During the few years I’ve spent working with the Malstrom Pipe, I have felt an increasing call for two things.

  • I needed at some point to get a personal Pipe as the Malstrom is ceremonial and represents the People and the larger world.
  • A Pipe is needed that deviates from those of America’s First People’s tribal nations. What I mean is … If I am to have a Pipe, it needs to be of my culture, that of my ancestors and more importantly … my spiritual path. It still will honor the Spirits with the same respect as taught to me by my elders/teachers decades back, but be unafraid to follow the path this Pipe helps weave … moving the prayer ceremony in the ways it asks.

First, let me say it is important to acknowledge and honor the foundations laid by the First Peoples of this land (the Americas).

Those foundations are where the teachings originated.

What I was taught originally comes from those teachings, however, the Malstrom Pipe has helped teach me how to allow Spirit to flow in certain ways that differ from what I was taught.

Just one example … When I pray with it, Yggdrassil … the great World Tree … has been added.

But where the Malstrom Pipe is carved from black Pipestone with a traditional stem, the Sunstone Pipe is being forged.

Let’s face it. One of the things that separated European culture from the Americas was an embracing of forged and worked metals.

And it’s also something I saw in a dream after seeing blacksmithing works from a local artist of Seven Shields Forge.

Keep in mind, iron and steel are shaped elements of Earth … reshaped and forged in a manner that brings together Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

Yet originally it is still of earth and rock.

This Pipe will have a forged bowl and an carved wooden stem, with a slight arc to it, that among other things will have Elder Futhark Runes along its length.

That I needed at some point to get a personal Pipe that represents who I am and my spiritual pathAnd the shape of that carved wooden stem will be slightly different as well.

Approached the artist and he was more than willing to help with the project.

The design as sketched is quite literally a work of art.

The forces of Wyrd, Awen and Spirit have most definitely been at work in its shaping.

Would it surprise you to learn part of the inspiration for this Pipe’s appearance may or may not be drawn from the long stemmed Pipes as one might find in Lord of the Rings?

Yes, Tolkien weaved tales of fiction, but one can find inspiration and lessons within them.

And the inspiration of the Tolkien verse came from many places — including Norse mythology.

And as for the Spirit of this soon to be forged Pipe, its spirit is already reaching out and helping shape itself.

I’ve felt its presence many times already.

In fact, it was that Spirit that shared what its name will be. Making it clear that it is Sunstone.

Why Sunstone? … Because it will be a guiding spirit, just as the Sunstone was used by ancient Norse to track the sun, allowing navigation while at sea.

Tomorrow, I understand they are visiting a carpenter to obtain the wood that calls out for this Pipe — wood that will be carved into the stem.

And why they work on forging the Pipe, I’m already assembling the bundle and bag for it as Spirit brings the items for it to me.

I don’t know all of how this Pipe will work beyond the basics I already know and practice.

I do know that even as it might well flow differently than as I was taught, it WILL still be treated with the same level of respect and basics remain the same as were passed on to me.

As Ken Marsh taught me, however. … “Make the prayers your own.”

And that’s what I’m going to do.

The unknown of all this is part of the adventure.

And I’m VERY excited to be walk this path and seeing where this Pipe leads.

And the same for the Malstrom Pipe.

~ The Pathfinder