Tea Oracle by Michael Busby
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Tea Oracle by Michael Busby *
The 4th Season Gallery showcases photos, poems, pieces, artifacts, audios, discoveries, explorations, and more.
Featuring 4th Season participants and friends, the Gallery rotates through the seasons.
Our current exhibition is from Michael Busby, founder of Via Tiempo tea company and creator of Tea Oracle.
** Win a free set of Tea Oracle Cards + Adventure Guidebook + reading session with Michael. Send us a message here with the subject “Tea Oracle Raffle” to be entered into the raffle drawing.
Tea Oracle
Steeping in Magic
1.
I, Michael Busby, made a Tea Oracle. Now, in return, it makes me anew. The deck and guidebook express my magical disposition. They grow with me, as we pull each other along in various wandering directions.
Adventure
Loving each unfolding as if it is meant for you alone, life becomes your adventure. Or rather you become adventure’s loyal friend and subject- errantly heeding its ungraspable call, wandering far beyond accomplishment and disappointment, exceeding what you thought was possible with each new misstep. A calling from within is a blessing; a chance encounter is a revelation.
Excerpt from: Tea Oracle Adventure Guidebook
2.
Through my tea company, Via Tiempo, I have tried to support people in slowing down and entering quiet reflection. My aim has been to foster contemplative life. Perhaps, I have done so in some small ways. I believe that contemplation is both wondrous and prosocial. The Dao is both mysterious and harmonious.
The Tea Oracle carries this same aspiration. It is a collection of companions, each with their own prism through which to enter.
3.
Four years ago, I was looking for guidance.
My partner Trinley and I had lost our home and our dearest belongings in a wildfire in the Sierra foothills. We were scrambling a bit. Our discernment was impaired.
Ritual, divination, and meaning-making were on my mind. I was experimenting with morning tea rituals that dealt with orienting, inquiry, and vision. I was reading about Tarot, and tried my hand with a Marseilles deck.
When I looked for guidance in the Knight of Swords, I was led astray. There was a basic disconnect between myself and the imagery. At the same time, I was starting to hear about AI generated images.
I made two images for my tea labels using Dall-E 2, and then wondered if I could make an oracle deck that would communicate to me more clearly.
The images that emerged spoke to my heart: a tortoise departing from a tower, a radiant frog in a garden, a panda taking one sure-footed step, a slumbering bear.
4.
The process of writing the guidebook helped me clarify my relationship to so much that I had learned and experienced. As you look through the images, if one stands out to you, I invite you to pause and listen to its communication. Shapes, colors, emotions, sensations—the images have a way of sifting through consciousness. A reading often entails little more than lingering on an image until something clear is reflected in the viewer/projector.
5.
The Tortoise is the numberless card. It was the first card I made. It carries the essence of the deck, like the fool in the Tarot. You could say that the tortoise is the one going on the journey and meeting all of the other tea-kin.
Tortoise
Wandering Heart
The tortoise crashes into soft white sand, marking their departure from the veils of centralized authority represented by the tower. When they sink into their shell, they find that there is nowhere else they ’d rather be. When they feel themselves longing to see what is beyond the next hillside, they let their wandering heart find legs.
The yellow eye on the tortoise’s shell shines out to see the inappropriable* sky of wisdom glowing back. The sky and eye see one another in a way that is not one and not two—fluidly moving between and beyond distinction and unity. From inside the tower, the yellow glow had always been window-shaped. Now, it permeates everything, no matter where the tortoise goes.
Traveling far and wide with their home on their back, the tortoise comes to see many of the towers of this world—self-proclaimed sources of trendsetting, good-word preaching, and world-moving markets. They grow weary of the over-appraisals of such places, and prefer wandering through overlooked realms and meeting the endless diversity of beings that are more than capable of living beautifully by their own accord.
The beauty the tortoise discovers along the way elevates their capacity for love and accommodation. Connecting with the breadth of uncontrived characters that share sadness and delight so generously, the tortoise comes to trust that their missing limb makes them complete. Moving far beyond the tower’s reach, they see what they could never have imagined, and begin to imagine what they have never seen. Without a tower to lean on, the tortoise’s oracular shell is a living etching of each mishap, err, and unpredicted encounter with wisdom—an inscription of their way of life for all to read.
*inappropriable: cannot be owned
6.
Currently, Trinley is in the process of making a hand-painted version of the deck, somewhere between copies and reinterpretations, using watercolors, gouache, pens, and other materials. The cards lose a little pop in color, while gaining stylistic consistency and clarity in areas like the snake’s tea-scoop and the armadillo’s hands.
I am expanding Via Tiempo’s tea selection to fifty-five, so that each card has an accompanying tea, creating a cohesive Tea Oracle world. Meanwhile, I give readings at markets, and online, continuing to learn and make new connections.
I love being reminded of how the Tea Oracle continues to live beyond my gaze. There is nothing better than being regaled with tales of how people are using the Tea Oracle in their lives.
Explore Michael’s various tea and oracle offerings at viatiempo.com.
About the Artist, Michael Busby
Michael Busby, pictured here with his partner Trinley, is a tea enthusiast and creator who shares his exploration of contemplative life through tea, art, story, and ritual. He is currently in a graduate program for clinical psychology and expressive arts therapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies, learning how the particular practices he has been steeping in can decant in a clinical setting.
