The Fool’s Journey

Course Description

This course explores through expressive therapy and several Major Arcana of the tarot how the Fool is appearing in your life itself and what it needs to move forward.

Creative Art therapist Karen Wallace takes you on an explorative journey and offers exercises to learn more about the Fool and the way it shows up in your life. 

As the first of the 22 major arcana archetypes, the Fool archetype starts us on our hero’s/heroine’s journey. This course explores the Fool: his risks, challenges, and potential. Karen will also look at this archetypal part of ourselves through the perspective of Internal Family Systems. And lastly she invites us to reflect on how our experiences with the Fool traumatized or enriched and deepened our journey to self, and in what direction healing might be found. 

Take a tarot journey with us to explore how the Fool can remind us to wake up, leap when we need to keep our curiosity, awe, and wonder alive. We will use art therapy to express what arises. Please have a tarot deck if you have one, a piece of paper, a pen and/or colored pencils. 

The classes are available now.

This course is ideal if

• Explore the richness of the Fool Archetype.
• Connect with the Fool’s energy and be inspired along the way.
• Reflect on past experiences of the Fool Archetype in your life, where you might have been hurt and what you need to move forward in your life.
• Learn how art therapy exercises and the tarot can be used for your own personal journey.

Course Overview

Class 1 Fool’s Journey: Authenticity vs. Attachment 

The Fool archetype reflects back to us our true, unique, and genuine self. This archetype holds our capacity to shape our life by knowing our gut feelings and honoring them. But we are also hard wired to attach, and our need to belong or attach to others and the world can come into  conflict with staying true to our authentic self. We will use tarot as a projecting technique designed to increase our insight based on imagery and metaphor. We will also explore the cliffs that we are ready to leap from, thinking about leaping from, and/or afraid to leave. 

 

Class 2 The Fool’s Journey: Internal Family Systems, Working with our Fool Part  

In this class Karen discusses the Fool from the perspective of Internal Family Systems. She looks at how the Fool appears when we take on the roles of Manager, Firefighter or Exile within the family.

Every archetype can be experienced in both healthy and unhealthy ways. It can be an energy and force in your psyche that allows you to expand and deepen, or it can hold on to feelings and stories that were traumatizing or painful.  If you experience the Fool as being a playful, free, open-minded part of you, then it has  internalized as a healthy, joyful part. If your inner Fool was shamed, made fun of or abused, you may have internalized your inner Fool as dangerous. It may manifest as an addicted part, drawn to living on the edge. It can also manifest as a fearful part that never allows you to take risks or explore.

 

Class 3  The Fool’s Journey: Taking the Leap 

As we travel through the archetypes in the major arcana, we follow a journey of enlightenment. The Fool grows and transforms from a unique naïve being, to a wise aware and awake soul. The Fool starts the journey by leaping from the cliff, which is symbolic of entering the realm of the mundane and starting the journey of becoming. Join us to explore the leaps, twists, and turns on your Fool’s journey. We will trace the leaping off spots in the Tarot journey and explore how each one takes us deeper into the spiral of becoming. We will explore the Fool’s cliff, The Hermit’s fork in the road, The Hanged One’s Reversal, the Fall from the Tower, and finally reaching the spiral in the World card. 

 

Class 4 Live class

The live class gave participants the chance to share experiences and reflections. It also offered the opportunity to ask questions.  

 

By the end of this course you will

• Relate to energy of the Fool and your journey of becoming
• Notice the inner dynamics related to the Fool (like risk taking, leap of faith, unhealed blocks and experiences) and get an understanding of what’s needed to move forward in your own journey.
• Use the tarot playfully for healing and inspiration