Day 9 August 7/8
Homage to the Magoma (Mago and Goma)
Self-Guided Ritual created by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Wendy Stiver
A. What is Magoma?
“Magoma” is coined to convey the merged nature of the divine (Mago) and the human (Goma). The distinction between the divine and the human is fluid and crossed. The divine does not stand apart from the human and vice versa. Divinty manifests in the form of the combined persons of Mago, the Creatrix, and Goma, her queen shaman ruler of Danguk (ca. 3898 BCE-ca. 2333 BCE) who taught humanity the Mago Triad. We are able to grasp the Nine Mago Creatrix thanks to Goma. It was Goma who established the geneology of the Nine Mago Creatrix from whom humans are derived. In the Magoma, human nature is elevated as the divine. We humans are celebrated as an extension of the Mago Descent.
“Mago” is not the name of a particular female deity. It refers to the Creatrix and Magoist women who represent the Creatrix. S/HE is equated with the Origin, the Way, the Heaven, and the Truth. S/HE is known as many names. Among them are the Creatrix (造化神Johwasin), the Triad Creatrix (Johwa Samsin), the Triad Divine (三神 Samsin), the Heavenly Divine (天神Cheonsin), the Progenitor Divine (Daejosin), the One Divine (Ilsin), the Seven Star Divine (Chilseongsin) or Doumu (斗母 Mother of the Northern Dipper of Seven Stars), the Divine (Sin), Grandmother or Crone (Halmi, Halmeoni or Halmang), Magu, Mako, Magui (Demon), Nogo or Nogu (老姑 Primordial Goddess), Nomo (老母 Primordial Mother) or Wusheng Laomu (無生老母 Unbegotten Primordial Mother), Seolmundae or Seonmundae, Seogo or Seogu (瑞姑, Auspicious Goddess), and Seongo, Seonnyeo or Seonja (仙姑, 仙女, 仙子 Immortal Goddess, Woman, Person).
The scope of Mago epithets is much broader than the above listed names in that most of these names have their own derivatives. Some epithets connote the Creatrix (Johwasin, Johwa Samsin, Samsin, Cheonsin, Daejosin, and Ilsin), whereas others refer to Magoist shamans, devotees, and/or priestesses. Characteristically, Mago and Goma often manifest as a merged Magoma persona in folktales that come under a particular name of the female divine. One way to distinguish Mago from Goma is to observe its logographic character to be “Cheon (天Heaven)” or “Ung (熊 or 雄 Bear/Sovereign/Hero).” Cheon refers to Mago, whereas Ung indicates Goma. And Goma is, among others, referred to as Cheonung (Heavenly Hero), Magoist Sovereign. In particular, Magoma divinity manifests through such mythemes as the Northern Dipper (the Bear Goddess) and the Nine. Among the broad manifestations of the Magoma divine are Doumo (Mother of the Northern Dipper), Xiwangmu (Queen Mother of the West), Amaterasu (Great Goddess of Heavenly Light), Mazu (Heavenly Queen Ancestor Mother), Yeowa (Nuwa), and Gwaneum (Guanyin).
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Goma and Mago are two distinguished but merging entities. Goma refers to the historical queen founder of Danguk, whereas Mago is the Creatrix, the Source of all. Both often manifest as one merging deity, which I call Magoma, in mytho-cultural-folk traditions. The Magoma representation, ranging from the Creatrix to the Bear Goddess to the Nine Goddess, to the Mountain Goddess, and to the Heavenly Queen Mother proffers a methodolgical tool for us to assess the kinship of major East Asian Goddesses including Doumu (Mother of the Northern Dipper), Gwaneum (Guanyin, Goddess of Compassion), Ximangmu (Queen Mother of the West), Jiutian Xuannu (the Mysterious Woman of Nine Heavens), Yeowa or Nuwa (Ancient Goddess), Amaterasu (The Great Goddess of Heavenly Light), Gemu (Mountain Goddess) and Mazu (Heavenly Ancestor Mother Queen).[1]
In discussing Goma’s various identities, this essay unavoidably employs such words as “polity,” “dynasty,” “ruler,” “civilizer,” “legislator,” and “savior” for the lack of better words. Used for Goma, these words mark transition from conventional patriarchal notions to new, gynocentric meanings in our collective mind. Breaking out of hierarchical and oppressive semantic grips, they convey the multi-representation of Goma who transforms the world rather than dominates it. Both polity and dynasty refer to a confederacy that represents the Reign of the Great Goddess. As shaman, Goma connects the divine and the human. As ruler, she administers the terrestrial community in harmony with the cosmogonic principle of the universe. As civilizer, she cultivates the human consciousness through her socio-technological-cultural inventions. As legislator, she protects the pristine state of the human world through the legal code. As savior, she has given self-redemptive soteriology through the teaching of the Triad Creatrix.”
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, “GOMA, THE SHAMAN RULER OF OLD MAGOIST EAST ASIA/KOREA AND HER MYTHOLOGY” in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Lytle Creek, CA: 2018), 7, 293-4.
Notes
[1] These Goddesses share the common mythemes of the Magoma mythology whose discussions I have made partly elsewhere. Among them, Doumu is briefly discussed later within two contexts.
Summary of the Goma Myth
Goma had a great spirit from birth. Because of her vision of “benefiting the human world widely,” she was entrusted by the last shaman queen, Hanin of Hanguk (桓國 State of One People, c. 7199 BCE – 3898 BCE), with the task of restoring the Reign of the Creatrix. Toward the end of the Hanguk confederacy, clan names and their customs grew apart. And a belligerent tiger clan rose. They raided and plundered neighboring tribes. Goma conceived a will to pacify a social problem caused by this unruly patrilocal clan. Determined to constrain the tiger clan, she requested Hanin to send her to the troubled region. Hanin granted her wish and sent her to the region, Mount Taebaek (Great Resplendence).
Leading the royal bear clan of 3,000 people, Goma arrived at Mount Taebaek and settled adjacent to the tiger clan. Rather than a military solution, she proposed a covenant for both the bear clan and the tiger clan to observe. Both clans underwent a trial, which was to dwell in a cave hall and endure 100 days without seeing the sunlight, living on mugwort and chive.
I call her proposal the cave initiation, a socio-spiritual pledge to undergo the ordeal of the cave environment in order to tap into one’s innate power of restoring true human nature. The cave is a physical and metaphorical place for the womb of the Primordial Mother, the sacred space/time of unity, wholeness, and rebirth, wherein everyone once dwelt. The cave initiation represents a returning to the knowing of the common origin of all beings, the Crearix.
Goma proffered the tiger clan an option of changing their predatory behaviors but they could not endure the cave initiation. The bear clan endured for three seven days (21 days) and attained the female character, the true human nature. The tiger clan was expelled to a remote designated land outside Four Seas, the territory of Old Magoist East Asia, by verdict of the law that Goma legislated. Thereupon, Nine Hans (九桓the Nine People of the Creatrix) began to prosper.
She was enthroned as a new dynastic founder by people. She was given the title of Hanung (Hero of Han, the People of the Creatrix). By inheriting the Heavenly Emblem of Three Seals from Hanin, she performed the rite of succession and preserved the linage of her ancestor Magoist shaman rulers. Following this, Goma and her women officials went out to the Divine Goma Tree (神壇樹 Sindansu) atop Mount Taebaek daily and aspired ceaselessly for the conception of a child. She reenacted the Magoist cosmogony, the beginning story of all beings from the Creatrix, through the living tree once and for all. Like the Triad Creatrix who alone gave birth to HER eight daughters in the beginning, Goma succeeded in giving birth without a male partner. She was deified as Holy Queen Mother who reenacted the teaching of the Triad Creatrix on earth.
Goma foresaw the coming of the degenerative era, to be brought by the establishment and expansion of patriarchal rules. She consolidated female sovereignty and taught people the Way of the Triad Creatrix, the prime representation of Nine Numerology. Her government put into practice the Magoist mandate of bringing all beings to the common origin of the Creatrix (麻姑復本 Return to the Origin of Mago). Her councils administered about 360 affairs of the human and natural world. Goma designated women of the bear clan as rulers, inaugurated matrimony, endowed men with the right of fathers and provided the elderly and children with care. Having invented new technologies including building palace/shrine chambers, ships and vehicles, she traveled the world by sea and land to remind the human race of the common origin of all beings. Upon return from her journeys, Goma learned a number of spoken languages and written languages. She established calendar and numerology, trained in medical and medicinal cures, composed books on astronomy and geography. She elevated the standard of the human life unprecedentedly across cultures. The custom of cultivating human intelligence through studies began from her rule.
Daily Themes
- Day 1 July 30/31
Our Life: Cross the Threshold to WE/HERE/NOW - Day 2 July 31/Aug 1
See Interconnectivity of all inter-cosmic beings in HER - Day 3 Aug 1/2 (Inter-continental Video Meeting 1)
Transform from within
- Day 4 Aug 2/3
Honor Life in all forms - Day 5: Aug 3/4
Restore Mother-Daughter Bond - Day 6: Aug 4/5 (Inter-continental Video Meeting 2)
Celebrating Cross-cultural Nine Female Symbols
- Day 7: Aug 5/6
How Does Nine Numerology Work? - Day 8: Aug 6/7
Charting Our Mother Time, the 13 Month 28 Day Calendar - Day 9: Aug 7/8 Lammas/Imbolc or Ipchu立秋/Entering Fall (Inter-continental Video Meeting 3)
Homage to the Magoma (Mago and Goma)
Mago Academy hosts 2018 (5915 Magoma Era) Year 1 Nine Day Mago Celebration! Our celebration will mark the first year of the Magoist Calendar (13 month 28 day gynocentric calendar). We began the New Year on the new moon of the last December Solstice according to the Magoist Calendar. We are to commemorate nine days, the ninth day marking the 9th month the 9th day, which is also Lammas/Imbolc or Ipchu立秋/Entering Fall. Anyone can join us and welcome!
Dates July 30/31-August 7/8 (the 9th month the 9th day in the Magoist Calendar given the variation of time zones)
Theme Proclamation of WE/HERE/NOW, the Return of the 13 Month 28 Day Calendar
Planning Committee Wendy Stiver and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Method We will provide nine guidelines for rituals and readings. We have about 3 video meetings on the 3rd day, the 6th day and the 9th day via Google Hangouts. Times to be determined between 10AM to 6PM PST. If you want to participate, please fill out the below form. (Participants must provide a Gmail address to which you will be notified shortly. Actual invite will be sent to you 10 min before the session on each day. If you are new to Google Hangouts, please enter the conference room 10 min prior to the session. You will be invited to a Google group conversation. Please say hello to all in the chat window.)
Learn more about the Mago Almanac: 13 Month 28 Day Calendar (Book A).