The Passing of a Legend
Originally published at invisible druid. You can comment here or there.
Isaac Bonewits was born 1949. Any other obituary style entry would tell you about his childhood and parents and honestly, that's not what this is about.
This is about Isaac Bonewits. The most excellent pimp ever.
Just look at this pimptastic motherfucker.
Let me tell you a little about Isaac Bonewits. He was born in 1949. Were you born in 1949? No, of course not. You were born in the seventies or eighties or some crap. They didn't even have the Internet back then. How did they see porn, you ask? They had to freaking go to the store and buy it!
This brilliant poofy haired man founded Ár nDraíocht Féin. That's right, if he hadn't taken time out of his busy schedule of nailing hot chicks and planning world domination to revive druidry, you'd be wearing a sheet in your mother's basement staring at a cauldron like, "What do we do with this thing?"
Pictured: how not to use a cauldron.
What else did this man with the super fly hat do for you? Did you know he was in the Church of freaking Satan? And not cause he listened to pansy Marilyn Manson albums, kid. There was no Marilyn Manson! He did that shit on his own. And was that enough for him? Nope. He told that freaky bald headed lunatic to shove it and left, taking their credibility and documentary with him. Eat that, LaVey.
Do these horns make me look fat?
Isaac Bonewits is the first and only person to have ever received a degree in magic from an accredited university. I said that right. This brilliant bitch is the only person alive or dead with a real degree in magic.
University of Pheonix Online? Magus, please!
In short, you are not half the pimp that Isaac Bonewitz was.
And now he's gone. And that makes me sad. And so it drastically changes the tone of my post.
He passed this morning. It was peaceful. He was surrounded by family. the Cranes, just the day before, sent him a copy of our Dublin Irish Festival rite (which I spoke about here). I hope he got a chance to see it, or at least hear it. See, Isaac had a vision for ADF. For Druids in general. He saw us performing public ritual, without shame or protest or trouble, among hundreds of people from all walks of life. And just a few days before his death, it happened.
Not a lot of people get to live to see their vision happen. Very few people set goals for an entire community and even less see have those visions come to pass. Isaac was an amazing man that I barely ever saw or heard. I knew him only in the barest of glimpses. He could have walked right by me in the mall and not known it. But he was still connected to me by this amazing thing he did. Without him, I can't imagine who I would be, but I don't love the idea. From half a country away, without even knowing me, he changed my life for the better. And without even understanding why, he made me a Crane. That is a hell of a legacy to leave behind and we are all better for his having been here. I can only hope to have that sort of good impact. Hell, I'd be happy with half the positive impact he had.
So my hat is off to Isaac Bonewits. May he pass to the next world quickly. May his journeys there be challenging and rewarding. And may we continue to honor him here. Hail Isaac!