Dramatic introduction

Today is the composer Gustav Mahler’s birthday. Mahler is deep, deep inside me. When Isaac was just barely 24 hours old (29+ years ago), JB and I were sitting on our bed with Isaac between us, our hands resting on his small sleeping body, watching/ listening to Zubin Mehta conduct Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony #2 on our very small black and white tv tuned in to our public television channel. This was the first time we had ever heard this piece of music. The two of us were in tears. Practically sobbing. I’ll never know whether it was simply the power of the music or rather the emotional largesse of just having given birth, but I don’t think I have ever felt so connected (to the universe, to my family), so much a part of the design of nature and life, and so very much in the present moment. Absolutely in the now. It was ecstatic.

Even now when I listen to this piece of music, my eyes water and I am completely transported, totally immersed in the present, especially when the choir and soloists sing, feeling as if I were connected with the entire cosmos, egoless, in absolute awe of the sacredness of the moment.

What a dramatic introduction for our son.

(At the top of the post is the last movement of the Resurrection Symphony #2 conducted by Zubin Mehta himself.)