The Wisdom of the Trees

Jane Struthers and artist Meraylah Allwood built their forty-card oracle on an observation the review states plainly: nearly every culture, past and present, has recognized trees as belonging to higher powers, from Artemis's sacred groves outward. The deck works that cross-cultural record rather than a single tradition's, each tree carrying its actual mythological portfolio, which gives it more scholarly spine than the general run of tree decks and a wider map than the ogham-based Celtic Tree Oracle elsewhere in this catalog. Forty cards of individual trees, read one at a time, suit the material's natural rhythm; trees are not in a hurry and neither is the deck. Allwood's illustration keeps each species recognizable, so the botany and the mythology arrive together. It suits tree people and forest walkers, comparative-mythology readers, and practitioners who want their nature oracle documented across cultures rather than invented. Readers wanting one coherent tradition's system should choose the ogham deck; this one is the world's grove.