Downloadable PDF Flyer is available here.
Mago Academy is happy to announce the April She Rises Salon to feature our poets who lead the Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality Movement. As poets, we summon the timespace of transformation for ALL in the Cosmic Mother. We ponder these questions: “Who am I?” “What message do I have for myself and the world?” and “What can we do TOGETHER?” Our speakers include Mary Saracino, Stephanie Mines, Judy Grahn, Louisa Calio, Annie Finch, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Janet Rudolph, Noris Binet, and Susan Hawthorne. We invite you to discover the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW, as we sing the dangerously contagious song of resistance, maternal medicinal cure, eco-feminist vision, rite of Isis, poetic meter, matriversal archetypes, self-healing, dharma evocation, and re-envisioning the mythic.
Theme: Poets Lead the Goddess Feminist Activist Spirituality Movement
Date and Time: April 12 2025, Noon to 1:30 PM PT (for 90 min)
Speakers: Mary Saracino, Stephanie Mines, Judy Grahn, Louisa Calio, Annie Finch, Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Janet Rudolph, Noris Binet, and Susan Hawthorne
Moderator: Janet Rudolph & Helen Hwang
Presentation details are included at the end of this page.
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Registration: Fee of $10 per salon or Donation (enter your own amount) with your answers to below questions (email it to: magoacademy@gmail.com):
Registration Questions:
- Your name (and affiliation)
- Email address
- What makes you interested in this Salon?
Presentations
“Poetry As Resistance: Reclaiming Female Sovereignty” by Mary Saracino
Summary: Poetry is an essential part of my activism and my commitment to speaking truth to power, fighting all types of oppression, and reclaiming female sovereignty in the era of patriarchal colonialization. Giving voice to my experience as a female, a lesbian, a feminist, and a human being is an act of resistance in a culture that seeks to silence me and many others. In my presentation, I will briefly talk about how poets and poetry are key parts of resistance to oppression. I will also read a couple of my poems that illustrate this.
Biography: Mary Saracino is a novelist, poet, and memoir writer who lives in New Mexico. Her most recent novel is Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014). Her novel, The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist. She is also the author of the novels, No Matter What and Finding Grace, and the memoir Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior. She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University. Her poetry and shorter fiction and creative nonfiction pieces have been published in a variety of literary and cultural journals and anthologies, both online and in print. For more information about Mary, visit www.marysaracino.com and http://www.pearlsong.com/mary_saracino.htm
“The Great Physician : Medicinal Poetry for the Anthropocene” by Stephanie Mines
Summary: In this event for the Mago Academy, Dr. Mines weaves her incantatory poetic voice with her vociferous advocacy for feminine leadership in all regards, with a special focus on healthcare. Stephanie will include new poems written in response to the current crises that are existential threats to the future of humanity. The Great Physician explores landscapes of human emotion and healing, drawing from Stephanie’s training as an affective neuroscientist and neuro-developmental embryologist.
Biography: Stephanie Mines is the founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma as well as Climate Change & Consciousness and the author of seven books including The Secret of Resilience (Inner Traditions) . Dr. Mines is also an award-winning poet. Her most recent collection, The Great Physician: Medicinal Poetry for the Anthropocene (Kindred World Media), will celebrate its first anniversary with this reading. Stephanie Mines is the voice of elder women’s leadership through her Substack Crone Speak. Her forthcoming book, The Spirit of Manaaki (Inner Traditions), is the biography of an indigenous Māori elder who initiated culturally sensitive healthcare for New Zealand and the world. Dr. Mines is organizing The Mother of Medicine: The Science and Wisdom of the Prenatal Origins of Health, a groundbreaking summit, with the leading voices in pre and perinatal psychology and health from around the world, for November 7-9, 2025, with a free pre-summit series May 12-16.
“Honoring Mary Magdalen’s Gospel with Poetry” by Judy Grahn
Description: After 13 years co-directing a Women’s Spirituality Master’s program, I am interested in what bridges among us, what mythologies underpin our cultures, and what can be gleaned of goddess-mother-and woman-centered wisdom, ethics, and thealogy contained in ancient teachings. I am currently completing my third book-length epic on the goddess of love and life, revered as Inanna in her oldest named iteration. Over the course of my long life, my work has been credited with fueling LGBT and feminist movements, and the field of women’s spirituality; and more recently with creating community, healing individuals, changing the canon, laying down the basis of intersectionality, and being “proto-trans.” I have received over twenty awards and honors. And, as other poets have attested, spirit seems to bring my work to me.
My current epic poetry, “The Queen of Cups” is not quite finished; it’s eco-poetic, eco-feminist and features four elemental goddesses plus Mary Magdalen, who insisted on being included. After beginning to comprehend her heretical, woman-centered gospel, I understood why. For my presentation I intend to read at least two of the villanelles from Cups that describe some of her gospel’s heretical ideas. My reference for a deeper understanding of Magdalen is Karen L. King, professor of religion and biblical scholar.
Biography: Dr. Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, author, mythographer, and cultural theorist. Her works include seven books of nonfiction, two book length poems, five poetry collections, a reader, and a novel. An early Gay activist who walked the first picket of the White House for Gay rights in 1965, she later co-founded Gay Women’s Liberation and the Women’s Press Collective. Her intention with writing is to replace obsolete philosophies with embodied theories and practices. Her Metaformic theory is the result of twenty years of research resulting in Judy’s 1993 book, Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (Beacon Press). She followed this with further research for her dissertation comparing village goddess rituals and public menstrual rituals in south India using an application of her Metaformic Theory. Judy holds a Ph.D. in Integral Studies/Women’s Spirituality, from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She co-directed and served as faculty in MA programs in Women’s Spirituality at New College of California and Institute for Transpersonal Psychology.
“The Rites of Isis” by Louisa Calio
I plan to read selected pieces from my several collections of poetry originally inspired by initiation of the divine feminine in the early 1970’s. In the grips of powerful unconscious forces, I was called to renewal or initiation. Turning inward for guidance, I was drawn to a copy of E.A. Wallis Budge’s Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection. There was the image of the great eye I had been drawing since I was a child. There was the name of the Goddess who was initiating me: Isis! Hers’ was the story of a feminine deity who was remaking herself. Initiation or a commitment to spiritual growth has inspired all of my writing. On reflection, this was a very lonely and perilous passage. Initiation, even when guided by instinct and archetypal memory, challenges the stability of the ego. Yet, it seemed as if a seed planted by our ancestors and the dark mother a millennia ago was bursting forth and giving birth. My inner journey and journeys to East and West Africa, the Caribbean, and Sicily helped me creatively express a larger self that my poems hopefully express.
BOOKS:
IN THE EYE OF BALANCE
JOURNEY TO THE HEART WATERS
A PASSION FOR JAMAICA
BROOKLYN AND OTHER MIGRATIONS
Biography: Louisa Calio is an internationally published award-winning poet/writer, photo artist and arts advocate. Winner of The Renaissance Award, Italian Charities of America 2022, Connecticut Commission of the Arts award to Writers, 1978; 1 st Prizes City of Messina, Sicily (2013), Il Parnasso Internationale, Canicatti, Sicily Words of Gold, (2015, 2017, 2019). Finalist Poet Laureate 2013, Nassau County, the Barbara Jones and Taliesin Prizes for Poetry (Trinidad & Tobago), an Arts grant for a multimedia production of her first book of poetry, In the Eye of Balance (Paradiso Press), Women in Leadership Award Connecticut 1987, & honored with Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, and others as a “Feminist Who Changed America (1963-75)” at Columbia/Barnard in Director Poet’s Piazza, Hofstra University for 12 years, she was Co- Founder and first Executive Director of City Spirit Artists, Inc. New Haven,CT(1976-1986 ); she currently lives in both Connecticut and Montego Bay Jamaica where she also curates photo exhibitions and readings. Her latest book, Journey to the Heart Waters, published by Legas Press (2014). For more See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Calio
“Are Meters the Languages of the Goddess? Invoking The Divine Feminine Through the Ancient Craft of Ritual Poetic Rhythm” by Annie Finch
Summary: In this reading/ritual performance/talk, Annie Finch will share with us her devotional practice of poetic meter as a means of channeling and invoking Divine Feminine powers. She will recite incantatory poems whose rhythms are crafted to embody the energies of Goddesses such as Brigid, Coatlicue, Eve, *Frija, Hekate, Inanna, Kali, Sekhmet, and Yemaya. Annie will contextualize her poems within a herstory of the birth of her ideas about meters in the intersection of creative exploration, scholarly research, practical use, learning in community, and spiritual action. She will share some of her ongoing discoveries about the roots of magical metrical practices in matriarchal poetic traditions across the world, her current understanding of why such knowledge has been hidden until now in English language poetry, and her experience as a poet and teacher committed to bringing this ancient poetic Goddess path back into contemporary awareness.
Biography: Annie Finch is a poet, writer, speaker, teacher, and ritual performer. She is the author of seven books of poetry including Spells, Eve, Calendars, and Among the Goddesses. She has also published poetry translation, verse drama, and twelve books and anthologies about poetry including A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry. Finch’s work has been recognized with the Sarasvati Award and the Robert Fitzgerald Award and her poems featured in The New York Times, Paris Review, and The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. She writes and performs often about feminism and spirituality and edited the first major anthology of abortion literature, Choice Words. Founder of Poetry Witch Ritual Theater, she collaborates frequently with music, theater, and dance. Finch earned a Ph.D from Stanford University and teaches at classes.anniefinch.com, Poetry Witchery Substack, and MeterandMagic.com. Based in New York City, she offers workshops and performances worldwide.
“Why the World Needs the Matriversal Archetypes” by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Summary: The world needs matriversal archetypes to stop war and feud for good. Matriversal archetypes are the milk of the Creatrix, the elixir, and the miracle sought by the wise of the world throughout history. Matriversal archetypes unleash the Reality of WE/HERE/NOW, the ever-unfolding timespace manifest through the progeny of the Creatrix. In S/HE, ALL are found kindred. The Great Unity of ALL in the Creatrix pervades insofar as matriversal archetypes are upheld in the human mind. Only matriarchal symbols can quench the thirst, hunger, and pain of humankind. They heal, build, and comfort the mind/heart/soul. For societies, they bring peace, harmony, and collaboration. Under patriarchy, people have been deprived of matriversal archetypes. Matriversal symbols make us realize the delusive nature of patriarchal symbols including the father creator god, the nationalist identity, and the male savior/teacher/civilizer. Moderns are trapped within the snares of patriarchal symbols ever more tightly due to the expansion of patriarchal grips on almost all levels. The cries for healing and peace by individuals and societies, while getting louder ever-more desperately, will echo in the void unless people consciously abandon patriarchal archetypes, which I would call the act of symbol cleansing. Symbol cleansing must be done in the language of poets, artists, ritualists, and scholars. I suggest that poets sort out patriarchal archetypes and symbols so that our cries will become the dragon to bring rain for ALL on the planet. I invite you and the world to the discourse of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of the Creatrix), the reservoir of matriversal symbols and archetypes stored and handed down by our pre-patriarchal ancestors, to be introduced in the form of Creatrix Studies.
Biography: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang is a researcher, author, and advocate of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of the Creatrix) and has recently established the MA/PhD. program in Creatrix Studies. Having achieved an MA and Ph.D. in Religion with emphasis on Feminist Studies (Claremont Graduate University), Hwang studied an M.A. program at UCLA. Having founded The Mago Work, Hwang has recently launched the S/HE Conference and the S/HE Forum in 2024. 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, Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (2018), Celebrating Intercosmic Kinship of the Goddess (2023), the She Rises trilogy series (2015, 2016, and 2019), and Celebrating Seasons of the Goddess (2017).
“There Will Always Exist Vibrations” by Janet Rudolph
Summary: There Will Always Exist Vibrations is the backbone of my own story of healing from childhood abuse. It is in the form of a poem in nine parts (with a coda at the end) that is embedded in my memoir, Desperately Seeking Persephone. The poem traces my own healing journey as it begins at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and follows a pathway that ends with an understanding of universal compassion and connection. It is a personal journey that also has resonance for society at large.
Here is a sample:
In our gardens of regrets and lost opportunities,
we’ve left behind seeds that are all the sweeter for being reclaimed.
What is it that the universe knows that we humans do not?
What vibrations witness and propel our journey?
Biography: Janet Rudolph has traveled to many sacred places in the world to soak up knowledge and experience culture. Along the way she earned two shamanic initiations and written a few books including When Moses Was a Shaman, When Eve Was a Goddess, and her recent memoir, Desperately Seeking Persephone. She writes wherever and whenever she can to express, heal, inform, challenge, startle and to expand love. She is a contributor and co-weaver at /feminismandreligion.com/ You can also find her work at /mysticpagan.com/
“Dharma Poetry” by Noris Binet
Summary: Dharma Poetry is the unbidden evocation that arises in mystical experience–in the empty space where words do not inhabit. It arises from one’s inner world experienced in deep silence where there is only presence. Dharma poetry emanates when alignment occurs with one’s pure essence. I will be reading a series of her dharma poems that reflect the possibility of drinking from one’s own wellspring wherein the inner teaching is waiting for us. The journey that we embark upon in this love affair within oneself becomes the dharma, where we find an interconnection with all existence. And when one is ready everything flows like a river full of undulations, unexpected winding curves and tall waterfalls yet always flowing toward the ocean. The truth get revealed as an unmistakable recognition that there is only One divine nature expressed in myriad ways as each one of us. The inquiry that dharma poetry ignites offers the opportunity to enter into Satsang (association with truth) with ourselves perforating the heart with a golden arrow releasing the nectar of love everywhere. Meditations and Satsang are available here: https://www.youtube.com/@norisbinet1652
Biography: A native of the Dominican Republic, now living in Ajijic, Mexico, Noris is a visual artist, psycho/spiritual therapist, sociologist, author and spiritual teacher. She facilitates groups in meditative self-inquiry to support self-realization. Her female root teacher for 25 years is Gangaji, based in Ashland Oregon. Noris’ Dharma Poetry is a conduit through which she shares her insights and revelations. She has published her poems and essays in articles, journals and anthologies, and has written sociological themed columns for several U.S. newspapers.While living in Nashville, Tennessee, Binet created Women on the Inner Journey Foundation, dedicated to providing a safe space for reclaiming the sacred feminine through art and holistic practices. Her book Women on the Inner Journey describes through word and image Black and White women healing racial wounds. Binet’s work can be viewed online at http://sonomawriters.blogspot.com or on her website at www.norisbinet.org.
“Making the mythic real” by Susan Hawthorne
Summary: I respectfully acknowledge the wisdom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their custodianship of the lands and waterways, and specifically on Djiru Country where I live and work. I also acknowledge the many women throughout history who have fought for women’s freedom and the freedom of lesbians, often at the cost of their lives. Finding my way into a poetic world involves engaging with the underlying mythic world and with different ways of enticing the reader. One method I have frequently used is an animal speaker. Cow and Lupa and Lamb are key texts for this approach. In Cow, our guide is the Queenie, a philosopher, linguist and wish-fulfilling cow. In Lupa and Lamb it is Roman Curatrix who guides the wolf and lamb through the Musaeum Matricum where a collection of Lost Texts has been assembled and provides information for researchers into prehistory when women were respected. My other approach is to bring in contemporary language in the midst of reflections on myth. This is my approach in The Sacking of the Muses. Myth is history and I have long believed that the trashing of myth is a patriarchal strategy against recognising the power and centrality of women to human history and survival. I am currently working on an epic poem, Ulyssea, in which I tell an alternative epic story about Amazons and mythic women.
Poems
The Butterfly Effect
strange tractors p. 3
Cow
Introduction to Queenie by Fatima p. 13-14
Altamira p. 106
Lupa and Lamb
La Donna Lupa Paleolitica p. 130
The Sacking of the Muses
02 Kalliope Muse of Epic Poetry p. 94
Ulyssea
Echidna (not yet published)
Biography: Susan Hawthorne has been writing and publishing poetry for 50 years. She is the author of seven collections and two chapbooks. Cow (2011) was a finalist for the Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Prize (USA) and shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Poetry Award (Australia). Other collections that draw extensively on mythic elements include The Butterfly Effect (2005), Lupa and Lamb (2014) and The Sacking of the Muses (2019). She has had two poetry residencies In Chennai (2009) and Rome (2013-2014) both of which resulted in the books mentioned above. She has studied Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Latin in order to understand more fully the mythic and linguistic substructure. Her poetry has been translated into Hungarian, Swedish, Spanish, German, Indonesian and Chinese. She is currently working on an epic poem Ulyssea. You can find her books here: https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/susanhawthorne
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