So fair warning – this post has a lot of opinions in it about things I’ve done, traditions I’ve been part of, and etc. I’m going to try not to air any dirty laundry, but I’m finding myself in a hard place with regard to my spiritual path right now, and I think processing it out will help.
I’ve spent 8 years with ADF, and attained clergy status – there’s about 40 people who have done that – it takes quite a bit of work and dedication. There’s two more circles of clergy training open to me, but they’re heavily scholarly (and somewhat dated) and won’t make me a better priest in ways that I think are useful for the kind of ministry I’m trying to build, so I’ve opted to do the Initiate Program, which is REALLY well done. I’m on course four of twelve, and when I am done with the coursework I will be set to face the trials (a questioning/defense, a ritual performance, and a secret one that I don’t get to know about in advance, but I have a bit of an idea what to expect). It’s an independent body, with it’s own leadership and preceptor, and the only requirements are “do the work” and “find three initiates who will initiate you”.
Okay, so that’s all good, and it’s good work and I’m enjoying it and getting some real nourishment out of it.
But… I’ve been on the mother Grove, ADFs elected board of directors. And it was so bad, I had to resign, which I did in January, alongside two other female directors on a 9 seat board. (Yes that’s right – things were so toxic that literally a third of the governing body resigned, and the other two quit ADF as well, though I obviously did not). The org has a serious “if we say we’re inclusive that’s all that matters” problem, and thus it has really problematic people running around because “we welcome everyone” and despite bylaws that espouse anti-racist and other (good!) ideals, doesn’t seem to back that up when people display really bad behavior. It also tends to not want to make hard decisions out of fear of “choosing sides”, something that I find very displeasing.
I have friends who have left the org who have said things to me that I struggle to describe (like “you just don’t have the strength to leave yet/you’re brainwashed”). They were actively harmed by the organization’s top leadership structure, and not only do I believe them, I have seen the harm that was done and did my best as a MG member to try to fix it. I was unable to do so.
On the other hand, ritually and energetically and magically it works for me. In the words of a clergy friend, it feels like if the good stuff is like a clean spring, the stuff I’ve lived through and seen and know is like someone dumped motor oil in it. To get to the good stuff, I have to go through the oil slick of gross that’s floating on top.
But I’ve looked around, and if I were to say, seek out a BTW coven? (Something I have seriously considered) I’d be going back to really basic stuff again, and that would be the fourth time I’ve started over like that. And that’s okay – everyone has to re-do the basics when they switch traditions, especially ones as different as Trad Wicca and ADF Druidry, but I’m very much tired of starting over if I don’t have any guarantee that it’ll work out.
Maybe that’s sunk cost fallacy kicking in, but it would have to be really perfect in every other way for me to be okay going back to square one.
I guess it boils down to:
“Why am I continuing training, even if it’s really excellent training, with a tradition that I wouldn’t recommend other people join unless they have a really good local grove, and even then maybe not?“
I have friends that I respect deeply who have decided to leave ADF. I have friends that I respect deeply who have decided to stay. All of us agree that the large organization has major issues, and I don’t begrudge people who decided they’d had enough and just voted with their feet and left. But I also struggle to abandon the magic, the religion, the mythology, the story that is my path in this religious organization.
My hearth fire is a hearth fire. My hallows are a fire, well, and tree. I’m a devotional polytheist at heart, and the ADF religious system just works for me. If it didn’t work, if I didn’t feel nourished and fed by it, I would leave.
But I also feel very alone. Some of that is because priesthood is inherently a lonely path unless you’re in a tight-knit community of co-priests. Some of that is because I don’t have a grove anymore, and am distanced from the community I’d worked so hard to build for the last eight years. Some of that is COVID and my inability to gather with the community I do have here in North Texas. It’s a lot to puzzle through, and in the end I’m trying to make the decision based on what my end goals are.
Right now my end goals are to deepen and improve my magical, trance, seership, and spirit work practices in a really intense way. I don’t know of anyone else offering this kind of training other than ADF or the advanced levels of an established traditional coven, and of the two, ADF is the only one I have access to right now. So I’m staying, and doing the work, and seeking initiation. I do not think I will regret doing that, just as I do not regret doing ADF’s clergy training program. I learned a lot, deepened a lot, and made some really amazing magical and religious connections through that endeavor. I am a priest, and that’s part of who I am, and I value that part of my work and my identity.
If, sometime in the future, I decide that the only viable option is for me to leave ADF, the training will not go away. The learning, the practice, the intense work that I’m doing right now will always serve me well.
Which I guess is a long way to say “I know this is a decision with a lot of facets, but it’s what feels like the best choice for me right now”. I’ve made no oaths or promises about the work – merely some goals on how I’m going to get it done – and so I can always choose differently in the future.
Hopefully as I get settled I’ll feel less conflicted about this. The clergy journey that I do each new moon felt easier this month (especially as I did it over Zoom with friends – that really helped). I’m told that “searching for identity” is a common problem with priests of all kinds, so I maintain that deepening this work is where I think my efforts are best focused right now.
Little Druid on the Prairie 
Yeah, that’s a lot to be dealing with and processing on top of everything the rest of the world is dealing with. You have my sympathy.
I’ve read your blog a while, and I just want to say I feel exactly where you’re coming from. I left ADF, gosh, almost a decade ago, for the reasons you’re discussing–but I still practice ADF-style ritual because it works for me. The religious structure speaks to me, even if the organization is and has been toxic.
I sometimes wonder if ADF would be better as a tradition instead of an organization, because the old boys network will never let it be a great organization, but individual groves are often wonderful.
That’s basically how I’ve decided to look at it – just enough of the structure to get the initiation done, to continue to be clergy, but I’m not in any way interested in the international org anymore. I feel like Isaac created the worst parts of the Catholic church for Pagans without any of the benefits, you know?