From the bookshelf

The Muskoka Oracle.

Every cottage has a road you know by heart. Come round the last bend, see one window lit, and you know someone kept the stove going. Inside, on the shelf under the window, there's a deck of cards: a year on the lake, from ice-out to first snow.

Pull a card

How to use it

The Muskoka Oracle Deck box: full navy, with an engraved night road through the rock cuts on the lid

What it is

Thirty-three cards, four seasons.

Every card is a real Muskoka place or moment: the first loon call, glass water, the red maple, the woodstove on a January night. Spring, summer, autumn and winter, eight cards each, and The Radiant outside the seasons. These are renders of the cards, not photos of printed cards.

Card 1, Ice Out, a spring card. Its line: What held you is letting go.
1 · Ice OutSpring · “What held you is letting go.”
Card 3, First Loon Call, a spring card. Its line: Call out. Something is listening for you.
3 · First Loon CallSpring · “Call out. Something is listening for you.”
Card 10, Glass Water, a summer card. Its line: Be still enough to see.
10 · Glass WaterSummer · “Be still enough to see.”
Card 17, The Red Maple, a autumn card. Its line: You're allowed to blaze.
17 · The Red MapleAutumn · “You're allowed to blaze.”
Card 24, The Early Dark, a autumn card. Its line: The dark comes early. Light your one window.
24 · The Early DarkAutumn · “The dark comes early. Light your one window.”
Card 30, Woodstove Glow, a winter card. Its line: The fire you keep keeps you.
30 · Woodstove GlowWinter · “The fire you keep keeps you.”

How to use it

One card, or four.

One card

  1. Pull one card. Shuffle, then turn over a single card.
  2. Read its line. Every card carries one line to sit with. Read it twice and see what it brings to mind.
  3. Then the guidebook. Look the card up for its longer reading: a page or so on what the place or moment can mean.

Nobody here will tell you what your card means. Read it, see what it brings to mind, and put the kettle on.

Lake Reading four cards, laid from the dock outward

Lay four cards the way you look out from the end of the dock: the first at your feet, the last overhead. Read them from near to far.

  1. 1The DockEarth

    Where you stand. What is holding you up right now, the boards you can count on even if you've stopped noticing them.

  2. 2Open WaterWater

    What is between here and there. It may be cold, or moving, or deeper than it looks. This card shows what it's made of.

  3. 3The Far ShoreAir

    Where it leads if you keep paddling. Not a promise, just a landmark to steer by.

  4. 4The SkyFire

    Over all of it. The thing that stays the same whichever shore you're on. Look at this one last, and longest.

If The Radiant turns up, put the book down and step outside for a minute. Then read the other three again.

Pick a card

Turn one over.

Think of what's on your mind, or nothing at all. Shuffle the deck and turn over one card, with its line and the guidebook's reading. Your last card waits here, face up, when you come back in the same browser.

Pull a card

The details

Made to be kept.

33 cards70 × 121 mm, on smooth card stock. Original Muskoka artwork and one line on every card.
A guidebookA longer reading for every card, and the Lake Reading spread.
A navy boxWith an engraved night road on the lid.
Made in RosseauDesigned at the top of Lake Rosseau, Muskoka, and printed in small runs.

Coming soon The deck isn't on sale yet.