Tools

Tools are all of the tangible, touchable resources we use to attune with the sacred nature of all life and heal our relationship with that life. Tools are candles, incense, essential oils, mediation cushions, altars, sacred images and textiles, musical instruments, spirit and tarot decks, feathers, skins, furs, stones, sticks, staffs, shells, seeds, pottery, etc. Just about anything can be a tool. Of course, not all tools are necessary, and some may only be needed for a time. It isn’t about collecting a whole bunch of cool tools, that won’t get you to freedom. It's about having tools that help make freedom more accessible to you.

A use of tools:

You sit down to meditate. You are intending to move awareness away from the external world of thought & movement, and move awareness into the internal recognition of this present moment. Since you likely spend way more time with awareness tuned to the external world, engaged with thoughts then moving in consequence, and you likely also have some of the usual, habitual distraction methods to keep the internal recognition in shadow, it can be immensely helpful to have cues to the habitual body/mind that you are sitting down to meditate.

So, you sit down to meditate. As you do, you make use of a couple of tools you regularly use when meditating. You light a candle, and from the candle flame, you light a bit of incense as well. Already, the signals are sending, the fire is dancing softly, casting warm light, as the familiar scent of incense gently calls awareness inside.
The body/mind is built on habit, and responds to habit. It knows the warm glow of the candle and the soft scent of incense accompany a turning of awareness away from external and towards internal. The activity systems are preparing to power down. You ring the bell, strike the bowl, or beat the drum, the sound vibrating through you. You attune to the sound, to its vibration, sharpening awareness to the present moment of sound rising, then falling.
As you attune to the lighting of the candle and its flame, to the burning incense and its scent, to the ringing bell and its sound, there is a natural and gradual settling into the root of your seat, you become more and more aware of the body, sitting on the cushion. Awareness deepens more into here and now. Outside, external world with all the “what ifs” and '“what abouts” and “whats next” all start to slow down, it quiets down. Recognition of breath moving in the body rises into awareness. Awareness attunes deeper into breath, following its rhythmic cycle, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, present moment, breath moving in the body.
What could have felt like a strain to corral awareness into the breath becomes a sacred ritual of attunement that honors both the habitual body/mind and the awareness itself.

This is just one small example of how tools can be really helpful. You get to play with different ones and find what works best for you. The first time I ever heard a rattle used, I could feel it in places of my being I didn’t know were there, until the rattles vibration and frequency woke up my knowing. At this point in my journey, the sound of the bell immediately banks my systems and brings quiet to the winds of the mind and stills the waters of the heart.
I don’t know many people, save those who’ve been through trauma with fire, that aren’t comforted by candle flame. How useful is just that, to feel comfort? Let alone to speak to the qualities of fire, its power to metabolize, alchemize, purify and transform! It can be such a big small thing, lighting a candle.
I encourage you to play. Again and again, I encourage you, please play! Explore and test and try and assess and see, then tweak and refine and add and subtract and…. play!