The Celtic Book of the Dead is a 42-card oracle based on the ancient Irish story of the Voyage of Maelduin, given here in a new translation by Caitlín Matthews.

The locations of Maelduin’s voyage form the route toward the Blessed Isles that lie west of Ireland; for him, and for the reader, each island reveals the wonders and challenges as he sails nearer to the heart of the Celtic Otherworld. As the islands reveal gifts that can be resources for the human condition, so too, solutions and strategies for unknotting life’s tangles may be found. The cards have three uses: to divine the path ahead as a guide to the soul's direction, as a way of meditation for personal and environmental healing, and as a Book of the Dead for the dying.

This oracle offers a grown-up method of divination and meditation, based on an ancient northwestern European tradition.

Caitlín Matthews, illustrated by Danuta Mayer 160pp | 42 art cards | Tarot cards