion is too threatening. Rape is still rape regardless of disbelief. Like the deer in my dreams who bed down in tall grasses before the open gate may I too surrender to what is, and to that which is unknown. Animal Peace is the gift offered when we are present to the moment. And like the worms living in my compost heap who create ‘black gold’ in the process of living out their lives, may I find a way to do the same… perhaps through sight – insight. A lot to ask for, I know. Still, as I pass under this next portal the help I need is near… All I need to do is to follow the tracks of the animals that are so dear. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright
(She Summons Excerpt) The Seed Who Summons (Part 2) by Claire Dorey

Were Snake 2 by Claire Dorey “Under the new rules set out by patriarchy, rape was seen as a good thing, so the spirit of the Sacred Feminine receded underground. Her only defence, as she retreated, was Medusa, with her halo – a writhing mass of my venomous sisters, turning men to stone. The Goddesses sought refuge in their antediluvian caves and subterranean temples, retreating back to their womb tombs and into the fissures and primordial streams, dormant but not defeated.” “The Earth was thrown out of balance as patriarchy marshalled and took revenge against the matriarch. Meanwhile your sisters, who were left above ground, were forced to veil their beautiful faces, live in shame, or endure a schizophrenic existence as appendage to man. You became demons with menstrual cycles. Unclean. Your life giving power was trivialised. Your herbal knowledge was incinerated by fire and iron, in the battle for medicinal supremacy, as Animist wisdom and Shamanic knowing were crushed by patriarchal alchemy, that saw healing plants replaced with toxins such as mercury. As mining, to extract metals and chemicals, escalated to an industrial and unsustainable scale, children were exploited for labour and Mother Earth shook and rumbled. They blew up your caves and pretended it was by accident. They desecrated your temples, chiselled the faces off your Goddesses, rewrote your history and stole your creation myths.” “The patriarch wrenched all the power away from Mother Earth and her Goddesses and put one single male god, sitting in judgement, in the sky. Hierarchy was established. Yet amidst all this turmoil the seed of the Divine Feminine remained underground, gathering strength.” I watch, mesmerised, as Sophia spirals her ophidian tail around a plump, red cherry, plucking at the stalk. She offers it to me and I can’t help feeling this symbolic picking represents the ‘forbidden’ fruit from the Tree Of Knowledge. “I want to know your story, the story of the Goddess,” I murmur, biting into succulent flesh. “All you have to do is dig in the right place,” she answers. “Plunge your hands into the soil, deep into Mother Earth and dig up your ancestral mothers – there’s thousands of them. They take the form of seeds, primordial knowing and deities – voluptuous, corpulent, nourishing, self regenerating and soporific deities. Always remember, She – the Goddess – is the progenitrix, the ultimate creator. Her history is buried beneath mosques and churches, hidden within legend, in rock art, in language, embedded in the walls of ancient civilisations. “Women should realign with nature and rekindle their connection with the tides, to gather strength. “Ritual, mantra, the moonlight, pulsating dance, music, drumming, trance and kindness will become your powerful tools, once more. The Sacred Goddess is the cosmos, the Earth, all animals, the air we breathe. She is all elements, the things we say, the energy of thought. She doesn’t need to conquer mountains, stick flags in the ground to gain approval – She is the mountain… and Everest isn’t called Everest, She is called Chomolangma – the Goddess Mother!” “So what of the snake?” I ask. “Where did your pre-historic, silken, muscular, serpent wisdom go? Was it lost when Medusa was savagely beheaded? Did it happen when Eve was demonised and cast out of Eden? Or was it lost when Eve’s Wisdom Serpent was so brutally dislimbed?” “There’s that wonderful word: chthonic inhabiting the underworld,” replies Sophia. “Just like Pythia, who sat on her tripod over a fissure in the Earth, to tap into Earth Mother wisdom, we serpents are conduits to the wisdom of the underworld – we connect with the ancestors – call us sinewy, python-esque umbilical cords, stretching right into the heart of the Earth. Just like the Goddess and her cycles of birth, death and rebirth, we snakes regenerate. We shed our skins and each time we transform there are new possibilities. As the seed of the Goddess goes through its healing 4,000 year cycle, deep underground, our Grandmother Serpent is incubating Her agamogenesistic egg.” “Agamogenesistic?” I quiz, raising one eyebrow. “You know what I mean!” snaps Sophia, “self fertilising…..no need for sperm!” “Ooo do you think that is why patriarchy invented snake envy?” I tease. “Sssssnake envy is one of the most ridiculous concoctions of modern psychology,” Sophia hisses. “Women never, ever had snake envy. Men did!” “On a more serious note, men are not the issue; it’s the patriarchal mindset and its wanton destruction of Mother Earth that is causing all our problems. Blame is not the solution, however, when tens of thousands of people are displaced, turned into refugees, as this pandemic rages and millions of children are protesting crimes against the biosphere, with banners that read, ‘’YOU’RE GONNA KILL US,” we know we have a big problem!” “Here’s a thought,” adds Sophia, spiraling down the tree trunk, skin flashing like a nacreous mosaic. “Did you ever think that one of the amazing things about the energetic shift, that has already been set in motion, is that it could give rise to the Divine Masculine?” “WOAH!” I’m stunned into silence – quite blown away. I’d been so wrapped up in thoughts of the Divine Feminine I had completely overlooked the possibility there could be a Divine Masculine. “By Divine Masculine I don’t mean a repeat of the Old and New Biblical millennia. This will be something quite different.” “You mean like men who weep when trees are cut down.” I say. “Weeeell, yeeees and noooo,” fizzes Sophia, shedding her skin, sloughing it on the bark with each rotation, as she zigzags down the cherry tree. As her skin detaches she is growing in size and stature. “As the Earth falls victim to man made chaos, waste, poison and mass extinctions, as he encroaches into sacred territories, battling with indigenous peoples – Earth protectors – people who have always lived in harmony with their environment – zoonotic diseases will be liberated.” “Humanity needs to learn that money will be of no use when the last …

(Special Post Mother Teresa 3) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa? [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.] [C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments: To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do. [C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented! [Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses. Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope. I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system? Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there. Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be. [C]: On this […]
(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) Nine-Headed Dragon Slain by Patriarchal Heroes: A Cross-cultural Discussion by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: This and the ensuing sequels are a revised version of the discussion that has taken place in The Mago Circle, Facebook group, since September 24, 2017 to the present. Themes are introduced and interwoven in a somewhat random manner, as different discussants lead the discussion. The topic of the number nine is key to Magoism, primarily manifested as Nine Magos or the Nine Mago Creatrix. Mago Academy hosts a virtual and actual event, Nine Day Mago Celebration, annually.] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Here is another image of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra slain by Herakles. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(mythology)… Glenys Livingstone: Yes, the Hercules story is more documentation of the Old Battle, of the rise of the “hero” to slay the Mother, when in the earliest of times he served with his beauty and labours. It is so interesting to see the analogies in other cultures/places as you are doing Helen, especially in Asia – it seems important work. Your perseverance is paying off, and will. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Glenys, I am re-reading a book on Chinese mythology and found a lot more on the nine Magoist symbolism. Someday, I hope to write about the topic in its own right. Glenys Livingstone: This chapter’s work is good re the Old Battle in Greek mythology: Valaoritis, Nanos. “The Cosmic Conflict of Male and Female in Greek Mythology”, in From the Realm of the Ancestors: An Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Joan Marler (ed). Manchester CT: Knowledge, Ideas and Trends Inc., 1997, p.247 – 261. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Now back to the female divine who is depicted with the nine heads. See the nine-headed Guanyin/Kannon/Gwaneum. Also note that her icon comes in eleven-headed (the 8 Daughters and the Triad Creatrix, which makes eleven). http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/kannon.shtml Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: The symbol of nine dragons was adopted by imperial China. See the Nine Dragon Wall China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-Dragon_Wall Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We connect the dots. When Guanyin is depicted with nine dragons, it conveys that the nine symbolism was/is once deemed sacred. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/17/b3/4a17b33d9a4ae53bad6466a0eaf11722.jpg How popular the Guanyin icon, three headed and eight armed, to this day! Simply Google “eight armed Guanyin.” Below is from the Late Ming Dynasty, China. https://www.google.com/search?q=eight%20armed%20guanyin… She comes in a different name, Ushnishavijaya, in Tibetan Buddhism. https://www.himalayanart.org/items/65445 Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: We can draw that the female deity such as Guanyin and Ushnishavijaya, just to name two, is venerated in association with the nine symbolism. Within the mytho-history of Magoism, I infer that Guanyin or Ma Guanyin is a persona embodying Goma, the Magoist Shaman ruler of Danguk (3898 BCE-2333 BCE), the head of Nine Hans (Magoist Koreans). Note that Magoist shamans or priestesses are called “Mago.” See my essay, “Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology,” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books), 2018. The insight that the major Goddesses in East Asia and beyond point to the same and old divine persona is NOT farfetched, considering that the nine-headed snake or dragon representing the female sovereignty of pre-patriarchal times is slain by male heroes across cultures. Judy E Foster: I’d have to agree with you here. As usual, interesting information! Patty Kay: My meditation this morning was on a history of mysticism. While I’m in the midst of appropriating all of the wonderful beliefs I find here, I also have found a strand in my own tradition that helps me understand why all the Divine Feminine stuff makes so much sense to me. I’ve been trying to determine when the patriarchal world view took over. According to this history, mysticism began to emerge in about 800 to 500 BCE. Could it be that mysticism kept alive the ancient understanding of the cosmos? This is just speculation, but in it I’m answering my own questions. (To be continued) Join us in The Mago Circle https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/.

Lammas – the Sacred Consuming by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas, the first seasonal transition after Summer Solstice, may be summarised as the Season that marks and celebrates the Sacred Consuming, the Harvest of Life. Many indigenous cultures recognised the grain itself as Mother … Corn Mother being one of those images – She who feeds the community, the world, with Her own body: the Corn, the grain, the food, the bread, is Her body. She the Corn Mother, or any other grain Mother, was/is the original sacrifice … no need for extraordinary heroics: it is the nature of Her being. She is sacrificed, consumed, to make the people whole with Her body (as the word “sacrifice” means “to make whole”). She gives Herself in Her fullness to feed the people …. the original Communion. In cultures that preceded agriculture or were perhaps pastoral – hunted or bred animals for food – this cross-quarter day may not have been celebrated, or perhaps it may have been marked in some other way. Yet even in our times when many are not in relationship with the harvest of food directly, we may still be in relationship with our place: Sun and Earth and Moon still do their dance wherever you are, and are indeed the Ground of one’s being here … a good reason to pay attention and homage, and maybe as a result, and in the process, get the essence of one’s life in order. One does not need to go anywhere to make this pilgrimage … simply Place one’s self. The seasonal transition of Lammas may offer that in particular, being a “moment of grace” – as Thomas Berry has named the seasonal transitions, when the dark part of the day begins to grow longer, as the cloak of darkness slowly envelopes the days again: it is timely to reflect on the Dark Cosmos in Whom we are, from Whom we arise and to Whom we return – and upon that moment when like Corn Mother we give ourselves over. This reflection is good, will serve a person and all – to live fully, as well as simply to be who we are: this dark realm of manifesting is the core of who we are. And what difference might such reflection make to our world – personal and collective – to live in this relationship with where we are, and thus who we are. We all are the grain that is harvested and all are Her harvest … perhaps one may use a different metaphor: the truth that may be reflected upon at this seasonal moment after the peaking of Sun’s light at Summer Solstice and the wind down into Autumn, is that everything passes, all fades away … even our Sun shall pass. All is consumed. So What are we part of? (I write it with a capital because surely it is a sacred entity) And how might we participate creatively? We are Food – whether we like it or not … Lammas is a good time to get with the Creative plot, though many find it the most difficult, or focus on more exoteric celebration. May we be interesting food[i]. We are holy Communion, like Corn Mother. Meet Mago Contributor Glenys Livingstone NOTES: [i] This is an expression of cosmologist Brian Swimme in Canticle to the Cosmos DVD series.
(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.
(Essay) Walking with Bb by Sara Wright

Walking with Bb: a story exploring the psychic connection between one woman and her bear. Preface: The black bear – hunting season in Maine is brutal – four months of bear hell – five if one includes the month where hunters can track bears for “practice” with hounds – separate mothers and cubs, terrorize them, tree them and do anything but legally kill them. During the legal slaughter, Hunters bait bears with junk food by putting old donuts etc. in cans and shoot the bear while he or she is eating. Most bears (82 percent) are slaughtered in this manner, the rest are killed by hounding and trapping. The season begins in August and lasts through December. Trapping, by the way, is illegal in every state but Maine. Black bears are hated, and that hatred will, of course, eventually result in their extirpation. I had a shy (male) year old black bear visiting my house this past summer with whom I developed a friendship, and what follows is part of our story: Last Saturday I was walking down the road when I remembered that I had not done my daily “circle of protection” imaging for Bb (standing as he was the day he visited me at the window early in August). When I began to do this another picture of Bb moving on all four feet with his face turned towards mine super-imposed itself over his standing image. I could almost see his expression, but not quite. I didn’t know what this imaging meant beyond that we were communicating in some unknown way, and he was in the area (not a good thing on hunting Saturdays). He had not been coming in most nights and I was worried… That night he came. He is still making nightly visits five days later, the most sequentially consistent visits since September 15th, the day I believed that he had been shot. This experience prompted me to write about telepathy and precognition. It is close to All Hallows and the full Hunter’s moon (Nov 3). I keep listening to Charlie Russell’ story which reminds me that loving bears (especially male bears) is hard, almost a sure recipe for disaster, and that I was not alone in this deep concern for and fear of losing Bb. I can barely stand to remember my other bear losses and I can’t stand feeling them. Even after I wrote about the incident with Bb, the experience seemed to carry a charge that didn’t dissipate. Had I missed something? Next I wrote “Root Healer,” exploring the possibility that as I continued to act as Bb’s “little bear mother” now employing psychic techniques to keep him safe (in some desperation as it was the only means left open to me to protect this very vulnerable yearling), that Bb’s presence might also include a gift for me and that it might involve some kind of root healing for my body because Nature thrives on reciprocity. One idea I missed completely, for it was so obvious. Bb’s image was communicating to me that we were having a psychic conversation in that very moment. It was the first time in three months of imaging protective circles that moved with him that I had confirmation from him that we were communicating effectively in this unknown way. This rarely happens. Normally when I do this kind of work, I just do it. I don’t get direct confirmation that it’s working from the animal itself (except with Lily b). Knowing this helped me make another decision I might not have made so intentionally. The hunting season will last into mid December, and I will be traveling during that last month. I keep thinking that putting actual physical distance between Bb and I might pose more of a threat for his life and I have to remind myself that psychic phenomena are not distance dependent. I should be able to image that protective circle every day and feel that it is working. Bb has already shown me that it can but I fear adding distance because I don’t completely trust my own perceptions.* I suspect believing might be an additional dimension of ensuring success when it comes to psychic protection for this bear. But how do I incorporate belief into a picture that is so clouded with personal/cultural doubt? Half the time I don’t believe myself and virtually no one except Rupert Sheldrake, Iren and Harriet have ever taken my experiences seriously. I have to remind myself that I have done this work many times dealing with doubt and it worked anyway. The point of writing this reflection might be to put me on a new edge of increasing Bb’s odds of survival. If it’s possible that an attitude that embraces believing in what I do could help me protect Bb more effectively until hunting is over and its time for him to den in peace I want to claim it. The question I need to answer now is how to go about moving into a more trusting self as a woman who continues to walk with a bear at her side? The night after I wrote the above paragraph I dream of the doubters in the roles of my parents, and in a friend. I take these dreams seriously as doubters inside me and out. These dreams may be telling me that it is unreasonable to expect me to believe that what I do works when no one else does? The problem with this idea is that on some level I do believe. I feel as if I am walking with this bear, every single day. I think about him constantly. The only thing that got me out of the house yesterday was that he was out of chocolate donuts. Something is intensifying my relationship with Bb although I never see him. I am caught in a field of bear energy and information, perhaps through some version of beauty and the beast. That an archetype is …
(Video) A Samhain Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

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

Autumn Equinox/Mabon Northern Hemisphere – September 21-23 Southern Hemisphere – March 21-23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRJNY1LSvIs&t=1175s …oOo… The purpose of this video is for ceremony, and I suggest pausing the video where it suits you, to add your own processing, embellishments and/or your own drum, percussion and voice wherever you please. I have made short spaces in the video where it could be paused. The script for this Autumn Equinox/Mabon ceremony is offered in Chapter 11 of my book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony, with all acknowledgements and references there. In particular I mention here, credit for the story of Demeter and Persephone as told by Charlene Spretnak in her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. For more full participation in the ceremony, you could have one or more stalks of wheat or native grain tied with a red thread/ribbon, a garden pot with soil, a small garden trowel, a flower bulb (daffodil type), food and drink, that may represent your “harvest” – ready for eating and drinking. The elements of Water, Fire, Earth and Air on the altar in this video are placed in directions that are appropriate to my region in the Southern Hemisphere, and East Coast Australia: you may place yours differently, and transliterate when I mention the direction (which I do minimally). The images used are a collage of footage and photos from the 2024 Autumn Equinox ceremony at my place in Wakka Wakka country, South East Queensland Australia, and from previous Autumn Equinox ceremonies I facilitated over the decades in MoonCourt, Goddess ceremonial space in NSW Australia, Darug and Gundungurra country. My partner Robert (Taffy) Seaborne who has participated in all the Seasonal ceremonies since Samhain 2000, adds his voice to this video. Image credits: Demeter and Persephone (500 B.C.E. Greece). Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess, p.72. Art of Demeter and Persephone on MoonCourt wall: Cernak Herself Music credit: “Gentle Sorrow” by Sky: which he has previously allowed me to use in my work. This piece of music is also used in the Autumn Equinox meditation on my PaGaian Cosmology Meditations published 2015.

Mago, the First Mother from East Asia by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Excerpts from “Mago, the First Mother from East Asia,” Creatrix Media Live (CML) Roundtable Radio Talk with Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. May 23, 2011] Jayne DeMente: Welcome Helen, I was fortunate to read some of your research and I applaud you because, we in the Western WSE movement have long needed to hear more from Asian women spiritual leaders and feminists and your reference to the Neolithic timeline… For our listeners and participants online, let’s lead with the question of who is Mago, was she a mother figure, what is Magoism, does any other deity pre-date her? Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: *Mago is the great goddess known to East Asians throughout history. She is the first mother of all, cosmogonist, and ultimate sovereign/ruler. She has many names. Among them are Triad Deity (Samsin), Grandmother (halmi), Auspicious Goddess (Seogo), Evil (Magui), and Old Goddess (Nogo). She is also known as the Giantess who shaped the natural and cultural landscape. Her manifestations are so multivalent that one may think they do not refer to the same goddess. She was well loved, given high esteem, celebrated by East Asians in the past. She was almost completely forgotten, however in modern times, up until the 1980s in Korea, when the principle text of Magoism, the Budoji, re-emerged. *Mago is a mother figure in the sense that she bore two daughters, Kunghee and Sohee, and managed her household called the Castle of Mago, the primordial paradise of humanity. She is the ancestor of all races. She takes care of everything on earth via the equilibrium of cosmic music/sound/vibration. *Magoism is the term that refers to the totality of culture/civilization venerating Mago as the great goddess. It is a tradition largely unnoted but co-opted and distorted in major East Asian religions. The concept of Magoism helps one identify and understand Mago’s multivalent manifestations that are found trans-nationally. It also makes possible to name the female-centered original/primal civilization that gave birth to the forthcoming East Asian civilizations and religions. *Whether Mago is the earliest deity known to East Asia is unknown. In fact, there are goddesses unearthed from “pre-historic” archaeological sites without their names. The life-sized goddess statue was unearthed in the site of Hongshan Culture, northeastern region of present China dating from 4,700 to 2,900 BCE. The heavy use of jade along with the partly bear-figured female icon is congruent with the account of Magoism in the Budoji. Also, of course, there are numerous female figurines called dogu excavated in Japan’s “pre-historic” times. The ancient origin of Mago or Magoism has a merit to explain some facts that remain a mystery, so to speak. Korea is also known as the land of dolmens. Half of the world megaliths are populated in the Korean peninsula. There are numerous pyramids found in mainland China. There is a documentary film about the sunken temple beneath the sea of Okinawa Japan, etc. dating to 10,000 years ago. *Then, how early does Mago date to? It is difficult to date the earliest evidence of Mago or Magoism simply because written history does not exist in pre-patriarchal times. As you see here, when we talk about the earliest of something, everyone assumes it is of Chinese. So let me follow this line of thought: Ge Hong’s record on Magu from China dates to the early fourth century CE (Ge Hong 283—343 CE). However, Daoist scholar Robert Ford Campany states that the cult of Mago dates back to the Stone Age. It is more difficult to date Mago in Korean records simply because ancient written records did not survive. Two books, the Budoji and the Handan Gogi, alleged to have been written in the late 4th or early 5th century and subsequent later times, which refer to Mago otherwise known as Samsin (Triad Deity) remain controversial. Considering that the name Mago is embedded in Korean language as in “gom,” “geum,” and “gam,” whose meaning indicates ruler, sovereign, and head, the origin of Mago is as old as these words. Likewise, most materials that recount Mago as cosmogonist are of folklore, place names, literature, arts, and debris of historical and religious records, most of which are difficult to date for its origin. Anniitra Ravenmoon: Thank you Helen, you have done much academic research and hold several degrees, can you explain to us how your education or experience informed you regarding Mago? Helen: *I would say that encountering Mago as a doctoral research topic is ultimately prompted by my intellectual quest as a Korean feminist. Following radical feminism of Mary Daly, I wanted to seek spirituality that is not only non-patriarchal but also East Asian and Korean. This made me study feminism and East Asian religions, histories, and cultures, etc. I end up with so much to study over the past decade and a half. I did not take up graduate studies as a means to develop an academic career. I loved reading and studies from youth. This kind of attitude is not that practical in the job market. However, I believe this is the right path for me. To look back, I did not follow the ready-made conventional path of life. I was a dreamer and idealist. I still value those qualities in myself and others. I used to think to myself, if I had remained a Christian, I would not have sought Mago. How could I? Likewise if I had resorted to Buddhism, I would not have encountered Mago. Because I wanted to carve out my own spiritual path as a Korean feminist, I was able to encounter Mago. Another factor at work in my study of Mago is the cultural or spiritual tradition of cultivating the Dao, the Way, in East Asia. I wanted to find out what the truth was, how I could make the most out of my life and etc. So I tried the shoes of a Catholic overseas missionary for a while. Leaving Christianity behind, however, helped me realize the cultural heritage that I have within. It was …
(Budoji Essay 4) The Magoist Cosmogony by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part 4: Magoist Origin of Immortals “I maintain that Immortals originally refers to Mago’s descendants in Mago Castle, the Primordial Paradise. They are the primordial clan community of the Mago Species, comprised of the divine, demigods, and humans.” [This is a translation and interpretation of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), principal text of Magoism. Read the translation of Chapter 1 of the Budoji.] Magoist Origin of Immortals: All in the Mago Species are given the original nature of immortality or transcendence. Readers are advised to set aside the literal meaning in the English language of the words immortals or transcendents. Immortals is a translation of the East Asian term seon (仙, xian in Chinese). I choose the translation immortals over transcendents not because it is a better translation but because it is the most commonly used term by Western Daoist translators.[i] Although it is known as a Daoist term, I hold that it is pre-Daoist, namely Magoist, in origin. Primarily, it refers to the Mago Species (Mago and Her descendants) who dwelt in Mago Castle, the primordial home, to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Likewise, historical figures known as Immortals are Magoist rather than Daoist.
(Goma Article Excerpt 1) Goma, the Shaman Ruler of Old Magoist East Asia/Korea and Her Mythology by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

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