without mystery, would our soul stay awake?

Hosted By: Ida Covi, MA, PhD candidate, is an ecopsychologist and the CEO of iRewild Institute. She is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence from Pacifica Graduate Institute, CA.

15 minutes

Also available on all major podcast platforms.

TRANSCRIPT

There is something mysterious about being human, how a single moment can change us. Life can start to feel flat, until mystery touches it.

But what is mystery, really? And what happens to a life, what happens to our soul, when we stop making room for it?

Mystery is the hidden light weaving through all existence, quietly drawing us back into our own lives, beneath the noise.

Instead of seeing mystery as something to be conquered and explained away, I feel it as a living presence, one that walks tenderly beside me, breathing its quiet magic into the contours of my days in ways I cannot measure, but can only feel with my whole heart.

It shows itself in the way the air changes after rain, as if the world is freshly made and I am invited to begin again.

It spirals into the whorl of a seashell, a perfect geometry no human hand designed, and yet it feels as though it has been waiting for my gaze since the beginning of time.

And, when I lift my eyes, it greets me in the silent communion of galaxies, vast and unreachable, yet somehow intimate, as if each one knows my name.

Mystery is not a passive observer. It integrates. It draws shadow and radiance into the same breath, holds longing and fulfillment in one hand, and weaves every fragment of existence into a living tapestry where nothing is wasted, nothing is lost, and nothing stands alone.

And here is what I have come to believe: Mystery doesn’t come so we can watch from the sidelines. It invites us to participate, to step into the dance. It asks for our hands, our voice, our wonder, and to become part of its ongoing creation.

So, what is mystery?

For me, it’s not the part of life that hides behind locked doors, it’s the part that leaves the door slightly open and waits to see if you’ll step closer. It resists definition, but it offers real invitation.

I remember walking along a narrow forest trail one autumn afternoon, when the air felt heavy with that in-between light, not quite day, not quite dusk. The path bent sharply, and there, in the clearing ahead, a single shaft of sunlight spilled across a patch of moss, making it glow like it held its own secret fire.

I don’t know why I stopped. I don’t know why I knelt down and ran my fingers over it. All I know is that in that moment, I felt as if something had been waiting for me, not to explain it, but to notice.

That is the nature of mystery. It does not shout. It leans in. It whispers, bidding your curiosity to come closer. It asks nothing more than your presence, and your willingness to linger in the question without needing an answer.

And here is the thing. Mystery is not rare. What is rare is that we pause long enough to recognize it. It is not something you “find” once and keep like a possession. It is something you live with, if you keep your eyes and your heart open.

I think about how easy it is for life to grow flat. We wake to alarms, move through lists, meet deadlines, and count the hours until the day is over. The days start stacking, one on top of the other, like bricks in a wall that slowly closes in.

Somewhere inside, a part of us remembers another way of being, a time when wonder came easily, when the smallest thing could stop us in our tracks and change our entire day.

We search for that wildness within, sometimes without even knowing it. We scroll, we travel, we buy, we try new things, hoping one of them will strike that hidden chord. But too often, the spark stays buried, and we go back to our routines, a little more convinced that maybe this is just what life is now.

And that’s why mystery matters, because it’s where everything begins. Mystery opens into wonder, wonder opens into curiosity, and through curiosity, mystery keeps our souls awake.

It slips into our awareness and startles us out of the sleepwalk, maybe through a sudden scent that takes us back decades, or a moment when the night sky changes and you can’t stop staring.

It humbles us, reminding us that we don’t have it all figured out.
And it ignites us, giving us just enough of a glimpse of something greater that we lean forward, wanting more.

Mystery isn’t just what keeps the soul awake, it also drives our collective search for meaning. Even science, for all its precision, is born out of mystery. Every breakthrough began with a question no one could answer: What is light? How do stars burn? What hidden pull moves the tides? Science doesn’t end mystery; it follows it, listens to it, and lets it open doors we didn’t even know were there.

Wonder is maintained by mystery. And science, at its best, doesn’t replace wonder, it illuminates it, like a lantern carried deeper into the unknown.

Maybe this is what our time is asking of us: not only to learn more, but to have hearts willing to be changed. Not only to observe from a safe distance, but to step closer, to participate. And when awe and wonder rise in us, stirred by what we meet in nature, something in us remembers: we belong to something larger, and our lives are woven into a greater whole.

And if that is true for science, how much more for us? Perhaps mystery is also whispering to our own lives, asking us to notice it:

“Don’t look away. A thread is being pulled. Follow it.” echoes the Mystery that moves through all living things.

“Out of all the times that could have been yours, you have been placed in this one.
Not as a bystander, but as a participant.

Beloved, you are not here by accident.
You were breathed into this moment with intention.
You are here to help bring forth what comes next.
Your hands, your voice, your courage, these are the instruments I have entrusted to you, through which a new vision can enter the world.

I see you.
I have known you from the beginning.

You are part of this ongoing wonder. You have been carried to this moment by My unfolding grace, and woven into a story where nothing is lost and every being belongs.”

And perhaps this is how you answer that call: by treating your own life with reverence—following your mysteries with curiosity, rather than silencing them with certainty.

Real life doesn’t happen in the certainty.
It happens in the not-knowing.
In the awe.
In the courage to stay with the question instead of rushing to answer it.

So, how do we live more deeply with mystery?
Sometimes it begins with simply pausing in the unanswered. You hear news that shakes you, or a friend asks a question you can’t respond to right away. Instead of rushing to fill the silence, you let it breathe. You let the unknown sit beside you, like a guest you’re still learning to know.

Maybe in that pause, your eyes wander, to a single ant crossing the sidewalk, carrying something far larger than itself. You find yourself wondering where it’s headed, what obstacles it will face, how it knows the way. And in that wondering, mystery has already taken your hand.

You can also ask better questions. Not the kind meant to be solved, but the ones that invite you into wonder:

By noticing this . . . . What is the question my soul is trying to ask?
If the sacred were speaking through what I see, what would it be saying?
What unseen thread is connecting this moment to the whole of existence?

Then there’s the practice of looking longer. You walk past the same tree every day, but one morning you stop. You notice the scar on its trunk, or the small spider web trembling between two branches.

Create from it. Paint the image in your mind. Let a quiet prayer rise from you, knowing the Earth is listening. Invent a story for the scar, as if it had been keeping a diary for a thousand years. Or have an imaginal conversation with the spider, not because what you create will be perfect, but because it lets the mystery move through you.

Let nature lure you back into mystery. Not to escape your life, but to discover new paths within it.

And finally, go where nature still speaks in her own voice. Step into places where the wind decides the melody, where clouds wander without permission, and rivers choose their own course. These are the places that remind you the universe doesn’t run on our timetables, and perhaps, neither should our souls.

I think we’ve all known a moment when mystery brushed against us, and our bodies felt it before our minds could name it.

You’re walking somewhere ordinary, maybe a path you’ve taken a hundred times, when something makes you stop. You can’t say why at first. All you know is that a shiver rises along your skin, as if your body is trying to wake you up.

Your breath slows without your asking. It’s not that you’re out of air, it’s that something in you doesn’t want to exhale just yet, afraid the moment might vanish. Your chest feels wider, not from oxygen, but from the sudden awareness of being alive in a way you can’t explain.

This is how mystery moves through us. It can hold peace and longing in the same hand, not asking you to choose one over the other. And in its presence, you might feel small, but in the most beautiful way. Not insignificant, but belonging to something infinite, something that has been here long before you and will remain long after, and yet somehow knows you are part of it.

The longer I live with it, the more I see that mystery is both the weaver and the thread.
It’s not here to be solved, and thank goodness for that. It’s here to be lived, breathed, touched, and let touch us back.

Without mystery, something in the soul starts to close its eyes. With it, we stay awake, eyes wide, hearts open, ready to catch beauty in the act, to notice wonder sneaking into the corners of our days, to feel the sacred quietly threading itself through everything.

Perhaps it is in noticing these mysteries that we begin to find our way back to the wildness within we thought we had lost.

And maybe, just maybe, every heartbeat, every breath, every step is already a quiet whisper back to the Presence that flows through all existence telling us: “I see you. You are a doorway the Infinite keeps opening.

And so I ask . . .

If mystery is calling you to notice, what might change in your life… if you paused—right here—and followed the thread a little farther?

If this episode stirred something in you…
and you feel called to explore these practices more deeply,
you’ll find many of them woven into my book, The Sacred Canopy.

But for now… step outside today and let nature offer you one small mystery.
Stay with it a moment longer than you usually would—
and let it become your doorway into a deeper kind of aliveness

iRewild would like to acknowledge the contributions of other writers, philosophers, and scientists for their inspiration, words, and research used in our podcasts. For a complete list of sources, please see our eBook, Rewilding The Senses: Bringing The Human Soul Back Into A Conscious Relationship With Nature.