Reconnecting through Mago by Rosemary Mattingley

The Mago Pilgrimage in Korea was my long-awaited and exciting return after 25 years to East Asia, where I had lived for 8 years. While I was writing about and reliving the Pilgrimage, an extraordinary sign of my reconnection to the region appeared when I felt to look up the triangle of places designated for the coming new moon meditation in earth chakra work. The triangle linked Mt. Fuji in Japan, Mt. Mani in Ganghwa Island in Korea, and Sefa Utaki in the Ryukyu Islands. Imagine my delight as I reflected that I had seen Mt. Fuji when I lived in Japan and, during the Mago Pilgrimage, spent part of my birthday on Ganghwa Island, watched a lunar eclipse that night over Mt. Mani, and connected with people from the Ryukyu Islands. 

Apparently Japan’s Ainu people named Mt. Fuji for their fire or hearth goddess. Mt. Mani is considered to be a breast. Sefa Utaki is said to be where the goddess Amami descended and gave birth to the Ryukyu Islands. It’s the main centre of the Ryukyuan religion, which has mainly women shamans. An utaki is a sacred place. From photos, the utaki look very similar to the sodang or natural shrines that we visited on Jeju Island during the Mago Pilgrimage, where I experienced amazing movement of place and energy at all levels of my being. So this triangle linking Japan, Korea, and the Ryukyu Islands is profoundly, naturally, divinely feminine, and has certainly confirmed my deep reconnection to East Asia through Mago and the Mago Pilgrimage. 

-Rosemary Mattingley, She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality?