Longtime readers of this blog know of Dana O’Driscoll’s splendid work as permaculturist, author, artist, Archdruid of AODA, blogger at The Druid’s Garden and dedicated “walker of her talk”. It’s a pleasure to explore the rich harvest of this deck and companion book she has illustrated with her own eco-prints, and as importantly, put it to work in my own practice. [You can view images of every card, read more about this 12-year project, and find ordering information here at her blog: https://thedruidsgarden.com/treelore-oracle ]
Direct and to the point, O’Driscoll sets forth the purpose of the Oracle and Compendium in her Introduction:
One of the most important things we can do to address the challenges of today’s age is to build authentic, lasting and meaningful nature-based spiritual practices that are localized to our own ecosystems. We can build deep connections with that land and take up our traditional ancestral role in tending and honoring nature. The nature-based spiritual, divinatory, and magic practices we use are more meaningful if they are rooted in our local ecosystems (pg. 7).
A relationship with the trees of one’s home region is a pre-eminent Druid practice. This gorgeous oracle deck invites both touch and meditation, which if I reflect for another moment is another kind of touch, but with the inward senses. The trees in my yard that I know and work with — black walnut, mountain ash, hemlock, white pine, various oaks — connect with me in ways that Dana’s book highlights for each of the 35 species she covers here. And with the tools she provides, you can extend your work with your own local trees, using the techniques she suggests for your own locale.
The Compendium’s subtitle expands on the material O’Driscoll offers readers here — “Ecology, History, Lore and Divination”. But the author is no ideologue, and finds her own wisdom to share:
One important thing to note is that trees — just like people — have multiple faces and aspects of personality. Thus, a single tree can hold different and sometimes contradictory meanings and no tree represents only one thing … I think it’s useful to consider tree personalities like a person: each person you meet has different sides: perhaps their work persona, the person they are with their closest friends, the person they are with their family, themselves as a parent, and so forth. Many of the trees are like this — they are multifaceted. They may choose to show you different meanings than I have, and that’s OK (pg. 11).
While anyone can deploy the Tree Oracle as a stand-alone divination deck, making deep use of the companion Compendium allows for a multitude of different ways to literally internalize the wisdom that a divinatory spread offers a querent. With recipes, crafts, symbolism, history and more, a reader can work towards profound connections with “neighbor trees”. We eat the nuts from the Black Walnut in our back yard, sharing bags of nuts with friends, watching the rhythms of the tree in productive and spare years. We use the oils to preserve wood surfaces, enjoy the red and black squirrels contending for their share of the nuts, learn more about other moisture-loving trees nearby (like our old willow, at least 100 years old) who aren’t put off by the infamous juglone the walnut secretes to regulate its own environment and drive off pests. We connect with our magical mountain ash in our front yard, which puts on a show in every season, flowering white each spring, fruiting in summer, turning bright red in autumn, and feeding birds in winter. I gather fallen and dead twigs, with permission, and craft them as ogham staves for friends. And I’m learning to make songs to sing to my trees, as one among many ways to connect, with new themes that O’Driscoll’s oracle and compendium suggest.
A Druid Way 