small talking

I was in a train, going from somewhere to nowhere. Staring out of the window, landscape disappearing in cadence, ca-deng, ca-deng, ca-deng. I heard a noise, a girl was eating in cadence, smack-eng, smack-eng, smack-eng. In front of her: a boy, turning pages of his paper in cadence, woosh-eng, woosh-eng, woosh-eng. Everything was so quiet, SO QUIET, so VERY quiet.

But THEN......

The boy got a phone-call. Bleep, bleep, bleep. No more woosh-eng, no more smack-eng, even ca-deng disappeared. The boy spoke in soft sounds, in a language we couldn't understand. The girl and I stared at him, in a way only Dutch girls can do. I wondered: to whom was he speaking in this beautiful way, using unknown words, his girlfriend, his sister, the Virgin Mary? Ca-deng, ca-deng returned. Smack-eng didn't. The girl wanted to know and asked in which language he sung the beautiful words in his mobile. The boy said: "Polish". The girl said: "Really?" The boy said: "Yes". Then the girl replied in a way only Dutch girls can do: "I don't believe this, I heard Polish before, this didn't sound like Polish! This was much more poetic, softer, this sounded beautiful!" And the boy answered: "Maybe my pronounciation is wrong, Polish is not my mother-language." He returned to his paper, woosh-eng, wooshing-eng. The girl continued breakfast, smack-eng smack-eng. The window was back again, showing another landscape, ca-deng, ca-deng, ca-deng. And everything was just fine.

Solitude

Today I read a beautiful poem, a friend gave it to me. He didn't remember the author's name. If the author may read my posting: please apologize for not mentioning your name, as I don't know.

The poem is in French, the words are worshipping friendship and comforting the reader for all lost friendships.

Here it is:

'La mort ne veut rien dire

J'ai simplement disparu dans la piece juste a cote
Je reste Moi et vous etes Vous

Quoique nous ayions ete l'un pour l'autre nous le resterons a tout jamais !

Continuez de m'appeler comme vous aviez l'habitude de le faire

Continuez de me parler comme nous avions l'habitude de le faire

Ne Changez rien au ton de votre voix!

N'accrochez pas sur vos visages un air grave et serieux, remplis de tristesse.

Continuez de rire comme nous avions l'habitude de le faire avec nos petites plaisanteries!

Amusez-vous! Souriez! Pensez a Moi! Priez pour Moi!

Garder mon nom au plus profond de vos coeurs comme vous l'avez peut-etre toujours fait

Laissez raisonner mon nom sans effort et sans aucune ombre teintee

La vie est plus forte que tout

Rien ne change: Parcequ'Il a une continuite intouchable!!

Qu'est ce la Mort? Sinon qu'un accident incontournable de la vie ?

Pourquoi serais-je hors de vos pensees parceque je suis aujourd'hui....'

The poem ends abruptly, as if there are more words to come. Who knows???

Today a dear friend wrote a farewell letter. He wants to live in solitude, he says 'farewell' to the world, for a while. Maybe we will meet again, maybe we will never meet again. Is there a farewell? The French poem says 'no' - united in spirits - lonely but not lonely - we all live our lives, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. An unknown French writer gave me the right words for this day. Today was a true vickxwonderworld-day.

aquaculture landscape

I received a newsletter from the European Commission, Research Information Centre. Headlines shouting: Aquaculture comes of age! Dead fishes illustrated the article.

And their glorious shouting continued. The European Commission wanted to teach me about 'aquaculture landscape'!

quote: "Each year, more than 160 million tonnes of fish are consumed by the world’s population. Almost half of this volume is produced in controlled environments, where the fish is cultured rather than harvested from the wild. The system, known as aquaculture, dates back thousands of years, and today operates as a welcome alternative to the sea’s over-exploited natural resources. A recent workshop hosted by the Reprofish and AquaBreeding projects (funded by the European Union at a total of EUR 383 014) highlighted the efforts in place to enhance industry practices and improve the quality of aquatic animals and fish reared in Europe."end of quote

What? Was this really true: aquaculture dated back thousands of years? My European teacher continued: it was invented by Egyptians and Chinese, around 2500 BC! But today, it was the most promissing fastest growing food-production sector.

quote: "'Most of the fish that people eat nowadays in many European restaurants come from the aquaculture industry,' explained Dr Olivier Kah, coordinator of Reprofish, a project funded by the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) aimed at better understanding, accessing and communicating fish reproduction research."end of quote

And Dr. Kah continued, explaining his view on future: quote"'Reproduction is life,' said Dr Kah. 'If animals do not reproduce it is the end of the chain. It is a very complex function that involves a lot of internal factors — from an organism and interactions within an organism to input from the environment (such as temperature) — which help the organism decide whether it will reproduce or not. This is what we are trying to understand; why a fish starts reproducing, how we can control this mechanism, how we can master it, and use this knowledge to culture fish.'"end of quote

Is aquaculture really what we need, or what we want? I am not so sure about that! Anyhow, this item deserves a place in Vickx Wonder World.

If you like to read the article yourself, please go to:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/research/headlines/news/article_08_10_16_en.html&item=Infocentre&artid=8553

If you like to read more about mr. Kah 's organisation Reprofish, visit:

http://www.reprofish.eu/reprofish_eng/qu_est_ce_que_reprofish

Magnitude in Miniscule & Miniscule in Magnitude

Could you tell me: is this a painting on a rock, or maybe just a pebblestone?

The exact size is difficult to determine. Small, large, extra-large.

But we may say this is a stone. Although..... maybe it is a piece of scenery, made of paper. Or the painting is on linen, covering a stone.

It is all in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes.

If you have time, have a look at this link: You will find images of the sun.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/the_sun.html

A friend of mine sent me this link, without comment. The sun! I expected to see the sun in the way I am used to. The sun that brings daylight, warmth; the sun that bronz' my face, grows my garden.

But I entered a wonderful world. I saw images from far away, yet so familiar.

I saw an eye's iris and grains of a corncorb, the heart of a rose. A world in a world in a world. What was I looking at? Where there maybe little organisms living their own life, not labled in our words or thoughts? In perception of an entity - unknown of us? What is large? What is small? What is IS?

I found Magnitude in Miniscule and Miniscule in Magnitude.

Vickx WonderWorld.

beyond being starts existing

Sad news, sometimes I almost forget sadness is part of life, sometimes days are full of sad messages. Yesterday was a day of silent tears.

A woman I always knew as extremely elegant, intelligent and kind will die of cancer. Time left is only a matter of days. Days, her husband and she will try to celebrate, in memory of the beautiful years they shared together. Days of great intimacy. Difficult days too. It's hard to say goodbye.

Silent tears too, because of the death of an old woman who died unexpectedly in the arms of a friend of mine.

But at the same time I realized that beyond being existing starts. Existing in eternal light, bright and peaceful.

Yesterday's sunset was impressive. As if sky welcomed these two women.

As if heaven opened and scattered beautiful little orange and golden sprinkles in the deepblue sky. And I realized, once again: economic crisis, money, consumptions, stock markets, nothing really matters. We all are just little beings, maybe just little fungus, for which beyond being real existing starts. May peace be in your heart.

Oleg and his Papa

I don't know Oleg and I don't know his papa, but I like them very much. Papa is a truckdriver from Latvia and I saw his truck on a parkingplace at a German 'Autobahn'. Papa and Oleg are always together, also when papa is not at home. Oleg and papa, together in the truck's cabin. Maybe, little Oleg wants to become a truck-driver too. And maybe, papa is still a little boy (at heart), who wants to play football with Oleg and his friends when he returns to Latvia.

Good couple, these two. Oleg and his Papa.

Tribute to a stranger

You are in the center of this posting. I don't know you. We met in Paris, the other week. No, you did not see me. You lived in your own world.

From a distance I thought you were a statue. I had visited the Rodin museum that morning. I had seen wonderful statues, people captured in bronze. The Penseur, Thinking Man, impressive. So, for me, you looked as a modern statue, at first glimpse. A strong body, representing a working man, having a break.

How hard it was to face reality. You were all naked. Covered with some plastic. Your eyes staring. Pigeons tripping around and on your legs. You did not react. Old bread beside you. Not touched.

I could not reach you. You seemed like dead. You lived, not aware of living. Traffic passing by. In front of you: a street sign, parking place to the right. As if you had to make one more move. Not allowed to stay behind those plastic blocs.

An advertisement on the streetcar said: come and visit our musical 'The Lion King'. Paris night scene.

The only lion king I wanted to visit was you. You were beautiful. If Rodin had still been alive, you would have been his model.

What happened to you? You deserved better. I could not reach you, couldn't give you money, couldn't give you anything. You were travelling in your innerworld, leaving your beautiful body on a Paris pavement.

I could have been your mother, you were not older than 30. You made me cry.

Maybe, one day, some one tells you that a Vicky made a tribute to you. I do hope you will survive. May life be good to you.