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Howdy, fellow Witches&Pagans.

Today is Friday the 13th (third one this year) so today we are focusing on superstition, science, and what makes seemingly irrational ideas work. How can we, who often employ magic and other "non-rational" methods, integrate our beliefs in a largely secular world?

First up, this post at IFLScience describes the math behind patterns of Friday the 13th.

Next, Bloomberg Business describes a recent study that explains how superstitions work -- turns out our brains are perfectly capable of holding more than one idea at a time, especially when we are under stress.

Today's Pagan News Beagle salutes the efforts being made, worldwide, to make our world more liveable for all lifeforms. From citizen science to local farmers to composting our remains, these are stories of how we can all make a difference.

Christina Eisenberg is an amazing biologist and activist. (I had the good fortune to work with her as a writer and editor for SageWoman in the early 1990's.) In this post, she explains how the rise of the citizen scientist has profoundly affected her discipline.

Within living memory, Northern California's Mendocino County was the primary supplier to the Bay Area for crops such as oats, wheat, and barley. But for a good portion of the last century, Mendocino’s increasingly valuable agriculture land on valley bottoms haven’t been sown with grains. The farmers profiled in this report aim to change that.

Is mega-agriculture necessary to feed the world? This article at the Ecologist explains that small farms are feeding the planet because they prioritize local food production, especially for the rural and urban poor.

Nope, there's no Red Cups in this installment of the PaganNewsBeagle. (Sorry, Starbucks lovers/haters!)

Instead we examine religious rights as they impact: Christianity in a public high school (and at football games); a Texas homeschooling family; a religious right to not carry photo ID; and male genital mutilation (aka infant circumcision).

Students in a Louisiana high school tell a Slate reporter that Christianity is being forced upon them at school; teachers deny the report.

Happy Tuesday! In today's PaganNewsBeagle, we feature stories that link activism with Paganism. A Pagan lawyer mixes belief with activism; freedom from religion in the Air Force; shutdown of Pagan chaplains at a Navy bootcamp; the Pagan ape; poverty and Pagan devotion.

A Pagan lawyer is guided by his beliefs to fight the Keystone Pipeline project. Find out the whole story in this post on the Wild Hunt.

In today's PaganNewsBeagle we bring attention to the ways in which political action and Pagan culture intersect: sometimes easily, other times with a fair degree of dissonance and friction. We've got anti-capitalist May Day history tied into Beltane; racism in the Pagan community; a test (are you racist?) for the brave; BlackWitch on Baltimore, and HecateDemeter undermining the patriarchy as only she can.

Gods&Radicals blogger Rhyd Wildermuth points out that the intersection between the wild Pagan holiday of Beltane and the anti-capitalist holiday of May Day is hardly coincidental in this post on the Wild Hunt.

In this installment of our occasional column "Magical Monday" we’ve got a roundup of media magick: Game Throne real-life locations you can visit; a Witch dishes on wine as well as celebrity astrology and sex magick; Vegan voudou; quirky New York witch; Vampire Pagans of Houston.

Whatever you say about fantasy series Game of Thrones, it shoots on some amazing locations. Here's a slideshow of a few of those real life places you can visit.

In today's Fiery Tuesday post, we concentrate on issues of politics as it connects to religious principles. SCOTUS on same-sex marriage; Pope Francis vs. climate change; May Day history; inequities in CA water use; the personal cost of social activism.

Supreme Court Justices are hearing arguments in a case that's likely to settle the question of same-sex marriage in the United States. This story in the New York Times describes what's at stake.