Whispering Wyrd

I grew up being taught that meaning, comfort, and salvation came from believing the right things about a (to me) distant God. Defined in ancient books, filtered through doctrine, and guarded by rules. I tried, for many years, to hold those beliefs. But they never “took” in me. Instead, they made me feel boxed in, anxious, and completely dishonest with myself.

What has always felt true to me, deeply, feel-it-in-my-bones true, is something very different.

I feel connected to the Earth. To mountains and forests. To animals. To wind, sound, and silence. And that connection brings me a kind of comfort I never found in dogma.

Awareness Without Belief

What I’m drawn to isn’t a belief system. It’s lived experience. I don’t need to believe that the forest is alive to feel something real when I walk among trees. I don’t need doctrine to sense presence when a raven passes overhead, or when the mountains hold the horizon in their timeless, patient way.

This way of seeing doesn’t ask for faith in propositions. It only asks for attention. That matters to me more than I could express.

Animals and Other Ways of Knowing

Modern science is slowly catching up to something older cultures always knew and never forgot… that humans are not the sole possessors of mind.

Animals feel, remember, plan, grieve, and relate. Their awareness may not look like ours, there are no abstract theologies or inner monologues that we know of, but their awareness isn’t less because of that. In some ways, it is more grounded.

Human consciousness is very narrative heavy. We live in stories, worries, and imagined futures. Animal awareness tends to be more embodied and present I think. Not lesser, just different.

Sometimes I wonder if we didn’t so much gain consciousness as we traded one form of it for another.

Landscapes as Presence

And then there are places themselves. A forest isn’t inert. It communicates, adapts, and responds. A mountain shapes weather and water flow direction. They aren’t objects in the way a chair is an object, they are processes that unfold over centuries and millennia.

Do mountains “think”? Probably not in any human sense. But asking that question probably misses the point entirely. A better question might be something like, “What kind of awareness belongs to something that moves at the pace of geology rather than heartbeat?”

When I’m anxious, unsettled, or afraid, being in the mountains calms me. Not because I believe something about them, but because they aren’t in a hurry and that gives me peace. Their timescale is larger than my fear, worry, or anxiety.

A Buddhist Thread (Without The Metaphysics)

What I find reassuring is how well this way of experiencing the world aligns with certain strands of Buddhism, especially Chan/Zen Buddhism.

There’s no insistence on believing specific cosmological claims. No demand to define God, soul, or ultimate reality. Instead, there is a gentle invitation to look directly. Walk. Breathe. Listen.

Awareness isn’t owned by the individual, it arises through conditions. It appears wherever it can. Humans are just one expression of it, not its origin or its goal.

Nothing special needs to be believed for this to be true. It only needs to be noticed.

Why This Brings Me Comfort

A distant, abstract God always felt unreachable and unavailable to me. Something I had to convince myself was real. But the Earth doesn’t require belief. Animals don’t demand allegiance. The mountains don’t judge. They simply include me.

That inclusion, felt instead of argued, has been profoundly healing for me. Especially during times when my nervous system is fragile and my mind prone to fear because of PTSD and withdrawal symptoms.

Not Alone

Whether or not there is life “out there” in the universe, I don’t experience existence as empty or abandoned. Awareness seems woven through reality (scientific version of panpsychism), appearing wherever conditions allow, in countless forms, at countless scales.

Maybe we aren’t alone, not because someone is watching us from the stars, but because consciousness itself is everywhere, patiently learning how to “look”. And for me that is enough to calm my damaged-from-drug-withdrawals nervous system.

Thank you for reading! If this resonates, you’re not required to believe anything only to notice what feels real in your own experience.

~Buck