When I was a kid, perhaps no older than 6 or 7, a terrifying experience settled into my consciousness: a huge tornado was heading our way.

Each summer, mother sent us to spend our two idle school months at grandma’s huge farm. There, time seemed to be made of a different material: its fabric stretched longer, I’d say endlessly. The skies were infinite and awe-inspiring, dotted with myriad stars never visible in our home town.

But the closeness to nature had also its drawbacks: all my female cousins were crying suddenly, saying that the ‘sky snakes’ were headed our way. The ‘sky snakes?’ I wondered. They looked at me puzzled. I was puzzled myself.

My aunt entered the room followed by grandma. “OK kids, go outside, grab a sharp stone and then go lean against the rock wall… we’re gonna pray and we’re gonna stop the sky snakes’

‘We are?’ I asked eagerly… ‘but how?’

‘If you have faith’ grandma said, ‘things are less difficult…’

Rushing, all the girls stopped crying and went outside to pick up rocks. I did the same. When we each had one in our hands and were all leaning against the rock wall, grandma gave us the signal: immediately we began. Each over a different rock, we began repeating endlessly a prayer taught to us as kids while we carved the sign of a cross with our sharp rocks over the surface of another rock in the wall. In the near horizon, the ‘ski snakes’ were still furiously heading our way, we could see now its whirling dust tail, lashing in circles, uprooting small trees, bushes, barns’ rooftops…

I still remember the warmth of my tears coming down on my face as I furiously fought inside my child’s mind against the winds and the tornados, praying and carving, praying and carving and always looking up ahead.

To my surprise, after what it seemed an eternity, the ski snakes started vanishing away, just a few hundred feet from where we were. My eyes were glowing thru the tears… the palm of my right hand bleeding from holding the sharp rock so tight.

I Am Loved is one of three 'energy enhanced' spring bottled water offered by Aquamantra.

I looked away, trying to prevent my cousins from seeing me cry. I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed: focusing energy in one specific direction was the closest thing to a miracle.

Water As Barometer

Of course, when the movie What The Bleep Do We Know came out, I was mystified: finally, so many personal intuitions had found their objective correlative in the content of that film. So I wasn’t crazy, we do create the reality in front of us… The water experiments by the noted Japanese scientist in the documentary simply blew me away…

Recently however, a product came to my attention that reminded me immediately of the concept behind this film. Their PR materials claimed that their water was ‘energy enhanced’ and therefore noticeably better than average spring water. I felt I had to follow up, the claims that a mantra could help you increase your overall health while drinking water was interesting enough not to dismiss.

Can you honestly claim that a mantra can affect the quality of your drinking water however?

You can certainly claim it. Holding true to the claim is much harder though.

To Aquamantra’s credit, they are into something. They’ve achieved a simple feat: to marry a good concept to a basic need.

Enter Aquamantra’s line of 3 ‘energy enhanced’ spring waters: I Am Lucky, I am Loved, I Am Healthy. Each slender bottle, featuring distinguishing packaging, does a good job of reminding you thru its mantra that as you drink, you can think positively and therefore, use the water as a vehicle for subtle ‘positive feedback’ from your consciousness department. Forget the socialite points of holding an Evian or Smartwater bottle on Venice Beach. Aquamantra isn’t for posing; rather, it is for pausing, for taking a valuable instant to even manifest intention behind such trivial acts as drinking water along the day.

Because of this, you can say that Aquamantra is part of some grander scheme: to make you aware, to make you realize that we’ve come all this way riding on the tail of science and technology just to say in fancier words what the ancients told us already: the world is an illusion.

If your luck isn't the best these days you oughta check what this I Am Lucky water can do for you next time you're sitting in Vegas or Reno at the craps table.

It is in fact, Our Illusion.

The very nature of reality, its very fabric, is first woven inside the conundrums of your mind. Therefore, you simply see in the world a projection of things first seen inside. This makes you a god. A seer and a doer. A being with the power to create and with the power to make things come undone. This makes you the architect of your life.

If the building collapses is all on you. If the building –to quote Goethe- amounts to ‘frozen poetry’, it’s also not by chance. In this sense, Quantum Physics and Neo-Tribal Spirituality offer you no easy way out: you’re at the center of the universe, you’re the maker and the un-doer, you touch and things blossom… or they collapse. The buck then, begins and ends with you. Karma, Ultimate Responsibility. In other words: you have to grow up…

Wow, all this just from a bottle of water?

Well, no, I’m throwing in my two cents but the point remains: the water is a conduit. Aquamantra wants to simply remind you that you already have a built-in tool that works on your favor: mantras, positive thinking, affirmations, faith, you give it the name. Anything that consciously re-directs energy in the direction you need or want.

Water As Conduit

But perhaps what I say sounds somewhat alien to you, after all, you and I come from the old guard, we were told we were inadequate machines meant to pick up ‘useful’ habits along the way: -education. Good morals: -religious faith. And good civic attitudes: a steady job, a consumer personality and a healthy amount of cynicism just to survive as part of their crowd.

In other words, you and I were supposed to be cows munching on the same old grass, not much room for creativity, dissension and such. We were all supposed to be vanilla, dumb and bland. All supposed to be clean-cut. All punctual and pointless. All nicely dressed by The Gap.

In this boring construct called Capitalism, you’re supposed to have your lawn look like in the movies –that is, like Alice in Wonderland-, your car all neat and one color. Your taxes paid up. Life all used up in the learning of habits and no time left to live it up…

But I’m heavily digressing, the water… yea, Aquamantra really works. It works. In some subtle level, as you run into the peaceful artwork and the mantra in front of it, some quick (almost quantum-like) adjustment allows you to think that you Are Loved or Lucky or Healthy. And to quote Alex Teklak, Aquamantra’s founder, ‘why would you want to buy water with no intention?’

But the question remains –Aquamantra in fact, addresses this issue directly in their site, www.aquamantra.com-: Why would I pay for your water when I can label mine? The answer is, of course you can –the only point remaining: would you remember?

As Aquamantra’s founder says in an interview with Socal.com : ‘once you buy our water you can of course refill the bottle… in fact, you can label your own, we’re simply providing water with intention for those of us constantly on the go…’

As editor of this site, I’ve never endorsed a product before. In fact, the only reason you see this long article on ‘energy enhanced water’ is because I believe what’s being put forward is a ‘concept’ more than a product. Aquamantra, while pledging a portion of its proceeds to many relevant charities also intends to create and expand awareness. Is this a cynical statement in regards to a product sold for profit? I hope not. Water is a necessity and if the ‘packaging’ is conducive to some kind of positive introspection, perhaps you ought to check it out for yourself.

I can certainly tell you that in my blind ‘flavor’ test, there is a noticeable ‘freshness’ to Aquamantra’s waters compared to other two types of bottled water. Thinking that this might be due to different temperature levels between the three waters, I put all three in the refrigerator for two hours. Afterwards, the same ‘freshness’ could be noted when compared to the other two bottled waters.

Perhaps this might sound as the result of self-suggestion to you, but even if it was, it would only confirm Aquamantra’s position that water, when ‘enhanced by your positive energy’ -aided by the mantras and the peaceful settings of the packaging-, produces a noticeable improvement in your overall well-being.

I can tell you this: I’ve consumed bottled water for a long time and besides packaging considerations, I’ve never found a noticeable difference between any of them. Honestly, this is the first time I do.

Of course, I think I know the answer: it’s me… or rather, it’s my constant reminder to myself that I can be healthy, loved and lucky. And by saying I am, I put myself in the right path. This makes me smile because it reminds me that when I’m in the right path, all the way to heaven, is heaven.