No, We’re Not Hexing Your Boss Tonight

Ever wondered what worship is? We open the window on our process, from the first cast of the circle to the last note of our closing song, to show how simple structure turns shared time into a living conversation with the gods. It’s not about manipulating outcomes; it’s about reverence, rhythm, and the steady practice of showing up together.

We start with the bones of our rites—casting circle, invocations, and the Charge of the Goddess—then move into the flexible heart of the ritual. This time, we focus on traditions and chosen family: the weekly movie night that keeps a household close, the recipe that always returns at holidays, the Friendsgiving that welcomes kin by choice. By trading stories from a hat, we witness how mundane customs become sacred through intention. Later, we walk through our Yule rite: crafting an effigy, charging it with hopes, fears, and what needs cleansing, and burning it to honor the newborn Sun God and renew the light. No hexes, no mortgage spells—just devotion shaped by symbol and season.

Along the way, we share practical tools: how a simple candle-passing gathers group prayers and how it relates to personal spirituality, and how rotating a few seasonal scripts saves energy while keeping meaning fresh. We offer ideas for full moon themes—zodiac, tarot, mythic animals, or lesser-known deities—to deepen learning across the year. If you’re practicing alone, we have encouragement too: solo rites matter, and even one trusted friend can transform the feel of your circle. Worship can be formal in sacred space or spontaneous on a quiet walk; both are valid, both nourish.

If this conversation sparks ideas for your coven or solitary path, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and tell us what you want us to explore next. Your comments guide future rituals and topics—what do you want to hear about our tradition?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Define Worship
• 1:05 Setting The Circle And Altar
• 2:15 Invocations And The Charge
• 3:16 Ritual Theme: Traditions As Practice
• 5:21 Family, Friendsgiving, And Chosen Kin
• 7:02 Sharing Personal Traditions In Circle
• 8:01 Worship Versus Spellwork
• 9:40 Yule Effigy And Sun Symbolism
• 12:01 Formal Rites And Random Spiritual Moments
• 14:30 Candle Prayers And Collective Focus
• 16:05 Formats, Seasons, And Repeatable Rites
• 18:06 Themes For Full Moons And Learning Deities
• 20:10 Structure: Cast, Invoke, Body, Cakes, Close
• 21:40 Solitary Practice And Community Energy
• 23:10 Keep Showing Up And Share Feedback
• 24:42 Closing Notes And Where To Find Us

Transcript

Why Define Worship

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Welcome to Taking Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Okay, so the other week we did a uh an episode on the importance of doing your rituals, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Well, yeah, it was uh it was uh why worship is important.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Right. Well, we got a few comments, all right. Okay, like two.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah.

Setting The Circle And Altar

SPEAKER_03 0:47

All right, which basically brought up the thing of like I guess sort of like what do we mean by worship? I I guess would be the best way to do it. I guess, yeah. Would would be the way to say that. So I was thinking maybe if we walk through a few of our rituals and actually talk about them, maybe people might get an idea of what what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

So again, well when we do, well, like let's be honest, like tonight I'll be going to full moon tonight, sometime later tonight. Um, one of the first things we're gonna do when we get there is we'll set up for a ritual.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Right? We'll set up the altar. Right. Normally, you know, first degrees help with that and whatever, and gives them some practice too on setting everything up and getting everything right. And to keep us dummies from uh forgetting stuff that we've got too old to remember anymore. Um but we start off by casting circles, correct?

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

All right, now when we cast circle, now we've talked about there's different degrees in the circle and different things, but generally speaking, we cast the circle the same way every time we're there.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Right.

Invocations And The Charge

SPEAKER_03 2:08

It doesn't change. Um because there's normally two of us that cast circles, especially during like a full moon. All right, so then after that we normally read like the invocation of the god and goddess.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Now, now for us, this depends on what's going on. We could we could either invoke or just summon them into circle because you know me and the lady are third degrees, so we do sometimes incarnate during ritual.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

All right, most full moons, we're not doing that. All right. Now I'm not gonna sit there and say that they're not still there in the back of your head during regular rituals, but that's not about worshiping. All right then we read, then normally the lady will read um the charge of the goddess to everybody, and then we'll actually start the main body of ritual.

Ritual Theme: Traditions As Practice

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

All right. Now you pulled up one for us to kind of discuss, but what's the purpose of this ritual?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Um, well, the purpose of this particular ritual was to um discuss the importance of traditions in our daily lives, not just as part of the coven.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Those traditions that we meet in other families, right.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Could be like, you know, um a movie night uh once a week.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

You know, a recipe.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Right, a recipe that's always done at least, you know, once a month or at special occasions or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Yeah, you know, why in the world everybody fights over, you know, grandma's recipe.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Insert whatever there.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

So the the idea is to the idea here is to say, hey, you know, even your spiritual family, we have these traditions, and these traditions even bleed out to our families and friends and stuff that we do, correct?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

So the idea is to show where in the world this custom and craft is actually carried out in mundane life. And it doesn't actually end anywhere. We we're always doing traditions, we always uphold traditions.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

All right. Uh so it's sort of what in the world this ritual's about. Now why don't you walk us through how in the world this how how in the world we wrote up this one ritual, I guess. Um what we're gonna do is we'll after we do the invocations, we'll start to tell everybody some things.

Family, Friendsgiving, And Chosen Kin

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Right. Basically, what we do is uh we kind of give an explanation of what's gonna happen, um, what this is about. So, you know, it's in this one we started talking about traditional family holidays. So, you know, you're thinking Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, when families typically get together.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

But things like Thanksgiving, it's not always the norm anymore because you know, now there's Friendsgiving, right? Where you have your friends come over, people who are outside of your family but important to you, and they come and they celebrate with you. You know, everybody sits down, you eat, you have a good time, blah, blah, blah. So this shows that it's not just blood relatives that are important in our lives. And so we tie that into um all of us being children of the goddess. So this makes us all family. Well, then we need to examine what does family mean to us, and then we look at who's part of our family and is family something you're born into, or is it something that you are able to create and choose? And so then, you know, be being part of a family, it you know, it's all part of our daily life.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

So we learn, we incorporate new traditions, we share our lives with these people, and you build deep connections, right?

Sharing Personal Traditions In Circle

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Right. And again, so so like during this ritual, you know, everybody sort of like pre-write down things that are in their traditions, everything's sort of put into a hat so everybody can pull out, and when yours comes out, you're you're allowed to talk and to explain, and why in the world you put this in there, and why in the world you consider this tradition.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

And gives you a chance to express yourself. At no point in here have we even cast a spell.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

No.

Worship Versus Spellwork

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Whatsoever. All right. We we we we're we're still not even casting spells. No, all right. We're just worshiping. We're we're doing something to align ourselves with our beliefs. Now we do have some other ones where we're more celebrated on the God and goddess. Do you have that yule one pulled up? Now, again, we're we're still gonna do the same thing. We're still gonna go in, we're gonna set up, we're gonna cast circle, we're gonna do our invocations. Um, again, since we're dealing with the Sabbath, we may incarnate, may not. And then we're gonna read Charge of the Goddess. In some circumstances, we read the charge of the God, depending on the season, right? Pretty much. And then we're gonna get to the body of the ritual. Now, I will remind people the lessers we tend to focus more in on the God, where the grands we focus more in on the uh goddess.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

Now that's just our tradition, so go figure.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Not all traditions do it that way, but we do. So this one will be focused more on the god.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Right. So in this one, um, I believe we um we created an effigy. Yeah, and we passed the effigy around and placed energy into it and then placed our hopes, sometimes our fears, things we wanted to get rid of, because it is a cleansing time of year. But anything, you know, we placed that all into the effigy and then we burned the effigy.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Um, and so yeah, so in this one, um, we basically there was a uh a little poem that was read while all of all of this was being done, and um, you know, and then we burned the effigy.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Right. And the idea here is is that the baby doll that we're sort of using or have made pretty much uh this is the sun god birth.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

And the reason we're burning it is to let him go back up into the sky where he belongs and renew the sun.

Yule Effigy And Sun Symbolism

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Right. And to give him to give him our energies to assist in that growing and moving forward and all this.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

So again, it's a celebration. Notice no quote unquote magic. We haven't cast, we never cast a spell. Per se, all right. We might have used elements of a spell, right? All right, because we're using a puppet instead of an actual not gonna do that for real, but there's the point of the ritual is to celebrate and to give our to the God.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

This is worship, this is worship, this is worship to us now. Again, you want me to sit there and tell you that you going for a walk out into the woods and you get a feeling or or moved by nature or whatever that this is not worship. I can't tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

All right. I'm not, I'm just saying it's not a the difference between the two in my head is one's more of a formal style of worship where the other one's not.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

That's more of random, to me, that's more of random acts of spirituality. I like that. Well, again, we all experience them. I'm not saying that they're not there. I mean, that's like, you know, you're in a bad mood or whatever, and you suddenly turn the corner and see a rainbow in the sky and you start smiling and feeling better. That's a spirit, that's a random spiritual moment just for you.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Right. Well, it wasn't. Oh. No, yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. And you know, if we look at the definition of worship, the definition just simply says the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

So worship could really be anything. It could be that walk in the woods, it could be just, you know, sitting down amongst a pile of leaves.

Formal Rites And Random Spiritual Moments

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Right. My only argument is that that that construction that we're getting together purposely to worship during full moon is basically what we were talking about is taking that time and constructing a rich ritual specifically to honor the God and goddess at their times.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Not to do, oh, I need a bigger, better rate of my mortgage.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

I'm not there because to cast the spell because my boss pissed me off.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Right. All right. I mean we're not gonna hex anybody in Sacred Space.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Right. I mean, you know, I mean, don't get me wrong. Can we do spells inside of rituals? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

They tend to be a little bit difficult, but you know, the majority of the times we do spells like that, I think the majority of the times they're gonna be healing spells.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

Because we're trying to use the whole collective of the whole coven to help send healing energies to someone.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Well, and some and something like that is easy to get everybody onto the same foot and the same goal.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Than than to just lower my mortgage rate.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Or I want a new job.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Right. That's a personal thing. Do that on your own time.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

All right. That comes out better that way.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

So uh again, here's where we're making that dividing line. All right. Now, I enjoy those moments. I mean, because I because I hate to be this way. Yeah, you could cast circle and just sit there and meditate on the god and goddess.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah, you you very well could. I mean, it's and it's been done.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Um it's been done.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

We've we've I know we've done that in some of our personal rituals.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Well, I mean, again, uh sort of in your personal, well, for me, I I guess in my personal rituals, it's easier just to do that and to feel and have those emotions than to actually have a constructed ritual where you're actually saying stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Because to me, it's more about the feeling that I get, not what's actually the paper or whatever, even though the ritual does help how to explain that. Having ritual with other people, yeah, I'll just stand in there for five or ten minutes just meditating. It gets a little boring.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Because then you're like, okay, when do we stop? Stop. How do I bring everybody out of this? All right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Uh but again, but sitting there and you know, doing a full moon ritual, and you're like, okay, we we want to send our blessings and thanks to the goddess, sitting there and passing around a candle, and everybody keeps on praying on it or to offer thanks to the goddess and passing the candle around until it gets to the back, and then the high priestess lights it with the idea that the lighting of the candle is taking those prayers to the goddess.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

In this case, we would probably go along the lines of, you know, in the same way that the sun gives light to the moon, so are we. We are striking this candle to give our light, our feelings to the moon, so it can be passed on to the goddess.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Right. Yeah, you always want to you always want to bring it back to a central point and kind of relate it to what it is you're doing or relate it to your everyday life.

Formats, Seasons, And Repeatable Rites

SPEAKER_03 15:49

I mean, don't get me wrong. I I'll be straight up and honest. I mean, if you're running a temple and you're doing this, it it's a whole lot easier to have like two or three rituals for your sabbats pre-written out and just rotate them out. I mean, because again, Salvin always tends to wind up being the same ritual, maybe a slight difference or here or there. Yul tends to always be the same thing because of it.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Essentially, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Yeah, so there's no use in doing that. So again, your full moons is where you're gonna have to get be a little bit more creative. We normally suggest that people like try to do a theme or something if you're planning out rituals like this.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

So yeah, things things for full moons actually works really well because it gives you a central focus, and then you're able to tie all of that together throughout the year.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Right. I mean, you can do mystical animals, zodiac, uh tarot cards.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Right. Well, you know, the uh the the series that we um that we put out the shorts for YouTube with the uh obscure indoction deities, we actually use those for a series of full moon rituals.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yes, our full moon rituals were based on all these different well, not all of them, but different ones throughout the year.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Yeah, I mean for just to just to learn about another god and another aspect. And some of these were the more quirkier ones, I have to admit. It was fun, it was fun, you know, especially doing the full moon on the whole entire goddess of hinges.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Right. That was actually a pretty good ritual.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

So this is what we're talking about in rituals. I'm not exactly sure what anybody else does. I mean, I know some people, some people tend to want to do more like the Catholic thing, where it is everything's prescripted for the whole entire year.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

I think.

Themes For Full Moons And Learning Deities

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Where there's because we've been to a few Catholic masses and stuff like this, and it it it is interesting that they have calls and countercalls to certain things that they do during the ritual. You know, I'm not saying that we can't do stuff like that, but we are a little bit more free to change things up.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Right. Basically, what we have, we have a standard format, but then the body of the ritual is what is, you know, is changeable.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Well, again, I d I've and I've said it twice now. You know, our format is you know, we cast circle, then we do our invocations, then we read the, then we do the body of the ritual. Then we'll do our cakes and wine.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

And then we close we close the space.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Close it, close the space out, you know. And normally we close out the space by sending a singing, um, may the circle be open. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yeah. Everybody clapping or stomping or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

Something, you know, some of us don't have no rhythm, so we're just looked at really funny when we start to clap.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Uh it doesn't matter. The charge of the goddess says all acts of love and pleasure on my rituals. So if it brings you pleasure, you stomp and you clap off beat all you want to.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

So true, so true.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Right?

SPEAKER_03 19:23

I'm gonna sit here and say this. I'm really surprised you never actually wrote a full moon with you know that the the song from The Carpenters, everybody that the sing your own song.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Oh yeah. Uh you know, that might be something that may be something in the future. You never know.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

This is how we write rituals, all right? I mean, seriously. All right. I'm not trying to shame people who don't, all right. We're that's not what we're Trying to do.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

No, we're just yeah, we're just trying to give you an idea of how we do things and what it means to us.

Structure: Cast, Invoke, Body, Cakes, Close

SPEAKER_03 20:06

And and what we're talking about when we're talking about worship, this is what we're talking about. We're we're talking about being in the presence of the gods and communicating with them, hoping they give us inspirations, hoping they touch our lives, hoping they hear our prayers and all this, going, okay, y'all, we see ya. We might eventually give you some answers. All right. So is there anything else you'd like to say about this? Or you can think that we can maybe ex try try to help people explain what we mean by worship.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Honestly, I don't know. I mean, it if you're in ritual space, just keep in mind that there are there are many forms of worship. And as long as it's you know giving some type of reverence um or expression of feelings, anything like that, that in and of itself is worship.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

You know, you could you could cast your circle and you know just sing songs to the gods and goddesses.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Hey.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

You know, um, you could chant, you could meditate, you could drum. Yeah, I mean, anything that helps you express that is what worship is.

Solitary Practice And Community Energy

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Right. I encourage people, hey, yeah, start doing these rituals, start having people come over. I mean, again, ritual to me does always seem better when you have other people there with you.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

I think so.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

I because I've done rituals by myself, all right. And again, I have to give kudos to those who those solitaires who do their full moons every time and do their Sabbaths every time all by themselves. I could not do this.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Well, and I think it's like that. It's interesting that you bring that up because I think I, you know, I see a lot of posts in various social medias where a lot of people just feel like they they're not able to do things because they just they're not feeling it.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

And I think that's part of the issue. Um, I think if you're solitary, it's great to do your own rituals and you know, create your own spaces and things like that. But you know, every once in a while, get your friends together.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Well, I mean, even if you don't, doing your rituals by yourself, it's better than nothing as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Well, it is, but and it's back to that. It I think it's and you think it's better with other people.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

I I do too.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Get your friends together once or twice a year, just to start with, and see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Just you and one other person.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

I I yeah, it doesn't even have to be a whole group of people, just you and somebody else.

Keep Showing Up And Share Feedback

SPEAKER_03 23:09

I cannot tell you how many times I've wound up, you know, everybody getting busy around holidays and nobody show up for full moon. Yep. How many times have we done full moon and just me and you?

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Because again, we we say temple will no matter what, we'll have ritual.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Right. We'll be doing this whether or not anybody else is there.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Right. So because we like that worship, we like being in those places, exactly. In those states. So give it a thought. Tell us what y'all think, and please keep the comments coming. Share, like.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yeah, I mean it's it's it's all helpful, you know. When y'all, when y'all send us comments and you know, you share and you like the the videos and the podcasts and stuff, that that all helps us because then we know what you want to listen to. We know, you know, what you want to hear.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Yeah, what do what do y'all want to hear about our tradition? I mean, basically that's what we're sort of sitting here always talking about, and the way we sort of do things that give other people ideas and hopefully maybe we can inspire y'all to start your own temple one day.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Right. I mean, we've been, you know, we just we keep making up the the uh the stuff, but we don't know if it's what you really want to hear. So it's always nice to get some responses.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

All right. Well, I'm ready for some coffee.

Closing Notes And Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Yep, let's go get some. Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at Life Temple Seminary.org for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a steel blazing fires. And so it is the end of our days, still off with me till morning break. And so it is the end of our day, still off with me till morning.