Cycles of Creation: From The Heart of Matter to Living Well & Haunting Hard

As we come into the final days of funding for The Heart of Matter: The Orion Gateway Oracle, it’s becoming clear that this campaign won’t quite reach its goal this round — and that’s okay.

Creative work has its own rhythm. Sometimes it calls us to expand outward; other times, it asks for patience, rest, and recalibration. The Heart of Matter Deck has always been about alignment, reflection, and the cycles that shape us. It’s an oracle born from the stars, but rooted in the human heart. This moment isn’t an ending — it’s a pause, a breath between beats. The next wave of funding will open in February, with pre-launch beginning in January.

This time will give space for refinement and reconnection, and for the project to return even stronger, brighter, and more resonant.

While The Heart of Matter Deck reaches toward intuition and cosmic understanding, my next creation embraces the opposite side of the spectrum — chaos, humor, and the wonderfully unhinged side of being human. Living Well & Haunting Hard: A Game of Cosmic Absurdity, Karmic Chaos, and Unhinged Enlightenment is a satire about life, death, and everything in between. It’s a board game where players collect karma, lose sanity, and die laughing — quite literally. You’ll draw from three decks — Crossroads, Fate, and Sanity — as you navigate six unpredictable life stages. Some players make it through; others find themselves in Ghost Mode, haunting with purpose. It’s darkly funny, strangely healing, and, like The Heart of Matter Deck, rooted in the same creative pulse — exploring what it means to grow, stumble, laugh, and start again. Pre-launch begins in April, with the full launch planned for May 2026.

Both The Heart of Matter Deck and Living Well & Haunting Hard explore what it means to be alive — one through reflection and resonance, the other through absurdity and laughter. They’re two halves of the same cosmic conversation: one whispering wisdom from the stars, the other cackling from the afterlife. I’m endlessly grateful to everyone who’s followed, supported, and believed in these projects. Creation is never a straight path — it’s a spiral — and each turn reveals something new. Here’s to February’s renewal for The Heart of Matter Deck, and to the strange, beautiful, haunted adventure still to come.

—Amy Csordas