Biodiversidad Virtual

…or Virtual Biodiversity.

It’s basically an online archive that stores information about the biodiversity of an area (or punto – point – as they call it), and which is available to the public.

Where I live is a punto BV, a place marked out to go and visit and do “testings”, which are days where a group of people take pictures of the wildlife that they find and upload it here: http://www.biodiversidadvirtual.org (sorry, it’s in Spanish, but just go to Galerías to see the sort of things you can find). There are a few experts that then look at the photos and try to identify them, and so we build up a picture of the biodiversity.

This was one of the objectives of a landstewardship scheme we’d signed, which was to survey the area and see what species lived there. But instead of getting a professional in we have willing volunteers that will take photographs and upload them on Biodiversidad Virtual.

Next may we have a group coming each Saturday during May for testings, so I will keep you informed!

Articulation

When we use words to describe things we are not merely “pinning them down”, we are entering into relationship with them, and giving them a chance to become a presence in our lives, not just a vague feeling or amorphous phenomena. We relate to the world with words, and by articulating our experiences we also give a chance for the world to communicate with us, whether it be human or not. A forest may not speak our language, but by us articulating our experience of it the forest  has a way of communicating with us, making itself known to us. We understand much of our world through word, and there is a web of words surrounding us, if only we listen.

Regeneration not Revolution

So, to change things in the world… we must do things? Do we need a revolution in the manner of doing things? And should we doing more better things in order to heal the world, heal Gaia?

Perhaps it is our tampering and “doing” that causes the problems? How about standing back and letting Gaia heal herself? All we need to do is give her room to breathe, and our own bodies too; listen to our bodies, listen to Gaia, and let them both regenerate. Life has its way and has had its way long before we arrived on the scene, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Of course, there are plenty of things to be done, and things will worsen for us if we just stop doing things, but a modicum of “non-doing” is in order, where we can just let the life processes work themselves out, watch them doing it and find ways to work with that, instead of trying to “mend” it or “improve” it or “control” it. In many ways we are a young species and have much to learn; Gaia has been around for a very long time.

Anglish

If you want to play with the English tung and fand with another trim you can always wend to Anglish, it’s English but without all those irksome Ledenish and Greekish incarrys. I’ve got a few lays that might be beffitingly Anglished like this, lol.

A great orshaft for it here (it’s a bit of fun – not sure how well I did though)

tung – language

fand – experiment

trim – style

wend – turn

irksome – annoying

Ledenish – Latin

incarry – import

lays – poems

befittingly – appropriately

orshaft – resource