🌸 Help Us Build The Tea Garden

We’re living on a time-line where the truth and misinformation are being thrown at us faster than we can make sense of what is real. A lot of us are experiencing the fallout of this tension and can see the separation and chaos it is creating in the world. We’re holding that weight in our bodies. People are losing touch with each other and their humanity, as we are forced into isolation to protect ourselves. That is why now, more than ever, we need to create more spaces for us to come together in real-life and get outside of our echo chambers and into spaces where we interact with people who we might otherwise not.

The Tea Garden is our response to all of that. Not through pushing back with more tension, but by creating something that softens the world again. A space where people can slow down, breathe, and feel welcome. A traveling sanctuary that reminds us we’re still allowed to relax and be human around one another.

We are building The Tea Garden as a glowing, lotus-shaped tea garden that moves from place to place. It’s a space for warm tea, gentle music, soft conversation, dancing, stretching out on the floor, or simply sitting and quietly observing.

The Tea Garden will travel through parks, cities, small towns, festivals, community gatherings, healing spaces, and places that rarely get access to beauty or calm. We’ll serve free tea everywhere we go. The hope is that strangers sit beside each other and remember how natural connection actually feels when the environment supports it.

Our hope is that when people feel comfortable, they soften. When they soften, they open. And when they open, that’s where understanding begins and space for hope to grow.

The lotus symbolizes the difficult conditions it must endure to rise from muddy water and bloom bright. The Tea Garden is meant to feel like that. A symbol of resilience and beauty that people naturally walk toward.

🌺 What Makes The Tea Garden Special

• A glowing lotus structure that feels warm, welcoming, and alive
• Space for about 60 people to rest, gather, connect, or dance
• A shaded lower-level dance floor for movement and joy
• An elevated stage for storytelling, live music, ceremony, and community voices
• A thoughtful speaker and sound system designed for gentle, immersive audio
• A full apothecary inside the bus with herbs, tools, and brewing space

🌿 Why We’re Building This

The Tea Garden is being built because people need places that help their nervous systems settle. Places that say you belong here. Places where differences fade and connection feels natural again. The Tea Garden is not meant to be loud activism. It’s more of a steady, nourishing presence along the journey to revolution. In its essence it is beauty, warmth, ritual, and community care you can physically step into.

✨ How Your Support Helps

We’re raising $51,000 to bring The Tea Garden to life and get it ready for the road.

Here is the full updated budget:

🌼 Budget Breakdown

Lotus Structure and Build
$16,000
Metal framing, panels, fabric, hardware, surface treatments, fabrication support.

Bus Interior Build Out
$8,000
Insulation, walls, flooring, water system, cabinetry, storage, basic mechanical prep.

Sound System, Speakers, and Stages
$13,500
Speakers, amps, cables, protective cases, upper stage platform, safe power routing.

Apothecary Buildout
$3,000
Herbs, brewing tools, cups, burners, shelving, cabinetry, water heating systems.

Lighting & Electrical
$12,000
Low-voltage LEDs, wiring, solar, battery support, inverter, lighting controls, safety components.

Safety & Accessibility
$2,000
Medical and fire safety items.

Community Programming & Artist Offerings
$2,500
Inviting facilitators, storytellers, musicians, and healers to help shape Oasis gatherings.

🕊 A Sanctuary We Build Together

The Tea Garden isn’t just a mobile art project. It’s a community space that can be carried across the country, and a soft-hearted sanctuary for anyone who needs a moment to rest or reconnect. We dream of taking The Tea Garden to big cities, small towns, quiet corners, loud festivals, where we can offer warmth to people who don’t often get access to spaces like this.

Imagine stumbling onto a glowing lotus in the middle of a park or city plaza. Soft ground under your feet. Music floating in the air. Someone handing you a warm cup of tea. People looking relaxed for the first time all day. And for a moment, you remember that tenderness still exists in the world.

That’s The Tea Garden.

We want to bring it to as many people as possible.

🌙 About the Artist

Seren Blake is a queer, trans, multidisciplinary artist and designer who builds large-scale spaces meant to hold people with care. With more than 15 years of experience in fabrication, industrial design, systems thinking, and community-centered art, Nova creates work that blends engineering with emotional presence. Her installations explore stillness, connection, ritual, and the small transformations that happen when people feel safe enough to be themselves.

“This is the way I want to live my life. I want to create spaces that help people feel more grounded and more connected to themselves and each other.”

🎁 Gifts from the Garden

Each offering is a thank-you. A small gesture of the same energy we’ll pour into every cup.

$10 – A sip of gratitude. A digital Tea Ritual Guide to ground your day.
$25 – Your name etched into the original structure, carried wherever it goes.
$50 – A sample of our signature herbal tea blend + a printed ritual card.
$100 – A handmade talisman from the Garden, mailed with love.
$250 – An invitation to our post-Burn Tea-Compression gathering + your name in the Garden.
$500 – A cozy Tea Garden hoodie + our upcoming Recipe Book (digital and print).
$1,000 – All of the above + a custom ceramic tea cup crafted by the artist.
$10,000 – We bring the Tea Garden to your California-based event - tea, ambiance, and soul included.

Note: Gifts will be shipped after we reach our goal. We stay committed to the project and all money will be held in high interest accounts until then in order to pay for your gifts!

The Tea Garden: Portal

By The Elsewhere Society

The Tea Garden: Portal

A Sanctuary for Peace, Connection, and Celebration

Team Members