Home : About Us : Leader Bios : Farrell McGovern

Leader Bio: Farrell McGovern

Photo of Farrell McGovern Farrell J. McGovern has been a practicing Pagan for 24 years. His love of ritual was always prevalent, as is indicated by his becoming an Altar Boy in his early teens. He took great pride in performing his part in the Catholic Mass exactly right. And he will admit to being something of a perfectionist. He left Christianity in his late teens due to the injustices he witnessed and experienced. Escape came through Science Fiction & Fantasy writings, and the community of wonderful people who read the stuff and helped keep Farrell off the street and out of crime. This allowed him to pursue his interest in areas like Mythology and Science.

Physics was something that always appealed to him, and in grade 11, he undertook the study of quantum physics. He was also reading books on the various religions in the world. This also included work by Crowley, Richard Bach and books on tarot reading.

In many ways, Science is a religion, and one of the often told stories of the "Mythology" of quantum physics is the paradox of Schroedinger's Cat, which is both dead and alive at the same time. It is left as an exercise for the reader to look up that myth. You can imagine his surprise when he ran across a trilogy of Science Fiction books with the same name by Robert Anton Wilson! This led to the Illuminatus Trilogy by the same author with Robert Shea, and then, strangely, all three roads his reading has been traveling met in one book... Drawing Down the Moon (DDtM) by Margot Adler.

DDtM is an overview of the (Neo)Pagan movement at the end of the 1970s, which as been periodicly updatend to gave you a lot of information about a lot of different groups. Now in the Schrodinger's Cat and Illuminatus Trilogy they made references to the Erisians, a group that followed the Greek Goddess of Chaos, Eris. A nice enough plot device...but according to DDtM, they were real! And not only that, you could become part of the conspiracy just by declaring yourself part! So in the summer of 1980, he walked out into a huge field near where he lived at mid-summer, and dedicated himself to the Goddess Eris.

He then went out in search of a Pagan Community in Ottawa... and found some, but they didn't want to talk to anyone else... So, he started the Ottawa Valley Pagan Discussion Group to try and get the various groups talking to each other. And it was moderately successful.

His worship of Eris came mostly in the form of Wiccan ritual, but it always seemed to lack something to him... and in the early 90s, he left the practice of Wicca, and began researching the heritage of his ancestors, the Celts. His interest there had been enflamed by the email conversations he had with Erynn Rowan Laurie, on PODSnet (Pagan/Occult Distribution System), which he was a founding member.

After looking at various groups, he had come to a couple of groups he was interested in...ADF and the Church of All Words. When he moved from his native Ottawa to Montreal, the Gods put him in touch with ADF in the form of Silver Fox Grove, ADF.

Farrell became a leading member of Silver Fox Grove, and was elected to the Mother Grove in the position of Chronicler... where he had as much success at the position as many past Chroniclers did... not a lot.

During his first term on the MG, he lobbied for Canada to have a separate region and representation on the Mother Grove to address the different and unique challenges that Canadian laws pose compared to their US brethren, rather than the watershed based plans.

So when it finally come to pass that ADF re-aligned the regional boundaries along socio-political boundaries giving Canada it's own representation on the Mother Grove in the form of a Regional Druid, he jumped at the chance to represent Canada. His election to the post of Regional Druid for Canada allowed the person who pushed for it's creation, to finally "walk his talk" and represent Canada on the Mother Grove. This has allowed him bring the issues that are important to Canadian ADF members with the Mother Grove, and show what Canadian Druids can contribute to the ADF Druid Movement.

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