Today I venture outside the realm of home water filters to explore an interesting phenomenon dubbed the Avatar blues.

First of all, if you haven’t seen the movie Avatar yet, I urge you to go see it. This is one movie you’ll want to see in the theater.

If you’ve already seen the movie, you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that many viewers are leaving the theater feeling sad, depressed, and even suicidal. CNN reported on the Avatar blues recently and published several comments from fan forum sites.

“I wasn’t depressed myself. In fact the movie made me happy,” said Philippe Baghdassarian. “But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don’t have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed.”

As CNN describes it, “the world of Pandora is reminiscent of a prehistoric fantasyland, filled with dinosaur-like creatures mixed with the kinds of fauna you may find in the deep reaches of the ocean. Compared with life on Earth, Pandora is a beautiful, glowing utopia.”

Indeed, the 3D film shows us the majestic beauty of floating mountains and allows us to sense the serenity of a forest glowing with bioluminescence.

“I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place,” wrote Ivar Hill of Sweden. “But I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality.”

I would like to suggest that maybe we don’t need to escape reality; maybe we simply need to dive into reality and truly experience it. It can be easy to lose touch with reality – with nature – when we’re constantly immersed in television, twitter, and facebook.

Do you remember the scene in Avatar in which Sam first walks outside in his avatar body? He runs barefoot, elated, and his toes kick up dirt. When was the last time you ran barefoot and felt the soil between your toes?

Pandora is not just a fantasy world of unreal beauty. It is a reflection of the beautiful, real world in which we currently live. In fact, those floating mountains were inspired by the Huang Shan Mountains in China. And if you travel deep into the Southern Appalachian Mountains, far away from all artificial lights, you’ll see the blue-green glow of foxfire, a type of bioluminescent fungi that grows on wood.

But it’s not just the physical beauty of Pandora that makes moviegoers wish they were there. It’s the spiritual connection between the people of Pandora and their environment. The Na’vi share the same biological makeup as the other living creatures on their planet. They can even physically connect to some animals and plants through the neural tendrils at the tips of their hair braids. The Na’vi respect each other, all forms of life, and their environment. They recognize that their environment is part of their identity.

Actor Stephen Lang (who plays Colonel Miles Quaritch in the film), commented, “Pandora is a pristine world, and there is the synergy between all of the creatures of the planet, and I think that strikes a deep chord within people. That has a wishfulness and a wistfulness to it.”

“Ever since I went to see Avatar I have been depressed,” wrote a forum user named Mike. “Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na’vi made me want to be one of them. I can’t stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it. I even contemplate suicide, thinking that if I do it, I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora.”

I have a message for you, Mike: You are already living in a world similar to Pandora! No need to off yourself. The beauty of nature is all around you, but you have to make an effort to experience it. You cannot experience the beauty of foxfire by downloading images on firefox. It’s just not the same. You’ve got to get your feet dirty.

Furthermore, we humans are similar to the Na’vi. Okay, so we can’t physically connect with others via neural tendrils, but we have an amazing bundle of nerves in our cranium that allows us to connect with others through empathy, compassion, humor, and love.

I think that the Na’vi show us, as a society, what we might have been like in the past and who we might become in the future. Will we continue to disregard our spiritual connection to our environment? Will we continue to poison our planet and our bodies? Perhaps we will realize that we can have our own Pandora here on Earth by respecting all forms of life – focusing on what we share rather than how we are different – by living with purpose, and by experiencing the beauty all around us.

Happy New Year! The year 2010 has started with a bang here at AmbrosiaWaterFilters.com.

We’re proud to report that the “Health Ranger” Mike Adams featured our Aquasana glass water bottles in his 2010 New Year’s Health Product Discount Guide at NaturalNews.com.

We’re big fans of Mike Adams here at AmbrosiaWaterFilters.com, and we’re honored that Mike is a fan of our products!

Here’s the description in the NaturalNews.com product guide:

These stylish glass water bottles come in a pack of 6. Each reusable bottle holds 25.4 ounces of water. At only $3.99 each, these Aquasana bottles are a real bargain! Think about it: you pay nearly as much for disposable plastic bottles that pollute your body and the environment. When you invest in reusable glass bottles, you never have to throw them away, and you can rest assured that you’re drinking chemical-free water.

MSNBC reports that bottled water sales slipped 3.2 percent in 2008 and are expected to drop another 2 percent this year.

Because of environmental concerns about plastic water bottles, many famous restaurants now serve filtered tap water instead of bottled water, and consumers are investing in reusable water bottles like glass water bottles and stainless steel water bottles.

Google has eliminated bottled water from its progressive campus, and state governments in New York, Illinois, and Virginia have banned bottled water at public events and in state offices.

“In some ways, bottled water has become the SUV of the ecological movement,” one environmental advocate told MSNBC.

But plastic water bottles don’t just pollute the environment. They pollute your body, too. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals leach into the water from the plastic. Studies show that much bottled water is no cleaner than tap water.

Want a steady supply of cost-effective, healthy water? Invest in a home water purifier.

Since our eco-friendly, non-toxic glass water bottles have been so popular, we’ve been searching for the perfect stainless steel water bottles for you. Aquasana finally delivered with their new Aqua Canteen stainless steel water bottle.

Plastic bottles – even the hard plastic water bottles – can leach hormone-disrupting chemicals like BPA into your water.

Aluminum bottles aren’t any better. They must be lined with a chemical coating to prevent aluminum from getting into your water. If you accidentally scratch the inner lining (which is typically made of plastic), aluminum will leach into your water. Aluminum toxicity can cause severe brain damage, including memory loss, speech problems, and Alzheimer’s disease. It can also cause muscle aches and osteoporosis. Scary! Stay away from aluminum bottles! They’re not worth the risk.

Stainless steel is a neutral metal that doesn’t leach. That’s why silverware and cookware are made of stainless steel. These 304 food-grade stainless steel bottles are the safest on the market. Even the lids are made from steel! (Other leading brands have plastic lids.) Your water will always remain healthy in an AquaCanteen stainless steel water bottle.

The reusable Aqua Canteen bottles are dishwasher-safe – and they’re easy on your wallet and the environment.

Did you know that there’s an island of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean that’s twice the size of Texas? It’s known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. That’s right, the world’s largest landfill consists of millions of pounds of plastic floating in the ocean near Hawaii. Stop drinking from disposable plastic water bottles! They are polluting our planet as well as your body. Research shows that bottled water is hazardous to your health.

Invest in a non-toxic, reusable water bottle today.

The New York Times reports on a study which shows that chemicals used in plastics may be linked to childhood obesity.

The long-term health study found that obese children have higher levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phtalates, which are found in plastic products; oh yes, phthalates cause cancer, too. Other research has confirmed that endocrine disruptor chemicals in plastic, like phthalates and Bisphenol A (BPA), cause mice to become more obese.

A Kanasas Department of Health and Environment study found that 46 out of 80 bottled water samples contain phthalates. These toxic chemicals leach out of the plastic bottles into the water.

When plastic bottles are thrown away (at a rate of about 30 million per day in the U.S.), they end up in landfills, where they leach hormone-disrupting chemicals into the ground water. Ironically, the bottled water industry is polluting our tap water. (Or perhaps it’s not so ironic?)

If you want non-toxic water free from chemicals that will affect your hormones (and those of your children), then you need a home water filter, and you need to store your water in glass water bottles rather than plastic bottles.

According to the 2007 article “Bottled Water’s Environmental Backlash” published in the Philadelphia Inquirer :

• 1.5 million barrels of oil are used to make a year’s worth of plastic water bottles.
• Bottled water is $10.9 billion-a-year industry in the United States.
• Americans consumed 8.25 billion gallons of bottled water in 2006. That’s an average of 28 gallons per person!
• 86 percent of water bottles – two million tons of plastic a year – wind up as litter or in landfills instead of recycling bins.

Think Outside the Bottle

As Salt Lake City Mayor Ross C. Anderson once said, bottled water “very clearly reflects the wasteful and reckless consumerism in this country.”

If you care about the environment and your health, then stop purchasing bottled water. Numerous studies have shown that bottled water is hazardous to your health. Not only is it often more contaminated than regular tap water, but the plastic itself leaches hormone-disrupting chemicals into your water.

Moreover, when you think about it, it’s absurd to pay $1.50 for a bottle of water when you can get cleaner, healthier water from your tap for just a fraction of a cent!

Home water filters provide the purest water available at the lowest price. When you need to take a bottle of water on the road, simply fill up a reusable glass water bottle with clean, healthy water from your own home.