Pipe Smokers?

[Bugbear]

Glad for you, Ron, on quitting.

[BoldHighlander]

Messed with pipes in college. Had no clue what I was doing and couldn't master the art of keeping them lit. Tobacco's killed most of my parent's generation of my family. I took to it too. Went from 2-3 pacs of cigarettes to chain smoking and inhaling cigars. Once thought I'd been food poisoned. Went to the doc. He smelled me, drew blood, and told me I had nicotine poisoning. Quit.

Today, smoke a chanupa (peace pipe) loaded with kanikanik (herbs, no tobacco) after sweatlodge. Funny, as the pipe is passed around the circle we always have trouble keeping it lit. Maybe the long stem is the problem.

Ron

Wow, I can relate Ron. I use to be a 2 pack a day cigarette smoker when in my early-to-mid 20's. Quit due to two nasty bouts of pneumonia.

Never much of a pipe smoker, however did smoke one of the old (long stem) colonial clay pipes at reenactments on occasion. I was more of a cigar smoker, though usually for very special occasions (I see them as a "treat") & at ACW reenactments. One of the great pleasures was to sit around the campfire in the evening with my pards & share a fine smoke.

Haven't had one in years, though from time to time I feel the craving.

I do own a calumet ("peace pipe") made for me about 10 yrs ago by a Cherokee brother of mine (I'm a member of the Wolf Clan, Southern Cherokee Nation). It was originally furnished with a spiraled stem of red sumac, but as soon as I tested it I had an allergic reaction (sumac ), so he furnished me with a long straight stem of white cedar. The bowl is red catlinite that he acquired from the quarry @ the Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota where only people of Native American ancestry are allowed to quarry the pipestone.

My pipebowl has the traditional Plains shape:

though that one is of Salmon Alabaster.

Mine has the color of the finished bowl in this pic:


I haven't smoked it in years, but I don't recall ever having problems keeping mine lit (I don't remember anything special I did either ). Though I haven't smoked it in a spell, you can imagine its a treasured possession

[Nick]

Today, smoke a chanupa (peace pipe) loaded with kanikanik (herbs, no tobacco) after sweatlodge. Funny, as the pipe is passed around the circle we always have trouble keeping it lit. Maybe the long stem is the problem.

Ron

I have a few churchwardens, both clay and briar, and the long stem is usually a benefit. Keeping a pipe lit usually has more to do with proper packing, and smoking at the right rate. I've smoked calumets before, though filled with tobacco, and there wasn't a problem, maybe it's the combination of what's in the bowl.

[Bellfree]

I too enjoy pipesmoking. There's pleasure to standing in a kilt on the front porch looking out over the mountains, puffing on my pipe.

My favorite tobaccos are #5, Pipeworks & Wilke, in the morning using my H.A Jorgensen apple bowled half bent, and in the afternoon, #193, Pipeworks & Wilke, in my full bent Graco Stumpy. I also like MacBaren's Vintage Syrian tobacco and my old Stanwell pipe bought over 30 years ago when i was a college student at Vanderbilt.

[beloitpiper]

BoldHighalnder, that reminds me, tomorrow, we're getting a collection of Catlinite (pipestone) pipes and ornaments. Should be fun to study them. I love being an archaeology lab rat.

[Riverkilt]

You guys remind me. My chanupa is also of the red pipestone. Friends have made their own from a block of pipestone. I found Drumbeat, the Native American "supply" store in Phoenix the easier option.

Once or twice a year for nearly 20 years now I've gone on a spiritual retreat on Mingus Mountain, Arizona. Early on a friend built a medicine wheel in a beautiful spot on the mountain. Its built into the mountain so one has to know where it is located to find it. Its a very spiritual place.

About 15 years ago I noticed a golden eagle soaring over the mountain. Still don't know why exactly, but I had an impulse to grab my chanupa and head for that medicine wheel. I did. Once there I lit up and all of a sudden there were two golden eagles circling directly above me. An incredible spiritual experience.

Hoping the mods well understand the difference between religion and the spiritual experience of being at one with Nature and being connected to Nature.

Point of course is that smoking the pipe was the key.

Ron

[Bugbear]

Thanks for sharing the egle story, Ron.

* I'll just add on for the record, I stopped smoking after a spiritual experience in 2003, so I shouldn't even be posting in this thread.

[thescot]

There are few things in life more pleasurable than a fine pipe and good tobacco. I always liked messing with the pipe--packing the tobacco, cleaning it, scraping the inside, etc.--and then firing up a good leaf and watching the smoke rings rise from my lips.

If I still could smoke once in a blue moon like some of you, I would buy the best meerschaum-lined full bend pipe I could find, add a church warden in clay, and a Peterson apple, and then purchase 2 or 3 really good long leaf tobaccos (no purfume, please). But I fear I'd reawaken my own addiction.

The scar down my chest from a bypass and a heart transplant (3 months apart) prevents me from even casually considering it.

It took a week in a coma with a tube down my throat and the doctor telling me that he didn't think I would make it for me to kick the tobacco habit. I guess I didn't really quit; it wasn't available, and I spent two months in the same hospital room. Kind of like cold turkey/detox with about 25% cardiac output thrown in for good measure.

That's addiction! I haven't smoked in over 7 1/2 years, but I am still addicted, I fear. Today I am not smoking, but I am pretty sure that one would be too many and a carton would not be enough! Ha. That's why I don't even consider cigars or pipes.

But the good Lord knows I loved every puff for over 30 years!

[JRB]

I only rarely smoke a pipe. When I do I smoke my RMJ Forge FIW replica English pipe-hawk.

[BoldHighlander]

I only rarely smoke a pipe. When I do I smoke my RMJ Forge FIW replica English pipe-hawk.

NICE!!