Artist and Witch Laura Tempest Zakroff on Facing Fear and the Unfolding the Impossible

In this engaging conversation, author T. Thorn Coyle speaks with Laura Tempest-Zakroff, a multifaceted artist and modern witch, about her creative journey, the influences that shaped her artistry, and the importance of community in the creative process. They explore the challenges of fear in creativity, the significance of ritual in art, and the personal symbolism that informs Tempest's work. The discussion emphasizes the liberating nature of creativity and the necessity of embracing spontaneity and collaboration in artistic expression. 

You can find out more about Tempest at https://lauratempestzakroff.com
As always, this podcast is made possible by Thorn's amazing Patreon supporters: https://www.patreon.com/c/ThornCoyle

Transcript

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Hello. Welcome to another episode of Magic, Creativity, and Life. In today's episode, I talk with witch, artist, dancer, all around creative person, Loris Tempest-Zakroff. I think it was a really interesting conversation and I got a lot out of it. I hope you do too. In some personal news, I'm still working happily on my current novel based on a contemporary retelling, not retelling, inspired by, I should say, the old Thomas the Rhymer Scottish ballad. So that's going well. I feel like I'm leveling up my writing, which is always interesting and a great experience. Also, things have gotten interesting again here in the US, if you've been following the news. And in response to that, I have launched my new Kickstarter. for my essay collection, Resistance Matters, Essays on Love and Action. So if you'd like some inspiration on navigating these times and how to find ways to resist and build and envision a better world in your own life, head over to Kickstarter and just search for Resistance Matters or my name. And that campaign ends in early February. So if you're listening to this podcast as it goes out, the campaign should still be live. And I think that's about it for personal news. I hope you're doing well and weathering all the strange weather, both in our climate with snow and fires and everything else, as well as politically. I hope you, your family and friends are safe. and warm and well wherever you are. Thanks for listening. Let's dive in. Hello everybody. Welcome back to Magic, Creativity, and Life. My name is T. Thorn Coyle, and today I am talking with Laura Tempest-Zakroff, who is a professional artist, author, performer, and modern traditional witch based in New England. Tempest has written multiple bestselling books, including Weave the Liminal, Sigil Witchery, and Anatomy of a Witch, and is also the creator of multiple popular oracle decks from Llewellyn and has edited three anthologies on magical resistance and resilience published by Revelore Press. She is the creative force behind several community events and teaches workshops online and worldwide. Tempest, welcome. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. So we've known each other off and on for many years, decades probably at this point. And you know, I know a lot about you. I know you're a visual artist, you're a writer, you're a dancer, you do all sorts of things. But the way I start every podcast is I like to ask my guests, what are your creative roots? Like what was creativity like for Little Tempest? So I feel like very early on I was immersed in the arts. Both my parents are fairly creative people. There's journalists involved in theater and in the arts and crafts, et cetera. And at a very early age, at three, I was in my first art class and it kind of went consistently past, you know, all the way through college. of studying the visual arts in particular. And that seemed to be just my most comfortable, my most primary form of expression next to words. am a Gemini. that balance of words, images, words, images. But I would often spend just hours drawing and telling stories to myself, just reams and reams of paper going through. whether it was dragons or mermaids or plants, anything like that. That's what I did. That was my world was pretty much making art or being outside. And you went to college, university to study art, and I'm wondering what that was like for you. How did that affect your creative process? So yeah, I went to the Rhode Island School Design and in retrospect, it wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. I had had the pleasure in high school of attending the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts, which at the time was a summer program where they put you together with dancers and musicians and writers and theater kids. And so even though you're studying the arts, you're also experiencing all these other folks around you. And even though I was so good at the liberal arts and math and science, etc. I was like, oh, I just want to do arts full time. Like, I'm done. I'm done writing all these essays. And I kind of thought art school would just be like that. But when you put a whole bunch of visual artists and designers together, it is not quite the same as having dancers and musicians and writers and such. There's a very funny saying about RISD that it's a very religious school because everyone there thinks they're God. So it was definitely a... say it was very good for developing arts but not necessarily developing professionalism and creating community, at least on the art side of things. That's interesting. So I imagine there was a lot of competition and it sounds like a lot of jockeying for ego status games. And if you're anything like me, mean, status games just confuse me. I'm like, what is even happening here? I don't understand what you're doing. I actually had to train myself to recognize primate status games. It did not come naturally to me. And I'm wondering if you're similar. Yes, I definitely don't understand the pecking orders and the focus on, you know, whether it's the material or the popularity and such. Just like, just want to make art. I just want to make art that touches, you know, whatever it is I need to explore. And why can't we just be all artists together and have the salon experience? But, you know, that really wasn't the case. And I can't say that there's a whole bunch of people that I'm still in contact with from those days, unless it was from the pagan society that I formed. interesting. So let's shift gears since you mentioned the pagan society. You know, you're also a ritual artist and you've done that for years. What are the primary influences on that besides your magic? Like, did you have any theater training? I know you've had dance training. What has helped you as a ritual artist? So I'll have to credit the fact that I did grow up in the Catholic Church. Yes. Yes, Catholics know ritual. it's like everything builds to Eucharist and they know it and they make sure of it. You got to have the sounds, got to have the, you know, the smells, you got to have the dress, you have to have how everything is presented. So even though it's like even I was bored to tears and just generally pissed off to have to go to church because I didn't agree with any of the doctrines. You know, you still get that sense of like, this is how we build a ritual. This is how things are. How do you build and create the energy and the flow and what's working and what's not working? So that has definitely been a foundation, but at the same time I'm very much deeply inspired by more ecstatic and spontaneous practice. So finding that balance between how do we plan something out so that it's working and effective, but also isn't stifled, that isn't everything scripted down to these minute details that might not even be important. in the overall feel of things. Yeah, I'm also more of an ecstatic ritualist. And while I do plan things and I know what milestones we want to hit in the ritual, I also work a lot on intuition, listening, sensing, spontaneity, right? It all becomes a mix, which to me is truly part of the creative process, right? It's like also, it's the same thing when I write fiction. I have an idea kernel in my head when I sit down. I might have a character or a theme or a setting, but I don't have an outline even. So I don't even have the kind of, you know, signposts or milestones I want for a ritual. I mean, I do kind of have a sense of story structure, of course, because I've been writing long enough. I understand. what story beats are and how things flow and whether it's a three act arc or a four act arc. But what I really need that keeps me engaged and interested and creative is the sense that I'm following my subconscious and letting it lead me where it needs to go. Yes, it's like you have to be curious and also release your fear. You know, like, here's the idea. It's like when doing a painting, you know, there's the idea of what you want to bring forth on the canvas or through the clay or etc. But you also have to make room for the material itself and for the idea to evolve. I think that's Also frustrating for so many people because they think, whatever I produce has to look like exactly how it is in my head. And if I don't produce that thing, I've done it wrong. Right. Yeah, it's that attachment to the outcome that's the problem, right? And it's never going to look the way we thought or sound the way we thought or exist the way we thought we wanted it to. And in that way, everything's a co-creation, right? Like you said, you're co-creating with the materials, you're co-creating with the canvas and the paints or the pencils or digitally, however you're creating. It's not all just you, it's you and your medium, your media. guess, the ideas or the muses or however you want to interact with the universe. And I feel like, in so many instances that people, it's like, you don't realize, like, if you're going to produce that same exact thing in your head, what's the purpose? What's the journey? Why do it? Like, technically already been done. This is all about exploring. Right. So do you have practices you use to help you move past the fear or has it just taken time and experience? I feel like it's built up over, even go back to those days. So was college days where, you know, suddenly I found myself being the priestess in charge of all stuff, right? All right, this is the ritual we're going to do. And I guess I've read the most amount of books, but I also don't like what's in the books. So here we go. I feel like when you let yourself be immersed in the crucible, I had to just see what happens and have at least a tentative goal of maybe what we want people to experience. That feels a little bit different than like the outcome has to look like this. It's more like what kind of experience do we want to have? What's our goal at the end of this? Then that drops away the fear and that builds that confidence of well, whatever happens going to happen and it consistently is always like that that that you're satisfied with the end result. For the most part, you might have a few things you might want to tweak for next time. But I feel like that confidence just builds and builds and builds because you've seen it happen. You've seen the process. You know that you put the egg in the pan, you're going to have some sort of fried or cooked egg at the end of it that hopefully will be edible. Right, right. Well, and then whoever comes and experiences your art, they change it too, right? Because their eyes or however they're experiencing your art affect how they take it in, right? So it doesn't, in that way, I mean, it does matter what you've put out. but they're going to shift things also for themselves. And every single person that views the same painting is going to view it slightly differently because of their emotional state, their history, what it reminds them of, what they had for breakfast, whether they're tired or energized, right? And good art to me can also affect all of those parts of myself. So I may come to the art feeling tired or cranky. And if I allow myself to really be with the piece of art, then not only am I changing it, it is changing me. There's this back and forth process that happens, not just between the artist and the media she's working in, but the art itself and the viewer or the receiver of the art. So in that way, it's really a magical process to me. Yeah, it's the continuing conversation, right? You have the initial journey as the creator, and then it has this whole other life, hopefully, right? In that next phase that people are going to, again, come to it, whatever that they have in that moment and explore. it can be what you intended, and it can totally be not what you intended, and you have no control over it. And that's also something to make peace with. Yeah. Well, I want to go back to fear because so many people who are creative people or who want to be creative people who don't believe they are yet have fear, right? I see it all the time and I'm sure you do too. You know, it's the fear of the blank page, the fear of the canvas, the fear of putting something out there and being judged, right? And it's some sense that, wow, I'm offering you a piece of my body, heart, mind and soul, and I have no control over your response to that. Right? And if we allow that into our creative space, it can freeze us up. Right? And so what I have found is the more I practice, like early on when I returned to writing fiction after a long, long hiatus. I started doing what I just called write and release. I'm just writing a story and putting it out there, writing a story and putting it out there. And I tried to not be too attached to people's responses. And that was very liberating because it got me used to just being creative and living through my subconscious and letting the magic move through me. And that gave me the confidence you were talking about earlier. So I always encourage people, know, just dance, just sing, just write, just don't be attached to the outcome. But I'm wondering if you have advice for people that you've worked with in the past on how to get past fear. Well, there's so many different routes where it's coming from. But I feel like, that's my thing today. I'm having a lot of feels today. Feeling the world, it's very limited time right now. And that when it comes to understanding why we're fearful, usually those routes start with something outside of ourselves, like society. Mm-hmm. has told you that you can't make art or artists are only the people who have things in galleries or museums. And that's, again, the rating of everything. And I try to remind all the folks I work with that being able to create is part of the human experience that our ancestors 250,000 years ago in those caves. we're making art and that ability to just even scribble things on the wall and to commit from memory these images of the animals and to tell stories through art. That has been what has evolved us as human beings. To be able to share our memories, to communicate, to express, to offload. And it's like, why would you deny yourself that? Like who wins when you give up your power? And it doesn't have to be good or even great or, you know, wonderful art, it just has to be something that comes through you. And you just let it go through without judging every single detail and freeing up that process. You know, once you start to realize that those fears are not necessarily something that you developed yourself, but that you acquired from people around you or from society, it allows us to kind of shift be like, why, why can't I? Why can't I play with the thing? Go ahead, do the thing. What's going to happen? Like, what do you lose in this? you spent some charcoal. no. Like, it's okay. Make a mess. I like that about, you know, seeing it as a form of reclaiming your power, reclaiming your creative voice. And I also love what you said. You know, I'm thinking the flower doesn't judge every petal. The tree doesn't judge every leaf. They just grow and there's something beautiful and they provide refuge and food and nice smells or pretty images for the rest of us, you know. Like the puffer fish in the bottom of the ocean making its mandala in the sand to attract a mate, it's doing the best it can making its beautiful mandala on the ocean floor. But it's also not judging it. It's just saying, hey, I'm sending out a signal. And I'm hoping you're going to show up and see it so we can connect. So that's beautiful. not judging every little piece, just letting the whole move through us and letting it be, letting it come into existence. You do that also in community with magic. I know you do community-based sigil work where you get a whole room full of people together and you have some symbols and together you fashion a tiny piece of art that is also can become a small or large piece of magic. And I'm wondering how that process is similar or different to your personal creative process. How is this community magic and this community piece of art similar or different? it taps into the same conversation, That, or least the ability to hold a conversation, whether I am having that story that I'm telling myself, or here we are as a group trying to express a story, an outcome, a desire. And I think also within, especially the scissor making process, I mean, that is a deconstruction of how I make my art. And that's how the method comes apart is like, all right. If this is what I'm telling myself in the story and this means this and this means that and this is where if I put them together, it becomes, you know, it becomes a painting, it becomes a story, it becomes a sigil. That other people being able to see that happen and that it's not that mysterious. That you too can do the thing and that you too, you have meanings that you apply to these symbols that we can talk about. the infinite amount of symbolism that can be found in a circle and what it means depending on your age and where you're from and your own history with that symbol. And so with that, conversation starts to happen where they are exploring art with themselves and then realizing here we are as a community, what are we expressing and what are we reflecting because art is also a mirror to society. Right. So with the sigil, what are we trying to solve within society as well? So then it becomes another type of giving voice and giving image to those solutions, or hopefully those solutions. Yeah, I do a lot of sigil work as well, but you and I have different methods, which I love. And, you know, I'm thinking of this right now because we're at the cusp of the year, you know, 2024 to 2025. We're, for listeners, we're talking in January 2025. And so I just created my personal sigil for the year. And I was looking at the symbols I gathered together to form my sigil that speaks to my subconscious and feeds my magic. And you're talking about how you create sigils and how they move through your artwork as well. And you have done something kind of amazing. You've established kind of your own symbolic alphabet, your visual alphabet that does filter through into your paintings. And I'm wondering, when did that start? Have you always had this kind of catalog of your personal symbols that infuse your paintings, or is that something that has developed over the course of years? It definitely goes back to some of my earliest memories. I distinctly remember, I don't know if I was three years old or something like that, but I was very much concerned about trees and ecology. And so I remember writing runes, not that they were actual runes. Right. But runes that stuck on the trees in our yard to protect them. Wow. like, I remember going back later and be like, I don't understand what this is, but I was very, very intent on protecting the trees. And, you know, a few years later, as a nerdy kid in the summer, instead of doing summer camp or whatever, I would do the library camp. And that particular program was often would have some sort of theme. And I remember one year was like ancient Egypt. And so becoming obsessed with hieroglyphics to a point that for a short while I could read some hieroglyphics and then looking at cuneiform and different other things. So I had a great aunt who lived in Arizona. So I'd travel out there and she would show me the different types of pottery that were being produced by the indigenous people in the Southwest and in the jewelry designs and such. I saw this commonality between the hieroglyphics and the cuneiform and these cave paintings and this pottery and the jewelry, like all of that, like I'm seeing this language. And so that really, at that point was already filtering into my artwork once I realized that, you when you go to draw, you know, even a candlestick, right, I'm one of the, I think it was six or seven, right, where you're learning how to sketch out a candlestick holder. And it's by ovals, like you have to make the oval here to catch the shape and then finding the right shape within that. And that informed my whole drawing style. Instead of doing one singular line, I always draw multiple lines and then finding the shapes within that. Mm-hmm. That is cool. I also love that you were out there drawing runes on the trees as a tiny child. As a tiny child, my best friends were this tree in our yard and spiders. I loved the jumping spiders. And also the library summer camp. I'd go around the reading chart, you know, 20 times over the summer. It's so funny how many of us were these weird nerdy neurodivergent little children who ended up becoming magical artists over the course of our lives. all the common threads. all the common threads. So how about dance? What led you to dance? We haven't talked about that yet. We've talked about, you know, words and images so far, but movement. So I remember being interested in gymnastics very early on. mean, was, you know, late 70s, early 80s. So of course you had Mary Lou Retton and all of that happening. But I wasn't very coordinated as a child. And I think that's why I ended up mostly in art classes because they're like, we're sorry, your child is not coordinated. Which, yeah, three or four, you know, I don't know how many children are. So I didn't do a whole lot of movement besides hockey through, you know, grammar school and high school. But when I got to college, one of my dear friends was, she's one or two years ahead of me at RISD, and she was from the Bay Area. So when she graduated, she was back in San Francisco and sent me this message, an email like, my gosh, you have to see these women. They're dancing in the Castro and they're in this parade and it's something called Fat Chance Belly Dance. And, you know, me creating all this goddess imagery and obsessed with, you know, witchcraft and such at that point, too. I was like, let me let me find more about this. Now, tribal style had not hit the East Coast at that time. But, you know, it's like, well, belly dance is belly dance, right? So I found a community college class and Most of the folks who were in the pagan society also signed up for the class. So I did all, you know, being neuro spicy, I did all my research that I could find reading all the books I can about belly dance and such before I even got into the class. So it was probably absolutely insufferable. I got, I'm here, I'm here to learn this movement thing. I'm, you know, be part of this amazing, you know, feminist movement. And it really wasn't, she wasn't that good of a teacher. And it really didn't encapsulate anything really truly about the culture or such, but I was determined. So I found another teacher and eventually did move out to the Bay Area, as you know. And so, but I was just, became obsessed with this sort of movement. And when I finally got to the Bay Area, I ended up studying with someone who did a lot more Turkish and oriental style dance and some Afro belly at that time fusion. And when I finally got to Fat Chance, I was like, like this improv that's full improv. That it's this and I had really become familiar with Turkish music and Egyptian music and all of the aspects at the same time. Also going to the goth club a lot being like there's a lot of goth music that has middle eastern arabic influences and so those merge together and sort of how gothic melee dance happened in my little corner of the world is you know like I had that you know fat chance got me there, but then I went beyond in my own direction In developing dance and really bringing into ritual because you're right away in those classes were like, how do we bring this into our ritual? Like, how do we bring the music in? How do we bring the movement in? So that's where kind of all converged in my late teens, early twenties. That's interesting because of course I was one of the original members of Fat Chance. So that's really funny. Probably. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. I've watched you over the years and your relationship with dance, how you've made it part of your ritual practice, part of your creative self-expression practice. And I pulled away from dance. I mean, I danced as a child. And then started studying belly dance. And that really brought me into my body in a way that gave me access to my emotions that I hadn't had before, which was really helpful. But over time, I some discomfort because of the cultural appropriation aspects, you know, all the stuff we were grabbing cultural stuff from a variety of places and blending it together. in a way that made it its own thing. But I also have weird feelings about it now, you know, and I don't think I could go back to that. So it's interesting to me that you have found a way to maintain a connection with your dance training and dance practice that still feels true to you and who you are. And I don't know if you have any thoughts about that. I don't really have a question. I just know I have discomfort around it now. and you still seem to have found a way to engage with it. pretty much cut off, not to say cut off, but disengaged from the larger belly dance community. Especially, I say like 2016 is when I put Waking Persephone as a large dance festival that was producing to bed. And there were definitely moments throughout, you know, I think part of really what also drew me to belly dances I love you know, I'm enamored with the way the female body moves. And at this point now, recognizing all bodies in all different ways are absolutely fascinating to me. But at that particular point in my late teens, early 20s, kind of really recognizing the queer part of myself, there was that attraction, but there was also this idea of sisterhood. Now, I only have brothers and you know, not really having a lot of good female close friends. I was like, this is where we all come together. And it, you know, very much like Roar RISD wasn't a whole bunch of artists coming together, being supportive. I didn't find that in the dance community. That was really, really hard going through several different toxic levels, especially while was in the Bay Area. But then around it was 2010 is where I really started to I was always studying the folkloric dances because I found them fascinating, but being able to study Algerian dance with Elna Tassout and some other, you know, indigenous dancers, you know, from various regions, that really helped me recognize the core basis of the movements and the energy of it and connecting to the body. And that's kind of was the thing I was looking for, you know, all the way back in 2000. And seeing how, you know, wherever you are in the world, movement is connected to ritual. That didn't have to be the enjoyment and the beauty of dance did not have to be connected to the people in this. it's gonna sound that's gonna sound like the people are comes from no, the people in your dance community. That that didn't determine how good a dancer you are, or what you got out of it. had to be between you and the dance and perhaps you and the story again the story that you're telling through the dance expression. And so you know came back to when I looked at what it was you know the commonality of the movements and what moves me is is the music and really engaging with my body and helping other people find their bodies because just as much as there's fear about making art people have fear about moving their bodies. Yeah. And that is where most of my joy has been in the last almost 10 years now is I love teaching magical practitioners how to move. And that's what I'm not out there saying I'm belly dancer, I'm not out saying I'm doing something that's particularly authentic. I'm exploring myth and ritual through movement. Right. Yeah, when I was teaching magic a lot, I always included movement because of that. You know, it's magic and the craft and paganism and animism. It's embodied, right? And so that includes our bodies. It's not just the body of the earth, the body of the stars. It's each of us. And you know, as I've deepened my comprehension of myself as a genderqueer person, my relationship to body has also deepened and shifted and that and of course, as I've aged, you know. And so that's been a great journey, too. And it's interesting, rather than fighting my body, you know, I've got chronic illness, you know, that I've struggled with. I'm aging, all of that. And instead of fighting all that, finding a way to be in relationship with it has been very potent for me. And I think that also in a strange way helps me in my creative practice, right? Because if I'm not cutting off my body and fighting my body, my body then is present in my creative practice, whether that's writing, making music, movement. any of the things I do. And it's really key and really important. And so many people, I think, fight the physical all the time. And, you know, a lot of that is societal pressure, right? Just like society tells us only special people can be creative when that's nonsense, right? Every being is creative or has the potential to create. And we're all embodied creatures. And so how can we turn that lens back on ourselves and say, love you and I love your existence and I love the fact that you're this animate, rational embodied creature. And what are we going to create today? Yes. Yes. So I always appreciate in your classes where you do include a lot of movement with people. Even the stuff we taught online, know, we, for listeners who don't know, Tempest and I just spent a year long working with the Star Card to reinvoke hope into the world. And even online, you know, we were meeting on Zoom and Tempest would be like, okay, let's get into our bodies now, you know. So I'm also wondering if you have tips around that. For me, one of my primary physical practices is just walking, or getting exercise every single day. I need to do that, or dancing in the kitchen, right? So I'm wondering what that's like for you, and if you have anything you wanna share with people around embodied practice and creativity. To be present in our body, which I think for some people sounds like the antithesis of, know, an embodied practice. Like what does that even mean to be present? It sounds like a lot of work like when they hear meditation, right? Like, no, it's gonna be work. It starts with breath, right? I have my three breaths that I teach. my dance students and my art students and my witchcraft students like everybody that starts with three breaths and the realization of how does your body feel when you take a deep breath and you hold it for three to four seconds and release it and then hold it for six seconds and release it and then hold it up to eight to nine seconds and release it and how it you know it stills your mind and you're suddenly more present of your heartbeat and then to move from just touching your feet on the ground, like to feel your toes and those little nerve endings and all of these, you know, senses that we have that just come from our feet that we're often not paying attention to. We're just moving around and start with that. Like, how do I feel the connection to the earth? What's the temperature of the ground? What does it feel like to shift from side to side, whether I'm standing or sitting? And then to move up through the body. and engage just, you know, from our feet up into our knees and up into our our pelvises and our belly and our chest and extending our arms out so that we are aware of our fingertips in the same way that we're aware of our toes or the balls of our feet and our heels and then up through the top of our head. And I especially enjoy showing that to my witchcraft students because can say here, you want to cast a circle, if you want to create sacred space, you can do that through your body. And you can do it in under, you know, 30 seconds, if you really want to, you know, make it a they want to make it a race, but that ha, I've now trained my body to acknowledge my air, the air and my breath and the water that is my blood and earth and my body and the fire within like all of that. It doesn't take long, it doesn't take a lot of effort. You don't have to be standing, you can be sitting, you can be laying down in order to do it. And that's something you can do in the morning when you wake up. And it can be something that you do at the end of the day. And that little bit of awareness, you know, just to be a little bit more present helps you be more balanced as you're moving through your body, be more aware of the aches and pains and instead of trying to ignore them, engage them. And also, if you're more aware of your body, you're less likely to hit your head on things, which Right? I still do a lot, it's good to try. Yeah, I start and end every day with tuning into my breath and with physical practice, including, you know, candle lighting, a little bit of movement, and then sitting meditation. And I go for a walk every day as part of my creative process. And also, before I sit down to write, I tune into my breath again and I adjust my posture. You know, I do all the things you're talking about. And it does really help. I think my creative process would be a lot more difficult if I didn't have that physical connection. You have to set the temple. And the temple, it takes a little bit of work, it's a little bit of maintenance. But if you do it every day, it's not, you have to clean a whole mess up, hopefully. right. Well, how would you feel about taking us through your three breaths right now? Because that way this is something people could take away for their own creative process. All right, so hopefully if you're not driving, yes, you're doing anything that requires, you know, major machinery or such. Please stop and wait for later. But I imagine that you might be sitting at your desk as you're listening to this or laying down. So where I'd start is to just. As I said, be present in your body, be aware of where your feet are and where your hips are and your chest and kind of open things up. And we are going to do the three breaths. All so the first one, it's only going to think about pulling it and holding it for three to four seconds. So take that deep breath in. and exhale let that breath go And the second breath, once we breathe it in, we're gonna hold for about five to six seconds. Take that breath in. and exhale The last one will hold for about eight to nine seconds. Deep breath from the belly, deep, deep in. And exhale, just let it go. and you are ready to begin whatever it is that you need to begin or perhaps end. Yeah, you're ready to bake that bread or write that sentence or put down a line on a piece of paper. Sing that first note. Yeah, that's great. So, now that we've breathed, I always say magic is the marriage of breath, will, and desire. What does the word magic mean to you, Tempest? magic. It is one of those words where I feel like it still doesn't explain. I wish I had a better word for it. But to me, magic is its connection, its understanding how we can weave the seen and unseen forces of our lives to influence ourselves, those around us, including our environments. and the things that we can't see or even yet predict. Why is that important to you? That's where change happens. Yeah In order for change to happen, you have to give it room to take place. You have to give it a foundation. You have to give it somewhere to go. It is art, right? It's in order. If you have an idea of where you want things to go, you have to be able to shift and be open to the unexpected, the predictable, and everything in between. I love that, thank you. So this has been a great conversation. before we close, I want to ask you one final question, which I also ask everybody who comes on the show. What is your current why? The sassy part of my brain goes, why not? Yeah. into more serious is I to experience and to share. and to unfold the impossible. Mm-hmm. Unfold the impossible. love that. that's for me, I think that's part of both magic and creativity and really just being in this world. Unfold the impossible. Thanks for that. That's beautiful. Thank you. I have to write that down because this popped up from you somewhere. Yeah, that subconscious at work. It's because you took us through the breathing. Yes! We have connected to the other side. Now I should go work on my book. Yeah, yeah, I'm to do more writing when we close here too. So thanks so much for joining me today. This has been a great conversation. Thank you. Always stimulating to talk to you. Yeah, so once again I've been talking with Laura Tempest-Zakroff and you can find their work at lauratempestzachroff.com. That's Z-A-K-R-O-F-F. And as always, you can find me at T-Thorn, not T-Thorn Coyle, just thorncoyle.com. C-O-Y-L-E. And I wish you all a wonderful day. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Tempest around unfolding the impossible and overcoming fear in order to create anyway. We need your creativity. Thanks again to my Patreon supporters. And if you want to join, you can support this podcast at patreon.com backslash ThornCoyle. Thanks as always for listening and have a magical creative day.