WATER


DEFINITION

Water

  • A fluid necessary for the life of most animals and plants
  • [archaic] Once thought to be one of four elements composing the universe (Empedocles)
  • Binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colourless odourless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent


Water, our most precious resource for sustaining life on the planet, not just for humans but for all the other inhabitants of this earth.

Approximately seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans; the catch being that all land animals need fresh water to survive, not salt water, that is why a man cast adrift at sea would die of thirst! This seems illogical, doesn’t it?

As land dwellers, we are reliant on the water from rivers, lakes and streams. Without this water we would die, as would the animals and the plants, although we could live without food for a couple of weeks quite comfortably.

Like the earth, we are made up of approximately seventy percent water, and we were surrounded by water for nine months in our mother’s belly, so it’s no wonder we love to play in the ocean, dive into swimming pools and take long luxuriating baths or showers. Water is an intrinsic part of our life. It is involved at all stages of our life from conception through to death

Water is also one of the four elements that ancient scientists and philosophers thought constituted the physical universe, as well as fire, air and earth.

H2O, as it is known scientifically, is a binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colourless odourless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below zero degrees centigrade and boils above one hundred degrees centigrade. A truly versatile little compound!

Imagine if you will, your typical day. Imagine the part that water has to play in it. Everything from the cup of tea or coffee you start the day with, to the water you shower in, to the water that helps the vegetables grow before you can boil or steam them, to make them easier to consume. Think about this quietly for a moment. The connection between life and water is undeniable and although it is necessary to sustain all life on earth, we don’t seem to get it do we?

Everything on this planet is in perfect balance (except us). In each area, there is enough water and food to sustain a specific amount of life, and no more. So what happens when you build a city? Well, you need massive amounts of water which must be fed from other areas to supply the needs of the people.

Water that has been running in an area for thousands of years is taken and transported over many hundreds of miles so you can have a double espresso and a bottle of sparkling water “to go.”

You are in your kitchen and you reach over and turn on the fountain of life, what goes through your mind? If you’re like everyone else, probably nothing. Do you know what I see? I see life running through man-made pipes, pumped, filtered, and treated. I see water that is no longer pure, that no longer contains the energy it did at the source, that has been fundamentally altered by Man. But then that’s just my opinion!
Back to the tap, and as you turn it on, the water runs out, but before you catch it, it runs away again. Water is so slippery you have to be really alert to catch it!

“So what’s all this got to do with me?” I hear you asking.

Well, as usual, it’s back to the whole waste thing again, I’m sorry to say. Not only have we diverted water away from its natural flow, we have dammed rivers, flooded valleys, and created huge reservoirs, which have forever changed the ecology of particular areas – all so we can live in industrialised cities. There is no connection to the stream where you gather water or the well you dig in your garden – the man-made tap sees to that.

Where does it come from, this water stuff? Do you know where your water comes from? Most of you will no doubt quote your water company’s name, but please stop, and think about this. If we are in agreement that water is one element that gives life, surely we should know where it comes from!

From an ice cube in your drink to a steam bath
From steam engine to the ice skating rink
From the polar ice caps to the children playing in the snow
Water holds life together in all of its wondrous forms

As I have explained in other topics, I am currently writing at a small “spiritual” community on an island in scotland. As they have no mains water, this morning I took a walk to find out how we get it. I traced it back from the solar heated hot water tanks to the main tank which has a ultraviolet light filter to remove any harmful bacteria (sorry for killing you, bacteria), the pipe runs up the hill to a primary holding tank, which then has three plastic pipes inserted. I traced these 100 metres to a small hole dug into the hillside. Inside was water flowing down from the hill and going out again through a perforated plastic pipe. Is that it? Where is all the fancy machinery?

I made enquiries to the maintenance man, and was assured that the water came from natural springs, and that the system was simple. Water from a spring one hundred metres away through to my tap. Perfect. I could see the whole process, from start to finish!

How many of us have ever enquired to our many privately owned water companies how the whole process works for millions of people? I think it would be very different to the system we have here which provides uninterrupted water supplies for 60 people, most of the time – except in the summer when the springs have been known to almost dry up! What a sight that must be, to see the one thing that keeps you alive dry up.

Seeing your water supply dry up must be like looking death in the face. Millions of people have this problem in the driest countries on earth, but once again there are too many people competing for small supplies of water.

I often wonder how the tribes people of africa have managed to survive all these years, when every day I see pictures of people dying of thirst and walking up to twenty miles just to fetch water. How did they survive?
For a start there were not as many of them. Nature provided for a specific number of people and when the people started to gather in one place instead of many areas (for work), nature’s supply ran out. Of course if you live “in the west” you won’t have to look death in the face when the water runs out. They’ll just pump it in from somewhere else! After all, you pay for your water, who’s to tell you to use less?
“Water is a human eight,” you cry, “I am entitled to water. I don’t care where you get it from, just get it!”

Government advertising campaigns in countries such as australia, are urging people not to wash their cars, not to water their lawns, and to turn off the tap when brushing their teeth, but just down the road, people are sitting in retail precincts and restaurants where all the vegetables are washed two to three times, and water is being used frivolously washing plates, and cups and serving cappuccinos. When the customers have finished eating, they all go to the toilets and flush, flush, flush, and wash their hands in plentiful supply. Somehow or other, this “SAVE WATER OR WE ALL DIE” campaign, loses its authenticity.
Consumers are told to save water at home, but businesses seem to be exempt. Surely we shouldn’t be so cynical as to think that this has to do with money? That if people stopped using retail establishments as much during water shortages, it may create an economic crisis, and people would start losing their jobs, which would have a knock on effect, which meant the unemployed would be a burden on society, and the government would lose its tax dollars! Surely not?
One thing you may or may not be aware of is that business is by far the biggest consumer of water. Investigate it for yourselves. The laptop I am writing this book on required huge amounts of water in its manufacture! Am I crazy? As you will discover, the electronics industry is the one of single largest consumers of water! Making these high-tech semiconductors requires water. Lots of it. I wonder if you could guess what else requires water in its manufacture?
So before we all start sharing bath water between a family of four, maybe we should look at our choices outside the home. The place where no one can monitor our use of water resources. Maybe the reason we all comply at home is fear. Fear that we will be found out. And maybe even at home we don’t really care, water being a “human right,” and all.
I did consider some time ago that water is a human right and that it should be provided for all, at no cost, but then I remembered we were talking about human beings here, the most intelligent, but most wasteful species on the planet, who at every opportunity live for “me.” If people can get away with something they do. That is why in the topic on law I concluded that the human race wasn’t ready to get rid of law. If there was free water, they wouldn’t use it carefully and thoughtfully, they would keep using it until it ran out, and then complain that it had run out and someone should be doing something about it!
So, charging people for what they use seems the only way at the moment. We are not ready to be given unlimited access to something so precious. Isn’t that a terrible shame? It fills me with sadness to think we don’t care about water. It is vital to life, so perhaps we should start preserving it. We must see it not as a commodity to be traded, or something to be wasted, but must start to see every drop as being a part of us, and we of it. We are linked, bonded by the molecules in it. It is our life. Let’s not throw away our life.
Treat water in the same way you treat your family – with tenderness and care. Save it. Don’t let rainwater run off your roof and into the gutter – use it to water your vegetable garden. Recycle it. You can use it again! There are systems that use old bath water to flush the toilets etc. Amazing, isn’t it?
Next time you run your tap, try to imagine the source, and try to reconnect with it. You may not live as close to the source as I do, but try to ask yourself why. Why do you not live close to the source? Ponder that question for a while. You may be surprised at the answer. On the other hand you may not!

Fire

  • [archaic] Once thought to be one of four elements composing the universe (empedocles)
  • The process of combustion of inflammable materials producing heat and light and (often) smoke
  • The event of something burning (often destructive)

I don’t think any of us really know when man first discovered fire, but it would have been pretty amazing sight to witness. From a single spark came heat and light. It took several billion years of life on earth before we finally harnessed (by accident probably) the power that brings life to our planet every day – the power of the sun, before that. We would have been eating raw everything, and it would have been pretty cold in the northern hemisphere in winter!

Every minute of every day, the sun generates enough energy to sustain this planet. Too much heat and we would all die, too little, and life could not carry on. A pretty fine balance, wouldn’t you say?

Plant life is incredible on earth. They take in energy from the sun, and use it to split water from the ground into hydrogen and oxygen The hydrogen released from the water combines with carbon dioxide to make sugar, the fuel that the plant needs to grow. The final stage is the release of oxygen, which we all know, allows us to breathe. So without this process, enabled by the sun, we would all die.
I sit at my desk having washed my hands with solar powered hot water, well in this country it is only lukewarm, but it is enough to heat the water somewhat. Free energy from the sun? I like it!

Sorry to interrupt myself, but I must just quickly tell you this story.
Just last week I downloaded some designs for solar cookers from the internet, and it is amazing what you can do with a piece of cardboard, and some aluminium foil. Without getting into the technicalities here too much, you basically shape your cooker so it reflects heat onto a black pot, which you put into a clear oven bag.

On the website, I saw photographs of happy african women using their solar cookers, but I didn’t imagine it would work in england in may! How amazed I was, to come back and check on my risotto, two hours later, and find it had been cooked to perfection (the great thing is, the ovens do not burn the food, as the heat is much more gentle than a conventional oven. Since that day, I have cooked all manner of different food, including baked potatoes, curries, and bread!

For something that was designed to help people in the poorest countries in the world, it was fantastic to use it in a country, which, although not desperate, needs to find better solutions to their energy problems.

Here I was, a westerner, cooking my lunch and dinner with the power of the sun. And do you know what the best thing about it was? The energy was free!

I now propose that we have an “international solar cooking day,” which I would be happy to help organise. You see, I think they were missing the point with these solar cookers, they aren’t only for people in desperate need of fuel to cook with, they are also fun, easy to use, and save huge amounts of energy.

We could get children from schools interested, and they can pester their parents!

We shouldn’t look at it as a “save the earth day, ” like those annoying environmental groups organise, we should see this as fun! Something that could take the place of the traditional family barbecue (which uses lots of natural resources by the way). It may be more difficult to grill things, but hey! You’re the most intelligent species on the planet, I’m sure you’ll figure out a way!

Imagine for one moment will you, that even one tenth of the population used a solar cooker to cook some food, even three times a year (most countries get a lot more sun than that), how much energy do you think we would save?

Have a think about it.

Unfortunately, solar power is not the only answer for us in the north of europe, but neither is the way it is produced now. But for now, lets get back to our main discussion.

Following the same principal as the water topic, I would like you to imagine the source of the light in your lounge, or the heat in your radiators. Electricity is generally created by burning coal, and if you have ever had a coal fire, you will know how much coal you would have to use if you wanted to heat the whole house. Well I’ll tell you. It’s a lot. An awful lot. And someone has to dig for this coal.

Have you ever seen photos of coal miners coming up from the mine a mile below ground all covered in black dust? Well they’re digging for your electric light, they’re digging to power your tv, they’re digging to power the microwave.

Coal (fossil fuel consisting of carbonized vegetable matter deposited in the Carboniferous period), as you can see from its dictionary definition, has been around a long time. I cannot be sure personally, but science has told us it was created from about 345 million to 280 million years ago! Science has also told us that we are running out, and it is bad for the environment to burn carbon based fuels. Oops.

Oh well, I won’t be around that much longer anyway. What about you?
So should we bother worrying about it? Well if you care that your children have a planet left to enjoy, we better start doing something, say the scientists. But what?

Nuclear energy, which is energy released by a nuclear reaction, is on the surface, greener than coal, but unfortunately the waste created during this process is highly radioactive, and needs to be buried somewhere (not in my back garden thanks) so remains controversial.

Natural gas is seen by some as greener than coal, but like everything, that takes millions of years to form, gas is going to run out too. Help! We’re all going to die!

One of the main problems, as I see it, is not that we need to urgently find renewable sources, but that we consume too much. As usual the wasteful human (that’s you and me by the way) is chomping his way through the earth’s natural resources at an alarming rate. “Save electricity,” the government cries, or do they? In fact, we are never really told to save electricity – after all, it is a human right to have light, isn’t it? We have our kitchens to think about, our games consoles, our computers, our televisions, and our tumble driers. We have bought all this stuff from our hard earned wages! We are entitled to use them, are we not?

A few years ago, I learned a good lesson about electricity and how it doesn’t grow on trees. I was working on a farm saving money to go travelling, and was staying on-site in a mobile home. The electricity was on a coin fed meter, and I had to remember to put a pound in every day or so, to keep everything in the cabin going. It was only when it ran out one day, and I didn’t have any coins to put in the meter I realised how dependent we all are on electricity. Everything in my life needed power. My computer, my television, the cooker, the fridge, the freezer, the shower, the lights, the heater.

As I sat in the dark for a short while I made the connection. All of modern life required electricity. Without it we were nothing. Whether it is generated by nuclear, gas, solar, or coal, we are addicted to it. Industry couldn’t run without it, so they could not make the products we buy that rely on it. Modern life, as I know it, would fail to exist.

One switch, and twenty-first century life as I knew it would end. That scared me. All the things I liked doing. Watching dvd’s, having nice cold drinks in the summer, freezing extra food I had made, heating food quickly in a microwave.

Then it really dawned on me that this wasn’t just about my cabin not having electric for one night, this was about not being able to do anything I liked. There would be no going to a restaurant, day or night, because there would be no one way to cook the food, let alone turn a light on. Cinemas would be obsolete because no one would be able to edit the films, let alone show them. I wouldn’t have a computer anymore because there would be no electricity to make it, let alone plug it in and turn it on. I was shocked. The world as I knew it was an illusion. This was not reality.

Unplug us from the grid and the dark ages would return.

Fortunately, the next day I remembered to get some change, and I quickly forgot the previous night like a bad dream. But it stuck in my head, and I started to pay more attention to what I was using. I didn’t take electricity for granted anymore. I could see that unless someone came up with a way of providing self-regenerating energy, we would soon be looking for new hobbies in the evening that work well around candle light. (at least we still have fire, imagine what life was like before they discovered it).

But hold on, we have energy from the sun. Sure, it might not be as efficient in some parts of the world, but as long as the financial and environmental cost of producing solar panels was acceptable, it would be a start.

I was living in australia not long after my experience in the dark, and I decided to look up on the roofs to see how many people were using solar panels. I could not believe it! Almost nobody had them.

Australia, as it turned out, was a country that not only had enough sunlight to power most of the earth, but also had access to about 600 years of brown coal. It seems they chose the latter option. Solar was expensive to install. Coal was cheap.
The more I looked around, the more waste I could see, and I started to remember my time working in information technology.

I remembered leaving my pc on every night – as everyone did. All the faxes and printers were on too. All burning coal, and no one was even there!

I started to look at the office buildings with all their lights on at night. Who could be possibly there at 2.00 am? The shopping streets were lit up like the aurora borealis, all so consumers could browse in the shops when they were closed!

Street lighting, cafe’s bars, nightclubs, cinemas, there was no escaping it. I even noticed that my flatmates had left the music equipment, tv, and dvd player on standby – all using electricity whilst everyone was asleep! I would hate to be the man who was on shift that evening, digging coal to be burnt for no purpose.

But then most of what we do is frivolous. We don’t give a damn. It’s me, me, me. Maybe no one has told you about all this before, maybe you are in the dark like I was. Well, now you’re not! If you continue to overuse resources they will run out.

Use your huge human brain.

If you run a business, turn off all the electricity when you leave at night. Doesn’t it make sense? You will be doing us all a favour (and saving money on your electricity bill). In the home, turn off pc’s at the wall. Don’t leave things on standby. Don’t light up the house like a christmas tree. Find out about energy efficiency, have your home insulated to keep the heat in. Install better windows. Find out for yourselves.

Imagine having no electric bills, or having free hot water (probably lukewarm in the northern hemisphere, especially in winter).

Run solar, then by all means use, use, use. There may be times when you don’t generate enough but that will help you to understand that you can’t always have what you want when you want it, an idea that is foreign to all of us in the western world. Maybe by running out a few times you will learn you don’t always have to have tv or computer on all the time. Maybe for once you could start a conversation, you don’t need electricity for those.

Try solar, there’s plenty of fire from the sun, and the great thing about it is no one has to get dirty digging for solar power. There’s another load off your mind.

Air

  • A mixture of gases (especially oxygen) required for breathing; the stuff that the wind consists of
  • [archaic] Once thought to be one of four elements composing the universe (empedocles)

Right now I am breathing, and I hope you are too! We don’t have to think about it, it happens automatically; in out, in out. You can’t see the air we breathe, it’s invisible, yet it really is there. Planes fly in air without falling out the sky, and so do birds, it really is a magical substance.

Air constitutes 78 percent nitrogen, and 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent of other substances. Without water you would die of thirst, without fire from the sun you would die from cold and starvation, but without air you would die of suffocation (all unpleasant deaths I assure you).

I love to go running, I go as often as I can. It clears the mind, and strengthens the body, but I can’t stand running in cities. When you go running you need to breathe pure oxygen, nothing else will do.

Unfortunately, cities aren’t like that. First there’s the smell of traffic. You know that can’t be good for you. The fumes makes you choke, and then somebody will walk past you smoking a cigarette, and you can almost taste the poison. Next there’s the smell of food cooking.

Normally none of this bothers me too much, but being able to run requires a deep steady flow of oxygen to the lungs. Anything else is rejected. For me that’s pretty good indication of what should be going into the air.

Imagine the factories spewing up noxious fumes into the atmosphere, polluting the air we breathe. It should be noted that this doesn’t happen as much in the uk anymore, because most manufacturing has been moved offshore, to countries like india and china, which, along with the usa have become mega-polluters.

For some reason, because we can’t see the air, we don’t think that polluting it matters. It’s only air after all, what good is it to us? We can’t sell it. And as long as people keep demanding more and more stuff, we will continue to pollute. The general public demanded it, so how can we let them down? How can we let the world down?

Since the dawn of industrialisation, our cities have been covered in blankets of pollution, but it was all in the name of progress; progress that has made a few men rich, that is all.

The legacy that has been left to us is pollution. It is interesting to note that nature leaves no trace when going about its complex work – everything is left in balance. We, on the other hand, have only been able to progress through the manufacture of machines.

To understand this better; next time you are by the ocean watch for a sailing boat on the water, powered effortlessly by the wind, silent and graceful. Compare that to the modern jet ski or speedboat which grates noisily through the water – its machine parts working at full speed. The sound is strange, it doesn’t fit with the serene beauty of the ocean; like all man-made machines, their sound is artificial, metallic and not in harmony with nature. The sound of a car vs. a bicycle, the sound of a glider vs. a jet plane. There is just something about these man-made sounds which upsets us internally, which make us stressed.

Imagine all the cars in the city were powered by pedal power! How would the noise change? How would you feel? The wind (air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure) can be very noisy, yet even the full force of a gale does not disturb in the same way as man-made noise, perhaps the tone is in balance with ourselves? Do you notice that it even feels strangely calming to be in bed when a gale is blowing?

I feel much the same way when standing by the sea during a storm. The wind is strong and the waves are crashing onto the shore, which is an altogether more noisy experience than standing by a building site, but which one is quieter? Which scene would calm you inside? Which scene would exhilarate you? The building site with its angle grinders, cranes, and hammers, or nature – angry and fierce? I know which one I would choose.

The power of the wind is incredible; it can flatten whole towns, so it seems only natural to want to harness some of that power. Using nature to power man-made machines is nothing new. Windmills have been around for several hundred years powering mills so it makes sense to use the wind to create power.

The new technology is called a wind turbine (rotary engine in which the kinetic energy of a moving fluid is converted into mechanical energy by causing a bladed rotor to rotate). Some say they are beautiful, others think they are a blot on the landscape, but whatever your view, they generate electricity. They just require two things, lots of wind and plenty of space, so they are pretty impractical if you want to have one in a city on your apartment building, but many generating companies have set up wind farms in isolated windy spots, and then carry the power through the grid (a system of high tension cables by which electrical power is distributed throughout a region).

Good or bad does not really apply here. It is renewable sustainable energy and has to be a positive step away from fossil fuels, gas, and nuclear, although we will never be able to generate enough electricity for us to keep consuming at the current rate – unless you want the whole country covered in windmills.

The way forward is to reduce consumption, not try to match current consumption with “green” energy, don’t you think?

Wind power is so new that negative aspects haven’t been fully considered yet, but time will tell.
Man will always have an impact on the earth, as he is never satisfied, always exploring, always inventing, and inevitably, it is the earth and our fellow inhabitants who must pay the price. So next time you get in your car, or spew pollution from your factory, remember, you aren’t the only one who needs to breathe the air on the planet.

Earth

  • The solid part of the earth’s surface
  • [archaic] Once thought to be one of four elements composing the universe (empedocles)

The final part of the ancient four elements. The land we stand on. Terra firma. This is where we live. This is where we are born and where we die. This is where we love. This is where we hate and kill. This is where we are greedy and selfish. This is where we give birth. This is where we eat.

As we are not likely to grow gills and survive in the oceans any time soon, don’t you think we had better start looking after this area. When you think about it, if you remove the oceans and the polar regions from the map, the available space we have for living is pretty small.

Wherever we live, whatever we do, whatever religion we are, we all want a piece of it! Just a small bit of land to call our own. Kings and rulers have been going to war for thousands of years just to get a bit more. You see, they all want what’s in it. Not only is “owning” land a status symbol, there’s is also has gold, minerals, and oil buried underneath it. If it’s arable, crops can be grown on the surface, or if there are trees, they can be cut down for paper and wood.

For some people, the earth is just a means of making more money. They don’t care what happens to the animals, insects or birds, they just want the money. Money to make themselves more important, to buy more influence with.

I wish I could say that this kind of attitude to life makes me angry, but it just makes me sad. Sad for the earth that is being exploited, and sad for the man who believes that making money is more important than being a custodian of the land for future generations of humans and animals.

A custodian sees a tree as something that brings life to the planet, that supports communities of birds and insects, whereas an exploiter just sees it as a commodity. I don’t know about you, but to me, this seems terribly short sighted. We are on the earth for a maximum of one hundred years, then we die. Does it not seem important to you to look after something that has been around for four billion years? Can you understand that figure?

4,000,000,000! Four billion years versus our ludicrously short one hundred years (normally it’s shorter).

Why are we deluding ourselves as to our own importance, when we can only live for a hundred years! What a joke we are; so full of self-confidence, so arrogant, so emotionally weak that we have to conquer everything and everyone in our path.

The more I consider the human being, the more I am convinced that he, unlike any other animal on this planet, is the odd one out. Needing assistance from the moment he is born, the human is not like the wild foal I watched being born last week, as it fell from its mother to the ground, and forty five minutes later – although shaky – was on its feet. No, humans are dependent on their mothers and fathers for protection for many years.

We do not instinctively know how to hunt for food; we do not even know what food it is we need! We have no fur to keep us warm; we are not strong enough to kill an animal with our bare hands; we have had invent knives and forks to eat, and discover fire to cook with. We have had to invent clothes and shoes. We just don’t seem to fit in. We are violent, we kill our own species for no reason. We seem so different from every other living thing on this earth, are we even sure we belong here?

Maybe we’re on the wrong planet! Maybe we did originate somewhere else. Maybe we were made by a creator who wanted to make us “special.” Maybe we are an alien race trying to fit in. Maybe we didn’t come from the apes after all.

I think this can be the only reason we are so ignorant of our surroundings. All other species interact with the earth in harmony. They all have tasks to do, and do them well. We on the other hand destroy as much of nature as we can and kill each other as much as we can and kill as many other species as we can! We truly are unique, although the label of “most intelligent species on the planet” is looking pretty shaky now.

“Ahh, but the reason the animals work in harmony with nature is because they don’t know any better” says you.

“That must be the reason we are intent on destroying everything, because we don’t know any better,” says me.

The alien theorists are right, I have to hand it to you guys. There is no way that homo sapiens originated on this planet. I have studied the evidence, and found no common link between us and this planet. All the other species have contributed to creating a harmonious world except us. Maybe we are all part of an experiment. Maybe to be human is just a test to see what we would do given limited intelligence, maximum ignorance and zero compassion?

Maybe we’ll succeed in the next life, maybe we’ll succeed on the next planet, or maybe we’ll just go extinct. I’m sure there’s an animal sweepstake out there betting on how long we’ll last. Or maybe they’re betting how long they’ll last with us in charge.

For many years the four elements were thought to make up the physical universe. Now we have “disproved” the theory, but nonetheless these four elements, water, fire, air and earth make up the physical world as we know it. They are all equally important in our life, and the life of the planet as a whole.

Science may have created new theories about the universe, but without these four elements this world would not exist. These elements are still used in chinese and indian ayurvedic medicine, both widely respected throughout the world.

Let us tread carefully. Let us develop compassion, and be kind to the earth, to the air, to the fire, to the water, and all other living creatures, who are our fellow inhabitants. Let us show we do belong here.


by alan macmillan orr

“The natural mind – waking up”

2009

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