Leader Bio: Todd Covert - ADF Neopagan Druidism

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I'm the first Senior Druid elected by one of ADF's largest fellowships, Raven's Cry Grove, based in the Los Angeles area. At this writing, I'm serving as ADF's Pursewarden (or Treasurer) and a non-officer director on the Mother Grove, following a one year tenure as Administrator (and a brief stint as acting Chief of the Council of Senior Druids). In April 2002, I became a member of the ADF Clergy Council with Dedicant Priest status. Since January 2004, I've been Chief of the ADF Liturgists Guild.

I've lived in LA since 1994, after 34 years previously spent in predominantly snowier climes (like Madison, WI, and Rochester, NY). I'm a member of the Directors Guild of America, and worked for seven years as an assistant director on feature films and episodic TV, after an earlier career spent practicing and teaching in various disciplines of theatre. I'm currently the Executive Administrator for the C.G. Jung Institute of L.A., a post-graduate training institute for Jungian analysts. I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin and an M.F.A. in theatre from Western Illinois University and have taught in the University of South Carolina system and for the University of Wisconsin Extension.

My involvement in Paganism goes back to about 1973 when my mother was considering becoming Wiccan. Her interest faded—falling back into the family's longtime Unitarianism—but I found the books on Wicca she gave me at the time to be a continuation of my earlier childhood interests in mythology and religions (to say nothing of Halloween and horror movies!).

After studying and working with noted ritual theatre specialist Richard Schechner briefly in the early '80s, I plunged into a decade or so of freeform Taoism, before winding up back at Wicca—this time as a result of efforts to explore my Irish-Scottish-Welsh heritage. I am a legally-ordained priest of an American branch of a well-established British Traditionalist Wiccan tradition (heavily Celtic in orientation) and still balance that magical work to some degree with my ADF Druidism. Other influences were Michael Harner's shamanism workshops and a longtime association with An Claidheamh Soluis/Celtic Arts Center in LA (of which group I was president, 1999-2000), where I have studied the Irish language for several years and teach classes in Celtic history and spirituality.

I self-identify these days as a "Celtic Pagan"... though my personal path, as well as that of Raven's Cry Grove, is specifically Gaelic. I have travelled extensively in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall and was married in Glasgow in January 2003. I'm particularly obsessed with the Isle of Skye, where I have solo hiked in the Black Cuillen Hills and done personal rituals dedicated to the warrior goddess, Scathach (much akin in my view to my longtime matron deity, the Morr&icute;gan).

ADF's embrace of the path of study so important to the Druids of old, combined with its emphasis on public ritual have been central for me in my involvement with the organization and my decision to organize a Grove in Los Angeles—a community heavily populated with Pagan folk, but lightly so with those identifying themselves as "Druidic" in their path. Our Grove has grown fairly steadily and, at the time of this writing (mid-2004), has a membership of 38—up from just six only three years earlier. The consistently enthusiastic response from newcomers at our public rites to the offertory and devotional aspects of our work has been gratifying to myself and to my fellow Grove members.

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