We recently connected with Ges Briggs and have shared our conversation below.
Ges, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?
My business is a medley of passions, and each one of my products or offerings honestly didn’t seem to amount to much as individual interests at the time of their emergence in my life. It was an idea decades in the making, and unintentionally I might add. Though looking back now, I would say everything I offer nowadays really spawned from years of exploring the world, fueled by a desire for experience.
Alongside this craving for action was my paradoxical passion for capturing and expanding moments. In one avenue this manifested as a knack for photography, which began as a kid- so the volume of photos I’ve taken is large. When I wasn’t traveling with my camera I was asking people I knew if I could take portraits of them. When people weren’t available, I did self-portraits to play with the lighting and lenses, since everything I produce is self-taught; as I recall I barely passed my digital photo class in high school with a D-. Despite having a massive stockpile of photos, I had no idea what to do with them, but I felt that posting them or making prints was boring.
Aside from photography I’ve always been drawn to metaphysics, spirituality, healing, and energy work, which was another avenue of passion for pausing and expanding moments. Among these curiosities was an intrigue for the world of cards. I was fascinated by tarot but didn’t like to use them myself. I knew of oracle, and aside from a few decks, I didn’t care for them because I thought that the images or themes commonly found in them felt too airy, detached, and devoid of meaning in our reality. Regardless, I continued to use the few I liked and really started to fine tune my intuition through their use.
Further still into this realm, was teaching and practicing reiki as a standalone thing. In my early 20’s I became a reiki master/teacher in Usui and Karuna and took that around the world with me. I’ve attuned others to reiki abroad, I’ve done reiki sessions on people in remote places (as well as wild dogs in Nepal among other creatures around), and have used it to guide my decisions in sticky situations. One of these sticky situations was in a taxi from India to Nepal, (a 12 hour drive into the Himalayas), where the driver just parked and turned off the car in a very dark place at night, with people walking all around the car looking in, and the driver didn’t give a single clue as to why; ignoring every question. I really had to intuitively tap in and ask if I needed to take action or relax. Thankfully, I felt reassured with calm. As it turned out, we were at the border of Nepal and the immigration office wasn’t open until morning. But speaking of India, it is also there where I gained my love for a good masala chai, which is a product I now offer in its pure spice form.
Still though, at this point in my life it seemed more and more like I was collecting “hippy-dippy” interests, and after more than enough eye-rolls, scoffs, and snarky comments, I was reluctant to share my passions with hardly anyone. However, around 2020, something shifted somewhat and it sort of just dawned on me that I have thousands of photos, why am I not creating my own oracle decks with them? Something that I actually liked. It was at that time that a seed of fusing my love of travel, photography, and metaphysics took root. I started making custom decks for myself, and eventually for select friends and family. I played with the idea of selling some on Etsy, but my method back then was too time and work intensive with very little return, so I kept it as a private hobby despite many telling me I ought to make a business out of it.
Years after this, I started working in a company in the Philippines where I eventually met a man named Michael Glauser. He is a savvy business owner, university professor, and accomplished author, among other things. At that time I had been pushing massive downloads of inspiration for a spiritually-based business to the back of my mind, when I suddenly found myself ejected from that company. Learning of this, Mike urged me to start my own business for my real passion, and he generously offered to be my business mentor. Although I haven’t tapped on him much for help, it’s nice knowing I have someone to fall back on for advice if needed.
And so, years of traveling, thousands of photos, and a pile of interests later, I still had no idea where to really go with any of this. All I had was the passion and intuition, and found myself floating this invisible river towards something I felt I needed to do. I had Mike in my ear, no conventional job at this point, and what felt like roadblocks in every direction except toward building something of my own. The Universe clearly had a path set for me. One day a flash of inspiration for my business name, Wild West Oracle, hit me while walking amongst moody monsoon clouds in Arizona, and an undeniable excitement reassured me that this was all totally possible. The reluctance to share this side of myself was then put to rest as I finally decided to accept what felt like my calling. Since embracing this unorthodox path, it’s been nothing but net.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
After years of traveling the world, taking tons of photos while doing so, gaining life experience to better create with, and picking up various energy work and healing methods along the way, Wild West Oracle was born.
I primarily sell my custom oracle card decks made from my photos, along with a corresponding guidebook for most decks, with two of the decks already having full messages on the cards. I did what I set out to do and created oracle card themes from things I like; 60’s/70’s nostalgia, the Southwest desert, healing, music, love, higher consciousness, and being on the road, with more decks always in creation. I also offer access to, and instructions for, creating spreads to be used in a reading, in addition to offering readings in general. My physical goods can be ordered online, and energy work or readings can be arranged with a simple message to me.
With the photography, I do studio headshots, family photos, engagements, events, and more creative shoots.
I offer remote and in-person reiki sessions, and love adding people to my reiki grid for long distance continual healing (which is free, just reach out and ask to be added). I also offer reiki classes from time to time; my lineage has been kept pure to its original form from Japan in practice and in attuning, and I am three masters away from the original founders. Besides being a reiki master/teacher, I have received the Rites of the Munay Ki, and have training and experience in mediumship, spirit crossing, home clearing, energy shifting, channeling, and much more. These are all areas I offer or can teach.
Lastly, I sell my masala chai spice blend for a warm healing beverage, and a BBQ rub for slathering your summer foods. And although I’ve found selling photos prints to be a bore previously, here I am eating my words and doing just that. The difference is that I create custom frames for these photos with desert wood. And the Arizona desert, let me tell you, is magic. I also offer custom orders on my photos and frames, which can be arranged with a message to start it all out.
I think what I’m most proud of in myself is really wearing all of my “weird” unashamedly and finally pursuing something that had been stalking me from the sidelines of my regular jobs. In addition, it feels good to be the example to my young son of what’s possible when you love something. He’s my constant supporter and is regularly by my side at my markets or meetings. I’m grateful he gets to grow up not labeling this stuff as weird; it’s just life.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Being that my business is both creative and spiritual in nature, my mission is to hopefully spread more light to others through my work. I lean heavily towards what feels peaceful and natural, and my aim is to help raise consciousness on the planet through the people. To help others to reconnect with their innate abilities of having access to all information through their higher consciousness, perhaps through the door of oracle cards or other methods, and to see through illusions. It’s to help others to help themselves. To pause and expand every moment and to feel the joy in life again by living only in the present. To help other people to wake up and remember that this is all merely transient. To remind others that our focus on anything expands what we are focusing on, and thus becomes our entire reality. I’m here to remind folks to claim responsibility over one’s own life, in action and deed, as each of us are the creative directors at the center of our own Universe.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I think the biggest pivot for me was being fired from a fruitful job, where I was reassured multiple times that it was secure. Once this happened, I immediately had to downsize where I was living to float by while deciding if I wanted to build a business I knew nothing about, and use a lot of my savings to do so. In this downsize I also made (a now poor) decision to move to another town, in hopes it would lower the cost of living for a while. I found out the hard way the folks living there were not receptive to what I was offering in my business, and that this was a town where you couldn’t simply just get another job if you weren’t within a certain category of person.
Almost out of money and struggling to get my business rolling, I ended up driving an hour and a half every few days to drive Uber in the city, while working for a poor school district near the border of Mexico, trying to earn my CDL to drive a school bus so I could relieve the all the Uber driving; and the pace was glacial. When a custody battle across two states plus a lawyer in one state I couldn’t afford were suddenly added to my heap of troubles, I cut the school and the housing loose with no backup plan and threw myself into a free fall. I moved back to the city after seamlessly transitioning to a new school district, earned my CDL, won my custody case by myself, got into a new home, and began to build my business in a city that was receptive to my work.
The green lights I received throughout this course-correcting journey were obviously not mere luck. I learned through this experience that when something is right for you, the process takes care of itself. Otherwise when you try to swim upstream into things that aren’t good for you, it will feel like you’re swimming in molasses. I had to learn the hard way in a series of forced pivots to stop flailing in times of chaos and confusion, and to quiet down, expand moments of presence, and trust my gut by taking appropriate action I felt guided to. The rest has fallen beautifully into place.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wildwestoracle.square.site/
- Instagram: Wild West Oracle
- Facebook: gesbriggsfoto
Image Credits
Mostafa Helmy took horseback photo in Egypt
Chris Anderson took photo of me doing reiki on a bunny in Japan