Discover your inner healer, your wise one,
your magician and your goddess

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"The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness." (Llewelyn Vaughan-Lee)

"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

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 23 teachings, participants are guided through embodied meditations, journaling, creative exercises, and somatic inquiry. Each lesson moves between grounding in the body, understanding your ancestral story, and unraveling the deep teachings and wisdom of the Major Arcana. Together we will be unveiling the mysteries of the Tarot, inviting students to encounter the cards as a personal counsel. As Leonora Carrington observed: each Arcana is a mirror and not a truth in itself. The cards 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, tend to this sacred space, maintain a journal, and meet each archetype through imagination, movement, 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, and transformation.

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PAYMENT
1 payment of £1,275.00. (Early Bird until August 20 2026: £1,150.00)
Or 3 payments of £425.00 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.
[email protected]

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These 23 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 into: 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.
 
Tarot continues to be associated with divination. Here, it is approached as something older and quieter: an ancestral practice. A bridge between memory and emergence. A way of reading the patterns that move through us and around us.

“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: Preparation, establish an altar/sacred space, and set 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 1-7: Arc I - Sept 15 – Dec 22, 2026 – Formation of Self (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. 

Sessions 8- 14: Arc II - Jan 5 – Mar 30, 2027– Inner Transformation (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 exploring: Strength=movement/courage → Hermit=solitude → Fortune=fate → Balance=justice → Hanged Man=surrender → Death=death/rebirth → Temperence=integration.

Session 15-21: Arc III – Apr 13 – Jul 6, 2027 - Collective Awakening (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.

Final Session 22: Completion of your journey. We gather to close the circle, create a collective reading. This final session is a ceremony of integration honouring the path walked, the figures encountered, and the council that has formed over these months.

Every session will be recorded if you can't make it.

Who This is For:
Witches, ancestral and wisdom keepers, writers, artists, 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

"Anna's sessions were warm, welcoming and friendly. We were invited to step into our intuition to guide us through questions and challenges in our lives. It was a powerful weekend for shifting old patterns and we left with the tools continue with this work going forward. Thank you!" Lynne, 2020

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Woven into all of these sessions are stories, recipes, self-care, invocations and more...
There will also be a member's website dedicated to the course to capture thoughts, homework and more.

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Anna Walker, PhD is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and body 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 personal symbolism, mythic imagination, and ancestral relationship. Alongside this, she has developed a body of ancestral practice work drawing on 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, always returning to the same question: how can I be of service?

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Terms and Conditions: Refund & Cancellation Policy

These workshops are intentionally small (10 -12 people), which allows for deep, focused work and personal attention.
Payment: bank to bank or Wise. For details [email protected] or complete the form above.

Cancellations Before the Workshops Begin:

• Up to 21 days before the first session:
  Full refund minus a £25 admin fee (or refund of 1st instalment minus £25 if on a payment plan).
  
• 14–20 days before the first session:
  50% refund (or refund of the first instalment minus £25, whichever is less).
• Less than 14 days before the first session:
  No refund, unless your place can be filled from a waiting list (in which case, a partial refund may be possible).

After the Workshops Have Started:

• Once the first session has taken place, no refunds will be issued for that season. This includes deposits, or those paying by instalments — the full amount remains due.
  
• If something unexpected and significant arises (illness, family emergency, etc.), please get in touch. I’ll always try to work something out where possible — whether that’s deferring your place, transferring to future workshops, or offering partial credit.

Low-Income/Sliding Scale Participants:

• If we’ve agreed a reduced fee or alternative arrangement, the same cancellation policy applies proportionally — unless we’ve explicitly agreed otherwise in advance.

Already Formed Groups or Custom Dates:

• Custom groups are booked case-by-case with bespoke agreements. If you’re organising a private group or seeking alternative timing, we’ll agree on a plan (including refund terms) together.

Life Happens, If you're unsure about your availability or something major shifts in your life, please reach out as soon as you can. These workshops are about care, curiosity, and growth — I’m always open to dialogue.