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A Perfect Balance

Cory Fisher

It’s easy to understand why Kim Iverson was depressed.

He’d recently lost two of his closest loved ones – his mother and his wife.

That’s why he’d taken to spending a portion of each evening outdoors reflecting and meditating.



One night as he sat there alone in silence, his eyes fell upon a nearby rock, roughly a foot tall. Iverson grabbed the stone with his large hands and stood it up on end, with only a tiny point still touching the ground. A contact point so small, in fact, that he could’ve spun the rock around like a child’s top.

Then something remarkable happened.



He let go and the rock stayed – perfectly balanced.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Iverson. “I had some friends come out and watch it while I got my camera.”

As it turns out, that was only the beginning.

Iverson, 46, quickly discovered he could balance rocks of all different shapes and sizes, even huge ones. Then he began trying it with everything – a squash, a potato – even balancing a ladder on one leg.

“It amazes me – when my friends try it, it just doesn’t work,” said Iverson. “I see it as a kind of spiritual thing – a gift to get me over my depression.”

Now the tall, burly Meyers resident – known to his friends as “Chief” – sees the world as a place chock-full of rock-balancing opportunities.

The walls of his house are now adorned with photographs that capture some of his more notable balancing accomplishments, including a 400-pound boulder outside Monterey, Calif.

“I love to see people’s expressions when they see one – they’re sure it’s fake – you know, attached with a screw or glue,” said Iverson. “I always knock the big ones down before I leave – I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Despite curious passersby who accidentally knock them over, Iverson said his smaller rocks can be found – seemingly in defiance of gravity – all around Tahoe.

“It takes concentration, but I can feel the balance point and the energy around the rock. It takes me anywhere from a second to a half an hour to get one balanced,” he said with a chuckle. “Some people think it’s mystical, like I have a special power.”

Much to Iverson’s amusement, others think the rocks themselves are magical, and even take their findings home – including several giant ones.

“Once I balanced a 250-pound boulder near Pacific Grove, then knocked it down when I left,” he said. “When I came back a few days later it was gone – where in the heck would somebody go with a big heavy rock? People steal a lot of the little ones – it blows me away.”

A hefty, 50-pound balanced rock slowed traffic near Emerald Bay recently, said Iverson, as tourists stopped in amazement to shoot photos.

This winter, a 3-by-2-foot stone had skiers dumbfounded at Sierra-at-Tahoe when it began slowly rotating in the wind.

Iverson, who is part Cherokee, said he feels strong ties to the Earth.

“I like to call them Indian love stones,” he said. “These days, a lot of people have figured out who I am. They just say, ‘There’s the Chief, standing stones again.'”


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