Festival Virgins Find Community

Below are interviews of two new attendees to Sacred Harvest Festival. What they both found on arrival was that unique sense of community created by our experienced Minnesota festivants. Zach attended as a practicing Lutheran, Rachael as a dedicated Gardnerian student.

Click to listen to Zach’s interview.

Zach, –  Festival Virgin, Practicing Lutheran
I identify my self as a Lutheran. I teach Sunday school and do a lot of volunteer work there. I don’t make it every Sunday, but I try to be active.

This is all completely new to you?
Well it kind of started out with me asking a friend of mine about it, I asked him what he does for his religion. I’m kind of a religious nerd I guess. I have gone to Native American reservations, gone into Islamic Mosques, and talked to people. I just like to gain perspective I guess. I was curious to begin with and when invited to attend, I said , “Sure, sign me up!”. I’ll see what it is all about.

What has your experience been like?
I was a tiler  for The Hunt last night. That was really awesome to see the breakdown of how it went. I have never really done a ritual like that before, never one that was that in-depth for people. A friend was a hunter, and so it was fascinating to see the three days fasting and the change from then to today. I don’t know if I can feel the ‘energy’ and stuff that people talk about, but I could definitely tell that spiritually there was a lot going on. Continue reading

The Fourth Estate – Political Opinion

(…. is given a condo in Plymouth as severance pay, and retires)

An article about the press is a good place to start political opinion writing at PNC-MN.

The term Fourth Estate has its origins in 17th Century England. It was originally used to describe ‘mob rule’ but mutated to describe the press as the fourth branch of parliament. As an independent entity, the press was presumed a force to keep parliament from straying to far from the truth in its propaganda.

The tradition of the press as ‘independent’ followed democracies around the world. The assessment of a true democracy became synonymous with a country’s press being able to write freely from its experience. This country began with a grassroots, locally based and owned news system. The “Colonial newspapers are unsung heroes of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War.”

Continue reading