Today I want to write about water. I’m sure you will concur it’s a worthy subject, not least because I have devoted my life to making aquariums beautiful and what would an aquarium be without water? A fish cannot survive without water, and a healthy fish cannot flourish without clean, pure water. However, water is not just important to a fish. A fish may not survive very long out of the water, but we as humans would only survive a little while longer without it. The average adult human body is nearly two-thirds water and the percentage of water in infants is even higher, almost three quarters. Think about that for a moment; the bulk of what you are is water. Where has this water been and where will it go in future? If what homoeopaths believe is true – that water has a memory – then what a tale it could tell.
We as humans also use water as a metaphor for many things. The thought that life flows like a river. The idea that we live in a current that ebbs and flows. The notion that anger is like flowing water and that there is nothing wrong with it as long as you let it flow. The idea that hate is like stagnant water, that it is anger that you deprived yourself the liberty to feel, the right to flow; water that you collected in one place and left to forget. Stagnant water becomes murky, putrid, disease-ridden, noxious, lethal; this is your hatred. On flowing water little bamboo boats can travel; boats of compassion. Permit yourself to feel anger, permit your water to flow, along with all the bamboo boats of forgiveness. Above all else, be human.
Water is not resistant. Water flows. When you plummet your hand into the water, all you feel is an embrace. Water is not a wall, it will not hinder you. Yet water always travels where it wants to, and nothing ultimately can withstand it. Water is enduring. Dripping water erodes stone. Remember that you are more than half water. If you cannot go through an obstacle, go around it, as water does. One should also recognise the sheer power of water, my homeland, Japan suffers a great deal from tsunamis, and we can all see their devastating effects.
There is also a lot that water can teach us about living life at this moment. To the great river, there is no such thing as time. The river is everywhere at once. It is at the source, and it is at the mouth. It is at the waterfall, at the jetty, within the current, in the ocean and up high in the mountains. It is everywhere at the same time, and the present only exists for it, not the past and its shadows or the future and its promises.
In your aquarium, the water is the aquarium, so it makes perfect sense to pay the closest attention to it. If you look at the water, then everything else will take care of itself.
Take a look at my new range of medias to assist you in creating the perfect, balanced home for you fish.
Sayounara さようなら
Hugo