The Return to Source: Reweaving the Sacred into Our Leadership

Why the future of power must be rooted in presence, purpose, and something greater than ourselves.

Yesterday, I found myself in a fiery debate on Substack. I had made a comment stating that I long for leadership to be rooted in spiritual groundedness. One reader took offense, insisting that spirituality has no place in leadership or governance and that we are meant to have a secular system. They were adamant that anything other than complete separation of church and state was dangerous.

But here's the thing: I agree that church and state should be separate, and I want no institution of religious dogma anywhere near my governance. I want no patriarchal church, no fundamentalist ideology governing our laws, our bodies, or our minds. This I can agree upon quite strongly.

And yet, I will still double down on what I said. I’m not here to convince anyone to believe in something they don’t. I’m just here to ask what happens when our leaders lose connection with anything beyond themselves.

When I speak of spiritual groundedness in leadership, I’m speaking to the need for leaders who have done enough internal work to be able to hold complexity, stay anchored in the face of uncertainty, and stay connected to something greater than themselves, whether that’s God, Spirit, the Universe, the Earth, the Great Mystery, or simply a deep sense of purpose or love. Language doesn’t matter, but that deep, felt sense of connection does.

This disconnection from Source is, in my view, the very root of our collective crisis. We are unmoored. We are floating in fragmented narratives, separated from the Earth, from each other, and from our own souls.

To understand how we lost this connection, we must first look to the past. For much of early human history, spirituality was not something separate from daily life, but was woven into every decision. The Divine was not an entity that was distant or judgmental, however, it was embodied in the land, the stars, and the womb. Many early cultures centered their spiritual lives around the Goddess, revering the Earth as a living being, honoring the cycles of the Moon, and the wisdom of the feminine. These Goddess-worshipping societies were often egalitarian, deeply communal, and celebratory of birth, death, and rebirth as sacred rites of passage.

But over time, these cultures were invaded, colonized, and replaced by hierarchical systems rooted in domination, conquest, and control. The feminine was pushed underground, the sacred was abstracted and removed from nature, and placed in the hands of a distant white male god. The church became a tool of empire, and spirituality became synonymous with obedience. We were told a new myth: that God was male, that woman was made from man, and that her curiosity (her desire for knowledge) was her original sin.

Years ago, I had a visceral experience of this collective wound. As I sat in an ayahuasca ceremony, I felt a deep aching in my rib cage, which was sudden, inexplicable, and profoundly emotional. As I breathed into that pain, I discovered that it was the lie that had been told to me from a deeply patriarchal and troubled unconscious. The story that my very existence was born from the rib of a man, while women are the portals of all creation. In that moment, I knew what I had always known in my bones: that Eve was not sinful, but was courageous. She reached for knowledge, for truth, for awakening…and we have been punished for it ever since.

Terence McKenna once suggested that the ‘forbidden fruit’ was not an apple at all, but a visionary plant (likely psilocybin mushrooms) that awakened our consciousness. In his legendary book Food of the Gods, he states that the Fall was not the beginning of sin, but the moment we touched divinity within ourselves and were exiled for it ever since.

Today, we find ourselves at a similar threshold. The rise of AI and the resurgence of psychedelics mark a profound turning point in our collective evolution. It is no accident that these two forces are emerging simultaneously and act as incredible mirrors that reflect our consciousness right back to us. Just as plant medicines ask us to bring intention and integrity to the ceremony, AI asks us to bring discernment and depth to our queries. These technologies and tools are not inherently good or bad, they are just amplifiers that magnify what already exists within us.

Our collective split in consciousness is widening. We are more connected, but more divided than ever. However, the same web that divides also holds us together (as all great mystics have taught…we are each a wave in the same vast ocean). We are all Source, but some of us are simply more attuned to that infinite current than others. We are all channels of the divine, and this infinite and unconditional love is available to us all.

In my experience as an Entheogenic Minister, it’s rare to meet someone who, after a few deep journeys with the medicine, still believes we are completely alone in this universe. I have watched countless people who were adamantly against the word "God" begin to weep in the presence of something they could no longer deny. They may not call it God, but they know it deep within their bones and within their soul. They can feel its presence.

All you have to do is look to the innate intelligence of nature, which is too stunning to ignore…from the mycelial networks beneath our feet to the perfect symmetry of a sunflower, from the migration patterns of monarchs, and to the way our bodies know how to heal.

So, to say that leadership should not be rooted in Source? To me, that is the great forgetting.

I will double down here, this is not about theology, but about lived experience. When you sit with the medicine of the Earth, when you witness the orchestration of a forest ecosystem, when you attune to the intricate timing of seasons and stars, something changes, and you remember. You remember that you are not alone and you are not separate. You are not in control, but you are part of something magnificent.

To say that leadership should be devoid of Source is, in my opinion, to ignore the very essence of what true power is. Power is not domination, but it is presence. It is the ability to stand in the storm and remember who you are. It is the humility to serve something greater than yourself.

We must reclaim the sacred. Not in the way it was distorted by centuries of religious oppression, but in a way that is embodied, inclusive, and rooted in love. Let us return to the sacred not as a set of rules, but as a way of being. Let us build rituals that remind us of our interconnectedness. Let us lead from a place that honors the invisible forces that guide us, the ancestors who whisper to us, and the Earth who holds us.

My hope is that the next generation of leaders will not shy away from this path. That they will not apologize for being in communion with Spirit. Instead, they will stand tall in the truth that we are all channels for the divine, and that the more we open to that flow, the more integrity, wisdom, and compassion we bring into the world.

Let us lead from there.

I will leave you with this one final question to ponder: What kind of world could we build if we remembered that power is meant to flow through us, not from us?

If these words have spoken to you, please visit Movement Maker, a sanctuary for sacred rebels, visionary leaders, and cycle breakers ready to help birth a new Earth. Rooted in ancient wisdom and modern strategy, we are building a collective, and we would love for you to be a part of this movement!