Originally a "received vision" by Aurah, the Oz mandala is a custom-drawn map of the Land of Oz by Dallas artist Cathey Miller, appearing on the back of every Living Mandala of Oz card. At its center is the Emerald City, surrounded by the four regions of Oz: Quadling Country to the south, Gillikin Country to the north, Winkie Country to the west, and Munchkin Country to the east. The colors follow those found throughout L. Frank Baum’s original books and form the rainbow sequence of the deck. The design is a hybrid: part yantra, part mandala, with the central point, hexagram, and petals suggesting the interplay of opposites within a unified whole. The mandala is therefore more than a map. It is a way of seeing Oz as an outer landscape and an inner one. A map of Oz becomes a map of the self.

HOW THE DECK IS ENCODED
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  • Card Meaning – Each card listing in the booklet opens with a meaning: a short, distilled paragraph that captures the energetic message of the card and what it signifies when drawn.
  • Card Description – Each card listing in the booklet also includes a  formal description: a factual account of the character or implement’s role within the Oz universe.
  • Correspondences – Correspondences reveal how the symbolic dots  connect. These links help you see the deeper story behind each card. The Living Mandala of Oz deck features several “correspondences” for the purpose of deeper understanding.
    • Chakra + Color – The cards are first organized by color, and each color is linked to one of the chakras of the subtle body. A “chakra” is an Indian term that refers to a “vortex of light and energy” at specific regions that correspond back to the human body.       
    • Archetypes – Every character card is paired with an archetypal  frequency. You may not recognize a minor character from later in the Oz series, but your subconscious will resonate with the  archetypal pattern they carry.
    • Astrological Elements – Astrology is the study of the mandala of the heavens, a wheel of archetypal forces moving through time and  space. It offers a powerful lens for understanding characters, motives, patterns, and destiny.  For each character card, I’ve mused on their Sun, Moon, and Rising signs. For Magical Implements, I’ve assigned each a Celestial Body. For Chariots of Ascension, I’ve linked each with an astrological aspect (square, sextile, conjunction, trine, opposition). 
    • Enneagram Types for Characters – The Enneagram is the study of nine personality types. Most people will tend to distill into one main type that they would recognize themself in. Assigning an Enneagram type to each character gives a bit more context and color to an otherwise unknown subplot character and a deeper understanding of a more zeitgeist level character (like Dorothy, for example). Understanding oneself and others in this framework can generate compassion toward each other as we understand each other better through these characters. 
  • A word about esoterica not encoded in this deck – I chose not to encode the deck with numerology, as it would serve no meaningful purpose beyond ordering the cards, something already handled through color-coding and alphabetical arrangement. I’ve also avoided assigning the four (or five) classical elements. While one could argue that linking the cards with chakras naturally implies elemental correspondence, those analogies don’t hold consistently when you zoom in on the nuances of each character. There is an uneven distribution across the four cardinal directions of Oz. For instance, there isn’t an equal balance of “good” and “wicked” witches along any given axis, nor is there symmetry in the number of cards tied to each realm; there are only three cards in Quadling Country (red), while Gillikin Country (violet) contains more than its proportional share. What can I say? An Adept works as best she can with what she has been given. Within the creative constraints set by a man writing over a century ago, I’ve done my best to bring these beloved characters to life in my own clear way. Shrug.