The Sacred Pipe Ceremony
The pipe pulls in visions, assistance and answers. The smoke blows out prayers, requests for healing. The area is smudged, as are all participants and tools to be used, including the tobacco. The smudge used by the women of the plains tribes is often a type of fungus that grows on the diamond bark willow, but the clearing of any density and the sealing in of holiness for all North American tribes require sage. The broader leaf white sage that grows in the South-West is regarded as the most potent.
Sweetgrass braided and lit (there should be no flame, just smoke), not only should be used to signal all realms that a sacred ceremony is to be initiated, but also to light the pipe, once it is ready to be used. In harvesting sweetgrass, the roots must be left intact. In a smoking circle, the person to the right of the pipe-bearer lights the Chanupa or sacred pipe so that the pipe-bearer does not have to handle the energy of the fire.
The tobacco (usually a mixture of pure, carved tobacco, kinikinik and red willow bark), is loaded into the pipe in seven pinches, each turned above the smoke of the smudge for further purification. Each pinch is then held up to its direction, requesting that its qualities enter the tobacco, as the pipe is loaded.
The pipe is held with its bowl (feminine) in the left (feminine) hand, at all times – even when it is put together. The pipe is cleansed before and after use with a feather or a straight stick of sage. The two openings in the pipe bowl are blocked with Spanish moss when not in use. It is wrapped in new, red cloth as the pipe ceremony is done towards the East (red). The cloth is often taken on a four-day vision quest to make it worthy to hold a Chanupa.
The pipe, once lit, is held up to the South, West, North, East, Above, Below and Within – holding the bowl in the left hand and pointing the stem with the right hand. A full rotation is then done with the left hand being the pivot point. The pipe-holder may then pray aloud, take the smoke in his mouth (sacred smoke is not inhaled into the lungs), and blow it out. The pipe is then passed to the left until the circle is complete, or the tobacco used up.
The Sacred Ceremony’s Use for Others:
The visionary elders of native tribes worldwide, recognize that sacred traditions, like the directions, are merging. A global tribe is forming called the Wigmunkee Oyate – the Rainbow People. As described under the section ‘Unity within Diversity’, they are taking the best from all cultures and making it their own, as they walk a sacred and reverent journey.
But one cannot just take part of a sacred ceremony without honoring it in its totality; nor without understanding its deeply esoteric principles. A pipe is not just bought. It is either given to honor a great spiritual accomplishment, or produced oneself during a time of fasting and prayers – often as the result of a visionary dream.
The Pipe Ceremony’s Origins
When life fell (see The Gift of the Unicorns), space separated into linear directions. The Native people call us the dancers on the web of Spider Woman’s dream (a reminder of the interconnectedness of life and the unrealness of appearances). When the dream state got deep, life’s inner senses and our inner space became more unreal than the outer. We lost contact with our hearts as the Source-connection – assistance was sought without (see Windows into Eternity for information regarding inner and outer space). For eons of cycles of existence this was our reality, and the pipe, for many, the vehicle.
It can still be used to receive guidance from the Infinite through our hearts and to blow out with the smoke our intention. The plants hold deep magic, in that they activate aspects within ourselves (see www.incorruptiblewhitemagic.com). Tobacco activates the manifestation of intent.
The Native traditions speak of the origins of the pipe ceremony, but their legends are really only speaking of its restoration – it is very much older than that, and was given as a tool by those within the realms who are the experts at physical manifestation: a race known as the Wise Ones (see Secrets of the Hidden Realms and www.incorruptiblewhitemagic.com).
Wheel of Communion With Nature
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Received by the oracle Eva
Wheel of Communicating With Water Plants
Received by the oracle Eva