The Acid Queen hears Stravinsky in Jajouka



One of several notable new publications in 2025 was Susannah Cahalan's life of Rosemary Leary. Her biography The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life of Rosemary Woodruff Leary is a much-needed account of Timothy Leary's often overlooked third wife. Importantly, this meticulously researched and sympathetic book provides an objective counterbalance to the many Leary hagiographies.

Synchronicities include my unlikely brief personal encounter with Timothy Leary's second ex-wife, and and the surprising story of how Elgar took a trip. And more synchronicity in this passage from The Acid Queen.  

....It took a full day to reach the foothills of the Ahl Srif Mountains in Morocco to visit the famed Master Musicians of Joujouka, musical healers who mended broken people with their ancient songs.

The show begins with a violin. Pennywhistles joined in. Rosemary placed a tab of LSD on Timothy's tongue and then one on her own. Men in hoods rose and lifted wooden pipes that sounded at first, before your ears adjusted, like a shrill scream. The men played these rhaitas, double-reed horns, so seamlessly that it was  impossible to pick one out as the note stretched on into a drone. 

Drums joined them, adding an elaborate rhythm in clear celebration of new life, reminding Rosemary of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The throbbing beat was irresistible. "My breath was caught by the horns; my pulse by the drums... Was this music, or the thunder of mammoth hooves, screams of birds of prey? It seemed the very tempo of life in my body. Eardrums could be shattered. Hearts could burst from these sounds.  

Readers can sample the Jajouka experience in my post 2020 Revisiting the Master Musicians.  

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