What Was Your Mother Thinking: The power of energy, nature & motherhood

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

The Journey

Family

Research with Newborn

Dr. Emoto and the Power of Water

Stress

Spirits and Spirituality

Sexuality and Gender Identity

Women, Domestic Violence, and War

Stories of Heart and Other Miracles

All Creatures Great and Small

Healing Sounds and Music

Conclusion

The Meaning of Life

Bibliography

About the Author

What Was Your Mother Thinking

The power of energy, nature & motherhood

A. Christina Liczbinski

Copyright © 2024 A. Christina Liczbinski

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-89308-379-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89308-380-4 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

In memory of my loving, devoted, and exceptional parents, Elsa and Xavier

And my beloved daughters, Leslie and Frances

By permission of the office of Dr. Masaru Emoto, LLC, Research

The Journey

It was a bright and sunny day in March of 1985. As I sat in the rehearsal hall at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, I could feel my deceased father's presence as my mind recalled his words: I will surround you with the wisdom and talents of famous people. It was an uncanny awareness and a comfortable familiarity. His arms embraced me as I watched a rehearsal of Puccini's opera Tosca. With Franco Zeffirelli directing and Placido Domingo in the role of Cavaradossi, I heard my father's urging to look at this unforgettable performance. Take in this beautiful music and that great voice with every fiber of your being.

Attending a rehearsal at the Met was limited to a handful of employees, guests, and students such as myself. Spellbound, I sat listening to the famous tenor's rich, golden voice, knowing it to be one that has brought audiences to their feet with standing ovations in opera houses across the globe. As the act concluded and scene changes were taking place, Mr. Domingo stepped into the rehearsal hall to meet some friends seated close behind me. He spoke freely, greeting people all around him, and his magnificent voice and conversation carried easily the short distance to my seat. Shortly thereafter, as he returned to the stage, he glanced my way, and I acknowledged his attention with a smile. At the end of the next act, he returned to where I was seated, greeted me, and shook my hand. Just who might you be? he asked with a twinkle in his eyes and a warm smile.

During that brief moment of our conversation, I noticed, more than anything, the energy this artist exuded. This was an encounter with a performer of amazing charisma, knowledge, and experience whose eyes reached my soul. I have rarely met anyone with such powerful, magnetic, and riveting energy. Held captivate by his personality for a few seconds, I explained that I was a guest student in the makeup department and felt privileged to have the honor to meet him.

This wonderful, brief opportunity of study at the Metropolitan had been arranged for me by Richard Owens, my friend and the artistic director of the Orlando Opera Company where, in addition to the Palm Beach Opera and the Jacksonville Opera in Florida, I was the key designer for all the wigs and makeup for nine years and forty-five operas. During those years, I took advantage of the opportunity to observe the multifaceted characteristics of many notable personalities in the performing arts.

What is it that gives some people such power of attraction and irresistible fascination? This question returned to my mind on many occasions as I encountered people in all walks of life, especially famous celebrities in the world of entertainment where I have now been engaged for nearly fifty years. The question led me on a journey to learn more about the energy that surrounds us. I was moved to delve into the factors that enter into the development of our personalities, our emotions, and the very psyche of who we are; how we live our lives; and the ways in which we interact with the world around us.

I shall never forget the Christmas production of Amahl and the Night Visitors directed by the famous composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who wrote the story as well as the music for this classic work. In the opera company, it was the custom for the production staff to have dinner with all the principal artists involved in its current production. Such an occasion was a means to get to know each other and to get a clear sense of our artistic collaboration. I met Mr. Menotti on one of those occasions.

Even at the age of eighty, this passionate artist demonstrated an electric charisma in his every move. He sat beside me at dinner, charming and polished in style and manner—a gentleman of great presence. He explained to me in minute detail exactly how each of the characters should appear, reminding me at the end, I want to use the beard of a wizard, not one like a Santa Claus. And that was exactly what I created for the three wise men.

Maestro Menotti's remarkable presence was very different from my favorite grand opera designer/director, Franco Zeffirelli, who I watched as he intently and flawlessly directed Placido Domingo on that sunny day at the Met. Zeffirelli was no less brilliant but, in contrast, was humble, kind, and generous.

I often pondered what it was that makes world-famous artists so exciting yet so different. The question never left me alone. Of course, it is their heritage, their education, their endless training and experiences, and the world in which they live. Throughout most of their careers, they travel to every corner of the world, they learn their craft in many languages, and they appear effortlessly in their performances.

Placido Domingo, for example, can memorize a complete opera in six different languages within a week. Born in Spain, his parents were zarzuela performers, and at the age of seven, he joined them in this Spanish song and dance classic. He has given more than six hundred opera performances at the Metropolitan Opera House.

These energetic artists are surrounded by other greats who electrify each other. All their knowledge and their experiences are contained in their bodies. Each experience triggers the receptors of many thousands of cells, and when this happens repeatedly and more information is stored and contained in the water of each cell, more energy is created. The information seems to be in every part of their bodies because the entire body has a memory. The artists feel every note, every vibration. When the brilliant maestro Anton Coppola conducted Tosca for us at Orlando Opera, he had every note and word memorized; he rarely ever looked at his score.

Adria Firestone was one of the most memorable leading ladies I encountered during my nine years at the opera. She was an international star of exquisite beauty whose crowning glory was a cascade of sumptuous raven-black curls. As a modern-day philosopher, with a vibrancy only live opera can create and a voice sweet as honey, her passion and love for this art form came from her very soul and electrified every stage on which she appeared. For forty years, she performed in operas across the world, and I know that many critics agree that she was the ultimate interpreter of Bizet's Carmen. Her spirit soared with every note as though she was born to sing.

I'm led to believe that her Italian and Spanish heritage is, indeed, a rich and brilliant history contained in her DNA. The story goes that when her grandmother first saw her in her crib, she correctly predicted that Adria possessed a special radiance and a remarkable spirit.

Some people can walk into a room and take command of it without saying a word. They are as multifaceted and brilliant as a polished diamond. We tend to flock around them, waiting and hanging on their every word. And there is, as well, that mysterious moment when two people see each other across that proverbial crowded room and immediately feel a special energy pass between them.

One morning, while working in a recording studio, I suddenly thought of Mary Kadderly, a jazz and blues singer with whom I had worked many times. We had become good friends, though I had not seen her in several months. A moment later, as I turned the corner into a little break room, there she stood. I had no idea she was recording in the same studio, but I felt her presence and her energy before I saw her that day. Most of us have had similar and unexplainable incidents: you reach for the telephone to call a friend, and in that split second, the phone rings, and that person is on the line.

I have been fortunate to have parents whose every action, both professionally and socially, had a calm and serene energy about it—a unity of mind and spirit. These qualities and that energy of their souls have led me to seek out others with the very same gifts. My mother and father poured their passion for music and the arts into me long before I was born, and the deep love they had for each other extended to me, wrapped itself around me, and has stayed with me to this day.

By permission of the office of Dr. Masaru Emoto, LLC, Research

Family

My father was born in Breslau, the capital of the province of Silesia in Germany. He was a famous musician, well-known for his stage name, Frank Saveri and His Royal Commanders, which had its origin in his given name, Francis Xavier Liczbinski. A soloist and bandleader, he played more than a dozen instruments, spoke seven languages, and was an artist who painted with the expertise and charm to equal Norman Rockwell. When he was not making movies at the Bavaria Studios in Munich in the 1930s, he was performing with his jazz band at High Tea dances and appearing frequently on popular radio programs throughout Europe.

There truly was no end of his talents. In his spare time, he built miniature railroads to scale, complete with compartments and WCs equipped with tiny rolls of toilet paper. A man of exquisite taste in fashion, food, wines, and even ladies' perfumes, he helped Mother and me select some of our special dresses. He escorted us both to a fashionable ladies' dress shop, where we would select our favorite gowns and model them for him. With an unerring sense for perfection, he picked out the best ensemble requiring that it must be a complementary color and drape just perfectly to flatter the body's movements. This was my dad.

My parents enjoyed a large circle of friends and entertained at the drop of a hat. I was accustomed to celebrities coming to our home wherever we lived. My mother was a gracious lady of Danish descent, and her natural beauty equaled that of Ingrid Bergman. Mother's father was an opera singer who often performed at the Hamburg State Opera in the late 1800s, and the love of great music and drama was deeply rooted in her genes. From the day she was old enough to sit still for several hours, she listened to her father perform at the opera. Her mother was an educated lady who made her career in the nursing profession. She loved good music and took her only child to concerts and operas. As long as she lived, my mother clearly recalled the overpowering performance of Wagner's Die Goetterdaemmerung at the age of ten. The memory of this dramatic, magic musical adventure remained with her for eighty years. Thanks to her mother's joy and appreciation of good music, the resonating vibrations of these great sounds touched countless receptors in her body long before she was born.

My parents met in 1936 at the German premiere of the grand, classic movie It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Mother was a sound mixer, recording the German voices for American films for UFA (Universal Film Company). My father, with his jazz band, was the star attraction and entertainment for that evening. At the premiere party, two film directors, Ernst Lubitsch and Hans Mertens, asked my father who he would like to meet. As he scanned the elegant array of beautiful women, his eyes fell on my mother, and she became his instant choice. The two met and talked for hours into the night. The rest is history. The happy couple married in December of 1937 in Munich, Germany.

But times turned chaotic and difficult. As the power of Hitler's regime became more and more ominous, anyone of moral consciousness could see it and feel it—a vicious cancer spreading through the land. No one really believed that such evil power could raise its ugly head and actually exist among civilized people until it was too late.

During the 1920s and throughout the turbulent 1930s, Father and his jazz dance band performed in famous nightclubs and well-known resorts, including The Four Seasons, The Vaterland, and Bon Bonaire. His presence, his sparkling performances always filled the clubs to overflowing. With his sympathy not in Hitler's court, it was his habit to warn his audiences when Nazis or SS officers came in the clubs. He would play a particular song of alert known to the resistance. Even though American music was not permitted during the ravages of Hitler's powerful, controlling stranglehold on Germany, my father paid no heed and played the American song Don't Fence Me In. At other times, he chose medleys of popular songs that had made their way across the Atlantic and let the music be the messenger of danger. As a man of great integrity, a sense of