EPISODE 38 - Cara Claymore
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🌟 Join us for episode 38 of Casual Temple podcast, we welcome the dynamic Cara Claymore—an artist, actor, filmmaker, and tarot reader who lives life boldly and encourages others to do the same. Cara takes us on a journey through a unique upbringing in a Roman Catholic Irish family, where an early connection to nature and spirituality began to shape a worldview.
Cara shares how experiences with neurodivergence heightened sensitivity and creativity, sparking a passion for the arts at a young age. From acting and dancing to filmmaking, this journey has been embraced with openness and courage. The conversation explores the magic of life, the power of synchronicity, and how staying attuned to the universe can bring unexpected wonders into our lives.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation about creativity, spirituality, and living authentically in a world that often asks us to conform.
Learn more about Merrily's energy healing work at Celestial Ring Guidance.
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(Transcript is auto-generated; errors are unintentional.)
00:00:05 Merrily
Welcome to Episode 38 of Casual Temple, and I'm your host, Merrily Duffy. Here at Casual Temple, we are discovering our connection to the unseen world of spirit, and how that empowers us to know true selves. A free and easy way to support the show is to subscribe and leave a star review on your favorite podcast.
00:00:21 Merrily
Platform. We'd love to hear from our listeners, so consider shooting us a note on casualtemple.com. You can also sign up for the mailing list where you can win a free.
00:00:29 Merrily
For me.
00:00:30 Merrily
And we draw a winner every month and your name stays in until you win. I had a most awesome chat with Cara Claymore, who is a Renaissance person who has a bold and authentic approach to life that feels creative, artistic passions for acting, drawing, and dancing. We talked about how Cara felt a deep connection to spirituality through nature and being raised as a Roman Catholic over the years.
00:00:43 Cara
Sure.
00:00:50 Merrily
Tara has embraced the magic of life and the synchronicities that arise when we open ourselves to the universe. In this episode, Cara reflects on past experiences with a belief that life is too short to live in fear or sadness and the importance of living boldly here in the Casual Temple the Unseen becomes Seen.
00:01:09 Merrily
Welcome to the casual temple this week our Rad guest is artist after filmmaker, creator error reader, and strong magical ****** Cara Claymore. Cara is here to remind us that life is too short to be scared, weak, or somber. Echoing the wise worlds of Neville Goddard, great wonders are possible.
00:01:31 Merrily
Cara is so awesome to have you here at the casual temple. Thank you.
00:01:34 Cara
Thank you so so much for having me. Thank you so much for.
00:01:36 Cara
Having me, it's a delight.
00:01:38 Merrily
Thank you. I kind of usually start with how I found you. I found you. Well, how did I find you? Well, actually, Aiden Walker found you.
00:01:44 Cara
How did you find me?
00:01:49 Merrily
And I love, oh, he is the best and I'm in his discord. And he mentioned something about like you lift weights and you do magic. And I was like, I need to.
00:02:00 Merrily
See this person I've been following you for quite a while on your Instagram. You have so much cool stuff. You're a renaissance person.
00:02:06 Merrily
It's amazing all the things you do. So yes, I'm happy that you you decided to chat with me.
00:02:14 Cara
Thank you so much for.
00:02:14 Cara
Having me.
00:02:16 Merrily
Thank you. Well, we kind of just start wherever you consider the beginning of where you are at today. So if you don't mind taking us back and learning a little bit more.
00:02:28 Cara
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:02:31 Cara
It's very magical and beautiful that today we are having this podcast because I just happen to have an extra magical day. It's one of those days where last night I did some deep visionary trance work and then this morning I made a petition and then my whole day was this non-stop psychedelic.
00:02:50 Cara
Sort of roller coaster of of synchronous events and things, so I'm just feeling very blessed and happy and grateful. And that's sort of my segue into.
00:03:00 Cara
Like the the the reality of magical living. And like what that is and sort of taking it back to, I guess my origin story is I was raised Roman Catholic. I big Irish family and I was very I loved church as a child. I loved the ritual. I felt very close to God. I felt very close to.
00:03:20 Cara
The divine and I spent a lot of time in nature like talking to trees and whatever creatures I could find, and I sort of always felt I was very sensitive and very divergent autistic. So I always felt sort of different than other people, but I didn't really have like, a language for that. It was just sort of this very deep.
00:03:41 Cara
Sensitivity and hyper awareness of certain areas of life that other people weren't always necessarily clued into, whether that was like emotional, physical, creative. So I was a very creative child, always drawing, dancing, singing. I started acting when I was very.
00:03:59 Cara
Very young.
00:04:00 Cara
So that sort of is part of how I became a filmmaker. It was sort of like I I started performing like as soon as I could walk, basically making people laugh and entertaining people like that just always brought me a ton of joy. And it was a way for me to express all of this.
00:04:13 Cara
Energy that was just constantly.
00:04:15 Cara
Moving through me in different ways.
00:04:18 Cara
So while I I was not, I would say explicitly magical in in certain terms, like I didn't come to magic as a personal craft until much, much later. I definitely like the seeds were always there the seeds.
00:04:34 Cara
Were always there.
00:04:36 Cara
So my sort of magical.
00:04:38 Cara
Journey started more explicitly around 2015, 2016. Actually, I was sort of a.
00:04:47
Uh.
00:04:48 Cara
Disillusioned, agnostic. Sort of. I'd fallen away from the church that wasn't working for me anymore, but as a very spiritual person, there was like this massive void and I just didn't know what to do about it. And but I started getting super into personal development, which sort of segues into the the lifting stuff.
00:05:06 Cara
But.
00:05:08 Cara
Around that time I started writing and producing my web series Asher with my best friend and now partner Jackie Payne and Asher is about an exorcist. It's like Buffy meets The Exorcist and I play this character who's very magical, and I at the time was very like, oh, this is just for fun and this.
00:05:26 Cara
Is just the character.
00:05:28 Cara
But it was very soon that I started playing this character that I started adopting and picking up with a lot of Jackie's encouragement, cause Jackie is a super magical person as well, and they already had like their.
00:05:38 Cara
Practice so I.
00:05:39 Cara
Was like oh so.
00:05:40 Cara
What's the deal with crystals anyway? And Jackie be like? Well, like, are you actually understood? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And. And so I started sort of dabbling and and getting curious about what? What magic actually looked like felt like, was I. I was totally ignorant and blind to the.
00:05:58 Cara
Like the density of Western culture, shall we say. And so it's been around so and around 20/16/2017 I started getting a little more serious and started like reading a little bit more and picking up various books and.
00:06:02 Merrily
Right.
00:06:13 Cara
Exploring different practices, but that's kind of how it all how it all began. So Azure was sort of ended up being a bit of a magical hypersexual. Yeah, I sort of discovered what that was a little bit later.
00:06:24 Cara
I was like, oh, I think this is what.
00:06:25 Cara
This I think I'm doing this to myself, and there's been a lot of really wild, beautiful, crazy events related to that.
00:06:33 Cara
But yeah.
00:06:34 Merrily
Wow, that's so cool. I love that you started it out with like you. I'm happy and so glad that you're having a magical day cause those are.
00:06:42 Merrily
The best, uh.
00:06:42
Thank you.
00:06:45 Merrily
And yeah, it's that, that communication, it's like a it's that conversation like communication that you're having with.
00:06:51 Merrily
Like whatever that is, and and then it feels like you have support and like something has your back, you know, Even so, it's so awesome.
00:06:54
Hmm.
00:07:02
Suddenly.
00:07:05 Merrily
And the other thing too, as you mentioned growing up Roman Catholic and that was like kind of connecting with that cause. My dad was Irish Catholic and my mom's Filipino. So very, very Catholic. But but even with those two, they it was kind of sort of Catholic, right? We would only go on Easter and Christmas. And sometimes during the year.
00:07:25 Merrily
They felt a particular way.
00:07:27 Merrily
But I always look back on it, and even though I'm not practicing it either, I always look back on it. I'm like, I'm actually really glad that we had that experience even for a short time, because it gives you a sense of something beyond the everyday, like that grandeur that you talked about. So.
00:07:44 Cara
Oh, yes. Oh, yes, definitely. I think I. Yeah. I mean, I had mixed feelings or I think there were things for me within the church that did not go so well with me. Yeah.
00:07:45 Merrily
I love it.
00:07:54 Cara
But the fact that I was immersed in ritual and an explicit relationship with a supernatural dimension of life really from a very young age and you know, leaning into the more Irish Catholic side, it was like, well, yeah, there's angels and demons and there's being.
00:08:15 Cara
And it's not as big of a jump from like these beings are evil or scary. Don't engage with them. So like these beings are not real. I always sort of had a sense that these things could be real on some level. And so when I finally sort of found my way to magic, it was more just about understanding that there was a lot more nuance to what these forces and entities and things might actually be like.
00:08:38 Cara
Versus you know, the version that I was taught growing up that there was just a lot.
00:08:42 Cara
More depth, a lot more variety.
00:08:44 Cara
Whereas I think for some folks who maybe were grew up in a slightly more secular materialist lens, it might be a bigger leap, understandably.
00:08:53
Hmm.
00:08:54
I do have.
00:08:54 Cara
Gratitude for it. In that way, there's some good.
00:08:56 Merrily
Yeah.
00:08:58 Cara
Stuff. Yeah, and you.
00:08:59 Cara
Have elements of my practice that are sort of folk magic and form shout out. I got to shout out my boy St. expedite.
00:09:05 Merrily
It's just the detail.
00:09:07 Cara
This is the so I had to.
00:09:07 Merrily
Ohh.
00:09:09 Merrily
Show now. Oh my gosh, yes, I I started working with him this year. Actually, just to experiment because I was like, everybody seems to have such great results with this guy. Let me try.
00:09:19 Merrily
It he's great.
00:09:21 Merrily
Every time boom boom that dude comes through everybody.
00:09:25 Merrily
Check it out.
00:09:28 Merrily
I love that you're probably yes. Yeah, I hate that guy. He's awesome.
00:09:29 Cara
You love to be talked about.
00:09:35 Merrily
Wow. Yeah. So many cool things you mentioned there, and I love that you talked about your your series, Asher and how it kind of it was like, oh, that's like, so pretend me and then, but now it's.
00:09:47 Cara
It's like I say, it's so wild. It's like there was a scene in the fire and this is on my YouTube. If anyone wants to watch this like all we can link to whatever. It's all out there. But there's like a scene where the character is giving somebody a crystal healing and.
00:09:58 Cara
She's.
00:09:59 Cara
Got crystals on her chakra points. Yeah. And the characters kind of like a little bit of, like, a not a con man, but there's a level to how she does.
00:10:07 Cara
Things that's like a little.
00:10:09 Cara
Sketchy sometimes, and so I was having a lot of fun with that. Like, oh, like this.
00:10:10 Merrily
Oh.
00:10:15 Cara
This is just a fun to kind of the way we play that scene is a little bit for laughs but and then like Fast forward.
00:10:19 Cara
To like a.
00:10:19 Cara
Year later, and I'm lying on my own bed with crystals on.
00:10:22 Cara
My chakra points.
00:10:23 Cara
Like doing the exact things my character doing and I was like, oh, interesting. That's hilarious.
00:10:32 Merrily
Honey, how that works?
00:10:34 Merrily
So funny. Ohh my gosh.
00:10:38 Merrily
So with all these experiences and kind of your path, did you have any, would you point to any people that were sort of a support or guidance along your way whether you know it be magical or not?
00:10:52 Cara
Yeah. So, so in, in magical terms, I would say my, my partner, Jackie, was a huge supporter and like really just encouraged me. They already sort of had their own magical visionary practice, and they were just very encouraging. They were like, read whatever you want to read. They're always interested in hearing what I was.
00:11:10 Cara
Researching and getting into and dabbling in so just having a close close friend and now partner like be just explicitly like yeah, this is awesome. You should deep dive and like get into whatever you want to get into. Is was really helpful. I have a somewhat knee jerk reflexive distaste for authority and structure of.
00:11:32 Cara
Any kind, maybe sometimes to my own detriment, admittedly so I have.
00:11:37 Cara
Issued all formalized learning of any kind when.
00:11:41 Cara
It comes to.
00:11:42 Cara
Magic. But I've. I've read. I've been reading voraciously and I've started to like, make some magical friends. So like people like Aiden Walker. His books were a huge influence on me. He's just, I've got to chatting with him and I think.
00:11:56 Cara
He's a wonderful person.
00:11:57 Cara
In.
00:11:58 Cara
So as I've gotten deeper into my own practice and started making friends within the magical world, I've started to find more community support in that way of people that I can like, bounce things off of and be like, hey, like I'm dealing with this scenario. Like, what magic would you do about it? Like, oh, well, I would try this and this and this. So it's been really wonderful like.
00:12:19 Cara
I would definitely I'm sort of.
00:12:22 Cara
I love to learn and I'm currently exploring like a new pathway. What that looks like for me right now, but it's been great to have sort of friends and community support, especially in the recent years, just sort of lift me up. It's definitely been in the past. There have been times where I felt like I've been totally alone and like.
00:12:36 Merrily
Yeah.
00:12:37 Merrily
I'm out here in the wilderness with no idea what is. Yes for sure. Ohh my gosh. Well, I'm glad that you have your community that you can reach out to and I so identify with like sort of not wanting the formalized structure or you know kind of I don't know it just.
00:12:41 Merrily
Uh.
00:12:57 Merrily
Doesn't make you comfortable.
00:12:59 Merrily
But yeah, I do love. I read all those dusty. But you know, I like reading those dusty books. But at the same time, I'm kind of like, well, I don't know, is this really going to work for me in 2024? Like, but I still love reading about it.
00:13:11
Right.
00:13:17 Merrily
And yeah, and definitely things, it seems like you're more experiential, which I think is kind of key.
00:13:22 Merrily
In a lot of.
00:13:22 Cara
Very, very much so I I am definitely of the.
00:13:27 Cara
Mindset that the faster you can get, your body and your hands into something your mind, your brain. Whatever. Yeah. The faster you're going to learn. And and that's not to issue, you know, reading is obviously great. Like the amount of information we have at our fingertips is dazzling the fact that I can even read you know is follows written 1000 years ago is.
00:13:43 Merrily
Ohh my gosh.
00:13:48 Cara
Is wild, yeah, so.
00:13:50 Cara
I think take take and use whatever resources you can and I think I'm all in favor of people crack, crack, open the dusty tone and and read that spell out loud, like see what happens. Like maybe it's a copy of a copy of a copy, maybe nothing, but you'll be having an experience and at the very least you'll be engaging with the spirit of whatever that was written in. Right. And so I think there's things that kind of get passed down and gets translated that.
00:14:13 Cara
Might they're just worth investigating if you're if you're curious, I think.
00:14:19 Cara
My big to ask of myself, to even this year as I've been I've been trying to. I've been just integrating more of my practice sort of into my daily life. Like for a while I was like magic with something I would like do once a month and like I would like work myself up and be like, OK, I'm going to do like a big ritual, you know? And that was had a potency to it definitely.
00:14:38 Cara
There's a lot of value in that, but I've also been discovering the joy and the benefit.
00:14:43 Cara
Of just living.
00:14:44 Cara
Seeing it as a more magical person and having more things that I do frequently to sort of be in the flow and to and for me, that means I'm staying a little bit more connected to the spirit world. I'm staying a little bit more connected to my own spiritual like, intuitive punches, which overlaps with my creativity in a lot of ways. So yeah, I'm about.
00:15:04 Cara
Get your get your hands in there.
00:15:06 Cara
Get them dirty.
00:15:08 Merrily
Oh, I love that. Oh, it's making me also think because you're you're in Brooklyn. And so how and when you were a kid, you liked to be in nature. And so I think people. Yeah, I think, you know where I'm going.
00:15:19
Yes, so.
00:15:21 Cara
Yeah. Oh, no. I just interrupt you to say I I moved to Brooklyn when I was about 18, so I.
00:15:26 Cara
Didn't grow up here. I lived.
00:15:27 Merrily
OK, got you.
00:15:28 Cara
In the in the DC area and in southern Pennsylvania. So I had like a more nature access.
00:15:34 Merrily
Oh, gotcha.
00:15:35 Cara
That I do now I do live right by not not far from a huge park in Brooklyn, so I'm able and I have a great relationship with that park. And I'm there all.
00:15:40 Merrily
Oh.
00:15:44 Cara
The time, OK, yeah.
00:15:45 Merrily
Oh.
00:15:46 Merrily
That was what it was kind of going towards like.
00:15:48 Cara
How do you relate to nature, especially when people think cities don't have nature, which I live in Seattle, we have pigeons. We got birds, rats and yeah, the. Yeah, the park that I live near, it's beautiful. Lots of birds, lots and lots of wildlife.
00:15:51 Merrily
Yeah.
00:15:54 Cara
Is your father Helen here?
00:16:08
Hmm.
00:16:08 Cara
Just very, very beautiful, dense and tense energy. I've done a lot of visuals there. I've tried to establish like a a happy sort of working relationship that I feel like is pretty mutual with that park and it's it's, it's great, it's great. The city definitely has.
00:16:24 Cara
Like there's certain challenges to like, I tend to prefer to do magic late at night because it's just when it's quietest and I can focus much more easily. I live off of a very busy Ave. so if I'm going to do anything during the day, it's like I got to blast the fan.
00:16:39 Cara
And the noise machine.
00:16:40 Cara
You know, just like just so I.
00:16:42 Cara
Can focus because I can hear.
00:16:44 Cara
So much around me. So you know, there's certain things that that are kind of tricky about magical city life. But there's so many cool things to have access to so much. There's so much energy here to to just, like, suck up.
00:16:54
Yeah.
00:16:56
Yeah.
00:17:00 Merrily
Yeah, that's an interesting point too, because I I love living in the city. Even though Seattle is not, you know, is maybe as busy as New York. But I know some magical practitioners, and that's just the way they work. They they need to get out into the country, right. Because of that, there's too much of that energy that's not talked about.
00:17:18
Absolute.
00:17:19 Cara
Yeah, absolutely. I am very curious about how I do have my.
00:17:19 Merrily
Great.
00:17:25 Cara
Pastoral sort of fantasy of, you know, the farm and I'm sure many folks do have like living in us, living more rural place a little bit my life and and and what that will allow for me and what that will enable in terms of my spiritual magical practices. Like I'm like yeah, I want to go into the woods not see anyone for a week and you know, make contact with my.
00:17:32
Yeah.
00:17:45 Cara
Guardian Angel or whatever. Like I'm gonna. Let's do it. You know, like, logistically, practically right now. That's not gonna happen, right? Yeah. They gotta come to.
00:17:53 Cara
Brooklyn, I don't know.
00:17:55 Merrily
You make your way, find your way to Brooklyn. Yeah. Ohh, that's too funny.
00:17:59
OK.
00:18:01 Merrily
Ohh gosh and so sort of my next question. But you've already mentioned or Aiden and his work, but are there any other either authors or books that inspired you?
00:18:12 Cara
Yes, yes. So. So Aiden's books, particularly six ways and weaving, say, were both invaluable to me. Those were some, the some of the spell work in those books was some.
00:18:23 Cara
Of the most.
00:18:26 Cara
Consistent and deeply delve into work that I had done, ever. Magically the Black book and the reclaiming right in six ways were just had just they just they took me far. They took me far, so I highly recommend those books. And Aiden, we were worried about him, but stellar human being.
00:18:46 Cara
Lee Morgan, who writes about like traditional witchcraft, their books standing and not falling, was pretty brain changing for me just the way that they write about witchcraft and magic. Just touch something deep in me that was like just waking.
00:19:01 Cara
Up and that book is really powerful and has a lot of awesome stuff in it and they also I just recently read very recently. They wrote also a series of novels that are very occult and those novels and the way that the characters engage with magic.
00:19:16 Cara
And the novels.
00:19:17 Cara
Was very inspiring and it was a huge reminder for me of how like.
00:19:23 Cara
I don't know. I'm a huge like.
00:19:24 Cara
Film.
00:19:24 Cara
Person, but how much magical inspiration there is and not explicitly like occult texts? Within story, there's a lot of like, there's so many great writers who I think end up encoding things. I think Lee does it in very, very consciously because they're a great magical writer. But there's a lot of people who have just.
00:19:41
Yeah.
00:19:43 Cara
You know something?
00:19:44 Cara
Like Lord of the Rings that has so much magic encoded into it.
00:19:48 Cara
But you can.
00:19:49 Cara
Delve into and tap into for inspiration. So I think fiction is a great I'm just a huge fan of.
00:19:54 Cara
Fiction and everyone's got book.
00:19:55 Cara
Rex, let me.
00:19:56 Cara
Know. So we more Jason Miller's books very recently. I have found very helpful consorting with spirits and real sorcery. We're both great. All this stuff's really good. It's very approachable.
00:20:08 Cara
It's very straightforward. He's just like, here's this work. Here's the mechanics. Here's why I think it works. Here's how.
00:20:14 Cara
To try it, try.
00:20:15 Cara
It see what happens, you know? So he's got that sort of hands on.
00:20:20 Cara
Magic Field manual approach to magic that that really rocks with me his stuff very helpful and there's been some stuff from his that I ended up picking up and has added a lot to my practices. So highly recommend. Yeah, I like that description of Jason's work. It's he's like field guide, practical like get in there.
00:20:25 Merrily
Mm-hmm.
00:20:40 Cara
In there.
00:20:40 Merrily
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
00:20:44 Merrily
My house is great and now I'm like, now I have to put Lee Morgan on.
00:20:47 Merrily
My list. That's awesome.
00:20:47 Cara
All these great? Yeah, definitely no.
00:20:53 Merrily
And so then the next sort of question is around. So you do strength training and yes, and I do too and that's one of the reasons I would just like to talk with you, how would you say that weaves into your creative and your magical work and vice versa all around, how's that work?
00:21:12 Cara
So.
00:21:12
Sure.
00:21:14 Cara
Now strength training is very much a grounding and regulatory practice, something that helps me feel safe and powerful and at home in my body. It's a form of self-expression.
00:21:28 Cara
In a lot of ways.
00:21:30 Cara
I was very fortunate. I got I had sort of a 2012. I had sort of a.
00:21:34 Cara
Life rock bottom moment with a couple of things and I started getting into that when I started getting into fitness and I had this feeling of I can't really control anything in my life, but I can control what I do with my body. I can do.
00:21:47 Cara
A plank I can do.
00:21:48 Cara
A slot and I sort of built my way from doing very basic.
00:21:54 Cara
15 minute body weight exercise routines to leaving my bartending job and getting a job working the front desk at a.
00:22:01 Cara
Gym.
00:22:02 Cara
Through that, getting access to like Nice, you know, just equipment, barbells, etcetera. And I started my sister at the time, encouraged me. She had just started lifting barbells, doing a traditional starting strength programs.
00:22:14 Cara
Like Dev, squat, bench and she would encourage me to do it and so I started dabbling and.
00:22:22 Cara
I I don't remember the exact first moment that I picked up a barbell, but it like it was like ohh this like I've always done this. It was like one of those things that I just felt so.
00:22:31 Cara
Naturally, at home doing.
00:22:34 Cara
I I even as a somewhat like a person who can, in certain spaces, have a lot of like hyper self-awareness of like other people watching me like what's going on.
00:22:42 Cara
Uh.
00:22:43 Cara
I just felt so at home doing it and it felt and I felt so viscerally connected to my own body when I was doing it that I felt very powerful, very quickly, and I was already like, you know, I'm 5 foot 8 1/2 ish and have been semi. You know, I like I did like a little bit of activity as a kid. Like, I wouldn't. I did not think of myself as athletic.
00:23:05 Cara
But I definitely have some, you know, physical capacities that I think are slightly above average, like I'm tall and was bartending a lot. It's like I had sort of that like like a little bit of a.
00:23:15 Cara
Base I guess.
00:23:16 Cara
Of strength and.
00:23:19 Cara
So anyway, I I got really obsessed really fast and I just like poured myself into it. And in that early time it was like a self reclamation process. It was like my life was really out of control. Just, you know, working a job I didn't like, not really being creative in the way.
00:23:37 Cara
I wanted to be.
00:23:37 Cara
Creative early 20s, just like lost in the woods.
00:23:40 Cara
You know, and training became this, this sanctuary of activity that I could just pour myself into and for a few years, like I trained like my life depended on it, and I found.
00:23:57 Cara
The sport of strongman strong woman and I found a coach who Scott Chad Cantor, who I was so fortunate to find him because he just knew his ****. He's a great coach, good guy and he just set me up really well of like if you want to be, you want to be this strong, you want to look this way, you want to be able to do this and this and this and this.
00:24:19 Cara
Great. Here's exactly what you need to do and his training just like it was solid. It was like simple, intense, but creative, but straightforward and.
00:24:29 Cara
And I was around other people who were all super gung ho about this sport, so it created a training environment where I just could bring so much energy and I had all this, like, emotional intensity, just built up inside me from just life. And I had this place that I could just pour it all into and then pretty much immediately.
00:24:51 Cara
Experience of sort of positive feedback of getting stronger and building muscle, and it wasn't long before I was feeling and and looking at myself in like a very different way where I was like ohh I'm starting to feel and look like this person that I've always wanted to be, which is somebody strong and powerful. Like when I was little, I was super into the X-Men and superheroes.
00:25:12 Cara
And like when I watch Terminator 2 and saw Sarah Connor doing pull-ups in her psych ward cell, I was.
00:25:18 Merrily
Like.
00:25:19 Cara
That that's that's it. And and I hadn't, like ever really put all that together and like, oh, you should go with weight. But when it happened, it happened hard. And so I got I was very, very committed to my my strength practice to to the level that like I competed at a fairly high.
00:25:38 Cara
Level and strong man.
00:25:39 Cara
And and I was pouring like I was training, you know, five days a week, two to three hour sessions. Like all big chunk of my life revolved around it and.
00:25:50 Cara
In the last four years or so, I sort of slowly started to back off from that, because that level of intensity and that level of training was simply no longer congruent with my big life goals and priorities. I kind of got what I wanted to get out of competing. I still do it occasionally. I'll do like a small local show or something, but that level of intensity was not sustainable.
00:26:12 Cara
And I'm and there's still a level to.
00:26:14 Cara
Which I think I pushed myself and my nervous system to a sort of like peak level that I'm in no rush to like. I don't know if I'll ever train that way again. So like, I took it like as far as I could take it, which was pretty extreme. Yeah. I was gonna thrill seeker. So I was. I was really getting off on the adrenaline of competition.
00:26:24 Cara
Hmm.
00:26:35 Cara
And the performance and a little bit of the danger and just the the highs of that experience. And so eventually I was like, OK, this.
00:26:42 Cara
Not my long term plan, but it taught me a lot about my body and it taught me about how much we are capable of. That is so much beyond what we can conceive of at 1st and and I've taken what I learned in strength training and competing training to compete.
00:26:45 Merrily
Mm-hmm.
00:27:01 Cara
Was a lot of mindset stuff about like, you really do not know what your capacity is and until you push yourself and test.
00:27:08 Cara
Yourself and that has served me really well in my creative work and professional life. And now in my magical life. So it's gonna it's it's kind of been a journey. So now I approach lifting as a much more health and grounded oriented experience like this is about preserving me and making me healthy.
00:27:29 Cara
As strong for as long as.
00:27:30 Cara
I can be and.
00:27:31 Cara
So that people live at a certain level of.
00:27:32 Cara
Capacity, right. So I'm always training.
00:27:33 Merrily
Yeah.
00:27:34 Cara
With some level of goal in mind of like I try to push certain types of intensities in certain ways.
00:27:40 Cara
But.
00:27:41 Cara
So that's sort.
00:27:41 Cara
Of how it, how it is morphed over.
00:27:43 Cara
The years went.
00:27:43 Cara
From very all in to push it to the limit, cue the rocky theme song like 2 now it's like I left a couple times a week and I run and it's. I don't. I'm not trying to lift until I get a Nosebleed anymore. But years ago, a couple years ago.
00:27:50 Merrily
Great.
00:28:00 Merrily
I would I would have been like Oh yeah.
00:28:01 Cara
Sick. I I pushed.
00:28:03 Cara
Myself, you know, you know, like I was definitely sort of along those lines.
00:28:07 Merrily
Ohh, I love it. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
00:28:09 Cara
That's important vessel. I'm so proud of myself.
00:28:10
Yeah.
00:28:11 Merrily
Yeah, it looks cool. I'm gonna say. Oh, gosh, yeah. I love watching on Instagram. I follow quite a bit of mainly female lifters, and I love, I love. I love watching them lift big weights. I don't know. It's awesome.
00:28:15 Merrily
Yeah.
00:28:27 Cara
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so inspiring. It's so I I I still know I'm still keep a little bit in touch with a couple strong women athletes who are just they're just incredible and and.
00:28:37 Cara
I love strength sports like because like, like a lot of sports for me, it's always gonna be strength sports. But like, just because our there's people are still breaking world records all the time and our capacity, I think we.
00:28:49
And.
00:28:51 Cara
Viciously underestimate our own capacity in so many ways physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and magically. And strength training was the first was the first thing that showed me beyond a shadow of doubt. Like you're you're like what you you think your limitations are you are wrong and you have no idea how wrong you are.
00:29:08 Cara
And like there were moments in contests and and even just in training, where I would suddenly be able to do something I was like, I had no idea that was possible and that just could be really, really open.
00:29:17 Cara
My perception to to.
00:29:19 Cara
To a lot of things in life.
00:29:21 Merrily
Oh, I love that you paired it like that. That's so good. Ohh, that's great.
00:29:27 Merrily
Gosh, I'm trying to think. Yeah. So I have quite probably the opposite sort of story and I'll just kind of recap it, but I actually did weight training class when I was a teenager in high school, which was hilarious because I don't know why, I just chose it. It was like either aerobics, right where most of the girls would.
00:29:46 Merrily
Go to aerobics.
00:29:47 Merrily
Or you go.
00:29:48 Merrily
Into strength training and I was like, I kind of want to lift weights.
00:29:49 Cara
Yes, yes.
00:29:52 Merrily
But it was like me and another gal who was in. She was in on the football team. Oddly enough, in Washington state.
00:30:01 Merrily
I think it was a kind of a big deal, but it was like all it was. Every all of the boys and then her would all do things. And I'm just by myself, like, OK, I'll just I'll figure it.
00:30:11 Merrily
Out.
00:30:13 Merrily
But I keep looking back now at at that. I was like, man, if anything is magical, I'm like, how, why did I even choose that?
00:30:20 Merrily
As like you know what I mean?
00:30:20
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:23 Merrily
And then you know, through my life it was like, OK, every so often I would pick up a lifting program. But very recently I'm 45 now, but a couple of years ago, I was like, I really want to get back to strength training because I really loved it.
00:30:36 Merrily
And I have a trainer and shout out to Matt Mousseau. Uh, he's awesome and yeah, it's just been that thing of like you said, you don't know how much capacity you have and how strong you are until you try and you keep pushing and you push yourself. But you know again I'm 45 like I you know, there's always so much.
00:30:51
Yeah.
00:30:56 Merrily
The push you.
00:30:57 Merrily
Know like the the days of me being able to.
00:31:00 Merrily
Like, really, really hurt myself or kind of over or out for like a week.
00:31:05
Where?
00:31:08 Merrily
But yeah, it it is and it is about like overcoming your mind because you step up to a a a bar like I've been able to squat like 225 lbs recently and it's like. But you know, when you get under it and you're like, can I can I can I. I'm pretty sure I can, but I can I.
00:31:18 Cara
Amazing.
00:31:24 Merrily
Yeah.
00:31:28 Merrily
But you just have to have confidence in yourself. It's like a whole conversation, absolutely.
00:31:35 Merrily
Of stuff, but it is it. I do think it's very magical and I think that it's, you know, and it's you putting your effort in and it's the effort you can tangibly.
00:31:44 Merrily
See.
00:31:45 Merrily
Right, with the muscles you get and you know how you look and the things you can do and get up off the ground really easily.
00:31:46 Cara
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:52 Cara
I never get tired of people being like, oh, you're the strong friend. Can you help me? Like like it's it's it's. It feels good to be able to be.
00:32:01 Cara
That, like a level of capacity that I just feel is useful and helpful to other people too. Like I know that like, if I needed to scoop somebody up over my shoulder and and to safety, I could, you know, because certain way.
00:32:11
Right.
00:32:17 Cara
You know it and just having that level of capacity is just something that maybe it just makes me feel very grounded and like I other thing that I could potentially contribute.
00:32:28 Cara
And I think it is very magical. Like I I go back ESPN a few years ago to this really fantastic article about superhuman strength and they actually talked to my friend Lisa Ingalls, who is the first woman to win the Arnold Strongman competition. She's an amazing coach now and just a wonderful person, but they they interviewed her in this article.
00:32:48 Cara
But.
00:32:48 Cara
The article talks about these sort of instances of extreme strength expressed under duress, so they tell the story of two teenage girls pushing a tractor off of their father.
00:33:00 Cara
And this is like a like a one ton tractor. And so these two normal, like teenage girls. Yeah. And I'll they both strained every muscle in their body and were bedridden for like 2 weeks. But they were able to do it. And part of that is because of, like, in a in a true crisis where your brains inhibition.
00:33:05
You have.
00:33:20 Cara
To allow this is not something you're manually controlling, it's something that happens because of the emotion and the adrenaline at the moment.
00:33:25 Cara
The meat, the.
00:33:26 Cara
The the what? The what's at stake, I guess.
00:33:29 Cara
And those inhibitions leave your brain and you are suddenly able to output so much force and so much power. It's unbelievable. And so it speaks to how our bodies are actually.
00:33:42 Cara
Table of expressing levels of energy that are truly remarkable. And it's it's that it's so powerful. It's actually dangerous to our bodies. And so a lot of what we are doing in training is training our brain how to express power in a particular way so that our body can get good at it and do it safely.
00:34:04 Cara
There's sort of this idea that like under the right conditions and we would we would play with this in, in training for strongman competitions like you would train your body to a level where like it will learn how to tap into that sort of extra reserve of power and from like a magical lens. I think this is so.
00:34:24 Cara
Potent. So it's the idea that just your ability to focus and to be present with what you're doing is like your number one skill.
00:34:35 Cara
Because that is the channel that is going to allow whatever it is you're interacting with to move through you and express. You don't have to worry about if there's enough power or enough energy or something like that. Like if there's power and energy in everything, everywhere, all of the time, it's can you maybe.
00:34:55 Cara
Relax your brain enough and and create a structure for yourself where you can tap into and harness and express and play with that energy and play with that energy.
00:35:05
Hmm.
00:35:07 Merrily
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I haven't heard it explained that way. Like it's I'd like to use the like kind of the. I don't know what is that the emergency like having to lift a track like yes. Because. Yeah, I don't think people think that.
00:35:18 Cara
Yeah. Then you have the.
00:35:19 Cara
Truck off the baby, right?
00:35:25 Merrily
I mean, you hear, you hear these stories, but you're like, oh, that couldn't be me. But it's like it's available really.
00:35:29
Couldn't.
00:35:32 Merrily
And I like that you explaining it sort of training your brain.
00:35:38 Merrily
To kind of you know that there is that reserve of power. Yeah, it's very cool. I like how you explained all of that. Yeah. Oh, oh, I'll I have this question around because we're still talking. We were still talking about weight lifting, but do you have favorite?
00:35:45
Thank you.
00:35:54
Yeah.
00:35:57 Merrily
Music that you listen to.
00:35:59 Cara
Oh yes.
00:35:59 Merrily
As I know I do depending on.
00:36:00 Cara
Ohh yes, I'm actually wearing the T-shirt right now. My green lung.
00:36:03 Merrily
Uh-huh.
00:36:05 Merrily
Green.
00:36:06 Cara
Green Lung is currently my favorite lifting music. They're my favorite music for a lot of things right now. They are a UK metal band that I discovered. Maybe I came across me like 4 years ago or so and.
00:36:09 Merrily
Yeah.
00:36:18 Cara
I've just fallen more and more in love with them and their most recent album, this heathen land. This is just spectacular and I just saw them live for the first time. They just came. the United States for the first time, very special and not only do they sing about magic and the occult, but they are just able to tap into this sort of.
00:36:38 Cara
Almost emotional memory of.
00:36:40 Cara
Like ancient Britain, and like the foggy old world of Pagan magic and like pre Christian weirdness? Yeah, just as a half Irish person like it just it just speaks to something in me and it's fun and it's raucous but melodic and beautiful.
00:37:01 Cara
At the same time, so whenever I like, I'm allowed to control the music at work. It's green light.
00:37:09 Merrily
Oh my gosh.
00:37:10 Cara
Sorry, not sorry.
00:37:11 Merrily
No, it sounds. I feel like I've seen like an Instagram clip of.
00:37:17 Merrily
Doing like a a version of or not a version, but a clip of their song, and they're kind of sounds like that Monk throat singing was it? I'm not sure if I'm if it's the.
00:37:26 Merrily
Right. One but.
00:37:27 Cara
Oh, you might be thinking of. I think you're thinking of maybe somebody else, but these guys sound like they they sound a little like, I hate to make comparisons because I'm. I'm not musically educated, but like a little Black Sabbath ish a little bit, but very like the guys going to the Tom Temple or the vocalist. He's got a very unique voice I'll send.
00:37:30 Merrily
I think it's there.
00:37:39 Merrily
Oh, OK, got that.
00:37:46 Cara
You some of their stuff.
00:37:47 Merrily
Oh please. Yeah.
00:37:47
Yeah.
00:37:49 Cara
You're so good.
00:37:50 Merrily
I love it. Ah.
00:37:52 Cara
Music is honestly huge. I use music a lot in ritual speaking about like earlier in our discussion, you sort of mentioned like skimming an old tone and being like is this going to apply? And you know before, right. And something. I've been thing about recently is the use of magic and technology in ritual and how like.
00:38:10 Cara
I bet if John Dee could have plugged in his his JBL speaker and blasted some Mongolian throat singing. You know, while Edward's crying or whatever, they would have, they would have vibed out, you know? And so I think a lot about like using like the using the tools that are available to you. And I think like, music is such a powerful tool to help get into trance.
00:38:32 Cara
Yeah, you know.
00:38:33 Cara
You gotta make sure you have the ads.
00:38:34 Cara
Turned off right.
00:38:36
Right.
00:38:37 Cara
Accidentally brainwashed while you're in a trance.
00:38:39 Merrily
Yeah, don't do that.
00:38:42 Cara
But I, but I like I'll use magic to sort of like get into the.
00:38:45 Cara
Zone and get into the mood.
00:38:46 Cara
Like use green line sometimes for that, but there's about a great band pylon that a lot of people are probably familiar with. They have that kind of like old world. One of their vocalists, male vocalist, has that like throat singing kind of vibe. I don't know if that's what he does, but it's.
00:38:57
Hmm.
00:39:01 Cara
It's a vibe.
00:39:03 Cara
But yeah, using using music is just like such a potent tool, and like so for.
00:39:06 Cara
It's seeing lifting as like ritual too. That's all one of the benefits of like being autistic is like there are.
00:39:09
Mm-hmm.
00:39:14 Cara
There are many.
00:39:15 Cara
But like I can if I get into like a piece of music like I do not get tired of it. Like, ever.
00:39:22 Cara
So I will start to associate certain songs and certain albums with certain things so that they create like a Pavlovian response to that music. So it's like when I play this green long album when I'm in the gym, it's like flipping the switch and I just go into this sort of place where I'm just more dialed in. I'm more present. I'm.
00:39:43 Cara
More tapped in.
00:39:44 Cara
So, like music, to sort of help me like bypass my own mind to get into like, more, more embodied emotional, like state. Whatever it is that I'm doing.
00:39:55 Merrily
Yes.
00:39:56 Merrily
Yeah.
00:39:57 Merrily
Ohh yeah, I yeah, I couldn't agree more. I love music.
00:40:01 Merrily
So yes, even music and ritual. I talked a little bit about before we started recording about having planetary rituals, so I kind of so I got to make, like, planetary specific lists of music and.
00:40:11 Merrily
Yeah.
00:40:17 Merrily
It's like like and and it's kind of fun. And then also I have like a particular, I call it like my leg day album or my leg day playlist and it has like for whatever reason I don't you know I was like ohh, why do all these?
00:40:27
Yes.
00:40:32 Merrily
Lifters, they listen to a lot of heavy stuff when they lift or whatever, but then yeah, what do I listen to? I'm listening to like the Melvins when I'm lifting and she's like, very heavy, you know? So there's something about that power is, you know, like kind of helps.
00:40:43
Yes, yes.
00:40:48 Merrily
With.
00:40:49 Merrily
What you're doing?
00:40:51
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
00:40:53 Merrily
So yeah, thanks for walking through musical things I love.
00:40:56 Merrily
That and now I have to check out Green Lung for sure. So you did already kind of touch on sort of what your magical day is, but I and you're kind of, you know, building that into sort of your everyday can you kind of walk us through what you're comfortable in sharing like he was a magical person?
00:41:12 Cara
Sure, sure. So there's.
00:41:14 Cara
A few things.
00:41:16 Cara
So yeah, definitely within the last say.
00:41:17 Cara
Within the last year, I.
00:41:18 Cara
Have started to just build in more semi routine.
00:41:23 Cara
Mean things just as like also just gotten to know myself better as a practitioner and what I need to do.
00:41:30 Cara
Just feel good day-to-day as a person to get done what I need to get done. So I have like usually in the morning I will do some kind of meditation. Usually on the short side whether it's a just focusing on just breath and observing my thoughts, letting them let them go and I've recently.
00:41:50 Cara
Started in more like single single point Focus meditation just to train focus something in the morning. Sometimes I'll do in the evening sometimes.
00:41:59 Cara
Both. I might follow that with like some purifying breath work while I'm in the shower. I'm a big fan of both affirmations as well as EFT, which is the tapping thing, right?
00:42:15
People just like.
00:42:16 Cara
Them wailing on their own heads, you know.
00:42:18 Cara
It looks really silly but it, but it feels great. It worked. I'm big fan of it. I don't actually know that much about it. I've just dabbled, but what I have utilized has been effectual and that's really.
00:42:20 Merrily
Yeah.
00:42:27 Cara
All I care about, yeah.
00:42:28
I.
00:42:29 Cara
I so I like to kind of get the morning going with the combination of those things speak and sing in the shower. I like to, like, get in my body, get in my voice, try to move around a little bit and it kind of depends on like what kind of day I'm having. Like if I'm working at the gym, I teach group class at a CrossFit box, CrossFit S Brooklyn or some amazing place.
00:42:49 Cara
So some days I'm there teaching group class. Some days I'm in the city.
00:42:52 Cara
Teaching one on.
00:42:52 Cara
Ones some days I'm at home just working on film stuff and creative stuff, so it kind of depends on like what's going on and and my. So my evening stuff is a little more consistent. I have an evening devotional practice that I do every night.
00:43:08 Cara
And I'll sometimes pair that with a little meditation. And then if I'm going to do spell work, that will usually be in the evening, it'll usually be in the evening around that same time. So it's like I'll meditate, either do the chanting and the devotional and then going to spell work or vice versa, kind of, depending on what the on the nature.
00:43:25 Cara
Of the work and what it is.
00:43:27
MHM.
00:43:28 Cara
So I try to like and then I'll like read and you know relax and scroll into clock and you know well.
00:43:34 Merrily
Yes, do all that stuff. Yeah, yeah.
00:43:36 Cara
Right. So kind of going on, but I.
00:43:38 Cara
Have within the last.
00:43:41 Cara
Last couple months and over the course of this year has been a lot of like just sort of building in more layering in practices that help me stay more connected to my creativity, my intuition, my magical nature and things that are going to are helping me just continue to develop and hone my magical skill sets so.
00:44:02 Cara
I'm getting really into like visionary trance work. That's something that has.
00:44:05 Cara
And.
00:44:10 Cara
Just it's it's.
00:44:11 Cara
Just a very powerful thing. I think it's been very powerful for me and I've had some really, really beautiful experiences and stuff come out of it. So I'm a big fan of like, I used to get sort of overloaded and worrying about having the right ingredients and tools and am I messing this up? And so there's a level to which I really like very stripped down like.
00:44:31 Cara
You literally don't need anything to do this magic, just your brain. So I really like stuff, so I'm a huge fan of just interior work like that.
00:44:39 Cara
But I have also been recently getting into more planetary magic and there's a I love the beauty of that system and the correspondences. There's a lot of it, just intelligence in it, and I've just been finding that the energy that I've tapped into when I do it is really fun and powerful and to sort of echo something you said.
00:44:57 Cara
Maybe before we started recording, but about sort of the.
00:45:00 Cara
You know the human sort of relationship that you like sort of steal with spirits and certain beings and.
00:45:04 Merrily
Yeah.
00:45:06 Merrily
Yeah.
00:45:07 Cara
The personality that comes through right?
00:45:09 Cara
And that's something I've definitely noticed in certain things, in particular solar. When I do solar magic.
00:45:16 Cara
Feels like.
00:45:17 Cara
At like a party, it's like he won't go. It's like, let's turn like I end up playing music. That's like club music that I like. Listen to on my own. But like and I'll get so into it. So there's. So there's. I've been trying to like, yeah, depending on what I need to do, depending what's.
00:45:34 Cara
Going on but.
00:45:35 Cara
Planetary Magic has been really fun to start to get into and I'm still very much a novice at it, but it's been very rewarding.
00:45:43 Merrily
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I like that. You, your description of working with the solar, it's pretty right on.
00:45:52 Merrily
That's funny. Oh, gosh. Well, a couple more questions. Yeah, Lee said you're a renaissance person, so you have so many cool things going on.
00:46:02 Merrily
And you work with the Tarot, and I think you give readings.
00:46:05 Merrily
As well so.
00:46:06 Cara
Ohh yes.
00:46:08 Merrily
What? Why tarot?
00:46:09 Merrily
Why?
00:46:10
So.
00:46:11 Cara
Interestingly, Taro found me.
00:46:14 Merrily
Hmm.
00:46:15 Cara
I was gifted a tarot deck by a personal training client back in No SA 20/14/2015 and I pretty sure I looked at it when that's neat and put it on a shelf and forgot that I owned it and when I was looking for magical.
00:46:22 Cara
Hmm.
00:46:29 Merrily
Mm-hmm.
00:46:33 Cara
Ish props for my web series. I must have pulled out and.
00:46:37 Cara
Thought ohh like this will look cool. This is magic stuff.
00:46:41 Cara
And and and got it out to use.
00:46:43 Cara
As a prop.
00:46:44 Cara
And started looking at it and started.
00:46:47 Cara
Reading the little booklet and they like, oh, this is.
00:46:49 Cara
Interesting and and that and I just started.
00:46:53 Cara
Reading for myself and I I you know, I would just, I would like pull a card and look it up online and like read like Biddy Tarot.
00:47:00 Cara
Dot com, yeah.
00:47:02 Cara
And that was how I approached it for a really long time. And then I started following a reader and named BaCara Wintner, who was doing these online reading. She was like, doing like a weekly live reading. This is like in 20, maybe she started doing this like, 20-19, maybe 2020.
00:47:20 Cara
And she's just a great reader, and who's able to just really tap into some very powerful stuff that really moved me. And I was like, wow, this, there's so much in this.
00:47:28 Cara
Art form I don't understand.
00:47:29 Cara
It but it's, but it speaks to me so, so or I would say around like 2018 into 2020. I started reading for myself constantly. I would try to read for my friends.
00:47:40 Cara
And I was just like, constantly doing spreads just to try to absorb the cards and and I and I really for a long time I used it as a more like creative, intuitive sort of self therapeutic exercise. I did not have a sense of there being a divinatory or a spirit.
00:48:00 Cara
Contact aspects to it, but that came later and over and so I sort of reading for other people a couple of years ago, like more consistently. And then I started reading like profession.
00:48:13 Cara
And as I just did more readings and developed more practice, I would start to pick up on things and I'd like, I would start to get intuitions and I would start to like get information that I would not otherwise have known and just like it would just come through in the reading. And that was then around so. So it's just sort of a gradual.
00:48:33 Cara
Taking to like uh when I'm using this tool, I'm accessing a greater field of intelligence and this is my operating system. Like the genius, the spirits of the cards are this like interface that.
00:48:45 Cara
I have with.
00:48:46
This.
00:48:47 Cara
Sort of emergent field of information, whatever that is. And so over time, I sort of started developing a way to ask, you know, my spirits, my allies, to try to. I started telling them, like, directly talk to me as much as you can. Like, when I read, like, come up, come through tell.
00:49:05 Cara
Me what you know?
00:49:06 Cara
As much as you can to the best of your ability. And since I started doing that, I started my readings just started getting a lot like very accurate and to a point where I.
00:49:16
Thing.
00:49:17 Cara
Started getting it was sort of a jump from using it as a sort of like semi therapeutic, obviously not as a therapist, but in the sense of using it to guide oneself through a helpful experience.
00:49:30 Cara
To bring into a place where I.
00:49:34 Cara
Can constantly say that I'm accessing information that is that that I'm going to use that information to help me make decisions and pivot. And you know, it's a it's only one piece of data. So like, if I'm debating if I'm doing a reading for myself on like a big important topic like I'll read for myself, I'll try to get a friend to read for me, you know?
00:49:53 Cara
No, it's just one piece of information, but I've found it to start to be. It's just a much more reliable way for me to contact like my own spirit guides and to be able to have a sort of conversation with them. So I've had a lot of moments of just really helpful stuff coming through to my own personal readings and.
00:49:56
OK.
00:50:14 Cara
Yeah, it's, it's.
00:50:14 Cara
Been a very interesting very like started in one place, dramatically changed over time and it was something that I just really I also just fell in love with the beauty of it. Like I I I work mostly with the the weight Smith deck and the right Smith deck.
00:50:33 Cara
And variants of that deck, but mostly like the one that my client gave me ages ago. Like I have a very tight relationship with that deck and then I have a very tight relationship with a similar deck that I used.
00:50:43 Cara
To read for.
00:50:44 Cara
Other people and.
00:50:45
Yeah.
00:50:47 Cara
It's just been a really beautiful experience, like getting to know the cards and and they're also just very like, even if you don't read in a divinatory.
00:50:55 Cara
Effect. They are especially at least at least the for me this the Wade Smith deck is such a magically loaded object and the images in those cards are very magically loaded and just dictating on.
00:51:09 Cara
One of them.
00:51:10 Cara
Can pop off a whole bunch of ****.
00:51:13 Cara
In a really cool way. So it's like.
00:51:15 Cara
I think it's. I'm just a huge fan of the tarot. It's just been it's been a huge gift in my life and there's just been an endless source of creativity and inspiration and joy.
00:51:24
Ah.
00:51:24 Merrily
Oh, I like that you explained that when you tap it or started working with it, you kind of sensed that there was like.
00:51:31 Merrily
You know, beings or energies that you could kind of tap into when you're.
00:51:36 Merrily
At least when you're I've never had anybody explain that before, yeah.
00:51:39 Cara
Yeah, you know it's it's. I also started having like especially as I got more practiced, I would say magically, I'm very emotional and somatic in the sense that I, the way that I experience things is in. It's very in my body and it comes up in my emotions. So if, like I'm reading from somebody, I'll get this like sudden.
00:51:58 Cara
Surge of like a very particular emotion that will come out of nowhere and.
00:52:02
Be like whoa.
00:52:03 Cara
I'm like feeling this thing, and I've told you about it, and that was a sort of.
00:52:10 Cara
Is.
00:52:11 Cara
I guess psychic ability that I was not aware was the psychic ability until I was able to practice it in this context and it got it became very clear like when it was happening.
00:52:25 Cara
So yeah, it's been quite an interesting, interesting journey. And Taro is it's like if you have any inclination or curiosity about the tarot, definitely, like, get a deck and just hang out with the cards, hang out, ask the questions, see what happens. Yeah, here, here, you guys just give it a go and see what happens.
00:52:46 Merrily
Sort sort of the one of the last questions is around. So you, you are a filmmaker and you kind of talked about.
00:52:54 Merrily
You know, as a kid why you chose going into.
00:52:58 Merrily
Acting in films, those are. Is there anything more?
00:53:02 Merrily
Around that that you wanted to.
00:53:03 Merrily
Share around why you wanted to, yeah.
00:53:04 Cara
Absolutely. So I definitely I you know, I started performing at a very young age. It was just a very natural fun thing for me to do. I was homeschooled until high school and which so I.
00:53:15 Cara
Was kind of.
00:53:16 Cara
Semi Feral, which was great for me in a lot of ways as a very odd.
00:53:20 Cara
Child, I say with love and I have. So I have a bunch of siblings. I have four siblings and so we were not just left to our own devices, but we had all these like activity groups that we would do and theater was one of them and I loved theater and.
00:53:37 Cara
That was definitely my my big gateway into like OK, when I was 11 years old and I was playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit the musical.
00:53:45 Cara
I was like this is what I want to do. This is awesome like yes.
00:53:50 Cara
Wow. And but. But I love the movies and movies and TV were a just great source of comfort and joy, especially in like my very tumultuous teen years stuff like Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
00:54:07 Cara
And a Knight's tale. There's so many films that just deeply moved me, inspired me, gave me a place to go. And I I so loved that feeling of being able to go into a different world and.
00:54:20 Cara
Magical it was.
00:54:22 Cara
And I just had from a from a around my teen years. I was like, I want to be able to.
00:54:28 Cara
Act in movies where I am in this world that's totally different and.
00:54:35 Cara
I didn't initially have aspirations of being a director or filmmaker. I just wanted to.
00:54:39 Cara
Be an actor.
00:54:40 Cara
And it wasn't until years out of film school when I started working with my partner Jackie, that it became clear that in order to play the characters and tell the stories that I was passionate about, I would have to make it myself.
00:54:54
Hmm.
00:54:55 Cara
No, there is I.
00:54:57 Cara
I we started Jackie, who had already been making short films and.
00:55:00 Cara
Doing our own projects and when we they became my roommate first, like we reconnected after we went to acting school together, reconnected after school, they ended up becoming my roommate and we ended up shortly thereafter like working on one of their short films. And then we started Co creating the web series Azure, which is about The Exorcist and.
00:55:20 Cara
So it was sort of this like and that I Co wrote with Jackie, they they did directed it and like, did all the actual filmmaking. But we Co produced it together and through that process, like I just learned the art of filmmaking. And, you know, we would hire various people to work with us and, you know, learn a lot from other people that we hired.
00:55:39 Cara
Work with and so it sort of evolved like that. Like I I started off as like I just want to be an actor and like play these roles, but over time it became clear to me that like there are certain types of roles that I want to play, there are certain archetypes and energies that I specifically want to embody and portray that I wanted to see more of.
00:55:59 Cara
Growing up that I just have not.
00:56:00 Cara
Seen so this.
00:56:01 Cara
Asher is very much that. She is like the wild, dark, crazy, potently magical, anarchic, feral, feminine, for.
00:56:13 Cara
And you know, in a way that I just think we have not seen before. That's really fun and powerful and.
00:56:24 Cara
Awesome. So. So yeah. So that sort of led me to that's sort of how I I segue from just acting to being like to taking on a more proactive architectural creative role and Jackie like very much encouraged me like we start writing together. And then in 2021, we had ended up writing a feature script.
00:56:24 Merrily
Yeah.
00:56:26 Merrily
Wow.
00:56:45 Cara
For this accurate character in her world and.
00:56:49 Cara
We Co produced and Co directed a proof of concept short film for that which is actually coming out soon, and we're going to be releasing that probably in the late mid winter ish. I don't have a date yet but TBA coming very very soon so we Co, directed and Co wrote that.
00:56:55 Merrily
Oh.
00:57:07 Cara
And then we also Co directed and produced a feature film called Werewolf Game that is going to be coming out on streaming in January 21st, 2020.
00:57:17
5.
00:57:18 Cara
And werewolf game is a psychological thriller about 12 people who are kidnapped and forced to play a real life version of the party game Werewolf, where you have to vote on who you think amongst you is the hidden killer and shenanigans occur and it's.
00:57:36
That's that's.
00:57:36 Cara
It's it's, it's, it's.
00:57:37 Cara
Dark. It's intense. It's very emotionally visceral.
00:57:41 Cara
A lot of magic went into making this movie, so I'm very excited for people to see it and that will be out in January in this upcoming year.
00:57:49 Merrily
How cool that is. That's cool project. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they sound amazing. So excited. And yeah, definitely. I'm already following like your Instagram, everything. I'm like, waiting with bated breath now.
00:57:55 Cara
Thank you.
00:58:03 Cara
Thank you. Thank you. Thank.
00:58:04 Cara
You. Yeah, as soon as both these guys been out afraid. Well, yeah, when? As soon as that's out. I'll probably that might be hosted a couple different places, but as soon as that's out, it will.
00:58:12 Cara
As soon as both these are out, you will not be able to get away from it. I will not shut up. It will be more.
00:58:16 Merrily
Fantastic. I love it.
00:58:19 Merrily
Well, that segues beautifully into sort of the one of the last questions is about projects you shared. Any your filmmaking stuff coming out? Is there anything else that you wanted to share?
00:58:30 Cara
Yes. And so. So the films are are really the biggest thing. You know, be not afraid we'll be coming out probably within the next.
00:58:36 Cara
Few months over the winter werewolf game in January, I do write on sub stack strength magic dot sub stack.
00:58:43 Cara
Dot com.
00:58:44 Cara
You can find all my stuff at Caraclaymore.com as well. I'm very active on Instagram and threads.
00:58:51 Cara
That's that's that's kind of that's kind of it.
00:58:54 Cara
The the.
00:58:54 Cara
Pieces right now.
00:58:56 Merrily
I mean those are pretty big, so that those.
00:59:00 Merrily
Yeah. Yes. Wow. I'm so excited for you. That's awesome. Alright. So finally at the finally, do you? You've already shared so much wisdom, but do you have any sort of final words of wisdom that you would like to share?
00:59:05 Cara
Thank you.
00:59:18 Cara
Gosh, so the most loaded question, I love it.
00:59:21 Merrily
Yeah.
00:59:22
Because.
00:59:22 Cara
It's like anything I say, it's.
00:59:23 Cara
Like I'm you know, it's it's perfect. It's potent.
00:59:27 Cara
You gave me this question advance and I thought a lot about it and I would say.
00:59:32 Cara
My answer is sort of twofold. It is go into your experience.
00:59:38 Cara
As much as you can is very easy to be only half in your experiences because you're witnessing through them through the lens of your own thoughts and through other people's opinions and sort of constantly checking the world around you for feedback about what you should be doing. And there is so much.
00:59:59 Cara
Power and literal magic in trying to disconnect as much as you can from the chatter and have experiences and the sort of so my follow up to that is spend time alone.
01:00:15 Cara
Spend time alone, spend time alone with yourself in ritual, in creative activities, doing nothing. Chilling not on your phone, not.
01:00:27 Cara
In absorbed in like a social thing, like the ability to actually just spend time learning and noticing your own body and how your own mind works is we didn't really get to get into this, but like.
01:00:39 Cara
In order for me to like, I think the only reason that I started to.
01:00:42 Cara
Be.
01:00:43 Cara
Not the only reason, but.
01:00:46 Cara
My creative and magical work has gotten significantly.
01:00:50 Cara
Better, experientially, in terms of my.
01:00:52 Cara
Enjoyment of it.
01:00:52 Cara
As well in terms of the quality of output, because I have done a lot of really ******** internal, emotional, psychic and psychological work on myself like I'm, I'm talking deep dark shadow work **** and.
01:01:10 Cara
Deep patterning and and unlearning to discern and understand what are your thoughts, what are your actual beliefs versus what is a program belief? What are? What is a fear, belief.
01:01:21 Cara
And that can only be figured out by doing some **** alone. Also, therapy. Also talking to mentors and people who know you well. And like all that good stuff. But I think for the magician, you need to develop like such a clear internal landscape of your own mind and your own heart. And that can only be done.
01:01:41 Cara
By spending time with yourself and learning to really cherish and sanctify that time as something precious, that's not like, oh, now I have to meditate. It's like, no, now I get to like, go spend time in myself with myself, with my spirits, and it's something that's unique to every individual. And it's it's like.
01:02:00
The world is the.
01:02:01 Cara
The internal imaginable magical world is your oyster. There's it's so big, it's so big. So it's like, it's easy to feel sometimes, like you don't have the right tools or you don't have the right training or you don't have the right skills or talent.
01:02:12 Cara
Or like whatever.
01:02:15 Cara
But it's not.
01:02:16 Cara
True, you do you you have everything that you need. You really.
01:02:18 Cara
Do you just gotta go inside?
01:02:21 Merrily
Oh, I love it. Yes, it's the. No, no, myself, right. Yeah. They explained it so beautifully. Like, know thyself, like, get to know yourself. Like, yeah, spend some time with your son.
01:02:26 Cara
Alright so.
01:02:31 Cara
Get to know yourself.
01:02:34 Cara
With you, babe.
01:02:36 Merrily
Yes.
01:02:37 Merrily
Oh, gosh. Well, Cara, it's been a pleasure. You're amazing. I I am. I am so dazzled by all of the things that you do and it's, you know, amazing. I'm so happy that you chose to talk with me.
01:02:49 Cara
Today.
01:02:50 Cara
Thank you so much for having me. This is.
01:02:52 Cara
Such a delight. This is wonderful.
01:02:56 Merrily
I really enjoyed connecting with Cara about art and being embodied through physical activity. So many good Nuggets to chew on and consider. You definitely want to check out Keras myriad of creative work, all LinkedIn. The show notes below, and definitely consider getting a tarot reading as well supporting casual temple free and easy like follow and subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast.
01:03:16 Merrily
Platform or drop us a note on casualtemple.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you for listening and being an important part.
01:03:22 Merrily
At casual temple.