Meet your sacred council
meeting the major arcana as ancestral guides
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"Anna’s ancestral sessions are an invitation into another way of being in the world. Through the meditation sessions and introduction to different artists and writers she creates a safe space in which to experiment and share. The sessions were incredibly thought provoking and have lingered with me since, triggering new thoughts and ideas." Jo 2026 |
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For too long, tarot has been treated as a fortune-telling trick or occult secret. This course proposes something older and quieter. Meeting Your Sacred Council: The Major Arcana as Ancestral Guides approaches the 22 figures of the Major Arcana as living archetypal presences — patterns that move through family, bloodline, body, and memory. The Empress in your grandmother's hands as she kneaded bread. The Hermit in your great-uncle's long silences. The Tower in those who survived collapse and rebuilt. These teachings will draw upon philosophy, symbology, body-based practice, and ancestral healing to open doorways into each card as a meeting place between self and lineage. Across 24 teachings, participants are guided through embodied meditations, journaling, myths and stories, creative exercises, and somatic inquiry. Each lesson moves between the body, understanding your ancestral story, and unravelling the deep teachings and wisdom of the Major Arcana. Together we will be unveiling the mysteries of the Tarot, encountering the cards as personal counsel. As Leonora Carrington observed: each card is a mirror and not a truth in itself. The Arcana speak differently to each person, filtered through your unique lineage and your body's wisdom and lived experience. The course is experiential and invitational. Together we will build an altar, maintain an online journal and archive, and meet each archetype through writing, drawing, imagination, movement, storytelling, reflection, and creative play. By the final session, participants will have encountered their symbolic council: 22 ancestral presences felt in the body, and understood as guides for healing, creativity, storytelling and transformation. "My professional performance work can be divided into two halves. Before I worked with Anna Walker, and afterwards. Her work has pushed me down into the dark earth and lifted me to the heavens. Grounded, systematic, creative and powerful — she has freed me up to enter every character, every landscape, and feel all of it for real." Stacey, 2026 |
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PAYMENT 1 payment of £1,080.00. (Early Bird until August 25 2026: £972.00) Or 3 payments of £360.00 payable August, October and December. Groups are small and intimate - £150.00 deposit required to secure your place. (Terms and conditions at the foot of the page) Bank details available upon request, I also accept payment via Wise. Contact me for alternative payment arrangements and sliding scale. [email protected] |
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These 24 teachings arise from fifty years of living alongside the Tarot. My intention is to share the depth and subtlety of each card, and to open doorways to access new aspects of yourself, new relationships with the symbolic world, and a deeper recognition of ancestral pathways. Alejandro Jodorowsky spoke of learning the tarot by sleeping beside the cards, carrying them, speaking as them, imagining what lay beyond their visible surface. This course extends a similar invitation: to encounter the tarot as a living presence, to approach it with curiosity, attentiveness, and care, and to discover what begins to speak when you listen.
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“Anna created a safe space for us and guided us gently explaining the archetypes and taking us through fun exercises that gave me a lot of insights into my inner world. I left the workshop feeling lighter, more comfortable in my own skin and a new trusting relation with my intuition. I really loved it! it was a fun relaxing insightful weekend." Tamsin, 2020 |
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Course Breakdown
Session 0: Sept 15th 2026 - Preparation, by establishing an altar/sacred space, and setting a clear intention for the journey ahead. We will explore what it means to enter sacred time, and space, create a personal ritual container, and begin the practice of deep listening that will carry us through all that follows. Sessions 1-8: Arc I - Sept 29 – Jan 05, 2027 – Formation of Self, The Ego (0–7) "Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?" (Mary Oliver) Seven teachings move through the foundations of conscious life — the emergence of self from pure potentiality, the discovery of will and inner knowing, and the gradual forming of identity through body, structure, tradition, and the great crossroads of choice. These are the cards that ask: who am I, and how did I come to be? We will be exploring - The Fool: potential → Magician: will → Priestess: intuition → Empress: embodiment → Emperor: structure → Hierophant: tradition → Lover/s: choice → The Chariot: willpower/mastery Stories: Parsifal, Loki/ Cerridwen & the Cauldron/ Brigid/ Fionn/ Eros & Psyche... Sessions 9-15: Arc II - Jan 19th – April 13th, 2027– Initiation, The Soul (8–14) "In the middle of the journey of our life / I came to myself within a dark wood / where the straight way was lost." (Dante Alighieri) The second arc turns inward and asks more of us. Here we meet the more demanding teachers — those who require us to slow down, to sit with what is difficult or uncomfortable, to recognise and look at old patterning. From the quiet courage of Strength to the mystery of Death and the steadying grace of Temperance, these sessions invite a deeper reckoning with the hidden self. We will be accessing- Strength: movement/courage → Hermit: solitude → Fortune: fate → Balance: justice → Hanged Man: surrender → Death: death/rebirth → Temperance: integration. Stories: Beauty + the Beast/ Myrddin Wyllt/ Ma'at and the weighing of the heart/ Odin on Yggdrasil/ Calleach... Session 16-22: Arc III – Apr 27th – Aug 3rd, 2027 - Collective Awakening, The Spirit (15–21) "My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed / I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, / with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." (Adrienne Rich) The third arc widens the lens beyond the personal. These are the great forces that move through individuals, families, and generations — shadow, collapse, healing, descent, illumination, and finally, completion. Moving from the grip of The Devil to the wholeness of The World, we encounter the archetypal patterns that shape not just our own lives but the lives of those who came before us. We will be uncovering the wisdom of The Devil: shadow → The Tower: collapse → The Star: healing → The Moon: unconscious descent → The Sun: illumination → Judgement: awakening → The World: completion. Stories: Faust/ Da Derga's Hostel + Ragnarök/ The Star Money/ The Selkie/ Lugh/ Cauldron of Rebirth/ Odysseus' homecoming... Final Session: August 3rd - Completion of your journey. We gather to close the circle, create a collective reading and give thanks. This final session is a ceremony of integration honouring the path we have walked together, the figures we encountered, and the council that has formed over these months. Throughout this course we will create space to foster your intuition, harness your 'gut' feelings, and encourage your 'sixth' sense, expanding your listening, seeing, and feeling capabilities. Throughout the year, I will also be running additional drop in + practice sessions. For more information: DROP IN FRIDAYS |
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Who This is For:
Writers, artists, witches, ancestral and wisdom keepers, creatives, storytellers, and anyone yearning to walk a pathway of healing, self-reflection, reconnection and imaginative possibility. You might be: - A healer drawn to myth, land, embodied presence - A creative storyteller wanting to hone your skills and develop new telling or writing practices - An artist or writer feeling stuck or ready to deepen your practice in community and through ancestral dialogue - A Tarot card reader or wisdom keeper seeking to bring more embodied knowledge into your practice |
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Anna Walker, PhD is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, educator and psychotherapist with over thirty years of practice at the intersection of ancestral wisdom, embodied healing, and creative inquiry. She holds a PhD from Plymouth University and is the founder of Arts Research & Ecology (ARE), an organisation exploring the relationship between creative practice, ecology, and collective memory. Through ARE she hosts ongoing practice-research gatherings, publishes an annual journal, and creates spaces where art, nature, and ancestral knowing meet.
Anna has been working with tarot since childhood and has facilitated tarot workshops since 2012, developing her personal approach rooted in storytelling, personal symbolism, mythic imagination, and ancestral relationship. She draws upon Celtic mythology, folk lore, family constellation work, and somatic approaches to work with trauma and lineage healing. She is also a professional storyteller and runs creative ancestral practice workshops. Her work has taken her from community arts to academic research to international facilitation. |