During a week dedicated to learning about the
environment, participants in educational programs held in The
Children’s Peaceful Garden in Westchester County, New York,
researched the nature of water. They took up the work of Mr.
Masaru Emoto in Japan with some fascinating results.
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Children’s education has long been a concern for parents; how to give the best education to allow their children the best start possible. A group of concerned parents and teachers in Westchester, New York, got together in 2000 and formed Something Good In the World, with the intention of creating a safe and enhancing ecology where children may be promoted to achieve their highest potential in learning and development, in preparation towards becoming responsible human beings, ready to take on the challenges of life. The Children’s Peaceful Garden project was first created in the summer of 2000, with support from an international team of gardeners and landscape artists, and became a template for other children’s play areas around the world. It is a fantastic design which includes adults and children, working together to create a sanctuary dedicated to peaceful ways of being and states of mind, while learning how to plant flowers, create paths and water features, make sculptures from recycled materials, and become more conscious about the environment. Messages From Water Masaru Emoto, the author of “Messages From Water” was the inspiration for the children’s study of water. Mr. Emoto is based in Japan but travels internationally to conduct research into the effects of thought, intentions, and prayer on the nature and composition of water. His hypothesis is that clean, healthy water will contain a clear, well–formed water crystal when frozen, thawed, and then photographed under a microscope; while polluted or unhealthy water will have either no crystalline formation or one that is misshapen. Water that is damaged and unhealthy, however, could transform, according to Mr. Emoto’s researches, through human care and intention. In the international Project of Love and Thanks to Water, Mr. Emoto suggested that people gather around the world on July 25, 2003, to perform a simple ceremony. Firstly, they would take a sample from a body of water where one could gather with others (in our case, from a pond in a local nature centre) and put it aside. After this, they were to imagine that all water is connected to all water around the globe. As a group then, to say to the body of water: “Water, we love you, water, we thank you, water we respect you.” After doing this another water sample should be taken. We followed all of the instructions as they were given, and sent off to Japan two bottles of pond water, one taken from before the prayer, and one taken afterwards. Wanting To See Diamonds As educators, perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the experience was how seriously the children involved took this experiment. They gave heartfelt thanks and prayers to the water, because they had seen the photos taken by Masaru Emoto which showed how different water crystals can appear after one has sent positive thoughts and words to the water, and they really wanted to see if their intentions would affect the formation of the crystals. As one 8 year old put it, “We want to see diamonds come out of the water.” Months later, we received word from Japan that not only had our water crystal results been published on Mr. Emoto’s website (see address below), but our report of our experiences had been published in the November issue of the Japanese magazine “Hado.” None of us here at SGITW can read Japanese, but we were really pleased to see the photo of our experiment appear in full colour, as well as the phenomenal results of how the water crystals (from our water samples which had been mailed to Japan, where they were frozen and photographed) had altered from almost nonexistent (indicating unhealthy water), to the formation of one pure, six–sided form that looked like a tiny wildflower. More Experiments In the past several years, we have conducted more such experiments within our educational programs at The Garden Road School, as part of the science curriculum, using local tap water, plants, and even rice! We were inspired by the same kind of work done in Japanese schools, in which cooked rice is left to ferment in jars labelled with different words (“Thank You” and “You Fool”), or with seeds planted in labelled pots and watered with labelled water bottles, all similarly worded. Each time these experiments were performed, the results were remarkable, and these were also published on Mr. Emoto’s website. Plants or rice that were told “thank you” always grew more quickly (a sweet mould in the case of the rice), while those called “you fool” blackened and rotted (and smelled bad). In all cases a “control” pot or jar was kept, which was simply ignored, other than whatever basic maintenance was required, and these had little changes. What Did The Children Learn? Well, they told us that if you give something love and respect it responds and grows, but if you ignore it nothing happens. However, if you send something bad thoughts and feelings, you are still giving it energy, though it may develop in a “rotten” way. Their conclusions: give attention to the things you love and care about, and try not to give energy to things that you don’t like so as not to feed them negatively. Best to ignore some things so they will simply leave you alone too. We want to send thanks now to all of the children who have participated so genuinely in the Love and Thanks to the Water Project, and also to Masaru Emoto and Yasuyuki Nemoto for publishing our results. If you would like to learn more about the Children’s Peaceful Garden or The Garden Road School, please go to: www.somethinggoodintheworld.org. Something Good in the World, Inc., is a non–profit organisation with tax–exempt status as a public charity. If you would like to see their Messages From Water reports online, amongst many other examples from around the world, you can go to: www.thank–water.net/english/index–crystal.htm and scroll down to the ‘Quarry Pond’ at the Manitoga Summer Camp in NY. This article was first published in the ‘Feminenza’ magazine, summer issue of 2005. For more information about Feminenza, visit www.feminenza.org close window | |
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