Good Vibrations

When I was young, my Italian "Grandma Teresa" taught me how to make pizzelles. Those delightful, crunchy waffle cookies laced with anise flavoring were always a favorite. 

As she was teaching about pizzelles, her other baking advice is something I’ve never forgotten. She told me that melted butter had a different chemical composition than solid butter and if you wanted crunchy cookies, you melted the butter. 

It wasn’t til years later that I recognized that bit of wisdom in two ways: (1) melted butter will make my chocolate chip cookies crunchy too! Ugh! How I hate crunchy chocolate chip cookies! (2) I realize how smart my grandmother was to understand the words “chemical composition.” She understood chemistry! And how I hated that subject (when I was younger), too!

While my grandmother had great baking advice she also taught me life lessons. The biggest? “Words can hurt.” 

Now that I don’t hate science I see the wisdom in that lesson as well. 

I’ve often talked about water and how it reacts to words (see blog The Power of Words) as seen by Dr. Masaru Emoto’s crystals.

But does water really understand words? Maybe it reacts to the wavelengths of the phonetic vibrations. 

Each sound has a different wavelength, so perhaps another of water’s traits is how it reacts to the invisible wavelengths of sound.

Our bodies are made up of around 60-70 percent water on a given day. The liquid nourishes our cells, helps with production of new cells, and aids in every other function of our body. 

I remember as a child being fascinated watching the waves of a mountain lake submit to the raging winds. Is it any different with sound waves? Sound vibrations penetrate us just as other invisible waves. Perhaps this is where “words hurt” comes into play even more.

We typically think that mean and angry words hurt our psyche. Is there a chance the wavelengths of words increase our body stress because of their negative wavelengths? 

We’ve all seen the studies that show when plants are spoken to, they flourish. I used to think that was wacky. But now when we remember that all life contains water, maybe it’s not so unbelievable. Plants aren’t “smart” but the water inside reacts to wavelengths just as water on a wind-driven lake. 

Remember Dr. Masaru Emoto’s work? He speaks words to water then freezes it to see what crystals form. If the words are positive, like “thank you,” or “I love you,” the water produces beautiful ornate crystals. If the words are ugly like, “I hate you,” the crystals are completely malformed. 

This means that the water before it was frozen was affected by the wavelengths of the words. What profound trait water contains!

The idea that water reacts to words—where ever that water may be--means my grandmother’s wisdom takes on a whole new meaning. Yes, don’t melt the butter if you want soft cookies, but… 

“words can hurt” takes on a whole new dimension as well. When I speak unkind words, I am not only affecting the other person’s emotional well being, I am also affecting their physical well being. 

Mother Teresa said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

She was way ahead of her time or maybe she and my grandmother used to talk about chemistry and physics... 

Either way I’ve learned both Grandma Teresa and Mother Teresa were pretty smart cookies.