Jay Cleve is a psychologist, a shamanic healer, and an energy healer. He has trained extensively in the Sacred Pipe with Ojibway and Lakota elders. In this excellent work, Cleve presents the history, background, cosmology, and spiritual philosophy of the Sacred Pipe. Some tribal leaders have had visions of this ancient ritual being taken up by all peoples. Or as John Fire Lame Deer declared: "We must all work together, both white and Indian, for we are all the children of the same Great Spirit."
Cleve takes a look at the attention to detail involved in the creation of a pipe's bowl and the stem, the various types of pipes, and the pipe bag. He reveals the importance of the tobacco and prayers from the Medicine Wheel — along with animal keepers of the Four Directions. Cleve does an admirable job explaining the ceremonies with the Sacred Pipe, the Sweat Lodge, the Vision Quest, and The Sun Dance. In closing, he writes:
"The Sacred Pipe helps us stay on the path of the Good Red Road, which can best be described as conducting our lives in a way that puts us in harmony with all of creation. This spiritual path is based on the understanding that we are all part of the great circle of life, and being 'spiritual' means finding our place and proper function in this circle."
