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Awareness to Awareness – Essay 3
By Mathias Freese At a summer’s writers conference in Athens State University inAlabama, I was on a panel with a media specialist [Caylah Coffeen of Creative Cornerstones] and two other writers. The panel met after I had taught a workshop on self-awareness — or what Khrishnamurti called the awakening of intelligence which was the theme of my last book, Again. Again and Again. In passing one professor who had observed my class told me I was a “hoot,” a direct quotation. At 83 I felt I was no man’s conditioned slave; I was express, full and replete. A lifetime of…
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Say it to the World Relentlessly – Essay 2
By Mathias Freese Listening Now to Puccini’s Aria, Che gelidamanina Sung by Alfredo Kraus Tis a riddle. How to sustain my innermost feelings about all things as Ievanesce into atoms that have long composed my bodily self. As Ireflect about the major chords in my existence, one looms most. It isthe passion of the mind; the other, an intense personal constellation ofemotional feelings made up of many parts that touches my being, andso moves me to express emotions, to feel them intensely. Pavarottisings his Nessun Dorma — and so do I in my fashion. Since I firstrecognized this within myself,…
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From Father to Son, with Love – Essay 1
By Mathias B. Freese I am in Chicago now. I left to visit my son, Jordan; Mary, my wife,wanted to see her sister, Jenny, after many years away from herhometown. By Lake Michigan, a vast expanse from shore, with itsfertile coastal area and abundant wild life — rabbits nonchalantlysquatting mutely and a flock of unruly geese surrounding one coupleon a park bench, I sat with my son going over my edits in his latestscreenplay. That was not the bone of the matter. I had shared with him that I ammortal man; that he should consider seeing me more frequently; thatair…
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David’s Sling
By Mathias B. Freese As an undergrad and American history major at Queens College, 1958 to 1962, I recall reading in a text by Henry Steele Commager, his observation that Churchill represented an “antique courage” during the early years of WW II. He remarked that Churchill essentially accomplished what Edward R. Murrow described as “to mobilize the English language and send it off into battle.” I remember well this rhapsody after watching Gary Oldman’s magnificent portrayal of Churchill in the 2017 “The Darkest Hour.” If you know little of this wondrous actor, seek out “The Professional” or “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” to…