Category Archives: Bali

100 million for the symbolisation of the body – Balinese cremation ceremonies

Posted on by
Reply

Justify FullOn one of our first days on Bali we were spotting the sunset and suddenly found ourselves in a cemetery. I took a look at the modest tomb stones and was thinking how weird it was. I had heard before that on Bali the dead are burnt and the ashes are thrown into the sea – who are the people under ground? Some Muslims? Not very likely somebody else but a native Balinese would decorate his grandfather’s grave with a swastika.

When we were later visiting the greatest and oldest temple on Bali (Mother Temple, two photos above) there was a post cremation ceremony being held. This meant that the ashes had already been thrown into the sea and the relatives had come to the temple for the holy water. This is sprayed on them for purification after all possible sacrifices to the gods have been done. Then I heard that the burning ritual cannot be carried out right after death, it’s usual to wait for about five years. That’s what the cemeteries are for.
The purification ceremony that follows the cremation ceremony, Mother Temple

The reasons for the years long wait are mainly financial – namely, a cremation veremony costs at least 50-100 million rupees (about 5000-10 000 euros!). From where should a poor Balianese get money like that?!

Sure. That’s why the cremation ceremonies are often carried out collectively – they wait for years to have more dead people in the village and the needed 3-4 millions per a dead person is found, somehow. What is more, death is a serious business here and of course a decent person prepares for it. Just like they talk about collecting coffin money in our culture, here they collect for the cremation ceremony.

But what happens if you still don’t have the money? If the body is already buried why should it be dealt with years after, and for such an amount of money? The reason is that otherwise the soul doesn’t become free and a Balinese cannot regenerate, he’ll stay stuck somewhere between being and not being.
In my head there are pictures of grumpy Balinese with shovels and spades who’ve gathered the money needed and now have to start working on the grandfather’s grave to get the necessary bones from under the ground.

But I’m mistaking. It appears the thing is a lot more metaphysical.

They really don’t burn the dead body. Instead they light the body’s symbolisation – be it a bunch of chosen coconuts or a twig. This is what is built at the glorious ceremony which begins from the home of the dead person and with a procession they move to the carnation place where the symbolisation is put into a special dragon headed bed, which then is piled with copious donations and the sounds of the gamelan orchestra. Finally everything is lit. And once again ash falls from the sky.

The next big ceremony takes them to the sea where the ash is solemnly thrown into the waves. And last but not least, they go back to the temple to carry out an even bigger ceremony to give even more sacrifices to the gods and to get some rice grains on your forehead and your nape wet with holy water.

So, 100 million rupees for the symbolisation of the body.
At least the grandfather’s soul is free now.

The “body” of the dead is put into a dragon headed bed. Cremation ceremony in the area of Bayun lake. 
No doubt the dead is rich – this ceremony was held only for the mister in the picture. 
Sacrifices – to insure good next life. 
In minutes the whole beauty of the game is in flames. 

 Subscribe in a reader

When god takes you by the hand and brings you to good places

Posted on by
Reply
Papa Jero

It seems to me that there’s something common in the faces of the Indonesian holy men – all of them have deep wrinkles in the corners of their eyes. These are laugh wrinkles, like sun rays that seem to prove that an Indonesian holy man lives in blessed harmony, looking at the world through the healthy prism of laughter.
Papa Jero’s eyes were the same. Long beard, droopy hair and pajama-like batik patterned clothes could let me assume the uncle living in a shed in the mountains is a weird hippie. But there’s so much warmth beaming from that hippie, the smile, the eyes. His humble shack on North Bali looking at Buyan lake is always open to his guests, because when Jero has a lot to do, then Jero is happy.
Now this weird papa tells himself to be a holy man. If this was all I knew about him I’d think him to be a weirdo. But bit by bit the microcosm of the holy man opens  up to us, reveiling Hinduist colours intervened with animistic powers and Buddhist rationality.
In every expanded family there’s usually one holy man that the god has given special powers to communicate on a bit more powerful level. If there’s someone ill in the family or there’s a quarrel the holy man can help a lot. A holy man has no steady relationship with any temple but if necessary he could take part in sacred rituals. Usually the power of the holy man is passed from one generation to another. Jero got to know about his role only six years ago when somebody in his brother’s family was suffering from a difficult illness. When the family went to a farmer for consultation, as it’s proper on Bali, he’d told that in their family there already is one holy man. The threads led to Jero and in a magical way the sick became well again. This was followed by some other weir healing cases that papa Jero had to do with until people really started turning to him when they had any trouble. But not always do the methods carry fruit, Jero says honestly. Sometimes I’m lucky, sometimes I’m not. Sometimes the god talks to him, sometimes he doesn’t.
Usually when Jero feels sensation in his chest there’s somebody from the family coming over; if he feels it in his head, somebody from the village is coming; when he feels it on his hand, there’s a foreigner coming. Jero says that money isn’t the most important, health is as important, if not more. Jero understands that the god’s treat doesn’t depend on the amount of the sacrifice. “You have to believe, truly. Even a small sacrifice is a good sacrifice.”
In the morning Jero wakes up and says he has a feeling somebody’s coming. It’s less than 30 minutes later when the owner of his land arrives and waves a contract before the holy man. The contract says that papa and his family have to move because this is a place where a hotel for tourists has to be built. With a pool, of course.
But Jero doesn’t worry, he’s happy per se. He baptises all of us his children and like a modern man he says that one has to love all countries and honor all nationalities. The little papa takes his five European children, who are all much taller than he, into his jeep and drives us to the most beautiful rice fields of Bali, which have also been noticed by the protective hand of Unesco. And then we hold hands and meditate.
Our new mom cries when we drink our last morning coffee and try to ask Jero if the god is rightful and moral.
If you live your life in an honest way, truth truth truth, then god takes your hand and takes you to good places, Jero says.
That’s all.

I think I have to do a little sacrifice to god, really honestly, I’ll let him have mango and banana, truth truth truth, as papa Jero says. Because this really was a very good step of him to take us here.
Fabulous photos by Ethel Kings, Estonian photographer/painter based in Yogyakarta
@The surroundings of Buyan lake, Bali, November 2010

 Subscribe in a reader

Transdimensional refugee crib ot the white sand beach

Posted on by
Reply

A few days ago who would have known that I’m on my bike on Bali, a tropical island filled with gods, dashing from one fabulous Hindu temple to another. A week ago who would have known that we’re tracking Shiva and Vishnu or measure the transformation of Batur volcano with a local vulcanologist.The timing of this trip was set by Merapi that was spilling heat clouds and ash bombs, the company of this trip thus was put together absolutely plan free. It all happened just like the mad situation in ash grey friday decided to direct us.

In Bali people pray more, make sacrifices in a form of flowery baskets to natural powers and gods at their every step, and always organize different ceremonies either for freeing the soul of a grandfather who’s died years ago, or for a birthday of some temple or for purifying the people of Bali. This is what our local religion men say – local volcanos are at peace with the locals, it’s safe here.

Vincent and Vilmar going wild

But neither Vincent nor me were the only refugees from Yogyakarta who’d travelled to a safer ground. For example, a half of the inhabitants of our hippie castle had come to Bali, the other half had gone to Australia. Võsa and Ethel came here too. Exactly a week after the enormous eruption of Merapi the paths of the refugees crossed at a white sandy beach on Bali. We aimed to sit around fire and take the most of the local rice booze araki and then catch the fire tail of a comet and fly into the universe where everything’s possible, and then rub our sandy eyes in the morning and to swim towards the sunrise and then just to delve into water and have a silent conversation with the orange and black striped Nemos.

When at the first night we’d been the only squatters at the beach, then the next morning a whole scene of Russian Ubudi goa-trance had arrived and for the name of the half moon a mind-blowing trance party was set up. We danced in the psychedelia of the white sand tickling our toes and under the setting sun, we danced with the neon coloured nozzle of Ganeshi and in the creative-demolishing power of Shiva.
Until the roaring sky opened and suddenly heavy liquid drops started to fall. We lied in the torch light under a sparse roof and the local village men tried to refresh our senses offering us different versions of araki each being more horrible than the other. Vincent was playing Velvet Underground on the guitar. I sang about Thor, the god of the heaven.

Shiva dance, Jiffy right behind me
Me and my friends Milan and Lucia from Slovakia

I assume the latter heard us. Or was it the dance eager Shiva. But the rain stopped soon and the trance of Bali Russians took us over.
Until the sun arose again on the horizon, until we could again throw ourselves into the waves, until together with a local friend Wyn we could for hours  look for a turtle in the sea bed, until we could grill fish on the fire, until we could afford the luxury of drinking real red wine, which our senses hadn’t tasted for four months and what our local friends had never tasted. They simply don’t have money for “real” red wine (the cheapest in Indonesia costs about 15 euros). They also cannot afford going to school. Or any other stupid luxury things or many vital things. We can share a bottle of red wine with them, but I can’t afford to sent Wyn to school.

On the very last night at the beach temple I donated my last fruits – a banana and a mango, to Shiva. They shall now represent the balance of Yin-Yang, feminine-masculine balance or symbiosis, or shall they simply be the two best tropical sweets to symbolize the wonderland-weekend we’d had.

The author of the fabulous photos: Ethel Kings, an Estonian photographer/painter based in Yogyakarta
@Pasir Putih, Bali, November 2010

 Subscribe in a reader

Life is an offering – the tempting coexistence of the hedonistic consumer culture and the traditions of Bali

Posted on by
Reply

Where are you from? For how long have you been living in Indonesia? Where in Indonesia have you been to, Bali? You haven’t been to Bali? You haven’t?! 

This is how every random conversation in Indonesia began. Until the nature, namely the erupting volcano, drove me to the island of gods.

Of course Bali is the most known piece of the huge archipelago called Indonesia. There’s no Australian who has never been to Bali, or at least dreamed about a vacation there. No doubt the island is known for a reason.

It is virtually impossible to forget a fact that the village or street I’m walking on at the moment, or the warung where I sit for a second to have a coffee is on Bali – it’s an architectural paradise and ritual enchantment. At every step there’s a woman throwing rice, there are chantry baskets everywhere, at every step there are sweet incenses smoking, at every step you could trip over over a pedestal built to honour a god, or when looking for a temple you could easily find yourself in somebody’s house because sometimes they are so similar to each other.
For a long time on Bali there was no term for art because it was considered as a part of everyday life. Life is art, on Bali. Life is aesthetics. Life is chantry.

Of course Bali women don’t think in detail about the ritual things they do every day, they don’t think why is it all necessary. It’s simply a part of their day – to put baskets on pedestals, on the pavement in front a café, on a table or on a motorbikes’ seats. For the gods.
What happens if a Bali woman doesn’t do all of it? Since Bali society is community centered the group pressure mends all these glitches. A careless woman is judged, her , or at least her husband’s reputation suffers, or she loses a possibility to marry successfully in the future.
The coexistence of the contemporary consumerist culture and Bali traditions in Saminyak. 

Even in front the designer shops, luxury car salongs and gas stations in a bit modern and touristy Southern Bali (for example Kuta, Seminyak, Denpasar and in a large part Ubud as well) there are proudly standing pedestals for the gods, in every shop where there’s a freezer next to lemonades and beers there’re little baskets filled with fresh flowers for the chantries for the next day. Life doesn’t stop when you follow the ancient traditions. So, on Bali modern hedonistic consumerism has wonderfully integrated with the traditions.

Still it’s quite difficult for me to tell the named towns are “the real Bali” – the restaurants offering European cuisine, the flashing night clubs and the resort-like atmosphere that is constantly commutes between the exaltation of the night and torpidity during the day. On streets like that there are hungover Australians and whiny couples, who seem to have come to an annoying vacation and who seem to almost hate their holiday, their wives or children, strolling.
Food that an Australian tourist cannot stand – nasi putih or regular rice, sayur or salad and tempe or a soya seed cake. 

As my travelling comrade Vincent is an Italian, we thought to try good Italian food, both of us were hungry as wolves and so excited to try the tasty raviolis we had ordered. But instead, they bring us a handful of thin pasta pillows – seven all together. In good will we cut them into two and got 14. Seems a bit more, doesn’t it?

We labelled the fancy dinner a starter and went from the tourist area to “the real Indonesia”. Where warungs roll on wheels, ladies with big boobies drop bananas in dough into sizzling oil and men smoke the tarriest cigarets one could find. It might sound strange, but here I find myself a lot more at home than with the grumpy Australians in the Italian restaurant, where there’re no Italians whatsoever and where they add 15% service fee to the bill.

 Subscribe in a reader

In every gong lives a ghost, in every glowing wheel something even more than that

Posted on by
2

Imagine – there is a metal drum, the largest in the whole world, a giant round piece of metal, over two meters in height, made of bronze and it has fall down on this earth from the Moon! No one knows exactly how old the drum is, or how it actually got here, but we could predict it to be a thousand years ago, maybe even two. As the hand of a man at the time was probably not yet ready for acts as such, it is believed that the drum is a lost earring of a bull or a wheel of a Moon Goddess’ trolley.
The wheel fell  down from the sky in Pejeng village, but it stayed hanging up in a tree and began to glow strangely. But one day a thief tried to get a hand on it, but as the luminosity of the magic wheel began hurting his eyes, he decided to empty the bladder onto the drum. So he took a piss on the drum,  whereupon it lost its divine glow and turned green. A moment later, for an unknown reason, the thief died.

We’re trying to hide in a narrow shadow from the way-too-hot sun, having to admit that no flow of piss would  erase this merciless luminous wheel in the skyline. There’s an ethnomusicologist lighting up a sigaret next to me – he’s studying the gongs – these amazing machines of humming sound, which ends each cycle in gamelan music. In each gong lives a spirit and of course all the gods. Sometimes the ghost plays the gong. So that you could sometimes hear from an empty gamelan classroom some chilly gongs. This gonging sound seems to represent the point of zero of their micro-universe. Gong. Gooong. Gooooong.

It is believed that the bronze drums were in the past even before gonge. These giant drums have so much holy in them, so that even if in theory we had the opportunity to play it, we still would not do it. Not that I very much believe in these things, but you never know…
Just in this side of the world there are so many ghosts, demons and gods, that from a mere curiosity I would never set a hand on some primordial luminous disk. Even when the guard of the Pura Penetaran Sasihi temple (pictured) haven’t heard much strange sounds from this drum, however one is clear – the drum is home to all Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu, and thus it has to stand for something powerful.

 Subscribe in a reader

My Indonesian boyfriend

Posted on by
4

As promised, I now have an Indonesian boyfriend. Before diving in, I’d have to explain that the relationship is of temporary and experimental kind, and at least so far there’s no threat of me bringing an Indonesian boy to Estonia. I ran into him on Bali where we started tripping together. He is officially a Muslim but not the most exemplary as he fasted for only a couple of days and ate meat when needed,  prayed in Hindu temple and relationships before marriage are not tabu for him. Seems like one modernized Muslim, but still not quite.

My indonesian boyfriend

Ryan is a graphical designer, policeman and a care taker in a temple, and all this in one personality. Usually he doesn’t take work too seriously because Ryan has a dream. Namely, his mother, who has a well-opened sixth sense and who works for the president and heals people with water in her free time, once predicted for Ryan that he’ll get married in a couple of years. Since the Muslim girls are too conservative for him and too dependent on their husbands he’s decided to collect some money and go and live in the USA with an intention of getting married.
Namely, it’s a shame here if a man in his thirties isn’t married and that is why he has to hurry. He first has to collect some money, then find a woman and so it could take years before he could get married. In general, he’s planned to have it all done in two-three years. If I asked how he thought to find a soulmate from a foreign country he said he trusted the God. And it’s not necessary to find a soul mate, it’s important to find a woman because the best gift in the world is a son. And a child without marriage is out of question.

So, my boyfriend Ryan has decided to marry a girl he’s dating in about two years. I recommended not to talk the western girls about his plannes in a too loud voice.
Ryan has alo decided to find himself step parents. He already has a step mom, a woman from the USA who’s promised to help him find a woman when he arrives in the USA. He needs step parents because his real parents got divorced five years ago and the scars in his soul are too deep. For me it is of course difficult to understand why a grown man suffers so bad because of his parents but if you take a look around on the island here, and see how families of tens live, it would obviously feel weird to come home in which there are only three people waiting: father, brother and sister in law. Not to mention the hippie mother who’s living alone in Jakarta, enjoying the anonymity of a metropol,  and who has turned her back to Islam conservatism. But in every city Ryan has uncles and other relatives whose doors are always open. Since my boyfriend had decided to lengthen our time together and drove me back to Solo I opened my door for him so that he could rest after the 20-hour ride and before heading back to Bali. I turned the lights on and went outside to call him in. Ryan was looking at me with confusion:
“THIS is your room?”
Since I didn’t quite understand what the stressed THIS had meant, I thought that my ascetic room had scared him.
“Yes it is, I’ve just moved and the room isn’t ready het,” I tried to explain why I sleep on a mat not in bed, although I have no plans of exchanging my beautiful colourful nest for something more soft. I finally understood what was bothering him. Namely, my ground floor windows open to the street and as I don’t want to ruin the wide view I haven’t got myself curtains. And then I took a look around – there’s no house where there would be wide windows without curtains, and if they didn’t keep their front doors open during the day I wouldn’t know how their homes look like.
“Good luck living here,” he said and huddled into a dark corner. “I don’t feel comfortable here.”
Meanwhile I’d taken I shower and wearing a towel I joined him on the terrace. It was midnight and very quiet. Again he looked at me with his eyes filled with surprise and started fidgeting funny. He tried to sit in a way I’d be as hidden as possible and dragged my towel lower on my legs.
While I’d been away a guy from Singapore had moved in, we ran into each other in the living room, both wearing only towels we carried out a short greeting dialogue. If this was unacceptable, then imagine Ryan’s face when Georgio came out from the next room in the evening and spread some fresh Solo rumour: Kiwa had sunbathed (or carried out sun meditation, as Kiwa calls it) on the balcony, stark naked.
Although I try to follow the local clothing rules when I’m outside, at home we always have our own rules, anyways there’s no one walking in the streets at night. But I did hear the question of “where are your trousers” so often, when I tried to feel a bit more humanly in a 35 degree heat wearing only a long shirt, that I finally couldn’t help but furiously stared at him.
The second case took place one evening when there was a huge amount of people in our house that had suddenly transformed into a culture centre. Many of them drank too much beer and crashed in different rooms. I went to get some tofu, forgot myself talking to the village boys, and got back an hour later. When I arrived I found the boy lonely sitting in the livingroom.
“What are you doing here? Everybody’s sleeping, you’re tired too, why don’t you go to bed?”
“I thought I don’t know where I could sleep.”
“What do you mean? There where you’ve slept before – in my room.”
“But here’s so many people, all are your friends.”
“There’s somebody sleeping in my room?”
“No.”
“What’s the problem then?”
“I don’t know if it’s appropriate.”
“What?!”
“Sleeping in your room.”
“You’ve already slept there for two days, why shouldn’t it be appropriate now?”
“You’ve got so many friends here today, they’d all see me going to your room for the night.”

Ryan did sleep in my room that day, as usual, after every thirty minutes he peeked to see if there was someone peeping into the room.
There were situations like that at least a couple of days a day and when I explained how I saw the things he thanked me profusely. I’ve never heard anybody thanking me so much. Thanks for letting me drive you, thanks for letting me to cook for you, thanks I can be near you, thanks for being here.
One morning, after a number of days I had lost my nerve, Ryan left. He left behind his pillows, his air conditioner, his drawing book and water colours, his weird turtle-shaped instrument, his helmet, his doormat and a chess board he’d secretly bought for me. And also a drawing of an old lady who’d asked us to her mountain cabin. He did it all by leaving me a letter, starting with Thanks…

 Subscribe in a reader

In crispy mountains, on a crispy lake, between the stiff dead

Posted on by
Reply


When we were near Mt Agung and in sweet old Eddie’s car who after a few days was still interested in being our friend I felt myself at home. Flaming heat had finally left us and there was no gamelan pitch heard in our ears. Even the people who often seemed so hypocritical had left behind, so we got to enjoy the attendance of the nature and the Jawa friend only. The place I’d previously thought as the most beautiful on Bali was the most dreaded among the locals. The people of Trunyam village are told to be repulsive and greedy, if I were to say what a previously met villager had said to us.

They are greedy because on the opposite shore of the lake there’s a cemetery, they take their dead there but they never bury them. So the tourists pay an awful lot for the boat trip to see the bodies, they’re not told that most of the road could be passed on land. And the road by the lake, which took us to Trunyam, was hunting in my mind for a long time.
Trunyam didn’t seem agressive because there was an old friend of Eddie’s taking us to the cemetery by his little wooden boat. On the still lake, that reminded me of Titicaca’s Bolivian side, there were old ladies with fire wood sailing past us. They looked so fit that every grandmother in Estonia would envy them.
The cemetery itself was something we’d been looking forward to. On an area with a size of a few square meters there were six coffins made of straws standing, one could easily peek into them, too. The last body had been brought there three weeks ago and it more looked like a skeleton not a rotting body. The rest had got rid of their flesh and skin a long time ago and they were simply lying there. A pile of flip-flops, bowls, dishes and clothes. A reasonable amount of assets had been sent there with the dead, but as they didn’t bury that too, the pile was decaying there at its slow speed and waited for another pile of trash. Next to the pile there was a line of sculls, slowly becoming mossy; there were thigh bones other bones lying here and there.
There was no smell. Not a single sign of sacredness. Not a bit of eeriness. We were standing on this human land fill quite emotionless and we sat down right there to enjoy the beautiful view on the lake.

 Subscribe in a reader

Faith, place and the way of life

Posted on by
Reply

A few days later we were lurking with Jana and TJ in the surroundings of Ubud hoping to find a little village untouched by Starbucks or  other commodities of the modern life. Half an hour later we believed we’d found a place like that. If buildings haven’t reached the modern age it doesn’t mean that other world hasn’t reach the ears of the village people. This also involves the knowledge of cheating the tourists. So, we were wandering in another temple, trying to find a suitable shade for resting in the maze of the buildings a guide loafing behind us. Since the guide forced us to listen him talking about the Bali temple culture the only way not to open our wallets was to split up and shake the guide off. This is how I ended up somewhere else.

Waddling on a pile of trash near the back door of the temple, wearing only flip-flops I suddenly heard music. It had to be a gamelan orchestra, and since I was studying gamelan at school the music motivated me to follow it, this is how I found myself behind a door of a Bali house. 

Traditional houses here look royal even when the rooms are simple and primitive, sometimes a bit worn of and filthy. But the outside is shiny as if it belonged to a rich family.
Bali family hands its house down from one generation to the other, but they never really own it – it means that it’s not possible to sell the house, wherever a person dies, his body has to be taken to his birthplace. Handing the houses down from one generation to other the house is expanded and thus it happens that a family has often many rooms for guests and relatives who need accomodation.
Anyhow, I peeked in and found the source where the music was coming. They were carrying out another ceremony, which is so common here in Bali. This time they were hallowing the rebuilt house. In the garden there were two men in masks facing each other – one of them representing the God and the other the men – and having a dialogue. The God was giving advice for living, and the mankind was listening. Like at every other ceremony there were sacrifices, prays, spraying the holy water or pressing rice against ones forehead.
Of course they were interested in the stranger and while the God was teaching the mankind a little Bali boy was teaching the foreigner the space organisation on this island full of culture. Namely, when building villages, houses and temples it’s important to follow a line that would join the sea and Mt. Agung, the greatest mountain on the island. The direction to the mountain is sacred and pure because it’s the place where the Hindu gods of Bali are, the direction to the sea is important because of the holy water. The other important direction is on the axis of sunset and sunrise. Every direction, and the centre, too, has a certain colour of god. Since the cosmology of Bali is divided between the upper, the middle and the lower these directions also represent the human body, the universe, the structures of temples and villages and different life stages.
This is why in every village a temple is built in the direction of the mountain, and a cemetery in the direction of the sea, every member of the family has to sleep his head directed to the sea or to the mountain, even the placing of the houses follows the swastika by and large. The finely brushed homes, streets, temples and villages are not only brushed centimeter by centimeter, even the base structure is  carefully planned on spiritual cogitations.
The boy keeps explaining the complicated system during the whole ceremony, which unfortunately doesn’t fit into this blog, until he offers me a place to spend the night. Suddenly I remember that somewhere in the other temple there are Jana and TJ wandering, but the young man also offers to invite them too. He also plans a long journey with us and euphorically lists the places he’d like to show me. From the moment Jana and TJ join us a little change, which peaks in the morning, is starting to take place. Suddenly there’s no smile on the boy’s face and he even doesn’t want to hear about any ideas. I notice the change in his mood and whisper to my friends that I presume there’s time we left. The young man waves and indifferently turns his back to us. A day later there’s credit worth 10 000 rupees and a message “This is what friends are for”. There’s a big question mark in my mind: “What happened?!”

 Subscribe in a reader

A random look into a Bali wedding

Posted on by
Reply

I had just told Marika I had a wish to take part in a some ceremony in Bali when suddenly the bells ringing suggested there was something going on at our neighbours. We quickly found out from Wayan that the bells rang for a wedding and if we wished we could take part, as well.

When Marika’s help fitted a sarong for me and fastened it with a beautiful white bow I felt I was so beautiful, I hadn’t felt myself as beautiful since arriving in Indonesia, because in a traveller’s backback there’s room only for a few faded tops and worn out leggings. But my self-admiration disappeared the moment I stepped out my home yard to where the ceremony was held. Sarongs, laced blouses, strong make-ups, shiny jewellery and the women’s refined movements in their tight skirts turned a princess into a peasant girl again.


Despite that two bules were happily welcomed at the ceremony and we were allowed to go and congratulate the newly weds. The bride and groom were said to be distant relatives, they wore golden head wear so huge that the reason of their smiles gradually disappearing by hour during this endless ceremony was possibly the natural reaction to the things happening. While we were repeatedly coming and going to the ceremony, they kept standing there, trying to keep a smile on their faces, the bride in her tight dress trying to lean on the terrace.  Why on the terrace not on her man? Because he didn’t seem to be much of a help, he was standing next to his woman like a puppet, and despite the romantic photos on the wall there was mere indifference radiating between the couple.                          (still posing happily)        
Their wedding lasted for two days and in the list of guests there was at least eight hundred names. No matter how much we tried to find out when one or the other part of the rite would begin we got only very vague answers, which caused us to miss the most important stages of the event, but for an outsider those moments almost didn’t differ from each other at all. There was once a gamelan orchestra playing, then there was a dancer dancing, and then a paid priest mumbled his mantras. And people ate, ate, ate, like they always do at weddings.
I hope that the couple, who after the ceremony was lead to special room in the family house to spend their honeymoon,  still had enough energy for the entertainment. Because the wedding itself seemed to entertain the guests not the people involved. 

 Subscribe in a reader

With (Commercialized) spirituality against materialism?

Posted on by
Reply

There certainly is something peaceful and calming in the atmosphere of Bali. Maybe it’s because of the glorious mossy temples, maybe because there’s life in the middle of the tropic atmosphere, but  for many it’s certainly the uncountable signs taking you towards spirituality. And the latter is achieved not in a mystical way, which means finding the one and only guru after a long journey, who would then be responsible for the development of his student for years, but there are explicit  road signs taking you from one teacher to another: Sacred mystery school, Heaven and Earth workshops, Chakra balancing healing session, Balinese yoga, Rebirthing breathing, Ashtanga yoga, Ayurveda as it is, Intuitive flow, Yoga and Chi Gung, Energy treatment and other similar one could endlessly choose between. So, everyone can compose  his/her spiritual development similarly to a training plan: Thai massage course in the morning, white magic teacher in the afternoon and then to  the Tibetan  energy world.
This is why I’m not surprised the mainly middle-aged people from the West move to Ubud and being droopy from the materialistic world consume spirituality. Of course they have to pay a lot. 70 dollars a night in shake therapy and 60 dollars for a chakra lecture. In the search of self the rich hippies dash towards the invisible world and don’t even realize that the spirituality that should help them break free from the boundaries of the capitalist order is available if your paycheck is big enough, it’s a product wrapped in pink and available only for those with certain resources – natural gifts don’t play a role any more.
It also seems as if spirituality was a sign of social status, just like TJ said with a grin: “Susan seems to know a lot about chakras, she’s cool, lets hang around her.” Because in every Starbucks like café, where people from the west sip their lattes and read their mail online, one could hear conscious explanations about energy streams in your body or get knowledge about spiritual awakening. If you’ve read two or three Buddhist books it’s enough to create a bastion of your knowledge in some middle-class American town and to start guiding people.
This is why the town arose some contradictory feelings in me. Actually there’s nothing bad in self development if there are people who are not ready to give up their western commodities but still want to experience this tropical vibe and get a feeling that is earthy and close to one’s soul. This is the place Ubud is excellent for. Everyone should be able to find something suitable and continue developing it if he wishes to. But equalizing practicing the self-help guides and knowing the spiritual world, and what is more, taking the position of a paid guru, seems to popularize the same materialist shallowness people try to find a cure for.

 Subscribe in a reader

Everyday sacrifices of Bali

Posted on by
Reply


Crack, Crack,  I hear something cracking under my feet when I’m lazily dragging my legs along the fiery Ubudi street. The city is full of baskets having been smashed under peoples’ feet, the baskets are soon replaced with new ones in order to please the gods. The more I look around the more I see analogical bounties: bits of rice on a banana leaf placed on a terrace, basket with flowers on the street, a bowl with incenses under a window, the bigger the event the bigger the bounties. There are bigger bowls with fruit, rice, meat, pastry and other food appear next to the small ones, all decorated with flowers and incenses. All is served for the gods on leaves, in baskets, on huge plates and tables. No day passes without giving bounties to some Hindu god or to one remembered from the beliefs of the ancestors, and then there are demons, saints, souls and other powers observing the well-being of the universe. Since preparing bounties is of mediative nature and purifying, the elderly spend their days weaving baskets of palm branches and shaping figurines. Being so committed they can carry on working for hours, sometimes they sit in their own thoughts, sometimes they do it while spreading the latest rumours of the village. Those who don’t have the time can go to a market where readymade bounties wait for them. What is more, since none of the bounties can be used reused the streets are soon blanketed with colourful smashed figurines.       

 Subscribe in a reader