“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine,
it is stranger than we can imagine.”
Anonymous
“Memory” by Gheorghe Zamfir
“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen
if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water.
Don’t sit this one out. Do something.
You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment
in the history of our planet.”
Carl Sagan
Not so many years ago, the front page of a national newspaper brought news of an outspoken attack by the head of the NHS on the homeopathy industry. It reminded me of previous research. In 1988 the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste published a paper that stirred up a great deal of interest and even greater controversy. His claim was that if something is dissolved in water, then diluted so many times that not even a single molecule of the original substance remains, the water still retains a ‘memory’ of it having been there. His point was that the configuration of the molecules of water is ‘biologically active’ in a way that makes it change when something is dissolved in it and retain that change after dilution. This theory aroused intense debate between the devotees of homeopathy and the non-believers.
The attempts at the repetition of the experiment were unsuccessful and the topic of ‘water memory’ was forgotten until research conducted by the Nobel Prize winner virologist Luc Montagnier in 2010. Montagnier’s experiment proved that bacterial DNA dissolved in water created electromagnetic signals from which the entire DNA sequence could be obtained. However, he stated that his result indicated that water may contain an information storage-and-retrieval property but that one ‘cannot extrapolate it to the products used in homeopathy.’ Attempts to replicate his experiments were not successful.
“Eternal Echoes” by John Barry
Thinking of water on a larger scale brings the question: where does the Earth’s water come from? In the beginning, the heat of the new planet would not have sustained any water on the surface. Later on, water might have been deposited by collision with comets and asteroids. In 2007 Japanese scientists suggested that early on the Earth had a great deal of hydrogen in its atmosphere, and this reacted with oxides in the Earth’s mantle to form water. The heavy hydrogen cloud, the scientists thought, could explain why the Earth’s orbit around the Sun changed from an original elliptical shape as predicted by theory into the almost circular path that is today.
Some thoughts about the origins of oceans:
In 2009 NASA crashed a lunar satellite into a crater on the Moon and found to their surprise that there were signs of significant quantities of water there. The same question – where did it come from – could be explained by many suggestions: comets, asteroids, gases from the Moon’s interior or grains of ice carried by intergalactic clouds. As there is no irrefutable answer at the present, one can only think that the water could have come from anywhere, even from Earth.
There is one question that we know the answer to and this is: what is so special about water? When two positively charged ions of hydrogen attach themselves to one negatively charged ion of oxygen to form a molecule of water, one factor that keeps the molecules together is called a hydrogen bond, which is the attractive force of the opposite charges. Renowned scientist, William Hartston, explains the process: ‘Much of what we identify as the unusual properties of water seems to be dependent on the nature of the hydrogen bond: the fact that so many substances dissolve in water; the fact that water expands as it freezes; the surface tension of water. Life as we know it would be impossible without these special properties. Just think of the watery origins of life. If ice were heavier than water, it would sink to the bottom, leaving liquid water at the top to freeze and sink again, until all life was extinguished from any body of water in sub-zero conditions. As it is, a layer of ice stays at the top, insulating the rest of the lake and allowing life to go on. And most of the salts and other chemicals that have led to the development of life have relied on water’s solvent properties to get where they need to go. Water is one of the most commonly encountered yet most unusual and least understood chemical compounds on Earth, and most of this seems to be due to the strange properties of the hydrogen bond.’
Water is something that humanity has cherished since the beginning of history. It provides sustenance, comfort, and refreshment to everyone, yet it means something different to many; from fonts for holy water in Christian cathedrals, through to a sacred spring at Delphi in Greece, the reflecting pools of India’s Taj Mahal, and China’s rice fields, the reservoirs that surround Angkor Wat in Cambodia, symbolizing the primordial waters of the universe, and the life-giving floods of the River Nile in Egypt. Water is the very essence of life. In the sixth century B.C.E., the Taoist philosopher Lao-tzu wrote in his Tao Te Ching, ‘Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard, the gentle overcomes the rigid.’
The lives of ancient Egyptians were strongly linked to the Nile and to the land that flourished because of the yearly flood, the event that went back centuries before the existence of the first rulers of the Lower and Upper Egypt. The Egyptian pharaohs ruled over an agrarian kingdom, where everyone had strong ties to their ancestral villages. What the villages had grown, their labour and their taxes built pyramids and temples, and when there was a drought in about 2200B.C.E. Egypt fell apart for more than a hundred years. In response, the later pharaohs built many granaries and installed large-scale irrigation works in places like the Fayum Depression, to the west of the Nile. An army of officials was now supervising canal maintenance and harvests, for careful water management meant the difference between famine and plenty. The ancient Egyptians believed that their world had three basic elements: earth, sun, and water. Their god Atum, ‘the completed one’, the Creator emerged from a watery chaos. He caused ‘the first moment’, raising a mound of solid earth above the waters. Then the life-giving force of the sun, Re, rose over the land to cause the rest of creation. The pharaohs believed that life-giving waters of the Nile came from a subterranean stream that flowed in the underworld.
“River Flows In You” by Yiruma (courtesy of Nathan Wu)
Invariably, water was regarded as a gift from the gods. The book of Revelation, in the New Testament, speaks of the ‘angel of the river of the water of life’, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God. Water enjoyed sacred properties in many ancient societies, as the source of life. We can live for a short time without food but not without water. The Holy Quran states many times that ‘with water, we make all living things.’ Other clans had a saying: ‘Whoever has a channel has a wife’, as women would want water to grow crops.
Etude No.1 (Waterfall) Opus 10 by Chopin:
Many countries, including ancient Greece, used water-rich karst formations to provide reliable water supplies for agricultural and domestic use. Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems, sinkholes, and caves. The Romans used this knowledge to create aqueducts, an architectural masterpiece. They used the water not only for domestic use but also for the famous public baths. In England they installed spectacular public baths, that gave the name to the town that grew around it.
Human-dug tunnels that tapped groundwater would be used to create cities, towns, and villages around them, from Iran to the Andes. In China, eighteenth-century Qing Dynasty officials paid thousands of labourers to dig canals that brought mountain water to lowland fields. Water was also used for transport and voyaging across lakes, rivers and across the ocean. Until the domestication of the camel in the first millennium B.C.E., waterways, especially major rivers like the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Nile, and the Yangtze, provided much better ways of traveling than on foot or by horse. It could be said that irrigation was a prime cause of civilization.
The invention of aqueducts transformed the lives of Etruscans and the ancient Greeks. But aqueducts only become a perfect form of art after the Romans took the existing simple version and turned the aqueducts into Aquae Romae, an enduring symbol of Rome’s power and technical prowess. Wherever Rome went, aqueducts went, too. Over much of Europe, and the Mediterranean, they survive as permanent reminders of Rome’s imperial might. The Romans were proud of their first Aqua Appia, which brought water to Rome in 312 B.C.E. Sextus Julius Frontinus said of Roman aqueducts, ‘With such an array of indispensable structures carrying so many waters, compare, if you will, the idle Pyramids or the useless, though famous, works of Greeks!’
Water features prominently in Hindu sacred texts, known as Vedas, and refers to the time when the earth was all water without light:
Those waters from the heavens,
Or those waters that flow when dug,
Or even those waters that are self-born,
Flowing towards the ocean, purifying,
May those waters, Oh Goddess,
Protect us here.
The deeply held respect for water and a tradition of water management goes back to the beginning of Indian civilization. In China, mighty rivers were controlled by dams, large-scale irrigations and many tunnels that would prevent floods. In Europe, water mills provided bread, the main part of our staple diet.
Below is the Krishna River in India
Below is the Yangtze River in China:
“L’Ascension” by Michel Pépé:
Recently, scientists discovered in a 2014 study a massive ocean about 700 kilometres below the Earth’s surface containing around three times as much water as all the seas and oceans we can see. The finding poses a new question of where the Earth’s oceans came from and how they stayed the same size for millions of years. The investigation, however, only relates to water beneath the United States. It could extend all the way around the planet occupying a region between the upper and lower parts of the Earth’s mantle. The total amount of water down there could easily be enough to submerge the planet if it were on the surface.
In present times it is clear that catastrophic climate changes are now affecting our relationship with water in many places in the world such as the terrible flooding in New York as well as in India and Spain, Storm Ida in Louisiana, and wildfires in southern Europe, California and Tunisia. There are places in Asia that are in acute danger of many villages being destroyed by rising sea levels, while parts of Australia have suffered recently from droughts and hot temperatures that wiped out wildlife.
In California, forests burned on an unprecedented scale because of unusually hot temperatures and winds that spread the flames which have destroyed towns like Paradise. The speed of those changes is the result of our actions.
The town of Paradise before the wildfire:
The town of Paradise after the wildfire:
A few years ago, hundreds of koalas perished in a huge wildfire in New South Wales in Australia. Staff at Port Macquarie Koala Hospital searched for survivors after the fire destroyed 4,900 acres of bush. Two-thirds of the damaged area was koala habitat, according to the hospital president Sue Ashton. She added: ‘If we look at a 50 percent survival rate, that’s around about 350 koalas and that’s absolutely devastating.’ Koalas climb high into trees during wildfires and survive if the fire front passes quickly below them. The koala colony was particularly healthy and genetically diverse, Miss Ashton said. The fire was started by a lightning strike, 190 miles north of Sydney. Australia’s wildfire season made an early and devastating start that year, due to above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall. I wrote in another post, ‘The Knights of the Night’ about thousands of bats dying in the south-eastern part of Australia, and I have asked the pertinent question: are we all aware that when we destroy Earth, it will be too late to then realise that we cannot eat money or cement?
“We All Fall Like Rain” (from the film “Secret of Water”)
David Attenborough’s closing speech from “Blue Planet II”:
“Baby Blue” from “Our Planet” original soundtrack:
naturetails 
You have done your usual masterful job, Joanna. The only property that I didn’t see mentioned was Water’s ability to rise to the same level it previously had, which is why we have water towers in small towns, and in high rise apartments we need pumps to get it past a certain floor height (if I remember these details accurately.)
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Thank you, Pat, for your wonderful comments! There are a few more things apart the one you mentioned, but space and time are a problem with my court case still not concluded.
With new discoveries of water on the various planets, I can see at some point additional post on water.
Thank you again, Pat, your thoughts, as always, are greatly appreciated!
Joanna
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Marvelous job. Good luck with your other looming project. Buddy say hi!
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This is an excellent article. Loved every part of it. Exceptionally good. encompassing so much information and thoughtful content. Thank you for such wonderful efforts. Masterclass!!
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Thank you, Dear Pat, your prayers worked because the judge was very sympathetic despite masses of demands from the other party, which he dismissed, nevertheless there has to be another hearing as the legal papers were only delivered on the day of the hearing.
Please, give my love to Buddy!
Joanna x
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Thank you, Amrita, for your wonderful comments! Your kind thoughts are deeply appreciated!
Joanna
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Hopefully this too will pass. New Buddy post today if you get time.
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You mean Pat, tomorrow, as it is now so late. For you, Pat and for Buddy I will ALWAYS have time!
Joanna x
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Sweet donkey dreams for you tonight, Joanna.
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Definitely! Thank you!
Joanna x
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What a lovely collection of images and music and videos as well as fascinating information. An ocean beneath Earth’s crust. I could never have imagined such a possibility but there is so much we do not know. If only humans could devote themselves to research instead of destroying each other. I have Masaru Emoto’s book about water and found it most interesting. Some of his theories have been discounted but I thought his ideas were quite plausible and I even had a water bottle with a label facing in that said LOVE or PEACE or maybe it was both. I liked the idea of drinking happy water. I can quite see why water is considered sacred. It should be since we depend on it for our existence. Sir David…how much do we owe that man? If there was one person I could meet it would have to be him! Thank you for this Joanna. As always, so enjoyable.
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Thank you, Carolyn, for your wonderful comments! You are right about everything.
I have to tell you that I met Sir David on one occasion and after conversation, he gave me his private address and we exchanged a few letters. Now, of course, he is getting over 5000 letters a week and I would not dream of adding to his problem, although there is a secretary dealing with correspondence.
Sir David is an old fashion gentleman, and it was touhing that he trusted me on meeting for the first time.
Thank you, Carolyn, for your time and kind words, all greatly appreciated!
Joanna
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Thank you for this masterpiece, dear Joanna! Your work is always amazing! You do so much research, you choose great pictures, and you write beautifully. I love reading your articles and learning from you. Water is life! 💙🌊
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Wonderful Joanna. No other word for it. Once again, this post has everything. Stunning images, beautiful music and great information , all put into an article with masterful expertise. Thank you for yet another gem.
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Thank you so much, Dear Filipa, for your wonderful comments! As I wrote in my reply to another
reader, there are so many new discoveries of water being present on other planets that I will have to add more in additional post about water some time.
Your kind and moving thoughts are deeply appreciated!
Joanna
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Thank you, Malc, for your beautiful comments! All greatly appreciated! As always, Malc, you lift my
spirit sky-high!
Joanna
PS. Yesterday, I left my comment about your delightful post, have you see it?
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That’s good to hear. No comment has appeared in my post again Joanna I’m sorry to say.
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I am sorry too! I will write again because I loved the post! It has to be WP again!
Joanna
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If you haven’t already done so,try going straight into my website and comment there.
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Will do! After feeding my birds and the cats!
Joanna
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They come first 🙂 Just click on ‘Home’ in the previous comment to get to my home page.
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Yes, will do!
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I think, that it is now there!
Joanna
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What a super-fabulous post💙💙💙
Dear Joanna, sorry but I can no longer find the words to express my immense admiration to you
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What an amazing post Joanna! I have bookmarked this to return to, so much thought-provoking information, will have to read again. Great work.
💕
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Thank you, Dorothy, for your very kind comments! All are greatly appreciated!
Joanna
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What a marvellously detailed and interesting post yet again Joanna. Thank you. It is fascinating and awe inspiring how a single drop of water can build, or destroy, depending on the circumstances. The power of water can be seen in magnificent structures of nature such as the Grand Canyon, and in underground caverns where stalagmites and stalactites formed over millions of years, joined to form pillars and then whole curtains of rock. Once again, thank you for this amazing post.
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Every day should be a learning experience. When I read your posts, Joanna. I always discover new knowledge! I found it fascinating that there exists a subterranean ocean with many times the volumes of water in the earth’s surface oceans. Its existence raises so many more questions and possibilities.
Robert and I take vitamins and supplements whenever we can avoid taking prescription drugs by doing so. We particularly enjoy joking about homeopathy and never take these remedies. I particularly enjoyed the discussion about the memory properties of water. Are we wrong about homeopathy? Maybe.
I enjoyed the closing remarks on the Blue Planet Series by David Attenborough. Thank you for posting that.
I’m glad you are prevailing in your court case. Soon you will be able to put it totally behind you. Have a great week! ❤
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Joanna, as an aquarian I knew I would like this post and I particularly liked the musical choices you made, especially the “River Flows in You” by Nathan Wu.
As one with a traditional science education, I will admit that the concept of “Water with Memory” was foreign to me. If one strays from the usual definition of “memory” then it seems conceivable that dilution to the “nth degree” of something dissolved in water may leave residue which can not be measured. This would be akin to historical knowledge of some extinct species of living thing which no longer survives but had an impact at one time. A stretch perhaps, but an analogy.
That water has been added to earth since its geological beginnings is quite likely through the combining of hydrogen and oxygen resulting in a biblical flood for centuries. It is fortunate that gravity causes water in its liquid form to seek its own level, lest we all be afloat in it. Additionally, that water vapor can move above the earth’s surface on air currents and in its solid form float on liquid water makes it so perfect to support life. Subsequent additions of water by colliding asteroids & comets or undiscovered sequestered deposits within the earth’s mantle confirms the law of conservation of matter – which keeps yours truly immersed in the field of science. One thing is certain: without water there would be no life on earth in the form we understand.
Once again, you have created another perfect way to spend an hour. Thanks for the entertainment and the mind stretching opportunity. Stewart
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Thank you, Stewart, for your wonderful and analytical comments! Just wanted to add that recently more tracyces of water in various forms are being discovered on other planets, At some point, I will have to write another post about water.
Thank you, Stewart, for your thoughts that are greatly appreciated!
Joanna
PS, I am an Aquarian too!
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Thank you, Peter, for your wonderful comments! In the recent discoveries scientists found traces of water on a few planets, it means that I will have to write more about water!
Thank you, Peter, for your kind thoughts that are much appreciated!
Joanna
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PS. Apologies, Stewart, for the spelling mistake! It should be traces!
Joanna
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Thank you, Cheryl, for your wonderful comments! You are right about everything, I don’t use any medicine except natural remedies of garlic, onion, luckily I don’t need anything so far.
The recent discoveries of water in various form on other planets means more writing about water sometime soon.
Thank you, Cheryl, for your kind words, all greatly appreciated!
Joanna
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Dear Joanna, I can’t help but be amazed by this post! Water! Who stops to think about such a vital element? You have written eloquently here but I think I must return to read it again because considering it, is so important! I love the Carl Sagan quote at the beginning; so thought provoking. (Also, water in space; is it the same as the water here? We will have to wait and see! 💓🌹🍀💚🙋♂️
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Thank you, Ashley, for your wonderful comments! Yes, water is such a fascinating topic!
I will write again when more is known about the water on other planet. It would be wonderful that addition to the soil of the moon of certain bacteria would allow to grow vegetables for the use od people visiting or working on the moo, but that is a future…
Joanna
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Joanna, let me know when you’re planning that trip into space. I’d love to join you 🤗😊💓🙋♂️
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Ah yes, we are kindred spirits under that zodiac sign and the Greek God, Ganymede. I forgot. Do write more about water. I did know that frozen water was found by the rover on Mars. I think it is on the earth’s moon and of course on comets as well.
Stewart
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Yes, Stewart, we are! I will write when I know more.
Joanna
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I wish, Ashley, but I think, researching will be more convenient for both of us!
Joanna x
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Joanna, a very interesting post with beautiful photos to match. You are really great in research, amazing. 💕
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Not having heard about the discovery of massive amounts of water 700 km below the earth’s surface, I searched for more information. On the website of the Smithsonian Science Education Center I found this:
“The finding, published in Science, suggests that a reservoir of water is hidden in the Earth’s mantle, more than 400 miles below the surface. Try to refrain from imagining expanses of underground seas: all this water, three times the volume of water on the surface, is trapped inside rocks.
“Called ringwoodite, the rock is bright blue and is only formed at high temperature and pressure in the Earth’s mantle. The water would have been squeezed out of the rocks, ‘almost as if they’re sweating,’ Steven Jacobsen of Northwestern University told The New Scientist.”
Sure enough, I’d imagined underground seas, not water contained in rocks.
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You never fail to give us something to learn, Joanna. Your posts are always interesting and to read-for.
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Thank you, Adelheid, for your lovely comments! Your kind words are much appreciated!
Joanna
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The pleasure is mine, Joanna.
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You covered such a broad topic on water with so many beautiful bodies of water Joanna, including our bodies we habitat since we are mostly composed of water. You’re pics were stunning and the videos always educate and teach. Wonderful post!💕
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Thank you, Cindy, for your wonderful comments! In the weeks close to Christmas, I am going to publish post that are intended to lift our spirit as we live in turbulent times, and the News are depressing to say the list.
There will be more about water sometime later because more is being discovered about water’s presence on a few other planets.
Thank you, Cindy, again. Your kind thoughts are much appreciated!
Joanna x
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Joanna ,that was yet another of your masterpieces !It was an exhaustive ,well researched article on ‘Water’ and all relevant information on the latest findings about water!The article was quite detailed supported by documentries & great photographs!I personally found myself benefitted from this educative post !Thanks for sharing !😁
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Thank you, Dhirendra, for your wonderful comments! As more water in various forms is being discovered on another planets, I have to do more research and come back to the topic of water later on.
Thank you, Dhirendra, again; your kind words are greatly appreciated!
Joanna
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My pleasure 🙏🙏
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You’re so welcome Joanna. Oh I love that. I just posted one that is depressing…. lol but not really, we have to remember not to merge with the horrible news and I’m hoping that message supersedes the misery. It’s so important to keep our heads above “water”….. you’re welcome.. it was lovely💕
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