(Art) Yeowa by Lydia Ruyle

Yeowa is a Goguryeo tomb painting of a winged celestial spirit holding the moon with a frog in it for rebirth. Her serpent dragon body with claws and feet connects Yeowa to the neolithic bird goddesses of old Europe. The three legged crow in the sun below her is Samjoko, a symbol of power and the Goguryeo Dynasty. In East Asian mythologies, the three-legged crow is a symbol of the sun and is said to live there.
Source: Wall painting. c. 1st BCE-7th century CE.
Complex of Goguryeo Tombs. North Korea

(Essay 1) The Body – Essential or Not? by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

This essay is an evolved version of an excerpt from Chapter 2 of her book PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. 

All knowledge is an experience of body – what else can it be? Mind is body, body is mind. Humans know enough these days – including empirically – to end the dualistic notions of bodymind, to enter or perhaps re-enter in a new way, an integral comprehension of the bodymind we each are. In his book The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram affirms that

Without this body … [could there be] … anything to speak about, or even to reflect on, or to think, since without any contact, any encounter, without any glimmer of sensory experience, there could be nothing to question or to know.[1]

I ask then: what difference if this body menstruates, lactates, births – if these body processes were/are considered and sensed as the norm, that is, not as “different/other” as they so often have been in recent times of the human story? The “modern” woman – she of recent centuries – was held down by this difference, by the fact of her organic processes. The postmodern woman, convinced that the body can be “erased”, that its substantive presence can be dismissed,[2] may be expected to deny that it matters, that it affects her experience in any way.

The organic processes of the female body, her “elemental capabilities”,[3] are not cultural inventions, though much cultural invention about woman’s physicality has occurred (for example, the cultural idea that she was unsuited for education). And cultural invention continues to occur – across the full spectrum of thinking (for example, the persistent cultural notion that menstruation is a disability, or that physically strong women are “masculine”). And whilst it is true “that everything in human experience, including nature and human physicality, … [is already an] …  entity shaped into cultural perceptions”,[4] it is an error to deny any foundational experience. We are in deep relationship with our environment before we enter it – we are already shaped by environment as we form in the womb: “to be is to be related”.[5] We, like our primal forebears, breathe, drink water, excrete, feel. We do have a genetic code within each cell, that is a physical memory of origins … we are seeded with memory. This is especially true of the female body, whose ovum transmits the cytoplasm from one generation to the next.[6] The inability or unwillingness of a philosophical position to deal with a reciprocity between the being and environment – that the being itself has some innate foundational integrity, is a trait of the patriarchal mind in that it does not allow the materia any agency, sentience or autopoiesis. Scientific research is rampant with such minds. An example and typical of such a mind is that of Nobel award winning scientist Francis Crick,[7] who claimed that human joys and sorrows, memories and ambitions, sense of personality and free will “are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules”,[8] as if to assert that this “vast assembly of nerve cells and associated molecules” has no sentience.

I am suspicious of texts that would “erase” the body, including “new age” spiritualities, as well as academia, and popular culture – texts that would deny physical sentience or difference, since in patriarchal cultures it is the female particularly that is associated with physical reality. Whose body is it then that is primarily being erased, that has been erased since the emergence of the patriarchal mind? (Yet artists have been obsessed with her body – as if trying to paint her back into the picture perhaps or at times to frame her there as object.) The early Greeks denied her inclusion in the “kosmos” because of her messy body.[9]  In other cultures where her body had been the lap upon which rulers sat and thus gained their right to rule,[10] her body was gradually stylised into furniture – a throne, and then forgotten: her body became “part of the furniture”, utilitarian. And so, it still often is … as is the Mother Earth Herself. Female sacrality – the sacrality of the female body – has been “unnamed non-data in secular culture; peripheral sub-data in the phenomenology of religions”, and considered essentially “pagan” or unclean in Western religious culture.[11]  All bodies exchange substances with the environment – the land – whether or not it is obvious to an etherealised and sanitised culture. Aboriginal cosmologies have never forgotten this exchange; as Heather McDonald describes in her book Blood, Bones and Spirit – a work on Aboriginal Christianity. The body of these cosmologies is

an organic body which is consubstantial with, and permeable to, the living environment. It is composed of flesh and blood, bones and spirit, and is subject to the organic processes of fecundity, growth and decay.[12]

And the exchange of bodily fluids with land is valued and significant – a participation in the very flow of life, and relationship with “the ancestors”.[13]  Australian writer David Tacey points out that the spirituality that arises from the land in Australia, carried in the themes of its poets, and known by its indigenous inhabitants, is one that is profoundly continuous with the body.[14]

Milky Way Goddess, Gangavati, India

It is likely that when humans really remember the body, all bodies – this relational dynamic, this materia, in which we are – they will remember the female body, and once again will have to deal with a foundational cyclical experience of life – which includes birth and death.[15] How we story that experience is really very open, but it will be a recognition of the web of life into which we are woven, as well as being weavers.

Mother Goddess, ca.7250-6700 BCE, Catal Huyuk Turkey

Life – birth and death – does not seem like much of a “foundational cyclical experience” to most people. It seems more like a one way trip – linear, birth to death. But that depends on your perspective … if you take it from within our own small life, our own small perspective, then it appears that way. From within the larger perspective of EarthGaia, in which we are, there is no “away” … all things appear to come around in the real world, in which we find ourselves.  An analogy may be drawn to Euclid’s parallel lines.[16] While his postulate that parallel straight lines will never meet, holds true within a limited space (or in a perfectly flat featureless space – limitless and three dimensional), it does not hold true in the actual world that we inhabit – a spherical Earth.[17] Within the context of Earth, the lines will meet. Over time, Euclid has been proved incorrect from within a larger perspective. So with our lifeline, viewed from a larger perspective, from the perspective of Gaia, there is re-emergence, rebirth, though it is not personal – because we participate in a larger picture: we are participants in a Cosmos and Earth wherein every bit of us is constantly in flux, never-endingly renewed. We are a small part of the parallel lines, which actually go around a much larger entity – Earthbody/Gaia. In that context it is good to remember the exquisite prose of Susan Griffin in her book Woman and Nature – an integral crafting of words with our sensorial reality of being:

… I know I am made from this earth, as my mother’s hands were made from this earth, as her dreams came from this earth, the body of the bird, this pen, this paper, these hands, this tongue speaking, all that I know speaks to me through this earth[18] …

And some indigenous languages have never forgotten this intimacy of all flesh with earth and cosmos; and then there is no need to capitalise to indicate a sacred entity when all speech expresses this relatedness, and all bodies are integral to the web.

REFERENCES:

Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. NY: Vintage Books,

Coates, Irene. The Seed Bearers – the Role of the Female in Biology  and Genetics.  Durham: Pentland Press, 1993.

Griffin, Susan. Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. NY: Harper Colophon, 1980.

Guthrie, W. K. C. The Greek Philosophers. NY: Harper Torch Books, 1960.

Livingstone, Glenys. PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 2005.

McDonald, Heather. Blood, Bones and Spirit: Aboriginal Christianity in an East Kimberley Town. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press,

Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Raphael, Melissa. Thealogy and Embodiment: the Post-Patriarchal Reconstruction of Female Sexuality. Sheffield: Sheffield Press, 1996.

Spretnak, Charlene. States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. SF: HarperCollins, 1993.

Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.

Tacey, David. “Spirit and Place”, EarthSong journal, issue 1, Spring 2004, pp.7-10 and pp.32-35.

Vare, Ethlie Ann, and Ptacek, Greg. Mothers of Invention. NY: Quill, 1987.

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[1] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, p.45.

[2] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace: the Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age, p.122.

[3] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace: the Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age, p.122.

[4] Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace: the Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age, p.122 referring to Derrida.

[5] Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story , p.77, where they are describing  the Cosmogenetic dynamic of communion.

[6] See Irene Coates, The Seed Bearers, p.10.

[7] Francis Crick was credited with the co-discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA along with James Watson. Rosalind Franklin, whose work appears to have been crucial to the discovery, remained uncredited for decades and even discredited until recently – see Ethlie Anne Vare & Greg Ptacek, Mothers of Invention, p.214.

[8] Referred to by Cameron Forbes in an article “Thirst for Thought”, page 4 in The Weekend Australian February 3-4 2001.

[9] See W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosphers, pp.34-40.

[10] See Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, pp.98-100.

[11] Melissa Raphael, Thealogy and Embodiment, p.21.

[12] Heather McDonald, Blood, Bones and Spirit: Aboriginal Christianity in an East Kimberley Town, p. 20.

[13] Heather McDonald, Blood, Bones and Spirit: Aboriginal Christianity in an East Kimberley Town, p. 21.

[14] David Tacey, “Spirit and Place”, EarthSong journal, issue 1, pp.9-10.

[15] “Life” is not the opposite of “death” – “Life” contains both “birth” and “death”. I feel it is important to correct this in our language.

[16] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, p.198, refers to Euclid’s postulate in a slightly different context.

[17] David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, p.198.

[18] Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature, p.227.

(Mago Essay 2) Toward the Primordial Knowing of Mago, the Great Goddess by Helen Hwang

Part II Gynocentric Study of Mago’s Visual Representations

[The following sequels including this one are a modified version of my paper presented to Daoist Studies, the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in 2010.]

Mago [麻姑, also known as Magu or Mako] remains underrepresented if treated in modern scholarship. Little attention has been given to the topic of Magu in its own right. In the West a handful of scholars have mentioned Mago within the context of Daoism. Her transnational and trans-temporal manifestations in Korea, China, and Japan are largely unrecognized. That Magu is known as multiple identities throughout history in East Asia has gone unnoticed. In my study of Mago, that Mago’s supreme divinity as the Great Goddess has been rendered unintelligible over time under the rule of patriarchy offers a crucial insight leading to a befitting method.

First of all, the perception of Her as the Great Goddess enables one to recognize a large volume of primary sources, otherwise left unattended, from across national, regional, temporal, and typological boundaries. Secondly, the primary materials in turn allow one to assess the supreme nature of the Great Goddess, Mago, apart from the theological framework of the monotheistic male god. By being a non-Western and non-patriarchal tradition, Magoism warrants a distinctive thealogy characterized by self-equilibrium and interdependence of components, part of which was discussed in Part I. Thirdly, a trans-disciplinary method is corollary in processing a variety of multi-genre materials that would not be neatly categorized in a mono-disciplinary data-pool. To say the least, it liberates itself from the tyranny of monolithic methodology, which dissects to take only a portion of data from the whole and treat it as if it is a single independent entity. In short, methodology and thealogy, being mutually supportive, lead the researcher to a rather unexplored conceptual territory, which I call gynocentrism.

Gynocentrism takes the female principle as an operating system. Its system has been thwarted within the discourse of androcentric perspectives. Gynocentrism is a submerged mode of thinking in the patriarchically indoctrinated psyche. Made to be subliminal, the gynocentric mode of thinking elicits the Mago (Great Goddess) consciousness. Consequently, Mago consciousness upholds the infrastructures of gynocentric thinking. What distinguishes gynocentrism from feminism is that it redefines the male as a derivative of the Female. Gynocentrism reflects the principle of all mothers of living beings.

In that sense, my study of Mago is a gynocentric endeavor to chart an alternative paradigm of doing thealogy within the context of East Asian history, mythology, and culture. It is a misunderstanding that Magoist thealogy or Magology (the study of the Great Goddess) concerns the divine only. Gynocentric thealogy is not locked into a separate domain apart from humanity, nature, and the universe. Put differently, Magology is not a mere conceptual tool that explains the divine. It summons gynocentric histories, myths, and cultures that are to be restored and rewritten. It calls for rethinking everything in a fresh light.

In the sequels to follow, I bring to light a series of Mago’s visual representations expressed in paintings, ceramics, embroideries, woodprints, sculptures, and topographies, and examine Her multivalent identities in light of the large corpus of Magoist written and oral texts. Mago’s visual icons are beyond one’s documentation. They, especially those from China, are still a favored item in modern day’s auction markets. Several hundred images that I have documented are simply incomplete. Some sample images are chosen to show an array of historical/cultural/social productions, once honored and valued highly by many. Through the economy of commodification, these images have carried the cultural memory of the Great Goddess.

While a number of her visual icons are undated, many are from the Yuan (1271 to 1368), Ming (1368 to 1644), and Qing (1644 to 1912) dynasties of China, the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) of Korea, and certain historical periods of Japan. Also, many are from modern times. In them, Mago/Magu/Mako is depicted as:

(1) An immortal/transcendant (仙 xian or seon, immortal or transcendant).

Magu seated on a deer, 18th C, Qing dynasty, China, Oriental Museum, Durham University, UK

(2) A mendicant.

Magu with two female companions, fan painting, Ming dynasty, China, Philadelphia Museum, USA

(3) A sea goddess.

Magu, Hsiang Kun, British Museum

(4) A mountain goddess.

Mago Halmi in Mt. Jiri, Korea

(5) A crone.

Mago Halmi, cover image in the Sukhyang-jeon (Story of Sukhyang), late Joseon dynasty, Korea

(6) The ancestor of shamans.

Gurang (Nine Maidens) also known as Gyeyang Halmi representing Mago and eight daughters

And (7) A non-anthropomorphic identity or giantess as the nature-shaper or cosmogonist of local topographies such as mountains, rocks, caves, and seas. The notion of a giantess is employed to describe Her transcendental nature. In this case, Mago-named topographies alongside folk stories describe Her feature/identity of immeasurability.

Rock of Mago, Donghae, Korea

Needless to say, these identities overlap and merge, making up an overall picture of Mago as the Great Goddess. That is, She is each and all. These visual icons, stylized with symbolic objects, respectively demonstrate specific Magoist cultural memes once prevailing and favored among East Asians. A throng of objects such as medicinal herbs, especially lingzhi mushrooms, flowers, hoes, baskets, vessels, and animals, forms the coded syntaxes of the arcane language. In particular, a troupe of animals including deer, crane, dog, and monkey highlights the drama. Also, colophons carry not only the cultural meme but also prestige and authority for its producers and possessors.

(To be continued in Part III. Read Part I here.)

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[i] I have discussed this in detail in Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Seeking Mago, the Great Goddess: A Mytho-Historic-Thealogical Reconstruction of Magoism, an Archaically Originated Gynocentric Tradition of East Asia, Ph.D. dissertation (Claremont: Claremont Graduate University, 2005), 335-342; 353-361.

(Essay) Women, Power, and Religion in Ancient Athens by Harita Meenee

If there ever was an intimate connection between state and religion, we can see it quite clearly in ancient Athens. The very name of the city is attributed to a goddess—Athena, its protectress and guardian. There are different versions of how this came to be as she competed against Poseidon, the angry god of the sea and earthquakes. A fascinating story about this fight comes surprisingly from a Christian writer, St. Augustine:

At the time of Kekrops [legendary king of Athens] an olive tree suddenly sprung up on the hill of the Akropolis and a spring gushed out near that spot. Kekrops asked the oracle for advice and received the response that the spring suggested Poseidon, while the olive tree pointed to Athena. Kekrops called an assembly of all the citizens, male and female, to vote on the question; for at that time and in that place the custom was that women as well as men should take part in discussions about the affairs of state. When the matter was put before the people, the men voted for Neptune [Poseidon], the women for Minerva [Athena]; as it happened, the women outnumbered the men by one; thus, the victory was given to Minerva.

Then Neptune was outraged and devastated the territory of Athens flooding it with sea-water (…). To appease his anger (…) the women suffered a threefold punishment: they were never to have the vote again; their children were never to take their mother’s name; and no one was ever to call them “Athenian women.”[1]

This amazing myth reveals a telling connection between religion and politics. Also, it states quite bluntly that there was a time when women had significant rights: they participated in the decision-making in a democratic way, they had the legal status of Athenian citizens, while the naming of children was likely to be matrilineal. The essential truth of this legend is confirmed by archeological and anthropological evidence, showing that egalitarian societies did exist in prehistoric times, while in some parts of the world they survived even until recent years.[2]

Furthermore, the matrilineal naming of children is attested among several ancient peoples, such as the Lykians of southwestern Anatolia, the Egyptians and the Etruscans. It is also evident in the Hellenic colony Lokri Epizephyrii in Southern Italy, as well as in the area of Western Lokris in Greece.[3] Even in modern Greece, where, as a rule, children take their fathers’ surnames, a number of surnames clearly originate in female names.

The tale preserved by St. Augustine also demonstrates that Athena was worshipped mainly by women—it was their vote who made her patron (or rather matron!) of the city. Yet at the same time this story shows how religion was used to justify women’s oppression: their subordination was presented as a kind of punishment inflicted through the wrath of a male deity, as plainly stated by St. Augustine. Far-fetched as this may sound, it is also reminiscent of another story used to marginalize the female sex in more recent times: the punishment of Eve, who is portrayed as angering God within both Judaism and Christianity…

Women were indeed deprived of many rights in class-divided, patriarchal Athens; yet the power of the goddess never failed. Athena remained strong and independent—unlike other goddesses, she was never defeated, raped or forced into marriage. The best-known monument of ancient Greece, a testimony to the glamour and wealth of classical Athens, is none other than her temple, the Parthenon. The word derives from Athena’s title Parthenos, “Virgin,” a term originally denoting a woman’s unmarried status rather than her physical virginity.[4] The goddess’s huge statue, made of gold and ivory, was the work of Pheidias, one of the most famous sculptors of antiquity.[5]

Many were her titles and attributes in ancient Athens: Polias, “Goddess of the City,” Promakhos, “Defender,” Boulaia, “Of the City Council,” Ergane, “Industrious” etc.[6] Splendid festivals, like the Panathenaia, were organized by the state in her honor. Women always retained a special place in her rituals, as her priestesses and worshippers. They took part in formal processions, wove herpeplos (mantle), carried her sacred objects and ceremonially washed her wooden statue. They also tended the fertility of the earth in festivals like the Skira and the Arrephoria, since women always maintained a mystical connection to the land and the magical energy of the goddess.[7]

Although, according to myth, they suffered the loss of many rights because of their devotion to her, they knew better than to hold that against her. Besides, oppression is usually rooted in political, social and economic conditions rather than in religious beliefs used to justify it. The wealth and power of ancient Athens was largely based on the exploitation of women and slaves—female as well as male ones.[8] Aristophanes, the greatest comedy writer of antiquity, pointed in his own way at women as the possible solution to the problems of social injustice and war.[9] It seems that memories of a more egalitarian and peaceful world, in which the female gender played a major role, were still alive in his time. Intertwined with these memories was old, wise Athena.[10] For the women of the city she was a mighty goddess of peace and freedom, dear to their hearts, rejoicing in their celebrations, or so grandpa Aristophanes tells us. Thus, the female chorus in hisThesmophoriazousai makes a touching invocation to her:

Athena Pallas, the dance-loving goddess,
it is custom to call to our dance,
the virgin, unmarried maiden,
holding our city,
she alone having evident power,
she, the keeper of its keys.
Appear, you who properly despises tyrants.

The womenfolk are calling you;
come to us bringing Peace,
who loves festivities.[11]

Copyright by Harita Meenee

(This was originally published here: http://hmeenee.com/1794/8501.html)

(Poem) A Mother’s Day Proclamation by Mary Saracino

"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who 
have heart, whether our baptism be that of water or 
tears!”

--Mother's Day Proclamation, Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

She couldn’t anticipate that we’d sip champagne at fancy brunches,

turn her fervor into a hallmark holiday

In the name of womanhood and of humanity

Julia Ward Howe set her soul upon a nobler task

We will not have our great questions decided by irrelevant agencies

Set her courage upon loftier aims

Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause

She spoke of blood and bone

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience

She invoked the language of the womb

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs

She sounded a clarion call for unity

I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limits of nationality may be appointed

Against all adversity, she audaciously sought to abolish war

to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international question,

She meant for all of us to mother the world

the great and general interests of peace.

She meant for us to mend our rivalries,

go to our rooms until we cooled off,

kiss and make up, the way she knew we could

if we’d just listen to our mothers

“A Mother’s Day Proclamation” was originally published at www.newsversenews.com on May 11, 2008.

 

Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet, and memoir-writer who lives in Denver, CO. Her newest novel, Heretics, is forthcoming from Pearlsong Press in 2014. The anthology she co-edited, She Is Everywhere! Volume 3 (iUniverse 2012) earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature. Her novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. Her short story, “Vicky’s Secret” earned the 2007 Glass Woman Prize.

(Poem) Creation Myths by Donna Snyder

I.  Woman smiles

Woman smiles,
her face starred, exotic birds tattooed around her mouth,
beneath her eyes, around her nose.
Delicate teeth exposed to heaven, confident that no one scorns.

Woman smiles at Okie brothers, Indian lovers.
Grandmas squatting over iron pots of lard & lye.
Good black river bottom, green with growth--
the kind that feeds, the kind that chokes,
the kind that covers graves.

Candles flicker.  Drums beyond the walls.
Fiddles call the jumping boys who chant & dance
& scare away the spirits.   Rain on a tin roof.
Honeysuckle raising Cain on the side porch.
Dogs under the floor boards, warm and waiting.

Woman smiles.
Calls, “China! Africa!”  Sings, “India, America!”
And the sweet dogs crowd around her knees
and make her dance.

Woman smiles--
a wedding vase, a water bird, a box of roots.
A rocking horse.  A basket facing east.
Out of the earth a mist floats
and fondles the turtle and the deer.

Stars on her face--Woman smiles.
Beads on her head--Woman smiles.
Bird at her chin--Woman smiles.
Stone in her pocket--Woman smiles.
Rainbows behind her--Woman smiles.

Behind the mask, we find Woman.
And once truly found, Woman smiles.

God giving birth by Monica Sjoo, 1965

II.  Creation

A fairy handed me beads and a string of tiny bells,
fairy bells, he called them, and wound them across my shoulders.
The beads hang down my chest, promise cool breezes,
grey clouds hiding the new blue sky.

I sleep late.
Bells tinkle and tell me a tale about a place where God smiles
and pulls the world from between her legs.

In my dream, a turtle escapes
a thoughtless lunch of wilted lettuce and white bread.
His home painted on his back, his jaws break twigs.
His scaly feet carry him over the roots of elms and sumac.
He traces his bottom and tail across rich, black earth.

God smiles,
her vast bottom turned up to the sky.
She bends to stroke the back of turtle.
Her vast bottom extends to infinity--quite a spread!
God smiles, and pulls the world from between her legs.

God smiles at the world--its blue oceans, persimmon clouds,
continents green & black.

God has dogs named China, India, Africa, America.
“China!” she calls, “India!”
And the sweet dogs crowd around her knees
and make her dance.

Gaia the great mother takes the body grass sculpture

by Lena Lervik, Lund Sweden, 1998

III.  Dream

I dream of God lying on the earth,
beneath a warm sun, beneath a cool breath of wind
that strokes the soft skin of her necks & thighs.

A fairy whispers in my ear that God is a woman
who is at all times being pleasured.
Out of that dream of pleasure
unfolds the world.

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

Part III: The Debate, What Went Right/Wrong with Mother Teresa?

[Editorial Note: The following is an edited version of the discussion that took place spontaneously on Mago Circle from March 1, 2013 for about two weeks. It was an extensive, heated, yet reflective discussion, now broken into four parts to fit the format of the blog. We thank each and all of the participants for your openness, generosity, and courage to stand up for what you believe and think! Some are marked as anonymous. As someone stated, something may have been “written in the heat of the moment” and some might like to change it at a later time. So we inform our readers that nothing is written in stone. As a matter of fact, the discussion is ongoing, now with Magoism Blog readers. Please comment and respond as you wish.]

[C]: Unfortunately, Mother Theresa is not understood here in some of these comments:

To be in any way critical of Mother Theresa using what was the state of the world in her time & the poor & dying as tools of compassion, even more so when left to die visibly barely cared for, as a teaching method must not be looked at as unfeeling on her part as it was her greatest sorrow to use them so horribly as means to an end, but they were what she had at hand. Was never her intention to use any money to save them, would negate their very suffering purpose as well. She did not believe we all had learned the lesson yet in her time so she had to pretend to be solving the problem while continuing the problem. You see, the money was a byproduct of no importance to her, used just to get the peoples’ attention by using what they valued, let the Church have it for other things for it had served it’s purpose by bringing her sought after awareness of the poor & dying into view. In pretending to like & accept attention to herself, honors, & even challenges to these choices, all for one purpose to fool, to get the poor & dying attention, is why she was so distressed near the end by the means she had to use to reach that end! And perhaps her sheer loss of hope at having to stoop to such measures which reflects on the sad state of the rest of us. Wondering here where the money went doesn’t understand anything of what she was trying to do.

[C]: Thank You Naa Ayele Kumari for plowing through my thoughts enough to ‘like’ even! Could I be understood that Mother Theresa’s intentions were ‘higher’ than just taking care of the poor & dying in institutions, but to have the people understand there should be ‘feelings’ for them so they would never ever even have to be cared for in such ‘style’? She sacrificed these many nonpeaceful deaths to display, to show, to the whole world the direction it was heading, for the saving of the future multitudes of suffering & deaths if no one understood & cared soon. She dreamed these future lives would be right & good & their deaths would be the same attended by loved ones of their own, no need for group interference. She did not wish to just contain such tragedy, but to eliminate it from the whole earth forever. In the smaller scale view of some today the institutions are a necessary step, however Mother Theresa thought this a false step on a horrible path in the wrong direction, & she knew this, & dreamed beyond! To send away, to cage, the suffering, old, & sick in any society is a crime against Mother Nature no matter what the excuses or how pretty the packaged institution is presented!

[Z] Did not foresee the discussion would provoke such indepth and rich responses. It feels that we are getting close to the bottom of the matter that has not been brought up for so long, not in my life time. Profound interactions that make us aware of the aspects of how our thinking and living can be based on the kind of values we hold. I treat each and all of you in the hand of our goddesses.

Anne Wilkerson Allen: I think the Mother always moves us back toward compassion. Whether we have a sense of deity or not, we can all understand contextually how she was used and that her “beliefs” left her with such poverty of spirit that her entire life is under the microscope.

I wonder, will the media ask what the Church has done with all their Billions or simply focus on a dead nun indoctrinated by the system?

Diane Horton: No, I am sorry. [C], that is an incredible rationalization of Mother Teresa’s actions. Unbelievable actually. For you to justify her not using the extraordinary amount of money sent to her by saying that she chose to use these horrible deaths to bring attention to the sick and the dying and evoke compassion in people – that is the most megalomaniac position possible! Did she assume the role of God then?? That is outrageous! To think that she had the means to relieve these poor people’s sufferings and chose not to in order to USE them is even more heinous to me! I cannot wrap my head around how you think that is a good thing. She already HAD evoked compassion for these people. That’s why the money poured in! And all the “pretending” and lying you said she did for the greater good? NO. Compassion and empathy are a basic human response to suffering. “She sacrificed these nonpeaceful deaths” REALLY?! She had no right. And she was wrong. I can see no lofty ideal she was displaying there.

Diane Horton: Forgive, me. I could not let what was said there lie. I won’t say anymore. Everyone has their own perspective. And each perspective together makes the whole. Blessed Be.

[C]: On this great journey towards enlightenment there exist many side paths that result in unfortunate horrible consequences to some (even to extinction) to teach us lessons, & to then beseech us to let it go so as to be able to go on. What if we try not to ‘overfemale’ Mother/Father Nature (let’s call this the real director in charge of our evolutionary purpose, not humankind made, or pretend ‘gods’ of male or female division when there can be no such division to be whole humans, for are we not beyond personifications to represent our individual beliefs? Or let’s pick just ONE called by the name Mother/ Father Nature if we must) who always was & always will be right here with us watching our progress & hurting sometimes at our wayward side tracks that result in her/his necessary adjustments? She/He forgo the sensitively issue of compassion primary in any way, for she/he did not get us this far by way of compassion primary, remember ‘survival of the species’? Mother Theresa was a willing vessel for a higher good beyond the limited vision they had for her. Her despair was that more, especially those close to her, did not even ‘get it’ at her end. To perceive to want change by money improvements was an intentional ‘misguiding, & all be it a deception, when what she sought was life long compassion to keep people from these conditions in the first place. She was wise enough to know that most humankind were as yet in her time not caught up with her vision.

[C]: Never any offense meant, but imagine Mother Theresa’s life, they died anyway right in front of her, so she gave their life greater purpose, least ways that was her intention. Did it work after all that sacrifice, theirs, & her very soul in her estimation? No, we are, & so many others in the whole world are, back to attacking the messenger, Mother Theresa, which is always a sign of fear & weakness, the messenger is always sacred, for they were brave enough to carry the message, only allowed to attack the message!

Diane Horton: No, [C]. Those people died because Teresa chose not to use the multiple, ample, abundant tools she had to keep them from dying, or to make their last days comfortable. I call bullshit on this one.

Max Dashu: I strongly disagree [C]. “Keeping people from these conditions in the first place” requires social action, against the caste system, injustice, misogyny. That is not the path she chose. And re my comment on the money, it looks to me as if a large portion of it went to the anti-abortion campaign MT was so devoted to. Wherever it went, little of it went to alleviating suffering.

[C]: Forgive me, Diane Horton, for I have long been on this dangerous, uncomfortable road, & I pause to seek your help too! I ask you, was the suffering of those dead & dying of enough value to bring about the change we all seek, or was it but a drop in the bucket, with no visible solution in sight, no matter how much money involved, & do you not think Mother Theresa realized this with her utter regret at her endtime?

Diane Horton: I have no idea what Mother Teresa might have realized at the end of her lifetime. There is constant suffering and dying on this planet whether it be in Calcutta, London, New York, Tokyo or millions of other places. The suffering and miserable death of anyone is important and of enormous value, and we are all called as humans to do all we can for those in acute need, whether next door or across the globe becaue we are them and they are us.

[C]: Max Dashu, you speak of the ‘middle time’ attempts at corrections not the end solutions. Do you not see? Until ALL people realize they truly will need no rules if they could just catch on to the realism that we are all but ONE, (would be like biting your own foot), governing & your ‘social action’ , rebelling, etc,+++ of large groups & the individual, will hover over them in this ‘middle time’. Not that they are not well meaning attempts, but that they are distractions, precious time consuming unnecessary, mistakes in our evolutionary journey to enlightenment.

Max Dashu: If MT realized that she was one with the suffering poor of Calcutta, then why did she fly off to get medical care for herself but not provide any for them? As for end solutions, i don’t see acting to end suffering as “distractions” but the compassionate identification with another self within the One.

[C]: As for the value of the Unborn & or Born Child? They both are of far greater value than, both parents, & all who came before, for they are all of them on both sides forever back in time, & ‘More”. This ‘More’ is what we are all about, our very purpose is to evolve into the greatest ‘More’. Each ‘ONE’ of the whole ‘ONE’ is worthy of life first before all other considerations. The Child is our highest gift of greatest value! Remember what Mother Theresa said about abortions for she was trying to say this very same thing in another way. There she would have seen an immediate ‘middle time’ attempt needed by preventing abortions until people realize what they are doing, & the consequence of losing value for life & purpose Period.

Diane Horton: The “unborn” cannot possibly be of greater value than the already born since they are still part of the body of the mother, if indeed we are all ONE. We must , by definition, all be of equal value and equal importance. There is a basic misunderstanding of Oneness you have expressed.

[C]: Mother Theresa sought medical attention for herself to protect the very time, energy, & pain investment of their sacrifice, for she was the beacon that attracted the attention, & to give up the struggle for them until she seen ALL people ‘get it’ she would not do.The messenger, in this instance, Mother Theresa, is sacred, or we will wear out, or run out of, & have no more messengers, protect them, or we know not what we do…In regard to the term ‘distractions’; if one looks to the larger picture of protection of the future multitudes, for the obviously, definitely, surely, dying few that can help humankind with the evidence of their sad dying, & gave them such a sacred life purpose at their end could not have been an easy decision, however put on the scale of life it was a wise one, IF we ALL heed it.

Donna Snyder: Diane and Max are clearly in the right path to truth here, and to the furthering of honesty and compassion. To sacrifice the lives of people in misery to prove that we are all one is cruelty and non sense, mere propaganda, and wicked. No one, much less a saint, preaches compassion through denying compassionate treatment easily within reach.

Diane Horton: You subscribe to a system of hierarchical importance, that is evident. I do not. Mother Teresa being sacred is not to the exclusion of you being sacred or my being sacred. There are messengers among us, but we all also carry our own special and unique message. You will always know what to do if you listen to the “still, small voice within you”, the voice of Spirit.

[C]: Diane Horton, The Unborn Child is of equal value as the Mother plus the Child has the ‘More’ component as well, do you see? This is not based on a time element or a body mass measurement, or location inside or outside or upside down. Time is a rationalization to make order, & so is Place. There is only the NOW & the HERE. How can I help you understand? Yes, we are ALL but the ONE! Agreed… Visually maybe, let’s try this, (& please forgive the pronouns’ for they are only to make logic & order-Ok?) Suppose you had a revolving ball & inside it is twined a male & a female ONE. Now there is no separate ONE ball in fact ’cause there is the only ONE singular ball, but let’s just use this for a moment. As this ball rolls along in a revolving circle it picks up a larger mass of a ‘More”’ component which is instantly a part of the whole ONE plus ‘More’, without this ‘More’ component this ball can not gain enough push & shove to move on. Do you destroy the ‘More’ component & hence stop the ball form rolling on to enlightenment?

Diane Horton: I said that. The babies, the children, the grown-ups, the animals, the trees, the plants, the birds, those beings of the ocean and the waters, the land, the sky, the sea – we are all ONE. All is Spirit, all is Energy, All is Divine, All are ONE. We all have a sacred life purpose. MT didn’t “give” the dying a sacred life purpose, they had one all along; they had been living it. You are not “less than” anyone or anything. You are the microcosm of the macrocosm. The molecules of the stars are in your very DNA. Therefore, in cosmic, over-arching Reality, there is no hierarchy.

Donna Snyder: Thank you, Diane, for your eloquence and patience.

Anne Wilkerson Allen: I should have explained that we are feminists, Sally, before inviting you to the group. We believe that a woman should have sovereignty over her body just as men have sovereignty over theirs. We believe that reproductive choices are a matter of women’s health and do not support the propaganda forwarded by supposedly celibate clerics and politicians. I appreciate your kindness and love and compassion, but we do draw the line and consider it a matter of choice.

Max Dashu: I also think that acting on deep structures of oppression prevents immense suffering from rape, starvation, beatings, economic exploitation, and unnecessary deaths, which have structural causes. Rape is not inevitable and is far, far less widespread within egalitarian cultures, for example. I do agree that we are all called to do all we can for those in acute need. That includes giving painkillers to those in excruciating pain, which MT forbade as a matter of policy, as an editor of the Lancet who visited the Calcutta hospice was shocked to find. Volunteers who objected to this policy were sent away. I abhor this, and at the same time i recognize the self-sacrifice of MT and her nuns in their work. But don’t see it as enlightened, rather as allegiance to pernicious doctrine, which imo must also be faulted for her deep spiritual malaise.

[Z] I appreciate all discussants. Hope this brings out a learning to all of us albeit on different levels. I am pleased that we go all the way to lay things out for many to see and follow the key issues addressed. Thank you again.

[C]: Imagine Mother Theresa distraught to her very core 24/7 not just to the constant pain suffering, & death around her, but to the lack of caring from the whole world-drastic measures for drastic times! Did the sacrifice of those she cared about penetrate other than to question her method, & question where the money went, then all that human sacrifice was in vain, what a shame for it was not a question of pain, or gain today, but of compassion prior in life so no such institutions for the dying purpose ever have to be again not to accept them & build more.

Rick Williams: Just another example of the “PROP Up Agenda” of the MACHINE…

(To be continued Part IV, the last sequel. Read Part II here.)