CHAPTER 04

Following Instructions and Going with the Flow

cost me a lot of inconvenience, a lot of friends, a lot of pain, and my family.

I suddenly realized that I must stop the dolphin research. It was not being done in consonance with the new ethic. What I was doing and allowing to be done in my name was counter to where I wanted to go and hence it must be eliminated.

If I was to realize my desire to move into these regions, these new spaces, and communicate with thcse new entities, the dolphin project would have to be finished and thoroughly done over. The only way that I could see to do this effectively was to completely eliminate the whole then- current dolphin project and wait for a number of years until a proper one could be designed and carried out. As I wrote in The Mind of the Dolphin, the new project would mean complete freedom on the part of the dolphins to come and go as they pleased' rather than as we pleased. In that book it was proposed that a house be built by the sea. Part of the house would be flooded so that the dolphins could enter and be a part of the family life in that house. Both Margaret Howe ( my associate ) and I came to this conclusion after the dedicated communication efforts Margaret made in the dolphin laboratory in the fiooded rooms in St. Thomas.

To clear The way for the new project based on enffrely new assumptions the current projects were to be closed down.

The day that this clear decision came to me and before I'd had a chance to communicate it to my colleagues, one of the dolphins in the Miami laboratory stopped eating. During a subsequent three weeks, despite powerful medical aids to recapture her appetite, she wasted away. During the next three weeks four more dolphins committed suicide by refusing to eat or

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