Water, when it is alive, creates this spiralling, convoluting motion to
retain its coolness and maintain its vital inner energies and health.
It is thus able to convey the necessary minerals, trace elements and
other subtle energies to the surrounding environment. Have you
noticed how refreshing and enlivening it is to sit by a healthy bub-
bling stream?
Naturally flowing water seeks to protect itself from the damag-
ing direct light of the Sun. The reason that you find trees and shrubs
growing on the banks of streams is not from people planting them,
but because the energies from the flowing stream facilitated their
growth there, to shade the water. When a stream is able to maintain
its energies, it will rarely overflow its banks. In its natural motion,
the faster it flows, the greater its carrying capacity and scouring
ability and the more it deepens its bed (Fig. 8.2).
Schauberger discovered the reason for this — that in-winding,
longitudinal spiral vortices form down the central axis of the cur-
rent, moving alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise. The nature
of inwardly-spiralling vortical movement is to cool. So these com-
plex water movements constantly cool and re-cool the water, main-
taining it at a healthy temperature, leading to a faster, more laminar,
spiral flow, ejecting or transforming undesirable substances.
As the stream gets bigger, it is less able to protect itself from
light and heat, and it begins to lose its vitality and health, and with
this its ability to energize the environment through which it passes.
Fig. 8.2. A longitudinal vortex showing
laminar flow about the central axis.
The coldest water filaments are always closest to
the central axis of flow. Thermal stratification
occurs even with minimal differences in water
temperature. The central core water displays the
least turbulence and accelerates ahead, drawing
the rest of the water-body in its wake.- THE NATURE OF WATER 113