Saturday, July 9, 2022

What are you known for?

 As part of the elevation ceremony for ADF, the candidate for Senior Priest lists off all the Senior Priest elevated before them with a short description of their contributions to ADF. 

As of this writing, the list of priests* who have been elevated before me totals 13.I have had the privilege of meeting all of these individuals in person, and not everyone has this blessing available to them as reference for creating this piece.

This exercise has provoked quite a bit of reflecting on what I have brought to the org. After my elevation, those after me will include my name in this list of folks, and I am pretty sure the one thing they will list as my primary contribution will be liturgical music. This definitely confirms my understanding of the unseen nature of "boring writing" and how undervalued this important work can be. It also created feelings of...inadequacy? in relationship to the other work I do. I need to sit with this for a while and find my peace.

I don't know a lot about all of these folks, and I make up part of this work is to invite relationship between myself and the other Senior Priests. I am planning to reach out to each of them, because I am interested in what they would say about themselves. How does one go about reducing themselves to a bulleted list of accomplishments?

Here is what I would say at this time about the Senior Priests of ADF:
  • Rev. John ‘Fox’ Adelmann - completed the "Super Druid" study program. Sacred Fire Priests
  • Rev. Isaac Bonewits - Vision of public, mainstream paganism made reality
  • Rev. Jeffrey ‘Ian Corrigan’ Wyndham - Magician, Musician, and Liturgist
  • Rev. Robert ‘Skip’ Ellison - Historian and Scholar
  • Rev. Eric ‘Earrach’ Canali - Keeper of Sacred Music and Time
  • Rev. Bryan Perrin - Creator of Sacred Art
  • Rev. Kirk Thomas - Sacred Architect and Master of Ritual Mechanics and Theater
  • Rev. Michael J Dangler - Master Liturgist and Social Media Content Creator
  • Rev. Jessie Olson - Nonprofit Awareness
  • Rev. Jean ‘Drum’ Pagano - Diviner and Poet
  • Rev. Kelly ‘Carrion Mann’ Kingston - Senior Priest of the Ancestors and Religious Education
  • Rev. Ayliah Cannon - Creative Spirit and Humanitarian
  • Rev. Robb Lewis - Seidhr Worker, Mentor, Brewer
  • Rev. Christopher Temple - Diviner and Fire Priest
  • Rev. G. R. (Gwernin) Grove - Scholar and Master Storyteller and Bard
  • Rev. Amber Doty - Senior Priest of the Solitaries
This will evolve in the coming weeks, and I will share my final draft prior to the Summerland Gathering where my Elevation is scheduled to take place. Blessings on the continued work of our Senior Priests in ADF.

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