THE RESTINGA
Renato AquinoThis book allows at least two types of reading: one that examines the Restinga
high-level technical work on the micro and macrocosm as a physical and geographical
reality, and another that as from these information leads as to reflect about the “Restin-
ga” that each one of us carries.
In fact, in all of us a “Restinga” survives, mainly in the childhood and youth me-
mories, lasting sand string, flows between the mainland and the deep blue sea.
More than simple memories, or memories of creatures and lights, our “Restingas” shelter
in us all the atmosphere of a time, a whole possibility of space and time to be fulfilled,
that only the happy German expression zeitgeist – the spirit of time – seems materialize
more accurately.
As a matter of fact, we all have – in a different scale – the potential and the limits
of the resting inhabitants – the possibility of creating an artwork that is “a hapiness fo-
rever”, in the words of Keats, or a nuclear missile with an apocalyptic destruction power.
The Restinga, as this book admirably shows, presents the microcosm of these alternati-
ves that border our existential condition: the transit between the land, which we assume
firm, and the allure of the sea, in quiet and serene appearance, but keeping in its depth,
imperceptible to the surface, fierce beings in unthinkable struggles as so masterfully
proposed by Vercors in his “the silence of the sea”.
The exposed knowledge in this book, full of highly original research, will be a
powerful assistance for us to make our choices.
FOREWORD