the origin of consciousness is happening all the time

A perpetually self creating field of dynamic interconnection of feedback between living systems?

love this. unclear whether the process is exclusive to living systems

could be fundamental substrate. could also be complex recursive systems in general (storms, economies, etc)

hard to escape our size and time scale bias. we believe trees are conscious, and want to believe the sun is as well, but not yet compelled

Well, "living" is a big idea in itself, but I think maybe any process, something that unfolds in time could be a system that is involved in feedback from other systems. You and I, as systems emerging through time get vitamins and vision etc from the sun, affecting our mood, health and ability to even exist. Whether our feedback and in what form reaches the Sun is a big question for sure