A Gathering of Spirits Harvest Festival, Honoring Pagan Pride, was held on Saturday and Sunday, September 18 and 19 at the Fair Oaks VFW. This Harvest Celebration had plenty of activities each day. Many vendors were also at hand selling many of their magical wares. Three or more public rituals were held each day and there was also plenty to do for children and adults. Although the event and parking was free those attending the festival were asked to share in the abundance of the harvest by donating one or more non-perishable food items. These donations were then donated to a local food locker. Musical entertainment was performed, on Saturday, by Hobby Horse and Drumsum. Dancers from Hot

This year’s Fire Spectacular, on Sunday August 8, was slated to begin around seven in the evening. The Fire Spectacular is a festival event where fire, dance, art, and music are celebrated. The event had a small festival type of atmosphere. Several vendor booths were set up to sell goods related to the event. Drumsum, a local world music style band, was on hand to provide musical entertainment. The event started slow but gained momentum as people started to set up their sitting area in front of the Southside Park Amphitheatre. Once the entertainment began on the amphitheatre stage it indeed became a spectacular event. Earlier in the day, as I approached the entrance to the event, three pe

Photos: 1) Ian Shive at work; 2) Sequoia National Park; 3) Yellowstone National Park Interview by Tony Sheppard Originally published in Capitol Weekly Ian Shive, the photographer behind the new pictorial book "The National Parks: Our American Landscape" recently spent a day in Sacramento, visiting a management class in the Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration program at Sac State. I asked him a few questions about his work and the value of parks in our lives: Photography as a living is new to you – before it was more like a cell phone plan: Unlimited nights and weekends. Very true [laughs]. What were you doing before and how did you get into this? I was working as a publicis

How does one possibly describe the beauty of spending nearly three weeks in some of California's national parks? Local journalist Reed Parsell wrote about it. His travel guide, Fodor's in Focus: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, was released last month. After spending 20 days hiking and exploring three of California's national parks last summer, he approached previous pieces written by Fodor's writers, updated them and added his own take on the parks. Parsell says roughly 70 percent of the book is new material written by him. "I think it was a good move for Fodor's to focus on these three popular parks in a user-friendly, pocket-size format," he said. "It allowed me to