What It Is

There are things we know for certain (fairly) now: atoms, photons, protons, and neutrons – we know the place is crawling with them. We can’t take a step without striding on some part of the universe, spinning atmospheric molecules around us like dust clouds in a ray of sunlight, leaving in our wake a torrent of disturbed matter. These tiny bits are constantly attracting, repelling, combining and bouncing off of each other, crammed forever shoulder-to-shoulder, in an unending chain to the ends of the cosmos and perhaps beyond.

We know this because scientists have spent an unimaginable amount of time and money in laboratories throughout the human story evolving machines so we could see with our own eyes the elements that…well…make up our own eyes - lets hear it for cosmic irony. We call all of this work and the resultant machines technology, using them to prove to ourselves that we exist. All we’ve done is validated what we can already see, hear, smell, touch and feel, like a wheel rolling to prove it’s round. Technology is how humans achieve greatness, and we, in turn, are an example of the greatness of technology – albeit a deeper technology.

Even more amazing is that science has traveled past the atoms and their particles – and we’ve discovered something fantastic; it’s all just energy and further, it’s just light. Strip away the illusion of our solidity and all everything is a cluster of tiny, virtually imperceptible flickers of light, joined together in a particular order in a certain location, coming to a universe near you, soon. So what’s a walking, talking, luminous body of light supposed to do next?

Funny thing is, we all believe in our so-called advanced, cell-phone-plastered-to-our-ears existence that, not only are we among the great evolved who figured it out, but that the discovery of these tiny, basic elements seems to herald the death of magic, when all things have been explained and nothing is left to the mystery. The strictness of science dictates that it’s all just stuff – random, uncontrollable, and unconscious – and there’s nothing we can do about it - so just go buy yourself some more stuff and be happy. Now ironically, tapping in and returning to what is actually basic, practical and fundamental in the universe seems like going out on a limb; it’s all dark caves, incense, chanting, snake-oil or magic elixirs. But the truth is, the myths were created as the human race at large forgot the fundamental and sensible elements of which we, and all things are made, inventing the mystical to explain it all.


The basic information from the universe is far more practical and not so esoteric. Physicists have observed that energy reacts to energy, attracting or repelling, combining or disengaging, and that this has been going on for a very long time. The ancients knew that everything was made of this stuff, energy, because they identified and experienced themselves as being part of nature – the sun, the stars, the world - all sources of light and energy - and the indigenous techniques and wisdom were based in that experience.

Just as modern scientists, our indigenous ancestors explored a greater awareness of themselves, examining each deeper level through contemplative and practical traditions, achieving an awareness of themselves and the universal light energy of which all is made. As defined in the language of the Tungus Tribe of Siberia, “Shaman” is “one who brings light into the darkness.” The Shamans consciously perceived themselves as light and achieved what can be called “luminous awareness” – the awareness of one’s own luminosity or the knowledge that one is simply light energy. As Carl Jung said, “the light in the darkness of mere being…"