Mago Academy hosts the second 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.
This upcoming December Forum will feature three presentations by Dr. Helen Benigni, Ms. Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, and Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. The titles and summaries of their papers as well as all biographies including the Moderator and the Discussant come under “Program Contents) toward the end of this page.
Theme: Cosmology, Calendar, and the Creatrix
Date and Time: December 7, 9AM to 11AM PT
Moderator: Dr. Nane Jordan
Presenters: Dr. Helen Benigni, Ms. Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Discussant: Ms. Freia Titland
Registration: Fee of $10 or Donation (enter your own amount) with the brief application information to be emailed Dr. Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com) including (1) your name, (2) your work or website, and (3) I am interested in the forum because… (to be completed by you).
Moderator: Dr. Nane Jordan
Nané Jordan is a Goddess Studies and Women’s Spirituality scholar and educator, birthkeeper, community worker, ecofeminist artist, and mother, whose scholarship seeks a world of thriving and wellbeing for all. Her lifework interweaves vibrant threads of research, teaching, the arts, and community-based care, with a deep focus on restoring placental, birth-based wisdom. Nané holds a PhD in Education from the University of British Columbia, an MA in Women’s Spirituality from New College of California, and was a Social Science and Humanities Research of Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Paris 8, France, in Women’s and Gender Studies. She was recently a Scholar-in-Residence in the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University. Living in the forest, near the beautiful Salish Sea on the West Coast of Canada, Nané is co-founder of the women’s circles and artist collectives Gestare (to carry in the womb), and the Ma Whales. She publishes widely, including the anthologies: Placenta Wit: Mother Stories, Rituals, and Research, and Pagan, Goddess, Mother (Demeter Press).
Discussant: Ms. Freia Titland
Freia Serafina Titland is a PhD Student of Women’s Spirituality currently researching how rituals aid in ancestral spiritual reclamation. Freia is an Adjunct Professor at SNHU and AMDA NYC. Outside of academia, Freia is an award-winning filmmaker, artist, and director of both the Divine Feminine Film Festival and LUMINA, a women’s spirituality institute. www.freiaserafina.com
Program Contents
“Goddesses of the Seasons” by Helen Benigni, Ph.D.
Abstract: Using the archetypes of the Neolithic culture defined by Marija Gimbutas and the information translated from the ancient calendars of the Celts and the Greeks, a research group has identified the Goddesses of the Seasons of the year. Each season of the ancient calendars of Europe and the Mediterranean is carefully defined by its moons, solar holidays, and most importantly, a pattern of constellations that tells the story of the night sky which has been used to determine the myths of the Grandmother, the Mother and the Daughter throughout the year. Welcome this vital information by exploring the myths and the patterns of the night sky that were the base of ancient civilization and the fruit for our re-constituting a matriarchy for our present use. Celebrate the opportunity and join the Creatrix Studies to verify the Goddess in our own sphere of understanding.
Biography: Helen Benigni (Ph.D. Indiana University of Pennsylvania) is a published author and Professor Emerita in Comparative Mythology at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia. For several decades, Helen has been teaching classes in Comparative Mythology with an emphasis on Goddess studies. Her books, The Myth of the Year (Mago Books, 2023), The Goddess and the Bull (University Press of America, 2007), and The Mythology of Venus (University Press of America, 2013) incorporate the research findings of archeoastronomers to determine the myths associated with the cycles found on the ancient calendars of the Greeks and the Celts. Identifying the goddesses of the matri-local cultures of the ancients with the seasons represented by the lunar, solar and stellar bodies has been a major endeavor in the study of archetypes, with an emphasis on the feminine archetypes of the celestial realms. Helen’s research with the Hellenic Studies Center in Washington D.C., her many trips to ancient sites, and her collaborative efforts with scholars in mythology, astronomy, archeology, and art have led to her discovery of the presence of the Goddess in the night sky and the continued renewal of the Goddess in contemporary times.
“Grandmother Hel’s 13 Lunar Month Calendar in Pre-Viking Society of Scandinavia” by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen
Summary: In turn after turn, the Great Grandmother of the Universe, Hel, sitting at her silvery throne at the Hub of the starry night’s sky, the North Pole Star, is spinning the sky around into days, weeks, months and years. The year, in Scandinavian År (from hor, meaning One Turn) is still determining the eight traditional calendar celebrations of the Old Scandinavian Culture. The 13 months of the year is naturally given by the exact 13 lunar cycles of 28 days plus one extra day each year – a system preserved in the old expression, a Year and a Day. Also, the tradition that everything new starts with rest, sleep, dreaming, time for visions, plannings, and inspiration – is the fundament of every calendar; a new day, a new week, a new year. The ancient traditions from the underlying Old European mothering societies, still vividly alive today, seem to have survived two heavily patriarchal cultures – the Norse Viking Era, and Christianity.
Bibliography: Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, Stockholm, Sweden is a religious historian from Uppsala and Stockholm University. Together with archeologist Märta-Lena Bergstedt, they have conducted interdisciplinary research for 15 years on the Norse, Old Scandinavian (Pre-Viking) culture, which seems to be a late branch of the pre-patriarchal civilization that Marija Gimbutas named the Old European culture.
“A Brief Soteriological Discussion of the Nine-fold Cosmic Music” by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Summary: The Nine-fold Cosmic Music refers to the creative force of the Matriverse. It is a key concept in the Magoist Cosmogony recounted in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Magoism transmitted from the late 4th or early 5th century. Mago refers to the Cosmic Mother and the Creatrix. I hold that the concept of the Nine-fold Cosmic Music originates from Goma, the Shaman Queen of the 4th millennium BCE. She foresaw the coming of patriarchy in the course of history and carved out the consciousness of the Cosmic Mother within the background of the Magoist Cosmogony to prepare humans thereafter to counter patriarchy. She secured her teaching by inscribing it in the matriarchal socio-political-cultural institutions. On the one level, the Nine-fold Cosmic Music, a revelation derived from her cetological discoveries, runs through the cosmological givens of the Magoist Cosmogony: the Cosmic Mother, the Matriveral Calendar, and the Matriarchal Governance as well as the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW. On the other level, it characterizes traditional Korean culture and identity. For example, folklore tells us, “Mago Halmi had eight daughters. She lived with the youngest daughter after sending off seven daughters to the neighboring islands who became the Shaman progenitors in those places.” And the Budoji recounts: “Mago, the Cosmic Mother, bore two daughters without spouse. Each of the two daughters bore four daughters (or two hermaphrodites and two daughters) without spouse. That made a total of eight granddaughters.”
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. She authored, co-edited, and published by Mago Books Reader: Toward Magoist Cetaceanism (2023), The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia (2015), Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar annually since 2018, and the Budoji Workbook series since 2020. Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess (2023), the She Rises trilogy series (2015, 2016, and 2019), and Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (2017).