Tools to remember

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Tools to remember

I’ve been thinking a lot about tools. Every once in a while, I look back and notice how much my relationship to them has changed. 

As a child, the only family outings I remember dreading were visits to the hardware store. To a seven- or eight-year-old girl, a warehouse full of tools didn’t just pale in comparison to the toy store or the candy store; for some odd reason, I found them painfully boring. (Never mind that practically everything around me—including toy and candy stores—existed in part because of tools!) The closest I ever came to enjoying these visits was the day I discovered an isle packed with rolls of pink fiberglass insulation. Maybe it was the Pink Panther on the label, or layer upon layer of fluffy goodness inviting me to dive right in; whatever it was, my delight was but momentary: I learned the hard, itchy way that fiberglass insulation is not cotton candy.

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Oink

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Oink

There’s a story I read several years ago; it comes and goes like a familiar ghost, but lately it’s more and more present. To me, it’s one of the simplest, most poignant allegories on the human condition—as long as you’re willing to look beyond theological constructs. Sometimes, when I bump up against labels and the like, I find approaching any information as one would a fable or a childhood story yields a refreshing flexibility of mind.

This excerpt is from How To Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. If you’re unfamiliar with Eastern Philosophy, as I am, the only term that’s helpful to know beforehand, ahem, is “Atman.” Simply put: it means the real Self.  

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Set the heart aflame

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Two years ago a friend of mine gave me her copy of Irina Tweedie’s The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience with the Teachings of a Sufi Master. The title is self-explanatory, and it’s a great read—it’s actually a portion of her larger work, Daughter of Fire, which I haven’t read. There are a couple lines in the first chapter that moved me; they were the first of many. 

It is the task of the Teacher to set the heart aflame with an unquenchable fire of longing; it is his duty to keep it burning until it is reduced to ashes. For only a heart which has burned itself empty is capable of love.

Photo by JERRY on Unsplash

Photo by JERRY on Unsplash