Joseph Rael
Beautiful Painted Arrow
A Life Between Two Worlds
Joseph Rael was born in 1935 on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado.1 His father, Alfred Rael, was a Tiwa-speaking man from Picuris Pueblo; his mother, Beatrice Head, was the granddaughter of a Ute chief. When the family moved to Picuris Pueblo, near Taos, New Mexico, Joseph received the Tiwa name Tslew-teh-koyeh, meaning Beautiful Painted Arrow, a name he has carried throughout his life as both teacher and artist.
Rael went on to earn a bachelor's degree from the University of New Mexico and a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, later becoming known as a ceremonial dancer, writer, visionary artist, and one of the most widely recognized Native American teachers of sacred sound in the past half century.
The Sound Peace Chambers
In the 1980s, while dancing in ceremony, Rael received a vision of an oval structure, built half below ground and half above, filled with the sound of men and women chanting together. He described it in his book Being and Vibration as "a house of the sound of presentness, a structure built to reverberate sound."2
He built the first Sound Peace Chamber in Bernalillo, New Mexico, as a kiva-like gathering space where people of any background could chant and sing together in the name of peace. The vision spread. More than fifty Sound Peace Chambers have since been built across four continents, including sites throughout the United States and in Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, and several other countries.1 Each one keeps the same basic form Rael first saw: a circular space built for voice, breath, and collective sound rather than performance.
The Long Dance, the Sun-Moon Dance, and the Drum Dance
Alongside the chambers, Rael created three ceremonial dances open to participants of any race or nationality: the long dance, the sun-moon dance, and the drum dance. Each was built from his visions as a way of moving sound, breath, and intention through the body in community. In 1999, he stepped back from actively leading these dances, passing responsibility for them to a new generation of students who continue to hold them today.
The Sacred Vowels and Wah-Mah-Chi
Two teachings sit at the center of Rael's work. The Sacred Vowels treat vowel sounds not as arbitrary phonetics, but as directions of consciousness tied to the Medicine Wheel, each carrying a distinct quality that can be voiced with breath and intention to help restore balance.
The second, Wah-Mah-Chi, describes the relationship between breath, matter, and movement — the idea that spirit and earth are not separate, but different expressions of the same living rhythm. In Rael's teaching, breath carries consciousness into form, and sound gives that intention motion. Both teachings share a common thread: the voice is treated not as a tool for communication alone, but as direct participation in a living, vibrating world.
Writing, Art, and Recognition
Rael is the author of several books, including Being and Vibration, Sound: Native Teachings and Visionary Art, Ceremonies of the Living Spirit, and his autobiography, House of Shattering Light. His visionary "portal" paintings, drawn from the same dreams and ceremonies as his teaching, have been exhibited in galleries across Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and San Francisco.
As a Native American elder, Rael has spoken before the United Nations and addressed a conference of military officers at the Pentagon on the role of the warrior in the modern world. His decades of peace work, carried through sound rather than policy, have been formally recognized by the United Nations.
Continuing the Legacy
Joseph Rael is long retired from public teaching, but the traditions he founded remain active. His eldest daughter, Geraldine Rael, continues guiding the Sacred Vowels, Wah-Mah-Chi, and the Sound Peace Chambers through gatherings and contemplative work rooted in her father's vision. Around the world, people still gather inside the circular chambers he first envisioned, chanting and sitting in silence for the same purpose he built them for: peace, carried through sound.
At Sacred Syllable and Kusala Healing Arts, Rael's work is honored within a broader exploration of sacred sound, contemplative listening, and Indigenous wisdom traditions, alongside teachers such as Joseph Fire Crow, whose own relationship to breath and voice, carried through the Native American flute rather than chant, reflects a different but equally exacting Indigenous sacred sound tradition. Together, they are a reminder that breath and voice have long been understood as ways of participating in the world, not simply describing it.
Sources
2. ↩ Rael, Joseph. Being and Vibration. Millichap Books, 2012