From cigarette to Sacred Pipe 2: in the hands of the unseen

This article is part of a series dedicated to transforming one’s relationship with tobacco and the encounter with the Sacred Pipe. You can read the previous articel : From cigarette to sacred pipe 1: my journey with Tobacco and the next one : From Cigarette to Sacred Pipe 3: A Door Opens Slowly

Breath of Prayer

The sacred pipe: a calling from the heart

For months, a quiet prayer lived within me. A request offered with respect: to one day be able to become a Sacred Pipe keeper.

To keep the Pipe, for me, means a deep commitment, a self-offering, an act of service. I wasn’t seeking recognition or power. Only the opportunity to listen and to transmit, to honor the voice of the Spirits with humility.

This calling wasn’t just a thought—it vibrated through every cell of my body. A subtle, insistent, and yet peaceful presence reminded me that this path was true. It came with an invitation to prepare myself. To cultivate the clarity and grounding needed to be worthy of such a gift. I lived in that subtle tension between patience and devotion.

Each day, almost unintentionally, I returned to that prayer. Like tending to a fragile flame I refused to let go out.

I didn’t know if this call would ever be heard. And yet, something kept telling me to stay open. Something sacred, alive, kept calling me—again and again.

But the silence remained.

Grandmother Medicine Song, who has taught me so much, said nothing about it.

Maybe this path wasn’t mine. Maybe I was mistaken.

Those thoughts came, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, always tinged with a gentle melancholy.

All I could do was learn to welcome the silence.

To sit with it.

To remain present in the waiting, with a faith that was trembling, but sincere.

To inhabit uncertainty.

To listen to what is not spoken.

A delayed answer

Just before Satya left to visit Grandmother, I asked her if she could mention me. To remind Grandmother of this silent prayer I had been carrying so faithfully in my heart.

When she returned, Satya told me that Grandmother had heard my request.

But the answer, too, was silence.

It wasn’t time yet.

Grandmother told her it was up to me—and me alone—to call the Pipe when the time had come. That I must stay in the listening, stay ready, patiently.

What I didn’t know then was that Satya, in her generous support, had asked Grandmother if she could pass on her own Sacred Pipe to me and perform the ritual of transmission. Grandmother consulted her Pipe… and the answer was a clear, unwavering no.

When I found out, I felt a deep emptiness.

That no hit me harder than I expected.

I hadn’t even asked in that way—yet it reopened deep doubts within me.

Why this refusal, after months of prayer and preparation?

Why the silence, where I believed there was right relationship?

It was a moment of discouragement.

I doubted myself, the legitimacy of my quest.

But within that no, something was revealed.

It came to take me even deeper—into listening, into humility.

To remind me that this path follows no desire, not even the most sincere.

That nothing is owed to me.

And that initiation sometimes takes the form of emptiness, silence, waiting.

On this path, answers don’t always come in the form we hope for.

We must learn to hear what is unspoken.

To receive the no—or the not yet—as a sacred teaching.

And yet, even in silence, life continues to whisper.

The Window of the Soul

A sign on the path

Sometimes, answers arrive from where you least expect them.

Weeks went by. And still, the Sacred Pipe didn’t leave my thoughts.

Something within me stayed connected to it—like an invisible thread that refused to break. Since the path with Grandmother Medicine Song didn’t seem to open, maybe it had to open elsewhere. I was willing to be patient, but I also felt the need to act, to move, to search for another door.

One day, during a conversation with Heather—an elder apprentice of Grandmother, and also a Pipe keeper, I asked her if she could recommend a book.

Without hesitation, she told me about The Way of the Sacred Pipe by Jim Tree.

The name meant nothing to me, but I took note.

Curious, I began to search.

I tried to order the Kindle version, but the link wouldn’t work.

I tried again, and again… nothing.

Then, guided by intuition, I decided to write to the author.

I found his email address and wrote to him—simply, from the heart.

I told him about my path, this burning call within me, the doors that remained closed, and the strength that kept me walking.

A few hours later, he replied.

His response arrived like a soft light in the darkness of an inner night.

Generous, direct, filled with kindness.

He sent me the link to the French version of his book—like an offering to a soul on her journey.

I was deeply moved by this sacred simplicity, this hand reaching out from afar.

There was something subtly aligned in that meeting, as if something essential had just begun to shift.

A gentle warmth enveloped me—like a loving whisper from the Universe.

I felt guided, supported, carried by something greater.

It is in moments like these—when unexpected gifts appear on my path—that my gratitude becomes immense, full, alive.

And I know, without a doubt, that the Creator hears me.

That I walk, step by step, in alignment.

So, carried by this silent wave of gratitude, I opened the book.

Curious. Vibrating. Heart trembling.

Perhaps within those pages, a response awaited.

Perhaps Jim Tree’s voice would help me light the still-invisible path to the Sacred Pipe.

The unexpected invitation

A few days later, a new email arrived.

It was Jim.

He invited me to a Sacred Pipe ceremony… on Zoom.

I paused, stunned. Moved.

That he would open this sacred circle to me—without even knowing me—touched me deeply. He responded to my call with quiet nobility.

I accepted. Heart wide open.

When the day came, I settled in. In silence.

I didn’t know what I would experience, but I felt called.

The screen lit up. Jim appeared, grounded and calm, his voice steady and clear.

And right away, I felt it: the energy, the presence, the Spirits…

Even through a screen, it was there.

Strong. True. Sacred.

What moved me most was the energy he embodied.

A rare humility, sincere simplicity.

He was in service—fully present.

He sensed the sacred beings around him, the Other Sacred Ones, and gave them quiet, fluid, respectful attention.

He read them. He listened.

Throughout the ceremony, I felt this living alliance he wove with the Spirits.

He didn’t “keep” the Pipe—he became one with it.

He didn’t “perform” the ceremony—he stepped aside so it could reveal itself.

And in that openness, messages came.

Signs appeared.

Visions moved through me.

Images, sensations, colors from beyond.

The unseen revealed itself through a very thin veil.

I was shaken.

A wave of humility washed over me.

As if, for a moment, I had witnessed an ancient, living mystery.

And that through him, the Spirits had whispered: "You are exactly where you are meant to be."

After the ceremony

After the ceremony, I stayed in silence.

Something within me had been touched deeply.

I wanted to honor that by not rushing anything.

I wanted to take the time to let what had been stirred settle within me.

That evening, I wrote Jim a simple message to thank him.

To tell him that I needed to fully live what had happened before finding the right words.

That in a few days, I’d write again.

I gave myself that time—not to intellectualize the experience, but to let it infuse my body, my dreams, my heart.

When the words finally came, they weren’t so much about the ceremony itself, but about what had been awakened in me:

An old prayer.

This calling I’ve carried for so long.

The longing to one day be in service to the Sacred—through the Pipe.

So I sent him a second email—a message from the heart, a continuation of the prayer.

What I didn’t yet know was that this ceremony would open a series of synchronicities, encounters, and thresholds.

That this email would be a key.

That soon, other doors would open, other faces would appear—also keepers of Sacred Pipe—and that the path would slowly begin to reveal itself.

But I didn’t know any of that yet.

That night, I fell asleep in peace, as if an answer had finally been whispered to me.

Not the one I was waiting for.

But an answer, still.

And that was already huge.

TO BE CONTINUED…

I also invite you to read the previous article to go deeper into  From cigarette to sacred pipe 1: my journey with Tobacco

From Cigarette to Sacred Pipe 3: A Door Opens Slowly 

Share your experience, your feelings, your path in the comments. It is together that we weave the prayers of the world and learn to walk in alignment, respect, and sacred connection.

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It is still time to learn how to listen, and to remember that everything that lives can teach us.