Huffington Post - Do you do your homework?

AQUAMANTRA loves being a water to talk about. Write about us, doubt us, call us names, and in the end... you're still talking about us. We're the company moving forward, taking risks and forging new thought into the future. The paradigm is changing and I wish journalists could figure that out, and check their facts- Please! Today I just happen to google us and I found a place our name came up, in an article by Elaine Shannon from the Huffington Post talking about Eco-chic? Or cheap chic? - which would have been a great insertion for the bold move of our stance on creating new biodegradable and recyclable bottles. Instead, I find her calling us the silliest water in a test created by the EWG- Environmental Working Group. They've done a survey on bottled water, Fabulous! Yeah, an F for Fabulous, cuz that's what they gave us! Even though under our Taste the Difference button it clearly stated how our water is filtered, from the spring and it even had our bottled water analysis- and if you actually google us you could find in FineWaters.com our analysis as well. Appears, we need to post the below paragraph on the back of our bottle in order to get a rating that is worthy of the EWG.

How is AQUAMANTRA created and filtered?
Our source Spring Water comes from Palomar Mountain Spring, near San Diego, California. Stainless steel tankers transport the water between the mountain and the production facility. The Natural Spring Water is transferred from the tanker through FDA and NSF approved channels, filtered through a one micron absolute filter to remove any single celled protozoan type microorganism, passed through a high intensity Ultra Violet light to destroy any bacteria,and then stored in stainless steel holding tanks. Prior to bottling the water is again treated with high intensity Ultra Violet light, filtered through a one micron absolute filter, Ozonated to sanitize the water, and filtered again with a 0.2 micron absolute filter.

She goes on to report : "Well, guess what. A bunch of humble, big-box-store, mass-market brands like Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice (B), Nestlé's Pure Life (B) and Ozarka (B), and Walgreens (C) scored best for disclosure and advanced treatment."

Seriously? or is that who paid the most money? Seems some things haven't changed. We love that Elaine Shannon called us silly, it is our goal to inspire people to live outside the boundaries of quote unquote reality. Silly is a great adjective for AQUAMANTRA, I'd rather be the company accused of that then affecting people's lives with bad water, which is what an F rating sounds like. However, that is not that case at all. And below is a letter from one of our advisors to the EWG, who did do her homework on our water let alone all kinds of waters. Is that what the internet has come to just empty facts of untruth? C'mon, we should have more value in what we write then just surface fluff. The scary thing is Elaine wrote this article this year, and this survey was done last year, which means that when she wrote her Eco-Shic? article, she had to have looked at our website and known that we launched the 1st EVER 100% Biodegradable and 100% Recyclable Bottle water that is not PLA, and didn't even include that in her article. And to think I really thought that the Huffington Post was a place I wanted to align with, knowing the background of Ms. Huffington herself -surely she would be proud of an entrepenuer who tried to change the bottled water landscape with a green bottle and excellent water. Instead, all we get noticed for is sillyness. Well, I hope the future is filled with more research filled and authentic journalist than slapsticks who take every SURVEY at face value without doing their homework...

Another slap on the forehead! Why do we even try? Because we can. What else is possible?

Here's the letter our Advisor wrote to the EWG:

Sharon Lindsey here and I knew that I recognized your name as I had spoken to you last year about the EWG study that I got on Google Alerts which analyzed bottled waters from different bottled water suppliers around the country. The overall conclusion of the study which you led, stated that tap water was as safe as bottled water. In our conversation I was curious to know if you and your research team were aware prior and during the study that many of the bottled waters you studied came from municipal water systems which carry the EPA warning statements for the immune compromised stating that it is important to consult your physician and health care provider before drinking municipal tap water because it may be harmful and even life-threatening. I clearly remember you were not aware at that time of this warning statement which is posted on 99.9 percent of municipal tap waters annual reports and websites and a large percentage of bottled waters that come from municipal water systems. Many of the bottled waters your reviewed also carry the same warning statement because it is not safe for the immune compromised to drink.

I am very disturbed to see that EWG is still perpetuating this same misinformation which was recently published on the Huffington Post in which Elaine Shannon used your studies to base her article and negatively rate companies such as Aquamantra giving the water an "F" grade. After I contacted you last year and realized that your study was flawed, I did exhaustive personal research on my own and I chose Aquamantra as a water for me to drink for the primary reason, IT IS SAFE TO DRINK FOR THE IMMUNE COMPROMISED, and a water which surpasses EPA standards. What a shame and a dis-service to your readers and the public who trust your work to not correct this error and omission.

Since finding Aquamantra, I have literally volunteered to try and help them clear this mis-information up as I this kind of reporting is disgraceful and in my personal experience, their product is stellar. The CEO of Aquamantra forwarded me the blog article from Ms. Shannon and I did not put all the pieces together until now. If nothing else, I believe Aquamantra is owed a retraction as the comments in the Huffington Post are of defaming nature. Ms. Shannon can have her opinion about the Mantras on the water which is clearly her opinion, but studies conducted by Dr. Emoto showed that the energy of thought can permeate the molecular structure of water and other living organisms...such as the studies Norman Cousins conducted on psychonueroimmunology ( the mind-body connection, what we think can negatively or positively effect our bodies) at the UCLA School of Medicine. I conducted several workshops based on "positive thought" and upon the recommendation of Mr. Cousins for patients hospitalized in UCLA's eating disorder unit in the 80's with great success. The field of Pyschonueroimmunology is now widely accepted in the medical world, especially in the field of cancer recovery. While I am sure that Norman Cousins was doubted by others for his own personal experience of healing his illness through laughter and positive thoughts, he had the ability to scientifically prove it at one of the leading universities in the world and become the pioneer of the science of the mind-body connection.

In closing, I hope that future articles and studies released by EWG, contain information that is more accurate and based on the diligent attempts to uncover and disseminate detail and truth.

In Health,
Sharon Lindsey

What's the Recycle-ution? A revolution of change - caring about our planet

We all must care about the planet we decided to inhabit on right? WRONG. Some of us work extra hard to educate, motivate and share the impact of recycling and then there's lots of us who think that littering is still okay? Are these people for real?

This Monday the 21st there's a world wide event - a live broadcast and docu-film about The Age of Stupid - Will people in the future call our time the age of stupid? Or will humanity find a solution to the world’s most urgent problem? You decide! Check out the website http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/OriginalPrograms/AgeofStupid.aspx and find a theater near you to watch it. This is a fabulous way to educate the masses and I hope it works. One of my other favorite films is Idiocracy, as comical as it is, it seems this is how humanity thinks... straight stupid.

I'm going to share the story of how I started a campaign to educate about recycling and its evolution into a movement, that hopefully will have an impact on our planet in a positive capacity. I happen to live in a gorgeous neighborhood, near Dana Hills High School. Every year a new crop of students park in front of my home, where they smoke and hide from the school narcs and jet off to school. And every year I get upset because they just litter on the ground, plastic bottles. This a giant pet peeve of mine, seeing as I moved mountains to be the first company to have biodegradable bottles - not wanting to be part of the mounds of plastic bottles litter in the landfills. These teenagers, unconsciously or anti-consciously as I like to call them just drop their trash on the ground, as if someone else is going to pick it up for them. What they don't realize is that it ends up in the ocean and kills far more than just creatures. Last year I had an idea to make a video with the local high school about recycling, I felt if they actually made the film then they might actually care about their school and the grounds around it when their done. I spoke to friend of mine, Gina Rene and asked her to share her gift of amazing vocals by writing a song about Recycling. How lucky was I? She said yes, and I shared my vision of a world where people become the movement of change, picking up bottles and recycling them not just throwing them in the trash. Gina wrote this song alright, she kicked ass on it! The coolest hippest song I've ever heard about recycling ( you can download it free at www.aquamantra.net/iamthesolution.html ) and hence the journey began. I reached out for people to help make the video, as the high school didn't have room in the curriculum to produce it. Time moved on and much happened within our company and we never made the video. Recently though, Gina and I have teamed up to bring the message out to the youth. She's performing at the Abbot Kinney Festival Sept. 27th in Venice, California at the little kids stage at 1:00pm and we're going to shoot a preliminary video there to start the motion. Now where does that leave us?

As I walked my dogs tonight around the neighborhood, I saw not one or two plastic bottles on the ground, I saw at least 15! Really people? Are you so lazy that you can't even put your beverage empty in the trash? Are we really a nation of such stupidity that we think a "Trash-Fairy" is going to come and pick it up for us? This is the kind of observation of humanity that takes me BEYOND- Beyond my own comprehension in 2009, where people are so oblivious that they actually believe throwing it on the ground is a solution. All I can hope for is that through movements like our Recycle-ution campaign ( check out http://www.aquamantra.com/ for updates) and movies like The Age of Stupid and people talking to teenagers, that we clean up our act, for the planet's sake. She's done so much for us and asked so little in return. For crying out loud, even my dog picks up plastic bottles!

If you have any ideas for our Recycle-ution campaing, just make comments here and we'll try and incorporate them into our program! Blessings! Alexandra

TIME TO FIND YOUR JOY!

When do you actually stop and take inventory of your happiness? Have you ever? Is it something that you have ever even thought about? I'm going to share my most recent experience that created an amazing shift for me and hopefully, it will help you question where's your bliss?

My company AQUAMANTRA is all about creating your reality. We are the creators by what we think, what we say and how we react. Whether we can go with the flow or we fight it all the way? I've always been an optimist, and will gladly admit that sometimes the glass is overflowing for me... I like it that way. Recently, some things have been happening however, that have given me grave reason to question what is it I'm creating for myself? I've never actually had any issues with money as in receiving it, but recently I noticed a pattern of people not paying me back, people not performing as promised, people lying about what is happening. It started about 3 months ago, and since then it has made my job/life that much more challenging. Keep my little company moving forward has been a lifetime of challenges, a choice you make an entrepreneur forging the way.. not really knowing the right way, just the way moving forward. So when you introduce new people who are supposed to support you into your mix, and they don't do what they promised, then you have to watch over them and support them and train them and educate them, on top of an already challenging job. I didn't actually take into account my happiness in all of this. I was beginning to get very frustrated with everyone, including my husband even though he had nothing to do with any of this. Last week, I had to take a closer look at what I was creating, why was I creating this? And most importantly, how can I shift this so I'm not attracting these people or experiences to me.

I've had the privilege of listening to Wendy Kennedy who channels a collective of light being called the Pleadians. They usually have good information to listen to so I took some time to download the 2 hour free radio program on the radio show Journey's with Rebecca : http://www.journeyswithrebecca.com/archives_09.html - and what I learned on there, was not entirely new information for me, yet the delivery was profound because I was ready to receive it. She talked about how life is layed out like a harp and each chord represents a different 'frequency' or vibration that we are vibrating to. When we are on the lower chord, that is what people, places and experiences we're willing to receive. When we're on the higher chords or frequency's that is what we'll receive and we are the only ones who can generate that shift. I know its just that easy... I guess I just needed to receive the awareness that I HAD to make the shift or my life was going to keep attracting drama. The drama actually started for me in February when an awnry person in my organization tried to create a coo and kick me out of my own company I generated. She attacked me, my skills and my efforts and created a sense of unrest and mistrust within my organization. I spent the last 4 months, trying to make everyone happy by bringing other people in to help and in the process, lost any joy in my creating because I was deferring my potency to others. Its no fun when people blame you for their own insecurities, I see now my mistake was allowing that energy to permeate into my organization and my experiences. So now... I am listening to the download and it talks about manifestation. Imagine a sky scraper and we're on the the rooftop. When we want to manifest something we hold in our hands a boomerang that is our vision, mine is to align with people who want to take our company to the next level and who want to make this world a better place than when they arrived. So I toss out my boomerang and wait for universe to bring it back. But what happens? People throw accusations at you, you start to question what your own dream is, you might work harder and do everything you can to please everyone ( which by the way never works!) and then... you look up and you're on the 32 floor. The boomerang comes back as promised and your stuck on the 32 floor, saying where is it Universe? Where's my dream? And then you have to get back up there and throw the boomerang again. So what the Pleadians recommend is to raise your frequency, how do we do that? Find our joy, find what makes us happy and do that. For reals? That's all we have to do? That can't be that hard... so I stopped and took a moment to do an inventory of what brings me joy and what I discovered was that I didn't even know what brings me joy anymore. I have been working my whole life, dedicated to making a difference but hadn't stopped to find out what it was for me? Get your pads out and start writing you'll be surprised. Then its no wonder we're not getting everything we want, our frequency is on that lower chord dishing us crap cuz that's what we're creating! If its not rewarding, why the f@! are we doing it? So the next day after I discovered this, I was dedicated to my Joy. I woke up and let my puppies jump in bed and hug and kiss me for 15 minutes. I soaked in the pure unconditional love and allowed it to permeate through all of me. Then I thought of 5 things I'm grateful for and really got into the space of that, so grateful. I was committed to finding my joy. If I have joy, then whatever happens outside of me can't drag me down because I am spreading love and happiness around me, how does it get any better than that? The next day I worked, and there was some stress but I focused on being happy and just bringing joy to even that accomplishing, cleaning up the mess that had been created by the people who attempted to work for us. Then comes labor day weekend. We had no plans and not a lot of money, but by Thursday I had plans for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, I told my friends my job that day was to find my joy! It started out on my friends patio sipping mimosas and eggs Benedict with Salmon. We meandered over to a little boat to cruise the harbor, the sun was deliciously soaking us up while we scooted around the harbor. We saw Sea Lions right next to us, jumping fish and jelly fish swimming all around us. Later we jumped in the ocean and swam around I was definitely finding my joy, as you can see the big smile on my face in the picture. I had a moment where it looked a bit challenging to get hoist myself back in the boat with no landing on the back. I sat in the water and held on the edge, pondering what it would take to get me in the boat easily. Just then a speed boat scooted by us and created a few waves, my captains, cursed the guy and got upset, while I stayed present in my awareness and thought, I'm going to use the gravity of the wave to hoist my big ole booty in the boot. Everyone was focused on that boat and launched myself with the help of the amazing water, right into the boat. They said he was rude I was grateful. My joy frequency was working for me! We cruised around, we picked up dinner and had the most amazing feast! The next day I watched a movie I had wanted to see for a long time, then cruised down to the Del Mar race track for some races and a free Ziggy Marley concert - which was a full house of love and peace energy. I'm going to be riding this wave a lot longer and promise to remind myself daily, is this rewarding? or bringing me joy? Or is this dragging my frequency down? I highly suggest you listen to the download and make an inventory of what brings you happiness. Its really quite simple and funny if you think about it. Hmmmm. Do things that make me happy and bring joy to the things that you don't necessarily love to do. How we approach it, is how we will receive it! Man, I must've said it 50 times this weekend. I Love my life... It's been a while since I said that. THANK YOU Mrs. P

Follow your bliss and the boomerang will come back.

Love and Blessings, M-Alexandra