In India it is the raw material of the universe and the Brahmanda, the cosmic egg that was laid on the surface of the waters.
The Chinese call it Wu-chi, the symbol of supreme virtue.
The ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus was convinced that the earth was a disc floating on water, while for the Romans, the springs were protected by Fons, the god of water.
This precious substance covers 71% of the earth in the form of oceans, seas, glaciers, lakes and rivers and it is the main component of the human body.
We all know that we need to drink water in order to stay well. Keeping the body hydrated means providing the brain with the water it needs to function properly, it keeps the skin youthful and elastic, in the lungs it lubricates the respiratory tracts, it enables the muscles to work quickly and efficiently, it improves blood circulation, it enables the kidneys to purify the system, the intestine to digest food better and to cleanse themselves.
Our body is a perfect machine that can exist without food for as long as a month but that cannot live for more than three of four days without water.
This means that water must pass through our body to keep it in good health, but that’s not all, every ancient civilisation turned to water to care for the body’s external covering, the skin.
The principal example, which is still alive and well today, is that of the SPA, an acronym for the Latin expression “Salus per aquam” (health through water), which brings to mind the spectacular baths in which the ancient Romans regenerated themselves in springs of hot water and steam baths of various temperatures.
These days water is the main element in courses of treatment promoting wellbeing, used in all those forms of hydrotherapy directed at keeping fit.
For example, there is thalassotherapy, treatments using sea-water, collected from the deep, filtered and rendered bacteriologically pure. Then there is the Kneipp cure, in which people walk alternately through hot and cold water, exfoliation treatments and effusion massage under light showers of thermal spring water, curative footbaths, firming sponge-downs, hydro-massage to relieve tension and muscle contraction throughout the body. Then there is the Turkish bath, the king of all water-based treatments, in this case transformed into steam. In contrast to the sauna, a bath of hot dry air, in the Hammam the humidity reaches 100%, with temperatures not exceeding 46°C.
Seated on marble or stone, enveloped in an impalpable mist, you inhale the warm steam that decongests your breathing and the heavy sweating rids the body of all toxins. Thus steam, just as water, once again plays its ancient symbolic purifying, cleansing and healing role.
