Each night before bed I go outside to contemplate the universe. Sometimes the sky is opaque, thick with clouds, impenetrable. At other times the same dark sky is the thrilling diamond spread of the Milky Way. Nature, the great metaphor, comes softly home: This is the way it is. Whether there are clouds or stars, behind it all is a vast mystery—steady, eternal, formless, unchanged, always present.

In this time of retreat and seclusion when, like everyone else, I wrestle with the reality of COVID-19, the creativity of writing is one of the places I go for inspiration. Description is one of my great loves in the joy of wordplay. I often begin with nature, taking refuge in the world around me. As much as I love the formless mystery, I love also the world of form. I enjoy describing my love, because the more I put my attention on that which I love, the more alive and vivid it becomes.

Nature connects me with what is real in myself and outside myself. Turning to nature I become aware of space, air, fire, water, earth and all the ways they combine to create the multiplicity of forms. The whole world is a wonderful mirror, a message in twilight language or the language of symbols, and an actual source of help. And so, I take refuge in Mother Nature.

There is a reason why we call her “Mother Nature.” We cry and laugh upon her breast. We are born from her substance; our substance will die back into hers. I read recently that studies have been done to document how walking in forests, and especially under tall trees, relieves anxiety and fear. Rocks of all kinds, early spring wildflowers peeping out of hard desert ground, singing birds, the scurrying flash of a lizard, just awakened from winter’s sleep, or the coming of a storm does the trick for me. Everything about nature relieves my anxiety (well, except for wrathful viruses that wreak havoc upon humankind).

Looking out my window recently I saw my first hummingbird of the season. Spring is coming to the high desert, also evidenced by the profuse mound of wild verbena blossoming in my little herb garden. Despite our trials and tribulations in the human world, life does go on, and its magnificent, impersonal perfection soothes me. Why? Because it is real. It’s the Divine Artist creating the gorgeous, impermanent yet enduring beauty of nature that touches my heart.

I’m not the only writer who seeks beauty. Many if not most of us do. When you notice something that is beautiful to you, go to your laptop or your journal and describe it. Let yourself go into eloquence and wordcraft. The contemplative art of writing, when followed into its depths, can open the doors of the heart to what is real.

Lifting our writing voice to tell the truth of the moment, we tap inspiration. Consider the five elements, from which everything is made. Begin with space, the mother element, out of which the other four elements come. Space is everywhere. I am located in space. It’s right in front of my face as I write or raise my hand—through space—to take the cup of coffee that sits on my desk. It’s the awesome expanse between me and the raw hulking mountain over there, across the canyon from where I sit looking out a large window that faces north. Upon its rocky, rugged flank, the pine trees wave in the wind. I am connected to their movement, their existence and joy, through space.

At this time I take refuge in the human bond I share with those who are near to my heart, with friends both old and new, with people I’ve never met all over the world. Even if we are miles apart right now, wherever we take shelter at this powerful time of change, we are connected through space. My love traverses the unseen currents of space to touch the hearts of those I love… Prayer for us all follows on wings of gold.

The mother element, space or akasha, is related to our personal sense of hearing and sound. We can tune into space by bringing awareness to how sound moves through apparent emptiness when we speak or sing or play an instrument—how words dance in pure space. (Pranams to Saraswati!) This applies to all music and all use of words. When we write words on paper (and digital words on our laptops), we are exploring our own inner space. This is one of the reasons that certain poetry is so powerful—because each poem is a unique arrangement of words in space. Contemplate space by exploring the vast space within and without. It may lead you to sukha, the Sanskrit word that is often translated as “good space.”

Then we come to the air element, experienced through the sense of touch. In feeling the caress (touch) of breeze or wind, you can become aware of how the air holds you. I walk outside the door and the same wind that moves the pine trees on the mountains now makes tendrils of hair play upon my cheek.

When we focus on the breath, we are relating with air. Prana comes to us through the air we breathe. My guru Lee gave instruction to use the Divine Name in this way: breathe in, Yogi Ramsuratkumar, breathe out, Yogi Ramsuratkumar. You can use whatever divine name or mantra you resonate with (Jesus, Kali, Krishna, Om Nama Shivaya, Hari Om), or no name at all but simply an intention of the heart to connect with truth, beauty, love.

Working with the breath immediately connects us to what is real and grounds us in the body, encouraging circulation of prana in the body that automatically uplifts. Just paying attention to the breath is a powerful yoga.

Fire not only gives us light, and therefore the sense of sight and our ability to see the manifest world, but it is also the source of spiritual vision and creative inspiration. We are warmed by fire, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our digestion is a fire; our anger is a fire. Our love is a fire. We can be intimate with fire by meditating upon the glorious sun and how the healing rays of the sun penetrate and warm your body. Sunlight on my eyelids, taken in through the open palms of my hands, or by the length of the spine when I lay in the sun on my belly, causes the inner light to surge within. Contemplate fire to expand the capacity for the spiritual vision that cultivates faith and a connection to what is true.

Work with fire by contemplating a candle flame, cooking on a gas stove or building and tending a fire in a wood stove. The traditional Vedic religion of India is based upon fire worship through a sacred fire—a homa fire or dhuni. If we can build a small, well-tended fire outside (careful of sparks flying and starting fires we don’t want), we can sit at the fire and offer symbolic substances like ghee or flowers into the flames. In this way we may have an intention to offer up and incinerate our limitations, obstacles, doubts, negative emotions, the baggage we carry from the past. Or simply to offer gratitude and praise.

We are told very early on in life that our bodies are ninety-six percent water. Water is ubiquitously present in our sense of taste and also in all kinds of bhavas (moods such as joy, gratitude, happiness or sorrow, fear, revulsion). The water element as pure mood informs melody, music, and poetic speech, shapes leaves and petals, and shines in the moist eyes of night owls.

Water is everywhere, even in the desert—although there is nothing that compares with standing on the shore of an ocean. The vast grandeur and pure elemental power of mother ocean is as comforting and nourishing as it is exhilarating and terrifying. Just as she gives life, she also destroys. Every kind of natural water has its own mood and rasa (flavor or taste) and communication, whether it is an ocean, sea, lake, stream, rivulet, or forest spring. We can give thanks to the water element every time we drink a glass, take a shower or bath, or make and eat a lovely soup. We can appreciate water every time we look at a tree or another human being. Without water there is no life.

We work with earth through the sense of smell. We tune into the earth element by becoming aware of our bones and connecting our bones with the rocky elemental bones of the earth, by walking and sitting upon the earth with awareness and maybe even reverence. Every hill, crystal, flower, bud, leaf, insect, dog, cat, elephant and mud hole can remind us of the earth element. The food we eat, the car we drive (metal, of course, comes from deep in the earth), the stony mountains, the dirt paths, the gravel or paved road, the gemstones we wear and adore…

These elements mingle in the natural world and its processes: the divine impulse that causes a seed to burst open; the gardens, orchards, fields and forests, the prairies and plains and mountain meadows. Everything in the worlds of vegetable, mineral, animal is a combination of the five elements. I love to watch cats sleep or stretch and move. I love to see the play of children, touch the soft surrender of the very, very old. I love to observe the elemental movement of storms, wind, rain, ice, snow. I revel in the play of light from dawn to dusk—from tender and gilded to harsh, brash, or brooding. There are unique and magnificent things happening at sunrise, sunset, in the blaze of midday. The night sky holds me captive with its lunar cycles—full moons, crescent moons, waning moons. To say nothing of starlight! On the night of the new moon, a time of new beginnings, the desert sky is a magnificent black void, thick with a brilliant tapestry of stars.

If you like to write, these days are a good time to surrender to the inspiration that is waiting for you. Using your senses, write and describe in detail the world around you. Let your writing lead you where it wants to go. It may very well take you to your own inner world. Give yourself permission to explore. Opposite emotions often co-exist. I’m depressed, but at the same time I’m grateful—or, I’m sad even while I notice a small, bubbling spring of hidden joy. Write what is true for you. Whatever you write, you may find that, in giving your voice full rein, you are uplifted in some way by having written the truth. Touching the real in this way, we may contact, even for a fraction of a second, our own deep nature and the delight, love, creative power and wise innocence that is so often veiled and hidden from our experience.

Wishing you positive flow and good space.

Amongst the redwoods, Muir Woods, Marin county, California. Photo by Sharon Lhaksam (2016).