Hearth Wyrd

Listening for the whispers beneath the everyday.

recent posts

Category: Animism

  • Spirituality Isn’t Optional

    I’m currently reading The Energy of Prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh. Like his other books, it’s thoughtful and gentle. But this one, in particular, has landed deeply for me. What resonates most is the way he speaks about spirituality without dogma. It’s not about what you’re supposed to believe, but about how you live, breathe,…

  • What I’ve Learned Recently

    I’ll be sixty years old in a few short months, and I can say without hesitation that I’ve learned more about myself in the past year and a half than at any other point in my life. I’ve learned how to face fear.How to endure intense physical pain.How to survive withdrawal, not just medically, but…

  • Ancient Spiritual “Technologies” That Still Calm Us Today

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how sound has helped me heal. At almost a year off benzos now, my nervous system is still relearning how to be at peace. And what surprises me, maybe more than anything else, is that one of the most powerful tools I’ve found for recovery isn’t modern or…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • A More Personal Reflection

    This post is a little different from my previous ones, more “from the heart,” less formal. What I want to express here is simple… while there are things we can know about the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons, there is also much we will never know for certain. I write about what I learn through reading, researching, and…