Most of my blog posts are sort of mini-essays, this isn't one of those. Just sort of sharing stuff this time I guess.
Tobacco is obviously a powerful plant in my life, one that I will likely never fully extricate myself from. I have switched from cigarettes to a pipe, which is very different. It's impossible to hurry a pipe, you have to take your time. Probably more of the ingestion of psychoactive herb takes place through your mouth than your lungs in a pipe, just because you have to puff a lot to keep it lit. You don't get that "cocainelike" rush with a pipe that you do with cigarettes, but it does get the job done. I think it is a much more meditative experience, pipe smoking. On the whole, while I miss the probably rather unhealthy rush of cigarettes, I am pretty happy with the change. They do stink to high heaven, but then if I go out into the front yard the mixture of the smell of pipe tobacco with the smell of the fig tree is a truly sublime fragrance.
Tobacco is obviously a powerful plant in my life, one that I will likely never fully extricate myself from. I have switched from cigarettes to a pipe, which is very different. It's impossible to hurry a pipe, you have to take your time. Probably more of the ingestion of psychoactive herb takes place through your mouth than your lungs in a pipe, just because you have to puff a lot to keep it lit. You don't get that "cocainelike" rush with a pipe that you do with cigarettes, but it does get the job done. I think it is a much more meditative experience, pipe smoking. On the whole, while I miss the probably rather unhealthy rush of cigarettes, I am pretty happy with the change. They do stink to high heaven, but then if I go out into the front yard the mixture of the smell of pipe tobacco with the smell of the fig tree is a truly sublime fragrance.
Doing my prayers this morning I fell into a trance, which I usually do, but this was an exceptionally powerful one. Thing is though, it completely defies any attempt of mine to explain what I was experiencing. One of the emotions associated with it was tremendous astonishment, I can't explain. Like I was staring into the mystery of being. It was quite like I had just fallen really deeply into the present, but the present seemed to be exuding "mythologies" that I cannot precisely describe. My breath slowed down to practically stopping. I was still seeing exactly what was there, that was the strange thing, everything was the same and yet totally different. It's like we don't slow down enough typically to actually be present with the things around us, and suddenly I was totally with them and saw that they were powerfully mysterious somehow. That's the best I can do to explain. We don't slow down enough to see anything.
Of course the main or at least first activity in the prayer session is thanking and wishing well, thanking the plants and animals that keep you alive when you eat their bodies, wishing my neighbors the trees well, expressing grief at the damage done to Mother Earth and expressing gratitude for what isn't damaged, and so on.
Of course the main or at least first activity in the prayer session is thanking and wishing well, thanking the plants and animals that keep you alive when you eat their bodies, wishing my neighbors the trees well, expressing grief at the damage done to Mother Earth and expressing gratitude for what isn't damaged, and so on.
I also had a wonderful drumming session with my new hand drum, very satisfying. It's just a wonderfully sensuous experience, feeling the drum head under your fingers (no sticks), dragging the fingertips across it to make a sort of scritchy sound, losing yourself in the flying of fingers and the deep resonance of the instrument.
So often I feel like I am not up for a prayer session, don't have the energy or my mind feels clouded or whatever, but when I do it I always feel like it is the best thing that happens all day.
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