My favorite place to go in my town isn’t actually in the town at all. It sits above it, high in the mountains, at a place called Aspen Vista.
It’s beautiful in every season, but in the fall it becomes something otherworldly. People come from far and wide to see the aspens as their leaves turn gold, then orange, then red, until the whole mountainside looks lit from within. The air is thin up there, the elevation high, so hiking up there is also a good workout.
It’s also the place where I’ve done some of my deepest healing. There’s no easy way to describe what getting off benzos did to me, how hard it was, how long it hurt, but I’m finally healing now, truly healing, in a way I never expected. Those mountains have been a huge part of that healing from the beginning.
I hike up there with my wife and one of my sons. I sit among the trees and let the silence and wind do their work. Something in that place reaches into me and unties knots I didn’t even know I was holding. I can feel tension leaving my body, literally feel it, like the mountain is lifting it from me.
If I’m feeling low or worn thin, Aspen Vista always lifts me up. I listen to the ravens circling overhead. I breathe in the cool, resin-scented air of pine and fir. Up there, it feels like the Earth itself is reminding me that I’m allowed to heal. Like it is encouraging me to heal.
It has meant so much to me that I call it my Lyfjaberg, my Healing Mountain. It’s where I find peace, and peace is vital to healing of any kind.
~Buck
Whispering Wyrd 
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