Reality

By Liesbeth Takken. (Pictures by Haitske van Nus and Liesbeth Takken)

Friday. Freia’s day. Morning meeting; sketching. The reality is that I have to do different kinds of practical things today. First working on computer for photos, writing and blogging. Then we have to leave our house. House moving takes some time with all our stuff. Because I find stones every day the car becomes fuller en heavier every day. Hopefully I’m not sinking into the Wadden when leaving…

We go to the places we’ve made our Ymir’s. Wind had turned so there’s much more water than the last days. We take some pictures of the Ymir’s. The big circle drawing has also filled with water when we arrive.

Kjelt, an inhabitant of the island, is going to help us to take a lot of wood at the beach. Because of the fire I will make tomorrow night. With tractor and his two dogs we go there, shaking and almost falling, and take plenty of it. It’s an exciting experience. Afterwards he offers a drink. He’s a man from 72 and had moved all around the world. He speaks good English with American accent. He lives alone in his simply house without television; he doesn’t like that machine, prefers reading books. I read Papillion on one book back. I have a very special talk with him.

This morning I wrote about my work here, the influence of sun and moon, the meaning of time, the living with the riches of nature, to work in gratefulness. Kjelt is telling us about the fact people don’t have time anymore for important things. They only want to make money. They don’t live with natural time. He tells he lived with the Indians and learned a lot of them. It’s only allowed for them to take animals when they’re hungry. Before they kill they send the sun their gratefulness and ask if they can take one because they are hungry. They adore the sun and the moon instead of God or Allah. Since then I always do the same before killing an animal, Kjelt says. ‘People think I’m crazy but for me it’s the only right thing to do’. Kjelt is an artist to the backbone.

After meditation concert of the Czech musicians (wonderful relaxing!) in the barn Kjelt is coming: we have to come quickly. Because of high tide you can take unique pictures from the road, filled with water. We go there, come a bit too late: water is leaving already. He explains what the influence of the moon on the tide means for the people who live here. Again the same I wrote. Although I didn’t asked him we really come close to each other’s opinions. I’m so glad I met this man. The work of today is the meeting with this man! Social sculpture: ‘…making the invisible visible…’.

At last Kjelt is taking us for a trip to special places on the island.

While eating Dario’s fish soup I find some special fish skeletons in it. There’s a viking boat on one of them. We take some pictures, nice strange.