Balance

Hello my friends! Thank you to those of you who are following along with the Oracle Deck project.

For this week I chose the word “balance”. I have often been someone who has mistaken balance with rigidity and thought that in order to be “balanced” I needed to be fully organized and scheduled and collected and calm and regulated and all that jazz. In terms of my work it has often felt like balance means keeping a strict schedule and getting my work done when I have designated “work time” and resting during designated “rest time”.

But, at least for me, that isn’t actually realistic and ends up meaning that I am out of alignment with the fluid nature of my human body which sometimes needs to go to the Japanese bathhouse at noon on a Wednesday and not respond to any emails or do any work and sometimes wants to stay up until 1 am bombastically chaotically creating art that maybe no one will ever see. Which has made me think - what does balance look like when nature is ever shifting, flowing and changing and we are nature.

Balance

I think of balance, and I think of scales perfectly leveled. A ballerina on pointe. A point of perfect equilibrium. A calm demeanor that is neither ecstatic nor miserable. A perfect 50/50 split. But is that ever actually possible? Is balance something still, something to be achieved and held? Or is it more like a dance—constant movement, shifting weight, recalibrating with every step?

In life and in creative work (which is not life inherently creative work?) balance is not an end result you arrive at and stay in. It isn’t static, it isn’t equal measures of dark and light, effort and ease. It is not a tidy equation. It is the willingness to exist in both, to move between them, to trust the rhythm even when it feels uneven. It is knowing when to lean in and when to pull back, when to push forward and when to rest. It is something we tend to, again and again, not something we master once and for all.

Balance requires grace and patience and acceptance.

It is some days following the muse into a tangled jungle of creation, and other days staring into the void, questioning everything you’ve ever done. It is the tension between movement and stillness, between inspiration and doubt. True balance allows for imbalance, for fluidity, for the ever-shifting nature of being alive.

Creative Prompts:

Can you try being imbalanced on purpose? What does that look and feel like?

When does a quest for balance cause stagnation and rigidity?

What does a balanced practice look like for you?