1. Cosmological Issues
• Exercise: Cosmos Clinic
2. Ritual Space – Configuration, Management, and Use
• Exercise: Ritual Setup
3. Praying With a Good Fire – Choosing Focus, Writing Prayers, Making Offerings
• Exercise: Three Prayers in Three Minutes
4. Ritual Scaling – Considerations for Small, Medium, and Large Rites
• Exercise: Classification and Scaling
5. Running a Rite – From Outlines to Fire Extinguishers
• Exercise: "Lickity-Split"
6. Performance Concerns – Vocalization, Nerves, Memorization, and Engaged Reading
• Exercise: Warmups and Rundowns
7. Wrap-up – Punting, Casting, and Trust
• Exercise: none yet

1. review CTP submissions that come in;
2. keep the process of voting and approval for Initiate Path and Clergy Training Program entrants on track;
3. ensure reviews of Dedicant Path documentation are completed for both the IP and CTP; and
4. ensure that all this is done in a timely manner.

Future Plans for Clergy Training in ADF

First of all, I have to give deep thanks to Ian Corrigan, Carrion, romandruid and druidkirk for the support and help that they've given throughout the process of creating the Clergy Training Program (CTP) up to this point. Right now, for the first time since 1998, we have a cohesive set of exit standards that one can complete and have approved that will lead to full ordination as an ADF Priest. This is one if Isaac's central vision points: a rigorous, solid training program for our Priests that gives them an education that can be compared to mainstream religions.

That said, it is not necessarily on par with mainstream religious training for priests. We have a very long way to go.

Our training currently consists of outlines of exit standards: CTP Cicles 2 and 3 have complete guides available, but CTP 1 does not at this time. The guides for CTP 2 and 3 are in need of expansion into a real program, fleshed out to provide training, not just test it. Resources need to be consistently updated, and CTP 1, in particular, needs to be drawn into a guide that provides a lot of preliminary information and resource work.

Further, additional hands-on instruction needs to be developed: between videos of rituals, individual mentorship programs, and week-long (required) intensives at various points around the country, there's a lot of ground to cover. Rubrics and exit standard clarifications need to be provided.

One place that we've begun to move away from is the notion of assigning remedial Dedicant Path work: rather than finding a DP "inadequate" to the CTP training, we have started to draw on the full set of courses within ADF's various study programs and recommend additional work in order to provide further training instead of returning to old work and forcing repetition. This rests on the notion that challenging students with work that builds on previous work will bear fruit in a way that revisiting central concepts along may not. . . and will hopefully help them reinforce any core concepts that they may not completely comprehend. Remedial work is still a possibility, but it's far less likely now.

I mentioned earlier that this training program isn't perfect: it probably never will be. The original CTP Circle 1 was designed to be a bit more clergy-like than it turned out to be: this is a result of a need to pass something to get the ball rolling (it turned out that this was an excellent idea). Because of this, CTP 1 is identical to the First Circle of the Generalist Study Program, and it does not teach some skills that are probably necessary for clergy work.

To correct this, there are already plans to rebalance the CTP, to reduce the front-end weight of the academics and distribute several already-approved-but-not-required courses through the CTP in a logical way. We are patiently waiting for a few more students to work through the current program before we begin revisions, as we want to have experience behind us when we seek to revise. The current time-frame for such revisions rests at around 2011 or 2012, at which point we hope to have many more people having worked through CTP 1, 2, and 3.

There's much to do yet with clergy training within ADF, but it is a clearly evolving (and planned) process that we have going on.

• The Fire On Our Hearth (affectionately known as FooH): This is, as many of you know, the Grove's devotional book. We intended to get a "second edition" out around April 1 of this year, and it just. . . didn't happen. Mostly (okay, entirely), this is my fault: see above. But, as I look at a July that's pretty free of festivals and compulsory travel, I think we may be able to finish this out before Summerland, which would be pretty awesome.
• The Chronarchy.Com Store: This was originally going to supplement my income (it already has, to an extent, even though it's not open for business yet), and the stock includes things like portable altars, rune dice, Discordian Furthark dice, actual elder futhark rune sets, sigil dice, Greek divination tiles, and amulets. The issue has been an inability to create the requisite stock to actually open a store (I have a sneaking suspicion that the demand will be highest when it opens, and then it'll drop off). So, materials are prepared, I just haven't managed to make enough dice, rune sets, and altars to actually be comfortable opening the shop. I'd like to manage that soon, but it really requires a weekend without distraction to make three or four sets of any of these things.
• WotY: Edition 3: Since the "new" Dedicant Path handbook came out (sort of) recently, this is creeping up the list of things I need to do. For the most part, I need to update it so that it reflects the page numbers in the "new" DP book, as right now it's still referencing the old DP book. The current WotY outline can remain, of course, but Ian Corrigan has brought up an interesting point about it: it could be far less academic and far more of a real "working" document, with ritual texts, meditations, and deeper guidance. This concept excites me, and I honestly very much want to make it something less like a homework schedule and more like a course of spiritual study (though the homework schedule would remain). And this leads me to the next item:
• An IP and CTP WotY: Recent discussions about Orders within ADF, the IP work that Ian Corrigan is doing, and some of my own comments about things I'd like to see within the CTP itself have led me into considering a more "as I go through this" sort of approach to a new WotY for the IP and CTP. There's room for as many IP/CTP training documents within ADF as we'd like to create, I think, and the more I think about this, the more excited I become about the whole prospect. This is a real thing in my mind, something that'll happen one of these days. As of now, though, it's partially unstarted, though the notes I'm taking are already taking some shape.
• The Trillium Project: sleepingwolf and I got this started at Trillium, and we've been working to expand it. . . This is likely to be the first project I finish, as I hope to send my part off to him sometime this week, if work doesn't hit the fan again.

1. Time to look up sources when I'm at home, and
2. Some weird notion that I've done all the "easy" stuff.

Ian Corrigan

1. I should write a booklet on runes based on my answers to Req 5
2. A short article such as "Are the Runes a Magical Alphabet?" should be submitted to OL
3. The creation of a bind-rune I did for one reading was, and I quote, "good cunning-work." This is an awesome phrase to me
4. He and I go in completely opposite directions when it comes to public ritual, though: while you'll rarely hear me offer the names of runes, often giving only an interpretation, Ian only gives the name and translation and lets folks figure out the meanings on their own.

5. Almost like there was something wyrd going on, innit?

This is my 1,500^th LiveJournal entry, and I want to thank those who have read this journal since 2002. My longest readers are the most special to me, and I often think about what you must have seen as you've followed this blog. Don't worry, there is much more to come.

"In light slumber he descended the seventy steps to the cavern of flame and talked of this design to the bearded priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah," Lovecraft tells us. Hearing the dangers and warnings of the priest, he decides to go on, "asking a formal blessing of the priests and thinking shrewdly on his course, he boldly descended the seven hundred steps to the Gate of Deeper Slumber and set out through the Enchanted Wood."