The first painting, “Dove of Peace,” is by Joseph Rael. He describes how he had a vision after his foster mother, Lucia, died – he saw a white dove in the corner of the room and had a glimpse of paradise. This painting is in Chapter 3, “Separation.” You have to go through separation before you can go through reunion.
Dove of Peace, Joseph Rael (2018)
The next painting is one of mine, “Visionary Perception,” and starts off chapter 4, “Becoming a Visionary.”
Visionary Perception, David Kopacz
“For me, I was in training all the time that I was in Picuris. If everything is considered holy, then you are always in training.
Apparently I was in training for right now—to tell the people in the United States what we are built to do and that we are the Sacred. We are the holy ones. That is why I always speak with eloquence.” (Joseph Rael)
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)
Joseph told me that he uses four colors always in his rainbow paintings: yellow, orange, red, and blue – I follow his convention here.
Night Eyes of Direction Finder, Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) 2006
I love this painting of Joseph’s and it starts of Part I Separation (Seeking). Seeking is the start of everything, the start of the book, the start of life – the start of what we are trying to do at this very moment in history – seeking peace and love to move through these challenging times. The painting comes right before chapter 1, “Becoming Medicine.” Joseph’s quote we start off the chapter with is below:
“The thing I should have said in my books is that everyone already has their medicine. The way you become a medicine person is you practice who you are because you are already medicine. No one gives it to you, you are already it.”
The “Introduction” to Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into a Living Spirituality is my story and path of how I came to meet and work with Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow). Thus, more of the paintings in this chapter are mine. The two that follow are The Hero’s Journey and the Medicine Wheel of the Heart.
The Hero’s Journey, D. Kopacz, 2014
The Hero’s Journey painting was an example of the Hero’s Journey project that we invite veterans to do at the end of the 12-week Hero’s Journey class. The project invites the veteran to bring together the personal & universal into a creative project. Some veterans have done paintings, drawings, maps of their time in the service, writing and performing a song, and even multimedia art installations. I painted this as an example for the class. It is a 36″ x 36″ square canvas, divided into the stages of the Hero’s Journey and the quoted text around the circle is made up of various quotes by Joseph Campbell that pertain to that step of the journey.
Medicine Wheel of the Heart, D. Kopacz, c. 2016-2017
This was my attempt to bring together, in a visual format, Joseph Rael’s teachings about the medicine wheel. An earlier medicine wheel was published in Walking the Medicine Wheel: Healing Trauma & PTSD. The Medicine Wheel brings together the four outer directions of North, South, East, West, and the four inner directions of Mind, Emotions, Physical, and Spiritual. Each direction also has a corresponding vowel sound: A (ah), E (eh), I (ee), O (oh), U (uu) – pronounced as the vowels are in Spanish. There is also a princple idea associataed with each direction: Purity, Placement, Awareness, Innocence, and in the Center – Carrying.
As I was working on Becoming Medicine, I conceptualized it as a continuation of the journey started in Walking the Medicine Wheel. In Walking the Medicine Wheel, we worked to integrate the four outer and four inner directions and ended with connecting to the “held-back place of goodness” in the heart. In Becoming Medicine, I saw us as entering deeper into the heart center. I found Joseph’s comment about human beings as “medicine bags” to be useful here and that the purpose of the book was two-fold: to find the “sacred objects” which are hidden in our own hearts bringing them back for communal healing, and to go even deeper into a state of non-duality. In Walking the Medicine Wheel, Joseph said, “I am my brother’s keeper.” Joseph wanted to teach veterans that we are all brothers and sisters and we are all related. Becoming Medicine is about going beyond the affiliation of relation into a sense of oneness, non-duality – this is the state that mystics and visionaries know and it is the place of ultimate peace. This insight, or enlightenment about our non-separateness from other living beings and the material world is an initiation into a new relationship with the land and into spiritual democracy. As with many mystical traditions, when you make your secret journey you will find that what you were seeking is already within the medicine bag of your heart.
In Tiwa, the language of Picuris Pueblo, where Joseph spent most of his childhood, Wah-Mah-Chi is the word for God and this translates into English as Breath, Matter, and Movement.
Being Fully Human 