Water covers three-fourths of this planet’s surface.

It also makes up about the same portion of the substance in our cells.

And for many, our individual relationship with our earthly environment ends there.

But is there another correlation between the water in oceans, lakes and rivers and the water in our own bodies? What if water had a message for us?

Masuro Emoto, a Japanese doctor of alternative medicine, believes that is just the case. In his recent groundbreaking study of the effects of human thoughts on water, Dr. Emoto suggests that water does indeed have a message for us: our thoughts affect everything around us, and everything within us.

Before you pass this off as some sort of quack science, consider his findings. As described in his book The Hidden Messages in Water, his experiments consist of exposing water to prayer, music and specific words attached to the container, then freezing that water and photographing the crystalline structure of each sample under a microscope.

The results are astounding.

In one such experiment, Dr. Emoto attached the phrases “You Make Me Sick” and “Love and Gratitude” to two different containers with an identical water sample, adding a third “control” container from that sample with no phrase on it. After freezing the water and examining the frozen crystals of each container, he found that the samples with specific thoughts directed at them had changed structures. The water from the container marked “You Make Me Sick” appeared very different from the control sample and much like other samples containing polluted water crystals. Meanwhile, the sample with “Love and Gratitude” on it produced a different crystalline structure than the control sample and looked more like other samples of pure water from natural springs.

But here’s the real difference: the “You Make Me Sick” sample produced an asymmetrical, dull crystalline structure while the “Love and Gratitude” sample produced a complex, brilliant, symmetrical snowflake-shaped pattern. This experimnet has been repeated in different languages but with similar results.

The implications of this experiment are far-reaching. If our thoughts can change water outside of our bodies, what are our thoughts doing to the water in our bodies?

Dr. Emoto’s study suggests that water crystals that have been exposed to negative thoughts take on ugly expressions similar to polluted water crystals, and that water crystals that have been exposed to positive thoughts resemble beautiful, pure water crystals.

Enough science talk. In this week’s edition of the Clarion, I am criticized for making a thoughtless, sexist comment in a past editorial. But in keeping with the open forum tradition and responsibility of both this page and the Clarion in general, I will not refute or respond directly to this accusation. Instead, I aim to examine the nature of all of our thoughts, not just those that find criticism or opposition.

If we can learn anything from Dr. Emoto, it is that, quite literally, we become our thoughts. And as his work implies, whether the words are in Japanese or English, it is our thoughts that affect our environment, not the otherwise meaningless words used on the containers.

Taking these lessons in kind, it is time for us all to be a little nicer to each other, and to ourselves. Instead of looking for the negative aspects of life and dwelling upon them, we must search for the positives, and we must find them.

One of life’s paradoxes is that human beings fear change, but need it. People would rather keep doing what is familiar and likewise “safe” to them instead of doing away with comfort for a life of dynamic growth and learning.

But this paradox is upended in light of the water study. We need not make drastic changes to become dynamic individuals-in truth, we cannot become dynamic individuals by way of drastic changes at all, for those changes rarely make you a different person. We find the solution at the very root of change, and the process is very simple: to become dynamic, to change ourselves, we must only change the way we think.

We must be open to changing our thoughts. We must empower our positive thoughts by thinking them! And we must starve our negative ones by exposing the fears at their base, realizing that fear lies nowhere but in that space between our ears.

We must realize how perfect and pure we already are, and seek to embody that understanding more often, and more fully.

And finally, we must love ourselves unconditionally, without hesitation or protest, for it is only then that we can truly share in the love of others.

At the end of the day, no matter how much water we have in our bodies, it is our minds that we must make healthy.

For it is you alone who chooses how much love you have in your life.