More pages in English will come online soon! Keep coming back!
(*) skald: bard, storyteller,'tabloid' in word and music of the Viking-age
The novel in 50 words
A memoir about a near-death experience, disguised as an adventure story which spans more than 1,000 years where a failing body, loss, death, injust serendipity and a limited image of God totally can steer you and me to the bottom of the pit. But then there is the turnaround. Also a coincidence?
2 storylines
Lambert is a young blacksmith from Muizen on the Dyle river. When the village is sacked by Vikings retreating after their defeat at the Battle of Leuven in 891 , his wife Gherwina, who knows she's pregnant only a few days, is abducted into slavery. Lambert is not in Muizen at that time.
He has lost everything. His mother (widow by the hand of a Viking a few years earlier) doesn't survive the attack. Being impulsive and desperate he is chasing the kidnappers. The story of an impossible quest, of infinite faith and deep despair, of boundless love and burning hatred, of healing and death, of betony and dragon steel ... Lambert and Gherwina, Bianca and Merlijn
Did the message of these two simple souls from the end of the nineth century, the time of the Normans, still make sense in the twenty first century?
Bianca Louis, a seventeen year old student, tries to find out all this by means of a school project. Project Aquarium Fish (huh? Why the hell Aquarium Fish?) Is a classroom experiment in which Bianca has to interview Merlijn De Smet about the substance of his motives for writing 'Betony and Dragon Steel " while her classmates have to do without the additional information. What impact does this have on all parties? Apparently so much that the publisher decides to issue a completely new edition. Merlin is instructed to integrate the story of Project Aquarium Fish in the original book. The result is that Betony and Dragon Steel - Project Aquarium Fish cuts much more into the meat than the original adventure story ever could do ... 
Site (and novel): work in progress
This is a long process with a lot of research, learning and trying. And especially LIVING.
This is the result of an improbable series of coincidences that led to this website and the book (e-book?) By the end of 2016, early 2017 if all goes well. The Universe (or whatever you call the 'incomprehensible') communicates through coincidences. Serendipity has driven me all the way. In the same direction. This has been my path, my choices. And I like to take interested people along on that journey. Without obligation. Do something with it. Or not. Choices are free ... or not. Choosing where possible, go with the flow as it should be ... But 'Be Prepared' along the road for a few surprises! 
magical sky over the cathedral tower, Mechelen, juli 2014 - from personal photo album
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Merlijn DS
writing alias of Jan Van Roy - author
September 2016:
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Think Out Of Your Aquarium - TOOYA!
the 'call to action' of project Aquariumfish. Working on it. Start (we hope) early 2017
,The actual Tooya website is in full development. Please be patient. My first goal is to get the first draft of Betony and Dragon Steel finished. In Dutch the title is Koortskruid en Drakenstaal. Fever Spice and Dragon Steel. I wonder I should choose that title in English too...
Tooya Foundation will support projects that do things and work around inclusion, expression, simple happiness, warmth, comfort. And all what benefits people, animals, nature. Our environment we have to live in and take care of.
Tooya ultimately will work with the funds that come from people who FeelThink (new word?) along the lines of the Tooya philosophy, and who want to share voluntarily and with pleasure.
The first projects Tooya Foundation will support are projects where I am intimately involved in, or "accidentally" have been dropped in by the same force that is been pulling me by the ears for fifteen years. A force with a lot of humour and that is not afraid of funny coincidences. Or drama. But that's life.
Project 1: Sjarabang: Mechelen, Belgium. Artists with and without disabilities. Active in painting, theatre, clay and hundreds of other refreshing and creative ideas. www.sjabangvzw.be. Site in Dutch. Later on we will dedicate a page on Sjarabang on this site.
Project 2: (about) life, death and mourning - OVOK vzw - The parents of a deceased child. www.ovok.be. Also in Dutch. The only people who can really understand those parents are their peers in grief. But who knows those support groups exist?
And a third project where you can already participate right now. With no costs and large benefits, and what I call
Doing a Filip Moment
What is that? On a beautiful location leave the name (temporarily!) From someone who is very dear to you, and departed to that other dimension we can not reach with our limited senses, but it's there. We are energy. Thinking is energy. Feeling is energy. And as long as we continue to feel reminiscent of the beloved on the other side of the veil that energy remains in the form that he or she has known in this very short existence.
Filip is the forever nineteen year old son of my dearest friend Monique. A few months before his passing, Filip has expressed the following in a touching way on his exam of religion in high school.
If someone you love dies,
it hurts, it hurts a lot.
But even then you should not forget that there are so many beautiful things,
People who love you
and try to help you in your grief
You should try to enjoy
those beautiful things, and then the pain
gets more bearable every day
until you can continue to... live
(translation of Filips own words, in June 2010, a week before his last conscious day)
Tooya-thinking is also grabbing the opportunities that chance throws in your lap to realise your dreams. And contributing to the dreams of others you feel connected with, where you can...
Other pages will be translated ASAP. Thanks and Think Out Of Your Aquarium!
Tooya Foundation will support projects that do things and work around inclusion, expression, simple happiness, warmth, comfort. And all what benefits people, animals, nature. Our environment we have to live in and take care of.
Tooya ultimately will work with the funds that come from people who FeelThink (new word?) along the lines of the Tooya philosophy, and who want to share voluntarily and with pleasure.
The first projects Tooya Foundation will support are projects where I am intimately involved in, or "accidentally" have been dropped in by the same force that is been pulling me by the ears for fifteen years. A force with a lot of humour and that is not afraid of funny coincidences. Or drama. But that's life.
Project 1: Sjarabang: Mechelen, Belgium. Artists with and without disabilities. Active in painting, theatre, clay and hundreds of other refreshing and creative ideas. www.sjabangvzw.be. Site in Dutch. Later on we will dedicate a page on Sjarabang on this site.
Project 2: (about) life, death and mourning - OVOK vzw - The parents of a deceased child. www.ovok.be. Also in Dutch. The only people who can really understand those parents are their peers in grief. But who knows those support groups exist?
And a third project where you can already participate right now. With no costs and large benefits, and what I call
Doing a Filip Moment
What is that? On a beautiful location leave the name (temporarily!) From someone who is very dear to you, and departed to that other dimension we can not reach with our limited senses, but it's there. We are energy. Thinking is energy. Feeling is energy. And as long as we continue to feel reminiscent of the beloved on the other side of the veil that energy remains in the form that he or she has known in this very short existence.
Filip is the forever nineteen year old son of my dearest friend Monique. A few months before his passing, Filip has expressed the following in a touching way on his exam of religion in high school.
If someone you love dies,
it hurts, it hurts a lot.
But even then you should not forget that there are so many beautiful things,
People who love you
and try to help you in your grief
You should try to enjoy
those beautiful things, and then the pain
gets more bearable every day
until you can continue to... live
(translation of Filips own words, in June 2010, a week before his last conscious day)
Tooya-thinking is also grabbing the opportunities that chance throws in your lap to realise your dreams. And contributing to the dreams of others you feel connected with, where you can...
Other pages will be translated ASAP. Thanks and Think Out Of Your Aquarium!
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some beautiful spots we 'did a Filip-moment'