My painting, Creation, is a large, 30×40″ painting. The bottom of the painting somehow is cut off in the book, but below is the full painting. It has some glow in the dark paint – a phase I went through that is nice when you turn off the lights because it is like having a painting hidden within a painting.
Creation, D. Kopacz
Joseph’s painting is Sun and Dancing Moonlight on the People of Mother Earth, painted in 2006. Joseph developed a Sun Moon Dance and it is still performed by people he taught it to all over the world.
Sun and Dancing Moonlight on the People of Mother Earth, J. Rael (2006)
An excerpt from this section of the book will appear in the Fall issue of Parabola. Here is a quote from Joseph in this section:
Joseph is continually teaching me about the circular nature of reality, saying that we are “circle people,” that “what comes around goes around,” and that “everything eventually becomes its opposite.” He also points out how the difference between a linear and circular perception is based on the perspective or paradigm through which you are perceiving. “Look at how we move in a circle, but then look at it from the side and it looks like we are moving forward and backward, back and forth. It depends on your perspective of seeing.”
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)
Being Fully Human 