How do you get something out of nothing?


It seems like an obvious question, one that drives everything from spiritual creation stories to our understanding of the Big Bang. Yet it leaves us with a sense that underneath everything lies emptiness and lack. We can phrase this question in a new way: how do we get something out of everything?

In Leap to Wholeness, physics educator Sky Nelson-Isaacs explores the science of wholeness. To understand wholeness, imagine a beautiful photograph that you want to modify. The image exists in space. Yet graphic designers are familiar with another space, called the frequency domain, or “pattern-space.” Here, changes to the patterns affect the image as a whole. We can make the entire image blurrier or sharper, for instance, with a simple filter in pattern-space. A change to one local region affects the image everywhere. This is an example of wholeness that exists right before our eyes.

We each have filters that influence what we see, hear, think, and feel. They take who we are as a whole, and they limit it to what we feel comfortable with--what we already know, rather than how we can grow. We carry models that interpret the world for us. But we can become more aware of our filters and from this awareness experience more flow, more openness, and less anxiety. When we align with circumstances rather than fighting them, we open the door to synchronicities that give us leverage in creating the change we want to see.

Following this thread from modern audio technology, to the human brain, to the very nature of time itself, Leap to Wholeness explores a paradigm of wholeness that is easy to miss. For instance, when you look at the red part of a rainbow, you may not realize that you’re really seeing white light that’s had blue and green filtered out. Or where you see blue, that means red and green are missing. Maybe creating something out of everything is not about what we do...but about what we don’t do. By removing filters--thoughts, feelings, and other reactions--that keep us weaving the same old patterns, we naturally allow ourselves to grow, heal, and adapt.

An investigation into the physics of light and our journey toward healing, connection, and wholeness.

The reductionism and materialism of our modern world make it easy to imagine everything can be cleanly broken down into smaller and smaller parts. Yet the straightforward example of light in a hologram, which can't be reduced to its parts, points to an underlying interconnected reality--a wholeness. Physicist Sky Nelson-Isaacs uses numerous familiar examples--rainbows, music, photography--to illustrate a fundamental wholeness found in nature.

Just as light is filtered as it passes through a filmstrip, Nelson-Isaacs points out that our human experience is filtered through thoughts and feelings. This view provides an explanation as to why, in our daily lived reality, we can feel so broken and not-whole. Nelson-Isaacs weaves together cutting-edge ideas into the nature of space and time and original research, with a compelling message of urgency. The filters we use to make choices everyday hide important information from us, leading us away from experiences of flow. Through synchronicities, we are led to life lessons tailored to our readiness for change. Nelson-Isaacs reconsiders the view of time itself, suggesting that we live not just in this moment but on a timeline of history, part of a wave moving from our past into our future. Every choice we make shifts what is available to us. Can we learn to rethink our lives and reality to remove our filters and realize the wholeness that we have inherent in ourselves and in our world? Yes, says Nelson-Isaacs--and once we do that, we can use the multiverse of possibilities to make choices that help us heal and grow into a greater sense of ourselves.

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