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This is an update of the letter I posted on this site and
Witchvox.com in February of 2004.
Dear brothers and sisters,
It is with profound regret and embarrassment that I issue
a plea for help to my readers, those who have enjoyed my workshops
over the years, those who have visited my website, and others
who appreciate my work. As many of you may know, I resigned as
the original Archdruid of ADF back in 1996 because my health
had deteriorated so badly (due to the tryptophane poisoning)
that I was unable to handle my duties as Archdruid or the stress
of leadership in an organization as full of feisty individuals
as ADF is.
My health has been down, then up, then down again; usually
getting worse in the winters and better in the summers. Never
has it been good enough to allow me to return to the sort of
corporate 9-5 that I used to be able to manage, especially since
corporations don’t like workers falling asleep at their
desks every day. I’ve been eking out my survival since,
with a few good years after my legal settlement came in, but
most of that income was drained away by some bad financial decisions,
followed by a long period of income from writing, speaking, and
webwork just not matching outgo. My SSI Disability payments were
cut off a few years ago and the rules for getting back on again
are more brutal than ever.
For all of 2003 I spent my time and energy trying to get my
own Pagan publishing company going and living on the last of
my savings. Well the company
is doing well, but it won’t ever bring me in any real income
and my savings are long gone. Recently I’ve posted mp3s
and ebooks for sale on my website and been scrambling for other
ways to generate income, including trying to get more speaking
gigs, but nothing is happening fast enough for our current needs.
As I have mentioned before, winter is a bad season for Pagan
elders. With festival season (and its paid lectures) not due
to start till April, and Yule shopping for books and tapes over,
January through March are the hardest months for Neopagan teachers,
authors, and clergy. This is why I have frequently asked members
of the Neopagan movements to support their valuable living resources
by buying our books and tapes or donating to support our websites
and our work.
In February, 2004, our situation came to a head. My fiance
had a full time job, thank the Gods, but it didn’t bring
in enough to even pay the rent. Neither of us had money for medication
for several months. Neither of us could get the chiropractic
or other medical care we needed since suffering two car accidents
in 2003. Her car had been repossessed and mine was about to be
next. The landlord had started eviction proceedings, and the
gas and electricity were about to be turned off. Other Pagan
elders have wound up homeless and living on the street over the
last few years and I really didn’t want to join them, but
I sincerely feared that that was exactly what was going to happen
if we didn’t get some help fast.
Please don’t tell me that, since I’m such a famous
magician, I “ought” to have been able to do all the
money magic we needed. There are several kinds of magic that
I’m good at, but money magic has never been among them.
When I’ve had money to spare I’ve always given it generously
to good causes and needy individuals. Now I had to ask for help
from those who said they were glad I’d done the work I’ve
done. I knew I wasn’t the only one hurting financially.
Other Pagan elders were also having serious trouble, hundreds
(if not thousands) of Pagans had been “downsized,”
and millions of others were (and still are) suffering in this
supposedly “recovering” economy.
Finally, we couldn’t think of anything else to do but
ask my readers and those who felt they had benefited from my
teaching to help us out of this hole. It took weeks of agonizing
to get to this point, and I acted only after several paying projects
were canceled at the last moment. Please, I said, “if you
can’t make an outright donation to us at our PayPal
account, or buy one of the many tangible products I’ve
tried to sell via my website and my Cafe
Press shop over the last few years, or organize
a paying gig in your home town, all of which I know will
be true for many of you, at least get together with some friends
and pray for us—we need healing, protection, and
yes, enough prosperity to survive.”
If my own readers, students, and webfans wouldn’t do
it, who would?
Much to my astonished delight, dozens of people around the
world did just that, to the extent that we were beginning to
think that things were completely turning around for us.
However, as of May 1, 2005, things are no longer looking
up. We were most of the way out of our hole, thanks to
many Pagan’s generosity, but another car transmission meltdown
(leading to the confiscation of our minivan after paying the
repair shop $1400), Phae being out of work for six weeks due
to illness, and the wretched economy leading many Pagan festivals
to cut back on paid speakers, have meant that we have still to
catch up on older bills before we can pay current ones. We are
back to wondering if we will have shelter tomorrow, as the landlord
wants to kick us out immediately. We are currently scrambling
to find new sources of income and/or cheaper places to live (that
won’t require me to never see my son again), but those improvements
will not happen overnight. Right now (May 2005) we are stuck
in a situation that makes it impossible to save enough (around
$3500) to move to cheaper housing, because by the time we get
close to that amount, the next month’s rent is due.
Those of you who held off on sending us help because it looked
like things were improving for us may want to resume thinking
about what you can do to aid us (or other local Pagan elders
if you don’t know us from Cuchullain or Maeve). Certainly,
I will never again tell folks to stop sending help until any
emergency I’m in has completely turned around, because apparently
Murphy just takes that as a challenge! So I will continue to
remind people that the PayPal
system lets you make fast, safe and secure online purchases and
donations. If you think a particular essay or other page here
(or just my 35 years of service to the community) is worth supporting,
click on the “Donate” box at the bottom of most pages
to send me a small sum.
Or if you prefer, you can use Amazon.com’s
Honor System and click on its “Give” box instead.
This will be handy if you already have an account there for purchasing
books, videos, CDs, etc., and will protect your credit card information
and privacy. Those who don't have access to Paypal or the Amazon
Honor System can snailmail donations to: Isaac Bonewits, PO Box
1010, Nyack, NY 10960-8010, USA.
I spend many hours writing material for this website, for
new books, for lectures and workshops, for educating the general
public, and in response to media and academic queries (not to
mention pastoral counseling, national networking, and other priestly
duties). If you think my work is valuable, please be one of those
few farsighted people who support me in these endeavors. If you
think that all authors are “wealthy” or that all information
should be “free,” please read Freedom
of Information and Supporting Pagan Creators. As I said in
that essay, “Try to remember that no matter how bad the
economy seems to you, it's worse for most of your community’s
creative artists and clergy.”
Of course, you can also patronize my Graphics
Design Store for subversive and provocative images to wear
and display, buy my treebooks
and eBooks, and/or buy
MP3s of my songs and those
of my former band, Real Magic.
Something that is perhaps more important than responding to
one Pagan elder’s plight, however, is the now obvious and
growing need to set up long term solutions to help all of us
old coots who have worked so hard for this community. If we are
to be a healthy and functional family of religions, we can’t
just use up and throw away our elders, whether they are sages
or crones. It is way past time to begin setting up Pagan Old
Folks Homes and other Pagan charities all around the U.S., Canada,
Australia, the Celtic Isles, and elsewhere.
Obviously, if you are an inch away from eviction yourself,
or wondering where the grocery money is going to come from (and
many Pagans are), don’t send me money. But
if you know any Pagan authors, leaders, or teachers in your city
or town, call them up and see if they need any groceries, household
supplies, help with the rent/mortgage, clothes for their children
or grandchildren, or just plain company. Remember, the more time
they spend helping the community, the less time they spend on
themselves and their own needs. Neopaganism cannot survive
as a movement if 99% of us remain takers most of the time and
only 1% are givers. I have been delighted to meet some of
that 1%, but we need to increase that percentage dramatically
over the next several years, or some of Pagandom’s best
known elders are going to be living—and possibly dying—on
the streets...
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