Do You Associate Pipe Smoking with a Sense of Spirituality?

[telescopes]

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.

Yes, that’s it. Seeing and admiring God’s handiwork as it is revealed everywhere and in everything is wonderous. Just as not all who wander all lost - not all who are being meditative are in a prayerful state. No differently, not all who smoke fill the throne room of God with their prayers and supplications.

 

[huntertrw]

The late C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis once wrote, "I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand." I agree.

 

[MisterBadger]

not all who smoke fill the throne room of God with their prayers and supplications.

- Which is probably just as well...

 

[MesabiBear]

Meditative could also mean spiritually.

 

[MisterBadger]

Meditative could also mean spiritually.

It could. But it doesn't seem to, to many who have posted here, though it does to others. Perhaps what we have here is a tacit lack of agreement as to what we think either word means.

 

[MesabiBear]

Well, spirituality is a broad term that refers to many things. From inner personal purpose, a connection within our smoking community, or in a religious sense.

By the way, I’m new here, lurking around.

 

[MisterBadger]

Well, spirituality is a broad term that refers to many things. From inner personal purpose, a connection within our smoking community, or in a religious sense.

By the way, I’m new here, lurking around.

So what you're saying is that it's like a bowl of fruit, and some of us are talking grapes at others who have bananas in mind?

 

[MesabiBear]

So what you're saying is that it's like a bowl of fruit, and some of us are talking grapes at others who have bananas in mind?

Perhaps in a way. If we sit, smoke and ponder by looking inwards into ourselves, this may be considered a spiritual experience.

 

[Zamora]

It's definitely meditative for me but not spiritual. I do practice actual meditation daily but it's a very demystified form, I use Headspace if anybody is curious.

 

[telescopes]

Meditative could also mean spiritually.

It could. But it doesn't seem to, to many who have posted here, though it does to others. Perhaps what we have here is a tacit lack of agreement as to what we think either word means.

Well, spirituality is a broad term that refers to many things. From inner personal purpose, a connection within our smoking community, or in a religious sense.

By the way, I’m new here, lurking around.

Perhaps in a way. If we sit, smoke and ponder by looking inwards into ourselves, this may be considered a spiritual experience.

Yes to everything above. Spirituality... let's not overthink it.

 

[telescopes]

Spirituality is an awareness that there is something more... smoking a pipe allows one time to stop, think, contemplate, organize thought, and find transcendence with one's self, identity, and their place...

Not everyone of course finds this ascribes to them while smoking their pipe. Not everyone will in fact ever have any moments in their life that the above descriptors will be relevant. Everyone is different. But many who do smoke a pipe find the above description does apply to them.

Surfing can be spiritual.

This came to me once while catching a wave...


Behind the Illusion


We are made of Stardust
And powered by Sunlight.

Our thoughts ride
on Infinite waves of expanding energy
whose crests and troughs
are time and space.

Our bodies reflect
the increasingly complex patterns
of order that we know as our universe –

Our lives are but a moment upon this wave
and we are all surfers,
here to enjoy this moment
before it all tumbles into decay.

 

[DeaconPiper]

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.

I regularly pipe War Horse, Ten Russians and Nightcap. Of course, I have a huge variety of other blends peppered throughout the day and week, but I have one of the above mentioned each, or every other, day. I like strong, latakia focused blends with a hint of sweetness.

You ask about incense ingredients. Most of our incense comes from Athos, and Holy Cross Hermitage in West Virginia. These consist of various resins, an interesting spectrum of fragrances depending on time of year, for example, sweeter incense with more flowery notes for feasts, bitter during fasts, etc.

I’ve never heard of a pipe blend anything like incense, but I am quite familiar with nasal snuff and here you’ll find many pleasant similarities.

 

[rakovsky]

I regularly pipe War Horse, Ten Russians and Nightcap. Of course, I have a huge variety of other blends peppered throughout the day and week, but I have one of the above mentioned each, or every other, day. I like strong, latakia focused blends with a hint of sweetness.

You ask about incense ingredients. Most of our incense comes from Athos, and Holy Cross Hermitage in West Virginia. These consist of various resins, an interesting spectrum of fragrances depending on time of year, for example, sweeter incense with more flowery notes for feasts, bitter during fasts, etc.

I’ve never heard of a pipe blend anything like incense, but I am quite familiar with nasal snuff and here you’ll find many pleasant similarities.

Deacon Piper,
If you're into the E.O. Slavic theme, there's an Oriental Leaf brough from Java to the former republics of Yugoslavia called Herzegovina Flor that Croatians call Shkiya. It was brought to the Russian Empire, particularly the Black Sea region from former Yugoslavia and grown there through into the Soviet period where it was used as the basis for a premium, top-class filterless cigarette called Herzegovina Flor.

A couple months ago another piper, from Michigan, sent me a sample packet of D and R's Blender's Bench "Bulgarian Leaf".

The Oriental variety known as "Katerini" has a name matching a port in Greece. It's very delicate though, so I guess you wouldn't like it.

So in case you know someone in one of the Eastern European countries, they have a couple nice local regional "Oriental" blends that they could send you.

In case you are into heavy Latakia blends, it reminds me of a Cossack style song, "When we were at War", (Koga My Byli Na Voyne): In the lyrics, the Cossack was rejected by a lady that he liked and he stared into his pipe with its blue flame and "bitter Turkish tobacco." The song prompted me to try Englishes and Orientals, and you can find performances of the song online. Personally, alot of Latakias I find to be like either old leather or like a barnstall and don't like it alot, but some like Petersen's Standard Mixture are fine for me.

 

[MisterBadger]

In case you are into heavy Latakia blends, it reminds me of a Cossack style song, "When we were at War", (Koga My Byli Na Voyne): In the lyrics, the Cossack was rejected by a lady that he liked and he stared into his pipe with its blue flame and "bitter Turkish tobacco." The song prompted me to try Englishes and Orientals, and you can find performances of the song online.

@rakovsky - I looked up the English lyrics while listening to the song on YouTube. It made the hairs on my arms stand up. I'm fond of war poetry (when I'm in a certain mood), and this one certainly hits the spot. Thank you.

If anyone's interested, you can hear the song and follow the words in English, here:

 

[rakovsky]

@rakovsky - I looked up the English lyrics while listening to the song on YouTube. It made the hairs on my arms stand up. I'm fond of war poetry (when I'm in a certain mood), and this one certainly hits the spot. Thank you.

If anyone's interested, you can hear the song and follow the words in English, here:

Mr. Badger,
I like Charge of the Light Brigade and took it as an antiwar poem, but weirdly I found out that it wasn't necessarily intended that way. Some Russian Cossack songs remind me of that theme because they have the heroism, risk, potential doom theme, along with being about cavalry.

In the 2000's I visited Sevastopol as a tourist and a panorama for the siege during the Crimean War. In England there was a Christian-oriented minority against UK intervention in that war because the UK was entering the war on the side of Muslim Turkey against Christian Russia. Russia's goal in the conflict was to free Christian East Europeans from Ottoman rule. The US was mildly sympathetic to Russia in that conflict, but didn't intervene.

"When we were at war" was actually written in the 1990's. I tried to find the kind of tobacco that the lyrics referenced, but I only found a couple literary references over the last two centuries to bitter Turkish tobacco in Russian. Like some German or Polish soldiers had bitter smelling Turkish tobacco in a few old stories from around the WW1 era. I got the impression that the composer of the song's lyrics was using creative license or else relying on his own perception of some unnamed Latakia-including blend. Otherwise, minus Latakia I didn't find Orientals like pure Katerini or Izmir or Samsun specifically bitter. Izmir was like old wood or an old wood museum, but not foul. Maybe there is some Oriental bitter leaf variety I am missing?

The song references "Horse My Raveny" a poetic way of rewording "My raven colored horse." I guess that references a different known cossack song titled "Black Raven", Chorniy Voron with kind of a similar theme.

 

[rakovsky]

You ask about incense ingredients. Most of our incense comes from Athos, and Holy Cross Hermitage in West Virginia. These consist of various resins, an interesting spectrum of fragrances depending on time of year, for example, sweeter incense with more flowery notes for feasts, bitter during fasts, etc.

I’ve never heard of a pipe blend anything like incense, but I am quite familiar with nasal snuff and here you’ll find many pleasant similarities.

My question would be whether you have a default incense blend and if so, what is it and what are the ingredients? I'm guessing the typical common denominator is frankincense and myrrh.

I read in an E. Orthodox article that the recipe or basis for church incense originates from the Temple blend in Exodus 30:34. I got three of the ingredients as an order on Monday- frankincense, myrrh, and Galbanum. That galbanum is so sticky.

Indonesian Rhubarb Frankincense Tobacco has frankincense. It was a fine smoke. I noticed the frankincense in it, like sweet and oily.

I never had HU's Moroccan Bazaar, but it has frankincense too.

 

[MisterBadger]

Mr. Badger,
I like Charge of the Light Brigade and took it as an antiwar poem, but weirdly I found out that it wasn't necessarily intended that way. Some Russian Cossack songs remind me of that theme because they have the heroism, risk, potential doom theme, along with being about cavalry.

In the 2000's I visited Sevastopol as a tourist and a panorama for the siege during the Crimean War. In England there was a Christian-oriented minority against UK intervention in that war because the UK was entering the war on the side of Muslim Turkey against Christian Russia. Russia's goal in the conflict was to free Christian East Europeans from Ottoman rule. The US was mildly sympathetic to Russia in that conflict, but didn't intervene.

"When we were at war" was actually written in the 1990's. I tried to find the kind of tobacco that the lyrics referenced, but I only found a couple literary references over the last two centuries to bitter Turkish tobacco in Russian. Like some German or Polish soldiers had bitter smelling Turkish tobacco in a few old stories from around the WW1 era. I got the impression that the composer of the song's lyrics was using creative license or else relying on his own perception of some unnamed Latakia-including blend. Otherwise, minus Latakia I didn't find Orientals like pure Katerini or Izmir or Samsun specifically bitter. Izmir was like old wood or an old wood museum, but not foul. Maybe there is some Oriental bitter leaf variety I am missing?

The song references "Horse My Raveny" a poetic way of rewording "My raven colored horse." I guess that references a different known cossack song titled "Black Raven", Chorniy Voron with kind of a similar theme.

Mr. Badger,
I like Charge of the Light Brigade and took it as an antiwar poem, but weirdly I found out that it wasn't necessarily intended that way. Some Russian Cossack songs remind me of that theme because they have the heroism, risk, potential doom theme, along with being about cavalry.

In the 2000's I visited Sevastopol as a tourist and a panorama for the siege during the Crimean War. In England there was a Christian-oriented minority against UK intervention in that war because the UK was entering the war on the side of Muslim Turkey against Christian Russia. Russia's goal in the conflict was to free Christian East Europeans from Ottoman rule. The US was mildly sympathetic to Russia in that conflict, but didn't intervene.

"When we were at war" was actually written in the 1990's. I tried to find the kind of tobacco that the lyrics referenced, but I only found a couple literary references over the last two centuries to bitter Turkish tobacco in Russian. Like some German or Polish soldiers had bitter smelling Turkish tobacco in a few old stories from around the WW1 era. I got the impression that the composer of the song's lyrics was using creative license or else relying on his own perception of some unnamed Latakia-including blend. Otherwise, minus Latakia I didn't find Orientals like pure Katerini or Izmir or Samsun specifically bitter. Izmir was like old wood or an old wood museum, but not foul. Maybe there is some Oriental bitter leaf variety I am missing?

The song references "Horse My Raveny" a poetic way of rewording "My raven colored horse." I guess that references a different known cossack song titled "Black Raven", Chorniy Voron with kind of a similar theme.

Here in the market square in Ludlow is a captured Russian cannon, taken from the siege of Sevastopol - one of hundreds, but I often wonder if it might have been one commanded by the young Lieutenant Lev Nikolaievich Tolstoy (I often have to resist the temptation to tell tourists that it is).

In Britain, unsurprisingly, we put a different spin on what the Crimean War was about, but it would be going waaaay off topic... but I think I can state with confidence that the USA didn't intervene because it was in no position to. Besides, opening up a commercial empire in the Pacific seems to have been the US naval priority at the time.

I'm surprised the song is so modern. It sounds as if it might have been composed in 1854... or even earlier... anyway, about your bitter Turkish tobacco: perhaps - poetic licence apart - the author was referring to a Turkish leaf that was simply cheap and not well cured or blended - possibly the kind of tobacco issued to soldiers? If so, maybe your search should focus, not on a particular variety, but on rough, common tobacco of the sort that is not usually exported ?