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This link identifies the druid "Oakwyse" as being Bill Melnyk. This one identifies Bill Melnyk and Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk as a couple. This one links the two again and gives Melnyk's email address as being oakwyse at aol dot com. And several links such as this one link Oakwyse and Glispa.

One piece co-written by "Oakwyse" and "Glispa" is the "Wiccan Lunar Ritual," which may come in handy for tonight's eclipse. (The particularly sensitive may want to skip past all this.) It contains such bon mots as: "In the Face of the Moon we honor Our Lady, who was of old called among humankind Isis, Artemis, Astarte, Aphrodite, Diana, Mary, and by many other Names," instructions as "Priestess makes the sign of a Pentagram in the air in front of [priest]." There's also a liturgy where the priest and priestess take off all their clothes, and the priest says to the "Goddess," "Dwell now in the body of your servant and priestess." Then he gives the priestess "the Five-fold Kiss," and says:

Blessed are your feet, that have brought you in these ways. (Kisses both feet)
Blessed are your knees that shall kneel before the sacred altar. (Kisses both knees)
Blessed are your loins that bring forth life. (Kisses her above the pubic hair)
(Priestess opens into Goddess Blessing position, arms and legs spread.)
Blessed are your breasts formed in beauty and strength. (Kisses both breasts)
Blessed are your lips that shall speak the sacred names. (Kisses lips)
(With this final kiss, they embrace full length, feet touching.)

Let's be clear: Unlike the "Women's Eucharist," this ritual never made it onto the Episcopal Church's website, so it doesn't bear the imprimatur of the denomination. But it was written by an Episcopal priest.

Will Ruppe-Melnyk's bishop have anything to say about this? Will she undergo any kind of discipline? Will the Episcopal Church USA, or even the Office of Women's Ministries, publicly repent for posting the "Women's Eucharist" in the first place?

Don't be fooled into thinking that nothing will happen. Something will happen. In Jeremiah, after the people of Judah in Egypt defied God and worshiped the Queen of Heaven with their raisin cakes, God was not silent. Here's what he said:

You and your wives have declared with your mouths, and have fulfilled it with your hands, saying, 'We will surely perform our vows that we have made, to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.' Then confirm your vows and perform your vows! Therefore hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt: Behold, I have sworn by my great name, says the LORD, that my name shall no more be invoked by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, 'As the Lord GOD lives.' Behold, I am watching over them for disaster and not for good. All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end of them. And those who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, who came to the land of Egypt to live, shall know whose word will stand, mine or theirs. This shall be the sign to you, declares the LORD, that I will punish you in this place, in order that you may know that my words will surely stand against you for harm.

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October (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48