Look up at the stars and planets, and imagine yourself moving with them. Think constantly about how the elements change into one another. Such thoughts help clean away the mess and dirt of earthly life. Plato also wrote beautifully about this. He said we should look down on worldly things from a higher place — flocks of sheep, armies, farmers working, weddings, divorces, births, deaths, court battles, empty places, foreign nations, festivals, funerals, fairs, markets. Everything on earth is jumbled together. Yet somehow these opposite things work together to make the universe beautiful and complete.
To look about, and with the eyes to follow the course of the stars and planets as though thou wouldst run with them; and to mind perpetually the several changes of the elements one into another. For such fancies and imaginations, help much to purge away the dross and filth of this our earthly life,' &c. That also is a fine passage of Plato's, where he speaketh of worldly things in these words: 'Thou must also as from some higher place look down, as it were, upon the things of this world, as flocks, armies, husbandmen's labours, marriages, divorces, generations, deaths: the tumults of courts and places of judicatures; desert places; the several nations of barbarians, public festivals, mournings, fairs, markets.' How all things upon earth are pell-mell; and how miraculously things contrary one to another, concur to the beauty and perfection of this universe.