Telling stories in wool, fibre and herbs.
Crafting a bridge to intuition and memory through the folk tradition of the spirit doll and the tarot.
Welcome back to the craft
Don’t worry if you feel you have lost your way - your hands will remember.
Traditional folk crafts such as the spirit doll and learning to see life as an oracle through the tarot, are daily practices that can help you to feel more creative, intuitive and calm.
Working with nature & making slowly by hand to create a spirit doll, we can make an etheric pilgrimage back to the spirits and lands of our lineage to recover what has been lost, let go of what is no longer needed and find new ways to tell our own stories in wool and fibre and herbs.
Meet the maker
Hello, I’m Julia Inglis, the founder & maker at Sacred Familiar.
I created Sacred Familiar in 2007 after being nudged by my Tarot clients to share classes to help them connect to their own intuition and creativity - I’m glad they did! In 2012 I was perimenopausal and burnt out. I moved to the forest and began a kind of spirit apprenticeship that led me to fibre and textiles and the folk tradition of the spirit doll. The dolls began to travel to people all around the world.
I also began to travel, making pilgrimages with spirit dolls to sacred sites and places of forgotten or hidden stories such as the Magdalene Laundries and sites of witch persecution. We all have a story to tell and ancestral gifts waiting to be explored. Let’s slow down and create.
Begin your journey
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Begin your journey *
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Swan Ancestral Journey Sessions
A tarot reading and journeying session to receive a gentle release from binding ancestral beliefs such as vows of poverty, chastity, silence & obedience. These can also include family fables, oaths and promises to go ‘unseen’.
Spirit Doll Foundation Course
A 10 week online course with Julia Inglis discovering the folk tradition of the spirit doll & needle felting. Gathering plants and herbs to create a vessel to be a bridge to your ancestors.
By Star and Sea Tarot Pilgrimage Course
In By Star and Sea, you will explore the Tarot mysteries in a 6 month pilgrimage. Sharing over 35 years of Tarot practice and teaching, combining ancestral threads & Tarot spreads inspired by the mystery of the pilgrimage.
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To anyone anxious about doing the courses I would say jump it and enjoy it! The emphasis is on working at your own speed to release personal insight and creativity and Julia’s wisdom, skill and expertise is to be seen as guidance and a portal to your own experience. It’s fascinating, it’s fun and it releases wonderful creativity. I’m just looking forward to where the next course might lead ... !
Liz Talbot, England
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The session I had with Julia was the key I needed to unlock something that has held me back for eons. Always, I've hit an impenetrable wall that controlled my life: always I felt something pushing me to self destruction. Finally........ I don't feel it anymore. It feels so good !
Marie Cameron, Australia
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The Tarot Pilgrimage has been an especially deep process and very rich in so many ways. The lessons you have created were so beautifully laid out to follow. What is so striking is how you have crafted a way to "properly introduce" me to the Spirits of the Tarot Cards. Thru reading, listening and watching the videos, practicing the spreads…. I felt I came to know the Cards as I would get to know a person.
Joann Volmer, USA
Journal of a Doll Pedlar
Stories of memory and textiles and folk tradition. Ancestral and past life recollections and spirit doll tales from the road on a doll pedlar’s pilgrimage.
Begin your pilgrimage
Sacred Familiar Spirit Doll Course
A 10 week online course exploring the folk tradition of the spirit doll through a live class with Sacred Familiar - Julia Inglis, practical pre-recorded videos, wool and fibre craft, herblore, tarot readings and stories to assist you on an etheric pilgrimage to rediscover your personal folklore, creativity and intuitive process.