I Send a Voice by Evelyn Eaton

Author:Evelyn Eaton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

The more I smoke the Pipe the more convinced I am of this, but what I wrote in my journal that first smoking day was only: “The cool of the morning, the clouds over the mountain, the blue. Took the Pipe to a hallowed place. Great peace and blessing. Now I understand what Tsaviaya meant when he said that he got all his power, that he ‘got everything from the Pipe.’ Now I know it’s true.”

17

After a year of steady practice I learned many things about the Way of the Pipe. I was shown the right way to clean and care for it, the proper way to sit “in a sacred manner,” the thorough smudging of myself and of each object to be used such as matches, tobacco, tamping stick—Joshua trees’ spikes are good for this and for cleaning the bowl—and I was warned against the insidious temptations of misuse of power.

At first I thought this warning was unnecessary, until I learned how subtle and how real the danger is. People come for help, they ask for some specific thing. Those who smoke the working Pipe know that they can have what they ask, so at first we ask for that specific thing and feel a little smug when it is granted. Later we begin to understand that the Grandfathers may have better, deeper, wider blessings planned for the asker, waiting for the asking.

We are only channels, transmitters, not originators, “of ourselves we can do nothing.” What is required of us is to lift the asker and his need up to the will of Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit, then to keep the channel clear and clean and open for the descent of the white shaft of healing light that will rush through us to enfold them.

These are things we must discover for ourselves. When I tried to ask advice from Tsaviaya he said “I am not to tell you anything.” When I turned to Power Man he said “I cannot tell you how to use your Pipe, only how to take care of it. What you do is up to you.”

At first, even on the surface, I made many mistakes. When I took the Pipe up the mountain I sat facing the highest peak, knowing that there was a great Being there, to whom I was always drawn. This meant that I was facing west. There was something a little uncomfortable about this first smoking, until it dawned on me that I should face the east. I apologized to the Grandfathers, and after that I sat looking out across the valley with my back to the mountain range. Then everything fell into place. The first time that I sat rightly I was startled, but not frightened, to feel a pressure between my shoulder blades, like an approving friendly hand, and always when I smoked in that place, however cold a wind might be blowing, there was a comforting warmth where the pressure had been.

Gradually the Pipe became an extension of myself, as a flute becomes to a flautist, or a much-loved, much-used tool to a craftsman.

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