Whispering Wyrd

It’s far too easy to become distracted by everything that’s wrong in the world. So easy, in fact, that it can blot out everything that’s still good. With so many news companies competing for our attention, we’re inundated with headlines from the moment we wake up, unless we take steps to protect ourselves.

For me, it became overwhelming. Not the stories themselves, but simply seeing the headlines over and over. I finally set my browser homepage to a site that shows no news at all. I spend a lot of time at my computer writing, for my blogs, for others, and for my own healing, and I don’t want to be bombarded with news everywhere I go online. Creating that boundary has helped my well-being more than I expected, especially during withdrawal.

What anchors me most, though, is spending as much time as I can outdoors in the sacred landscape that surrounds my home. These mountains keep me sane in a world that can feel utterly insane. They are ancient, steady, and unmoved by the chaos of our brief and anxious lives. They’ve watched countless generations come and go, and still they stand… calm, quiet, and patient.

There is one particular range here that I return to again and again. A single spot on that ridge has become my refuge whenever a wave hits, those sudden, brutal returns of withdrawal symptoms. It is so profoundly healing that I call it my Lyfjaberg: Healing Mountain.

When I’m there, tension leaves my body almost immediately. My mind settles. My heart stops its chaotic stutter, the multifocal PVCs that benzo withdrawal carved into me, and falls into a slow, steady and healthy rhythm again.

I watch the ravens circling overhead, calling out as if welcoming me back. I watch deer move through the trees with the silence of ghosts. I breathe the crisp, clean air and feel it soothe my spirit in a way nothing else can.

That place has never failed me, even during the very worst of withdrawal.

I’ve written before about how difficult getting off benzos was after more than twenty years of heavy use, but there are no words in any language that can fully convey what it does to a person. I thought getting off alcohol was hard. And it was. But benzos were harder. I had two seizures. I developed PVCs that came in frightening runs, sometimes fifteen minutes, and once, three hours. Withdrawal sent me to the ER twice. It was hell.

But the mountains kept healing me.
 And without my wife, my sons, and those sacred peaks, I know I wouldn’t have made it through.

Now, at almost sixty years old, I am free of alcohol and drugs. The journey was brutal, but I’m still here, still healing, still walking toward peace, one breath and one step at a time.

Whatever you’re going through, I wish you peace, good health, and happiness. I hope you have, or someday find, your own personal Lyfjaberg, even if it isn’t an actual mountain.

May the quiet breath of the mountains steady your own.
May every step you take bring your spirit a little more ease.
May your heart beat in its true rhythm—slow, strong, and unafraid.
And may whatever burdens you carry grow lighter with each new dawn.
May you walk in peace, and may peace walk with you.

~Buck