Mike is a friend of mine whom I met through Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) and he gave me a copy of this book and I would like to return the gift by writing this review.
Mike is a sincere and compassionate seeker and this book tells the story of his journey building the Circle of Light Peace Chamber. Mike followed his dreams and visions to bring them into reality and he has many spiritual adventures along the way. I would say that Mike is a gentle soul.
Like many mystics, Mike’s journey takes him from a sense of an isolated ego to the experience of interconnected being – “Being awake and open to All,” (205).
He learns about the meaning and purpose of life and the importance of attending to inner visions and bringing them into material reality, thus becoming a Liminal Being, or, as Joseph Rael might say, an “In-Betweener,” or a “hollow bone.”
“What you need is to let go of all the fear and let go of all the pain in you, and then you are not competing and you know you are on your soul’s journey and living your purpose – when you are that pure love that you are. Just trust in the love that you are, and you’re always living your purpose and on your path,” (166).
I have been to visit Mike, and his wife Marie, several times after meeting him at the book release and 80th birthday party of Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) in 2015. We featured a picture of The Circle of Light Sound Peace Chamber in Walking the Medicine Wheel: Healing Trauma & PTSD, (page 95 – I still feel bad about the typo of your surname in the caption – sorry about that Mike!).
My sister, Karen, and I met with Mike & Marie in October, 2018 and filmed them talking about the construction of the chamber. You can watch the video of that, here. And see other videos of my work with Joseph Rael here, and here.
Mike & Marie Pedroncelli, Circle of Light Sound Peace Chamber, photo K. Kopacz (2018)
We are into the July 4th Weekend of the Pandemic. Will this weekend be any different than any other weekend of the pandemic? Social Distancing, we keep to ourselves, we turn inwards – and yet the birthday of when this nation was established (recognizing that we invaded other nations that were already here on this land) is usually about going out, barbequeing with friends, watching fireworks in crowds.
We have our independence from Britain – but what are we using it for? What are we doing with this independence? We are not independent of our acts of aggression, genocide, and slavery – those are intertwined with the founding of the United States of America.
Maybe we have taken independence as far as it can safely go. The current political regime in power in the USA gives us pause to consider this. Maybe it is time that we stopped celebrating independence and started celebrating Interdependence.
We would start by acknowleding our interdependence with Mother Earth and her children, this land that we live on which we took from our Native American brothers & sisters. Then it would lead to acknowledging our interdependence with Africa and her children whom our ancestors captured and enslaved, prospering off of their labor. Then it would lead to acknowledging our interdependence with all the people of the Earth.
Earth Child of Spiritual Democracy, Joseph Rael (1997)
“Spiritual Democracy is a living connection, allowing the flow of spirituality through our lives, embracing the divinity in all creatures and the divinity of the Earth. Spiritual democracy is the way we treat others when we learn to see the divine in all things and that we, too, are part of divinity. It is a sacred way of being. Periodically, we forget that we are divine as we live in this world of matter and go through its trials and travails. We, as individuals, as well as we as people, need periodic renewal at the font of spiritual democracy.” (p. 381)
We invite you to use this holiday weekend to renew our Spiritual Democracy. Let’s put the “we” back in “We the people…”
If you’d like to read the chapter, just download the pdf below.
These next two paintings from Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into A Living Spirituality, are both Joseph Rael’s. The first, Eagle Dancing Feather Becoming Medicine Heals the People was originally Eagle Dancing Feather Medicine Heals. Joseph had me write on the print “Becoming” and “the People” so that we could use this painting as the cover. It, thus, has several different elements, like an acrostic.
Eagle Dancing Feather Medicine Heals The People, Joseph Rael (2016)
The next painting is the first of two paintings of Chimney Rock that we included in the book. Chimney Rock is a historic Pueblo structure on the Southern Ute Reservation. The structures were aligned to be able to tell the seasons based on the progress of the moon in relation to the peaks of Chimney Rock
Lunar Stand-still at Chimney Rock, Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow), 2005
I felt drawn to visit Chimney Rock on my second visit to see Joseph in Colorado, but the gates were closed. (The first visit I had gone to Mesa Verde). I made it there in 2016. I happened to get there as there was a sunset flute performance and I had a little friend visit me there.
A little friend, D. Kopacz (2016)Chimney Rock, Southern Ute Reservation, Colorado, D. Kopacz (2016)
“In English, ‘medicine’ is something that still needs to happen, but in Tiwa medicine is already there, it is a power. Every human being is a power. One becomes a medicine person through practicing one’s destiny. The child already has his or her own medicine. Through practicing one’s destiny, the medicine person manifests the medicine that was already there as a child. The child makes medicine all those years and then becomes an adult.” (Joseph Rael – Beautiful Painted Arrow, page 30)
“If American democracy fails, the ultimate cause will not be a foreign invasion or the power of big money or the greed and dishonesty of some elected officials or a military coup or the internal communist/ socialist/fascist takeover that keeps some Americans awake at night. It will happen because we—you and I—became fearful of each other, of our differences and of the future, that we unraveled the civic community on which democracy depends, losing our power to resist all that threatens it and call it back to its highest form.”
Parker Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Couraged to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit, p. 9.
“I am you and you are me. There’s only one being here, and even though you have a different body, I have a different body, and a different moment, but we are in this together, you know, and people don’t understand that.”
Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow)
(from Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into a Living Spirituality, pg. 379)
“My elders are convinced that the West is as endangered as the indigenous cultures it decimated in the name of colonialism. There is no doubt that, at this time in history, Western civilization is suffering from a great sickness of the soul. The West’s progressive turning away from functioning spiritual values; its total disregard for the environment and the protection of natural resources; the violence of inner cities with their problems of poverty, drugs, and crime; spiraling unemployment and economic disarray; and growing intolerance toward people of color and the values of other cultures— all of these trends, if unchecked, will eventually bring about a terrible self-destruction . . . the only possible hope is self-transformation.”
Malidoma Patrice Somé, Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman, 1.
In this week’s episode David Kopacz speaks with Joanna about: encouraging children to plant green living things; dancing with the trees; the dormant seed inside oneself; walking the medicine wheel; becoming a true human being; we are medicine bags; being and vibration; the cycle of rejuvenation; separation is illness, healing is coming back together; the archetypal template of spiritual democracy; the Refounding Mothers of Democracy; coming home to peace.“
Joanna had taken a break for a while and this was her first podcast interview, or gaialogue in a few months, so it was extra special. Thanks to Joanna Harcourt-Smith and co-producer, José Luis Gómez Soler. Here are Joanna’s and José’s bios, take a listen to my interview and check out the many other great podcasts, such as with Steven Herrmann, Charles Eisenstein, Frédérique Apffel-Marglin, Richard Katz, Neela Bhattacharya Saxena, Roshi Joan Halifax, Francoise Bourzat, Lyla June Johnston, and many, many others…
Joanna was born high up in the Swiss mountains on a snowy January evening. She grew up in Paris and speaks 5 languages. School was boring but her curiosity about life was not extinguished by the dullness of the education system. Nature was her teacher, trees, horses, dogs and the ocean gave her a sense of belonging that she did not feel within her birth family.
Joanna turned fourteen in 1960, she was in love with Marlon Brando and Rock and Roll. During her adolescence she was torn between a desire to die and an intense love of life. Because she felt lost between despair and passion she wrote poetry and continues to do so up to this day. During the early 1960s she lived in Spain and wrote “The Little Green Book” an answer to Mao Tse Tong’s “Little Red Book”. The Book was published in 4 languages and widely sold in France, the Netherlands, England and Germany.
In 1968 moved by the music of the times and the spirit of revolution sweeping through her generation she emigrated to the United States. Her exploration of mind liberating substances led her to find Dr. Timothy Leary who was a fugitive from prison in the US. They became in love and were kidnapped by American authorities in Afghanistan and returned to California where Timothy Leary went back to prison to serve a sentence of possession of 0.01 grams of marijuana. During TL’s three and a half years in prison Joanna worked tirelessly to secure his release, she lived in San Francisco where she collaborated, published and distributed the 6 books he wrote in prison. In addition, Joanna traveled to England, Italy and across the United states lecturing about the imprisonment of Dr. Leary.
In 1977 Timothy and Joanna’s love affair came to an end after he was released from prison. She then went down to the Caribbean and bough a magnificent wooden sailboat named Kentra. For several years she lived on her boat and sailed around the islands attempting to heal her broken heart. In 1983 she returned to the United States, surrendered herself into the path of life long sobriety and became a celebrated chef in Philadelphia and Santa Fe.
She practices Buddhism and the elusive way of loving kindness and compassion mainly for herself and for others around her. Joanna’s great question in life is “What is true Kindness?”
In October 2013 Joanna published a memoir about her adventures with Timothy Leary entitled “Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary” . Her book been has been optioned by the Oscar winner director Errol Morris. Filming began in December 2019.
She his currently writing another book entitled “Change your beliefs, change your life” Surviving Timothy Leary“.
She is also featured in Gay Dillingham’s movie “Dying to Know”, a documentary about Leary and Ram Dass’ lifelong exploration and friendship.
She is the author of several articles published in the online magazine “Reality Sandwich”.
She likes to remember that “if you don’t like the media, be the media”.
Life is short, but it’s wide!
José Luis Gómez Soler is the co-producer of Future Primitive. Since 2006 he has supported the podcast with research, recording, guest coordination and audio editing of these wonderful episodes.
José Luis studied Audiovisual Media Studies at the University of Sevilla, Spain. Since a young age, he has been deeply interested in mysticism and Nature.
David and Suzanne continue their moving discussion around ‘doing better than rushing to return to normal’ after things shift once again with COVID 19.
This episode dwells in the land of opportunity: What could things look like for us as a people, a world, an environment should we thoughtfully, purposefully move with the new things ushered in despite the chaos vs desperately trying to ‘get back’ to what was once upon a time—back then?
There is such beauty in their words!
I will borrow a saying from David: “Like pinatas of wisdom…”
Suzanne Richman is an education consultant, had founding roles within Goddard College in Vermont, she has expertise and passions within the realms of trauma, grief, social activism. She is a self-confessed recovering academic. You can contact Suzanne at : Suzannehummingbird@gmail.com.
David Kopacz is a psychiatrist, a painter and an author. He lives in Seattle where he does transformation work with veterans and their stories. He is a TLA member.
Suzanne Richman is a passionate teacher within such realms as: Ethnobotany, Social and Ecological Medicine, Community Health Systems, Trauma and Transformational Leadership. She lives in Vermont, and is a TLA member. Suzannehummingbird@gmail.com.
Seattle psychiatrist David Kopacz and Vermont educator/community activist Suzanne Richman extend an invitation to us all. It is not a passive request. By its very essence, the word ‘invitation’ suggests action, a response. These powerful TLA thought leaders ask us to RSVP to the call to reflect before we return.
There are 3 parts to the core invitation. Each part is a meal-of-thought in itself.
Suzanne Richman has her roots in education. She was the co-creator of the Earth Justice and Health Learning Alliance, and facilitated learning in fields such as grief and dying, trauma, social activism, and community health systems. Suzannehummingbird@gmail.com.
Being Fully Human 