Changing

tides

The soft silvery light of a full moon ref lected

in a small puddle in the marsh It was the

quiet hour between the tides The puddle was

still a mirror between sand f ire sprouts and

squiggly lugworm piles on the silt Very slowly

and very softly a layer of a gellike consistency

approached like a translucent shadow over the

marsh It came from the sea and spread out

evenly between dwarf eelgrass over the cracks

in the silt and over the puddle This was not

water this was not silt this was the salt marsh

creature called Sliek

Sliek lived between the lowlands and the

ocean between silt seaweed and seagulls

Sliek lived with the rhythms of the tides When

the moon and sun enforced spring tides Sliek

spread its translucent soft body out over miles

and miles of land When frost and snow bite

Sliek shrunk to the size of a jellyf ish Sliek had

been there from time immemorial or at least

as long as anyone could remember

The people of the lowlands trusted and

honored Sliek Sliek brought fertile silt Sliek

provided shelter for young f ish to grow and for

the people to catch later and Sliek was able to

negotiate with Murr the ocean

Murr was unpredictable there were days

weeks even of calm His waves gently rippled

his undercurrents relaxed the creatures who

lived in him softly swaying on the rhythm of

his pulse But Murr could also be tense his

currents surging his waves swelling and

foaming and clenching his water like a f ist

The lowland people feared Murr but they

trusted Sliek to calm Murr down And when

Murr was calm they enjoyed the riches of

Murrs waters and the places they could go

by boat over Murrs surface Sometimes they

called upon Lüttk the tiny shapeshifter Lüttk

was hard to see hard to notice She could

change herself into anything small Lüttk was

the only one able to understand the language of

everything on earth

Too slow to notice the trust in Sliek declined

the fear of Murr grew and Lüttk the small

shapeshifter was called upon less and less The

lowlanders learned to see Murr as a dangerous

force that they needed protection from They

began to distrust the tidal land where Sliek

lived They started to appreciate stable land for

growing crops and building their houses They

created straightlined patches of stable land in

the marsh and built higher and higher defence

walls to protect the stable land from Murr

The people learned to measure to calculate

to strategize They took their sticks and

pinned Sliek down in squares rectangles and

trapezoids And they forgot about Lüttk

But Lüttk doesnt forget she still remembers

Lüttk shapeshifts into an algae particle

softly swaying in the depths of Murr and she

whispers to him Lüttk shapeshifts into an air

bubble when the tide comes in and whispers to

Sliek And Sliek hears her voice and sometimes

f inds the strength to stretch and slip its body

from a pinned stick

Lüttk also whispers to the people in the

lowlands behind their dikes She shapeshifts

into the down feather of a white spoonbill and

whispers stories Stories of all the creatures

in the land stories of relation entanglement

connection Stories of Sliek and Murr Every

now and then there is someone who hears the

whisper of the small shapeshifter Lüttk One

evening he goes over the dike to meet Sliek and

Murr and to see the moonlight ref lected in a

small puddle

Linde Ex

Linde Ex is a visual artist artistic PhD

candidate at the University of Groningen and

the Hanze University of Applied Sciences

Groningen and a core lecturer at the Fine Art

and Design Master MAPs Materials in Artistic

Practices Frank Mohr Institute Groningen

She is interested in how artistic practices

can create valuable relationships within the

morethanhuman world and how human

nonhuman relationships relate to current

ecological challenges

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Linde

Ex