2016 Mago Work Book Projects: Build the Wheel for Self-Empowerment and Collaboration to Raise the Consciousness of WE in the Primordial Mother
Backers include: Mary Ann Beavis ($100), Anonymous ($20), Glenys Livingstone ($30), Karen Torjesen ($100), Yia Alias ($100), Vana Kim Hansen ($100), Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen ($50), Morgaine Swann ($20)
Donations are accepted until Dec. 31, 2016! (We can accept a 501c3 donation. Please use Mago Academy’s email, magoacademy@gmail.com).
“The Mago Work is committed to the collective cultivation of the consciousness of WE in S/HE, the Great Goddess/Mago, through publication, self-education, and networking conducted by volunteers. In the process, we become whole in our body, mind, and spirit, regaining nature’s power of self-evolution in ourselves. We know deep down that the gynocentric force of Life is leading the Way. That is the Source of our love, creativity, and compassion.” Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D., Founding Director of The Mago Work
The Mago Work is a natural outgrowth of Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang’s life-long soul-seeking research on the Great Goddess, Mago. Since 2010, The Mago Work has grown steadily and expanded internationally. For example, our readership of theReturn to Mago E-Magazine comes from as many as 150 countries around the world. The Facebook Group The Mago Circle has 1,181 members, and is growing steadily. The volume She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality?was published in 2015. Mago Academy continues to offer online classes and Mago Pilgrimage to Korea. In 2016 we are entering a critical time to actualize the potentiality of The Mago Work, while continuing to lay a solid foundation, i.e., to produce and distribute the following three books (all in three versions: color printed book, black/white printed book, and E-book). Mago Work volunteers toil to build the wheel in which people can nurture, heal, and empower the self, communities, and the eco-system, both alone and collectively.
Project 1
She Rises: How… Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2
Co-editors: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Mary Ann Beavis, and Nicole Shaw
Planning Committee: Trista Hendren and Rosemary Mattingley
Forthcoming 2016 by Mago Books
The collective writing of She Rises Volume 2 calls for awakening, collaboration, and transformation of individuals, communities, and cultures by answering the question, “How (one lives out one’s commitment to) Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality.” See Call for Contributions here. Building on the predecessor anthology, She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality (Volume 1) in which the answers of 92 well-known and new authors and artists were interwoven, She Rises Volume 2 anticipates opening another new horizon to nurture, heal, and bond contributors and readers in the consciousness of the Primordial Mother. Like She Rises Volume 1, we expect a larger number of creative minds/hearts/spirits from around the world to contribute as authors. It will be distributed to an international audience.
Project 2
Seasons of the Goddess: Solstices & EquinoxesCo-editors: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Mary Ann Beavis
Forthcoming November 1, 2016 by Mago Books
This anthology project aims at a multi-faceted purpose for readers: educational, reconstructive, and practical. It intends to restore and celebrate the old indigenous ways of celebrating seasonal marks from around the world, while undercutting the entrenched dynamics of patriarchal seasonal customs. See Call for Contributions here. This is a timely work that will provide readers with new lenses for understanding the origins of patriarchal celebrations and how the latter have co-opted the old ways of Goddess cultures.
Project 3
Mago Pilgrimage: Journey to the Primordial Home via Magoist Epic Narratives and Photo Essays (Volume 1)Author: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Forthcoming 2016 by Mago Books
This book aims to introduce the long-forbidden epic of the Great Goddess, theBudoji (Epic of the Emblem City), which secretly survived throughout history and recently revived in modern Korea. Epitomized as “Return to the Origin of the Great Goddess/Mago,” the Budoji, the principal text of Magoism, guides the reader to the primordial consciousness of the Creatrix through the story of the cosmogonic origin and the vicissitudes of the Mago Clan on planet Earth. Dr. Hwang’s photo essays open the door to the ancient understanding of Mago Pilgrimage, as known and transmitted to pre-patriarchal Korean ancestors; the journey to ONESELF in which one encounters the Story of the Creatrix. See more info here.
What Co-Editors and the Planning Committee Do
Co-editors: Review and selection, copy-editing and proofreading, communication with contributors, solicitation of contributions, formatting (book-making), cover-designs, structuring book contents, making the list of Table of Contents, and writing Introductions and the list of Contributors
Planning Committee: Promotion, networking, writing Introductions
Publisher: Printing and shipping books in and from Korea to the U.S. and possibly elsewhere
Meet the Co-Editors and the Planning Committee
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
My encounter with the Great Goddess known as Mago in East Asia during my graduate studies marked the point where my consciousness began to focus in the S/HE reality. Through my study of the Great Goddess, I was able to affirm my cultural/historical/spiritual/ontological identity as a Korean-born and bred feminist and discover the female principle of ultimate reality (the Creatrix). For the last sixteen years, I have researched, written, published, and advocated Magoism. Knowing of the Great Goddess is self-transcendental to me; it reaches out to the world/cosmos.
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. is a scholar, activist, and advocate of Magoism, the anciently originated tradition that venerates Mago as the Great Goddess. She earned her MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies from Claremont Graduate University, CA. She also studied toward an MA degree in East Asian Studies at UCLA, CA. Hwang has taught for universities in California and Missouri, U.S.A. Since 2012, Dr, Hwang has founded, directed, co-edited, written for the Return to Mago E-Magazine (http://magoism.net), Mago Academy (http://magoacademy.org), and Mago Books (http://magobook.com). She has co-edited and published She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 1 (Mago Books, 2015), and authored The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (Mago Books, 2015). For more, see here.
Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.
Mary Ann Beavis (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is Professor of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Canada). Her areas of specialization include Christian Origins, Feminist Biblical Interpretation, and Women and Religion.The courses she teaches include “Goddesses in Myth and History,” and her recently published research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, is a study of women who blend Goddess Spirituality and Christianity. Her book is entitled Christian Goddess Spirituality: Enchanting Christianity (New York: Routledge, 2015) https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138936881. She is the author of many peer-reviewed articles, five of which reflect her current interest in the Mary Magdalene/Mary of Bethany tradition. For more, see here.
Nicole Shaw
My life purpose is creating deeper awareness. This is what motivates me and is the thread that weaves through my artwork, writing, activism, organic farming, advocating for local food production, founding groups and organizations (such as the Bowen Road Farmers’ Market and Nanaimo WomanShare), and living as lightly and as sustainably as I can on the earth.· Board member of the Coombs Farmers’ Institute
· Founder of Nanaimo WomanShare, a women’s time barter group
· Published Synergy Magazine for 10 years
Trista Hendren
Trista Hendren is a Certified Coach with Imagine a Woman International and author of The Girl God and other books. She lives in Bergen, Norway with her family. For more, see here.Rosemary Mattingley
Rosemary returned to Australia 10 years ago after 24 years of study, work and travel abroad. She received a M.Ed. in Japan, worked at the international Girl Guide centre in India, taught at a primary school in north-west Pakistan, and was a Japanese-speaking tourist guide and co-facilitator for the Quaker Alternatives to Violence Project in South Africa. She now works as an editor, Japanese interpreter, peace and interfaith activist, bridge-builder, and intuitive massage therapist.
Rosemary is the Admin Editor for the Return to Mago E-Magazine and copy-editor for Mago Books. Her blog is: nur810.wordpress.com
What We Need
We need $12,000.00 for production and distribution of three books. Your contribution will help cover the costs as follows:
A. Editorial expenses (copy-editing, proofreading, cover-designs, and communication with contributors): $3600 or 30%
B. Formatting books (each book in three versions of color printed book, black/white printed book, and E-book): $2400 or 20%
C. Printing and shipping books from Korea to the U.S., Australia, and/or Europe: $4800 or 40%
D. Materials and distribution of rewards/perks, worldwide: $1200 or 10%
Why Are These Three Books So Important?
Our task of producing and distributing these three books is timely, important, and necessary on all levels. (1) The making of these three books symbolizes a new form of activism in the Goddess Movement. Each of our editorial and planning committee members comes from a different part of the world and is a self-motivated volunteer. (2) Our projects are undertaken as part of The Mago Work, a multi-centered model of the Goddess Movement. (3) Our projects are tools of self-healing and self-empowerment for contributors and readers. (4) Dr. Hwang’s book, Mago Pilgrimage: Journey to the Primordial Home via Magoist Epic Narratives and Photo Essays, will introduce the Story of the Great Goddess that the world deserves to know. (5) Our books will inspire, motivate, and connect people as contributors and readers around the globe. (6) They will blur the divide between individuals, cultures, and peoples. (7) They will make unique contributions to the world, libraries, and individuals who seek truth, solidarity, and peace.
Support Our Projects
Join The Mago Work by donating to this campaign. Stand with us volunteer Mago Sisters by spreading the word and encouraging people to donate. Email and share this page on Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and the social media you use. Tell your friends and families. Thank you and let’s stay connected to grow and heal as the agent of WE in S/HE!
Perks Items:
1. She Rises Vol 2, forthcoming by Mago Books
2. Seasons of the Goddess, forthcoming by Mago Book
3. Mago Pilgrimage, forthcoming Mago Books
4. She Rises Vol 1 by Mago Books 2015
5. The Mago Way Vol 1 by Mago Books 2015
6. Jesus, Muhammad, and the Goddess by The Girl God 2016
7. New Love by The Girl God 2015
8. 2017 The Mago Work Calendar, forthcoming 2016 by Mago Books
10. 2019 The Mago Work Calendar, forthcoming 2018 by Mago Books
Original Crowdfunding website: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/2016-mago-work-projects-three-books/x/12955138#/