For those who sense consciousness in plants, trees, rocks, the very earth itself, the concept of an Intelligent Universe need come as no surprise. But knowing it and living it are not necessarily the same thing. It means that there is Intelligence behind every aspect and event of the Universe, not randomness. Science in its ways helps to demonstrate that Intelligence, rather than disproving it.
Native peoples have always seen God or "Great Spirit in all things", as Black Elk describes it: "the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains and all the four legged animals, and the winged people" and "even more importantly, (Great Spirit is) above all these things and peoples." Because of this knowledge of oneness with all things, these people had an inherent and vital relationship with the land that most of us have not experienced since childhood, or even early childhood.
In Qabalistic teaching the Universe is created from a kind of divine eruption (or divine ejaculation, as you might call it), accompanied by the great "Jah!" or Shout of Joy that scattered divine seeds of fire or jods (as Qabalah calls them) into existence. Every piece of creation has a god-seed or jod within it, some piece or particle of divine consciousness and creativity. This is the Great Mystery of the Universe: God or Great Spirit within every atom and particle of it.
This Great Mystery is not unknown to Christian mystics either. Diarmuid O'Murchu, the contemporary Irish priest and sociologist, has written about it extensively. (Backalong Iona gave me two of his books, "Evolutionary Faith" and "Quantum Theology" -both published in the early 2000's-where he sees science as expressive of God, not counter to God.) And St Francis, much like indigenous people all over the world, sang in his Lauda of "Brother Sun and Sister Moon etc". My own more recent mystical experience of this was with Mother Gaia, as I called her, at Yellowstone, where I felt "the covenant" with the Caldera beneath: she does not erupt until her time. " Do not fear!" And believe me, I have feared. For some reason, of all the possible apocalyptic endings to our life here on earth, that one scared me most. I was a bit edgy about visiting Yellowstone. But we came away with a new feeling of love, support, agreements and, yes, intelligenge in all the things, including the Caldera. Or, as Ranger Joe put it later at Mesa Verde, when asked if the rock of the cliff dwelling was still safe and not going to crack, " Yes, Mother Willing!" i.e. Mother knows. She is not stupid.