Whispering Wyrd

The Healing Web

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  • The Night A Rune Found Me

    A Moment That Changed Everything

    Back in 2011 something happened that altered the course of my life and quietly anchored the animist way I now understand the world.

    I have sleep apnea, and at that time I didn’t yet have a CPAP machine. Falling asleep on my back has always been dangerous because it worsens the collapse of my airway. Normally I would jolt awake gasping, my throat opening enough to save me. But that night didn’t go the way nights normally went.

    I woke because my throat had sealed completely shut. I tried to inhale but I couldn’t. My lungs were burning, my heart was pounding and racing and my head throbbed. My vision narrowed into a tunnel of darkness. I knew I was passing out and I knew I was in trouble. I was panicking.

    I fell back onto my back as the world turned black, and my vision now shrinking to a single pinpoint. Time felt like it folded in on itself, a few seconds stretching out into what felt like an eternity.

    And then something seemingly impossible happened.

    The Golden Symbol in the Darkness

    Out of that blackness, something came flying toward me so fast it was frightening. A flaming, golden symbol I had never seen before. It grew rapidly larger, flying straight at me. Just as it slammed into my body, my airway opened and air flooded in. I was sucking air like I never had before.

    Maybe I lost consciousness, maybe I hung on by a thread, I don’t know. I can’t say for sure. But I bolted upright gasping, drinking in air like I had just been saved from drowning.

    The next morning, that symbol was still definitely in my thoughts. I had to find out what it was, if anything. This was around the time Google had released its new “search by image” feature, so I opened GIMP, drew the symbol I had seen, and uploaded it. The result amazed me when I read what it meant.

    It was the Ansuz rune. The rune of divine breath. The rune of divine communication. A rune closely associated with Odin.

    I didn’t even know what runes were in 2011. This was before the series Vikings was on TV, before runes were all the rage and pop-culture décor. But this rune, the rune tied to breath and spirit, is the one that appeared in the very moment I could not breathe and was rapidly fading. I don’t try to find an explanation anymore. It happened and I’m alive because it did.

    A Pathway Opens

    That experience sent me exploring the cultures who used these runes. The Scandinavians, the continental Germanic peoples, the Anglo-Saxons, and the ancient Dutch. I learned their myths and stories and about their gods like Odin/Woden, Thor/Thunar, and many others.

    But I never came to see those gods as distant, abstract beings, not the way the Christian god of my childhood was presented. Instead, I saw them through my already-rooted animist lens. Thor/Thunar isn’t only a god of storms, he is the storm, or its raw power. Odin/Woden isn’t merely a god of inspiration, he is the current of inspiration itself.

    The runes, too, are more than symbols to me. They aren’t just representations, they embody the things they represent.

    So when Ansuz slammed into me that night and my breath returned, I took it as an actual encounter, woven into the fabric of my own consciousness and lived experience.

    Consciousness, Cosmos, and the Living World

    Almost my entire life I’ve believed that there is more to this universe than what can be seen or measured. I don’t think consciousness is just a side effect of brain tissue. To me, consciousness is as fundamental as gravity or electromagnetism, a basic property of reality itself.

    Some scientists call this view panpsychism or scientific panpsychism. The idea that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the cosmos, not an accident or some “afterthought”.

    So when I sit in the mountains and a deer watches me, or a raven tilts its head toward me, I feel consciousness meeting consciousness. I feel agency looking back. Spirit looking back.

    They aren’t just “biological machines,” not to me. And that gives me great comfort.

    May breath return gently to your body whenever the world grows dark.
     May symbols rise to meet you in the moments you most need them.
     May the living cosmos speak to you in its quiet language,
     and may you always recognize yourself in its voice.

    ~ Buck

  • Finding My Lyfjaberg

    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

  • Back Home in the Mountains

    I’m back home in Santa Fe after spending a week in Texas visiting family. Seeing everyone again after so long was genuinely wonderful. Family almost always is. But Texas itself, at least the part we were in, hasn’t changed except to get worse. Internet speeds still crawl just barely above dial-up (not a joke), the population has exploded while the infrastructure hasn’t even tried to keep up, and everything looks old, tired, and worn down.

    But now I am home again. And the moment we crossed into New Mexico, I felt the land exhale and I exhaled with it. As soon as we crossed into New Mexico the skies actually cleared. It had been cloudy and dreary the rest of the trip. That seemed very fitting.

    The mountains are crowned with fresh snow, the air is clean and sharp, and this sacred landscape embraced me the way it always does. I feel like I’ve stepped back into both civilization and sacredness. I’m sore and exhausted from driving nearly 600 miles each way, but the heaviness of Texas has already lifted off my shoulders.

    The truth is, the things my wife and I had once romanticized about that little (now not-so-little) Texas town simply aren’t there anymore. People feel ruder. The “slower pace of life” is gone. Many of the places we loved are falling into disrepair or have disappeared completely. Whatever charm it once had has faded into memory.

    The only thing that place still has going for it is the relatively low violent-crime rate. I won’t pretend New Mexico is perfect, it has real issues with drugs and violence. Even the nearest Texas city to where we stayed has a far lower rate than comparable cities here. But even knowing that I would not trade this place. Not for a moment. These mountains, these skies, they heal me in ways I still struggle to put into words.

    And speaking of healing, I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. This last “wave” of benzo withdrawal hit me harder than any before it, and it leveled me for a while. Then came the Texas trip. But I’m home again now, in the place where my spirit steadies itself, and I’m hoping to dive back into all the ideas I had before the wave rolled in.

    Thank you for being here with me through the quiet spells and the storms.

    ~Buck

  • My Grandmother Knew the Moon

    My grandmother had little in the way of formal education by today’s standards. She didn’t get a 4-year college degree. She never owned a car. My grandparents had an outhouse until my father and his brothers finally built them an indoor bathroom. She didn’t get a telephone until I was already a teenager.

    And yet my grandmother knew the moon.

    She knew which days were best for planting and which ones weren’t. She knew when the weather was about to turn, even when the sky still looked calm to everyone else. She could step outside, feel the air against her skin, and seem to read something written there , something invisible to most of us.

    She never called it wisdom. She never tried to teach it in any formal way. She simply lived it.

    When my mother was pregnant with me, my grandmother told her the exact day I would be born, not based on a doctor’s prediction or a calendar, but on the phase of the moon. And she was right! To this day, I still think about that, half in disbelief and half in reverence.

    I was born during the new moon, in the quiet darkness just before the light begins again, the time of endings and beginnings living on the same breath.

    I don’t believe that the moon determines a person’s entire life. I don’t think our paths are written in stone by the sky. But I do believe the moon holds memory. I believe it carries rhythm. And I believe that some people, like my grandmother, learned to listen and gained much wisdom.

    She didn’t read books about weather patterns or lunar cycles. She watched. She paid attention. She lived close enough to the land that the land spoke back to her.

    She watched the animals, the clouds, the soil, and the way the wind moved through the trees. Over a lifetime, that observation became ways of knowing.

    There is a kind of intelligence that doesn’t come from schools. It comes from relationships. It comes from being in conversation with the living world.

    I didn’t realize the depth of her knowledge while she was alive. Like so many things in my youth, I took it for granted. I didn’t think to ask her how she knew. I didn’t sit beside her and say, “Teach me your ways”. I simply assumed she would always be there, as steady as the moon itself.

    Now she is gone, but I find myself thinking of her more and more as I walk beneath the night sky. Especially when the moon is new. Especially when the world is quiet.

    I like to imagine she is still teaching me, in her own way, through the passing of time, through the turning of the sky, and through the memory that lives on in my heart and in my bones.

    I see now that her wisdom was never meant to be written down. It was meant to be lived.

    And maybe, in some mysterious way, it still is.

    ~Buck

    Photo Credit: My son, Ty Britt

  • The Storm

    The storm rolls in, dark,
                knocking me back again.

    Wind thrashes at my defenses,
          testing every fragile fortress.

    Still, I feel hope,
               as long as she is with me.

    ~Buck

  • Demons, Waves, and the Long Road to Peace

    I think almost everyone carries their own “demons,” as people like to call them. Trauma. Old wounds. Memories that refuse to sleep.

    For some, those demons are quiet enough to coexist with. For others, they interfere with the very ability to function, to rest, to think clearly, to feel safe in the world.

    For better or worse, I fall into that second category. Especially lately.

    I am now ten months free from benzodiazepines, after more than twenty years of use. Before that, there was alcohol. I will be sixty years old in a few short months, and it has taken me nearly a lifetime to stop using chemicals to cope with what I have seen… and with what I have done. With the things I thought I had buried, but which were only waiting.

    Right now, I am in the midst of what many in the withdrawal community call a “wave”, the return of symptoms after a period of improvement. This one is, without question, the worst I have experienced.

    The heart palpitations are back. The full-body tension is back. And, probably hardest of all, the nightmares have returned in full force.

    Sleep feels impossible. When I do finally drift off from sheer exhaustion, the nightmares are waiting. They pull me back into those times and places so vividly that it feels real, like I have stepped through a door instead of waking up in my own bed. I wake with my heart racing, pounding so hard I’m afraid it will give out. The fear then fuels the palpitations. And so the cycle begins again. In the midst of all this, I long for peace. I pray for it.

    I walk outside,
    breathe the night,
    and let the night breathe me.

    I bow my head and cry.
    I want to scream, “Why?”
    But I know there is no answer waiting.

    Suffocating beneath fear,
    as though fear itself were a noose.

    Still, somehow, I keep going.

    I muster all the strength I can to move forward, moment by moment, breath by breath. I have a wife and three grown sons. I love them more than words can hold, and I do not want to burden them with the battle that rages inside me. They have already seen me through the darkest depths of withdrawal, and it was not easy for any of us.

    So I carry it quietly when I can. I write. I pray. I breathe. I endure.

    And if you are walking with your own demons tonight, please hear this:
     Don’t stop. Do not surrender to them. Stay stubborn. Stay soft where it matters. Stay compassionate, especially with yourself.

    You are still here. And that means something sacred is still at work within you.

    ~Buck

  • Surrounded By Beauty

    I am surrounded by beauty,
       mountains, forests, rivers, and streams.


     For so long I was unable to see
            the beauty all around me.
                Blinded by despair and subdued by chemicals.

    But now clearheaded, I realize there is no time to waste
       mourning time lost.
         Now is a time for living, basking in this newfound clarity.

    There is nothing but here and now,
        I know to spend each moment wisely.
      I am grateful for this clarity, this new chance at life.

    ~Buck

  • I Woke Today

    I woke today
     after nightmares once more haunted me.
     I was relieved to see the light of day,
     to wash away the horrors I did see.

    It was just another dream,
     no matter how painfully real it seemed.
     I am safe here in this sacred place,
     despite the shadows that I used to face.

    I placed my palms together
     and whispered a quiet prayer,
     I have survived such cruel and stormy weather,
     I won’t bow down to dreams that only tear.

    I walked outside and breathed the open air
     and noticed all the beauty where I stand.
     I remind myself of all the ones who care,
     especially my wife, who holds my hand.

  • On Trusting Instincts

    Daily writing prompt
    Do you trust your instincts?
    View all responses

    I absolutely trust mine. They’ve saved my life more than once.

    There have been times when I had no logical reason to feel the way I did, yet something in me knew. One of the earliest and clearest examples was when I suspected I had diabetes. I wasn’t overweight. I had no family history. None of the “risk factors” applied to me, but I felt it in my bones. When I finally got tested, my blood glucose was around 300 at diagnosis, despite having only very mild symptoms. My instinct had been right.

    My instincts were also sharp during the years I spent in addiction, both mine and the environments that came with it. When I was on benzos, and alcohol before that, I found myself around some deeply “unsavory” people. Somehow, I always knew when someone was about to “get got,” even when the attacker was pretending to be friendly right up to the moment violence erupted. I still can’t explain how I sensed it, but the feeling was unmistakable. And every time, it was correct.

    Those same instincts have guided me through healing. Doctors have offered me medications to ease withdrawal symptoms, but something in me always said “no.” I didn’t want to trade one set of chains for another. Later, when I checked interactions online, I learned that some of those prescriptions would have clashed dangerously with the heart medications I’m already on. I’ve learned to treat prescriptions, and prescribers, with caution.

    I’ve also learned to be wary of clergy. Some of the worst advice I’ve ever been given came from religious leaders who meant well but lived such sheltered lives that they had no understanding of the world I once moved through. I don’t adhere to any religion, but most of my family and extended family do. Their guidance was not only unhelpful, it was, at times, genuinely dangerous.

    So yes, I trust my instincts. Completely. And I believe others should trust theirs, too. Even if you can’t logically explain why something feels wrong, that sense alone is reason enough to step back. And when something feels unquestionably right, good, or healing for you, trust that, too. Our instincts are often wiser than we give them credit for.

    ~Buck

  • My Favorite Month of the Year

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?
    View all responses

    Here in the mountains of northern New Mexico, October feels like the world exhales after the long heat of summer. The air shifts. The light changes. The mountains take on that deep, quiet glow as the days grow shorter, and the sun hangs lower and weaker in the sky.

    But the real magic, for me, is in the aspens.

    By October, they’ve turned into towering columns of gold. Whole mountainsides shimmer as if they’ve been brushed with light. When the wind moves through them, the leaves shake and flicker like tiny bells, soft, bright, and alive. No matter how hard of a month I’m having, no matter what wave of withdrawal or fatigue I’m riding, those aspens remind me that beauty is always here. Change can be painful, but it can also be breathtaking.

    October is also home to my favorite holiday… Halloween. Not the loud, commercial version, but the older feeling underneath it, the sense that the world grows thinner, more mysterious, more intimate. The nights feel sacred. The wind carries a different kind of whisper. The whole month feels like a doorway between what has been and what is yet to come.

    The animals seem to feel it too. Ravens fly their looping paths over the mountains with a different purpose. Squirrels and small birds bustle through the underbrush, storing what they can before the first real cold arrives. Everything in nature is preparing, slowing, settling. There’s a calmness to their rhythms that I often try to follow myself.

    Maybe that’s why October feels so grounding to me. It’s a month of transition, but not the frantic kind. It’s a gentle turning inward. A reminder that we can shed what we no longer need and prepare for the quiet, healing months ahead.

    Even on days like today, when the wave hits hard, when I’m exhausted and heavy in mind and body, just thinking of October brings me a bit of peace. A memory of golden leaves, cool air, and a world softening into stillness.

    That’s why October is my favorite. It feels like home. It feels like a breath I can finally release.

    ~Buck

    Aspens up on Aspen Vista