To handle yourself, use your head;
to handle others, use your heart.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
Our Board of Directors
Jane Webster, Esq. - Interim President (she/hers)
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Jane Webster joined Mountain Ancestors Grove in 2014, completed her Dedicant Path work in 2018, and has previously served on the Board of Directors as interim Secretary (2019) and President (2019-2022). She currently serves from along the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire, on the traditional territory of the Abenaki, the Pennacook, and the Pawtucket.
As a military spouse, Jane frequently transplants her life and place-based pagan practices to unfamiliar lands, re-establishing her relationships with local ecosystems, languages, and communities. She is an educator, a writer, and a licensed attorney (but most assuredly not the Grove’s attorney, as she is often quick to remind us). In her most recent tabletop RPG campaign, Jane plays a potato. An actual potato. She felt this was important for you all to know. E-mail our President |
Jacque Composanto, MLIS - Secretary (she/hers)
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Jacque Composanto joined Mountain Ancestors Grove in 2024 after several fond years of lurking. She has been a member of ADF since 2017. She has volunteered for the organization in various capacities over the years, including as Regional Druid, a member of the Mother Grove, and the Newsletter Editor.
Jacque lives in Colorado, the traditional homeland of the Cheyanne, Arapahoe, and Ute peoples. The Colorado Rockies might be her favorite place in the entire world. Jacque works as a librarian, but you can find her crafting or walking her dog in her free time. E-mail our Secretary |
Dr. Amy Gorniak, Psy.D - Treasurer (she/hers)
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Dr. Amy Gorniak is a poet, fiber artist, and clinical psychologist. She comes to the MAGpies from the heart of Texas, right at the confluence of the many ecosystems and waterways that give this region its rich and storied life. Deeply rooted here, she can feel the limestone in her bones, the flint in her spine, and the deep waters of this region flowing through her.
Dr. Amy completed her doctorate of psychology in 2021 at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Her lived experience as a former foster youth and queer, disabled person informs her passion for trauma-responsive, systemically aware, social justice oriented service in all aspects of her life. Dr. Amy returned to pagan practice in 2017, after several years of exploring other ways of being in the world. Her paganism is rooted in relationships; she engages with the work (and play) of her head, heart, and hands as living devotion. Dr. Amy found ADF in 2018, becoming a member of Nine Waves Grove of Houston, TX, where she later served as Grove Secretary from 2018 to 2020. She completed her Dedicant Path in 2019, and is currently working through the Initiates Path of ADF as part of her deepening vocation. Dr. Amy is excited to continue her service to the folk of ADF as treasurer of the Mountain Ancestors Grove. E-mail our Treasurer |
Our Clergy
Rev. Melissa "Bee" Ashton, ADF-MB, MNM (she/hers)
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An Ohio native, Rev. Missy came to Colorado to share her remarkable talents with our Grove. A former editor-in-chief of ADF's international publication, Oak Leaves, a professional medical laboratory scientist, and mother of three, Rev. Missy became the first of ADF's Master Bards, founded the Order of Bardic Alchemy, and served as the national Member's Advocate for three consecutive terms. Her music is the spirit of our Grove. She is the keeper of our tales, the singer of our songs, our Bard… in the most sacred sense of the word.
She was ordained in August of 2014, and consecrated in June of 2018. In December of 2017, Rev. Missy graduated with honors with her Masters of Non-Profit Management from Regis University, Denver. In August of 2018, she passed all trials and was welcomed into ADF's Initiate current. Rev. Missy's commitment to polytheist modernity inspires us whenever we're blessed to hear her. An accomplished cook and epicurean, you can find her sharing meals around her table with the folk on a daily basis. Rev. Missy is proficient in Elder Futhark runes if you are interested in divination from her. E-mail Rev. Ashton |
Rev. Zacchaeus Murphy Kimbrell, ADF (Rev. Deer - he/his)
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Rev. Zacchaeus, serving from the far southwest corner of Virginia in the traditional territory of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Cherokee) and Yuchi people, is a professional actor, vocal coach, dialect coach, and has performed in over 70 productions at his home theatre over the past decade. He also serves as Adjunct Instructor of Theatre at a nearby college, maintaining a private vocal studio as well as other duties within the department. Consciously and actively practicing Paganism since 2013, Rev. Zacchaeus found ADF in 2020. He currently serves the folk as our grove's newest priest, Southeast Regional Druid, Vice-Chief of the Healers SIG, and as a Dedicant Path mentor.
Working in theatre and education helps to fulfill his deep-seated passions for service, community, and connection, and he is thankful that he continues to find ways to serve the folk, and in particular, the MAGpies, in these ways as well. In his spare time, you will find Rev. Zacchaeus going for walks and hikes with his beloved mini goldendoodle, Dobby, working on his Irish (Gaeilge), or in his garden of flowers and veggies. E-mail Rev. Murphy |
Rev. Lauren Mart, ADF (Rev. Toad - she/hers)
*currently on sabbatical*
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Rev. Lauren (she/her) joined ADF in 2012 after a rather eclectic, ten-year romp through the ranks of modern paganism. Ordained in April 2018, she is the Senior Druid Emeritus of Nine Waves Grove, ADF in Houston and is currently living in the blackland prairie of North Texas, where she serves as one of Mountain Ancestors' virtual priests. Her personal religion is, at its core, about hospitality and reciprocity, and has elements that are experiential, ancestral, devotional, ecstatic, magical, animist, pagan, and polytheist. She has always sought to be The Druid of This Place, wherever she happens to be living, and she brings prayer and praxis from her rooted space in Texas out to the world - primarily through online ministry of various types.
With strong ties to weather, sovereignty, and the grounded liminality of a watershed, her druidry in the prairies is still adapting to what that connection looks like after a long time in bayou country. Her life in North Texas also includes three cats, two teenage stepchildren, and a beloved husband who is probably not in a pear tree. She has a weakness for bread and for fountain pens and in a previous life was almost definitely a hobbit. Rev. Lauren is proficient in the Anglo-Saxon Futhork and in Tarot reading (RWS and other decks, but not Thoth) if you are interested in divination from her. E-mail Rev. Mart |
Rev. William E. Ashton, ADF (Founder and Priest Emeritus - he/his)
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Rev. William, our Grove’s founder and Emeritus priest, was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, in 2007 with a degree in Religious Studies, minoring in Psychology. Ordained as a priest on February 8, 2014, Rev. William has been instrumental in establishing the ministry, voice, and traditions of Mountain Ancestors Grove. We are forever grateful for his leadership and service to this community, and wish him all the best as he brings his ministry into new spaces and communities.
Stay tuned for updates on Rev. William's new ministry! (hint: see photo) E-mail Rev. William |
