Day CXVll

The Great Spirit

     Your only concern should be the smoke in front of you at the moment. The one tempting you, saying:

          “Lite me up, yo!”

     Just don’t light it up. It’s easier if you don’t have a pack on you. Don’t carry one for emergencies. The emergency is not lighting up. Stay strong, the moment will pass. Remember that! There maybe exceptions as in all things, like the rare dude who just cold turkey quits. But, for most of us regular peeps, it’s going to take us a while, for some like myself a long while. So my account of quitting is for us regular peeps.

     Perhaps nicotine soothes, chokes our angst, and maybe it’s why we get addicted. Could it pacify our insecurities, our need to hold something, to do something, to calm us down? We can overcome those urges by learning to be at peace. When you’re at peace, there are no insecurities, no need to hold unto things, to do anything- there isn’t any need to light up. Yoga, meditation, and prayer help. I strongly believe prayer is a tool for inner peace.

    Tobacco was discovered by Native Americans, and sometimes I wonder how in the blue hell they started smoking it. The damned thing is a poisonous shrub, and the industry refuses to acknowledge it as such. Anyway, fires are common in nature. Perhaps one stormy day a tribe, or a group of braves returning from a hunt, observed lightning start a fire in a tobacco grove. Then as the bouquet wafted over them, they couldn’t help but inhale its fumes, and they found it pleasing.

     “Ummmmmmm smells good!”

     They came closer to the fire, and took in its bouquet.

     “Not bad!”

     “Must be good!”

     “Ahhhhh…sent by the Great Spirit!”