Mind-bending soiree
Leading psychedelic and spiritual leaders descend on Santa Fe for enlightening fundraiser
Ram Dass and Timothy Leary are considered the original gangsters of the psychedelic movement for good reason.
As Harvard colleagues in the 1960s, psychologists Ram Dass, then known as Richard Alpert, and Leary conducted extensive research on psychedelics and discovered a number of benefits for mental health and spiritual growth, plus insights into the brain that would later form the basis for modern neuroscience. Ultimately, they drifted apart, with Ram Dass taking a spiritual path and Leary leaning more toward the revolutionary. The story of their work, lives, friendship and reunion as Leary was dying in the mid-′90s form become the premise of the 2014 documentary Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary from director Gay Dillingham. Narrated by Robert Redford, Dying taps into how Ram Dass put his spiritual practices and experiences working with the dying into action to comfort his friend at the end of his life. And though Ram Dass also died in 2019, the work continues.
This Thursday, the Ram Dass Love Serve Remember Foundation teams up with Santa Fe psychedelic proponent Nancy Worthington-Broyles and Violet Crown Cinema for a fundraising event and screening of Dying to Know. Follwing of the screening, moviegoers can attend a panel discussion between Dillingham and leading experts in today’s psychedelic-spurred healing and spirituality movement—including Upaya Zen Center founder Roshi Joan Halifax; interspiritual author and educator Mirabai Starr; and Adele Getty, director of the pro-psychedelic Limina Foundation. The panel also includes clergy members who participated in a joint John Hopkins University/New York University study into psychedelics and religious leaders. An afterparty with food, drinks and music follows.
Aside from fundraising for the Love Serve Remember Foundation, Worthington-Broyles tells SFR, the goal is to build community and raise awareness about the spiritual and medicinal components of psychedelics.
“This work is really, really important,” she says. “People suffer and people are in pain. [Psychedelics help] to relieve anxiety, to relieve trauma, to relieve all of those things; and opening up your neuropathways the tiniest bit to remind your brain what feels normal.” (Heidi Fillingim)
Psychedelics to Spirituality Film Screening and Panel: 4:30-8:30pm Thursday, July 18. $50-$1,000. Violet Crown Cinema, 1606 Alcaldesa Street, (505) 216-5678
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this pick incorrectly stated the panel precedes the film screening rather than following it.
The Genesis of Gems
Jewelry designer and gemologist Barbara Weber Yoffee has been interested in jewelry-making since she was 8 years old, after watching a goldsmith and family friend create custom rings for her mother. One of five regularly presenting artists at Santa Fe’s DBS Fine Art Gallery, Yoffee will discuss the history of gem and jewelry manufacturing dating back to Mesopotamia, Rome and Egypt, presenting images of ancient pieces (including a diamond ring she says is thousands of years old). “Human beings have had a sense of beauty for as long as we’ve been here, she tells SFR. “It’s really amazing to see what has been created over thousands of years from different cultures.” (Mo Charnot)
Ancient Gems and Jewelry: The Lure and Lore of Gemstones: 4-6:30 pm Thursday, July 18. Free. DBS Fine Art Gallery, 821 Canyon Road, Ste. 5, (505) 395-6178
Summertime and the Living is Pretty
Obscura Gallery founder and curator Jennifer Schlessinger happily admits the pieces fell into place by happy accident for her currently running Picturesque Summer show featuring photographers Rania Matar, Aline Smithson, Susan Burnstine and Jennifer Spelman. In the show, find seaside portraits, rain-swollen clouds over the desert, an unmanned boat adrift in a lake. “You know what?” Schlesinger says ahead of the show’s public reception this week, “It totally fell into place, and it’s kind of funny because it occurred to me after it was put together that all four of them are Santa Fe Photo Workshops instructors, but that wasn’t part of why I wanted to show the work.” Of course, each shooter’s eye is totally different, but their disparate bodies of work do somehow create a whole—one steeped in a bittersweet summer-fueled ache of nostalgia; the reminder of being totally free in a world full of beauty. (Alex De Vore)
Picturesque Summer Reception: 5-7 pm Friday, July 19. Free. Obscura Gallery, 225 Delgado St., (505) 577-6708
Youth of Today
At this point, the New Mexico History Museum’s Native American Portal Artisans Program is what we might call pretty famous. A quick overview for the uninitiated: A number of Indigenous artists ply their wares on the portal of the Palace of the Governors; and the ongoing program has been popular with locals and visitors alike. This weekend, however, the kids are in charge. At the Summer Youth Show this Saturday and Sunday, meet the next generation of Indigenous creators aged 5-17 and check out their early works before they get all famous later. Chances are, you’ll find some gorgeous pieces, but you’ll also get bragging rights when the kids come into their own down the line. (ADV)
Native American Artisans Portal Summer Youth Show: 10 am-4 pm Saturday, July 20 and Sunday, July 21. Free. New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Ave., (505) 475-5100