Animal Symbolism in the Tarot

From pale horses and crayfish to foxes, ibis and cats, the tarot's animals reveal latent meanings. Enjoy a sojourn in the tarot's symbolic zoo in this three-part livestream workshop.

In this workshop, we'll travel through time with the tarot as our magic carpet. The cards will take us on a cross-cultural journey through the kingdom of beasts, chimeras and theriomorphic gods. From Ovid's Metamorphosis to European folktales, we'll look at animals as a repository of symbolic and often magical attributes, examining these through a variety of card divination systems. 

We'll reimagine the cards through the lens of animal behaviour to reshape our understanding of the tarot. Through practical exercises, meditation and hands-on experimentation, we'll rewild our tarot eye and awaken our instincts as tarot readers.

This 3-part online workshop includes:

Class 1: Animals as seers

• Animals in historical tarot decks
• Divination and the natural world
• Animal gods and their worship

Class 2: Animals as teachers

• Allegorical and their symbolic meanings
• Zoological myth and their teaching
• Unnatural history and fantasized fauna in the tarot

Class 3: Practice class

• Reading like a beast: an instinctive way of reading cards
• Rewilding the basics of tarot
• Animal Tarot: experimenting with zoo-centric decks

Book now to discover the tarot as a spectacular cabinet of curiosities that arranges esoteric teachings from the natural world through the arcanas.

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You will need:

• Please have with you a tarot deck of your choice.
  

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This workshop will be recorded. You will find the recording links in your College Account within two working days from the event - an email will alert you when they are ready. These recordings will be available for replay for three months following the event. Please see our terms for more information.

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Previous participants say:

"This was such a great course - Laetitia Barbier has a wonderful energy and prompted so much insight that I found the cards really coming to life in new ways and connecting with them in ways I hadn't allowed myself to do so before!"

"I always enjoy Laetitia Barbier's workshops as she approaches Tarot from an unusual perspective and I always learn something new."

"I am a seasoned tarot reader, and Laetitia's lessons added to my explorations and help coalesce the knowledge I have."

"Brilliant and such an interesting perspective and presentation. I learnt loads look forward to doing more classes with Laetitia in the future."

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