What if mystery is allowed back in?

I think I’ve always done it, tapping into something bigger than myself.
As a child, I could feel it.
In nature, in encounters, in silence.
But I didn’t have words for what it was.
Only the sense: something is here, and I’m connected to it.

It’s only in recent years that I’ve started to understand what that something might be.
A current of consciousness, a knowing that doesn’t come from my mind but that moves through me.
And I’m slowly learning how to attune to it.
Not by forcing, but by listening.

I feel it most clearly in my work: during ceremonies, in sessions, when guiding groups.
Something begins to move; through images, through silence, through what wants to emerge.
I tune in, I listen, I trust.
And more and more often… something happens that I didn’t think, but that lands precisely where it needs to.

But honestly? It doesn’t always come easily.
Sometimes I’m tired, in my head, or trying too hard.
And then I’m reminded again: this takes surrender. Attention. Availability.

That current is always there.
The art is learning how to open myself to it again.
And that’s what I’m consciously and humbly learning, every day.

Universal Consciousness: A Knowing Older Than Ourselves
In the previous edition, I wrote about awareness: noticing what’s happening now, in your body, your emotions, your thoughts.
This week, I’m exploring universal consciousness.

Since ancient times, spiritual traditions have spoken of an underlying field of life, love, and awareness.
In ancient Egypt, there was a layered understanding of consciousness: ka (life force), ba (soul), and akh (the enlightened spirit).
Not just abstract ideas, but a lived reality. Expressed through ritual, rhythm, and ancestral presence.

In Indigenous traditions, the awareness lives that nature, animals, people, and stars are all infused with the same life force.
For them, universal consciousness isn’t a theory, it’s a direct experience.
In Hinduism, it’s Brahman, the absolute being in which all appears.
In Buddhism: Sunyata, the emptiness from which all form arises.
In mystical Christianity: divine union, or the “Body of Christ.”
In Islam: the principle of tawhid, all is one in God.
And in Sufism, that unity is felt through poetry, dance, and breath.

When Science Begins to Listen Again
And yet, in our modern world, that knowing is often pushed aside.
We live in a culture where everything must be measurable, controllable, visible.
Mainstream science calls consciousness a byproduct of brain activity.
The soul? Poetry.
The divine? Subjective.
Intuition? Unreliable.

So we live between two realities.

One says: consciousness only begins when the brain is active.
You are your neurons. And when the plug is pulled, the light goes out.

The other says: consciousness is the basis of everything.
The brain is not the source, but a receiver.
A temporary interface that tunes into something greater.
Not a byproduct, but a foundation.

That second view has lived for centuries in spiritual traditions
and is now, cautiously, finding its way back into some corners of science.

Because if consciousness is just chemistry,
what do we make of those moments of deep connection, synchronicity, or unexplainable knowing?
Where does that come from?
Why does art move us to tears? Why does touch, presence, or beauty reach into our bones?

Maybe it’s time to listen again.
Not to prove everything,
but to remember what we’ve always known.

Scientists Who Dare to Ask Different Questions
Pim van Lommel spent years studying near-death experiences.
What he noticed: people who were clinically dead: No brain activity, no heartbeat. These patients often came back with clear, detailed accounts of what had happened during that time.
Not just what they experienced, but what was said or done around them.
It made him question everything.
He now believes consciousness doesn’t reside in the brain, but connects to it temporarily.
Like an old dial-up modem logging into the internet.
The internet was always there. The connection was what came and went.

Other voices, like internist Larry Dossey, mathematician Peter Russell, and engineer Dean Radin are moving beyond the old model, too.
They don’t see consciousness as a late-stage product of evolution, but as a foundational field: collective, creative, timeless.
Dossey suggests that our minds may not be so separate after all: That we’re part of a One Mind.
Russell sees consciousness not as an effect, but as the origin of reality itself.
And Radin’s research explores how intention can influence the world beyond the limits of the body in ways we still don’t fully understand.

They don’t claim to hold the truth.
But they’re asking the right questions.
And maybe, just maybe, we’re ready for a new model.
One that resonates with what we’ve long known deep inside.
Not because we were taught.
but because we’re finally remembering it.

To listen:
Know Thyself – Ep. 111: Federico Faggin
In this episode, inventor and tech pioneer Federico Faggin shares his shift from building microprocessors to exploring consciousness as the foundation of reality.
He challenges the idea that the brain creates consciousness — and instead proposes that consciousness precedes all matter.
A deep, lucid conversation on science remembering the mystery it once forgot.

To read:
Sacred Instructions – Sherri Mitchell (Penobscot Nation)
A powerful, spiritual, and political book that shows how consciousness doesn’t just live in us — but between us.
Mitchell writes from ancient Indigenous wisdom, inviting us back into a way of living rooted in relationship: with ourselves, each other, and the Earth.