The Future of Northern Dawn Local Council (CoG) will be discussed at a Town Hall meeting at Walker Community United Methodist Church this Saturday at 6pm. The Northern Dawn Local Council of the Covenant of the Goddess has served the Twin Cities Pagan community for over 30 years. http://www.facebook.com/events/271580256253033/

There was an article in the PNC last week about local Pagan podcasts. That’s yet another way in which our community is excelling: https://pncminnesota.com/2012/04/05/local-pagans-offer-podcasts/

There will be a CD release party at the Sacred Paths Center this Friday, for three CDs produced by Rhythmpriest. Two CDs from Murphey’s Midnight Rounders, and one from Ailinn. There will be live music. http://www.facebook.com/events/339101516127766/

Local Tarot professional extraordinaire, Barbara Moore recently published another new Tarot Deck, the Steam Punk Tarot. If you’ve talked with Barbara in the last two years, then you know what a passion this deck has been to create. She will be having a book signing this Saturday at Magus Books & Herbs, and a launch party extravaganza May 5th at the Eye of Horus.

Highway cleanup went very well yesterday. Many hands made light work and mother Earth is a little less littered. Thank you to the Upper Midwest Pagan Alliance for allowing our community the opportunity to perform such a fulfilling service.

The Upper Midwest Pagan Alliance adopted a stretch of highway in 2008. Twice a year, local Pagans (like you) gather to pick up litter and beautify a piece of the Earth. Our stretch of highway is about 2 miles of I-35E a few miles before it rejoins I-35W in the north

It’s difficult to describe the highway cleanup and convey how enjoyable it was. There was a playfulness to the outing. The sense of discovery at the bizarre things to be found. The challenge of getting that half buried tire to the side of the road. The joy of time spent with wonderful people.

Saturday was not the warmest day we’ve had lately. The clouds threatened rain and provided a mist. This turned out to be the perfect weather for cleaning up the highway. We weren’t too warm. We didn’t get sunburns. The bugs weren’t biting.

Our stretch of highway is being redone, so right now there’s only one side open, which means we only had to clean one side of the interstate. The side we were cleaning had been recently landscaped, so there wasn’t a lot of litter.

We split into two teams to start at either end and meet in the middle. One team walked down the off-ramp to start their clean-up. The other was dropped off down the road where we had to climb over a fence capped with barbed wire to get to the highway. Although this sounds unpleasant, it turned into a playful team-build as the obstacle was overcome.

After about an hour and a half, it began to rain. It wasn’t cold, and the rain was somewhat refreshing. If it hadn’t been for regulations requiring that we not cleanup in the rain, we would have continued. The two teams were close enough to be able to see each other at that point, with not a lot of litter in between.

This spring’s highway cleanup project was very enjoyable. I hope to see many of you this fall as we clean-up our stretch of highway again.