Isaac Bonewits

By now I'm sure you've heard - Isaac Bonewits is dead. He died Thursday morning at roughly 08:00 ET. There have been a lot of people writing of his life, several obituaries, and a lot of personal observations floating around the Web since then.

Mine falls into the last category.

I never met the man. I live on the opposite coast, and in a different country, than he did. I would like to have met him, but it didn't happen, and now never will. I was first introduced to his work maybe five years ago, when I found a copy of Real Magic in a used bookstore. I was excited, but also a bit sceptical. I picked it up, though, and began to read it (still haven't finished), and found it good.

Then a friend of mine joined ADF, and invited me to join as well. Again, I looked at it with a certain scepticism (this is not like me, not at that time. If it was druidic, I was interested in those days, and tended to jump in with both feet). There was something... different here. I couldn't quite place my finger on it but it didn't feel quite the same as other stuff I'd looked at in the past.

In the end, I joined, and have bought several other of Isaac's books. I found his writing style to be casual, friendly and laced with humour. Yet for all the ease of reading he provided, his works are incredibly informative, and more importantly, accurate. This last is something you all too often find lacking in pagan books, so it's a very refreshing thing to find. The scolarship that show in his histories, etc, is as accurate as it can be for the time it was written. He actually did the research.

So, yeah, this has left an impact. And his creation, the ADF, has come to mean so very much to me. I think of myself as a druid (ADF style) before even being a Heathen, though that's more in terms of organizational stuff, because obviously my troth with the gods is with those of my Anglo Saxon ancestors. But that's okay, because he made it a Pan Indo European organization, not just a Celtic one. His vision was to have a public pagan church organization, and that's what it is.

He has gone on, now, to the Halls of his ancestors, but to many of us, he is an Ancestor of the heart, one of the Ancient Wise. May you rest comfortably in that Hall, Isaac. Hail, and Farewell!