Annual Clergy Report for 2025

This report is designed to be a reflective process for each priest.  This is an opportunity to reflect on the year.  Each priest’s work is as unique and individual as they are, and as such we expect the responses to this report to be just as varied.  

Covering January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2025

Categories of the Report include: A celebration of and reflection on our accomplishments; detailing and reflecting on how we’ve kept our Clergy Oath this past year; detailing and reflecting on continuing educational opportunities we’ve done this past year; a reflection on our cClergy Order Work; and a general reflection on how we met goals from last year and what we plan to do in the coming year.

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On Community, in Times of Horror

From the Archdruid of ADF, regarding the atrocities of ICE in the USA

Hey y’all.  I recorded this as an internal message as Archdruid for my ADF folk, but I know that many in my various communities look to me as their Priest/Spiritual Leader regardless of whether or not they’re part of ADF. It’s taken me awhile to find the words as I’m struggling with my own horror, but I wanted to reach out to folks and offer what I can.

I’ve cleaned up and expanded the transcript for this post, but initially I needed the authenticity that comes with actually speaking, and not trying to write.  Also, I think actually hearing someone verbally say these things can carry more weight than the written word alone right now.  So have a listen, and then read the expanded bit below:

(The link is unlisted, since I was mostly addressing the ADF community in this, though you are welcome to share it with whoever you think needs to hear it)

Together we can shoulder this heaviness, share the load, and survive.

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When Caring for Others is a Calling

A large part of my Call to clergy, and my vocation, is focused on caring for others.  I have felt myself drawn to this kind of work across the story of my life.  Growing up, all the way through high school and college, I was often the confidant for friends going through a hard time.  In my first profession teaching high school, that vocation of caring for others dovetailed with my other primary vocation of teaching & mentoring others.   Then, while working on my Initiate work, the Call to priesthood hit me like a freight train, and I came to understand that I could blend those vocations, caring and mentoring and teaching, together in my priest work.  I continue to lean into that blend in my current occupation and education as a chaplain working towards board certification.

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Spiritual Experience, Daydream, or Mental Illness

It is not uncommon for me to field questions and concerns around the theme of “I had this really intense dream/meditation/trance, and I’m worried I might be crazy” or “such and such spirit came to me and told me things, and I’m pretty sure it’s true, but it doesn’t match anything that’s written or anybody else’s experiences” or “Am I just taking myself on wish fulfillment, fantastical adventures in my head and believing it’s true?”  As pagans, we work with spirits (including the gods and dead, and those who defy categorization) who are often fairly close to the human world (or share it with us entirely), and in a post-colonial Western society we don’t have a good frame of reference for what is “normal” in spiritwork.  

So, how do you find the balance between mental illness, your imagination, and a spiritual experience (or UPG – Unverified Personal Gnosis)? How do you know what is “real” and what is maybe just daydreaming? If you’re already neurodivergent, how do you navigate spiritual experiences while honoring your brain’s very real differences?

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Reflections on My Installation as Archdruid

Rev. Drum (dressed in white robes) holds sickle to throat of Rev. Jan (dressed in multi-colored robes)

There are rites of passage that happen throughout our lives, and sometimes they pass without much fanfare, but other times they are spiritually significant and marked as such through ritual and community engagement.

At Wellspring this year I was installed at the 7th Archdruid of ADF at the main rite.  I planned most of the rite and scripted portions of it, but there was also a very real sense of “this is something that I need to let happen to me, and not control the experience.”  That’s hard to do for a very liturgical and spiritwork focused Priest. 😉 I’m used to making these experiences meaningful for others, but in this case I trusted others to make it meaningful, not just for me, but for ADF as a whole.

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ADF Elects a New Archdruid: Rev. Jan Avende To Focus On Empowerment and Connection

androgynous person in full ritual regalia looks calmly and confidently at the camera, against a green meadow background

Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF), has elected a new Archdruid by popular vote: Rev. Jan Avende (they/them). Also elected to serve on ADF’s governing body, the ADF Mother Grove, are Rovena Windsor (Chief of the Council of Senior Druids), Matthias Dolgner-Trampnau (Non-Officer Director), Tami Olsen (re-elected Non-Officer Director) and Mike Bierschenk (ADF Secretary, elected to a full term).

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Gender Diversity is Welcomed in ADF

For our US Druids, especially those who are gender diverse, I know the past few days have been a lot.  I want to assure you that ADF is a place where you are explicitly welcome.  You are valid.  You belong here. Your presence brightens our community and adds vibrance to our practice.  

Our system of practice and belief is centered around *ghosti.  Hospitality.  Building reciprocal relationships.  We welcome all those of good will into our spaces, and expect those we welcome to abide by the social contract of good will.  Our community will not tolerate hate speech or a debate regarding whether or not someone’s identity and existence is valid.  Our cis allies need to step up in this regard, and call out this behavior when you see it, so that appropriate action can be taken.  

Gender diverse members (trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, intersex, and beyond), please know that I am also processing this, but will make time to talk with you.  Please reach out if you need to.  Cis allies, if you need help processing this, I encourage you to reach out as well, though please be aware that I will refer you to another ally who can manage the emotional labor better than me at the moment. 

Queer Grief and Ancestor Veneration

Queer Grief and Ancestor Veneration

originally published for Oak Leaves Winter 2024

“As our ancestors did before, so we do now, so our descendants may do in the future.” This is what we say in every ritual, in every statement of purpose and precedent.  But how do we live it?

[cw: this article will touch on themes of death, grief, transphobia, homophobia, epidemics, and suicide]

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