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Last night I read the news about Cape Town, and then dreamed that my garden died.

I live in a condo in Los Angeles, so my garden is small and fragile and mostly in containers: calendula and tulsi and borage and lemon balm in pots and window boxes, selfheal that's dying no matter what I do, jasmine and passionvine that twine around each other in bombastic friendship, nasturtiums that cascade in a curtain of friendly little circles. Baby blue eyes and violet seedlings growing in a flat. Cleveland sage in a pot, since the soil is mostly clay, and sagebrush and California fuschia in the ground, since they can tolerate that clay. I had to fight with my building manager to put plants in the bare dirt behind the building, even though I'm on the HOA board; status quo bias is so strong that people trust ugly cracked ground more than they trust small, quiet plants. (I won the rest of the board over partly by telling them my unit's property values are suffering because of the eyesore that is the dirt. In reality I don't care much about the property values, but a witch uses the tools in her toolbox; she shapeshifts when she needs to.)

Last minute ideas for Yuletide gifts arrive. A new Pagan community center opens in Santa Cruz. And a Polish activist is memorialized. It's Watery Wednesday, our weekly segment on news about the Pagan community from around the world! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

A Jordanian-Canadian architect designs a tent to help refugees. Astronauts farm in space! And which rechargeable batteries are really the most eco-friendly? It's Earthy Thursday, our weekly take on news relating to the environment, Earth, and science. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

It's that time of week again, when we bring you science and Earth-related stories to read and consider. This week for Earthy Thursday we bring you a number of articles relating to the ongoing California drought, which continues to threaten the state's agricultural industry. Read where and how the drought is hitting hardest and what you might be doing to help aggravate it (and what you can do to stop). Additionally, we've gathered a few other stories, including one about how best to weather a heat wave (no pun intended). All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

One of the most important parts of building a community is making sure everyone has access to the necessary resources to keep them alive and comfortable. Water is perhaps the most fundamental of those. This week in Watery Wednesday we take a look at (among other things) communities around the world that are working to maintain easy access to water or those that have formed in areas where water is scarce. Continue below to find out more!

It's probably fair to save that most of us love the Earth and wish it well. But what's the best way to treat it? And how should we adjust our own cultures to its needs (and transform the Earth for ours)? In today's Pagan News Beagle we look at such questions with articles about the future of agriculture in drought-stricken California, the importance of "mulch" in gardening, and the surprising benefits of living in the city, among other subjects. Continue reading to learn more.

This pentagram is built into a small tower in Presidio Park in San Diego, California. The pentagram is on the tower roof, open to the air, which is reached by climbing a staircase.

The official name of the Witches' Tower is the Pattie Memorial, commemorating the first American to die to California. It is supposed to be built close to where a historical guardhouse and jail used to be. The Pattie Memorial is a storage building. Presidio Park is very convenient to the hotels on Hotel Circle. Multiple layers of candle wax on the pentagram attest to its ritual use.