Dear friends of Culture,
Lichens are the splashes of colour on the island, they are the little creatures that defy the hardness of the mineral. Not quite a plant, not quite a fungus, not quite an algae... Some of them paint circular or ring-shaped pictures. But there are also those that attach themselves in an algae-like manner and stretch their dry, pointed or fan-shaped leaflets upwards. Their colours vary from whitish to pale yellow, lemon yellow and orange-reddish. Warm tones that also mix with bluish tones to show themselves in a wide variety of greens...
If you approach the inhabited rocks, especially in the centre and north of the island, you will discover entire miniature landscapes. There is the small young verode, which acts as a quaint palm tree. Lichen forms meadows and carpet-like growth. Bushes open up, small caves and a stone creature is awakened from its sleep...
The small in the large, the detail in the vastness, far and near. Experiencing these contrasting qualities is something that characterises Lanzarote for me. I sense that while the human being is allowed to experience himself in a very large context in the vastness and is invited to open himself, he will also quickly realise that only those who also seek out the other pendulum swing are able to bear this vastness at all.
It is not only the amazement at these hidden little worlds in nature, but also a basic gesture that can be so valuable here. In the act of a human being bending down to approach something small and delicate, something that has taken centuries to develop, there is a turning towards mildness and kindness. And is not mildness the virtue that, as a link in a bridge, is to be particularly emphasised again and again in a place of fire and crassness?
With warm greetings
Mikael Nowak
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