I'll second the deep comfort vibe.
And the seeming lack of mosquitos when smoking a fantastic burley on a cool autumn evening.
And the seeming lack of mosquitos when smoking a fantastic burley on a cool autumn evening.
Do You Associate Pipe Smoking with a Sense of Spirituality?
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Good read.
Thanks for posting that.
The only time I related smoking to spiritually was while parking with a female and smoking some nicotine afterwards.
I’m a deacon in the Orthodox Church and enjoy a delicious pipe most every day. It’s certainly not “spiritual” or “religious,” but piping certainly relaxes and clears my mind that few past times do. On Sundays after the Divine Liturgy, I may pipe with a few guys from our parish, watching birds flutter down from the hills. Few things I enjoy more than fellowship with other men around a pipe in God’s creation.
Deacon Piper,
I'm also in the Orthodox Church. Alot of non-smokers like the smell of pipes. Have you found that true about other parishioners? What blends do you like to smoke after church?
Last Paskha after Church on Sunday a group of parishioners mostly in their 20's piped in the area out by the church's entrance, which is like a little garden plaza. A lot of them were new or one-time pipers who were smoking Savinellis that a friend of mine brought in a big leather pipe pouch.
May I please ask what ingredients are in your parish's common incense, or which blend that you use, like "Byzantium"? The reason that I ask is because sometimes I see pipe blends described as being like incense. So it makes me wonder what the normal or default smell of incense is.
For Native Americans, pipe smoking was part of their spirituality. In one Native story, the Creator or Great Spirit gave tobacco to Man in order to connect with Him.
Incense in Church and the OT tabernacle has a similar function. In Revelation, incense is treated as symbolizing the prayers of saints/holy people. In Christian thinking, the incense rises to heaven like prayers.
I hear that some pipe blends smell like incense. For instance, @condorlover1 wrote,
It makes me curious about those blends- how close are they to incense, which ones are closest to incense.
Why wouldn't pipe smoking carry a spiritual significance for some? Connecting with the divine is more than simply doing something religious or spiritual. It is opening one's senses up and allowing them to experience the greater universe around them as well as within them. Just as all that glitters is not gold, so it is that not all who smoke touch the divine. It's not important that everyone who smokes should. But for some, the pipe at times is a vehicle for something more than the sum of its parts. If it's not, it's not.
It was and it wasn't. We had ceremonial pipes and tobaccos but there were regular use pipes for smoking and many chewed it as well.
JB,
I don't know how often the Natives inhaled their tobacco from their pipes. I recall reading that they inhaled it, but there were millions of Natives and US territory is huge, so probably some inhaled and some didn't.
There is a traditional Native practicing of first offering tobacco to the Creator or Great Spirit before smoking with spirituality in mind. First the person sprinkles unsmoked tobacco on the ground, maybe with a prayer, before smoking himself/herself. This goes along with what you said about offering.
De Facto if you stand in a room with incense you are probably going to get at least slight intake into the lungs of the smoke.
It's much healthier to avoid smoking in the lungs though, so I agree with your point about that.
It's always nice hearing from you about this stuff.
As for me, spirituality or connecting with the higher power seems to happen in the silence. I don’t necessarily seek out the connection when I spark up a pipe, but it does on many occasions find me in that moment.
We've had this discussion in another thread.
Post in thread 'Tobacco is Sacred' Tobacco is Sacred :: General Pipe Smoking Discussion - https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/tobacco-is-sacred.102712/post-36961527
My grandmother was Shawnee. I'm enrolled in The Shawnee Tribe and my tribal name given to me as a child by my grandmother actually is Chasing Embers because she caught me playing with the embers rising from a bonfire when I was little. Before becoming the oldest member of the family, the family elders would call me Little Embers well into my adult years.
This kind fellow is Chief Barnes.
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A lot of deep and interesting things have been said here on the subject, and maybe every single one of them is right (OK, nearly all of them). Well, it seems to me that, just as there are different ways of interpreting the question and answering it, so there are different kinds of spirituality (maybe different levels, or even bandwidths, would be a better way of putting it), just as there are different kinds of pipe-smoking. And I have several different reasons for smoking a pipe - but none of them is what I'd call spiritual, though others might. Some who know me regard me as a spiritual person, but I don't see how regulated breathing of the smoke of dried leaves through a tube can, in itself, have any peculiar spirituality in it. What it does have, though, is communion in one kind with others who smoke pipes, past as well as present: a common experience shared and understood, regardless of our other diversities. Now that's got what one might call a religious aspect - a bit like a church congregation. Some of your fellow members might strike you as alarmingly over-zealous, some you feel warm and friendly towards as kindred spirits, some you might consider weird, yet others you might wonder sometimes what they're doing there at all. You might not share their politics, you might think their taste questionable, yet you and they are part of the same congegation of pipe-smokers, whether regular or occasional attenders. But spirituality? Can you get that in a church? Can you get spiritual insights from these forums? It depends on you.
I have a clear image from a biographical film about C. S. Lewis ("The Most Reluctant Convert" on either Netflix or Amazon) of Lewis smoking his pipe and having a pint, while narrating his own conversion to belief. So, I can't wait until warmer weather (I smoke outside only) to enjoy a pipe and scripture or faith-oriented reading in the morning with a cup of coffee.
Well, I'm late to the discussion but I do find pipe smoking to often be spiritual for me. A pipe is a great way to get into a contempletive or prayerful state. The wonder of God is exposed in his creation. I see the wonder of God's handiwork revealed in the grain of a gorgeous briar.
Don't wait! Was smoking on a beautiful sunny morning in -11C. Was wonderful!
I find smoking more contemplative than spiritual. The only time I get that spiritual feeling from smoking is when I do it outdoors. In France I was able to find peace at my parents château and property. Here in NYC I tend to visit Central Park when I need that prescription of nature.
Yeah, I used to experience something similar when I visited Griffith Park during the Festival Of Lights. I'd look at the displays of animating Christmas lights and enjoy the carols and Christmas pops sounding from the speakers set up in the trees above, find myself a nice hay bale to sit on, light up a bowl, and enjoy the spectacle.
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