While we were in Parksville yesterday, my friends and I walked along the beachside path. When we got to the end, I was delighted to see that there were lots of balanced rocks. Lots and lots of balanced rocks!

There is an art to balancing rocks and it can be a very meditative process. Sometimes the rocks are balanced only on one point, and creating a sculpture in this way sometimes takes hours of concentrated effort on the part of the artist. Most of the rocks we saw were balanced on multiple points which is considered to be rock piling. (The Art of Rock Balancing)

There are other manifestations of balanced rocks described in The Art of Rock Balancing, but my friends and I were reminded of Inuksuks which have traditionally been made by the Inuit in the Arctic. They sometimes take human form and are used as hunting and navigational aids, coordination points, and message centres. (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

The balanced rocks we saw were just a lot of fun, partly because there were so many of them. I suspect that when people see a successfully balanced rock pile, they are tempted to try it themselves. I would bet that when they managed to balance even two or three, they felt a little frisson of joy. They certainly brought a smile to my face.