Simple practices to root your writing into the wisdom of nature

Air is everywhere, and forever on the move, always shifting and changing. I see the element of air as a permission slip to rest and play and let attention wander. The wind has no specific agenda, though it moves in a direction. It doesn’t worry if it’s going to meet a given goal if it stops and flutters some leaves around on the ground before carrying on.

I also see the air as an inspiration to really fill ourselves up, speak our voices, and let them flow out to exactly where they need to go.

I’ve outlined some practices below that help me work with air to support my writing: Whether or not you engage with this as a magical practice, connecting your writing to the Earth helps you feel grounded and supported as you write.

How I use these practices:

There are two ways to work with this list. The first is to choose one from the list by letting your intuition guide you. What feels good that particular day? Pick a practice based on what you need in the moment.

The second is to commit to a practice over a period of time: Take daily nature walks for a week, for example, and notice how you feel at the beginning and end.

In both cases, it’s helpful to reflect on how your chosen practice has impacted you: in general and in terms of your creative work.

Do you feel energized? More calm? Do your ideas flow more smoothly and easily? Do you suddenly have new ideas, or new connections between ideas, after working with this element?

I like to journal about what I learn, but even just a few moments of reflecting can be a beautiful intentional practice.

Practices for Air-inspired creativity

I divide these into a few categories, so you can choose a practice depending what you need in a given moment.

Working with air is the perfect time to do breathwork and engage in the more ethereal realms of life: Think visualization practices or intention setting. And for energy work, which is beneficial to any aspect of your practice, but which also helps us reset and realign with the more intellectual and spiritual aspects of ourselves.

Grounding practices:

For when you are feeling scattered or anxious, or like you have an excess of energy that you need to release.

Air may seem counterintuitive to a grounding practice, but I find it’s the perfect element to work with when I need some grounding but also am feeling tight and restricted, or stuck: Air helps move things along and expand things outwards, so I can ground and center myself and connect into the energy of expansion and openness.

This is the perfect place for practicing taking deeeeep breaths, filling your lungs completely with air, then pushing all that air out to really get your energy flowing.

Or, maybe deep breathing in tandem with other grounding practices, like time in nature, a taproot meditation, a mycelial meditation or microbial meditation, or visualizing yourself releasing energy into the earth and imagine fresh energy flooding in.

Clearing and cleansing practices:

For when you feel like there’s a weight on your chest, the world feels heavy, or you feel stuck or overwhelmed.

Air asks us to turn our attention outward, to the world and the elements always all around us, but also inward, as air also moves in and through our bodies.

Doing breathwork, imagining yourself breathing out stress and breathing in a feeling of calm and purpose (or whatever you want to draw to yourself) is a beautiful practice, as is breath in tandem with visualization: One of the first breathwork practices I learned was to imagine myself breathing in white light, and seeing that light surrounding and pushing out sludgey, stagnant muck as I breathe out.

This is a fantastic place for tree breathing meditation, too, which offers you calm and clearing but also a sense of connection, through the breath, to the natural world.

Energy work also helps us clear and reset, as does rest, and visualization practices that redirect your attention towards the outcome or feelings you desire (I offer tons of these kinds of practices in my writing group programs and in self-study programs like Pleasure Practices for Creatives and Metamorphosis, and even in a few of my self-paced Culinary Curiosity School classes).

Energizing and nourishing practices:

For when you feel sluggish and unmotivated, or when you have lots of ideas but are struggling to make focused time to work on them.

Energy work, like reiki, is incredibly beneficial for resetting, and for reconnecting to your creative flow. Working with all the parts of your energetic body is important, but when I want to focus on my spiritual and intellectual self, as well as sharing my voice (which I also connect to the air element), I focus on the upper chakras as well as the heart.

Speaking of sharing your voice, using air as a way to literally move energy through your body using your voice can help shake the cobwebs loose: Reading your work (or something else, like a favorite poem) aloud, or singing or speaking or even screaming, speaking affirmations and incantations, really putting your emotional weight and some oomph behind the words you say as you exhale them from your body can be a powerful practice.

Sharing your voice might also mean committing to paper (or, to spoken words) those dreams and ideas you have been too scared to speak aloud, or maybe writing down why those things are scary or not possible writing next to each statement another statement saying why those dreams are not only possible but necessary.

Getting energy flowing with gentle movement like qi gong, or building in breathwork and gentle movement before and after writing time can help keep energy flowing. And, setting clear intentions, for your writing time: For example, setting an intention then visualizing it coming true, can help you stay focused during your writing session.

If you’re ready to connect to your very own creative ecosystem, join me for Symbiosis: where we cover a different aspect of your ecosystem each month, along with expansive creative practices to spark your curiosity and keep you deeply connected to your creative flow, giving you all the foundation you need for a luscious, sustainable, regenerative creative ecosystem that will last the rest of your life.

Or, if you want to dive into a bite-sized version, tap into your playful, expansive creative flow with Pleasure Practices for Creatives: An affordable self-study course you can start whenever and learn at your pace.

Or for a creative ecosystem-specific approach, start to connect with the elements of your creative ecosystem in Creating a Container for your Book (or any creative project). This one is also self-study, and a class I get pretty much unanimous feedback for that says ‘wow that was SO helpful!’