Staying Balanced is Dynamic – video

El Calafate, Argentina, 18 January 2009.

“Glacial change” is a misnomer: glaciers are anything but slow. This one is alive…

I am interested in questions of identity and transformation. This glacier is a good metaphor for both. Seeing it in person changed how I think about glaciers. For example, to stay balanced the glacier sheds large chunks of itself weighing several tons. This shedding sounds like thunder or an approaching earthquake.  So the glacier is not slow to change, as we think.

I think we often use the word “balance”, for example “work life balance”, and think the word “peaceful”. When in fact, staying balanced requires the ability to make difficult decisions and the willingness to rid our lives and homes of the thoughts, behaviors and possessions that keep us from pursuing that which gives us pleasure.