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Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.

Masaru Emoto: Praying For Water

Masaru Emoto has invited everybody to pray for the sickened water at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan, at noon today. Here are the words he suggests: "The water of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, we are sorry to make you suffer. Please forgive us. We thank you, and we love you." Even if you come too late today, it is never too late to send loving thoughts to suffering people and to the violated Earth. Prayer lowers blood pressure by making you one with everything around you. When we get upset or feel anger, disappointment, and so on, these negative emotions stand between us and the world. When we pray, we step back into the web of beings in this Universe. Masaru Emoto has been, for many years, fighting to keep water and our mother planet healthy, and I admire him for this. As a fellow water fighter I do stretch out my hand to him. However, I wish he wouldn’t call himself a scientist and what he does science. In reality, his beautiful photos in “Messages from Water” are poetry, and they would not lose anything of their power if he would call himself a poet. Water does not speak Japanese, nor English. Water, however, and our whole ancient Gaia planet, needs all our attention and love so that we all and our children and our children’s children will survive. The Japanese reactor accident has made clear again that we humans cannot contain the nuclear forces we unleash with every newly built atomic power plant. The discussion in Europe about this is fierce – and surely comes down on the side of dismantling existing power plants and not to build new ones. While we here are still distracted by Charlie Sheen, and the like. I am sick and tired of the old arguments of the atomic industry. One woman on the radio said that it was not the fault of the reactor – “the reactor was fine” – but it was the tsunami that did it in. Well, we humans don’t control earthquakes and tsunamis, and ANY leaking reactor forces Armageddon on the people in its vicinity, and perhaps on all of us. We can use wind and sun, and we can live closer to the land and less over the top. We can make justice and happiness for all a priority, instead of consumption and celebrities and wanting ever more. For all that I am sending my prayers to Fukushima today. Read More 
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Spa - Sanitas Per Aquam

Did you know that the word “spa” is an artificial word and derives from the Latin expression “sanitas per aquam” (health through water)? I didn’t – in spite of six years of school Latin. I learned it only recently. Should have known – the Romans were big with baths. Not only with hot bath, the Roman “thermes”. Which of course had come down from the Greeks. The first spa, so to speak, was the little town of “Thermes”on Greek soil that had naturally occurring hot springs. But after Emperor Augustus (63 BC – 14 AD) was healed from liver abcess by his personal physician Antonius Musa, cold baths became all the rage in ancient Rome – and among their vassals in the then-known world. The Teutonics belonged there too, after they were conquered. Health through water – that applies to individual health, as to the health of our Planet Earth. Without enough clean, fresh water mankind would not survive. Some bacteria and other low life probably would – and would restart the whole process of evolution again. Water is vital (another Latin word, derived from “vita” – life) for us - preferably cold from the outside, warm from the inside. This morning I did a cold sitzbath, and now feel invigorated and ready for the day. “Invigorate” comes from “vigor” - strength. To stay with the Latin words: Victuals (pronounced “vittles”) are sustenance we need – from “victualia” meaning “provisions” – healthy, fresh foods. Enough of words – show me the deeds! Back to cold water! Now that the weather turned colder, it is harder to stick with your cold shower or cold sitzbath – did you notice? (Ha!) Here is one tip: Exhale! Years ago, I found that exhaling when stepping into the cold flow helped me to stay there. I never knew why. Meanwhile, I figured it out. Exhaling is the relaxing mode, inhaling is the alarm mode. Try it! When we startle, we suck in our breath. We say “Don’t hold your breath!” when you can relax again. So, deliberately and slowly exhaling tells your body that everything is all right and nothing is to fear from the cold water. And coming back to the California hot tub from the other day: That bothered me the most – that there wasn’t a cold tub to jump in afterward. Because, as we say in German, you have to “close your pores.” Read More 
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Getting Down on the Ground

If you don’t do a single exercise at all – no walking, biking, swimming, yoga, playing ball – this is the ONE THING you have to do every single day: Getting down on the ground. Why? Use it, or lose it. Many people who remember fondly crouching under the big family table as a child or romping around in the living room with the dog as if it was just yesterday, can’t get down on the ground anymore, to their big surprise. Or, let’s rephrase it: Once they are down, there is no way to get up again, alone. The arms aren’t strong enough anymore to push you up, and the legs … forget the legs. So, that is the last time they have been down - voluntarily. For, you see: down you will come. We all one day end in the earth. What brings us there are often falls. You trip or slip, and the next thing you know (if you know anything at all), the ambulance arrives and drives you off to the hospital. Only because of two things: You couldn’t keep your balance, and you couldn’t get up from the floor. This is your homework today: Get down on the floor, and get up again. Once you are down, you can try a yoga pose like the fish, or the sphinx. But the point is really to be able to get up again. If you are not sure you can make it up, get help: Make a friend lend a hand. Let the ground not be your enemy – let it be your friend, the place that gives you strength daily. We will go to the earth, but we also are from it. The Earth, our home, is not only for trampling on her, she is also supporting us. Her gravity exercises our muscles. We are alive as long as we can use her. Read More 
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