It’s always a great thrill to create a new product, and the long process of designing my mandala oracle deck was indeed a huge but very enjoyable challenge. From start to finish I think I was working on it for almost 3 years.

For those of you who don’t know my cards, I created a colourful deck showcasing 52 of my silk mandala paintings from over the years. The birthing process was a lot of fun, and I worked with large orange prototype cards for quite some time, all the while fine tuning the messages and descriptions as I went from reading to reading. Some images didn’t make it into the final deck. Some titles were discarded. Others were changed with the printing of the second batch. And so on….

When I did eventually get to publish my first run, I was open to just seeing how it was received. I remember sharing the process and managing to have a large number of presales on Facebook, which was so amazing. It went a long way to financing the deck. A big thank you to all of you who came on board at that stage of the project. Within a year my first batch was sold, so I decided to print a second run.

Then I sort of let go and just allowed the deck to do its own thing. I sold the last decks wistfully, finding it hard to release them, realising that all good things must come to an end.

Over the next year, however, I began to receive inquiries into whether or not I would do another run of mandala decks. My initial reaction was to tell people that it was under wraps and if ever I decided to proceed, I would let them know. But putting them away on a shelf didn’t seem to be working.

Total strangers had found out about my deck on the internet or through friends who had bought them, and they were now wanting to have a deck of their own. I began to realise that I was being asked to make them available. And so I did.

I arranged for another batch to be printed and then started to put them back out for sale. I trusted they would find their forever homes.

And now fast forward to the present moment. Today I received an order from New Zealand for another deck. It never ceases to amaze me how people feel drawn to and find the cards. I have sold many to readers who have been using them with their clients. I have also sold some to customers who have come back and bought more for their friends and family. Almost all of them people I have never met personally, or even known before they placed an order.

Basically this sweet card deck has just taken on a life of its own and has shown me the way. And there’s something very lovely about that. I always knew it was going to be created, but I just didn’t know how and what it would look like. It really made itself, and I have loved the journey with it.