February 4, 2025January 22, 2025 Mago Work2 Comments

(Poem) One People, One Plea by Mary Saracino

Everywhere the world’s gone crazy righteous rulers grease their greedy palms wrap their filthy fingers ‘round the spoils of power broker death deals at every corner genocide, war, poverty rape, Read More …

February 3, 2025October 30, 2024 RTMeditorsKGLeave a comment

(Video) A Lammas Ceremony by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Lammas/Late Summer: the traditional dates are Southern Hemisphere – Feb. 1st/2nd, Northern Hemisphere – August 1st/2nd. The actual astronomical date varies, and it is the meridian point or cross-quarter day Read More …

January 31, 2025January 24, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Art) Medusas Tears by Jennifer Powell

This piece was my response to the Me-Too movement, and the negative backlash in particular. I had always seen Medusa as a moving archetype of the woman demonized for being Read More …

January 30, 2025January 22, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Essay 2) Mago Halmi (Great Mother) Shapes Topographies with Her Skirt: An Introductory Discussion by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This essay was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 1, 2024). Footnotes numbers here differ from those of the original Read More …

January 29, 2025January 22, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(S/HE V3N2 Book Review) Dvora Lederman-Daniely’s Sara: Is She the Goddess of Ancient Israel? by Mary Ann Beavis

[Editor’s Note: This poem was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 3 No 2, 2024).] In this brief but intriguing book, Dvora Lederman-Daniely proposes that Sarai/Sarah, Read More …

January 28, 2025January 30, 2025 ANewvineLeave a comment

Spirit Salve for Stormy Times – Imbolc by Alison Newvine

Kali Durga. Lilith. Medusa. We call upon you now. Let us be creators amidst the destruction. Guide us in the Birthing of Your Arising. Hekate. Isis. Freja. Inanna and Ereshkigal. Read More …

January 27, 2025January 1, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Book Excerpt 2) Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess Edited by Claire Dorey, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

[Editor’s Note: This and subsequent excerpt parts are from the anthology entitled Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, published by Girl God Books (2024).] I’ve Taken all the Arrows I Can Read More …

January 24, 2025January 18, 2025 RTMeditorsKGLeave a comment

(Video) The Magoist Calendar written by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang Ph.D, by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

At a recent Zoom meeting planning for the S/HE Divine Studies Online Conference, the gathering heard Helen Hye-Sook Hwang read her poem The Magoist Calendar of the 13 Months and Read More …

January 23, 2025January 23, 2025 Mago Work1 Comment

(Poem 2) Hecate’s Moon by Sara Wright

I spent hours writing you snaked by underground roots entering my story with your forked stick ‘Witches’ are a lie that christians made up to legitimize harm done to our Read More …

January 22, 2025January 22, 2025 Mago Work1 Comment

(Poem 1) Hecate’s Moon by Sara Wright

Lupita, Guadalupe – Your agave points of light glow in grave darkness. Hecate’s Moon is Red. The Raven slices the sky into shards. The River catches shivering stars. We remember Read More …

January 21, 2025January 2, 2025 Susun WeedLeave a comment

Over the Rainbow by Susun Weed

This collage is based on a photograph taken by a student of mine in Australia. The background is a close-up of a mitochondrion. I sensed the dance in the flower. Read More …

January 20, 2025December 1, 2024 Mago WorkLeave a comment

Our Mother, Hail Mary by Dale Allen

This soothing audio prayer loop celebrates the sacred feminine. Energizing the words, images and attributes of the sacred feminine may at first highlight how deeply embedded the masculine hierarchy is within Read More …

January 17, 2025January 1, 2025 Mago WorkLeave a comment

(Poem) My Female Body by Mary Saracino

My body is the home of my soul the house of my desires it has known chaos and violation it has known joy and jubilation it knows the insults of Read More …

(Poem & Art) The Return to Nature by Noris Binet

Art by Noris Binet The Return to Nature The Return to the Earth To the elements To what gives life and nourishes To what connects us With the essence of things As they are naked Without covering them, altering them, or discarding them This is the meeting I am having every day from when I rise until I lie down. I’m returning little by little to recognize that my life’s path has to be baptized with life, Has to be sacralized with the presence of the elements that form my body. The elements! The foundation of all existence which is why they are sacred for all communities of peoples who live in harmony with nature, with the sky and with the cosmos. The water that cleans purifies, nurtures, hydrates also baptizes. The air that oxygenates, purifies and nourishes is the life thread of the ethereal where the soul dwells. The fire, hot and consuming, regenerating and transmuting is the key to alchemy. Under the ardent sun one receives the cosmic energy. The earth solid, pasty malleable, absorbs regenerates, revitalizes and returns everything to its origin. She is the mother where we are all reborn. The four elements are the foundation the very nature, of the body that you possess and the spirit that you are. Stop for a moment And stay conscious of your body and the elements, because you are fire, water earth and wind. Meet them before this body returns to earth and goes back to ashes do it now while there is consciousness. The elements are sacred, because they are never born nor die– just transformed and constantly. Wise people of the past knew this and is why they worshiped them. They understood their bodies to be mud, water, fire and air. They were not ignorant because they honored the rising sun or the moon in all its facets because they worshiped rivers and freshwater lakes or brought offerings to the sea as the origin of life. No, not ignorant– to the contrary, they recognized the source from which life rises and where all existence finally returns. They blessed the fruits of the earth with water and purified its toxins with fire, knowing that nature’s way was the only way to remain healthy vital and active. They saw that human spirit only blossoms where everything flows and that paradise is not in a faraway place But right here when we open our eyes and see clearly that we are nature itself and there is no separation between she and us. That our flesh energetically is the earth and that water predominates our bodies, the air infuses life and allows us to exist, fire is the same heat that we generate from inside our own selves. We are life itself eternally birthing! Noris Binet © 2/14/17. Guadalajara, Vida Sana, Mexico https://www.magoism.net/2019/08/meet-mago-contributor-noris-binet/
(Book Excerpt) Held in the Womb of the Wheel of the Year by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

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

I inhale your scent Reveling in the perfume that is you Your breath caresses me And I close my eyes listening to your hushed words Your cool body cushions beneath me And I sigh in the refreshing moment of it The sun warms me As it rises above your bosom The gentle moon fades Its luminous light far beyond my reach Life awakens In all that is you And I breathe All that is you And I feel All that is you And I love All that is you Gaia Anna McBain
(She Rises 1) Knowing the Great Goddess: Act of Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[Author’s Note: This is part of my introduction to She Rises, Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality?” forthcoming June Solstice, 2015] Without doubt, undertaking the project of this anthology is a way of advocating a feminist/activist/spiritual Goddessism/Magoism. Knowing the Great Goddess itself is an act of Goddess feminism/activism/spirituality. “To know” is an active verb. To know the Goddess is an act that hurls one to an uncharted territory in the patriarchal foreground. Precisely, in that bewildered place we find the door to the Way of the Goddess. We are collectively waking up to the deep memory that ancients paved a way for us to remember. She Rises invites everyone including agnostics and atheists. More to the point, it defies the very notion of an “agnostic” or “atheist”—and “believer” or “non-believer”— concepts derived from the dualistic thinking of the monotheistic patriarchal religions. We do not have to believe in the Goddess. Or one may “believe” in the Goddess no more than one “believes” in one’s ancestor. Thealogy (studies of the Female Divine/Goddess) does not work in the same way as the theology of the monotheistic male divine does. It is a whole new way of thinking, not believing. As direct offspring of the Great Goddess/Mago, we humans are endowed with Her divine nature. Thealogy takes us to see the new horizon in which the divide between the divine and humans is no longer substantive. Likewise, the divide between the sacred and the secular is eroded in the consciousness of the Great Goddess. Knowing the Great Goddess/Mago redefines oneself, humanity, the Earth community, and the universe. We are given the primordial lens of the Great Goddess. We get to know the Great Goddess through thinking. Our knowing is not static, however, but ever unfolding and evolving. Our thinking is not a mere cerebral activity. It is the rudder of our action. A deep thinking leads to gynocentric knowing, the knowing of the Great Goddess. We understand the self and the world through the lens of the Great Goddess, the consciousness of WE in S/HE. Because gynocentric knowing has been made esoteric or anomalous, if surfaced in the consciousness, in patriarchal times, we require some techniques in our thinking especially in the beginning to tap into gynocentric thinking. We are led to the vacancy of the patriarchal mind before realizing that we are in the sacred ground of the Great Goddess. She Rises marks a collective realization that we are HERE! Meanwhile, we require both deconstruction and reconstruction in the mode of our thinking. The first and last thing that we become aware of is that knowing the Great Goddess does not take place within the framework of monotheistic male theology. By definition, patriarchy is founded on the dualistic thinking of the male and the female. Patriarchal religions, based on the dualistic mode of thinking, see things in separation from and against one another, e.g., men vs. women, God vs. humans, the world vs. nature, the mind vs. the body, theism vs. atheism. In order to enthrone the male, patriarchal mind-molders employ the ruse of dualism, which is an epistemological/anthropological/ecological disaster that has brought havoc not only to humanity but also to the earthly community as a whole. The patriarchal mode of thinking disqualifies for the consciousness of WE. Perpetuating the cycle of hierarchy and domination, it takes everything within its reach into the cacophonic degeneration that hinders the working of the Creatrix. An effort “to know who I am” is the prerequisite of knowing the Goddess. The quest for finding/knowing oneself is indeed a dangerous thing in that patriarchal mind-molders do not have control of it and indeed fear it. Self-trust is in disproportion with one’s endorsement of dualistic thinking. That was my experience. As I became aware of the working in my mind of the dualistic thinking spawned by patriarchal cultures/religions of both the West and the East and made a conscious decision not to go with it, I came to affirm myself. Till then, I underestimated the power of thinking. Our self-knowledge saves us. I used to hear that thinking, or knowing, is the opposite of one’s action or at least not the same as action. That accounts for the fact that patriarchal mind-molders do not teach people how to think deeply. Instead, they impose on people to believe in the dogmas and creeds that they created for themselves. Any authority that does not allow people to think for themselves is an aggressor. Goddessians/Magoists re-claim the power of thinking/knowing/naming. Thinking marks the very core of our action. Thinking acts. A thought shocks, touches, or bores our body/mind/heart. Thinking causes a consequence in the material world. Our heart pounds with a thought. That is how journalism works in modern times. Journalists ceaselessly seek for “shocking” news and invent headlines to maximize the impact on people. However, news media companies do not teach people how to think positively or correctly. They use the power of thinking. Correct thinking is derived from gynocentric knowing. Goddessians/Magoists tune our thinking to the gynocentric unconsciousness. We are fully alive with the consciousness of the Great Goddess. Our thinking invokes another thinking; it is organic and contagious. The working of our collective thinking is unfathomable. She Rises embodies our collective thinking. It is true that, if one does not change the mode of one’s thinking, while blindly accepting what patriarchal religions or moralities impose, one’s thinking fails to lead one to the knowing of the Goddess. Such thinking remains stunted. Stunted thinking, endorsing patriarchal norms, misleads and confuses people. It changes nothing. Without reaching/touching the core of one’s being, it only mimics the power of creative thinking. We need to watch our thinking. The conscious transition from the dominant/dominated mode of thinking (A or/against B) to empowering/encompassing mode of thinking (A and/in-continuum-of B) needs to be made. We can detect the dualistic mode of thinking that works in our mind on a daily basis. At that very split second that we sabotage the patriarchal/dualistic mode of …
(Meet Mago Contributor) Lucy Pierce

Lucy Pierce trained in Fine Art, majoring in Ceramics at RMIT, Melbourne, Australia. I now live in the beautiful Yarra Valley, not far from the river and overlooking the mountains, with my beloved partner and 3 beautiful children. I feel my creative work has led me on a journey deep into the psycho-spiritual realms of my being. Through my creative impulse I feel wooed into a deep engagement with the poetic interface of life.
(Poem) Command, O Mistress! by Jillian Parker aka Flame in the Snow

Swift her strokes in dizzy rumble ramble burning scarlet gulps she glides crimson Flicker-Tail no net has gained a purchase no wall could bar her from her destination no words have ever marred her murmurs to the moon like red hair that skips a generation like a royal-blue poppy sprouting along the highway like long-lost notes to a Requiem she waits flip-flopping alone in a shallow canal, she’s spent her seed till nothing’s left but a throbbing center those lazy breadcrumb-munching mallards don’t care, they’re watching a grey gull preen himself then, trembling-frail, perched on a rusting shopping cart, Salmon Woman nods and the spindle-legged white crane turns step-dancing, bends and tears out her heart and together they ascend a single silhouette into a smog-scented sunrise. (Meet Mago Contributor) Jillian Parker.
(Art) The Door Where Time Stands Still by Jhilmil Breckenridge

In a neighbourhood near my house, which is modern and in a privileged area, is this poorer area,
(Art Essay) The Language of Stars by Claire Dorey

The Language of Stars by Claire Dorey Follows: Seshat Mistress of the Yoniverse “An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at the stars in the night sky.” – Marina Abramović – An Artist’s Life Manifesto: Marina Abramović’s Rules of Life, Solitude, and Silence, Popova, Maria, The Marginalian. [1] Nut, Hathor, Sothis and Seshat embody star gazing within the flesh of their being. Sun dropping to the dunes, emerald eyes glinting, these exotic, perfumed, resolutely strong and divinely feminine Goddesses recline upon gilded stools, sipping hibiscus tea. As the light fades to indigo they take up their positions in the cosmogenic womb space, ethereal costumes merging with the nocturnal sky: astral headdress; lapis hair; panther skin and sheath dress scattered with glittering constellations, reminding us there is life out there in the cosmos…. and it’s female. Beyond sartorial expression there are other ways the Sky Goddess weaves celestial geometry and motion into the fabric of civilisation. Awakening us to our transcendent selves and to the power of the night, Nut personifies the eternal void and Milky Way; Sothis embodies the heliacal rising of Sirius, marking the start of the Sothis Year; ‘Lady of the Stars’ and cosmic Mother Cow, Hathor births the sun; Seshat records time and uses a star clock and Ursa Major to plot the layout of temples. “The decans of Egyptian astronomy were 36 stars or star groups near the ecliptic whose rise or transit could be used to tell the time during the night.” – Smit & Palarczyk, Egypt: Temple of Dendera,, Pinterest. [2] Rebalancing the universe, by revisiting the Sky Goddess Matrix, is important because the female connection to the heavens was severed by sky god religions. Seshat was eclipsed by Thoth, Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus. Seshat Mistress of the Yoniverse discusses the symbolism hidden within Her headdress and Her method of using Meskhetiu (Ursa Major) and a merkhet (star clock) to plot the layout of temples. This method also seems to work on architectural drawings of the Great Pyramid, plotting the height, external slopes and positions of inner chambers. “The Cheops Pyramid [ ] becomes an Amplifier or a Resonance Chamber because all it’s finest measurements are encoded in our human form.” – Jain 108. [3] Perhaps Seshat harnesses celestial motion to draw cosmic consciousness into both sacred architecture AND the art within it, including drawings and sculpture of the human form. Harpist Ani Williams and Antoine Seronde [4] talk ‘temple scale’ – drawing down ‘cosmic musical frequency’ into sacred spaces – so why not pull cosmic motion and proportion into temple art, connecting sentient beings on earth to a higher consciousness? ““Seshat opens the door of heaven for you.” Spell 10 – the Coffin Texts.” – Mutere, Malaika. [5] Predating spare-rib mythology by eons, did Seshat create woman in the image of the Goddess, as a cosmological reflection of a universe in motion? We consider the idealised, ultra-realist forms of classical sculpture to be High Art, assuming other representations of the human form are unaccomplished in comparison. Ethereal white marble ‘perfection’ is aspirational. The less body-centric, ancient Egyptian portrayal of the human form may draw upon the astrological proportions and motion of various constellations. I’ve sat with this idea for months now because it’s difficult to prove since there’s simply eons of ancient Egyptian art. Visualising the Energy in Hathor’s Temple simplified it’s artwork into a grid system of triangles, whilst pondering some meaning behind this. Now I’m looking at Dendera (also known as Hathor’s ‘Womb of Time’) with new eyes, wondering if Seshat’s method of using stars, to create structure, plots the human form and layout of the artwork there. Rotating ‘Meskhetiu’ (Ursa Major) in increments around the North star, placed upon Hathor’s third eye, appears to plot the dimensions, contours and positions of features, including extended eye-liner, of Hathor’s curiously proportioned, cow-like face, sitting atop the pillars at Dendera. Interestingly, in ancient Egypt Ursa Major is called the ‘ox-leg’. Generally nature’s code, the golden ratio and the fibonacci sequence, shape universal balance and proportion, yet once seen, it’s hard to un see this constellation reflected in Her face. She also tops the sistrum, so perhaps this instrument is in conversation with Ursa Major. It appears celestial motion, expressed for example as a foot moving forward, implies there is a cosmic destination that deities, profound beings and ordinary humans move towards – the Book of the Dead is also know as the Book of Going Forth by Day. As opposed to the geo-centric vision of man at the centre of his universe, ancient Egyptian imagery appears to express humanity as part of a cosmos in motion. Revisiting the Sky Goddess Matrix, time and again, peels away complex layers of celestial consciousness held within the language of symbol. Understanding consciousness, which reveals itself in increments, is a slow and organic process, rather like fermenting wine. “For one consciousness to understand another – to understand what it is like to be another – might be the supreme challenge of communication and coexistence….” – Popova, Maria, Music, the Neural Harmonics of Emotion, and How Love Recomposes the Brain, The Marginalian. [6] On the Hypostyle Ceiling an image of Hathor’s Eye, [7], encircled by Her mirror, faces a ‘precession’ of fourteen deities, including Nut, Sekhmet, Isis and Tefnut, all with one foot forward, moving towards their celestial destination. The fourteen are possibly part of the 36 decans (ten day weeks) of the Sothis Year. Fourteen may relate to the Isis / Osiris myth (he was chopped into fourteen pieces, Isis retrieved thirteen). I’m pretty certain their destination is ‘Sirius Rising’ because superimposing an image of Canis Major over this composition – Sirius is part of this constellation – lining the Dog Star up with Hathor’s pupil, the other stars in the constellation mark the outer corner of Her Eye; the direction of Her tear duct (symbolising the inundation of the Nile?); the distance between brow and liner; three points on the mirror’s circumference; and the positioning of panels of hieroglyphs flanking …
(Goddess Writing 7) Notes by Kaalii Cargill

My speculative/historical novel DAUGHTERS OF TIME traces a line of daughters from ancient Sumer to the present day. The idea was to explore a lineage of women who carry the way of Goddess even as Abraham becomes the “father” of the sky god religions. This excerpt describes a scene in which Makeda, the “Queen of Sheba”, is visiting King Solomon in Ursalimmu (Jerusalem). She encounters the “daughters of time”, women in the line of Mir-ri, priestess of ancient Sumer. The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, Edward Poynter, 1890, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia. “Ah,” sighed Makeda. “Your words are strangely familiar to me. Like ritual words I have heard spoken in the temple of Astarte.” She looked from Harika to Mir-ri, and then to Mehtap and Inna. “Is this also the way of women in the North?” The question hovered in the room. Mehtap sensed the new mood that had entered and moved closer to Inna. Grandmother Mir-ri shook her head, white hair falling free of the blue cloth she used to wrap it for the day. “Once it was so, in Urim, the city of our ancestors. But now the words are almost lost.” “But not quite,” added Makeda, looking thoughtful. “Not quite,” said Mir-ri. “The Great Lady of Heaven and Earth still speaks to her daughters.” “We know her as Astarte in the South,” said Makeda. “She is Isis in Kemet.” Mehtap nudged Inna with her elbow. Makeda continued. “She has a thousand names and is nameless.” Harika and Mir-ri were nodding, and Inna had become very still. Never had Mehtap felt her mother and grandmother quite like this, although Mir-ri often spoke of the old ways. “I know of this Urim of which you speak,” said Makeda, breaking the spell. “It is the birthplace of Sulaman’s ancestor, the one who was beloved of their El, the Great One they worship here in Ursalimmu.” “I did not know that this line of Kings began in Urim,” whispered Grandmother Mir-ri. “Long have I wondered at the tales of the first Mir-ri, who left Urim carrying a treasure. I am sure that her treasure was the child she carried, but I have never understood what made the child precious enough for the tale to be told, mother to daughter, for a thousand years. Now you have given me an idea.” She laughed then, eyes shining. Harika stared at her mother, the bunna bowl resting forgotten in her lap. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mir-ri raised a hand. “Tell me,” she said, turning to Makeda. “Do you know when Sulaman’s ancestor left Urim?” Makeda frowned. “I think it was not long before the fall of the old city, if the tales tell true.” Grandmother Mir-ri nodded knowingly. “It is the same in our tales: the first mother, Mir-ri, left Urim not long before the Fall.” Then Harika laughed. “I see it, too.” Shaking her head in wonder, she looked at Inna and Mehtap. Mehtap was trying to understand, but their words seemed like nonsense, although heat flushed her cheeks, as if her body knew what this was about. “What do you see?” she asked her mother. “What is it?” Makeda looked questioningly at Harika and Mir-ri. They looked to each other and nodded. Mehtap and Inna leaned forward. Grandmother Mir-ri spoke solemnly, like when reciting a teaching story. “Before the fall of Urim, the first Mir-ri, for whom I am named, left the city with her family. We know she carried a treasure, although no sign of it has ever been found. She carried a child, a daughter if I see truly, a daughter to balance the line of sons that came from Sulaman’s ancestor. A daughter to carry the way of women through the ages, to ensure all is not lost to the way of men and their Great One.” Makeda nodded. “I have heard of this in the old tales from Ki-en-gir. Through this line of daughters the way of the Queen of Heaven lives, to remind us that El is not all present, all powerful, all knowing as Sulaman and his Priests would have us believe.” She spoke softly, looking at Mehtap. “I have seen you in my dreams, but I did not understand.” “That means it is us, me and Inna,” cried Mehtap. “But what can we do?” “It is not what you do,” said Makeda. “It is who you are. It is the lineage you carry, and why you have been running through my dreams; the way of the Mother, the deep reverence for the life-giving power must not be lost. I rode my camel for half a year to see for myself this King who is beloved of El, the Supreme One. Sulaman claims dominion over life and death in the name of El. He claims that the way of El is the only way.” Just when Mehtap thought she had finished, Makeda began speaking again, her voice soft. “I have seen a King great in the ways of men. He rules with power. He conquers all who resist, and he takes slaves and women for tribute. He builds a glorious Temple for this El. He answers the riddles of the philosophers and knows the patterns of the stars.” She paused as if remembering something. “He is strong and powerful, with the head, hands, and loins of a King.” “And?” asked Mir-ri. “He forgets the power of women. For him they are another conquest.” She shook her head, eyes shadowed. “The world forgets,” agreed Mir-ri sadly. “In my lifetime I have seen the way of the Mother fade before the might of the Father of Sky and Light. It is like the old tales of Marduk slaying Tiamat for dominion over the Earth.” “But all is not lost,” said Makeda loudly. “We remember.” Grandmother Mir-ri nodded. “While there are daughters who remember, the Mother will not be lost.” Makeda smiled. “I am thinking of my own …

(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/.
(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.

(Prose) Halcyon for the Season by Deanne Quarrie

A bird for this season is the Kingfisher, also known as the Halcyon. The Kingfisher is associated in Greek myth with the Winter Solstice. There were fourteen “halcyon days” in every year, seven of which fell before the winter solstice, seven after; peaceful days when the sea was smooth as a pond and the hen-halcyon built a floating nest and hatched out her young. She also had another habit, that of carrying her dead mate on her back over the sea and mourning him with a plaintive cry. Pliny reported that the halcyon was rarely seen and then only at the winter and summer solstices and at the setting of the Pleiades. She was therefore, a manifestation of the Moon-Goddess who was worshiped at the two solstices as the Goddess of Life in Death and Death in Life and, when the Pleiades set, she sent the sacred king his summons for death. Kingfishers are typically stocky, short-legged birds with large heads and large, heron-like beaks. They feed primarily on fish, hovering over the water or watching intently from perches and they plunge headlong into the water to catch their prey. Their name, Alcedinidae, stems from classical Greek mythology. Alcyone, Daughter of the Wind, was so distraught when her husband perished in a shipwreck that she threw herself into the sea. Both were then transformed into kingfishers and roamed the waves together. When they nested on the open sea, the winds remained calm and the weather balmy. Still another Alcyone, Queen of Sailing, was the mystical leader of the seven Pleiades. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades in May marked the beginning of the navigational year and their setting marked the end. Alcyone, as Sea Goddess protected sailors from rocks and rough weather. The bird, halcyon continued for centuries to be credited with the magical power of allaying storms. Shakespeare refers to this legend in this passage from Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. Hamlet, I, i 157 When I was a young mother, and my children were little, we lived in a house that had a creek in the back yard. There were small trees along the far bank of this creek and every day, a kingfisher would sit in the branches overlooking the creek. Sometimes he sat there very quietly for a very long time. Suddenly he would dive from his perch straight into the creek. Every time he did he came out and up into the air with a fish. It gave me great pleasure to watch him from my kitchen window. I love birds. I love learning about their habits because it teaches me ways of being that are closer to nature. I love drawing birds as well. When I was a young and more able, I was an avid bird watcher, out with my friends hoping for a sight never seen before. I love the story of the kingfisher and her connection to the Halcyon Days of the Winter Solstice. It is for most of us the busiest time of year. Whether it is for the Solstice or Christmas (often both) we are in a frenzy to get things done, making sure everything is just right and perfect. I celebrate the Winter Solstice. As a priestess, my days right now are very busy creating ritual. It is at the Solstice that many passage rites are happening with the women I work with. And of course, I celebrate with my family with our magical Yule Log each year. But I try to honor those seven days before and the seven days after by trying to have the frantic moments before the Halcyon Days begin and then even when busy, hold the peace and calm of that beautiful smooth sea in my mind. Peace and love and joy surrounding the Winter Solstice make it perfect. May the Peace of a Halcyon Sea be yours in this Solstice Season. Do hold the image of that little kingfisher in mind! Meet Mago Contributor, Deanne Quarrie
(Video) Winter Solstice Breath Meditation by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Winter Solstice/Yule Southern Hemisphere – June 20 – 23. Northern Hemisphere – December 20 – 23 Winter Solstice is a celebration of the Mother/Creator aspect of the Triple Goddess in particular – as both Solstices may be, as dark or light come to fullness. Winter Solstice Moment celebrates the ripe fullness of the Dark Womb, and the gateway from that fullness back into new growing light. It is a Birthing Place – into differentiated being, and Her birthing happens in every moment in the breath, and is seamlessly connected with all layers of being – of self, Earth and Cosmos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDsVZzXtoyM The Text in the Meditation[i] Take a deep breath and let it go. Notice the Void at the bottom of emptying your breath … feeling it, and feeling the Urge to breathe as it arises. And again … feeling it over and over – this breath that arises out of the full emptiness in every moment, birthing you in every moment. – Recall some of the birthings in your life, your actual birth – see it there in your mind’s eye … you coming into being – your Nativity, your Nativity. Recall projects you have brought into being, new beings within yourself, perhaps children, new beings in others, how you have been Creator and Created – even at the same time … who was birthing who? Staying for a while with the many, many birthings in your life. – recalling now Earth-Gaia’s many birthings out of the Dark everyday … the dawn is constant as She turns. See Her in your mind’s eye – the constant dawning around the globe, the constant birthing. Recall Earth’s many births right now of all beings – as day breaks around the globe – the physical, emotional, spiritual births. Her many, many birthings everyday, and throughout the eons. recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. – recalling now Universe-Gaia’s many birthings – happening in every moment – right now in real time and space … supernovas right now, stars and planets being born right now. Her many, many birthings in every moment and throughout the eons. Come back to your breath – this wonder – none of it separate … the Origin Ever-Present, birthing you in every moment – out of Her Fertile Dark, in real time and space. Feeling this breath, Her breath. NOTES: [i] Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology, Winter Solstice ceremonial script, p. 195-196. Reference: Glenys Livingstone, PaGaian Cosmology. Music: Fish Nite Moon by Tim Wheater, permission generously given Images: – Birth of the Goddess, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pl. 155. See https://pagaian.org/book/cover-goddess-image/ – Winter Solstice window, MoonCourt Australia 2016 – some sources unknown
(Poetry & Photo Essay) Pongal by Susan Hawthorne

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

Photography by Sara Wright I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees in front of the brook is luminous – lime green tipped in gold – My too sensitive eyes are blessedly well protected by this canopy of late summer leaves. The maples on the hill are losing chlorophyll and are painting the hollow with splashes of bittersweet orange and red. The dead spruces by the brook will probably collapse this winter providing Black bears with even more precious ants and larvae to eat in early spring. I only hope that some bears will survive the fall slaughter to return to this black bear sanctuary; in particular two beloved young ones… Mushrooms abound, amanitas, boletes morels, puff balls, the latter two finding their way into my salads. The forest around my house is in an active state of becoming with downed limbs and sprouting fungi becoming next year’s soil. The forest floor smells so sweet that all I can imagine is laying myself down on a bed of mosses to sleep and dream. The garden looks as tired as I am; lily fronds droop, yellowing leaves betraying the season at hand. Bright green pods provide a startling contrast to fading scarlet bee balm. Wild asters are abundant and goldenrod covers the fields with a bright yellow garment. Every wild bush has sprays of berries. My crabapple trees are bowed, each twig heavy with winter fruit. Most of the birds have absconded to the fields that are ripe with the seeds of wild grasses. The mourning doves are an exception – they gather together each dawn waiting patiently for me to fill the feeder. In the evening I am serenaded by soft cooing. One chicken hawk hides in the pine, lying in wait for the unwary…Just a few hummingbirds remain…whirring wings and twittering alert me to continued presence as they settle into the cherry tree to sleep, slipping into a light torpor with these cool September nights… Spiders are spinning their egg cases, even as they prepare to die. I can still find toads hopping around the house during the warmest hours of the day. Although the grass is long I will not mow it for fear of killing these most precious and threatened of species. I am heavily invested in seeing these toads burrow in to see another spring. My little frogs sit on their lily pads seeking the warmth of a dimming afternoon sun. Soon they too will slumber below fallen leaves or mud. I am surrounded by such beauty, and so much harvest bounty that even though I am exhausted I take deep pleasure out of each passing day of this glorious month of September, the month of my birth. Unlike many folks, for me, moving into the dark of the year feels like a blessing. Another leave -taking is almost upon me, and I am having trouble letting go of this small oasis that I have tended with such care for more than thirty years… I don’t know what this winter will bring to my modest cabin whose foundation is crumbling under too much moisture and too many years of heavy snow. In the spring extensive excavation will begin. A new foundation must be poured and this work will destroy the gardens I have loved, the mossy grounds around the south end of the house that I have nurtured for so long. In this season of letting go I must find a way to lay down my fears, and release that which I am powerless to change. Somehow… I have no idea what I will return to except that I have made it clear that none of my beloved trees be harmed. I am grateful that Nature is mirroring back to me so poignantly that letting go is the way through: That this dying can provide a bedrock foundation for another spring birth. As a Daughter of the Earth I lean into ancient wisdom, praying that this exhausted mind and body will be able to follow suit. (Meet Mago Contributor) Sara Wright.

(Mago Almanac 3) Restoring 13 Month 28 Day Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

[This and the following sequels are from Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A), Years 1 and 2 (5, 6, 9, 10…), 5915-6 MAGO ERA, 2018-9 CE (Mago Books, 2017).] We want to get back the 13th Friday. This almanac shows how that is possible. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang INTRODUCTION (Continued) HOW TO USE THE MAGO ALMANAC The Magoist Calendar employs a 28 day monthly cycle identical throughout the 13 months (see “28 DAY MONTHLY CALENDAR”). The first month of a year, however, begins with one intercalary day that falls on the eve of New Year for all years. Every fourth year has another intercalary day that fall on the eve of the first day of the 7th month (see “4 YEARS CALENDAR/1 LARGE CALENDAR”). Years are counted as a cyclic unit of four years, which is called Large Calendar. I have charted 8 Large Calendars of 32 years (see “8 LARGE CALENDARS/32 YEARS”). That said, the Mago Almanac will appear as the two types of booklets, Book A and Book B due to its Gregorian Calendar translation dates. The current booklet, Book A, includes calendric data of two years Year 1 and Year 2, the first two of the four years cyclic unit. Year 1 and Year 2 are exactly identical, when it comes to their Gregorian translations. In other words, one can use Book A for the years of 2018 and 2019 with the same Gregorian dates. Book B will include data on Year 3 and Year 4 for the two years of 2020 and 2021 in the Gregorian Calendar. As Gregorian dates intermittently run every month throughout the year and every four years with one leap day added in the month of February, both Year 3 and Year 4 will need a separate translational chart for Gregorian translation dates. While Gregorian leap days are more complicated than just one additional day in February, they won’t interfere with Mago Almanac’s Gregorian translation system until the year 2100, when it skips the leap day.[1] Book A Book B Years 1, 2… 3, 4… Common Era 2018, 2019 CE 2020, 2021 CE Mago Era 5915, 5916 ME 5917, 5918 ME Because both the Magoist Calendar (365.25 days) and the Gregorian Calendar (365.242189 days) are of the solar clendar, their dates tend to coincide every four years. For example, Year 5 and 6 will share the same Gregorian dates as Year 1 and 2. This means Book A is useful not only for Year 1 and 2 but also Year 5 and 6. Likewise, Book B is not only for Year 3 and Year 4 but also Year 7 and Year 8. Such patterns will repeat until 2100. By such recurrence, Mago Almanac will remain useful throughout the coming years. Below is the chart of 12 years (3 Large Calendars) for Mago Almanac’s two books. Book A Book B 1st Large Calendar Year 1 (2018 CE, 5915 ME) Year 3 (2020 CE, 5917 ME) Year 2 (2019 CE, 5916 ME) Year 4 (2021 CE, 5918 ME) 2nd Large Calendar Year 5 (2022 CE, 5919 ME) Year 7 (2024 CE, 5921 ME) Year 6 (2023 CE, 5920 ME) Year 8 (2025 CE, 5922 ME) 3rd Large Calendar Year 9 (2026 CE, 5923 ME) Year 11 (2028 CE, 5925 ME) Year 10 (2027 CE, 5924 ME) Year 12 (2029 CE, 5926 ME) Book A (Year 1 and Year 2) stands for the year of 2018 in the Gregorian Calendar (from December 17, 2017 till December 16, 2018) and the year of 2019 in the Gregorian Calendar (from December 17, 2018 till December 16, 2019). Year 1 (5915 ME) begins on December 17, 2017, the one intercalary day that comes on the day before the New Year’s Day. Its New Year’s day on December 18, 2017 marks the new moon day in the first month of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Year 2 (5916 ME) will be the same as Year 1. It begins with the one intercalary day of December 17, 2018. Its New Year’s day is December 18, 2018. However, it won’t be the new moon day since the moon’s phases are not exactly the same as the moon’s motions for the coming years. For this reason and the Gregorian Calendar’s intermittent dates involved in Book B, Mago Almanac plans to publish its yearly booklet. Book A includes Moon Phases in UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) for the years of 2018 and 2019. The cycle of moon phases (the synodic period of about 29.5 days) will run on its own path in the Magoist Calendar is based on the moon’s motions (the sidereal period of about 27.3 days). Also this almanac includes 24 Seasonal Marks in the Korean Time for the years of 2018 and 2019. Among these 24 seasons demarcated based on the solar calendar are such eight seasonal marks as Yule, Imbolc, Vernal Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lammas, Autumnal Equinox, and Winter Solstice, whose hours vary according to the viewer location. Last but not least, this almanac taps into the self-actualizing power of the calendar, which awakens its users to the Reality of the Creatrix. Its task is to be a user’s guide to the Magoist Calendar, the Living Text of the Creatrix. A cause that is equipped with the self-realizing force is divine. Restoring the Magoist Calendar is a divine work to be accomplished by the power of the gynocentric 13 month calendar itself. Its applicability is left to the hand of users. One’s own understanding of the gynocentric calendar will do the magic within herself/himself. One’s intellectuality is the winder to one’s spirituality. Individuals awakened by the Magoist Calendar will discover a sense of belong/direction/timing, not just to a particular society/place/time but to the inter-cosmic whole, WE/HERE/NOW. One may suddenly re-member her/his kinship with all others in an unexpected way. The consciousness of WE is not a destination arrived at a future time. It is HERE wherein we are born and live. In our …
(Photo Essay 2) ‘Gaeyang Halmi, the Sea Goddess of Korea’ by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part II: The Lost Iconography of Gaeyang Halmi We visited the Suseong Shrine a second time on July 11, 2012. I looked inside the Shrine wherein a shaman ritual was being performed by a Mudang (Korean Shaman)[i] and her assistants. The Mudang in colorful ritual outfit appeared to console her female client on behalf of the spirit. The ritual continued another hour or so and we waited outside until she finished her performance. We had come here on the day of arrival in Jungmak-dong, Buan. The shrine was locked, apparently not being in use. On our second visit, the shrine was packed with four people and their instruments and equipment. It was so compact that it left no room for another person to sit; however, it was pumping up the sober energy. In fact, I have no recollection of which musical instruments were being played inside the shrine. Nonetheless, it feels like that I was hearing the sharp and high banging of the kkwaenggwari (gong) accompanied by the janggu (hourglass drum) rhythm [symbolizing the sound of thunder and rain respectively]. The “musical” sound that I heard shook off the debris of ordinary thoughts and took me to the Other Side of Reality. I began to see things clearly the way they are. I was stepping into the history of this place that I was going to discover.
(Bell Essay 2) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Part II Overall Structure and Parts of the Ancient Korean Bell The ancient Korean bell takes on the female form figuratively. In other words, its female implication is expressed symbolically rather than descriptively. Unlike the ancient Greek bell that literally depicts a woman’s body (See Bell Essay 1), the ancient Korean bell characterizes female anatomy with symbols and designs. Neither limbs nor a human face is seen. Instead, breasts and nipples are stylized. The head is represented by a dragon. The belly is adorned with the relief of celestial nymphs. The female symbology that the bell invokes is not limited to the material body of the bell only, however. The legend of a female child sacrifice to the casting of the bell should be taken in the light of its female symbology. Likewise, the inscription made on the Sangwonsa Jong indicating that the commissioner was a woman needs to be taken into consideration. Foremost, the Magoist cosmogony that attributes cosmic music to ultimate creativity holds the key to unlock the very purpose of the bell: The bell is created to sound the Call of Mago, the Great Goddess. Visualizing Her, the bell emits the Sound of Mago for which its sacredness is explained. The bell, if we call it Buddhist, redefines Buddhism, Korean Buddhism, to be precise. It calls people to the arcane knowledge of the female origin. These points are to be discussed in more detail in the forthcoming sequels. In this part, I discuss the overall structure of the bell and examine some major characteristics of its parts. An ancient Korean bell consists of two parts: the bell’s body (jongsin) and the dragon loop (yongnu). The bell’s body part includes the Nipples, the Bell Breast, the Breast Circumference, Bell’s Belly, Celestial Nymphs, Bell’s Mouth, the Striking Seat, the Heavenly Plate, the Upper Support, and the Lower Support. And the dragon loop part includes the Dragon Loop and the Dragon Tube (Sound Tube). In addition, the piece of wood (mallet) that is designed to strike the bell on Dangjwa (Striking Seat) is called Dangmok (the Striking Wood). It also requires an Ullimtong (Depressed Ground for Sound Transmission) for the sound waves to travel. Each part, as a microcosm, adds to the beauty and function of the bell. Images sculpted including foliage, flower, lotus, humans, celestial nymphs, breasts, nipples, and dragon are achieved in sophistication. Artistic mastery is sublime. Behold! The bell is a metaphor of not only the body of a woman, the vulva in particular, but also what she is, her purpose! The bell transforms the female to the divine, the Goddess. Now I invite the reader to take note of the overall shape of the bell made in the form of a large Korean crock (hangari) placed upside down. The curved line drawn from top to bottom with the diameter of its mouth smaller than that of the belly is another distinguishing feature. In fact, there are quite a few features that distinguish ancient Korean bells from the bells of China and Japan. The parts that I illustrated above, in particular the nine Nipples, the Bell Breast, the Dragon Tube, Celestial Nymphs, and the Striking Seat, are its representative characteristics. As a percussion instrument, the ancient Korean bell epitomizes precision and sophistication. Everything contained on the surface of the bell is made to resonate with the inner hollow to maximize the travel of sound waves. As shown below in the figure, even the metal residue remaining on the inner wall plays a key role, creating the sound waves. Without those irregular lumps, the sound will have a far lower frequency making fewer waves. In other words, the rough surface of the inner hollow is intentional. Beauty and functionality are conjoined to create the sound of the Goddess. Functional parts such as the Dragon Loop, Dragon Tube (or Sound Tube), and the Striking Seat are seamlessly integrated with the artistry. The Dragon Loop is there to represent the divinity of the Goddess and at once to be used as a hook for hanging. The Dragon Tube open-ended upward is there to vent out the impurity of the sound. When all is said and done, it is designed not just to please the eye but to awaken the mind to seek. The bell in its mesmerizing beauty wakes up the mind of people, otherwise made dull or dormant under patriarchal inflictive routines. Buddhists might say that the reality to which the sound calls is “the way things are” or “suchness.” However, such understanding is only a tingle of the patriarchal mind that refuses to hear the deeper call. The bell awakens people to the reality of the Goddess. Each striking carries the pulse of Mago, the Great Goddess. Sources: Norugwi. [http://blog.daum.net/euijj31/11296149] Cultural Heritage Administration [http://www.cha.go.kr/main/KorIndex!korMain.action] Sin Hyeongjun. “Why is the Sound of Bell beautiful? The Delicacy of the Striking Spot… The Uneven Thickness Creates Sound Waves” Choson Ilbo, October, 9, 2001. (To be continued in Part III, Read Part I)

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