Post-Forum Talks is available here.
Mago Academy hosts the first inaugural S/HE Divine Studies Online Forum (the S/HE Forum), a spinoff project of the S/HE Divine Studies Conference. The S/HE Forum is a 2 hour-long event in the form of a panel (7 panelists).
This upcoming September forum is held in conjunction with the Girl God Books represented by Ms. Trista Hendren. The Planning Committee (Trista Hendren, Claire Dorey, and Helen Hwang) of the forum invites the contributors to the anthology, Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess (Girl God Books, forthcoming) as the forum panelists. You may submit the contribution(s) you made to the anthology but not limited to those. In addition, we also seek one or two research papers on the theme, Mourn the Blockage of Matriversal Blessings, broadly applied. “Matriversal” means “of maternally perceived universe.”
Theme: Mourn the Blockage of Matriversal Blessings
Date and Time: September 7, 9AM to 11AM PDT
Moderator: Trista Hendren
Discussants: Claire Dorey & Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Presenters: Alision Newvine, Claire Dore, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Lunna Anna, Stephanie Mines, Jilly Burnett, and Jude Lally. For details, see below toward the end of this page.
Registration: Fee of $15 or Donation (enter your own amount)
Crowdfunding Campaign (TBA) to support the S/HE Forum Project!
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Program Contents
“Grief for the Mothers Who Lost the Goddess” by Alison Newvine
Summary: How do we grieve for our mothers who have lost the Goddess? How do we release the guilt over our own escape from the patriarchal mindset, knowing she has been left behind? And how do we relate to her choice to remain within the patriarchal belief system? These are the questions explored in “Grief for the Mothers Who Lost the Goddess.” This prose piece contrasts the experience of motherhood under patriarchy with the conceptualization of “Mother” from a Goddess lens. The tumultuous dance between the Mother serving the patriarchal god and the Daughter of the Goddess is also explored.
Biography: Alison Newvine is psychotherapist, writer and singer, songwriter. Her writing is featured in Mago Books Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess as well as Pain Perspectives: Finding Meaning in the Fire and Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess published by Girl God Books, and the upcoming anthology Weaving Our Way Beyond Patriarchy by Womancraft Publishing.
“Woven On Water” by Claire Dorey
Summary: Written as prose, Woven On Water takes its title from female philosopher Gārgī Vācaknavī’s proposal that “the whole world is woven back and forth on water.” Vac means ‘speech.’ Embodying the principles of ‘speech’ and ‘water,’ Woven On Water, explores the patriarchal silencing of women and the symbiotic relationship between water and grief: Ideas presented in the introduction to Wounded Feminine: Grieving With Goddess. Viewing women’s Grief Cup as full and the Wounded Feminine as an archetype in anguish, the narrative echoes archaic Greek poet, Sappho’s words, “What cannot be said will be wept.” The Grief Space imagined in Woven On Water is a catalyst for change. We connect with Mary’s tears and the vast, amniotic waters of Nu. We find healing in acoustic seascapes; women’s laughter as containers for wisdom; and in Isis, “who performs magic with powerful speech,” – Isis, Spell 14 of the Metternich Stela.
Biography: Claire Dorey is the Editor of Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess, the Girl God Books; a regular contributor at Girl God Books and Return to Mago E-Magazine. Published in She Summons: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality, 2021, and Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess, 2023, both Mago Books. Illustrates written work. Goldsmiths: BA Honors, Fine Art. Main employment: Magazines. Artist: Most notable group show, Pillow Talk, Tate Lates, Tate Modern: Included in the Pillow Talk Book. Curator: Trilogy of exhibitions: Violence, Healing, Self Empowerment. Teaching Workshops: Sculpture, Drawing. Custodian: Esoteric HiSStories; Sirens at Source. Toolbox includes: Goddess studies; Reiki Master; Accessing Creativity: Sound, Breath, Color Work; Mudras; Wild Swimming. Focusing on writing for now.
“A Brief Discussion of Magoist Cetacean Soteriology Enacted in Korean Traditional Funeral Culture” by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Korean traditional funeral culture dramatizes Magoist Cetacean soteriology, poetically epitomized as “the whale-back-riding homecoming journey to Mago, the Creatrix, in the northern center of the matriverse (maternally perceived universe).” The Plate of Seven Stars, a wooden board with the seven holes engraved on it, represents the circumpolar asterism of the Northern Dipper of Seven Stars. Used as part of the coffin, it indicates the dead’s northbound journey to the Creatrix. The festive dragon-decorated bier, a palanquin-like coffin carrier to the burial ground, “the northward mountain,” visualizes the blissful nature of whale-back-riding maritime/aquatic life-journey. Richly expressed in the rituals and the chants, the bier custom commemorates the salvific reality of WE/HERE/NOW for both the living and the dead. In short, Magoist Cetacean funeral customs enact the soteriological ontology that life forms issued from the Creatrix are on the homecoming journey (causal becoming) to the Creatrix by the divine presence of whales.
Biography: Dr. Hwang is a philosopher, researcher, author, publisher, and advocate of Magoist Cetaceanism, the matriversal consciousness of cetacean veneration embodied in the socio-historical-cultural expressions of traditional Korea and beyond. After earning her MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies from Claremont Graduate University, CA., she pursued M.A. degree at UCLA, CA. Having founded The Mago Work and Mago Community, Hwang has recently launched the S/HE Conference and the S/HE Forum. Hwang’s publications include Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess, Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, Mago Almanac, The Mago Way, She Rises trilogy, Celebrating the Goddess series, She Summons Volume 1, The Budoji Workbook, and Return to Mago E-Magazine.
“The Fairytale of Patriarchy and Grief” by Luna Anna
Summary: The Fairytale of Patriarchy and Grief is a story told in the style of a fairytale that is more like a nightmare. It is based on women’s lived experiences of being indoctrinated into a patriarchal society from girlhood and how this encourages them to live their lives in service to men, as well as under the illusion that men are somehow better and therefore the heroes that will save them from said nightmare. It speaks of the desperation that women are tricked into having, by the system that is hurting them, how the intoxication of constant patriarchy cons women and leads them astray from their truth. It’s the tale of how girls’ lives are hijacked by patriarchy and how that damages them. It also shares the journey back to Her that begins a path to wholeness that is impossible to gain while living with the blockage of matriversal blessings.
Biography: Luna Anna began on the path of the Goddess in 2014 when she held her first ever Women’s Goddess Wisdom Circle. She later founded The Good Goddess Project along with her friend, Jyoti. The project gave thousands of women, eco-friendly toiletries packaged as gifts. Her writing is included in Girl God Anthology Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess and on Magosim.net. Luna hosts the Healing the Patriarchy with Love Podcast, which featured a special on Grief Under Patriarchy with guests Trista, Claire, and Arlene from Girl God Books. She is also a Quantum Hypnotherapist and has a website at lunalouiseanna.com.
“Reinvigorating Concepts of Attachment Through a Matriversal and Indigenous Lens” by Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.
Summary: The colonization of our thinking, universally, has stolen our identities. Women, especially, have been robbed of the kinship thread that unites us. This is a form of mental, psychological, and emotional genocide. As a global collaborative, we are awakening to this rape of selfhood. Our grieving is a keening to save ourselves, our children and the world.
Biography: Dr. Stephanie Mines is the founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma (www.tara-aproach.org) and Climate Change & Consciousness (www.cccearth.org). She is the author of numerous books including the recently published Secret of Resilience and The Great Physician. Her forthcoming book is Maata: A Māori Model of Women’s Leadership, due to be released in 2025 from Inner Traditions. For more information about Dr. Mines’ publications go to www.stephaniemines.com.
“Hidden wisdom of my grandmothers” by J.A. Burnett
Summary: Journey of recollection as a personal narrative in seeing blocks to Matriversal blessings and the ongoing attempts towards them. These attempts to connect to the wisdom of grandmothers pieces together the discovery of matrifocal ancestral lineage. Over generations, family has lost touch with its cuisine, its native identity, its culture as well as philosophies and world views. Modernity continues the erasure holocaust but awareness of what is lost and the blocks to the matriversal blessings starts the revival. Recollection and revisioning is a part of the expansion of consciousness towards the integration with ancestry. This piece documents the beginning of my journey.
Biography: Born in the Bronx Doctoral Candidate J.A. Burnett is a published poet and author of The Lost Key. She is the founder of the American Renaissance Research and Field Trip Society. As a cellist, her most recent recording is the Infinite Ellipse. Named the vow holder, she teaches practice and revival of Caribbean Indigenous heritage. Gaming since the 80s, J.A. is a Dungeon Master. Above all, she loves the weave of words.
“Death is an Old Woman” by Jude Lally
Summary: It’s often women’s job to tend to the dying and the dead. The sacred role of preparing bodies, rituals to be performed and the role of lamenting the great loss. The Keening woman is known by many names in cultures around the world, leading the community through their grief, and guiding the soul home. Throughout the highlands and islands of Scotland and Ireland, there were the women who stepped into the role of the keening women. Liminal figures, living on the thresholds, pulling their black shawls tight around them they stepped between the worlds and let their voices express the grief of all those gathered.
Biography: Jude Lally is a forager of stories, in the hills around Loch Lomond. As an artist she explores her connection to place, and the ancestral figures of those lands through story, art, and ritual. As a cultural activist, she re-envisages the ancient tradition of keening as one which can teach us how to grieve, offers a cathartic release and brings us into a liminal place, where transformation and healing can occur. She is a doll maker, viewing this practice as one which stretches back to the hands which carved the Woman of Willendorf. She uses dolls as a way of exploring grief, ancestral connections and our place in nature. She gained her MSc Master’s Degree in Human Ecology with the Centre for Human Ecology in partnership with the University of Strathclyde. She lives on the West Coast of Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde, near Loch Lomond. She is currently writing her first book, The Path of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland. www.pathoftheancestralmothers.com