The winter season is nearly over and daylight savings time is upon us. On Sunday, we will set our clocks forward as we anticipate spring and all of the outdoor activities in which we will engage in the coming months. Although I do enjoy the warmer weather, and golf is my husband’s first love, we are bummed that we didn’t have a major snowstorm in southeastern Pennsylvania this season. There is something wonderful about being snowed in as the fire burns in our fireplace, and we sip hot cocoa and cuddle up under a fleece blanket. We love to look out our windows and view the snow-covered trees and grass in our yard. Winter allows us time to slow down our hectic pace and appreciate a simpler life – if only for a moment.

It was on one of those more frigid winter nights that we decided to lighten things up and watch a Disney animated movie. The sequel to Frozen was due to be released, so we decided to watch the original, since my husband had never seen it. He was familiar with the magical snowman, because we have a stuffed Olaf that sits next to our Christmas tree every year. We can’t help but smile when we see this Olaf’s facial expression! I loved the original film, so I insisted that Jay see it before we went to the movies to view the sequel. After having taught animation, video and audio production majors in my classes for so many years, my appreciation for 3-D animation has grown exponentially, and Frozen does not disappoint. After seeing the first installment of this adorable film, my husband was hooked. His only criticism was that Olaf needed more airtime, and he thought Disney had no choice but to rectify Olaf’s prominence in the second installment. Jay was correct, and Frozen II was a bigger hit with us than the original! In the weeks that followed the sequel, Jay kept showing me YouTube clips in which Olaf summarizes the story of the original Frozen. We couldn’t get enough of Olaf’s role-playing and all of his facial expressions, especially since the characters on the screen seemed so perplexed with Olaf’s antics. I even pre-ordered a copy of the DVD from the Disney Movie Club, and we delighted in watching it for the second time!

Whenever I see a television show or film that I really like, I cannot help but analyze the reasons why I am so impressed. As I was watching Frozen II, I was struck by a statement that Olaf made a few times on the screen: “Water has memory.” As I heard him speak, I was reminded of chapter 4 in my book, Fisher of Men. I referenced Masaru Emoto’s text, The Hidden Messages in Water. After spending most of his career conducting experiments with water, he discovered that water can “memorize information,” albeit much differently than Olaf implied in the film. Emoto placed water in vials and labeled the vials with words. He believed that the written or spoken word had tremendous power or vibration. After viewing these frozen water samples underneath a microscope, he discovered that the more positive the words were, the more beautiful or pronounced the crystals formed were. He experimented with music as well and discovered that classical music formed the most beautiful crystals as opposed to heavy metal music. Harsh words or harsh music formed only partial crystals or none at all. Since our bodies are nearly 70% water, and words have vibration or power and sound or music travels up to four times faster in water than in air, the vibrations can directly affect the health of our cells. Emoto discovered in his research of vibrations within the body that the “origin of any disease is the disturbance in the frequency within each cell. We could say that the more harmonious and the more beautiful our body’s symphony is, the healthier both the body and mind should become” (Emoto, Water Crystal Healing). His research implies that words in the form of prayer or special intentions are powerful enough to affect the health of the human body. This is further incentive to nourish our bodies with positive thoughts and meaningful music in order to elevate our vibration to that of the heavenly realm. Water can heal on so many different levels!

Water can not only place me in a more receptive state to inspiration and Divine guidance, but it inspires authors and composers from different eras as well, including Karl Reinecke. I have mentioned in past blogs that the words of my book flowed effortlessly as I typed, and that I originally intended to release an accompanying CD shortly after the book was published. I actually selected the music for the CD before I began writing my narrative. One of the pieces that I had wanted to include on the recording was Karl Reinecke’s Sonata Undine for flute and piano. Undine is a water sprite. This piece is my favorite music from the Romantic era scored for flute, and this is a live recording from the first recital I gave at The University of the Arts in April of 1993. I was 22 years old. It is near and dear to my heart, and I have thus uploaded it in its entirety to my newly redesigned website. After having taught web design students for over a decade, I took it as a personal challenge to design a site for myself that accurately reflected my passions and interests. I have finally come up with something that I now believe is presentable. Anyone can listen to my recording of Sonata Undine here: https://tdevizia.wixsite.com/website/music.

It was only after selecting the music for this accompanying CD that I delved into the legend of Undine because I was unhappy with the synopses of her story I read online. The novel, Undine, which was written by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in 1811, inspired Carl Reinecke to compose his sonata. After reading this nineteenth-century literary work, I was astonished at the manner in which the story resonated with me. It suddenly became clear as to why I connected with this piece over two decades ago. The name Undine translates “wave,” and I have been researching sound waves for years. Vibrational frequencies are being used to entrain the human energy body and promote perfect health. I discuss this in chapter two of my book. As a child, my family vacationed every year at the Jersey shore, so I enjoyed the healing power of ocean waves, which resulted in the spiritual renewal of my body and soul. I have always loved the ocean, and, as a musician, sound waves are my livelihood!

Undine is a mermaid who lives in the ocean and longs for a soul. Her heartfelt desire is to look forward to life after physical death, as all mortals do. As a water sprite, she has dominion over the waters but lacks the power to obtain eternal life. She can, however, acquire a soul by marrying a human. She thus abandons her magical underwater home and “recovers her senses on dry land,” where she is raised by a fisherman and his wife who believe their daughter has drowned.

As an adult, Undine meets a knight with whom she falls in love. They marry, and she attains her soul. She explains to her beloved that she is a mermaid and offers to return to the ocean if he does not wish to remain faithful to her for eternity. He loves her and promises his eternal fidelity, knowing that his infidelity would result in his wife having to end his life. Undine soon realizes that having a soul is a tricky thing. She consults a priest who advises her to “attune her soul that it may harmonize with that of her wedded husband.” She accepts the advice of the priest, and, upon “attuning her soul,” experiences “angelic” behavior. They are happy as a couple until the knight meets a mortal woman and grows weary of the antics of Undine’s mermaid family. Undine agrees to return to the sea to please her husband but reminds him to remain faithful to their marriage vows or else he will die. At first, he is devastated by his wife’s loss, but in her absence, decides to marry a mortal. On his wedding day, Undine returns to give him the kiss of death, and he dies in her arms. As he is laid to rest, Undine kneels at his grave. When she finally stands up, a silver spring forms, which encircles her husband’s grave. The spring is “Undine embracing her husband in her loving arms” for eternity.

I adore this story because of its celebration of eternal commitment and its emphasis on abandoning self and attuning to the vibration of others in order to experience joy. Undine is of the water and is endowed with the magical powers of the water kingdom, but her heartfelt desire is to obtain eternal life. Her key to eternity is the love of a good man, and their union makes her better than she is as a mermaid alone. It is only through union with another that we come to know the self and experience the divinity within. In an era of infinite social media connections, we are bombarded with temptations of choosing better partners, but the perfect person does not exist. Popular culture sensationalizes the dissolution of unions and does not promote longevity in relationships. Relationship growth is a lifelong process, and its rewards are eternal. It is impossible to experience that growth so essential to our life’s purpose if we give up too soon on a committed union. That is the message of Undine. When I play Reinecke’s music, I am reminded of this message. The technical passages in the score mirror the “trickiness” of relationships, and the fluid melodic lines encourage us to relax into the flow of life as we unite with another. The composer might not have consciously intended for his music to be programmatic in nature or to perfectly reflect the story of this great work of literature, but the beauty of his melodies allows this flutist to feel the bliss of eternal love and commitment. Timelessness is magical. Please enjoy my beloved music here: https://tdevizia.wixsite.com/website/music

Undine’s story of loyalty and eternal commitment actually mirrors that of Olaf, Elsa and Anna in Frozen. Elsa and Anna created Olaf as children, but it was only after Elsa grew to adulthood that she was able to magically bring the snowman to life. When Olaf introduces himself to Anna he tells her he “likes warm hugs.” He not only declares his love for the sisters several times throughout the films, but when Anna is freezing to death, he lights a fire for her, knowing full well that the heat will kill him. When she questions him, he responds, “Some people are worth melting for.” When he actually does melt, Elsa is able to work her magic once again and give him back his life. She needs him as much as he needs her. His devotion to the sisters is apparent throughout both films, and he continuously puts his life in danger to help out the girls he has come to know as family. It’s what families do for one another. In the post-credit scenes of Frozen 2, Olaf declares: “Elsa’s dead; Olaf’s dead; Anna cries. And then a bunch of important things happen that I forgot, but all that matters is that I was right, and water has memory…and thus, I live, and so do you!”

It might not be entirely scientific to literally accept that water has memory, but it has this magical ability to restore life on many different levels – physically, mentally and spiritually. It is my wish that you can feel the resurrecting powers of the Water of Life!