Valuing simplicity and joy, with Jara Skagfjord

In this episode, I talk with my friend Jara Skagfjord about intuition, acting, tarot, Iceland and a number of other (seemingly) unrelated subjects. Also, we laugh a lot ! :) 

Jara is a multi-hyphenate; actor/singer/writer and an eclectic witch. She's been reading Tarot for almost 7 years and in addition to giving readings to others, has her own YouTube channel where she does weekly readings for the collective and the Zodiac elements. She also offers Norse shamanic energy healing and online coaching and classes for those who are curious about Tarot and intuitive development.

Interested in tarot? Check out Jara's offerings at https://icelandicwitch.contactin.bio/

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This podcast is hosted by Laure Porché: http://laureporche.com. You can follow me on Instagram @laureporche
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Laure: I am delighted today to welcome one of my dear friends, Jara Skagford. Hi, Jara. 

[00:00:06] Jara: Hello. 

[00:00:08] Laure: Jara is a singer and actress, a witch, an intuitive tarot reader and a pro knitter, and incidentally, she's also Icelandic. Thank you so much for coming. 

[00:00:21] Jara: Thank you. Just so happens. She's also Icelandic. What?! That was a curve-ball! 

[00:00:27] Laure: Well, it's not a curve ball, but you know, like the topic of this podcast is stories and sometimes textile and Iceland is the country of sagas and wool which is... makes you perfect!

[00:00:41] Jara: It's so funny because it's interesting. I mean, obviously every time I introduce myself to people and when they hear that I'm Icelandic, they have all these questions or they have all these "oh my gosh, I hear it's beautiful. My friend just went there", like all of these stories. "Oh my God. Glaciers, volcanoes, all these things". And I don't know if Icelanders themselves. I mean, you know, they might correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know if we would ever say we are the country of sagas and wool. You know what I mean? I don't know if that sounds bad-ass enough for what we want to be as a nation.

[00:01:15] It feels kind of like, oh no, we're super cool Viking. I feel like that is an identity that fuels more cool to the world than wool and ancient texts, you know, I would beg to differ, but it's just the general sense that I have sometimes of my people.

[00:01:31] Laure: Well this might take the conversation in a completely different direction, but is it because it's cool or is it just because it's male? 

[00:01:37] Jara: Wow. That, is a very interesting question. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I think we have just been so influenced by other countries that have been in charge of us. We got our independence in 1944, which is very recent. And before that we were under the Danish crown, and then the Norwegian crown. And after the Danish, we had an American army base in Iceland for a really, really long time. So we've been very influenced by America actually in recent decades. Like rock and roll and there were these like army men that were all over the place and, Coca Cola and all these things. And just like, didn't exist in a tiny little rural island that was Iceland before all of these other cultures started to show up. So I feel like that intermingling really affected the identity of the soul of the people, you know, of the land, you know? Yeah. And then of course now with the tourist, boom, that's been happening. It kind of started almost after I moved away. So I feel like actually the culture and, you know, restaurants every time I return, I'm like, oh my gosh, like everything has changed so much. And that has created a very interesting sort of discord in my being sometimes either, when people talk to me about Iceland, people that have recently visited or have this particular view of it, or, you know, the way that we present ourselves to the tourist, you know, the image that we want to present and project out into the world is sometimes like, I don't know if that feels right to me.

[00:03:19] You know, being there being someone that was born and raised, I was like, is that right? Is that true? And then every time I come back, I'm like, wow, there's just H & M everywhere. Which is not a bad thing. I think evolving and growing is a good thing, but you know, the restaurants are now, a lot of them are called american names. I'm like, oh, that's so interesting. Duck and rose, that's one restaurant name that I'm like, oh, that's so interesting 10 years ago, no one would have named their restaurant Duck and rose or 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

[00:03:50] But because of the tourists and then English speaking people that are visiting, it's kind of imperative that they do that. So now I, I have personally started going in the opposite direction in the work that I do that you introduced me to, right? Which was the Norse mythology and Norse shamanism, and all these things, like the ancient practices that I feel like we have almost forgotten in many ways.

[00:04:20] So that's something that I have very slowly and gently been exploring for the past couple of years. I think it's probably in my, in my nature of being a rebel of like, I don't know if I want to partake in that, but I will go in the opposite direction and you can come join me over there if you want.

[00:04:36] So I feel like at least for me, I don't know how other people feel, but I am experiencing a complicated relationship, both having moved away and not living there anymore and how I identify with my country and also just how the country has changed so much since I left. So I'm constantly asking myself questions about it and about like who I am and where I'm from and what does it mean? And that's also a thing that you experienced, like, you feel like this responsibility because there's not that many Icelandic people. So you feel like every time people are asking you about it, I am the ambassador of the country now. And a part of me loves it. And a part of me rejects it completely.

[00:05:16] I'm like, I don't want to talk about it. Can we talk about something else? Yeah, it's very, it's very interesting. The wolf and the dog! 

[00:05:24] Laure: And here I am on this podcast, starting you off with Iceland. 

[00:05:27] Jara: Yeah. I mean, it always comes up, so it's impossible to escape really. And it's more of a question for myself of like, well, what is the resistance to talking about it, than it is about the people that are curious about it. 

[00:05:41] Laure: Well we'll go back to it cause I want to ask you more questions also about your relationship specifically to the stories of Iceland and all the mythology of it.

[00:05:50] But first I'm going to get us back on track a little bit and ask you the question that I ask everybody who comes on this podcast, which is what is your favorite story or one of your favorite stories. And what was the role of that story in your life?

[00:06:05] Jara: I would say, the one that has been the most consistent is a movie called the Moulin Rouge. I wish I could say something more intellectual, like I dunno The catcher in the rye or something. But it's just, when people ask what's your favorite movie, that's what I say. I watch it every couple of years. It always gets me. And when I saw it for the first time, when I was, I think, 12 years old, it just changed my life. And it still holds a really dear place in my heart. There are certain things in the movie that don't age very well. But that's one of my favorites. That's going to be my answer. 

[00:06:50] Laure: And if I may, how did it change your life? And also, what do you think it says about you? 

[00:06:56] Jara: This might be a bit of a rant, but I hope that's okay. So at the time I was 12 years old, in seventh grade and so everything was changing at the time. I got my first cell phone. You know, it's when you're kind of stepping into your teenagery, that's kind of like starting around that time.

[00:07:16] In my neighborhood a really, really big mall was being built, which was only the second mall to ever exist in the entirety of Iceland. So everyone was really excited about that. Everything was buzzing a new movie theater that had all these, like, the, the main, big theater within that movie theater had like laser shows every Friday night.

[00:07:37] It was like just everything was changing. And I just remember this moment so well. Because I didn't get a chance to see the movie in the theaters, but my parents had rented it the night before, you know, on VHS back in the day

[00:07:52] Laure: Because it was the 90. 

[00:07:54] Jara: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I was home alone, happened all the time. In Iceland, everyone is home alone. Everyone just walks home from school. It takes you five minutes and the doors are open, it's not a big deal. And I was sitting on the edge of their bed, just feeling kind of bored. And I put this movie in and I did not leave the edge of the bed the entire time. It was such an insane movie. It's so chaotic. It is so crazy. It is so weird. I had never seen anything like it in my life.

[00:08:27] And it was also a musical movie, but it had pop songs you know. So for me personally, at that moment, it was a very, very private moment. I got to have it completely alone, like experiencing this movie with myself, no one else had their opinions in my ear or my little siblings running around or anything like that, it was just me by myself watching this movie.

[00:08:47] And it was just so wacky and so wild and what they were preaching, freedom, which then getting to the second part of your question, which is what it says about me. I think number one I'm obsessed with romantic movies in general, like romcoms, that's always my go-to, I definitely have the complex of , yes, I will wait for prince charming to come and rescue me.

[00:09:11] You know what I mean? Like that's definitely... I think it is very much alive and these people have a dream and that's, what's most important to them. Nicole Kidman's character, she has this dream of becoming an actress, which of course, you know, I am. And being free, she thinks about freedom, all these things. Feeling caged feeling stuck, but you're still going to do the thing. I think there's something in there about against all odds, they kind of made it happen, you know? And then of course the love connection that they have, the two of them, and the music and the colors and everything, but I would say in general the characters in the movie are very out there and they're very wild and Bohemian in a very extreme way, which I think is very brave, you know, how they are living their lives in this movie is very, very brave. So I'm sure there's a part of me that would love that kind of dream, a mix of dreaming confidence and courage altogether. I think it also says about me that I think Ewan McGregor's really hot. Which he is. I would love to...you know!

[00:10:28] Laure: I'm not gonna disagree with you on that.

[00:10:30] Jara: I fell in love with him. What can I say? He's fantastic and of course they sing and dance, and I love all things musical, so let's not forget that. Also it happens in Paris. And I love Paris. I've never visited France or Paris, but I have such a connection with it for some reason. And I learned French in school and everything. So I think that that also is in there with everything else. 

[00:10:52] Laure: Yeah. I'm still waiting for you to come and visit .

[00:10:55] Jara: Soon. 

[00:10:58] Laure: So in both your careers as an actress and as a witch what's the place of story? Do you use it? How do you use it? You know, what's your relationship to it? 

[00:11:09] Jara: I use it a lot in both careers. 100% my relationship to what a story is, has changed a lot since I've, grown and become an adult and learned about all kinds of things like screenwriting and structure, you know, all those things, text analysis. But in general, how I use story ? 

[00:11:29] We'll talk about the witch thing first. Metaphors are my go-to for everything, for everything, because A: it just comes very naturally. I just see it instantly. So I don't have to like, reach very far for it at all. But also what I feel like it gives me both when I'm doing tarot readings and when I'm doing healing sessions with people is, there's something about metaphors that gives it a sort of safe distance between me and the client, between them and their traumas or their baggage or their own personal stories, and for myself and my energetic boundaries within those metaphors. Because it's sort of like a " Hey, I'm going to show you something", you know what I mean? "Hey, I'm going to open this box and you are going to", you know, or, "Hey, I'm gonna watch a movie". I feel like I heard, like a family therapist or something that said when families watch movies together, that's a way to open up a conversation between the parents and the children and everything.

[00:12:31] And I think it's the same thing in this work because it offers a kind of safety and makes it, it makes it almost less personal and more personal at the same time. 

[00:12:43] Laure: No, I get it. And the way that you describe it reminds me of the, the idea of point of balance, tension in polarity and cranial, where you find a point that balances the tension. And usually it's in the middle of... The metaphor becomes an intermediary between you and the person and between the person and their issue. Yeah. And I know you also teach people how to read tarot intuitively.

[00:13:07] And so basically you're teaching people how to create their own stories from their reading. And I wonder what you've seen doing that in terms of like how it helps people, what it creates in their life or what it opens up in their life and themselves.

[00:13:22] Jara: What I noticed first of all is I think people tend to overthink or over-complicate what they think intuition is, or what they think being psychic means or reading tarot means or any kind of divination or healing, you know? It is wonderfully simple actually. And when that invitation in just allowing that to exist in its simplicity is usually enough. I'm almost seeing it as sort of like the flood gates open or like they plug in instantly and it's usually when and this is something that I was taught and that has stayed with me ever since, and I use the same thing because it was such a key to the gate for me, it was like, okay, so look at...

[00:14:08] I happen to have of course, a tarot deck within reach. At all times, there should be a tarot deck within reach! 

[00:14:15] Laure: She's always prepared.

[00:14:17] Jara: Always prepared. Yeah, exactly. Like the Scouts. So if you were to look at this image, and of course this depends on the tarot decks, but I, of course, buy tarot decks that have imagery, that is rich and vivid. So you would look at the image and...

[00:14:31] Laure: I'll just describe the image because this is audio. 

[00:14:34] Jara: Yeah, of course. 

[00:14:35] Laure: It will be audio at some point. So this is a person sitting on a Wolf in the full moon, on a mountain or rock. 

[00:14:44] Jara: Yes. And the Wolf is howling at the moon. There's a butterfly in here. The figure in the card is holding a flower. There's a snake wrapped around their leg. So many things that we could take from this card. And then at the bottom it says "strength". So what I say, and what was taught to me at the time was if this were a children's book, how would you read this? Or how would you describe it? Like describe the card as if it were a children's book and then you could, I don't know, Laure, go into a story here with the girl on the Wolf here. 

[00:15:19] Laure: Well, it would be a story about this girl who maybe ran away from home with her pet Wolf. And she likes the night. And maybe she can only live at night. 

[00:15:30] Jara: Woo. 

[00:15:32] Laure: Yeah, that's when they travel at night with her pet Wolf and she's kind of reached the end of the world and now she's... it can go on like yeah... 

[00:15:41] Jara: Yeah. But yeah, exactly. Literally, exactly, exactly that. And then of course you would relate all of that, that you're saying to the question that the client asked and cards that are around it. We can go into that very complicated... But I feel like once the inner child is allowed to play and tell these quote unquote silly, you know, what the grownups would call silly stories the flood gates open.

[00:16:06] And what I see is that once given permission to just say what it is that you see, play with it, connect to that inner child that knows how to tell these stories, that knows how to just be, people start to trust themselves. It's wild. 

[00:16:24] Laure: No, I get it. I do it a little differently in my classes, but the result is the same in the sense that there's something that happens. Usually I go from a word, like I have people explore a word with their bodies, and then I have them write a story about the word. And then I have them talk about how this story applies to them in their life. And what people realize when they do that, is that every single thing that they say, that they imagine, says something about their subconscious and who they are.

[00:16:52] That's really true. And so that nothing is silly, really. Like you could write anything, like I've written stuff for my classes, gave classes on dreams and I wrote a fake dream for my class without thinking about the symbolism of it. I just did oh, this is a simple thing, simple thing. And then I went into the interpretation of it, cause that's what I was teaching and I was...

[00:17:14] Jara: Were you called out? 

[00:17:16] Laure: Well, I wasn't called out, but I was like, ah, this makes so much sense. Yeah. And so anything that you do without thinking about it or without trying to get a meaning across or whatever, it brings up who you are and whatever dynamic is active in you at this specific moment.

[00:17:32] And so I think it's great that you're teaching people to access that. And Tarot cards are amazing supports. I use it all the time and I use it in constellation. If they're a good deck the imagery is going to spark your imagination and help you get into that space where you're creating stories out of the card or out of the arrangement of cards, that will get you into a place where you're like, oh, this is what, this is... Cause whatever you say, it doesn't even have to do with the cards necessarily I don't know what you think about that, but it doesn't necessarily have to do with the cards. A lot of it is because you're saying it, at least when you're reading for yourself and also when you're reading for other people, cause obviously resonance happens. But whatever story you might say about the card that you pull, it's not about the card, it's about the story, because the story is going give you all the answers, right? 

[00:18:24] Jara: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I see different things in the cards, all of the time. And in my most recent tarot workshop, we would do like a round Robin where one person would pull a card and then the others would say what they saw in that card. And then they would pull their own version of that card. And that also deepened everyone's understanding of the cards in general. Being the teacher, I was like, I have never heard that. And I love that. That is incredible. I've never seen the king of cups in that way ever, but I love it. I also do a lot of dreamwork. It's something that has followed me since I was a kid, I dream a lot. And actually people in Iceland are very dream interpretive sort of oriented. And I read this book by Robert Moss a few years ago. And he talks about how, you know, oh, it's only a coincidence. Oh, it is only your imagination. And, you know what he talks about, and I agree, that the imagination is a portal into your intuition. You know? So the things that you are seeing in your mind's eye, people might discount it as only their imagination, but then as time goes on, oh, that was actually my intuition trying to talk to me.

[00:19:33] And I think tarot and imagery and metaphor helps with that because it puts us into a place in our imagination. And you know, using this in my work as an actress as well, literally just like imagining the thing and then all of a sudden the thing is happening to you because you imagined it.

[00:19:49] So it is sacred. Imagination and stories and metaphors, like, it's a very sacred thing. So I don't like it when people say it's only your imagination, I'm like, oh,...

[00:20:04] You know, so I remember when I said that to my students, the first round that I ever did of this tarot workshop. They were kind of like mind blown when, I said it, they were like, oh, okay. So with that and giving people permission to access their imagination, which is essentially inviting the inner child to come up to play, there was nothing else that I had to do. I mean, sure. Then I taught them about the difference between major arcana and minor arcana but that is all just a bonus. You don't have to memorize the card, you don't have to know every single symbol. You don't have to know every single rune by heart or single Hebrew letter by heart, or all of these different symbols and stuff, or astrology or whatever, they're all kinds of things that show up in these tarot decks.

[00:20:42] That's all just extra. That's just a bonus if you're into it and if you're nerdy, like, you know, like you and I both are, you know that's just a bonus. But it's not needed for you to sort of be... Because people always say, " what do I need to do to become a witch? How does one become a witch?" Just do it. And I remember when I, when I was younger, I would hate that answer. Yo, I just gotta do it. I'm like, what does that mean? Give me something to do. Give me a to-do list. Give me a checklist, you know. And it's, you know, even if you didn't know anything about Tarot and you would pick up a card and tell me what you see, this is what I see. Great. That's probably what it is and what it means. The end. 

[00:21:19] Laure: Yeah. Because, and also because imagination is, you know, you, as an actress and me as a former actress we know that the brain doesn't make difference between real and imagined. 

[00:21:28] Jara: Exactly. 

[00:21:29] Laure: Which is why stories were used for so many centuries and are still used today to get information across to people because as they are listening to the story, or as they are telling the story it's as if they were living it. And so their subconscious gets new information about causes and consequences. You know, Gary, Gary Strauss, my craniosacral teacher, he teaches remote viewing when you look at a person's body or a person's system from afar, and he always says like, "oh, people are worried that they're just imagining things. And I say but yes you are. You're just imagining it and because you're imagining it, it's real, you know? When I was training in many different modalities, I just happened to be in groups where the people in these groups were crazy clairvoyant, like crazy clairvoyance, clair audience, clair sentience, all the clairs that you can imagine. And I was like, I don't see anything. I can't like, what am I getting? How can I possibly work with people? I don't see anything that's going on, until I understood, you know, until I realized, oh, but actually what I imagined about the situation, it is intuition. What comes to me in imagination and stories, sometimes I hear people talk about whatever is their issue and I get a story out of that and now I'm like, oh, this must be relevant. It must be true. But when I was starting out, I discarded that because I thought it was my mind. I think people also confuse, you know, imagination and the mind.

[00:23:05] Jara: Yeah. 

[00:23:06] Laure: And I don't think they're the same thing. 

[00:23:08] Jara: No, and same thing with like the mind and the brain. I tend to question things a lot, cause it's like, okay. It's only in my mind. Yeah. Yes. You know, like Gary was saying about imagination. Yes, it's in your mind. And I also remember when I started trying out gazillion different things and reading about everything, I was terrified that I was hearing wrong or I was seeing wrong or that I was making it up or it was in my imagination. And I honestly don't know, I wouldn't be able to pinpoint to you what one thing I did to make myself trust it, because still even sometimes to this day, I still think to myself, I'm doing a reading or I'm doing a one-on-one session healing with a client, and I say something and I'm like, well, that was a load of crap, like I go in my head. And they are like, oh my God, that's so true. And I'm like, okay. You know what I mean? So even sometimes if I think it's not right, or if I think it's me making something up. I still said it and it still existed, you know, like it still wanted to come through. So whatever I feel about or think about it it's is not really relevant. Sometimes. 

[00:24:17] Laure: That's also, and that's also trusting the relationship rather than what you think about, because the point of story is to create relation. Either from the person to themselves or from you to them or from the person to their issue or whatever it is. And so there's not really a wrong way to create relation. Like even if what you say is wrong, then you've created relation because the person will say, oh no, that's not right. 

[00:24:44] Jara: So that's information. 

[00:24:45] Laure: And then, they will, inform you or they will themselves create relation with their issue. If you tell them a story about their issue and they say, no, no, that's not right. And then they start talking about their issue, that's created the relationship, so you can't go wrong with story. 

[00:25:00] Jara: Exactly, exactly. Exactly. So I think what we think and what we feel sometimes is not always indicative of the truth or whatever needs to happen. And that's just something that comes with more reps and more experience of like, yeah. You know, it is what it is, it happened because it needed to happen. It was said because it needed to be said. Cause I used to carry a lot, I used to spin in my head about every single session I had every single reading I had, "I should've said this, I should have done that. What if they didn't, you know, like this fear of being disliked or, you know, they're never gonna come get a reading with me again". And that had to do with me and my relationship with myself and not actually what occurred in the session.

[00:25:42] So that was just about me and my own stuff, you know? Because what I hear the most is how do you discern between fear and intuition? So I think when people ask me about fear and intuition, I'm like, well, you just have to really get to know yourself and know what your fears are. And then you can be like, oh, that is just a fear of mine and my anxiety that keeps being on replay. And I know that, so if I know that that's a fear that I have, then it's probably not my intuition, you know? So I don't think there's one quick fix into discerning or deciphering what's fear and what's intuition. And sometimes the lines are a little bit blurred on that, but I think it's, wise to have space for both.

[00:26:23] Laure: We could go on this line of questioning forever, but let me ask you then, going into your other career as an actress and as a storyteller, basically, how do you approach a story as an actress? to make sure that you're serving the story with your work? 

[00:26:40] Jara: Well, I, don't know if I have like a one thing that I do. I think it very much is relative to the project and the character, and then the people that you're working with all those things, but I remember hearing this in audition class once from a casting director. And it was actually very helpful. Might not sound super spiritual or, or, you know, like words of wisdom or anything like that. But she said to just know what you're auditioning for. Are you auditioning to be the lead or are you auditioning to be the co-star who is like the clerk at the bodega that the lead comes into to buy water from, so that's how you need to approach the audition. You shouldn't approach it from a place of thinking that the episode is about you when it's not, you you're the clerk, that has like one line, which is "have a good day", you know?

[00:27:30] It's unlikely that that will take up any significant space in the movie or in the episode. Right. So I remember at the time I was like, oh, that actually helps. Because sometimes thinking about that just takes the edge off, takes the pressure off a little bit especially when you're auditioning, which can be anxiety inducing. Just being like, oh, it's not about me, I'm just the clerk with one line, right?

[00:27:53] So that is one example. It's just like knowing what your place in the story is from a very practical perspective. I would say in general, what I tend to first notice is the choice of words and the rhythm and the music of the text or of the words, especially when it's within a song, because if the writing is good, then yeah, then the consonants and the vowels in relationship to the melody are very important clues as to what is going on with the character emotionally. 

[00:28:34] So I feel like for me personally, words are very very helpful for me. So I would say in general, I would approach the story first by what is actually written, by the words themselves, because that is where I live. That's what resonates for me. And I know that other actors might go into like the character, like the backstory and they might imagine their own things and feel the feelings. And my access point is more in looking at the text itself, how it lines up, what it sounds like, what the words are, what the concept, you know, stuff like that. So that is my first thing that I do when I approach any kind of material.

[00:29:18] And it's probably also just because it sort of grounds me, that is the first thing that grounds me. Okay. She says the word bruised, she's singing the word bruised and it's like you're being given a bbb and a rrrr and an Ooh, you know, like that's like a very you know, other people can't see what I'm doing, but it's just like, ah, you know, like a heartache painful thing without me having to think about what it means to be bruised.

[00:29:46] Do you know what I mean? Or without me having to take on the pain, that is me being bruised or going back to a time where I was bruised or whatever. 

[00:29:55] Laure: No it's very physical, like somatic. I believe that language is somatic and I work with that quite a lot. Cause I feel that vocabulary, and I'm not going to go too much into this because this is a whole episode, right? But I feel that we all have a personal vocabulary of words that modifies our body state, that makes us feel a certain way. Just hearing it or saying it, regardless of meaning. So that's what you're talking about. That makes me think of that, you were using the words and every good storyteller does that, they use the sound, I use the sound. I tell stories to my clients and I do meditations, guided meditation and I use the sounds to get people where I want them to go. I'm like, okay, you're gonna come with me on a little trip. And this is this word and this word and this word.

[00:30:48] And you're following those words with your body. I know that the sounds of those words and the sound of my voice, obviously how I'm modulating is taking them somewhere. What I'm hearing from what you're saying is that as an actress, you're using that by just relying on the power of sound.

[00:31:06] Jara: I feel like a lot of actors sometimes, you might relate to this, that if it's not a struggle or if I'm not hysterically crying or screaming or something on stage or in front of the camera, then it's not actually acting. This is reinforced in many theater programs around the world. But once I accepted that, okay, so I will very likely not be the person that they will pick up the phone and call if they need someone to come in right now and cry on cue. That is not my superpower as an actress. I have a friend who can do that on a dime.

[00:31:44] And it's so impressive to me, it's absolutely incredible and I love it. I have other super powers, not that you can't develop that . Absolutely. And I would love to, it's a very useful skill to have. But it's not to be discounted the way that you just relate to the work in general.

[00:31:59] Cause peoples often ask like, oh, why did you decide to become an actress? And you hear all kinds of answers from people. "Oh, I just wanted to tell stories and..." In many ways that is true for me, but I think if I were to answer truthfully, I was like, well, I went to the theater and it looked like a lot of fun. You know what I mean? That's looks like fun. Looks like a fun job. You get to come either on a set or inside of a theater and you are entertaining people and you get to work people by playing pretend. That sounds like a lot of fun to me, you know? And it doesn't sound like the most, I dunno, click baity, Hollywood reporter round table noble answer, but now as I've gotten older, I'm like, nope. Knowing that joy is very, it's a very high frequency, like straight connection to source. I'm like, no, I'm going to value that highly. And as long as I'm having fun within the story, no matter what the story is then I think I'm doing a good job of honoring both the story and just myself and my work within that.

[00:33:02] Laure: I love that. 

[00:33:04] Jara: To sum up, to sum up joy and fun and words and sounds and music. That would be my answer. 

[00:33:13] Laure: Well, that kinda, that takes me back to trauma central, that's just the nickname I have for the school that we went to.

[00:33:21] Trauma central, which gives me a seamless transition or almost seamless, I'm still learning the job of interviewer, into thread and textile work. Not all my guests will have a relationship to textile, but you do. So I'm going to take advantage of that. And I remember that you were one of the people that took up knitting with me in classes, which I believe now it was a way of regulating our nervous system. 

[00:33:47] Jara: 100%. Oh my God. Yeah. 

[00:33:53] Laure: In this environment. And I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about your relationship to... Because I know in Iceland it's cultural basically. 

[00:34:02] Jara: Yeah. When I moved to the states, and started talking to all kinds of people, not just from the states, but from all over the world. And I was so surprised to hear that not everybody is taught how to knit and sew. Where I come from, at least in my school, I think it's most schools in Iceland, there is mandatory, there is woodworking, there is textile work and home-ec like cooking and cleaning and arts, like painting and drawing.

[00:34:28] So I didn't know that this was a special thing until I moved here. Quite frankly, I barely even knew about the textile tradition. Like I moved away and then I came back and I was like, oh yeah, the Icelandic wool sweater. Oh yeah. Like all these markets that have all, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't really realize because you just living in it until I moved away. So I'm not sure that I am very well versed in the historical context at all...

[00:34:56] Laure: But that's not what I'm interested in. Right. I'm more interested in your personal relationship. Because I remember being so impressed because you were knitting so fast.

[00:35:04] Jara: And I don't know why. That's the weird thing because I remember at the time when I saw you knitting, I was like, oh yeah, I know how to do that. I'm going to start doing that too. And I hadn't knit in years. I hadn't knitted since I was probably 12 or 11 years old when I started knitting with you at school, I kind of forgot that I knew how to do that.

[00:35:23] And I will tell you, speaking of trauma, because I remember there was one class where you would get these projects. Okay. So we're all gonna learn how to sew this pillow. You would draw out the outline of the thing and you would sew the thing. And then there were all kinds of projects within that one project. We were creating a pillow that had the outline of a fish. So it was a fish. And you would cut out these scales all made out of fleece, and then you had to sew the scales on it.

[00:35:50] Then you had to put a face on the fish. You could choose your colors, all these things. And I will never forget this. It was one 80 minute class. And I remember I was just like in it, I was in the zone and I was being so fast and I really enjoyed what I was doing. I was probably nine years old or something, maybe fourth grade.

[00:36:07] And I finished within the 80 minutes and I couldn't believe it. And I was so proud of this pillow that was this fish. Cause I had always felt not that great during these classes. But I was really, really proud of myself and I showed it to the teacher and she laughed at the pillow and she raised it up over her head and showed it to the entire class and said that it was the ugliest pillow that she had ever seen.

[00:36:34] Laure: God! 

[00:36:35] Jara: It's what she said. And I basically didn't touch anything since, is what happened. So I think in many ways, me starting to knit again with you far, far away from Iceland was actually very healing for that part of myself that thought, oh, I'm a good for nothing and I can't do it.

[00:36:53] And you being , oh my God, I'm so impressed. I'm like, you're impressed really? Like, you was so fast. And I was like, you know, just like feeling very insecure about these skills. But my mom, I remember knitted some things for us when she was pregnant with us.

[00:37:06] My aunt is very, very talented when it comes to knitting and sewing and all those things. I could give you 10 different names now of women that are excellent knitters and excellent embroiderers, crochet or all these things.

[00:37:20] So it's on every corner basically in Iceland. I also know from just doing some ancestral work and hearing from my grandma that it goes even further back. I saw this thing once at my grandma's house, it had always been there. And I had no idea that she had made it, it was this beautiful embroidered, like, these long sort of things that people would frame. There's a word for it in Icelandic and I don't know what it's called in English.... It had all these instruments. It was very intricate. I thought she had bought it somewhere. But she made it, I was like, grandma, I had no idea because she worked really hard her entire life, so I never saw her do any of that stuff, like knitting or embroidering and I didn't really see my mom do any of the things either. So I didn't really know about it being a thing, even for myself, until I met you and I remembered that I could do it. And then it kind of just like, oh yeah. Oh, okay, cool. Like this has always been here. So it's a very new found relationship.

[00:38:21] Laure: It's a new found old relationship. 

[00:38:23] Jara: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I also remember when you introduced me to the Norns. 

[00:38:31] Laure: That's exactly where it was going to take it. 

[00:38:32] Jara: Back in the day. 

[00:38:33] Laure: You read my mind. 

[00:38:34] Jara: Yeah. 

[00:38:34] Laure: My God, intuition! 

[00:38:37] Jara: Intuition. Yeah, exactly, exactly. When you introduced me to the Norns I remember you saying something like that, about the threads and how, when I'm knitting, or when I'm doing this kind of crafty, thread work that that's a way for me to connect with them.

[00:38:51] Laure: Yeah. For people who don't know the Norns are the Nordic version of the Fates who spin the thread of life and cut it. 

[00:38:59] Jara: Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld are there names.

[00:39:01] Laure: Ooh, that sounds beautiful. 

[00:39:03] Jara: Yeah. And it means, let's see if I can know what it means. What has happened, what might happen and what should happen. Which I think is very interesting because none of those things are definitive. Which is actually something that differs I think, I'm not very well versed in Greek mythology, but I think that's what sets the Nordic Norns apart from the Greek Fates is that actually your fate can be changed. Actually you have more free will and space to negotiate and re weave and cut threads and... you have more power over your life than you think, 

[00:39:42] Laure: Cool. I'll take the Nordic mythology anytime. 

[00:39:46] Jara: Yeah. Right. I really like that. I really like that. 

[00:39:50] Laure: Well, we're coming to the end of this talk. We might need to have another one. 

[00:39:55] Jara: We could talk for hours. We could just schedule like six hours and then you'll have 12 podcasts. 

[00:40:04] Laure: If I run out of guest, I'll be like, yeah. 

[00:40:08] Jara: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:40:10] Laure: So I'm going to ask you the question. I ask everybody to end this hour, which is when do you feel closest to your own soul and when do you feel closest to other people's soul?

[00:40:21] Jara: I think I feel closest to other people's soul when we are laughing hysterically at something silly. All of my soul connections are people that I can very easily laugh with. So that would be my answer for that. Yeah, like laughter and joy and humor and silliness just like general silliness.

[00:40:44] I value that a lot. It just makes everything sing. It just like clears out so many things so much like, lightening up a conversation or a room with a joke or a good laugh. Closest to my own soul. That is a very good question. I think when I'm singing. 

[00:41:03] Laure: Yeah. 

[00:41:04] Jara: Yeah. I think I'll just let that be the answer. When I'm singing, that's when I feel closest to my soul

[00:41:11] Laure: Yeah, I can relate to that. I've been feeling that for the first time ever, really, since I've started taking classes with someone, with whom we do just improv and I've discovered that you could actually feel good when you're singing uh, and feel like you're expressing yourself, which I never felt before for all my years of singing.

[00:41:31] Jara: Who'd have thunk? 

[00:41:32] Laure: Yeah. Right. 

[00:41:33] Jara: Yeah. So when I'm singing in a safe space, let's put it that way. Cause not all spaces are safe to sing or express yourself in. 

[00:41:41] Laure: So expression, creative, artistic expression.

[00:41:44] Jara: Oh, isn't that just the answer to everything.

[00:41:47] Laure: That's exactly what I'm trying to prove with this podcast. This is the answer to everything. 

[00:41:53] Jara: And yet we don't value it at all. We keep looking for answers elsewhere. 

[00:41:58] Laure: Yeah. People think that they have to trudge through shit to heal or to get their life in order. And sometimes it's true. I'm not saying that's not true, but I feel like people really undervalue the power of personal expression, of self-expression through arts and stories. And anyway, I'm not going to go into that right now. 

[00:42:17] Jara: That's a whole other episode, but I, but I agree. I concur. Yeah. Again with what I was saying earlier with the simplicity, it's wonderfully simple sometimes.

[00:42:27] Laure: Thank you so much for joining us.

[00:42:29] Jara: My pleasure. 

[00:42:31] Laure: It was such a joy to have you. 

[00:42:33] Jara: It was a joy to be here. Thank you so much.