Daryl's Journal

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. Finished Ti02 survey. Lunch with Sid Oakley. Country is on Orange Terrorist alert.

GAIA- Planetary management:

201. If our spirits go away my people will walk, wandering, with no guide.

202. The Indian Research Center is also working with the University of Goias so that we can learn techniques that will help us to speed up the regeneration of the forest.

203. Although what non-indigenous people call “development” has destroyed our land and culture, we now need some of that culture’s knowledge to undo the damage.

204. Six students have studied biology at the university, in order to understand the ecosystems of the different regions that have been devastated by sophisticated agriculture.

205. The students have graduated, and are completing a final course before returning to their villages to use appropriate technology with traditional methods to reintroduce native species of trees, fruits, and animals.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. Working on Tio2 and epoxy bid. New England Patriots beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night football.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

196. The farmers have left huge holes in the forests, but we are trying to fix these holes; if we don’t, we will not survive.

197. We have to help the forest regenerate because once the larger trees have been cut, the smaller ones stop growing; they never reach their full height.

198. We have to plant the trees that used to be there, and maybe they will help each other as they grow.

199. Once this is done the animals and birds come back because they depend on these trees and their fruits, just as we do.

200.Also, in a deeper way, we need the environment spiritually; it is where our spirits live.

What Happened Today? Kay and I went to see Chris. Hot! Tampa Bay buccaneers lost to New Orleans Saints in overtime.  New expansion team, the Houston Texans, beat the Dallas Cowboys.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

191. Even the fish have gone.

192. We have started a project to replenish the land and try to bring the ecosystem into equilibrium again. 

193. It began at the Indian Research Center in Goiania, but involves the regeneration of many different types of area: savannah, pre-amazon, and Amazon.

194. When the government demarcated our land, part of it was already degraded.

195. We are trying to replenish this, although we cannot touch the farmers’ land all around us.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Largo Library. Found some new books by F. Paul Wilson. Went to the Sunshine Races. Fun night. Taped the Saturday night Nascar race. Will watch the race tomorrow on Sunday.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

186. Land: My people, the Terena people, live in western Brazil near the Bolivian border, where the amazon really starts.

187. Many of the farmers who have moved into our territory use their land for cattle raising.

188. It is because of this and the sugar cane plantations that most of our trees, our forests, and our land have gone.

189. As children we would often go hunting and we always used to fine deer, wild pigs, and tapirs in the forest nearby.

190. Now they are very scarce.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Worked at home. Primary tasks were e-mail to Bill Stenger, review if ISP customers and a Tio2 survey.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

181. Crises have both positive and negative characteristics.

182. They can represent a threat to the status quo but at the same time can be seen as a symptom that something is wrong.

183. They thus represent an opportunity to correct an imbalance and move on to a new level of organization.

184. This reflected in the Chinese character “ji” indicating both a critical point, and an opportunity.

185. “Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside is available.. a new idea as powerful as any other in history will be let loose”.  Fred Hoyle (1948)

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to Orlando to have lunch with Fred Stewart/Color Wheel. Lots of rain. later that evening I listened to Irish music.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

176. To achieve a breakthrough, we must learn a tough lessen.

177. While it is often all right to adapt through small steps, improving an established course through “fine tuning”. there are times when one must do an “about turn”, and take more drastic corrective action.

178. The tale of the French schoolchildren and their experimental frog is salutary.

179. they took the frog and dropped it into a saucepan of boiling water, whereupon the frog skipped right out– instant rejection of an environment that proved distinctly unsuitable.

180. But when the schoolchildren dropped the frog into a saucepan of cold water, and slowly heated it up, the frog swam round and round, adapting itself to the rising heat… until it quietly boiled to death.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. Another hectic day. Brainstormed upcoming session with Bill Stenger/DuPont. Oakland Athletics going for 20th win in a row.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

171. Out of crisis can come advance, provided the impetus of change does not “overshoot” into catastrophe.

172. On past occasions, there have been thousands of years, even millions, for the corrective workings of the biosphere to adapt and adjust to new stresses.

173. This time, there are just a few decades, far too short a period for Gaia to work its restorative course, unless it is done with the symbiotic support of humankind.

174. If we can match up to the crisis, Gaia may well move forward into an unprecedented period of development– development in its proper broad sense, embracing development of Earth’s resources and of humanity’s capacity for caring.

175. If, however, we fail, Homo sapiens, could eventually be discarded as an evolutionary blind-alley.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. Crazy day with several e-mails to Greg Hertenberger/ISP. Our business in Miami is under attack. Kay and Yvonne started bowling at Sunrise.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

166. But unlike the cancer cell, we are coming to realize the nature of what we are doing.

167. Can we learn fast enough, act soon enough?

168. This is not the first time that the Earth’s community has encountered crisis.

169. Gaia has even benefited from periodic upheavals.

170. Were it not for the dramatic demise of the dinosaurs, there would have been scant opportunity for mammals to become preeminent– with all that has meant for the supreme mammal, Homo sapiens.