The next two paintings from Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into a Living Spirituality are both by Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow). I love this first one, “Elders Gathering at the Winter Solstice” with the Elders as different color eagles.

The next painting of Joseph’s is Drinking Universal Spirit Stars Light. This is one of a series of paintings that Joseph did featuring gold paint.

“A vision is the soul drinking light. It starts with descending light, falling like rain. . . . The visionary transformation happens in the act of perception. . . . It has the quality of “heaven is here now.” What you want to achieve is here now, ready, given.”

(Becoming Medicine, p. 76, from Ceremonies of the Living Spirit, p. 40)

From Joseph’s perspective, we are in continual interrelationship with the world and the stars are our ancestors, our elders, our relatives, we came from them and we will return to them. For Joseph the separation between subject and object which we have tried so hard to perfect in Western science is more fluid. We don’t just look at the stars, we drink their light and the ancestors and relatives nourish and support us.

“Kuaua: means hello, it is the greeting that you give when you meet someone. Ku means good and aua means life, so it means good life, have a good life, it is like a blessing. So when we say hello to someone, kuaua, we are instantly bringing out the goodness that exists in the world, in the bushes, the plants, and the trees, the stones, and the mountains. It is not that we say it and it travels over there. We say it and it re-awakens what is already there in the world. In that way we are bringing out the goodness in the world through our words and our actions. We are giving birth to the world in our everyday life. Isn’t that great?” (J. Rael, p. 155-156).