This book was written during the global pandemic of 2020, when the gravity of our situation called us, as individuals, to sanity and inner strength. “Sheltering in place,” or “in confinement” as some prefer, we entered into a fierce and strange new world. If we had not actively developed our contemplative side before this, the insistent, benevolent voice of that inner world, so famously avoided in today’s society, now sounded a clarion call. The Art of Contemplation is intended to inspire your own reflections, as I explore the timeless treasure house of contemplation, the reasons we actually need it, and how to work with the blocks that most of us encounter on the way. For contemplation is a journey within, with no beginning and no end, taken from anywhere and everywhere that we find ourselves in life. For the theists among us, our contemplations will organically lead to prayer, just as bud goes to flower and flower goes to seed, which drops to the ground to begin another round of creation. For the nontheists, the inner state of contemplative prayer might be called inner stillness, meditation on truth, or the practice of pure awareness―or even “inner yoga,” as yoga is anything that links us to the Divine. It does not matter what we call it. What does matter is that we, as human beings, evolve in a mutual love affair with the Universe from which we are created. What matters is praise. There is a time to beg for grace to intervene in the sufferings we endure as human beings. As we contemplate our own awareness within the mystery of life, we begin to expand our generosity as vessels of awareness, of awakened consciousness, for our own personal transformation and for the benefit of all beings. Then our inner yoga takes flight. Resting in receptive inner space enables us to rejuvenate and restore, to tap intrinsic healing, intuitive and creative energies, at the level of source water where the river of life flows pristine and we touch the ineffable. The Taoists have a beautiful way of expressing it. Lao Tzu said, “Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.” Clarity is one of the many gifts of contemplation, and as we build a capacity for the inner journey, a sacred world is revealed in the mirror of the soul.