Nicotiana's anatomy

[fuzz]

Hey guys, here is a piece i wrote about Nicotiana, for you smokers and non smokers alike.

enjoy, any comments appreciated
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Thoughts of an ex-smoker concerning tobacco, Nicotiana, our practices and traditions. Bits of modern stories mixed with original ancestral magic.

A smoker since a teen, now in my 30’s, I have been with a non-smoking partner for a couple years. I smoked rolled tobacco, without filter, thank you. Even being a smoker, I was always aware of the cigarette stinck, the dozens of extra chemicals added to the already little amount of Nicotiana we get in our smokes, the yellowed fingers and teeth, oh so sexy, and of course the health risks which cigarettes cause. However, I still smoked. One of my tiny escuses was that I rolled my own smokes instead of buying packs. Not only do I not like filters, but I also like the ritual of rolling a smoke. I was never really a big smoker, just an average one. Rolling made me feel as if i smoked less, then moving in with a non-smoking companion made me smoke even less.

Everybody knows. Cigarettes are discusting, bad for your health and some even say it polutes. In case you don't know this yet, you might want to open a window and start thinking about getting out of your box, or maybe just kill yourself after reading those words, because you seem too fucking stupid to stay alive.

So, what does finally make someone stop? What if you live with a non smoker that projects your bad habits like a reflection in smoked mirors? And who's in the yellowed miror anyhows?
I often tried to stop smoking. I always started again, eventually, as if a part of me "the smoky one" didn't want to drop the smoking business. Like a locomotive with a heart of fire, going and going, roaring it's mechanical engine through my bodylandscape. Like a dragon smoking eons aways, chasing it's own tail. The "smoky one" was part of me.
I don't know what to do, waiting for this or that, I light one up. I feel shy, wierded out in a place public, I light one up. I am bored, I light one up. The act of lighting a smoke is not only related to nicotine dependencie, and it goes much deeper than chemically induced levels. Quitting is to be re-created, it's entering a new identity free from the old nicotine and smoke dependencie.
Re-creating one self is a task much more difficult than fighting the few desires, even if sometimes very intense cravings, desires created by the chemical laboratory we all are.
Finally, after many tries "at quitting smoking, but without really wanting it", I have not smoked on a regular base for 6 months or so. I say "have not smoked", but to be precise I still smoke a cigarette here and there when I am offered one. But I do not have packs at home any longer.

No patches, no drugs, nothing. I just slowed down till it eventually wasn't there any more. It was not too hard, because I had already lowered my use of nicotine after moving with my non-smoking companion. I spent a few days really wanting a smoke, just looking at the desire making it's way through my mind. In fact the very idea of a smoke, the habit of the idea, was much stronger than the actual physical desire to smoke one. Like any familiar idea, it's comforting, it's reassuring, as any repetition; it can also become tedious, as any repetition. You stick to it, it is easy. You'd like to leave it, but that's all you can think of. You become this repetition and the only way to escape it is maybe to accept that there is no escape. You are that repetition.

I looked at this desire like I'd look at any other thoughts, and as any other thought, it eventually passes, then returned, then I looked at the waves of thoughts pass again, one after the other. Then the waves slowly dissolved into the ocean of thoughts, again.

During the first couple monthes of not smoking, a thing that helped me, is to have remained honest with myself. Hanging out with friends or going to a party, I knew that with some glasses of alcohol helping, I'd eventually want a smoke. Then, since I am not too masochist in that way, I bought myself a pack here and there. Sometimes the pack would last more than the party evening, and I'd find myself looking at my smoke mirror again. Still asking : "what is it this cigarette and me?!?" Like some dying love story, slowly and naturally, we were putting distance between each other. Quickly enough, there wasn't any more after party packs.
After the occasional pack period, I am now in my "after a meal" cigarette phase, or a couple party smokes, if somebody has a cigarette to offer. I don't tell myself "I quit", but rather "for now, I don't smoke"; that works fine for me. Each time I "quit", I was disapointed when I started again; at least, if I don't smoke for the moment, then the next moment remains a surprise.

I thought that monthes later the desire for a smoke would have completely disapeared, but no, the desire is sometimes still present, it returns, I never know when or why. I must accept it like a part of my self, a part of me is smoky. A part of me remembers the ritual smoking, it's magic before the marketing and the additions in the sacred plant that is Nicotiana. Sometimes I see Maria Sabina through a wall of smoke, like Chinese puppet shadows dancing in a historical miror of our practices, an ancestral miror of communion with the spirits and plants.
The way in which the indigenous people used tabaco, and still use it today, was never as harmful as the modern uses we make of tabaco in our modern cigarettes. The little tabaco we get in today's smokes has nothing to do any longer with the original tabaco uses of the indegenous societies.

It is not the tobacco that kills, it's the dozens of additions in the tobaco, the additives are what makes it so dangerous for our health. Also the way in which we use tobacco is what makes it so dangerous, the intention behind the use being almost opposite to it's ancestral uses. Tabaco is not being respected as the powerful plant it is, we don't even think of it, we puff a smoke after the other as we'd piss on a tree. For the majority of the modern smokers, the act of smoking doesn't have any spiritual value any longer, except to nourish this lack of nicotine for a few minutes, filling an existential vacuum, and even a phallic desire if you listen to some of the modern priests of the mind, the psychiatrists and others psys.
That's what the diference between abuse of tobacco and the use of tobaco is. The abuse is to be unaware of our act, it is to smoke one after the other, it is to destroy oneself by puffing on chemicals. The use of tobaco is the plant's and self-respect, it is a communion with the world of Nicotiana. It is the diference between the conscious and the unconscious, it is a fundamental diference in intentions.

For the moment, I do not live in an indigenous environment, eventhough I do see some quite colorful birds at times, and I don't grow Nicotiana. For the moment I don't smoke. I do not know if I'll start again on a regular base, and for the moment I don't care. For the moment I don't smoke, and that's just fine with me.

All that cigarette talk almost makes me think of having a smoke, a nice lucky strike or cheap generic with no filter. I don't have any, oh well.. it's just fine like that, for the moment

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabacco
http://www.erowid.org/culture/character ... aria.shtml
originally published in http://www.gamatron.net/wordpress/?p=12