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ysabetwordsmithMy friend and colleague Isaac Bonewits passed away this morning. I have written an elegy for him, pasted below.
His wife Phaedra reports from Facebook:
"This morning, August 12, 2010 at approximately 8 AM ET, Isaac Bonewits passed away peacefully in his sleep. All his brothers and sisters arrived at his side last night. His family and friends surround him now."
This is the obituary that went out via email:
Philip Emmons Isaac Bonewits, founder and Archdruid Emeritus of of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship, one of North America's leading experts on ancient and modern Druidism, Witchcraft, magic and the occult, and the rapidly growing Earth Religions movement, died today after a short struggle with cancer.
Mr. Bonewits first came into the public eye when he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Magic and Thaumaturgy (1970). During his tenure there, Mr. Bonewits worked with many renowned professors including Nobel Prize Laureate Owen Chamberlain. The work he did for that degree became his first book, Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic (1971).
In 1983, he founded and became the first Archdruid of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF) an international fellowship devoted to creating a public tradition of Neopagan Druidry. In 1995, he retired from a leadership role due to complications from eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. ADF has grown to become the best-known Neopagan Druid group based in North America. At his death, Mr. Bonewits held the title of ArchDruid Emeritus.
During his forty years as a Neopagan priest, scholar, teacher, bard, and polytheologian, Isaac Bonewits coined much of the vocabulary and articulated many of the issues that have shaped the rapidly growing Neopagan movement in the United States and Canada.
Mr. Bonewits was internationally known as a speaker who educated, enlightened and entertained two generations of modern Goddess worshippers, nature mystics, and followers of other minority belief systems, as well as explained these movements to journalists, law enforcement officers, college students, and academic researchers.
His personal papers will become part of the American Religions Collection at the Library of University of California at Santa Barbara.
One of his most influential contributions was the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (the "ABCDEF"), developed in 1979 as a response to the Jim Jones People's Temple tragedy. It has been translated into many languages and used around the world to evaluate how dangerous or harmless an organization might be. It was the first such scale to use theories of mental health and personal growth to judge rather than theological or ideological standards.
His other books include Authentic Thaumaturgy (1979, 1998), The Pagan Man (2005), Bonewits's Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca (2006), Bonewits's Essential Guide to Druidism (2006), Neopagan Rites (2007), and Real Energy (2007), which was co-authored with his wife, Phaedra, as well as numerous articles, reviews and essays. As a singer-songwriter, he released two albums, Be Pagan Once Again (1988), and Avalon is Rising (1992).
He is survived by his wife, Phaedra, his son from a previous marriage, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits of Bardonia NY, his mother Jeannette, his brothers Michael and Richard, and sisters Simone Arris and Melissa Banbury.
Night's velvet robe encloses the world in silence.
A wand rests on the altar, awaiting a hand that will not return.
Hushed voices stutter through final farewells as the family gathers.
Gone away on a breath and a prayer, the Druid's soul
opens swan-white wings and soars away Summerward.
Beyond the bright edge, all is still, waiting breathless
in the darkness before dawn, all hope turned inward.
The Great Mystery stands whole and white in the starlight,
circles within circles of stone and wood, trench and ridge,
long ribbons fluttering from their tall poles.
The gathered souls are robed in wisdom,
crowned with mistletoe, holly, oak, apple blossoms.
On the altar, a robe and staff lie waiting.
Dawn casts a golden spear between the standing stones,
a single sunbeam striking the altar with sudden light.
A white swan sails serenely along its lambent path, and then
the wings fold away and human hands take up the robe and staff.
Smiling, the Druid turns to his old dear friends
and lifts his hands with the rising Summer sun.
"He is returned!" they shout, their joy shaking the air like a sheet.
Drums rumble their way to a rhythm, tinwhistles trill like birds,
and the glad souls pinwheel among the stones in an ancient dance.
The Bards lift their holy voices in songs of celebration.
At last the Druid unwinds the spiral and leads the laughing crowd
out of the circle toward the long tables already set for a feast:
whole hog with a golden apple in its mouth, salmon stuffed with hazelnuts,
new greens in glazed bowls and mountains of fruit in woven baskets,
fresh cream from the white red-eared cows, bread dripping with bramble-jelly,
huge cauldrons brimming with birch beer and honey mead and heather ale.
Merry and solemn altogether, the Druid makes the first toast:
"To the Wheel that turns, and returns, and turns again!"
