Bernalillo, New Mexico:

Home to the first
Peace Chamber
Crystallized in Big Sky!
(November 2015)

Autumn kisses the earth spaces of Bernalillo and the surrounding pueblos. Crisp dry mornings and evenings, which cradle warm afternoons, bestow a sense of freshness and well-being. Spending the last month and a half Sacred Drifting through spectacularly effulgent Earth Spaces of warm sunny California, and the dry sunny autumnal dessert of Arizona, there had been a sense of timelessness; a physical unawareness of Autumn. Then, finding myself in New Mexico, there was the first visual awareness of golden foliage, cool evenings, and morning frost on Jane Honda’s windshield. Ahhh the Sacred Season of the “West”!

Bernalillo, New Mexico, is a small, modern Southwestern town just outside of Albuquerque, inhabited by friendly and helpful two-leggeds, and set against the backdrop of the Ancient Sandia a.k.a. Placitas a.k.a Watermelon Mountains. Sandia means watermelon, and this Mountain landscape transforms into a pink watermelon color as the light of the setting sun bids farewell to the day and sinks into the depths of the horizon. Magnificent “eye-candy”!

Bernalillo is also home to the first Peace Chamber, envisioned and built by Indigenous Mystic, Joseph Rael-Beautiful Painted Arrow, and is now “Crystalized in Big Sky”. Bernalillo was destined to be part of the Sacred Drift.

As part of the calling that I received many moons ago, I am here to vibrate in…chant in…flute in, the 7 directions and the 10 cardinal directions, to the First Sound/Peace Chamber.

Perhaps it would be helpful to back up a bit and offer some “backstory”…at least whatever is possible to articulate through words…

I have participated in sacred ceremony with the authentic elders and community of the Birdsong Peace Chamber Land in Pennsylvania since the early 1990s. These Ceremonies have included sweat lodges, dances, chanting, recording, performances, story telling, fire ceremonies within the Birdsong Sound/Peace Chamber, work practice on the land and more. I have participated in the last three tri-annual World Gathering of Peace Chambers with the Elders/Keepers of the Chamber-lands; the first on the Birdsong Land in 2011; the second in South Africa on the Wind Walker Land, in 2014; the third upon Arizona's Sweet Beautiful Waters Chamber land.

Visionary Indigenous Mystic, Joseph Rael-Beautiful Painted Arrow, is teacher and guide of the Elders and Communities of the Peace Chambers and Dance Arbors around the World. We call him respectfully, Grandfather!

To learn more about this artistic and visionary light being, called Joseph Rael, Beautiful Painted Arrow, I highly recommend the following books and the following websites:

BEING AND VIBRATION – entering the new world by Joseph Rael-Beautiful Painted Arrow (there are photos of the Original Peace Chamber and Grandfather Beautiful Painted Arrow on pgs. 106 & 107.)

HOUSE OF SHATTERING LIGHT - by Joseph Rael-Beautiful Painted Arrow

SOUND...native teachings + visionary art by Joseph Rael

Joseph Rael: Being and Vibration (excerpt) -- A Thinking Allowed DVD w/ Jeffrey Mishlove

Geraldine Rael, eldest daughter of Joseph Rael-Beautiful Painted Arrow, is now the guardian of Grandfather's legacy, and you can read more about her and Grandfather Beautiful Painted Arrow here: The Guardian: Geraldine Rael - Geraldine Rael

Through “walking with” the Elders of the Peace Chambers, the sage elders and sanghas of the White Plumb Lineage and Plum Village lineage of Zen, the Authentic Elders of the Animas Valley Institute and the Elders in my family tree of cultivated musicians - all the way back to Marcel Moyse, it seems that this conduit of mine has received some kind of transmission and vision to carry forth into the World at this time. Wisdom transmitted from Beautiful Painted Arrow to the Elders, and wisdom from this life that I live!

The First Sound/Peace Chamber envisioned and built in 1983 by Grandfather in Bernalillo, no longer occupies a physical manifestation. I experienced a profound pull toward the space of its sacred creation, and several Elders including Grandfather’s brother, Benito Rael, encouraged me to simply show up in Bernalillo and play and chant somewhere beautiful, to the energies of the “crystalized Chamber”. What actually manifested was fascinating and amazing…

I did some cyber research and found The Coronado Historic Site-Ancient ruins of the Kuaua Pueblo, right in Bernalillo. What drew me to chant and play the Native American Flutes there was the reconstructed Kiva and a little entrance placard saying, “Kuaua" (Tiwa for “evergreen”). The Kuaua was one of the numerous indigenous communities that developed along the Rio Grande about 1300 AD. TIWA is the Language of the Picuris Pueblo that Grandfather-Beautiful Painted Arrow speaks.! I took this as sign from Ancestors…” YES!...please do come and sing to us”!

So, Coronado’s Historic Site it was. I took a deep breath, gazed at the surrounding autumnal beauty, gathered the shamanic Native American flutes and walked through the adobe entrance to the museum…what unfolded next, is a story of bizarre feng shui…

I was looking forward to chanting and playing for the Ancestors and energies of the First Peace Chamber down in the reconstructed Kiva. Life had other plans…

Both guides were out sick and so the Kiva was locked and unavailable to tourists. I had a moment of disappointment and then thought, “Well…women were not originally part of the Kiva ceremonies and today I cannot go down, so why don’t I walk over to the Rio Grande River and do this chanting-flute playing ceremony to the Ancestors and Crystalized Sound/Peace Chamber under the sun, stars and Universe!” And so that is what manifested. First, I breathed in the beauty and abundance of the surrounding earth spaces; the Colorado River a.k.a. Nuestra Senora, the yellow and orange autumnal wolf willows, the golden cottonwood trees, the flying sandhill cranes and geese. Then, I vibrated the sacred ceremony to the Ancestors of these pueblos, and to the First Peace Chamber by the edge of the Rio Grande River, keeping in mind the sacred waters…

As I was strolling back to the museum, peaceful and content, an indigenous smiling man came running up to me and said excitedly, “the afternoon guide was asked to come early because the young man operating the historic site told him why you are here! I want to hear you play in the Kiva!” This light-hearted indigenous two-legged, of the Cochiti Pueblo, named Leroy, heard that I inquired about playing the flutes in the reconstructed kiva, and made sure to fetch-me-out by the Rio Grande River. Then, unusual to him, Leroy happily went down inside the Kiva with the tour guide and myself, to hear the flutes.

Leroy had wonderful stories to tell of his four day Vision Quest, along with 200 17 year old young men, which culminated in a long dance (Sundown to Sunup)! Leroy’s significant other, Vicky, was selling her handmade gorgeous jewelry outside the Museum! I played in a museum room where the original Ancestral wall paintings from the Kiva were hanging in glass enclosures to preserve them. A sense of the ancestors that walked before were in this space…happy to hear the flutes! It was amazing! The vibrations, that flowed through this “rich tapestry” of mine, illuminated that I was a conduit for vibration! Sandia Placitas Watermellon Mountains Following all of this, I offered Vicky a sound journey blessing with a Shamanic flute. She was open and deeply touched by the experience and then proceeded to gift me with a gorgeous pair of her handmade earrings! Gratitude! Gratitude! To have such an opportunity to make such significant Heart-connections!

So… “not knowing IS most intimate”, and simply “showing up” led me to being gifted and blessed beyond words in playing to the energies of the First Sound/Peace Chamber, the Ancestors of the surrounding Pueblos, the stunning Earth Spaces, and to those Beings drawn into the endlessly vibrating sonorities of the Sacred Drift.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin (to ALL my Relations!)...Ubuntu…Gassho…Namaste…Shalom…Lak'ech Ala K'in…Malama pono!