Viaje Platino Reserva

[sirxlaughs]

6 X 50 Box Press
Filler: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Corojo
Date smoked: 9/24

After work, I decided it'd be nice for a smoke in the park with a good book. I've been sitting on this cigar for a while, and finally decided it was a good a time as any to enjoy it.

A clip and a light later, I'm underway. I tasted some initial notes of cocoa and sweet wood with a very mild spice. It reminded me quite a bit of a Padron 1964 maduro. This is getting off to a great start.

The goddess is red with the fire of life; the earth, the solar system, the galaxies of far-extending space, all swell with her womb. For she is the world creatrix, ever mother, ever virgin. She encompasses the encompassing, nourishes the nourishing, and is the life of everything that lives.

About an inch in and the burn is getting crooked. The bittersweet cocoa is now more like a sweet, milk chocolate with woody undertones. A few more puffs into it, and the chocolate reverted back to bittersweet cocoa. It also came with the addition of leather and a mildly spicy aftertaste. It's getting quite interesting. Since the taste didn't seem affected by the burn, I let it go to see if it would eventually resolve itself. All the while, I'm getting alternations between chocolate and cocoa flavors along with leather in the forefront, with the sweet wood undertones. The smoke is still thick and quite creamy. It feels like you could bite into it.

She is also the death of everything that dies, The whole round of existence is accomplished with her sway, from birth, through adolescence, maturity, and senescence, to the grace. She is the womb and the tomb: the sow that eats her farrow. Thus she unites the "good" and the "bad," exhibiting the two modes of the remembered mother, not as personal only, but as universal. The devotee is expected to contemplate the two with equal equanimity. Through this exercise his spirit is purged of its infantile, inappropriate sentimentalities and resentments, and his mind opened to the inscrutable presence which exists, not primarily as "good" and "bad" with respect to his childlike human convenience, his weal and woe, but as the law and image of the nature of being.

Here's a shot of what the burn started doing. Again, no affect on taste or smoke quantity so I did my best to ignore it in hopes that it would correct itself.

At about the halfway point now. The cigar takes yet another turn. The burn has corrected itself without assistance. Along with this correction, a new flavor is thrown in the mix. It's a tart sweetness - very citrus-like. This flavor receded into the background as a lingering undertone. Perhaps it's initial blast seemed so dominating because of my surprise. Consistent flavors from earlier are still present along with this new, citrusy undertone. Tastes of leather, bittersweet cocoa, and the wood now gone (pun not intended ???), replaced by this new, delightful citrus.

Only geniuses capable of the highest realization can support the full revelation of the sublimity of this goddess. For lesser men she reduces her effulgence and permits herself to appear in forms concordant with their undeveloped powers. Fully to behold her would be a terrible accident for any person not spiritually prepared: as witness the unlucky case of the lusty young buck Actaeon. No saint was he, but a sportsman unprepared for the revelation of the form that must be beheld without the normal human over- and undertones of desire, surprise, and fear.

Nearing the end now, and the flavors has remained constant with the previous description. There were a few puffs that felt heated and had a slight harshness to them. I took it as a sign that I needed to slow down. It's difficult to control yourself when faced with something so good, but I managed to find restraint in the thought of prolonging the experience.

Woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending.

As the sun vanished, it become increasingly difficult to get a decent shot with my cell phone. So, I leave you with this final photo. The cigar finished with the same flavors from earlier. A wonderful smoke that showed much aging potential. Part of me wishes that I'd be able to find out what this cigar might be a year or two from now, but I have no regrets. It was a terrific experience, and the rest can be chalked up as another one of life's "what-ifs."

The mystical marriage with the queen goddess of the world represents the hero's total mastery of life; for the woman is life, the hero its knower and master. And the testing of the hero, which were preliminary to his ultimate experience and deed, were symbolical of those crises of realization by means of which his consciousness came to be amplified and made capable of enduring the full possession of the mother-destroyer, his inevitable bride. With that he knows that he and the father are one: he is in the father's place.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

PS - The book is "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell.

 

[klipsch]

This is a great stick and has been added to my favorites.