What ten minutes on a glacier reveals

I am writing to you from Iceland, days away from closing the full loop of the Ring Road with my daughter.

And I will tell you honestly — I am not the same woman who started it.

A Collection of Firsts

This trip has been a collection of firsts.

I went down inside a volcano — into a magma chamber, the only one on this earth a human being can enter — lowered on an open lift with the walls turning gold and violet around me. I rode past floating blue ice while seals sunbathed on it like it was an ordinary Tuesday. I walked through a geothermal field with the ground steaming and hissing on both sides of me. I hiked on a glacier. I stood inside lava caves with still lakes resting quietly inside them.

Awe. That is the only word I have. Awe is how I would describe every single day of this trip.

And the moment I most want to tell you about did not happen inside the volcano.

It happened on the ice.

What the Glacier Taught Me About Walking

They strapped crampons onto my boots at the edge of the glacier. Spikes on the bottom of my shoes. I stood up — and immediately I was completely off center. Off balance. Everything my body knew about walking was suddenly the wrong information.

The guide gave a few short instructions: feet apart, plant the whole foot, do not be delicate about it. And off we went.

Within minutes, my body had it. Not beautifully. But it had it. I was walking on a glacier as though walking on a glacier is simply a thing I do. And I looked around at our small group and every single person was doing the same. Different ages, different bodies, different fitness levels. The same quiet miracle happening in all of us at once.

Nobody taught us that. Something inside us worked it out.

The Most Densely Alive Part of Your Brain

I got curious afterward and went looking — and what I found took my breath.

There is a part of the brain called the cerebellum. It sits low at the back of your head, about the size of your fist. It takes up roughly ten percent of your brain's volume. And it holds around sixty-nine billion neurons — eighty percent of all the neurons we have. More than four times what our thinking cortex carries.

The part of me that learned to walk on ice while I was busy looking at the view — that is the most densely alive part of my whole brain. It did not wait for a plan. It took the wobble as data, adjusted, adjusted again, and handed me back my balance without ever asking my permission.

Here is the quantum truth that has not left me since:

You do not have to know how. You have to step. The knowing is already built into you — and it activates on contact.

Your brain cannot calibrate to a glacier you never step onto.

You Are a Piece of the Wonder You Came Here to See

This, for me, is what awe really is.

Awe is worship with your whole body. We stand in front of glaciers and volcanoes and call that creation — and then we forget that the thing doing the standing and the seeing and the adapting is every bit as miraculous as the ice.

You are not a visitor to the awe of creation. You are a piece of it, walking around. The same intelligence that shaped the lava caves and sealed the lagoon and grew sixty-nine billion neurons into your cerebellum — that is what is moving through you when you take the wobbly first step toward something you have never done before.

Nothing is random. Everything is divine.

A Gentle Reflection

This week, sit with one quiet question:

Where have I been waiting to feel steady before I step — when the steadiness was always going to arrive after?

You do not need the full plan. You do not need to feel ready. You need the crampons and the willingness to plant your whole foot.

The wobble is not failure. It is data. And something ancient and brilliant inside you is already adjusting.

Quantum Shift

Hand on heart. One slow breath in. Repeat with me:

I step before I feel steady, and my steadiness follows. I trust the knowing God built into me — the wisdom in my body that adjusts, learns, and finds its balance while I keep moving. I let my first steps be wobbly and holy. I walk toward what I have never done with awe instead of hesitation. I am a living piece of the wonder I came here to see. I am mE.

It's your turn.

Surrender to LOVE, Vica