In my experience, part of the spiritual processes of evolving beyond the limitations that are bestowed upon us by our parents, peers, and society comes with terms and conditions. One of those tenets is, whatever no longer works for you will be scythed out of your life when it no longer serves you, like it or not. If you’re fortunate enough to get a warning (like I had when my gut screamed NO! NO! NO! when I handed a friend NZD $1500 to do cover illustrations for my books. That friend being a methamphetamine addict who spent my money on his beloved addiction) you need to listen INTENTLY.
I spent months asking where my covers were, then eventually a confidante of my friend (no longer a friend) told me where my money had gone. I never saw a cent of it returned, and he never admitted to stealing it. He shamelessly blamed it on someone else who had bought the drug for them to use. I don’t know what happened to Sidney Bell, but his sickness had well and truly taken hold when he left Wellington after burning another connection to feed his habit.
Here, Brooke, my ex-partner came into her intuitive glory. She had a friend, Jade, who was a tutor at the Whanganui Design School, she asked Jade if there were any design students I could work with. Jade’s reply was, ‘let’s make the cover illustrations a third-year student assignment.’ This is how I met Amber Coubrough, with who I have worked since 2008. If you go through the carousel on the website homepage you will see a historical narrative of Amber’s artistic craft. Her interpretation of my requests for cover visions has created a style that I consider integral to the functioning creative enterprise of Oho Ake Books.
I went from Wellington to Whanganui three times in three months with a film crew (twice) and documented the journey, photographically and with digital film. It was an honour and a privilege to be able to work with these students, and I will always be grateful to Brooke and Jade for offering a solution to a grim mistake I had made earlier that year.
Spirit had taught me some valuable lessons about intuition, letting people go from your life that no longer have your best interests at heart as friends, and presented the right person to bring their creative design flair and style to join me in manifesting my dream. It wasn’t over though. Odelia Schaare from Beautiful Words would enter into my life as the fallout from that incident continued…
