Pagan Coffee Talk
Pagan Coffee Talk is hosted and brought to you by Life Temple & Seminary, a traditional witchcraft coven in Charlotte North Carolina, with a long-standing initiatory tradition. We discuss a wide range of pagan, witch, occult, Crafte, magic, and Wiccan topics from a traditionalist point of view. We also explore running and operating a coven or group, plus the challenges, conduct, and responsibilities of the pagan clergy. New episodes come out weekly. Our show is entirely unscripted, and prone to occasional foul language, and moments of SPM (spontaneous pagan mayhem!) We hope you join us. If you would like to be a guest, we are always seeking authors, traditional heads, and group leaders to join us. If you have a topic suggestion, please let us know in the comments. Check the about section for links to our social media and website. A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: The Morrigan, & Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
Spiritual Limping: What Happens When Your Craft Is Missing Half Its Magic
What happens when we isolate the Goddess from the God? As we explore this thought-provoking discussion, it seems many modern witches have done exactly that with the divine masculine in their spiritual practices. This marginalization creates what we call a "lopsided craft"—spiritual practices missing essential balance and wholeness.
The conversation dives deep into why this imbalance exists. For many, particularly women who've experienced trauma or disappointment with patriarchal structures, goddess-worship becomes a sanctuary. Yet this well-intentioned focus often swings too far; perfect love and perfect trust—foundational principles of the craft—cannot truly exist alongside gender-based prejudice or dismissal.
Our spiritual lives gain richness and depth through integrating the feminine and the masculine. We explore the value of sometimes separate but ultimately united spiritual exploration and why knowing thyself requires acknowledging both the masculine and feminine aspects within. Share your thoughts with us on social media and let us know how you honor divine balance in your practice!
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Speaker 2:Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials.
Speaker 3:We've been around this craft tradition a long time. Yeah, yeah, go on, say the phrase.
Speaker 2:I am sick and tired of witches putting the god in the corner.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:This is not dirty dancing, right? No one puts baby baby in the corner. We do not put our god in the corner. What, why? Why is that a thing? Why is he like the bastard stepchild, afterthought for so many workings and so many rights?
Speaker 3:because I think there was such a back kick on the whole patriarchy patriarchy, christian. Yeah, all right that it slung some people off into the far reaches of that's not a good answer, though it is not, but it is.
Speaker 2:The realistic answer is there are parts of our community that hate men so much that goddess worship does not mean an absence or a disregard for the male and for the god I would agree with you say this as a priestess. It drives me. I'm like, look, we are not the amazonian tribe of wonder woman. No, okay. And even if you look at that as a system here, you see where it comes from. You know, it's supposed to be greek in origin and all that there's a lot of aspects to this.
Speaker 2:On one hand, you have traditions like dianic, for instance. Yeah, that wasn't wonder woman's name, diana yeah, that hurt yeah so there you go um
Speaker 2:that do this and I have seen over the years, as a result, a very scary I think it's scary anyway version of craft that emerges, where he's literally put in the corner, like in some, like in the north or in the east right there's a set of antlers, or there's a little statue or the stang or something. He's just an afterthought right that has led to some traditions seeing the male as nothing more than a distributor of semen right a placeholder right who makes fertility possible. But outside of that is useless right what the f?
Speaker 2:okay, look, maybe I'm a woman who doesn't have enough daddy issues. I don't know you know, sorry, but I'm like how do you do that? We have a hard enough time in a society where and I'm not again, I'm not saying that some people don't have shitty experiences right, there are plenty of deadbeat dads out there.
Speaker 2:There are plenty of men who have not lived up to the responsibilities and obligations I'm not saying that they know, but when we have a society that is so that views men so poorly that we even have to make sure our children are not disrespecting their fathers when I'm sitting here and I am watching women having a fit because lawmakers want to introduce that you have to get a dna test before you sign that birth certificate yeah that, just that right there, bothers me no more than anything else.
Speaker 3:Why are you so, do you not?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's a lot of pieces of this that bother me, that that, again, have wound their way into some practices. Right, and it's ironic because of this, a lot of people that found their way to craft did so because they don't have the best relationship with their True, but yet it doesn't work the other way around. I have yet to meet somebody who's like. I had a really bad situation growing up. My dad was either absentee or abusive, or whatever the case was, didn't? Have a good relationship with my father, so I turned to.
Speaker 3:The church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I turned to, so I've become?
Speaker 3:I think you have those stories. You just don't hear about them Because those stories come from guys, not from girls.
Speaker 2:Okay, Interesting, interesting, all right.
Speaker 3:That's when you listen to some of these.
Speaker 2:Christian real devout.
Speaker 3:Christian yeah yeah, yeah. That's what my father wasn't there about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah me. That's what my father wasn't there this. So I turned to a spiritual father to to make up for that and to understand the relationship I was missing and all of those things right and I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 3:That's beautiful and it's grand and I love it and I think it's healthy and it's smart.
Speaker 2:But just in the same way, we teach that you cannot have animosity toward the church you were raised in.
Speaker 3:You cannot step into circle with animosity toward the male figure well, again, we are supposed to be, or we are supposed to be, entering these ritual spaces and perfect love and perfect trust. If you sit there and you think a different gender is less than you, how is that perfect love and perfect trust?
Speaker 2:Exactly, I have been criticized as a priestess again, again, for the fact that I was technically raised by men, right, and I'm like, okay, I said men, not wolves. No, I'm like what do you think? You know what is so alien about male priests guiding the education of a woman? I'm like it happens in every other religion yes I'm like. So why is that such? Why did that do me a disservice in your eyes or make me less of a priestess?
Speaker 2:if anything, I believe it gave me the ability to a be more aware of the male mysteries right which is something that a lot of priestesses lack, and I think it gave me a unique perspective on being more aware of and more having more reverence for the male role and that dichotomy in circle, and in my faith I cannot imagine practicing without him, right, in other words, you know my altar, my personal altar is one of the few personal altars that I know that a woman has that has both representations. Usually she there's just a goddess statue Normally, yeah, yeah, and I'm like no, he's here too. Yes, I cannot separate them and yeah, it really it gets on my nerves.
Speaker 3:But see, I think in a way it's also sort of denying the duality that we all have within ourselves. I am going to reject the male side of myself for just the pure female, and we know this is not the way this actually works.
Speaker 2:It's a bad idea. I don't condone it, it's. It's a bad idea. If you do that, if you go to that extent, your craft is lopsided yes, literally, and so there's something okay. So so I kind of find this to be it's. It's a weird reference, but it's a funny reference nonetheless. If you had oh gosh, they actually they did this in an episode of friends, um, where I think it was ross's son there was something he got, you know, bonked on the head and ross said he was, you know, he was kind of limping and walking in circles and you know he was trying to make the girls feel bad for not telling him that he bumped his head yeah but it sort of makes me think of that, like imagine just I'm trying to cast a circle, but instead of making a circle I'm lopsided and one end is just sort of a I don't know a duck yeah, like you're you know you're, you're.
Speaker 2:It's almost like you've got a severe limp or even, potentially, you're missing an appendage, right? Yeah, um it, just it irks me. I get upset even on the days when we have circle and we don't have enough men, right? In circle and I look at our group and I go, oh, we got too many women today and you know most. Again, a lot of priestesses would just be like it's an all-girls circle. And I go, oh, it's an all-girls circle no, no, wait, no with.
Speaker 3:With that said, all right now, are we going to completely knock the extremes completely? Diving into the goddess for a short period of time, I can understand. Just like diving into the god for a short period of time. I can understand. Just like diving into the God for a short period of time. Do we need the separation as much as we need them to come together? Are you with what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I think in some ways Christians have this very well figured out. There are women's study groups and women's Bible studies, there are men's groups, men's retreats, but then they come together.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And I agree with that. I think that a healthy church, if you have the right numbers, a healthy temple yes, you can have a women's group and a men's group and then again they come together. It is a space in which to explore the individual mysteries. It is a space in which to honor your fellow gender Right, but not disregard the other.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, but again, I see a lot of people where they have a problem. As soon as you do this, it seems that you can't do the other. And my point there is sometimes we have to do both, sometimes we need the separateness.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And the male and female mysteries, while we also need the mysteries of our religion that we share together.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's not any different than just needing some time to yourself, right? I mean, all of that is healthy and it's wise, but if you are a woman in craft and all you ever do is meditate on the goddess or look to communicate with the goddess, or or the divine feminine Right, the whole nine yards. You are missing a huge piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 3:I mean, don't get me wrong, I would sit there and tell the guys the same thing. As soon as you don't, as soon as you don't meditate on it, you're going to have the same problem.
Speaker 2:But I find that men are more receptive. This is the part that drives me crazy. I find that men, men who come to craft, are very accepting of her, yes, are very aware of her, they have reverence for her. They don't you know.
Speaker 3:Well, let's let me. Let me state something here. Okay, we're also talking about men who will sit there and play video games as a woman, because they don't want to stare stare at a guy's ass, that's really funny. Never heard of that, but that's hysterical what the majority when you go on the games.
Speaker 2:The majority of the women are guys, guys, that's really funny um I mean because they don't want to stare at I just think men come to it, like I said, a little bit more open-minded and women, and I think part of this and I mean again it's ironic because it is part of the gender differences Men are usually a bit more forgiving and a bit quicker to forgive and move on whatever hurt a man might usually again I'm making generalizations have. He's a little bit faster to reconcile that and not see the goddess as the same entity that hurt him right and make nice women don't always do it, no, and I'm like that's got to get past that hump, ladies.
Speaker 2:You know, he's not the same God. He is not the same person that caused the pain.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You have to separate him.
Speaker 3:I mean, yes, we are getting in there. We are looking at you going okay, where did the religion touch you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely at you going okay, where did the back, where did the religion touch you? Absolutely, absolutely. And I and I mean again, obviously, for many people this can get much deeper. We this can get into trauma and abuse and and all kinds of things that are horrible and we hate that that happens to people. But that's a different issue. Right that? That's seek counseling, get your affairs in order, do the things that you need to do to be mentally healthy.
Speaker 3:What we're sitting here saying is there's a difference. I can understand the woman who got raped.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:In the world. She hates man and can deal with that a little bit better.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then I can't, just because I'm a man right, you can understand her fear I can understand her apprehension of course, but to disparage the god as a representation of all men is wrong. No, no, please don't. Yeah, I mean for.
Speaker 3:For as much as the goddess to me holds everything that is the best thing about women, it also holds everything that's the worst thing about women absolutely and the god does the same thing for us guys absolutely, but if you can't be in touch with one, you can't be in touch with the other.
Speaker 2:you got you gotta go there. It's hard, it's. It can be uncomfortable, it can be um confusing. Yeah, and it can take time. But to deny it is really to deprive yourself of a large part of your faith.
Speaker 3:Well, a large part of yourself.
Speaker 2:Oh, that too yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean again, cause you again. I want to make sure everybody understand this. We believe that people are made of both the masculine and the feminine is the whole yin and yang, yep.
Speaker 2:So yeah, try uh, if, if you've been putting, if you've been putting baby in the corner, take him out please. Yeah, put him at the center and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Put them side by side see what they do, you know, they work really good together if you've leaned too heavily one way for a period of time, consider leaning heavily the other way for a period of time and find that balance point. The wheel of the year gives us that opportunity. There's plenty of goddess lore and god lore that we can take for various times throughout the year to create that balance.
Speaker 3:But again, when we're looking at the Wheel of the Year, what? We got four of the lessors which are focused on the god, and we have the four grams which are focused on the goddess.
Speaker 2:Exactly, stone, the goddess exactly, and there's the interplay and also how you have the different myth cycles that revolve around the two of them, both separately and together yeah, just saying yep. It's when we I mean really truly, when we I mean harp on, know thyself.
Speaker 3:This is the stuff we're talking about.
Speaker 2:It really is.
Speaker 3:I mean for me to sit here and to say that priest and priestesses do not express archetype behaviors.
Speaker 2:I mean, come on, it's all we do.
Speaker 3:I mean, honestly, we just and I'm sorry if you don't learn those archetype behaviors, you're going to be a little confused and lost. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're there for a reason. Again, you're going to be walking in circles, but not in a good way.
Speaker 3:No no.
Speaker 2:Cheers to that.
Speaker 3:More coffee yeah.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempelseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.
Speaker 4:We travel down this trodden path, a maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing pyres. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our days so walk with me till morning.
