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(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.
(Poetry) Prayer to the Mother by Amina Rodriguez

I feel deeply troubled and a bit unsettled. I feel strongly a pull in two directions. Loving passionately and despising at once. I fear to look at what is hiding inside me… The truth of the roots of all my pain A reflection of what is out there around me I ask the universe for the courage to dive within I know the answers to all that ails me lies there Something keeps pulling me away distracting me from myself my truth my own love.
(Art & Poem) Candelmas/Imbolc by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
(Essay 2 Part 1) Why Do I Love Korean Historical Dramas? by Anna Tzanova

Part 1 Fans, journalists, critics, and academia in multiple fields have studied this world phenomenon; have written blogs, articles, books; and presented in conferences, dissecting, and making predictions. Still, the magic and mystery of its success persists to be as thrilling as ever. This is the way I see it: DELIGHTING THE SENSES
(Essay) What can we do to create a peaceful revolution? by Genevieve Vaughan

Realize that we are telling ourselves what is wrong all the time, but without understanding it. Understand why the urge towards domination and exploitation happens. Devalue the values that motivate people to dominate, especially nations, classes, races, as well as individuals. Look at this domination motivation and its effects. Identify the motivation and challenge and expose it at the different levels so that it will not grow back and cross-validate. Spread a movement of people who will regularly do this.
(Goddess Panel Art) Mother Nature by Kaalii Cargill

This image of “Mother” is one of a series of four Goddess Panels made for the Australian Goddess Conference in 2014. The “Mother” panel is life size (210 x 106 cm), crafted from fabric, bamboo padding, printed canvas, and bead work on a cotton backing. She is Mother Nature, the beginning, the end, the eternal return, the cycles and seasons, the wheel of the year, the changing Moon. Her body is golden-brown for the patterns of Nature that connect all living things. From Her breasts abundance flows, blue and green for water and earth, earth and water . . . Meet Mago Contributor, Kaalii Cargill
(Poem) Moon Tide by Sara Wright

Photo by Sara Wright Churning sea is receding – chasing a vanishing moon. One spiral shell washes up on white sand – tumbles my way, A Vision of Home? https://www.magoism.net/2014/12/meet-mago-contributor-sara-wright/
(Poem) Morning reflections by Arlene Bailey

Art, Beyond The Veil by Debbie Hanna,www.facebook.com/DebbieHannaArt https://www.magoism.net/2020/04/meet-mago-contributor-arlene-bailey/
Meet Mago Contributor, Judith Laura

Judith Laura is the award-winning author of two novels and three Goddess books, the most recent of which is Goddess Matters: the Mystical, Practical, and Controversial. You can find out more about her books on judithlaura.com/books.html. She blogs as Medusa on medusacoils.blogspot.com.

(Special Post 1) "The Oldest Civilization" and its Agendas by Mago Circle Members

[Editor’s Note: The following discussion took place in response to an article listed blow by the members of The Mago Cirlce, Facebook group of Goddessians/Magoists from May 6 to May 10, 2016. Readers are recommended to read the original article linked below that has invoked the converation.] “The Danube Civilization: Oldest in the World” in The Ancient Ones upon the ruins of our ancestors, published April 3, 2016.
(Special Post Mother Teresa 4) A Role Model for Women? by Mago Circle Members

Part IV: Illumination and Consensus Reached [Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.] Diane Horton: [C], how is it that you do not see that MT had no right to sacrifice other people for any purpose whatsoever? None of us have the right or the place to “sacrifice those we care about” for anything. She was not “above them”. And she had abundant means to do far more for them, to cure and comfort them. If indeed she imagined she had some lofty motivation as you so fervently believe, to use the power she had to withhold medical care from the poverty stricken sick and dying in some misguided and ultimately cruel attempt to bring the world’s attention to their suffering and produce compassion within those who would not otherwise feel it is the most monstrous miscarriage of any expression of what you might refer to as “love” that I have heard of outside of Jim Jones killing all of his followers in Ghana. That’s not Love. That’s not Compassion. That is Manipulation, and manipulation is ego-based. Anne Wilkerson Allen: Yes. It is an indoctrination so deep and so prolonged that it takes a lifetime to overcome…and we rely on the love and compassion of others to help bring us to this understanding….thanks, Diane. Diane Horton: Love you, Anne. [C]: Is thinking that any human being sacrificing inside their very soul, their morals, & all that entails, is actually of lesser value than outside human pain, suffering, even death itself, right? Diane Horton: I’m not sure I understand the question really, but I’ll try a response: one’s inner and outer life are of equal importance because they are all the whole person.
(Special Post 4) Multi-Linguistic Resemblances of “Mago” by Mago Circle Members

[This is a summary of discussion that took place around 2014 in The Mago Circle, Facebook group.]Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: I am writing an entry on “Mago” for the Glossary of my book, The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia:Mago (麻姑): East Asian word for the Great Goddess. Read “Ma” as in “Mama” and “Go” as in “to go.” The logographic characters are pronounced/romanized as Mago in Korean, Magu in Chinese, and Mako in Japanese. When it is used in historical contexts, “Mago” refers to the Great Goddess AND HER cultural matrix, Magoism (Magoist shamans/priestesses/rulers and/or the bygone mytho-history of Old Magoist Korea). S/HE represents Ultimate Reality as One Undividable Unity. The Great Goddess embodies the Creatrix, the cosmic sonic system of Life. Through HER, we enter the view of the whole, the consciousness of WE/HERE/NOW. Also known to have originated from the Big Dipper (Seven Stars) in lore—part of the Big Bear constellation—the Guardian of the Polaris, S/HE is the Guardian of the solar system. S/HE causes the stabilization of the solar system. In that sense, S/HE is the Sun Deity or Heavenly Deity. Self-emerged with Mago Stronghold (Earth) and two moons of the Earth through the sonic movement of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones), the Great Goddess oversees the cosmic music of Yul-ryeo (Rhythms and Tones), another term for the sonic movement of the universe. Mago gives birth to two daughters (Gung-hui) and (So-hui) parthenogenetically. Thus, they form the Mago Triad (Samsin). S/HE delegates HER two daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Oeum-chiljo (Five Pitches and Seven Tunes). Gung-hui and So-hui respectively give birth to four daughters parthenogenetically. The Primordial Mago Clan forms the Nine Magos, the archetype of Gurang (Nine Goddesses). Mago delegates eight (grand)daughters to oversee the cosmic music of Pal-ryeo (Eight Tones). S/HE causes the self-evolution of the Earth through which all terrestrial beings are brought into existence. In that sense, S/HE is the Earth Deity. As Samsin Halmi (Triad Grand-Mother), S/HE controls the birth and illness of children. Mago allows the Early Mago Clan in the paradise of Mago Stronghold to procreate progenies and entrusts them to take in charge of the terrestrial acoustic equilibrium. Revered as the Cosmogonist, Progenitor, and Ultimate Sovereign, Mago delegates the Mago Descent, the entirety of the divine, human ancestors, and humans, to oversee the acoustic harmony of the Earth in tune with the cosmic music. Hereupon, the paradisiacal Home of Mago Stronghold is established. S/HE is called by many names. Among them are Samsin (Triad Deity), Cheonsin (Heavenly Deity), Halmi (Grandmother/Goddess), Nogo (Ancient Goddess), and Seongo (Immortal Goddess). Also referred to as Mugeuk Nomo (None-Polarized First Mother) or Musaeng-nomo (Non-birthed First Mother) in Daoism. Mago appears resembling many Goddesses from around the world by way of such mythemes as the triad, parthenogenesis, cosmic music, animal companions, and the cosmogonist. “Mago” is linguistically identical or similar with “Mago” in Italian and Portuguese, “Magus/Magi” in Latin, “Magos” in Greek, “Maka” in Mycenaean Greek, “Magus” in Old Persian, and “Ma Guanyin” in East Asian languages, to name a few. Brian Kirbis: Funny, despite my fondness for language, I never made the connection. Though I have explored the lineage potential between naga and Nuwa 女娲. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: What did you find the linkage between naga and Nuwa, Brian? There is sometimes linguistic linkage relevant and other times mythological linkage… Brian Kirbis: Linguistic, iconographic, and mythological links are all available to us within a broad cross-cultural frame. My own analytic tendency is to see such mirror-image male-female representations as matrilineal and patrilineal essences which, in Chinese energy theory, reside in the kidneys (ancestral qi).Consider the Adam and Eve myth, for instance, with the figures on either side of the tree (spine, cosmic pivot, Milky Way), within which is contained the serpentine energy. There is ample information extant on such Tree of Life symbolism, all of which illustrates the inner energy body. The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.As you know, my area of interest is in the underlying cultural complex of tea-growing peoples located in Southwest China and upland Southeast Asia, an area replete with serpent mythology. Brian Kirbis: Comparison of Indian and Chinese representations of the Naga-Nagini and Fuxi & Nuwa. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Yes, indeed, there is similarity between the two. Interesting! Thanks for sharing them. Lizzy Bluebell: Brian Kirbis – fascinating – any idea what kind of tool each is holding in the sculpture? I see a chevron or M to the right of the Nagini’s head; (M and MA are fairly universal root symbols for Mother; Latin M encodes breasts, mounds, mountains, paps, tophets, etc. plus a general historical dispute over the importance of hills versus valleys.)I also note the inversion of right/left positions in the Nu Wa image.In terms of your statement – “The nagini-naga / Nuwa-Fuxi conjoint images in India and China absorb the serpent iconography into the human – an internalization of Kundalini energy.” — My thought: Have you ever considered it otherwise – that humanity has actually EXTERNALIZED chi energy into the form of the snake as a means of expressing it in non-vocal (sonic) symbolism which also manifests form via means of visualization as opposed to sonic/vocalizations or cymatics which creates form via RESONANCE.Helen – note that the tails are knotted – very important symbolic notion of ‘tying things’ as in the Shen Ring and Ankh – a masonic motif – related to measuring and containing within an Ouroborus SYSTEM which is closed, not cyclic or spiraling vis a vis Nature’s Way. It is the CLOSED CIRCLE as Plato’s “perfect form” which traps us in the flaws of re-peating and re-petitioning any ‘his-story’ we follow which does NOT HONOUR AND REVERE MAGO or hold her values close to HEART, as HEARD, in the HERD.Your original post (O/P thereafter) is fascinating and revealing and provides much to discuss on the topic of Zoroaster/Zarathustra and the Persian/Arabic/Semitic invention of Algebra and Astrology. In […]

(Art & Poem) Candelmas/Imbolc by Sudie Rakusin & Annie Finch

IMBOLC DANCE From the east she has gathered like wishes. She has woven a night into dawn. We are quickening ivy. We grow where her warmth melts out over the ice. Now spiral south bends into flame to push the morning over doors. The light swings wide, green with the pulse of seasons, and we let her in We are quickening ivy. We grow The light swings wide, green with the pulse till the west is rocked by darkness pulled from where the fire rises. Shortened time’s reflecting water rakes her through the thickened cold. Hands cover north smooth with emptiness, stinging the mill of night’s hours. Wait with me. See, she comes circling over the listening snow to us. Shortened time’s reflecting water Wait with me. See, she comes circling From Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003) Art is included in Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (Mago Books, 2017). (Meet Mago Contributor) Sudie Rakusin (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
Samhain/Deep Autumn within the Creative Cosmos by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an edited excerpt from Chapter 4 of the author’s new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony. Traditionally the dates for Samhain/Deep Autumn are: Northern Hemisphere – October 31st/November 1st Southern Hemisphere – April 30th/May 1st though the actual astronomical date varies. It is the meridian point or cross-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, thus actually a little later in early May for S.H., and early November for N.H., respectively. A Samhain/Deep Autumn Ceremonial Altar In this cosmology, Deep Autumn/Samhain is a celebration of She Who creates the Space to Be par excellence. This aspect of the Creative Triplicity is associated with the autopoietic quality of Cosmogenesis[i] and with the Crone/Old One of the Triple Goddess, who is essentially creative in Her process. This Seasonal Moment celebrates the process of the Crone, the Ancient One … how we are formed by Her process, and in that sense conceived by Her: it is an ‘imaginal fertility,’ a fertility of the dark space, the sentient Cosmos. It mirrors the fertility and conception of Beltaine (which is happening in the opposite Hemisphere at the same time). Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Story This celebration of Deep Autumn has been known in Christian times as “Halloween,” since the church in the Northern Hemisphere adopted it as “All Hallow’s eve” (31st October) or “All Saint’s Day” (1st November). This “Deep Autumn” festival as it may be named in our times, was known in old Celtic times as Samhain (pronounced “sow-een), which is an Irish Gaelic word, with a likely meaning of “Summer’s end,” since it is the time of the ending of the Spring-Summer growth. Many leaves of last Summer are turning and falling at this time: it was thus felt as the end of the year, and hence the New Year. It was and is noted as the beginning of Winter. It was the traditional Season for bringing in the animals from the outdoor pastures in pastoral economies, and when many of them were slaughtered. Earth’s tilt is continuing to move the region away from the Sun at this time of year. This Seasonal Moment is the meridian point of the darkest quarter of the year, between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; the dark part of the day is longer than the light part of the day and is still on the increase. It is thus the dark space of the annual cycle wherein conception and dreaming up the new may occur. As with any New Year, between the old and the new, in that moment, all is possible. We may choose in that moment what to pass to the future, and what to relegate to compost. Samhain may be understood as the Space between the breaths. It is a generative Space – the Source of all. There is particular magic in being with this Dark Space. This Dark Space which is ever present, may be named as the “All-Nourishing Abyss,”[ii] the “Ever-Present Origin.”[iii] It is a generative Place, and we may feel it particularly at this time of year, and call it to consciousness in ceremony. Some Samhain/Deep Autumn Motifs The fermentation of all that has passed begins. This moment may mark the Transformation of Death – the breakdown of old forms, the ferment and rot of the compost, and thus the possibility of renewal.[iv] It is actually a movement towards form and ‘re-solution’ (as Beltaine – its opposite – begins a movement towards entropy and dissolution). With practice we begin to develop this vision: of the rot, the ferment, being a movement towards the renewal, to see the gold. And just so, does one begin to know the movement at Beltaine, towards expansion and thus falling apart, dissolution. In Triple Goddess poetics it may be expressed that the Crone’s face here at Samhain begins to change to the Mother – as at Beltaine the Virgin’s face begins to change to the Mother: the aspects are never alone and kaleidoscope into the other … it is an alive dynamic process, never static. The whole Wheel is a Creation story, and Samhain is the place of the conceiving of this Creativity, and it may be in the Spelling of it – saying what we will; and thus, beginning the Journey through the Wheel. Conception could be described as a “female-referring transformatory power” – a term used by Melissa Raphael in Thealogy and Embodiment:[v] conception happens in a female body, yet it is a multivalent cosmic dynamic, that is, it happens in all being in a variety of forms. It is not bound to the female body, yet it occurs there in a particular and obvious way. Androcentric ideologies, philosophies and theologies have devalued the event and occurrence of conception in the female body: whereas PaGaian Cosmology is a conscious affirmation, invocation and celebration of “female sacrality”[vi] as part of all sacrality. It does thus affirm the female as a place; as well as a place.[vii] ‘Conception’ is identified as a Cosmic Dynamic essential to all being – not exclusive to the female, yet it is a female-based metaphor, one that patriarchal-based religions have either co-opted and attributed to a father-god (Zeus, Yahweh, Chenrezig – have all taken on being the ‘mother’), or it has been left out of the equation altogether. Womb is the place of Creation – not some God’s index finger as is imagined in Michelangelo’s famous painting. Melissa Raphael speaks of a “menstrual cosmology”. It is an “ancient cosmology in which chaos and harmony belong together in a creation where perfection is both impossible and meaningless;”[viii] yet it is recently affirmed in Western scientific understanding of chaos, as essential to order and spontaneous emergence. Samhain is an opportunity for immersion in a deeper reality which the usual cultural trance denies. It may celebrate immersion in what is usually ‘background’ – the real world beyond and within time and space: which is actually the major portion of the Cosmos we live in.[ix] Samhain is about understanding that the Dark is a fertile place: in its decay and rot it seethes with infinite unseen complex golden threads connected to the wealth of Creativity of all that has gone before – like any …
(Mago Almanac Excerpt 5) Introducing the Magoist Calendar by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A) Free PDF available at Mago Bookstore. THE 28-13-7 INTERPLAY How does the number, 28 (days), for the lunar cycle come about? Why is it 28 days and not 29 or 30, the latter implicated in the traditional lunar calendar of East Asia? It appears that 28 days is a value closer to the moon’s sidereal period (about 27.3 days) than the synodic period (about 29.5 days). Or is it that 28 days points to the median between the synodic lunar cycle and the sidereal lunar cycle? To answer these questions, it is important to note that a value in the Mago Time captures an inter-cosmic biological cusp/juncture derived from the matrix of sonic numerology. Distinguished from the patriarchal measure of time fixated into a solipsistic space, it makes visible the interconnectedness of all bodies. It never stands as an isolated single occasion. The 28 day, 13 month calendar has to do with how we perceive the moon. There are two ways of understanding the lunar cycle; the sidereal period and the synodic period (see Figure 2). The synodic period refers to the time, about 29.5 days, that we on earth see the moon complete one round of revolution, e.g. from the full moon to the full moon. In contrast, the sidereal period refers to the actual time, about 27.3 days, that the moon takes to complete one round of revolution. While the synodic time is measured relative to the Earth (the observer’s position is on earth), the sidereal time is measured relative to the distant “fixed” stars (the observer’s position is far out at the distant stars). Since the distant stars are considered at rest, the sidereal period is taken as a universal value, not affected by the location of the viewer, we on earth. There is, apparently, a discrepancy between the lunar cycle that we on earth see the moon return to the same phase and the lunar cycle that the moon actually completes a revolution. The former is based on our observation of the moon’s phases, whereas the latter is based on the moon’s actual orbital motions. The two differs basically because all celestial bodies, the moon, earth, and sun, in the solar system are in motion. It is not just the moon that we watch revolving but Earth also revolves around the sun. We are watching the movement of the moon on a moving vehicle, earth, so to speak. Therefore, the moon has to travel about 2 more days in order for us on earth to see it in the same phase (see the green portion in Figure 2 part). At the position A of the moon in Figure 2, the moon is in line with the sun and the distant stars, which is a new moon. In the position of B (the new moon), the moon is in line with the sun but not with the distant stars. The right hand line of the green portion in line with the distant stars is where the moon started as a new moon. The moon has traveled about 2 more days to be in line with the sun. That is why the synodic period is about 2 days longer than the sidereal period. When it comes to “the lunar calendar”, moderns tend to think of it as the waxing and waning phases of the moon (29.5 days, the synodic period). The problem lies in that, following the synodic period, people see nothing beyond the moon’s phases. They overlook the fact that the moon rotates and revolves on its own axis and around the earth approximately 13 degrees every day. The synodic lunisolar calendar is a navel-gazing vision. Attending to the moon’s phases may seem benign. However, that is a planned pitfall; the synodic lunisolar calendar with 12 months in a year is here to supersede the 28 day, 13 month gynocentric calendar. Its irregularity with the number of days in a month (29 or 30 days with about 11 extra days for intercalation) is an inherently critical flaw. Its inaccuracy when incorporated within the solar annual calendar (approximately 365.25 days) stands out. Seen below in the table, the synodic lunar track results in as many leap days as a total of 44 days for 4 years, whereas the sidereal lunar track has 2 days for 4 years. The synodic lunisolar calendar undercuts the moon’s given capacity – guiding earthly beings into the intergalactic voyage of WE/HERE/NOW. In it, both the moon and women are, glorified and objectified by the viewer, cast under the male voyeuristic eye. On the contrary, the sidereal lunisolar calendar, based on the cyclic synchrony between the moon and women, offers the lens to the interconnectedness of all bodies in the universe. Synodic Lunar Track (Patriarchal) Sidereal Lunar Track (Magoist) Focus Moon’s phases Moon’s motions Days of month 29 or 30 (irregular) 28 (regular) No. of months in a year 12 13 Women’s menstrual cycle Assumed sync Synced Luni-centric Astolonomy Unknown 28 Constellations Intercalations 11 days annually, a total of 44 days for 4 years 1 day annually & 1 day every 4 years, a total of 2 days for 4 years Sources prove that the sidereal lunation is, albeit esoterically, known across cultures to this day. Through the comparative study of ancient cultures of Babylon, Arabia, India and China, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) observes the substantive difference in dynamic between the two lunation tracks, the synodic and the sidereal. He notes that the moon’s orbital motion, apart from the sun’s, charts out the celestial sphere as the 28 Mansions. I have learned that the 28 Mansions or 28 Constellations of the Moon is a popular form of the 28 day and 13 month Magoist calendar, widely circulated among East Asians especially Koreans from the ancient time. Yeats’ following insights corroborate the Budoji’s explication of the Magoist Calendar in general and the faulty nature of the patriarchal (ancient Chinese) calendar in …
(Poem) Samhain by Annie Finch

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name. Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor. I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother’s mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings arms that hold answers for me, intimate, waiting, bounty: “Carry me.” She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze. From Eve (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) (Meet Mago Contributor) Annie Finch
Samhain: Stepping Wisely through the Open Door by Carolyn Lee Boyd

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

Photo by Carolyn Lee Boyd In times past, Creation’s Winter cupped me in her icy hand of sanctuary Gathered in, I sucked dormant life, and slumbered Till Earth’s rebirthing groans awakened my new body Now, older and full of life’s weeping and wondering awe At all that has happened in my decades on Earth I must shake myself into consciousness My seed’s opaque, blinding hull disintegrates and Bodyless, at last I can see through Goddess eyes I ache as my blood paints each flower petal I spin the whirlwind that cannot stop creating abundance I push the seasons through the year that mortals believe revolve of their own accord. Through Goddess eyes I can see me, I inhabit Winter’s hand as my own. I make the cold to slow creation of outside of me To gather the seed into fertile stillness within. That burgeons in my own time. https://www.magoism.net/2016/08/meet-mago-contributor-carolyn-lee-boyd/

(2015 Mago Pilgrimage) Neuk-do (Serpent Island) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

I wanted to visit Neuk-do because of the Mago story told in the region. Its name Neuk-do, which means the Serpent Island (구렁이섬), whispers a deep memory of the gynocentric past. However, people today seem to be oblivious to this. Our guides did not inform us of the meaning of the island’s name. I relished being surrounded by an air of mystery about the island during our visit. Also I was drawn to Neuk-do because it is under the administration of Sacheon City. The place-name, Sacheon (泗川 or 四川 Xichuan in Chinese), is no unknown place in the mytho-history of Magoism. Like many other place-names, “Sacheon,” recurs in both present-day China and the Korean peninsula. They, although written in slightly different characters, concern Magoism (stories, place-names, or topographies). In the case of the Chinese “Sacheon,” Magoism is systematically suppressed and replaced by Daoism. Today China boasts of Xichuan Province as a birthplace of Daoism. Mt. Qingcheng (青城山) in Dujiangyan City, is known as one of the ancient Daoist centers. Our data are, albeit often sketchy, ample to indicate the importance of Mt. Qingcheng in Daoist history. It is a place wherein Zhangling (34-156) or Zhang Daoling, the founder of Tianshi (天師 Celestial Master) Daoism, founded the doctrine of Daoism and died. Yellow Emperor, the pre-dynastic hero of the third millennium BCE, is commemorated. The Temple of Eternal Dao(常道觀 Changdao Guan) located in Mt. Qingcheng is noted for its oldest hall, the Shrine of the Yellow Emperor, built during the Sui dynasty (605-618).[i] Also the place-name, Dujiangyan(都江堰), reflects the ancient irrigation system originally constructed in circa 256 BCE during the Qin dynasty.[ii] Alongside a number of Daoist temples extant today, there are Magoist place-names and topographies, Magu Cave (麻姑洞 Magu-dong) and Magu Lake (麻姑池 Magu-chi) also known as Heavenly Lake (天池). Located adjacent to Shangqing Palace (上清宫 Supreme Clarity Palace), Magu Lake has a story that Magu collected water for her alchemical practice.[iii] “Mago” is alternatively used with “Cheon (Heaven, 天 Tian in Chinese),” as is in “Heavenly Lake.” As in other places, such Magoist place-names in Xichuan have survived Chinese mytho-historiography that has obliterated pre-Chinese Magoism and replaced it with Daoism. Note that Magu is never articulated as the Creatrix in Chinese historiography, whereas her supremacy is adumbrated in Chinese folklore and place-names. Chinese mytho-historiography has paid the price for its matricide: Its origin will never be explained. To say that Xichuan is a Daoist birthplace is a misleading. Xichuan is a pre-Daoist center of Magoism whose origin possibly dates to the time of Danguk (3898-2333 BCE). From the Korean sources, fortunately, we are able to assess that Xichuan was a place of significance from pre-Dangun times. According to the Handan Gogi (Archaic Histories of Han and Dan), Daeeup extant today near Mt. Qingcheng, Xichuan Province, was a place wherein Dangun began her career. The Handan Gogi reads, “Dangun began her career in Daeeup (大邑 Great Town, Dayi in Chinese). All people feared and obeyed her virtue as a divine being. When she was at age 14 in the year of Gapjin (2357 BCE), Sovereign Ungssi, upon hearing her divine virtue, appointed her as Biwang (Auxiliary Ruler) to administrate Daeeup (Great Town) [Female connoting words are mine].”[iv] Thomas Yoon points out that Daeeup is not a fictitious place-name but an actual site extant today in Chengdu, Sichuan.[v] Mr. Kigap Kang, former politician but now an orchard owner who experiments with nature-based farming for fruit trees in Sacheon City, arranged our meeting with the Director of the Sacheon City Cultural Center. The Director alongside his companion met us in his office. They told us Neuk-do’s stories of Mago Halmae. Then, we drove to the road off the shore where we could look out across the stepping stones in the sea that were said to have been placed by Mago Halmae. The tide was high and we could see only the tips of rocks. I could see the island across the adjoining water. Neuk-do had unusual topography as it was an elongated island conjoined by two mountainous isles. From such topography the name, the Serpent Island, may have derived. Houses are populated in the conjoined area. We drove to Neuk-do via a modern bridge with the hope of running into someone who could guide us to the site of Mago stepping stones. A native of Neuk-do, our guide-to-be, happened to be right there, when we got off the car. Mr. Gyeung Jang, a 61 year-old fisherman and native of Neuk-do, showed us the site in the sea where Mago is said to have placed stepping stones. Due to the high tide, we could only see the top parts of Mago’s stepping stones upper edge over the waterline. He also led us to peeking Mago Halmi’s washing laundry rock and estimated its size to be about two meters high at the low tide. He added, Mago Halmi was so tall and giant that she needed a tall rock. The motif that the giant Mago Hami carried a boulder to construct standing stones or dolmens and the story of Mago’s laundry rock commonly recur in other regions. During dinner at a seafood restaurant in Neuk-do, our conversations grew. Mr. Jang informed us of the fact that the whole island of Neuk-do is designated as a cultural and notable site by the province and the state. Its archaeological unearthing began in the early 1980s and has brought out numerous multi-period findings (about 13,000 items) ranging from the Neolithic to the early Iron Age. The unearthed include shell mounds, house sites, human and animal burials, pottery, and daggers that originated from not only Korea but also Yayoi Japan and Nangnang China. As such, Neuk-do has come to be known as a site of ancient transnational maritime centers in East Asia.[6] As I write this, the Mago story turns out to have several versions. I will share three versions here. In one account, Mago Halmae, so tall and giant, walked around the sea. She brought rocks …
(Video) The Mago Work by Mago Sisters by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL-hbgxa5v1IfUM6h6PvOTpLe8fLv5ExRG&v=HUM6EQ7sEaQ
(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. …