Tickon, Tranekær Internationale Center kunst og Natur

© Vagn Lundbye

An introduction of the nature-scientist and poet Hans Christian Ørsted´s thoughts about spirituality, science and nature.
Hans Christian Ørsted was born at Rudkøbing on the island Langeland the 14th of August 1777, not far away from the Tickonpark on Northern Langeland. He is beyond doubt the best known person on Langeland and universally known for his discovery of electromagnetism the year 1820, i.e. the connection between electricity and magnetism. Besides that he is known as a Philosopher and poet.

“Sparks of lightning sprang from Danish
brains.
They turned our eyes to heavenly
skies and down to dark and hidden traces.
You Danish fresh and cleanly strand,
Here eyes so freely wander
And freedom-sights our thoughts do lift.
I love you! Denmark, my fatherland!”

Both Hans Christian Ørsted and Hans Christian Andersen were enthusiastic about nature, poetry and science, besides God and spirituality, which can be seen clearly in H.C.Andersen´s adventure “The Bell” from 1845 about the Prince and confirmation candidate seeking the holy bell of Nature and poetry, which ends like this:
“Then we could go together,” said the prince. But the poor confirmand in the clogs was very shy, pulled his short shirtsleeves and said he feared he couldn´t walk so fast, besides believing that the bell had to be sought on the right hand side, because all great and wonderful things were there!
“Well, then we´ll not be seeing each other at all,” the prince said and nodded to the poor boy, who walked away into the darkest and densest part of the wood where the thorns split his tattered clothes, so his face, hands and feet bled. The prince also got some rifts, but at least the sun shone on his way and he is the one we´re going to follow now, as he was such a lively boy.

“I shall and intend to find the clock!” he said,
“even if I have to go to the end of the world!”

The foul monkeys were sitting up in the trees showing all their teeth laughing.
“Shall we beat him!” they said. “Shall we beat him; he is a prince!”
Yet, fearless he went deeper and deeper into the forest, where the most fascinating flowers grew.
There were white starlilies with scarlet silverthreads, heavenly blue tulips sparkling in the wind and appletrees, where the apples looked fully and undescribably as big and shining as soapbubbles. Just think how these trees must be shining in the sun! Round about in the wonderful area, where hart and hind played in the green grass, majestic oaks and beeches, and if there was a rift in the bark, some grass grew and long ranks in the rift.
There were also wood aerias with still lakes and white swans swimming lifting their wings.
The prince stood still and listened, often believing that it was one of the deep lakes the ringing came from, but nevertheless he sensed, that the sound from a bell didn´t come from there, but from far deeper in the forest.
Now the sun went down. The air shone red as fire. The forest became so silent that he went down on his knees, sang his evening psalm and said: “I´ll never find what I´m seeking!

Now the sun sets and the night comes, the dark night. Yet, maybe once again I´ll see the round, red sun, before it disappears completely behind the Earth. I´m going to climb up the cliffs, which reach the same height as the highest trees!”
And he grasped stems and roots, climbed over the wet rocks, where the watersnakes wrought themselves and where the toads seemed to bark at him. But he made it up before the sun had set completely. Seen from this altitude, how glorious! The ocean, the big glorious ocean, which rolled its long waves upon the coast, spread itself in front of him and the sun was like a huge altar out there, where ocean and sky met, it all melting together in glowing colours, the forest sang and the ocean sang and his heart joined them. All of Nature was a huge holy cathedral, where the trees and the floating clouds were the pillars, flowers and grass the woven velvetcloth and the sky itself the great dome. Up above the red colours were erased, as the sun had disappeared, but millons of stars were lit, then millions of diamondlights shone and the prince opened his arms up to the sky, towards the ocean and the forest – and at the same time from the right side came the poor confirmand in his short sleeves and clogs! He had arrived just as early, came there on his way and they ran toward each other and held hands in the huge cathedral of poetry and nature and over them clang the invisible holy bell, blessed spirits dancing around it praising God in a hailing dance around it. Halleluja!

Hans Christian Adersen´s main work is his collection of essays, “The spirit of Nature,” which is mainly inspired by the text about Ørsted and both in their own way sought the bell and its spiritual greatness uniting in “the great hallowing Halleluja” at the end of the
short story.

Ørsted published “The Spirit of Nature”
five years after H.C. Andersen wrote “The Bell” i.e. in 1850, the year before he died. Ørsted´s book attracted interest in Europe and later on in the rest of the world, where the spirituality and down to earth wisdom he writes about became an important issue
during the period we simply call The
Romantic Era. The nature of the work is
mainly the spiritual background for the whole idea behind the Tickonparken at Tranekær on Langeland.

Or in order to express this more precisely, Hans Christian Ørsted is in every way an important mentor of the Tickonparken.
On visiting the Tickonparken and being
interested in what thoughts lie behind the real intention with all his works, that they are to be Nature and shall go back to Nature, it is necessary to know Ørsted´s ideas about nature, science and the poetry which is religious.
Besides that, it´s so, because the
catastrophies , which are taking place now, during the new century, are a huge threat to Nature and human existence and make it necessary to include spirituality and logic in the whole ecology of the world, which is
characteristic for H.C. Østed´s main work.

THE SPIRIT OF NATURE
Ørsted doesn´t interpret Nature as a
mechanical system of separate and
specialized forces, which have a foreign and disconnected relationship to their voyeur.
Therefore Nature expresses itself as a living organism, which in an intimate and complex way expresses itself through the complete human behaviour.
A human being derives from Nature and is therefore dependent on its system. Ørsted calls this logical system common sense, which nevertheless doesn´t exclude the existence of God and spirituality.
Just because the human conscious and
unconscious reasoning is the same
phenomenon, it is possible to shape laws of reason about Nature, which Ørsted among other things got confirmed, when he as a scientist discovered the exchanging relation
between electricity and magnetism.
The human being shall recognize itself in Nature´s image.
That is a study of Nature, which will reveal itself as an ethical phenomenon, which is not only a study of Nature, but also derives from Nature itself.
The insight of Nature´s capacity is therefore not only an insight into Nature, but also an understanding of Life´s nature. That coordination is Ørsted´s main thesis and comes forth in the discussion between the expert of scientific nature “Alfred and three
listeners, Sophie, Herman and Felix.”
The following is what their discussion was about, but I must admit that sometimes I have added some explanations or dropped some parts of the text.

“Nothing is permanent, everything changes,” Alfred begins his speech and cites a Greek scientist: “Nothing is forever, but everything changes. Humans and animals and the whole of Nature changes. Even the Earth,
which is considered to be the same forever, changes and isn´t constant. All stars and planets move and have no eternal stability. Everything developes from one status to another. Stillstand and rest are only short intervals!”
To this Sophie asks: “But isn´t there
anything which doesn´t change?!”
“Everything is dependent of the same laws,”

Alfred answers.
“There is no body or nature, we can call
eternal. If it were so, then the eternal would be something else.”

And that´s how Alfred reaches “spirituality,” which he compares to a waterfall: “Sounds come from the falling of the waterfall, which changes because of hindrances, cliffs, the spraying of
drops, foamcreations.
It all seems to be alike, but we sense it as varieties. Yet, as unique varieties!
Besides that, Alfred calls this classic
phenomenon ”the natural thought of the fall.”
“Yet, it´s more than that,” he adds, “it´s also a natural law and Nature´s laws are permanent. And clever. The cleverness doesn´t only derive from human cleverness, but from the cleverness, which is valid in the Law of the Universe. That is a cleverness,
which only allows the kind of life, that has a relation to the rest of life on Earth. A tree, for example, which doesn´t have any relation to the rest of life, will in other words not be able to live.”

This is how Herman comments it: “Couldn´t I righteously think that the whole outwardly world contains something, which impresses us. Yet, that it could be entirely different from what we imagine. In other words, what you call natural laws isn´t but a love of our own way of comprehending!”
“Yes, how are you to prove, that the laws of nature are sensible!” Sophie asks.
“From a collection of facts, where Nature´s effect on our spirit reveals itself,” Alfred answers.
“Geologists have for some reason often
created laws of Nature and then found them in Nature. Those who study Nature concentrate on experiences, which are commonly accepted and may even be highlights of our knowledge.
That´s how one has gradually and
increasingly created strange laws about the evenly increasing speed of strange laws. From the nature of space, the law has been created, that space is being reduced from the point of an outgoing activity according to the increasing size of the distance. It is almost only because of these two reasons, the
beginning and the idea, that all virtual things attract each other at an equal distance, that one has created the theory about the global movement, this huge universal mechanics.
“But hasn´t experience been a great help?” Herman asks.
“Certainly,” said Alfred. “We should probably never have discovered all these things, that are now being demonstrated about the movements of heavenly bodies without guidance and observation, but since then we have worked out one truth after another about the mechanics of heavenly bodies without the help of other observations than simple conclusions drawn by reason.
The derivations of these truths has led to conclusions that are not contested. And many of the extraordinary laws of nature discovered in this way have been confirmed by observation.”
“Are there examples from other disciplines besides astronomy,” asks Herman.
Alfred: “A great many, but none that is so important. The properties of light reveal themselves in such a way that in the main we are able to derive one from the other, and although in this case we have been able to build on occasional empirical observations, everyone who is acquainted with the science agrees that the great majority of the facts are known by conclusions based on reason – that one can calculate from this given to the unknown and later find the phenomenon through empirical observation.

To Herman’s assertion, that what we call the laws of nature, or physics, are only our laws of perception, Alfred has this to say.
“The transparent part of the eye can be changed by illness, so that everything looks yellow. The normal sense of colour returns when the illness disappears. There are some people who cannot distinguish red from blue, but in all other respects are able to see just as clearly as everyone else.

How much greater must the difference be, if we imagine beings from another world, whose sensory organs are probably arranged quite differently. Consider this, that I place a grain of salt in one glass of water and a nugget of gold in another. I see the salt dissolve. The gold remains. Could, perhaps, a being with other sensory organs see the opposite? Could he or she see the gold disappear while the salt remained? I maintain that a being with more sensitive organs of perception could perhaps see the salt when dissolved in the water, but the laws that explain that the salt dissolves and the gold is unchanged must be the same for them as for us.

Alfred continues: “All planets experience day and night by revolving on their axis and years by revolving around the sun. In the cases where these planets have moons, these move around the planet in accordance with the same laws by which our moon moves around the Earth, and these laws are again the same, so that an object thrown into the air here on earth will fall back again. The way in which planets are illuminated and reflect this light back to us is the same that is observed in the case of earthly bodies. Just think, that the great influence of the light we receive from the heavens shows us no important effects, that cannot be traced back to the laws obeyed by light on Earth. But don’t forget, that there must be equality between the objects which produce identical perceptions in observers of an identical kind.
From this it follows, that in other worlds the properties and laws of which we have understood, and have produced in us the same capabilities, that we have exercised on earthly things, must have an essential likeness with our world, and, that beings, that inhabitant them could not be basically so different from us, that they belong to another, incomprehensible order of beings. A being, for example, that has another perception of time and space and
science?” asks Sophie.

Here Alfred declares, that our soul, the entire world and its natural wisdom science, is created by God!

Both man and the material world are God’s creation and express a single idea, but expressed in different ways. In other words, we must approach the truth from more than one direction in order to see the truth in its entirety.”

Here Felix intervened: “You seem to attribute too much to the external world. If it shows itself to us as a shadow, the soul sees it in the same way. If it appears before us in a luminous haze, we recall that it takes its light from the world of the spirit. Or to speak in terms of images: what do you learn from those irrational beings that are not a part of your own rational mind? And I must ask: What do you, a living soul, learn from soulless nature? Must the living go to school with the dead?”

Alfred replies: “Our understanding would be in a bad way, if our living spirit did not learn from what we call inanimate. The same free exercise of what constitutes the excellence of science also makes it possible to be mistaken. And the rich depths, that make it possible to find so much in this way means, that in some respects it becomes a riddle to itself, and this is sometimes explained in a wrong way. The reason, which reveals itself in passive nature is in itself infallible, and in many ways less easily misunderstood by us. How inclined is humanity to place itself at the centre of all existence! Everything in heaven and on earth has to revolve around it! It is of humanity’s fate, that heaven must make its prophecies! It is for humanity, that everything has been created! Do you believe that without scientific knowledge of the material world mankind would have been freed from these illusions? Or do you believe that because, on account of interventions by us the picture of the world can become sharp and clear? Human beings have a natural inclination to imagine that events they do not understand are the product of beings with human passions. Indeed we give human properties to God himself. For does not science itself maintain many arbitrary and delusive ideas of God that, as such, have frequently infected piety itself. (or “our beliefs”)”

Sophie wanted to know whether natural thoughts and scientific ideas are God’s ideas. Yes they are, says Alfred, in so far as the natural world is an entirety and not a fragmented patchwork, and here he introduces once again the example of the waterfall.
“The basic idea is a falling torrent. Water, that is constantly accumulating presses on down from a great height. It obeys the same laws as every falling object, and gains therefore greater and greater speed as it falls. As water it has the property, that the parts easily flow over each other and disintegrate easily, with the free-floating fragments forming drops. The drops, which began to fall earlier, as they pick up speed, gain a lead that removes them from the ones, that follow and this produces great fragmentation. At every collision innumerable drops are sprayed in all directions. A world of drops is formed, which although full of movement retains a certain particularity despite the fragmentation. The air which mixes with the falling water becomes foam, an infinity of tiny bubbles of air confined by a film of water, of which the ever-changing, white and uneven surface is as extraordinary as it is familiar. The loudness of the noise that each falling fragment generates is determined by the height of the fall. The impression given by the whole is augmented not only by this, but by the volume of the falling particles, lending variations to the sound, which is nevertheless essentially the same. The roaring, turbulent, foaming fall is witness to its colossal force, as we see when something is shattered in its maw. All this forms a profoundly coherent whole, in which each part is the product of the laws of physics. Or in other words: each scientific concept contained herein is inseparable from the main idea. Its particular place in nature provides it with the characteristics, that differentiate it from all other waterfalls. The many variations it shows without altering its particular characteristics are the result of variations in the surround-ing environment, such as the speed of the flow of the river, that feeds it, changes in the direction and strength of the light, alterations in the movement of the air, the temperature and so on. Thus for us it appears almost as a being with its own character, filling the imagination with ideas of a great, unconscious giant, one of nature’s slaves with a firm, indomitable power. Every part, that is not itself the whole is a part of a greater whole.”

And then Alfred gives a concentrated description of the view he believes we must adopt in order to comprehend the oneness of God, nature and mankind.
“We must understand, that besides the basic forces of nature, the creative forces, there are no other constants than the laws of nature, or laws of science, in accordance with which everything takes place. The laws of science may rightly be called natural laws! What gives an object its continuing particularity, its being, is – as we have already considered,the complex of laws of nature by which it is produced and maintained. –But the laws of nature are scientific ideas, an object’s being is the product of the ideas, that are its expression. In so far as
something is to have a coherent nature in itself, all its natural essences must belong together in the concept of a single nature. This is what we call its idea! The nature of an object is its living idea!
“All objects are the realization of ideas, but each expresses only the basic idea in a limited way. Whereas it is the totality of the material world, that is contained in the idea, that is the realization of the complete idea. But each idea, which is realized is a mental picture of a higher and more complex reality. Thus the mental picture of each species of animal is a mental picture of the idea of the entire animal species. This is a mental picture of nature in its entirety, and this in turn a mental picture of the idea of the planet itself.”

Alfred continues: “Our investigations of the formation of the world show, that it has developed in the course of many eras, and at each new stage of development new plants and animals have been formed, and that in their construction and way of living these are similar to the animals and plants of previous eras. It is just a matter of a different expression of one and the same nature, the fundamental idea!

“ Note, too, that animals as well as humans at the embryonic stage begin at the lowest stage in their development. First there are plants, then the lower animal species, from then on the development from fish to mammal, until at last mammalian animals and humans are born.

“The Earth is a built-in part of the solar system, which is a part of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is a part of even more distant systems, which are beyond our understanding, but in their limitless extent form an infinite whole. This whole includes all the realized ideas in existence and the boundlessness of this comprise an active idea: an eternal, living reason.

“This is not to say that mankind is a distinctive animal. It is not a liberated rational existence. It is a part of the whole, but is distinguished from the whole by the rationality by which everything is arranged,from the whole by the rationality by which everything is arranged and which we call the Alfornuft, the All-reasoning
“But then,” cries Sophie, “mankind’s immortality is not certain!”

“No such assurance is possible,” replies Alfred. “There is no such thing as immortality. This belongs to the world of superstition. And if you want to know how faith may be associated with nature and its forces, everything we call reason, then we must talk about something else, namely the idea of God as creator.”

But nature and mankind are rational, Alfred goes on. Both are the idea of God, God’s essential concept. To oppose nature and its creation is to oppose God. God and the natural world are one,which is appreciated by animals without knowing it, and known by humanity, and therefore animals and humans and the natural world are spiritual beings and are chosen.

TWELVE THREATS AGAINST LIFE ON EARTH
The theory that humans, animals and nature are spiritual beings chosen by God and thus a major part of Earth´s reason, makes it necessary to acknowledge the fact, that during the 20th century, we must work collectively as to the climatic warnings about dangers, which now threaten Nature and Humans from all sides. Scientific activities which are a matter of religion and the image of happiness, satisfaction and spirituality, which was the case, when H.C.Andersen and H.C.Ørsted met at the end of the short story “The Clock,” is extremely important, if we are to save our globe from the 12 catastrophies, which politicians, Indians, philsofs , scientists, children and artists now warn against. The fact that the Tickonpark and its innumerable members, who are both men and women, young and old, poets, muslims, Christians, hopies, philosophers, composers, sculptors, lonesome ones, dying ones, Tibetans, animal friends, economists, clowns, newspapers´ letter writers, astronomes, curious ones, and fond of children, have long ago understood, that every single and the whole collection of Earth´s inhabitants, each and everyone living now is responsible for life´s survival and can continue in all the beauty, which has surrounded us from the beginning of times. And continuity is the main idea behind publishing this document and the peaceful wish to create an international and spiritual center at Langeland as to NATURE,ART AND SCIENCE.

THE FIRST CATASTROPHE.
The increasing speed with which rain forests, jungles and great forest areas all over the Earth are being destroyed disturbs the whole balance between the poles. This changes first of all the earthlayer, which earlier was held back by trees, but is now swept into the oceans. Besides there are great floods for example in Bangladesh and long dry periods in f.eks. Australia.

THE SECOND CATASTROPHE.
The unlimited fishing, which has emptied many of the big oceans of the world of nourishment and where two billion people used to nourish themselves by fishing.
FN´s agricultural-and foodvareorganization
(FOA) recently estimated, that about 70% of the ocean´s resources are wasted.

THE THIRD CATASTROPHE.
An increasing number of plant- and animal species vanish rapidly these last years. During our lifetime more than 16.000 species of animals and plants have died and during the last two years the number of threatened species, among others tigers, polar bears and hippopotamuses have added 500 species. Besides that earthworms and
innumerable minor organisms on Earth, are lost because of poisoning or lack of earth, which not the least harms the whole foodchain.

THE FOURTH CATASTROPHE
10 to 40 times more agricultural earth than what has been created in the same place is being brought away by water and wind in the Third World plus the rich salting in the wealthy world, which needs use of manure, that is more expensive than the income from the harvest of the fields. In the agricultural
state Iowa in the USA about half of the
agricultural earth has eroded away during the last 150 years. In Africa huge areas of what were agricultural fields lie barren, so nothing can be cultivated there.

THE FIFTH CATASTROPHE
Today scientists are in no doubt that there is oil, natural gas and coal for only 2-3 more decades and much earlier than that, prices will become higher. Recentlly the number of threatened species, among others tigers, polar bears and hippopotamuses has added
500 disappearing species. Added to that rainworms and innumerable less organisms on Earth, are lost, because of poisoning or lack of earth, which not the least harms the whole foodchain.

THE SIXTH CATASTROPHE
Today it is difficult to supply drinking water for more than a billion people, because of long periods of draughts that have become increasingly frequent in Africa, Asia and Australia and the felling of woods, besides the fact that it rains much less in Southern Europe, underground water is being used much quicker today than it is created, adding pollution to this and desalting drinking water becomes increasingly expensive, which is of course quite difficult in big parts of the world.

THE SEVENTH CATASTROPHE
During the last 20 years it has become increasingly evident, that solar energy depends upon temperature and rainfall.
If it´s dry and warm the sun is not of much use, especially not if trees and plants aren´t biochemical as to great warmth. Temperaturebelts like subtropical areas in Southern Europe, Africa and the USA and more places will get less and less rain, not the least thanks to the greenhouse effect and these areas will to a great extent become deserts.

THE EIGTH CATASTROPHE
Human beings expose much poisonous and destructive chemicals into the air, the earth, the oceans, plus lakes and rivers. The estimate is about 20.000 chemical ingredients on the Danish market, most of them synthetic ones, others more natural in small doses, for example quicksilver and hormones. We absorb poisonous chemicals in food and water, which we inhale and absorb them through our skin. This goes for pesticides, plastic components and hormone-disturbing ftlatals, which lead to cancer and cause many kinds of defects and reductions in the immune system. The effects are increasing. It has f.ex. recently been calculated, that in the USA alone 130.000 people die from air pollution. That kind of pollution is much worse in the Soviet Union, China and India.

THE NINTH CATASTROPHE,
Import of foreign species of plants and animals from one place to another on the globe has fatal consequences. First of all because new species bring diseases or tragic consequences to the new place. Eksamples of this are measels, which turned out to be life-threatening and African honningbees in America, as they developed into killerbees in South America. Plant-diseases can also be included, which accordingly have erased elmtrees in Europe and eucalyptustrees in Australia. Copper and Aids are no doubt the worst contaminations, which have spread from one continent (Africa) to the rest of the world, where these diseases were unknown before.

THE TENTH CATASTROPHE
Two consequences of human activities are unexpectedly dangerous. One is the damage of the ozonlayer up in the atmosphere. The other one is the so called hothouse effect, which has caused a global warming with fatal consequences. Both the cancer developing damage to the ozonlayer and the hothouse effect create a considerable heating of the whole globe. It is estimated that the temperature will on the average increase 1.5 to 5 degrees celsius within this century. Considering, that the Ice Age about one thousand years ago was only 5 degrees colder on the average than the average temperature is today. Then the increase now is considerably big. The snow and the ice all over the northern part of the globe will melt away during one or two ages and if a reliable climate policy will not be confirmed in China, India, Japan, the USA and Europe, the icecap on the South Pole will also melt. That would result in a huge rising of the sea in Bangladesh, China, The Eastern USA, India and Europe (not only in Denmark and Holland).
Scientists don´t agree about how big the rising of the sea will be in year 2100. Most of them estimate one meter, others maintain, that the rising of the sea will be greater, but nobody doubts that the waterlevel all over the globe will rise about 65 meters, if both the North- and the South Pole melt away.
One of the consequences of this is, that the great oceanstreams, among others the Golfstream will change their course.

THE ELEVENTH CATASTROPHE
The population of the Earth increases and decreases, all according to where on the globe we are. The greatest increase is going on in the Third World, where the number of inhabitants in spite of AIDS, malaria and hunger increases about 4% each year. In some areas the number of people increases about 1% per year and in other places there is less addition. That goes for f.eks. Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union and Africa, where the decrease is first of all due to pollution and health problems.
As the situation of the world looks now, not the least as to the catastrophies that are due, a rapid and stable decrease of populations is important, but that demands no doubt a greater and more just international politcs.

THE TWELFTH CATASTROPHE
If the justice, which is necessary in our world, not considering how many of the catastrophes which are tackled can be avoided, the big nations and unions must agree upon sharing the decreasing surplus of the world better. We are six billion people on the globe, but we cannot agree upon a new global system, where few have too much and fewer too little, so perhaps the most terrible of all the catastrophies are potentially due during the twenty first century.
There is too much consumption in big parts of the world. Today The USA, Western-Europe and Japan consume 32 times more resources than The Third World, not the least fossil fuel plus consumption. Accordingly the inhabitants of the rich world rid themselves of 32 times more waste than the inhabitants of the Third World, where people have too little and live mostly on both sides of the poverty limits. This injustice is the greater because we, according to the earlier member of DANIDA´s direction and head of Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, Knud Vilby, posses much evidence as to how the politics of wealthy countries and the inbuilt tendencies nowadays preserve and increase lack of equality and injustice, so the whole picture becomes like a battle against the poor ones, in order to preserve the privileges of the rich. How can it f.ex. be defended that the World´s superpower, the USA with 300 million inhabitants owes the world around it, primarily The Third World, 2200 billion dollars?
The new thing is the fact that people in The Third World, who used to have a quite limited consumption increase it to a great extent and learn from the wealthy world. The standard of living has risen enormously in China, India and a number of countries in the Third World. On TV and in advertisements, which have multiplied, the inhabitants have seen the standard of living in the First World and now they copy it. India and China have become big countries with a huge industrial culture and a consumption, which gets closer to that of Europe and The USA.
The fatal thing in that connection is the fact, that our globe isn´t big enough to be able to cope with the modern consumer-aerias like Europe, Japan, The USA and China.
The costs can´t simply be paid any longer. Only the wealthy countries can afford the costs, which in other and simpler words means, that they have to reduce their consumption and standard of living and pay the bill for a reasonable China and India, if fair living is to be possible on Earth. In other words, if the poor Africa and great parts of the world are not to be the first ones to fade away because of the enormous catastrophies, which are due everywhere on the globe.
How is our globe to survive with twice as much of Earth´s consumption of resources, which will happen, if China and India reach the same standard of living as The USA, Japan and Western Europe?
Nobody has as yet been able to estimate how all the countries in The Third World reach the same standard of living as us Danes, when it means, that the consumption on the whole globe will become 12 times greater than it is today.
And what will happen, when at last all the people of The Third World realize, that a standard of living in the First World cannot be copied in The Third World, at the same time as people in The First World may refuse to reduce their high standard of living? These are urgent questions, which demand a new kind of justice and that as many people as possible meet and talk together about it, time and again.
No doubt it takes a religious sensibility,
as H. Ørsted says, just as a center for art is necessary and so is a center for nature and science,which hereby is in the making.
Vagn Lundbye

A POET IN THE TICKONPARK
In the spring of 1996 the comet Hyakutake came back to Earth after, according to a plan, having disappeared at the outposts of the Universe and could in other words after more than 17.000 years of absence again be seen by humans.
When the comet could be seen, the Tickonpark invited seven Danish poets to stay at the artists´center in the park. The poets Thorkild Bjørnvig, Pia Juul, Erik Stinus, Christina Hesselholt, Claus Beck-Nielsen, Henning Mortensen and Vagn Lundbye then wrote poems which were inspired by their stay.
Hereby a copy of the poem “Tickonparken”, written by Thorkild Bjørnvig.

THE TICKONPARK
Thanks to you trees standing here
And people, who´ve planted trees
They hover in hvirvls of snow
And upload all kinds of breeze

Once Europe was covered with trees
Wild animals round and about
All the trees and cliffs.
Read it in Grimm´s fairy tales

Time was slow, the time of the trees
No cartime nor electronic
The rhythm neither metronomic
nor routine – but music itself

Came new and full moons to hail
In the East a decreasing purple sail
So different from folk on Earth
Not like a mirror of self
Neither cities nor motorways
- nor fields of grain,
But lanes, wolves and
glimpses from horns of rein

The trees remind us of it all
when we share our time and space
you wander the landscape into your soul
and feel at home in this place.

17.marts 1996
Thorkild Bjørnvig

A translation from Danish to English
in the spring 2008 by Inga Birna Jónsdóttir

Tickon, Tranekær Internationale Center kunst og Natur