What Listening To Iceland’s Glaciers Taught Me About Time by Gail Jessen

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Wild Goddess Walkabout

I’d been driving around Iceland, sleeping in my car for nearly 10 days when an unexpected encounter with a glacier changed everything. Even as my own two feet touched the canyon carved by this behemoth, it felt hard to believe. Icebergs that calve off the glacier’s face fall into a sparkling lagoon, bobbing around and jostling for space until they melt or are pulled out into the rough North Atlantic.

It was on the shore of this glacial lagoon that I sat for hours and finally understood a lesson that has eluded me my entire life. This lesson sank so deeply into my cells that by the time I was able to articulate it, it felt as though it was rising up from an ancient place inside me. The lesson is that I have no concept of time.

Until the moment I got my Hashimoto’s diagnosis I had no respect for time whatsoever. I was always in a hurry. In a hurry to get the degree. In a hurry to land the job. In a hurry to snag the promotion. In a hurry to get through the grocery store. In a hurry for the pointless sake of it. In a hurry because it validated me in a way I could not yet validate myself.

After my Hashimoto’s diagnosis I thought I understood what it meant to slow down. In 2015 I quit my job, sold everything, booked a one-way ticket to Indonesia, and began traveling solo around the world. This mid-thirties walkabout isn’t exactly about finding myself, as the gap year cliche goes, so much as it’s about healing myself.

Throughout this healing adventure, Iceland was my white whale. The tiny, harsh, otherworldly island that kisses the edge of the Arctic Circle seemed too epic to be possible. I felt both fear and a magnetism that couldn’t be explained. I knew I needed to go. Even now as I’m sitting in Iceland typing these words, the depth of wisdom of this land still feels impossibly far away. Unapologetic. Inscrutable.

I’ve learned more about myself while camping and surviving a single day up here than I have in a lifetime of self-help books and yoga mats. The lesson Gaia whispered to me on the shore of that glacial lagoon is something I’ve never successfully embodied, but the rigors of Iceland broke me down and I finally received it.

You have no concept of time.

You think you have time. You think you have time to say what needs to be said. Time to leave him. Time to get him back. Time to ask your grandpa about his childhood. Time to book that ticket someday. You don’t have time.

You have no concept of time.

You think you’re running out of time. You think you’re running out of time to see the world. Time to make a baby. Time to figure out what you want from your career. Time to heal. You’re not running out of time.

You have no concept of time.

You think it’s time. You’ve pushed and wept and bargained and fought and prayed and surrendered. Surely it’s time. That’s not your decision.

You have no concept of time.

You want it right now. You want to feel whatever it is you’re supposed to be feeling. You want to see whatever you’re supposed to be seeing. You want to be over there right now.

But love, it’s already happening. You just have no concept of time.

I’d been seeking and striving for some sort of revelation on this island. Iceland, after all, holds a mystical power over me and surely I just needed to crack the code. I was journaling and texting witchy girlfriends back home and meditating and doing my best to make something happen. The irony I didn’t accept until I listened to the glaciers was that this is a land beyond time. Information placards around Iceland practically mark time in eons “…in the year 894” and “…since the beginning of the Holocene Era” and “…then in the last Ice Age 1.6 million years ago” on and on.

But I wanted it now. I thought I was running out of time. I kept waiting for it to happen. I was worried I’d miss it.

Then I heard the ancient glacier crack and creak. I listened to the icebergs melting one drop at a time. I finally just sat. I sat completely still and did nothing. It was only in that moment that I could receive. I was taught to believe I must crawl on my hands and knees to earn some modicum of worthiness. I released it.

I heard the glacier crack and creak. The icebergs were melting one drop at a time. I still did nothing. I was taught that time is linear. I was rewarded the faster I went, the more I accomplished. I released it.

The glacier cracked and creaked, the icebergs imperceptibly melting in their own due time. I finally did nothing. I was taught there’s never enough time because I’m not enough. I released it.